Three Girls And A Wedding (5 page)

I sighed, and swung my legs off the
bed. She did have a point; I could be using this down-time to get some work
done. I grabbed my briefcase and sat down at my desk, reaching up to power on
my laptop and suppressing a huge yawn.

 
I really shouldn’t expect any more from
her. For my mother, life revolved around work. She had been like this for
years. It didn’t mean she didn’t love me. I was just about sure of it.

 
Chapter Six
 

I was determined to get a lot of
work done after talking to my mom, but only an hour or so later, Annie came
barging into my room, all wrapped up in her raggedy old plaid bathrobe, her
hair wet from a shower.

 
“We’re having a girls’ night in,” she
announced, flopping down on my bed. “Wait—what are you doing?”

“I’m working,” I said. “What does
it look like I’m doing?”

“Jen, it’s Friday night. You’ve
worked all week.”

“This is a big account, Ann.”

“Yeah, but this is taking things a
bit far, even for you. Come on, we’re all off work tonight, Danny is with his
dad. You have all weekend to get stuff done. You need to relax.”

“I’m fine, Ann. Honest.”
Unfortunately, at that moment I yawned hugely.

Annie rolled her eyes. “Yup, fine.
Come on, Jen. You’re exhausted. Come relax with us. We’re ordering Chinese….”

I had to laugh. I knew she was
trying to tempt me. Chinese was my favorite take-out.

 
“Is that what your aerobic instructor
recommends?”

“Bite me. We’re doing aerobics so
we can afford to splurge on calories. Let’s go, Campbell. I’m not taking no for
an answer.”

I was faltering. I couldn’t help
it. I really was very tired.

“Do we have movies?” I asked, and
Annie grinned, knowing she had won.

“We have three absolutely
ridiculous chick flicks. You’ll love ’
em
.”

“Okay, okay. You talked me into
it.”

I felt a slight pang of guilt as I
stood up from my desk. Oh well. Annie was right—I did have all weekend.
Plus, my mother never needed to know.

***

Kiki called me no fewer than ten
times over the next two days.
 
As
promised, I had planned an entire day of dress shopping for us in the coming
week. Kiki was therefore obsessed with dresses. She was looking in bridal
magazines and online and every time she saw something she liked she wanted to
tell me all about it.

In between her numerous calls, I
tried to enjoy what was left of my weekend. Friday night with the girls was
exactly what I needed: relaxing, silly, and fun. And when Josh showed up early
on Saturday morning to drop off the baby, Annie was actually civil to him. I
was so proud of her that I decided to make us all breakfast.

I loved cooking. I always had. My
earliest memories of my mother, before the divorce, before she went to school
and got her job, involved the two of us in the kitchen. She used to love to
cook: the two of us would experiment, making our own recipes, always trying to
find things we thought my dad would like.

I couldn’t remember the last time I
saw her in a kitchen though, and I, too, was usually too busy to cook much
these days. But sometimes, usually on weekends, I’d give myself a few hours to
totally zone out and, in Annie’s words, do my Rachael Ray Thing.

I decided on crepes, though we were
out of fresh fruit. Ginny assured me it didn’t matter—the nice thing
about having Josh around was we could order him out to pick up whatever we
needed.

I hummed to myself as I worked,
methodically adding ingredients to my batter. I felt calmer than I usually did
these days. Calm, and strangely confident. Food was so predictable to me. I
knew that if I added this and that, and did such and such to it, that I would
get a certain result. There was no second guessing, no wondering if it would
turn out. It was like science, and I loved the exactness, the consistency of
it.

But then Josh had to come along and
shake everything up, just as he had done so many times before.

“Jen,” he said softly, standing at
my elbow as I cut the strawberries he had fetched for me. “I need to talk to
you and Annie…ask you something. Do you think you guys could let me take you
out for dinner tomorrow?”

I dropped the knife I was holding,
looking up at him in surprise. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed him pat
his jeans pocket absentmindedly. Josh looked nervous—really, really
nervous. But, beyond that, if I looked deep into his eyes, he looked incredibly
happy…content. Excited.

Oh my God.

“Sure,” I replied, hardly hearing
my own voice. “I’ll tell Annie.”

Josh smiled at me. “Thanks, Jen.
Uh…don’t tell Ginny, okay? She’s taking Danny to the store with her tomorrow,
to do inventory. Um…let’s just keep it between…us. For now.” Josh was rambling
awkwardly and I was having trouble breathing. “Here, I’ll go set the table.”

He walked out of the kitchen, a
definite spring to his step, and I started to feel a little dizzy. I looked
down at my perfectly ordered counter, ingredients lined up, just waiting to be
added to my creation. I had been in this very same room, cooking breakfast for
the girls, when Ginny found out she was pregnant. Ginny, my best friend in the
world. And now…now Josh wanted to ask…

Just
don’t think about it,
I ordered myself.
Maybe
he wants to talk about her birthday, or planning a vacation...

But somehow, I knew that wasn’t it.
I knew that whatever Josh had to say to Annie and me, it was going to change
us, all of us, forever. And I wasn’t sure I was anywhere near being ready to
hear it.

Chapter Seven

‘Sharing the news of
your engagement is a fun experience. You can expect most people to be
incredibly excited for you. They’re likely to want to know all the details of
the proposal—and, of course, to see your new ring! For some brides, telling
certain individuals can be stressful. Do you have friends that might be
jealous? Relatives who don’t approve of your relationship? Hopefully, the
people who truly love you will celebrate with you regardless, so don’t feel shy
about spreading your good news far and wide!’—
The Bride’s Guide to a Fabulous Wedding
!

I decided not to tell Annie about
Josh’s request until we actually left the house the next night. I simply told
her we were going out to eat. I knew she would be pissed when she found out Josh
was coming, but I would rather deal with that than her questions and obsessing
about why he would want to see us.

I was right to wait; as soon as I
told her who we were meeting, she started up a barrage of irritated questions.

“I don’t understand why he wants to
eat with us,” she muttered darkly. “What did he say, exactly?”

I sighed. “Exactly what I told you,
Annie. He wants to talk to us.”

She huffed loudly.

“It’s not that weird, Annie,” I
told her. “He’s our best friend’s boyfriend. Maybe he’s trying to get to know
us better.”

“We went to high school together,
Jen,” she reminded me. “We’ve known him since we were fifteen.”

“I don’t know what you want me to
tell you, Ann,” I said, exasperated. “We’re just about there and then we’ll
know what’s going on, okay?”

“Fine,” she mumbled.

I pulled into the parking lot of
the seafood place where I had arranged to meet Josh and turned to her. “Listen,
Annie. Whatever he has to say…just be cool, okay?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just…I don’t know. Don’t make a scene.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Do you know
something I don’t, Jen Campbell?”

I shook my head. “No, I told you
everything he said to me. I just…I don’t want you to get all dramatic. I know
you.”

“Whatever,” she said, climbing out
of the car with a huff—rather proving my point about her tendency for
dramatics.

Josh was waiting for us at a table
near the windows, and he stood up when he saw us. He definitely looked nervous
now, much more so than he had in the kitchen,

“Hi, girls,” he said, kissing us
each on the cheek and gesturing for us to sit down across from him. “How’s it
going?”

“Pretty good,” I said, sitting down
next to Annie. “How are you?”

“Fine, fine…” Josh said, clearly
distracted.

“Yes, I’m glad to see we’re all
fine and nothing drastic has happened since we all ate breakfast together
yesterday
,” Annie said, rolling her
eyes. I shot her a warning look.

The waiter arrived to take our
drink orders. I opted for a beer, having the feeling I might need it before I
got too much older.

Once we were alone again, Josh
started fiddling with his menu. He was clearly agitated, and I wished he would
just get it over with.

“Girls, I…I thought we should…I
wanted to have a talk with you. There are…there are things I need to tell you,
things we should discuss.”

Annie looked at me with raised
eyebrows, and I shrugged.

“Sounds pretty heavy, Josh,” she
said coolly. “Maybe we should order first.”

Josh blinked, confused. “Oh…right.
Food. Good idea.”

We all directed our attention to
our menus and I tried to lighten the tension I could feel radiating off of Josh
in waves. “The chowder here is so good,” I said. “So are the crab cakes. And
the lobster. Yum.”

Annie shot me a look as if to tell
me to shut the hell up. I couldn’t blame her; I sounded ridiculous, like a
mother trying to convince her picky child that she might like the food.

After what felt like a long stretch
of awkward silence, the waiter came back with our drinks. He took our order,
brought us some bread, and then retreated again, leaving the three of us alone.

Josh cleared his throat. I looked
at him expectantly.

“It’s occurred to me that I never
apologized to the two of you.”

I felt Annie freeze next to me. She
clearly hadn’t been expecting this.

“After Ginny took me back, she told
me that she owed you guys everything…She said she and Danny wouldn’t even be
here if it wasn’t for you. And I’ve never thanked you for that.”

Josh did not meet our gaze as he
spoke, instead directing his attention to the straw wrapper on the table in
front of him, which he twisted and crumpled distractedly.

“Not seeing Danny born…Not being
with Ginny for those months when she was carrying him…I’ll regret it for the
rest of my life.” He looked up at us finally and I saw tears glimmer in his
eyes.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Not just
to Ginny, but to you guys as well. You shouldn’t have had to deal with all
that, not on your own. And I can never thank you enough for what you did for
them.”

I looked sideways at Annie and was
shocked to see tears in her eyes as well, but she met Josh’s gaze evenly.

“I love her, Annie,” he whispered
hoarsely. “Please believe me.”

“I do,” she replied, her voice
soft. “I was just angry.”

Josh nodded, rubbing his eyes
roughly as the waiter appeared with our food. He cleared his throat and Annie
swallowed a few times. I knew their moment was over, but I was happy they’d
finally seemed to come to some kind of understanding.

After the waiter left, we all
awkwardly tucked into our food. I began to wonder if maybe I had misread things
with Josh yesterday. Maybe he had only wanted to apologize, and not ask
us…well. Maybe he had said his piece.

“So, girls,” he said, setting down
his fork after a few moments. “Now that we’ve cleared the air a little bit,
there’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”

Or maybe not.

“I’m kind of old-fashioned about
some things, so it was important to me that I do this the right way.” Josh
seemed less nervous now, more excited. I felt my heartbeat quicken.

“The two of you are Ginny’s family,
much more so than her parents. So it’s only right that you be the ones I ask.”

I wanted to look at Annie, wanted
to see if she had figured it out yet, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from
Josh.

“I want to ask for your
blessing...To propose, I mean. I’m going to ask Ginny to marry me.”

Chapter Eight

Josh proposed to Ginny on a Monday
afternoon in the living room of our little yellow house.

Annie and I were both at work when
it happened, but Ginny described it to us later in intricate detail.

He didn’t go for any huge romantic
gesture—that wasn’t their style. Instead, he made her a sandwich and
changed the baby so she could eat her lunch in peace. When she was finished,
they went to the living room to play with Danny. Ginny knelt on the floor to
place Danny on his play mat—when she looked up, Josh was kneeling beside
her with the ring.

My best friend is engaged.

I still can’t believe it. Ginny is
going to be married. Ginny is going to be someone’s wife. How weird is that?

After Josh asked us for our
blessing, Annie and I stared at him for a full minute before either of us could
say a word. I snapped out of it first, telling him, of course, that I would be
so happy for them and getting up to kiss his cheek.

Annie took a bit longer, and she
couldn’t be quite so effusive as I was. But she did smile at Josh and tell him
congratulations, very nearly managing to sound happy.

Waiting for him to actually ask her
was the hardest part. I felt very weird knowing about this before Ginny did,
but Josh assured us they had talked about it extensively.

“I’ve wanted to get married since
the day I came back,” he explained ruefully. “But Ginny has been dead set
against it. She wanted to keep her independence, and stay with you girls. I ask
her about it every month or so, and lately she’s finally saying she thinks
she’s ready. All that’s left is to actually propose.”