Page 7 of My Ex-Best Friend's Wedding

I want to shout at the cast to stop singing. To go away and leave us alone. I wish I could turn back time to just before dessert arrived. That I’d had some warning this was coming.

I see a shadow of worry steal into his eyes, turning them a mossy, less brilliant green. It has obviously not occurred to him until now that I might say no.

“Lauren?” He swallows and I see just how vulnerable he feels. “Will you marry me?”

And then I’m smiling and crying, though not necessarily for the reasons I should be.

“Of course I will. How can I possibly say no to all this?” These are the truest words I can come up with.

The cast swings into a well-rehearsed version of “Chapel of Love.”

Those close enough to have heard my answer stand up and applaud. It’s the cast that takes the bows.

Four

Kendra

The Sandcastle, Nags Head

Have you ever done something without thinking it through? I did on occasion when I was a small child, before I understood what my mother’s “rest” vacations really were or that a crayon masterpiece drawn on the formal dining room wall would not entice her to leave her darkened bedroom to play with me. Or that the attention I’d get from my father for that kind of transgression was not worth seeking.

I did it on my wedding day when I choked at the altar and again just after I gave birth. That was forty years ago and ever since I’ve been excruciatingly careful not to leap without looking.

At the moment I’m unloading the dishwasher and eliminating the remnants of last night’s birthday dinner and remembering the months leading up to Lauren’s birth. Even after all this time most of the memories are painful.

My mother started crying the moment I halted the extravagant wedding that she’d planned. She cried harder when I told them I was pregnant, and never really stopped. This precipitated another of her “rest cures,” which were no longer referred to as vacations. My father’s first words were “How could you do this to us?” As if it were all some elaborate plan to make them look bad.As if my mother’s nervous breakdowns hadn’t already sparked unwelcome speculation. He barely looked at me after that.

His plan was to send me to a home for unwed mothers where I would give birth, hand over my child for adoption, and come home to Richmond as if nothing had ever happened. I knew a lot of girls who did exactly that. Because on the one hand the ’70s was a time of streaking and free love, but getting pregnant and giving birth without the benefit of matrimony was heavily frowned upon. In Richmond, in my parents’ circle, it was a mortification not to be borne. (Yes, bad pun intended.)

In the end he took me to Charlotte to my mother’s older sister, Velda, before the truth became undisguisable. It was a better and kinder option than being sent to some group home, but the end result was supposed to be the same. Give the baby up then come home and get on with my life. As if she’d never happened. I was way too numb to argue or come up with a plan of my own. I vaguely remember sleeping those months away. But giving birth wakes you up in ways you never imagine. Once I held her in my arms and felt her tiny fingers clinging to mine, there was no way on earth I could ever hand her over to anyone else. Not even to wealthy, loving, potentially great parents. I didn’t really think. I just took her and ran, scared to death but determined to be the mother mine didn’t have the emotional wherewithal to be.

I pour myself a cup of coffee and carry it to the kitchen table, still unable to believe how little thought I gave to the most important decisions of my life. How much I underestimated how hard it would all be. How little I considered the potential fallout. It had never occurred to me that my father would be angry and embarrassed enough to cut his daughter and granddaughter out of his life and force my mother to do the same. Or that they would die before either side could forgive or make amends.

And, of course, I never imagined that when my brain cleared and the panic subsided and I realized that Jake was the man Iactually would love “till death do us part” he would already be engaged to someone else.

And then my aunt Velda—the only member of our family who wanted to have a relationship with me—and who never lost touch with her girlhood friends in Richmond, started sending me tidbits about him and the woman he married. Things I really wish I’d never heard. Because the more I heard the more I knew that I could never tell him about our daughter.

Lauren

New York City

“Oh my God. Let me see that ring.”

We’re with friends at a crowded table in Bar Centrale, a small unmarked place built into what was once an apartment above Joe Allen’s restaurant on 46th in the middle of Restaurant Row.

I hold out my hand somewhat dutifully and let the stone speak for itself. It’s been doing a lot of talking lately and so has Spencer. I now know all the smallest details about his shopping expedition to Tiffany, the other stones that were considered and rejected, the planning of the proposal, and the logistics required to orchestrate it.

“Were you totally surprised?”

“Yes,” I answer truthfully. Everyone seems so satisfied by the absolute theatricality of it all that there’s no way I can say that I’m still stunned and trying to absorb the fact that I’m engaged to be married or that a more private proposal might have left me a little less off-kilter.

These people live and breathe drama. They are delighted by spectacle. They create it for a living. They are thrilled that Spencer has pulled this off.

I can see how sincerely happy Spencer seems. How glad he is not only that he pulled the proposal production off so seamlessly, but that he is genuinely happy to be engaged to marry me. I know I should treasure this enthusiasm, given that so many men have to be lassoed and hauled to the altar. I love him and I have no real doubts about marrying him. But at the moment I’m wishing that at least one of these normally loose-lipped people had tipped me off.

“Have you set a date?”

“Where are you going to hold the wedding?”

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