Everyone Else's Girl

  It made me rerun through the past ten years, seeing things from his perspective and not really liking the picture. I’d been the one who’d pulled away. So I’d also been the one who’d been pretending through all those holidays. Christian hadn’t been doing anything more than what he usually did.

  Could I really have convinced myself that he’d been responsible for something I’d done? Had Jeannie pegged me so well?

  That one hit me like the shoe Jeannie had threatened to kick upside my head.

  That was exactly what I’d done, and more to the point, that was what I’d always done.

  It was Jeannie’s fault Rachel Pike found out I wasn’t as nice as I pretended to be. It was Scott’s fault I’d cheated on Travis. It was Travis’s fault I’d cheated in the first place. It was Jeannie’s fault we weren’t friends anymore. It was Christian’s fault we weren’t close anymore. It was never my fault. As if I didn’t exist. As if all those relationships carried on by themselves. As if I was only involved in them in theory.

  As if it was anyone’s fault but mine that I wasn’t that imaginary Meredith, all sweetness and light and a glimmering halo.

  As if she was such a prize in the first place.

  The following night, Hope and I were watching one of the many incarnations of Law and Order when Christian and Jeannie appeared at the back door, shaking off the sudden rain, arms filled with something Christian referred to in an aggrieved tone as “usher gifts, not that they deserve anything, the idiots.”

  I studiously avoided looking at Jeannie while Christian dumped his armload behind one of the couches.

  He straightened and frowned. “Where are Mom and Dad?”

  “You don’t want to know,” I assured him. “Think tent in backyard and freak rain shower.” Christian winced, and went to peer out the window.

  “How come you were like the incredible disappearing couple this whole summer?” Hope whined. “And now you only appear during my favorite TV shows?”

  “Oh, did you want to watch this?” Christian asked sweetly, and proceeded to collapse on top of her. They had a brief, violent scuffle. When Christian finally stood, Hope was rubbing her arm and he was rubbing his thigh, but they were both smirking.

  Rolling my eyes at them, I got up and headed into the kitchen to get myself another drink.

  I wasn’t entirely surprised when Jeannie followed me, but I braced myself.

  “I wanted to apologize,” she said without preamble when I turned around and faced her. “I think I got a little bit carried away.”

  “I think I’m the one who should apologize,” I replied before she could say anything further. “And anyway, I think you were right.”

  “I never should have attacked you,” Jeannie said, still in that oddly stiff voice. “I was really just having a wedding fit, and anyway, I’ve been informed it’s none of my business.”

  The stiffness was because she was apologizing. I realized I’d heard her do that only a scant handful of times before, scattered across the years.

  Which is when the rest of it hit me—that Christian had heard the whole story and hadn’t agreed entirely with Jeannie, just because. I’ve been informed, she’d said.

  I felt that dizzy sensation again, the one that I was beginning to figure out signaled that I was the one who’d been lost for years. Not everyone else.

  “I shouldn’t have called you mean.” I could apologize too. “Especially while being mean myself.”

  Jeannie smiled, and hunched her shoulders up beneath her ears.

  “See, here’s why I don’t understand why we . . .” She cast around for the word, and then shrugged it away.

  “Christian said he figured we were going through something,” I offered, feeling hesitant. “That maybe we needed some time apart, anyway.”

  “He told me he freaked out all over you,” she said, and grinned at me. “Men are so fragile.”

  “He wasn’t really freaking out.” I went for the diplomatic spin. “You know, he just wanted to talk about the general state of marriage in the world, not really about you guys.”

  “He spazzed!” Jeannie laughed that wonderful laugh of hers. “But thank you for talking him down.”

  “Anytime,” I said, and smiled.

  “I miss you,” she said simply. She raised her hands up from her sides and then dropped them down again. “I never wanted Ashley to be my maid of honor. It doesn’t even make sense. I only ever wanted you.”

  “I know,” I said. “It’s okay, though.” I felt our history shift again inside of me, turning until I saw only the years together, not the pitfalls along the way. “Ashley can have the wedding. We have the rest of our lives.”

  We both looked away—at the floor, the cabinets. We were both in that pre-weepy but no-tears stage when we dared look at each other again. We both laughed a little bit.

  “Come on, honey,” Christian called to Jeannie from the other room. “We still have to deal with your mother tonight, and if I get caught up in the tent thing my head will explode.”

  Jeannie made a face, but we both walked back into the den, just in time to watch Hope wing a throw pillow at Christian’s head. He caught it easily and flipped it around between his fingers. He headed toward the door, tossing it over to me.

  “While we’re young,” he said.

  Hope muttered a good-bye and slumped back against the couch.

  Jeannie followed him, already back in wedding mode. “Don’t mention anything about the tent to my mom—you know what she’s going to say.”

  “Your mother has a swimming pool. There’s no room. Why is this even an issue?”

  Both Christian and Jeannie turned to look at me, each wearing an identical expression. The she/he must be kidding expression.

  I looked from one to the other, and grinned.

  Because finally, after so long, I felt like I’d come home.

  Chapter 18

  The morning of the wedding was a blur. Hope and I managed to get ourselves showered, coiffed, gowned, and into the car within minutes of our eleven-thirty deadline. Hope was still working on her panty hose, and wriggled around in the front seat like an eel.

  “You better not ruin that dress,” I warned her. “Jeannie will kill you.”

  “You just keep driving,” Hope told me, her hips in the air.

  At the bride’s house, the commotion was at near fever pitch. I didn’t know what was worse: Jeannie’s mother, who seemed to be unclear about who was traditionally the center of attention on a wedding day, or Jeannie’s trio of other bridesmaids, who, with Ashley as the ringleader, were involved in a catty battle for supremacy. All of them in shiny, shiny pink.

  “I’m the maid of honor,” Ashley was snarling at the other two girls, both from Jeannie’s college days. They had been indistinguishable at the bachelorette party and now, in matching gowns, were even more so.

  “I think it’s matron of honor, actually,” I said. But only to Hope.

  “You mean matron of horror,” Hope sniffed. “I did not put on control-top panty hose for this. I’m going to find some more coffee.”

  The reception was already swinging by the time we reached it, after an endless round of the inevitably cheesy photographs. The pouring rain, rather than ruining the celebration, seemed to make everyone a little more giddy instead.

  Everyone, that was, except Mrs. Van Eck, who sat in her seat at the neighborhood table with a face like a sour lemon.

  “I suppose no one could have predicted the rain,” she said when I ventured too close. Clearly, she’d predicted it. And assigned blame where she felt it was due, no doubt.

  “Aren’t they a cute couple?” I gushed.

  She actually harrumphed, which I took as my cue to leave. Van Ick the Horrible looked human and a little bit naked without Isabella the yip dog at her feet, bows trembling. I had a delightful fantasy involving little Isabella shut up in the house next door, able to see the party but not participate. It warmed my heart.

  When the firs
t dance segued into dancing-with-parents, I wandered toward the house in search of some food.

  The wedding planner, I thought as I looked in on the carnage in my mother’s usually pristine kitchen, had completely misjudged the capabilities of the caterer. I felt myself snap into my own obsessive mode, the one I’d more or less turned off since I’d left my job in Atlanta. The situation looked ugly.

  Melissa, the wedding planner, was becoming increasingly loud, while Tina, the caterer, was becoming increasingly belligerent.

  “One more word!” Tina snarled about an inch from Melissa’s chin. “One more word and you can feed the entire reception yourself!”

  “But the entire catering concept springs from the fusion of mini quiches and egg rolls!” Melissa shrieked. “There is no place for those—those—”

  “They look like pigs in blankets,” I observed sweetly, and helped myself to one. “Who doesn’t like pigs in blankets?”

  I smiled my brightest, most encouraging smile, the one that had bilked old ladies of their money. I was pleased to see that lack of use had not dimmed it any.

  Both women blinked at me—a vast improvement over glaring as if they were about to start throttling each other.

  “The catering concept . . .” Melissa began weakly.

  “I’ll let you in on a little secret,” I confided.

  I grabbed the contested tray of pigs in blankets, and handed it off to one of the servers. With my other hand, I indicated my dress.

  “As you can see, I’m a bridesmaid. I’ve known the bride and groom my entire life, and let me tell you, they love nothing more than pigs in blankets. Which are delicious, by the way,” I told Tina.

  I snuck an arm around Melissa and eased her around and away from the caterer.

  “You are doing such a lovely job,” I whispered. “Who could have known the weather would be so terrible and look at how well you’ve kept things running. I don’t know how you do it.”

  I talked her out of the kitchen and down the hall to the bathroom, where she caught a glimpse of her reflection and started.

  “I’ll just be a moment,” she murmured.

  “Of course,” I replied sunnily.

  The door closed and I heaved a drawn-out, and silent, sigh, and turned around to rejoin the party.

  “That was very well done,” said the sleek-looking woman at the end of the hall. I smiled automatically.

  “I’m Meredith McKay,” I announced, extending my hand as I approached.

  “Gloria Delgado,” she replied, with a matching smile. “Don’t worry, I’m not your long-lost cousin, I’m the wedding coordinator.”

  I glanced back toward the bathroom. “But I thought—”

  “Melissa is one of my associates,” Gloria told me. “She’s a genius with anything floral. This was her first big gig, and it appears that grace under pressure isn’t one of her strengths.”

  “I think you’re being too hard on her,” I said, rushing to the other woman’s defense at once. “You may not know the bride, but I do, and she takes her catering concept very seriously.”

  “Melissa’s not going to lose her job,” Gloria guffawed. “She’s my niece.” She eyed me. “What do you do?”

  “I—” I just couldn’t bring myself to announce that I was a temp, living at home in my parents’ house. I just couldn’t do it. “Until recently I was the assistant director of the Annual Fund at a small girls’ school in Atlanta,” I told her. It sounded almost impressive when I put it that way.

  Gloria smiled. “That sounds like a very worthwhile profession.”

  And that was when something alien overtook me.

  “I’ve always been interested in wedding planning,” I lied. Her eyebrows arched. “It was my idea to reorganize the space in the tent.”

  “Really?” she asked, looking intrigued. “Or are you interested in becoming Jennifer Lopez’s character? You’d be surprised how many applications came in when that movie hit the theaters.”

  All I could remember about the movie in question was that I’d lusted after Jennifer Lopez’s hair and wardrobe. Nor would I be likely to turn down Matthew McConaughey anytime soon.

  “My Annual Fund experience means I can soothe even the most demanding donors, and it requires a serious eye for detail,” I told her.

  Gloria considered me for a moment.

  “I could use someone like you,” she said with a grin and another assessing look. “Calm enough to keep the most obnoxious caterer in the world from having a hissy fit and even looks pulled-together in a froufy pink bridesmaid’s dress.” She laughed at her own joke and presented me with a card. “Give me a call on Monday.”

  “I will,” I said, as if I received job offers every five minutes and the whole thing left me blasé.

  She brushed past me and went to pound on the bathroom door.

  I stared down at the card in my hand. Had I really just done that?

  I tucked the card away in the bodice of my dress. Damn right, I’d done it. It was long past time I took charge of my life.

  I looked around at the familiar wallpaper and the pictures so old I’d stopped seeing them years ago. Moving home had seemed like the thing to do in the wake of my breakup with Travis, and I hadn’t thought much beyond that. How long was I going to keep living in this house, playing the same teenage games around the dinner table? Summer was over. It was time to get on with my life.

  I snuck into the den, called Information, and left a message on a local Realtor’s machine. No more waiting for life to happen to me, I promised myself fiercely. I had a new career to kick ass at, a new place to find and move into, and a brand-new attitude. No more pretending. No more trying to be someone I wasn’t because it was so much easier than figuring out who I was.

  I’d spent my entire life defining myself by the people around me and what I thought they thought of me. My mother, Christian, Jeannie, Hope, Travis. I’d wanted so much to be “the nice girl” that I’d forgotten to figure myself out along the way. All I’d cared about was how others perceived me and I’d tried so hard to be someone, anyone else depending on that perception.

  It was about time I was just me.

  I was coming out of the bathroom when I saw Scott’s mother in the front hall.

  “Are you going?” I asked. She smiled at me.

  “Such a nice party,” she said. “But it’s getting late.”

  “It’s dark,” I pointed out. “Let me walk you home.”

  “Don’t be silly, dear.” She dismissed me with a wave. “It’s just across the street and I wouldn’t dream of stealing you away.”

  “I insist.”

  She took my arm as we made our way down the steps, and I was glad the rain had finally stopped as we headed across the street.

  “A lovely evening,” she told me with a smile when we reached her door. “Thank you so much, Meredith. You go back and dance now.”

  I smiled, and was about to go do just that when the door opened and Scott stood in the wedge of light from inside. He smiled down at his mother.

  “I was just about to go looking for you,” he told her tenderly.

  “You are a sweet boy,” Mrs. Sheridan said, and patted his cheek. “But I’m old, dear, not addled.”

  She went inside and disappeared from view, and I felt a smile start up from deep in my stomach and take over my whole face.

  Scott stepped out onto the porch and shut the door behind him.

  “How’s it going over there?” He grinned at the loud music. “I heard something earlier that sounded suspiciously like the Chicken Dance. Please tell me that even Christian McKay would not allow the Chicken Dance at his wedding.”

  I rolled my eyes. “My younger cousins have strange customs. I can tell you that Ashley Mueller’s husband is, as expected, a drunken idiot even now leering and pinching the server’s ass. Just like high school all over again.”

  “Didn’t I tell you?” Scott sounded smug.

  He stood next to me and rocked on his heels
. For some reason the light brush of his shoulder against mine made me feel as close to him as if we were embracing. I wanted to tilt into him and stay there for a while.

  “My mom insisted I sit in the house to scare off any burglars,” Scott said, in a long-suffering tone. “Because, you know, with all the neighbors invited to the wedding reception, it was pretty much open season.”

  “You should have come,” I said. He smiled, and leaned in slightly, so we touched just that slightest bit more.

  We stood there, as the band played something funky. From a distance, the reception sounded sparkling and a little bit wild. I couldn’t identify individual voices, just the general din of my family making merry.

  “I want us to be together,” I blurted out, much more loudly than I’d intended. I heard the rebound of my voice and felt my face catch fire. Thank God there wasn’t very much light.

  “What?” He sort of laughed, but he angled his head down toward me.

  “I should go,” I mumbled. He really did laugh then.

  “Are you kidding?” He crossed his arms across his chest and regarded me with an inscrutable expression. “You can’t throw something like that out there and then just run away. It’s the emotional equivalent of yelling, ‘Tag—you’re it.’”

  “That was pretty much all I had to say.” I was suddenly aware of all the ways I was uncomfortable, from the shoes pinching at my toes to the yards of satin that constricted my breathing.

  And everything else.

  “That’s not good enough, Meredith,” he said in his lawyer voice. “You want us to be together? Define ‘together.’”

  “Is this a deposition?” I snapped at him. “Because I don’t actually feel like playing lawyer games with you, Scott.”

  If he’d snapped back, I would have known what to do with it, how to keep that antagonistic flare going. But he shook his head instead, and reached over to hold my face between his hands for a moment.

  “I don’t feel like playing at all,” he said quietly. “I keep trying to tell you.”