CHAPTER 19

gray: happily ever after, the sequel

If I thought I was good at social media, once I started following Brooke, I realized I was wrong. That made sense, because she had six more of her teen years to use it. I figure that, by the time Wagner grows up, kids will be born knowing how to make their YouTube videos go viral. It will be a biological adaptation like opposable thumbs. Brooke had started a blog to document her ever-fascinating life, and, much to my surprise, she had jumped on my idea for her and Greg to move down here as soon as he had pitched it. She loved the idea so much, in fact, that she had asked me to go house hunting with her.

Before we left, Diana had sat me down and said, “Look, Gray. I know you don’t want to be friends with Brooke. But if you want to win the fight with Greg, she’s your best shot at getting what you want.” I had sighed and rolled my eyes. But I always do what Diana says.

We had spent sixteen hours—yes, sixteen—over two days looking at every house on the market. Either they weren’t close enough to the water or they were too big, too small, didn’t have an office for Greg, didn’t have a nursery for their future baby (gag), needed too much work, didn’t need any work…

Until we looked at the house next door. As in, next door to me. It was a cedar-shake, four-bedroom, four-bath house built in the late 1950s. It had tons of character, a chef’s kitchen, and a view that was almost as good as mine. The bathrooms hadn’t been redone to Brooke’s specifications, but that was good because it gave her a project.

“Gray!” she had squealed. “It is perfect, perfect, perfect! Don’t you think?” We were sitting on the back porch, from which you could just make out my back porch. The exhausted realtor had claimed she had a call, but, really, I think she needed a power nap in the car.

“It is a good house,” I agreed.

“Gray,” Brooke said seriously. I could tell an abrupt subject change was coming. “Can I talk to you?”

“We’ve been talking for two days,” I said with only the tiniest hint of snark.

She laughed and looked down at her hands. “No, I just…” She trailed off and then looked back up at me. “I want to apologize to you. I’ve never really done it, and I want to now.”

I was shocked. I looked back at her, but I didn’t say anything.

“I didn’t think about you,” she continued. “I swear I didn’t. It was just like you and Wagner were this inanimate roadblock between what I wanted—Greg—and where I was. And I didn’t care about your family or the consequences or anything.” She looked into my eyes as she said, “I was wrong. And if you don’t want me next door, I understand.”

This was my moment. I had the golden opportunity to talk her out of buying this house. But, again, sixteen hours. Sixteen hours. Don’t ever underestimate that woman. She knew what she was doing. It kind of made me like her.

And I didn’t even try to talk her out of it. I just grinned and said what I was thinking: “Now Wagner will be right next door on my off weeks!” There was something seriously wrong with me. But that was true about Wagner.

Now Brooke had a great excuse to walk the short distance between our two houses pretty much every day and ask for advice on her foray into the Internet. Truth be told, she was gaining followers so rapidly I thought I might need some advice from her. She usually brought some sort of fresh-squeezed cocktail, which made it tolerable.

Otherwise, life was getting back to some semblance of normal. Well, as normal as it can be with your ex-husband and his almost new wife living beside you and your kid going to a new school with new friends and sharing custody and your sister taking up what might be permanent residence in your house. It had been a few weeks since I’d seen Price, but we had talked daily, and he’d finally convinced me to go out with him.

“What in the hell are you waiting for anyway?” Diana had asked me. “Your boobs to fall all the way to the floor?”

“Yeah,” Marcy said, “He’s cute. Get in the game.” She paused, looking totally dejected. “And see if he has any friends. I’m not doing so hot on my finding-a-husband quest.”

I looked at her in amazement. “Marcy, I had everyone in town trying to find you a man and then you started hooking up with the hot lifeguard.”

“I know,” she pouted. “But you just looked like you were having so much fun with Andrew.”

Fun, I thought. And now I am alone.

I smiled at Diana, still a bit shocked to see her with that tiny protruding belly of hers. “Speaking of marriage,” I said, “you waiting for the delivery room to tie the knot?”

In all honesty, selfishly, I wanted her to go ahead and get married before she got big enough that Wagner noticed. I wasn’t thrilled about having to explain to my kid that the whole “you fall in love and get married and have a baby” thing didn’t necessarily happen in that order. I was trying to hold on to his rapidly retreating innocence as long as possible.

“I wanted to talk to you about that,” she said.

“If you’re wanting her to be a bridesmaid and wear a hideous dress,” Marcy said, “I’ll be in the front row.”

“No, no. No hideous dresses. It’s just…” She paused.

“Oh my gosh!” I said, not even realizing that I was interrupting. “You should get married here! In the yard or on the porch or whatever.”

She smiled. “Great minds,” she said. “That’s what I was going to ask. We won’t be a whole lot of trouble. We’re not inviting anyone. Just us and the preacher.”

“Well, and me,” Marcy said. “I’m obviously coming. It will save the awkwardness of my hanging out the window with my binoculars.”

“I’m coming too,” I said. “I’m a little hurt you aren’t inviting me, but it doesn’t matter because I’m coming anyway.”

Diana shook her head. “I don’t want all that.”

But I wanted it for her, I realized. “Just picture it,” I said. “A tent set up overlooking the water, a beautiful cross of flowers in between you and Frank, the sun dancing on the water, a quartet playing as you walk down the aisle.…”

Now Marcy chimed in: “Rows of gold chairs with flowers on them and flowers on the tables and flowers everywhere—”

“Hey,” I said, “flowers are my thing. You know that.”

Marcy shrugged. “Well, fine. Get there faster.”

“Peonies and hydrangeas and bells of Ireland.”

“Sushi and prime rib and those little lamb chop lollipops.”

This was when I would bring it home. “And a vintage black-and-white-checked dance floor, with you in the arms of the man you have loved for your entire life.” It actually brought tears to my eyes. Marcy and I were good.

“Damn it!” Diana said. “Guess that means I’ll have to invite Frank’s mom.…”

“Oh, we’ll make short work of her,” Marcy said.

Diana smiled. “She’s actually kind of come around. I think it’s going to be okay.” Diana sat down and sighed. “Now I’m exhausted. I didn’t want any of that.”

I smiled at her. Diana had gotten her happy ending. It made me hopeful for tonight with Price. It had been long and convoluted, but maybe I’d get my happy ending too. Well, maybe more like my happy ending mulligan.

My phone rang, breaking me out of my thoughts. Andrew. Damn. It was as if he sensed I was thinking about another man. I wasn’t going to answer. But it was Andrew, precious Andrew. I couldn’t help myself. “Hello,” I said, walking out of the kitchen.

“Hi, beautiful.”

I smiled. He was so very adorable. “How are you?”

“I’m okay,” he said. “But I’m missing you.”

I didn’t say anything. But I was missing him too.

“Look how good I’ve been,” he said. “I’ve left you alone. I’ve dated. But all I can think about is that whoever I’m with isn’t you.”

I sighed. I wanted to agree with him. I wanted to give in and say, Forget about what I said. Let’s be together.

But nothing had changed. He was still too young for me. It still wasn’t going to work out long-term. There was no reason to drag it out.

“Andrew, look.” I bit my lip. I couldn’t bear to hurt him, but this would make it easier, right? It was for his own good. “It was a fun summer, but it’s over. Move on.”

“But, Gray—”

“Andrew, I’m serious. It’s probably best if we don’t talk anymore.”

It was like ripping out fresh stitches.

“Fine,” he said, his voice cold. “But I want you to hear me when I say this. I’m out, Gray. For good. And let me tell you right now that you are going to look back, and you’re going to wish that you hadn’t brushed me off so easily. Yeah, I’m young, but I want to be very clear about something: No one—and I do mean no one—is ever going to love you like I do. No one is ever going to take care of you like I do.” He was so angry and so hurt that it shifted something in me. Maybe I hadn’t taken him seriously enough when I’d had him. “I was willing to fight for you, Gray. I was willing to give you time to get over your hesitations. But it’s very clear to me now that I never meant anything to you. So, good-bye. For real. I hope you find what you’re looking for, because it sure as hell isn’t me.”

And with that, he hung up—and I felt awful. I walked back to the kitchen, sat down on the stool, and put my head in my hands.

“What?” Marcy asked.

“I just broke up with Andrew. Again.” I paused. “And he was, like, super pissed.” My heart was still racing from our exchange—and also with the fear that maybe I had done the wrong thing.

“Yikes,” Marcy said. “The good news is, you’ll be bringing Price home tonight to ease your pain.”

“I will not,” I protested.

“Will not what?” The back door slammed. Ah, Quinn. My pretty-much-back-to-normal sister.

I’d never seen anything quite like it, the way she bounced back. I mean, she didn’t bounce all the way back. She was like a normal human now. She wasn’t snorting lines off my bathroom counter, but she also wasn’t pushing pamphlets. She seemed to have found some middle ground.

“So,” Diana said. “I hear you’ve crossed back over from the dark side.”

“Ha-ha,” Quinn said, opening the fridge. She grabbed a can of whipped cream and sprayed it into her mouth.

“Quinn, honestly.”

“What do you have all that whipped cream for anyway?” she asked.

Marcy laughed, and Diana looked at me pointedly. Simultaneously, they said, “Andrew.”

I felt my face redden. “Marcy, I shared that with you in the confidence of best friends.”

“Oh, puhleeze,” Diana said, “do you think I was born yesterday?” She sashayed across the room, wiggled her eyebrows at me, and said, “Do you think I haven’t had my share of whipped cream?”

“Ooh la la,” Marcy said. “Pregnant lady’s a little saucy.”

“So,” Diana said as Quinn hoisted herself onto the counter, firmly planting her rear end on my marble, “do we need to get you in the witness protection program or something?”

I was going to miss that wit of hers. Frank had been by and asked me to let her go. I liked Frank, I did, and I wanted the best for Diana. But if she wasn’t ready to let go of her job, I sure wasn’t going to push her out. Plus, I couldn’t even think about not seeing her every day. I never would have imagined it from that day we met at Meds and More, but I felt like, in some weird way, we were always meant to find each other.

Quinn shrugged. “Nah. I think stabbing Elijah scared him pretty good.” She sprayed her whipped cream can again. “I mean, I know the Bible says women should be subservient to their husbands, but, damn. I have limits, you know?”

She still hadn’t told me exactly what happened that night, and I wasn’t totally sure I wanted to know.

Marcy opened the fridge and popped the top on a can of sparkling water. She leaned over the counter, her impossibly long, tan legs peeking out of her frayed jean shorts. “So how, pray tell, did you decult?” She took a sip. “I mean, purely for therapy research purposes, of course.” She winked at me.

“It’s so weird. It’s like, all of a sudden, I realized that this man was a nutjob. Like, I don’t doubt he loved me or anything, but I just saw him really clearly for who he was. And he wasn’t good.” She shrugged. “I’m still glad he got me in church and everything. But I realized that the Jesus I was getting to know would have wanted more for me than a man trying to tell me what to do every second.”

“And the stabbing was because…?” Marcy prodded.

“I came home from the store and was getting ready to cook the spatchcock chicken Elijah had requested for dinner that night, and I walked in the bathroom and all my makeup was gone.”

She had all of our attention. “Just as I was cutting the whole chicken apart, Elijah came in, and I asked him where all my stuff was, and he said he threw it out, and he was super pissed because he found birth control pills in my makeup bag. Of course, I got pissed because he’d thrown out about five hundred dollars’ worth of Trish McEvoy and three months of birth control. And then he started getting all mad and crazy-eyed, so I stabbed him in the arm with a pair of scissors to keep him from getting closer.” I’m pretty sure my mouth was hanging open. “In fairness, I warned him that I would.”

She told the story in a tone that would lead you to believe she was saying, One day I was walking to the mailbox, and I saw a butterfly.

Marcy twirled her finger by her head, signifying that my sister was cra-zy. Diana cocked her head, peered at Quinn, and said, “Remind me never to ask you to babysit.”

“Quinn,” I said. “For goodness’ sake. You stabbed the man with scissors?”

She rolled her eyes and hopped down off the counter. “It was three stitches, Gray, and it was self-defense. He’s fine.”

“Anyway…” Diana said, “maybe instead of talking about Breaking Amish over here, we could talk a little bit about my wedding plans.”

And we did. All afternoon long. We talked about music and flowers and tents, and Diana hadn’t thought she wanted a wedding, but you could tell by the flash in her eyes that the more we planned and the more ideas we had, the more she was in love with the thought of celebrating in this very magical way.

And, as excited as I was about my date that night, I couldn’t lie to myself about the fact that when I pictured myself in Diana’s shoes, I couldn’t really see Price standing at the other end of the aisle.

---

When Pinterest was first introduced and Greg and I were trying to grow our platform for ClickMarket, we used to have a weekly competition. We’d each pick five pins and bet which one would get the most likes and re-pins that week. Loser had to buy the entire staff drinks on Friday night.

Having drinks that night with Price, I remembered that, like those long-ago competitions with Greg, I had bet Marcy that I wouldn’t bring Price home. After laughing through two-thirds of dinner, I thought this might be a bet I was willing to lose. There was something totally magnetic about Price, and it was like everyone around him was attracted to it. It wasn’t unadulterated good looks. It was something more than that.

He was perfect for me, and it had taken only a few hours to figure that out. We could get married and blend our families and be totally happy together—except for one thing: Andrew’s harsh words had shaken me. But I guessed this was what the aftermath of a breakup was like.

Price was saying, “I have this work trip in Valle Crucis next week, and I’d love it if you could get away and come with me.”

I smiled. “September is the perfect time in the mountains.”

He nodded. “Gorgeous weather. Not too hot, not too cold.”

“Don’t you think it’s sort of early to go away together? I mean, I have practically no dating experience, but aren’t there rules about these kinds of things?”

He took a sip of his wine and grinned. “Oh, you mean because we haven’t slept together yet?” He winked. “I was planning on remedying that tonight.”

I laughed. “Oh, you were, were you? But see, here’s the thing. I know about the three-date rule, and this is most definitely only our second by my calculations.”

He leaned over and took my hand. “But, see, here’s the thing. Drinks and jail count as…” He picked up my hand and put up one of my fingers, then another, then kissed them.

Swoon. “Well then, I can’t argue with that.”

He looked shocked. “That worked? Where’s the waitress? Let’s get out of here!”

I smacked him lightly on the arm. “No, it did not work. Where is this trip?”

“The Mast Farm Inn in Valle Crucis. Maybe in one of those private cabins.”

I made my most delighted face. “I’ll have to check with Greg to make sure it works for Wagner’s schedule, but, sir, I kindly accept your invitation, if you don’t think it’s a little much to go away with a woman you’ve met twice.”

He nodded and said seriously, “Who has a violent criminal as a sister.”

We both laughed, but it crossed my mind that he wasn’t totally wrong. She had stabbed someone. With scissors.

Price took another sip of wine and said, “Gray, you’re beautiful. How anyone could let you go, I’ll never know. Truly, you’re all I can think about.”

And just like that, happily ever after, the sequel, was under way.

diana: an institution

I didn’t know if Gray was trying to punish me or help me, but it was very clear that she was avoiding the guesthouse. I’d seen her pull in and out of the driveway three or four different times, and she hadn’t come to check on me once. Oh, I’d get her back for this.

“This one?” Trey asked, holding up a Sanitary Fish Market T-shirt.

I could feel my mouth gaping. “Now, you listen here. The Sanitary is an institution.”

He dropped the T-shirt into a garbage bag. “It has cigarette holes in it.”

“Well, yeah. I had to put my cigarette out on Larry one night when—”

“No. Done,” Trey said. “Do you hear yourself? These aren’t happy memories to cherish. We should burn these things in a fire so no other unsuspecting person gets harmed by their negative energy.”

I crossed my arms and sat down on the couch across from the closet, pouting. To his credit, Trey had hung in there with me for fourteen T-shirts so far. He’d only let me keep the last one, and that was because I convinced him that the girls and me had actually gone to a Wilson Phillips concert and that had nothing to do with some guy.

Trey turned to me. “Diana, I don’t think I can,” then he sang: “ ‘hold on for one more day.’ ”

We both laughed, but then he got serious. “There’s no room for your horrible past in your fabulous new future.”

Then he pulled out a J-B Weld T-shirt, and I almost forgot I was pregnant. But I remembered in the nick of time and didn’t throw myself on it. Instead, I grabbed one sleeve and Trey was holding the other. “I won’t let this one go!” I shouted.

“Oh, yes you will,” he groaned.

We looked like we were playing some kind of tug-of-war, Trey trying to get the shirt in the bag and me trying to save it.

Frank’s voice calling, “What in the world is going on here?” broke us out of our feud. We both dropped the shirt like it was on fire and said, “Nothing!” right at the same time.

Frank walked over and picked up the shirt. “Man, I haven’t seen this in forever.”

Trey ran his hand through his hair. “Fine. That one you can keep.”

I smiled victoriously.

“Trey is helping me pack,” I said.

“Is he?” Frank asked.

I glared at Trey, and he glared right back at me. Frank picked up a box and turned around, and Trey whispered, “You’ll thank me one day, crazy lady.”

Trey picked up another box as Gray finally made her appearance at the top of the stairs; he scooted by her, saying, “She’s all yours. I’m exhausted.”

Gray laughed and sat down beside me. “So, it’s really happening, huh?”

I nodded. “Gray, I can’t tell you what these last few months—”

She put her hand up. “It’s too much for me today, Di. I can’t handle it.”

“In that case, can I ask you something?”

She nodded.

“Well, Kevin is almost finished with the construction on the Barnacle.” That was what we had decided to name my new restaurant, because it sort of looked like it was growing on the dock.

“Di! Why didn’t you tell me? That’s amazing.” She looked genuinely thrilled.

“I’m good on everything up until now, but I need just a few thousand dollars to finish with the kitchen outfit and permitting and all that.”

“Anything you need, Di.”

It had taken a lot for me to ask her, but I just knew that Gray would support me. “Well, five thousand would really put me where I need to be.”

“I’ll write you a check right now.”

“No!” I interjected before she could move. “You don’t understand. I’m asking you for a loan. I want to write it up with a schedule for interest and payments and all of that.”

She shook her head. “Absolutely not. I owe you so much, D. I wouldn’t be here without you. Let this be my wedding gift to you.”

She tried to stand up, and I put my hand on her arm to stop her. I looked her in the eye and said, “Please, Gray. I need one thing in the world that is all my own, that no one can ever take away from me. I wouldn’t let Frank give me the money, and I won’t let you do it either. If you won’t do this my way, then I’ll have to figure something else out.”

She smiled. I knew she would understand. “I can’t think of anything better, Diana. I am seriously so proud of you, and I will be your first customer on opening day.” She paused, and I knew there was more that she wanted to say. “What will I do without you?”

“Geez, I don’t know.” I’d been training my replacement, and she was not up to my standards, to say the least. “Harriet can’t clean a glass shower door to save her life. I keep showing her over and over. Bar Keepers Friend, sponge, rinse, glass spray, wipe dry, but her shower doors just don’t look like mine.”

“No one will ever replace you, Diana. Ever.”

I knew she didn’t want to talk about it, so I didn’t say it. But no one could ever replace Gray either.