My Ex-Best Friend's Wedding

by Wendy Wax

Genres: Humor & Satire; Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

A wedding dress passed down through generations unravels the tangled threads of three women's lives in a novel of friendship, family, and forgiveness from the USA Today best-selling author of Ten Beach Road.

Prized and stored away for safekeeping, the timeless ivory wedding dress, with its scooped neck and cleverly fitted bodice, sits gently folded in its box, whispering of happily ever afters. To Kendra, Brianna, and Lauren, it’s a reminder of what could have been, the promise of a fairy tale, and a friendship torn apart. But as Kendra knows firsthand: It wasn’t the dress’s fault.

Once closer than sisters, Lauren and Bree have grown up and grown apart, allowing broken promises and unfulfilled dreams to destroy their friendship. A successful author, Lauren returns home to the Outer Banks, fiancé in tow, to claim the dress she never thought she’d wear. Bree, a bookstore owner, grapples with the realities of life after you marry the handsome prince. As the former best friends wrestle with their uncertain futures, they are both certain of one thing: Some betrayals can never be forgiven.

Now, on the eve of her daughter Lauren’s wedding, Kendra struggles with a secret she’s kept for far too long. She vows to make sure the dress will finally bring Lauren and Bree back together — knowing they'll need each other to survive the coming storm.

Release date: May 14, 2019

Publisher: Berkley

Print pages: 368

Sample

***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected copy proof***

Copyright © 2018 Wendy Wax

 

Prologue

Kendra

What can I say about the wedding dress? I can tell you it’s been in my family for generations. That after all these years it’s still beautiful. And what happened the day I wore it wasn’t the dress’s fault.

It was designed and created for my great-grandmother’s cousin  Lindy’s wedding. She was the only one of my grandmother’s female relatives whose family came through the Crash with most of their money still intact. At the time it was made THE DRESS, which is how we refer to it, cost more than your average house, a flagrant extravagance at a time when so many had no homes, or jobs, or even food to eat.

It’s one of a kind. Ivory satin with a scooped neck, flange collar, and a cleverly fitted bodice. Long fitted sleeves narrow down to a gentle point just beyond the wrist. A creamy waterfall of satin cascades toward the floor and swirls around the ankles, rounds into a train. It’s clean lined and elegant. No cutouts. No jewels. Its stark simplicity takes the breath away. With its Chantilly lace mantilla it’s the kind of dress meant for a showy, yet tasteful, fairy-tale wedding to a handsome prince. And while happily ever after is never guaranteed, it’s implied.

After Lindy, my grandmother and her other cousins wore it. So did their daughters and those of us who followed. Somehow it flatters any figure. A satin version of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants long before it was written. In fact, I bet if you subtracted the alterations that were sometimes required and divided its cost by the number of family brides who’ve worn it, THE DRESS was probably a bargain.

Every single Jameson bride looked beautiful in it. I know because I studied the family wedding albums a million times when I was a girl in Richmond and imagined myself wearing it.

The portrait of my mother in the gown hung above my parents’ bed until the day she died. It was part of the room. A touchstone. A reminder that even plain women are beautiful on their wedding day. When reality is suspended and everything, especially happiness, seems possible. When no one is thinking about what it will feel like to deal with sickness rather than health. Or anticipating the till-death-do-us-part part.

The dress fit me perfectly. A fact I interpreted as confirmation that my marriage was meant to be. That Jake was my destiny.

Try as I might to forget I still remember every detail of my wedding day. Sipping from a flute of champagne with my bridesmaids at our house on Monument Avenue while we had our hair and makeup done. The way my hands shook when I was helped into THE DRESS. How fast my heart beat on the way to the church. The way my pulse skittered while the 150 guests were escorted to their seats as the string ensemble played.

I walked down the aisle barely feeling my father’s arm under my hand or the floor beneath my kitten heels. All eyes were on me. In the most beautiful dress ever.

I smiled at Jake. Saw the love in his warm brown eyes. Let him take my hand. He squeezed it as we turned to face the minister.

And then, although I’ve been replaying it in my mind for over forty years now, I don’t really understand what happened. It was as if everything I’d thought, everything I’d felt, flew out of my head. When Reverend Frailey cleared his voice and said, “Dearly beloved,” I was struck with a thunderbolt of clarity, or perhaps it was a thunderbolt of panic, that felt as if it had been delivered directly from above. (And I don’t mean the choir loft.)

Suddenly I realized that I might be making a mistake. That I’d only just turned twenty-one. That it was 1978 and I was woman, but I had not yet even attempted to roar. That I might not actually be ready to start the family Jake wanted so badly or even commit the rest of my life to another person. Not even Jake.

Like I said, it wasn’t THE DRESS’s fault. And it definitely wasn’t Jake’s.

Three months later when the presents had all finally been returned and I discovered that I was pregnant with his child, his family wasn’t speaking to mine and I’d already done far too much damage to tell him. Until then I hadn’t realized that God was into irony. I mean what kind of deity would smite you with a fear of commitment at the worst possible moment and then make you a single mother, arguably the largest commitment ever?

So there it is. A slight wrinkle in THE DRESS’s mostly unblemished history.

I’m hoping my daughter will have a happier ending in THE DRESS. If, in fact, she ever wears it.

 

 

ONE

Lauren

Three days to forty

New York City

“Oh my God. You’re . . . you’re Lauren James.” The woman looks down at the book on her lap then back up at me. “I’m reading Rip Tide right now. I’ve read everything you’ve ever written. Every single word.” She looks so genuinely excited. As if it’s Christmas morning and she found me under the tree and can’t wait to unwrap me. If her feet weren’t currently soaking in warm soapy water she would be moving toward me, holding out the hardcover of my latest novel in her lap for my signature. “I just love your books. I buy them in print and digital. I listen to them on audio while I work out.”

As other women look up, I thank my lucky stars that I put on makeup and washed my hair today. Writing is not the glamorous profession people think it is. In fact, authors spend long periods of time alone, unwashed, and on deadline. Grooming and hygiene can take a distant second to word count.

“Ah, so you’re the one keeping me in print.” My smile is real and so is my gratitude. No matter how many times you hear that someone loves what you’ve written, it feels good. It’s like being told that your children are talented and beautiful. Or at least I assume that’s what it feels like since I’ve never given birth. The thing is, if you don’t have enough readers who love what you do no one will pay you to do it anymore.

She laughs at the very idea of being my only fan, because I’ve been successfully published for over a decade and hit the New York Times bestseller list on a satisfyingly consistent basis. In fact, I’ve been dubbed the “Queen of Beach Reads.” Which means I write the kind of books that those who want to appear literary like to sneer at, but that sell hundreds of thousands of copies. And allow me to own an apartment in a really great building on Central Park West.

“Thank you. I’m so glad you enjoy my books.” I shoot the woman a last smile then turn my attention to my manicurist, Hanh. After a few words of greeting and a couple of polite questions about her children, which is about all we manage given my lack of Vietnamese and her gaps in English, I settle back into the big leather seat. I close my eyes and try to focus on the warm water swirling around my feet, but I’m careful to keep a pleasant smile on my lips so that none of the women who are currently Googling me can interpret my silence as diva-ish or carry tales about how rude and unappreciative I am.

My breathing evens out as Hanh’s small, competent hands massage my feet. I attempt to visualize a bright-blue sky with puffy white clouds floating through it. Like the ones that used to form over the Atlantic Ocean in the Outer Banks, where I grew up.

I’m not very good at meditation and although it’s not supposed to be possible, I failed yoga. My brain refuses to slow down or follow instructions and no matter how hard I try to shut down, I’m inevitably thinking about all the things I’m thinking about but shouldn’t be. Then I think about not thinking.

At the moment, all I can think about is that I’m going to be forty in two days, twenty-two hours, and thirty-five minutes whether I’m ready or not. Then I think about how old that is. How not like my body my body has become. Hanh lifts one foot out of the water and I think about how unattractive my toes are.

I take a conscious breath, counting slowly to seven then holding it before I exhale to a count of ten. This is supposed to clear your mind and help you turn your thoughts in a more pleasant, affirmative direction. I’m not any better at this than I am at not thinking, but I finally manage to pull up an image of Spencer, the man I’ve been dating for almost a year now, three months longer than I’ve dated anyone since I came to New York. He’s a successful playwright and songwriter with a string of hit Broadway musicals to his credit. He understands what being on deadline means and he’s every bit as driven as I am, only way better at disguising it.

I let myself try to imagine the surprise birthday dinner he’s planning. I inhale again, even more slowly this time. I’ve spent more than a few birthdays alone since I arrived here just after my twenty-first and am beyond glad to have someone to face down forty with.

I was supposed to come to New York with Brianna, my best friend in the world; a friend who felt more like a sister from the day we met in kindergarten and discovered we were born on the same day. (We were both wearing paper crowns at the time.)

We practically lived in each other’s houses while we were growing up. When we were in high school her grandmother died and her archaeologist parents went on yet another dig on yet another continent and never really came back and she moved in with us.

Bree and I inhaled books and dreamed of being writers. We wrote our first illustrated fairy tale together in second grade and turned it into a graphic romance novel when we were fourteen. We brainstormed and wrote part of a work of historical fiction while we were in high school and plotted out a contemporary novel set on our favorite beach in the Outer Banks in college. We planned to move to New York right after we graduated from college and find an apartment to share, and we were both going to get jobs to support us while we wrote the novel we’d plotted.

Two days before we were supposed to take the bus to New York, Bree pulled out without warning or any real explanation. It was a betrayal of everything we’d dreamed and planned our entire lives and all she said was, “Sorry, I changed my mind.” Like she’d decided to order iced tea instead of Coke or thought she’d pass on dessert. I didn’t know a soul in New York. I climbed onto the bus with wobbly knees, scared to death.

New York City is intimidating in its own right. Alone and without money it can be hard, cold, and inhospitable. A place to be survived through sheer force of will.

I was barely hanging on by my fingertips three months later, when I heard that Bree was dating Clay Williams, my boyfriend all through high school and most of college.

Six months later they were engaged. Even though we were barely speaking I tried to warn her that Clay was nowhere near ready to settle down; something I did out of the remnants of friendship and that she interpreted as jealousy. Then although she’s not a blood relative she wore THE DRESS that’s been in my family forever. And my mother forced me to be her maid of honor, because of some stupid promise and a pinky swear we made each other in kindergarten.

If that’s not a novel, I don’t know what is.

Bree

Two days to forty

Manteo, North Carolina

“Mary? Are you there?” The voice sounds tinny as if it’s coming from a great distance, which it pretty much always is. The voice belongs to the woman who gave birth to me. She and my father are somewhere in the Middle East. Or possibly in sub-Saharan Africa. Or maybe the Galápagos on some archaeological dig or another.

I was named after Mary Leakey, the famous fossil hunter whom I’ve always hated because my parents clearly loved fossils and hunting for them more than they ever loved me.

I was five when I stopped answering to Mary and insisted on being called Brianna, which is my middle name. That was when my parents, who’d been dragging me from one archaeological dig to another, brought me to live with my grandmother Brianna in her house in Manteo on Roanoke Island so that they could continue to wander. My grandmother died just after my sixteenth birthday, forcing my parents to come back to bury her. They stayed long enough to decide that I was old enough to live on my own in the house she’d left me while they finished the dig they’d been in the middle of. After that they took turns coming back on occasion though I never sensed any method or thought to their comings and goings. If it hadn’t been for Kendra and Lauren Jameson marching over and packing up my things and insisting I move in with them, I’m not sure what sort of pathetic hermit I might have turned into.

“I’m calling to wish you a happy birthday. Your father’s out of cell phone range but I didn’t want to miss this opportunity.”

“Oh, right. Thanks.” There’s no way of knowing whether she realizes my birthday’s not for two days yet. Or the time difference where she is somehow makes up the gap. Or maybe she had the chance to call and realized it was close enough to my birthday to count. I really don’t know and every year it matters less. My birth story is a little murky. I’ve heard that she was on an island off the coast of California searching for signs of Late Pleistocene Paleocoastal peoples when she went into labor and simply had me there in the sand before going back to work like Russian peasant women used to do back in the day. But instead of tying me in a sling to her bosom she handed me over to an assistant.

“Do you have special plans?”

“Oh, you know, the usual.” This is a gibe because I can’t remember more than a handful of birthdays my biological parents were around for. Which is undoubtedly why I’ve made a big fuss and party for each and every one of my children’s birthdays, including Lily’s sweet sixteen last year.

“What’s wrong?” she asks, as if we’ve ever had a comfortable conversation since I became aware that I was never even a contender in the competition between my parents’ love of their work and their love of me.

“Nothing. It’s just that I’m at the store. And I can’t really talk right now.” This is a lie, but I can’t bring myself to come out and tell her that her occasional awkward attempts to communicate just make me feel worse.

“Oh, that’s nice.” They’ve seen my bookstore, Title Waves, a handful of times. The same for their grandchildren.

“Thanks for the call.”

I’d pace if the store weren’t so crowded with bookshelves and display tables. I settle for breathing deeply and telling myself that an unsatisfying phone call is better than no call at all. Then I tell myself that turning forty isn’t that big a deal. Ultimately, I do what I always do when I’m unhappy. Or nervous. Or angry. I pull my laptop out of my bag, boot it up, and open the manuscript file. I empty my mind and let go of my hurt and irritation as I read the scene I wrote last night when the house was finally quiet and I could sit down in the attic room I’ve claimed for my office. It’s not as bad as it felt while I was writing it. I read the scene again. Then I begin to cut and paste, which is when I realize what’s missing. I lean forward and begin to type. Everything else disappears as a picture of my characters forms in my mind. Heath would never take Whitney for granted or forget to bring home the paper towels like he promised.

“No, don’t go. I can’t bear for you to go.” His smile was wry, his tone self-deprecating. His blue eyes gleamed with . . .

The bell on the front door jangles. My fingers freeze on the keyboard. It takes a few long seconds to blink myself back to the present.

“Good day, Brianna.” Margaret McKinnon is a lovely woman of about eighty-five, an avid reader who loves books almost as much as I do and cannot bring herself to read in any format that doesn’t involve paper. She’s been a regular since I started working in this very bookstore as a teenager. She’s one of my best customers and will come in to help out or even take a shift when I need to take time off or the student who works part time has a conflict. I make it a point to keep her favorite authors, and any that resemble them, stocked. Which means lots and lots of historical fiction and the occasional erotic novel disguised as a romance. Recently she’s begun to wade into fantasy.

Since her husband died five months ago she’s been coming in more frequently and staying longer. Some people drown their sorrows and losses in drugs and alcohol. Mrs. McKinnon drowns hers in the written word, which is an escape I can relate to.

“It’s lovely out, isn’t it?” she asks with forced enthusiasm. “March can be so unpredictable.”

“That’s for sure, Miz McKinnon,” I say with a smile. Sometimes March brings record snowfalls but it’s hard to argue with today’s pale-blue skies, thin white clouds, and mild breeze. Not to mention a high in the low sixties. We’ll have things mostly to ourselves until the season kicks off on Memorial Day weekend, something I will appreciate as a storeowner and complain about as a full-time resident.

She returns the smile even though her eyes are red and swollen, and I imagine her forcing herself out of her cottage and into the stores simply to keep herself from crying.

“How’s the book coming?” She aims a friendly nod toward my laptop. We live in a very small town on a narrow barrier island and it’s no secret that I’ve been working on a novel for a decade and a half and have never let anyone read a word of it.

“It’s coming.” I started this book even before my former best friend stole the idea we’d plotted out together and launched her publishing career with it.

I smile again and am careful not to let it turn into a sigh. You’d think I’d be over Lauren’s theft of “our” novel by now, but it’s not easy to see someone you once loved not only living your dream, but succeeding at it on a level you never imagined. Sometimes I practically reek of jealousy. I mean I wouldn’t trade Rafe and Lily or my family life for anything—at least not on a good day. But I’ve had plenty of years to wonder if it really had to be either/or.

“I have a hankering for something exotic,” Mrs. McKinnon says. “What have you got for me today?”

We spend a lovely hour together browsing through the shelves. She chooses a Mary Balogh, Deborah Harkness’s A Discovery of Witches, and the fifth in Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files. Like I said, she’s an equal-opportunity reader.

We talk about the next book club meeting at the store and then she stays to chitchat until I lock up. It’s clear she doesn’t want to go home, and I feel terrible when I finally have to usher her out onto the sidewalk. I’ve got to hit the grocery store and pick up Clay’s shirts at the dry cleaner. Lily’s dress is ready at Myrna’s Alterations. And then maybe I’ll run over to the Sandcastle and visit with Kendra for a bit.

Sometimes I don’t want to go home, either.

 

 

TWO

Lauren

T-minus twenty-four hours to forty

New York City

My agent, Chris Wolfe, takes me to The Palm Court at The Plaza for the champagne tea the day before my birthday. Somewhere between forty and fifty, she’s small and stocky with a strong chin, a no-nonsense manner, and no patience whatsoever for anyone who doesn’t bring their A game, which is fine with me. She was a huge step up from my first agent, who was the only one willing to take me on when I was a struggling waitress/blogger/occasional ghost writer/aspiring novelist. In traditional publishing it’s all about trading up—in the beginning you take virtually any deal you can get at a major publishing house and then do everything humanly possible to convince them to get behind you. The more books you sell, the more valuable you become and the more options you have. The same is true with agents, the gatekeeper’s gatekeeper.

The trellis-patterned carpet is plush beneath our feet as we’re led to our table. There are no windows, but the restored stained glass ceiling and strategically placed palm trees give the elegant space a bright airiness. It’s a bit kitschy, but we toasted my first six-figure deal here and have been toasting milestones and occasions here ever since. Today we’re celebrating my birthday, but even before she air-kisses my cheek I know that she has news to impart and that news is not good. As if turning forty tomorrow doesn’t suck enough.

Normally, Chris’s poker face is world-class. I’ve seen her stare down titans of publishing and threaten to walk when we had nowhere to go, but I’ve been with her long enough to know her tells. She’s smiling when our glasses of champagne arrive, but her eyes are too focused and there’s a tiny crease between her brows that I’ve seen only a handful of times.

“So, how are things?” she asks.

“Good,” I say automatically because I’m determined to be positive about my looming date with old age—at least in public. But I watch her face carefully as I say it because all writers, regardless of their level of success, are appallingly insecure. “They are good, right?”

Chris blinks. Which in anyone else would be a shriek of panic.

“Oh God. What is it?” My jaw tightens to hold back the whimper that threatens. “I knew I shouldn’t have agreed to do that anthology.”

A little voice in my head shouts, Mayday! Mayday! We’re going down!! Without bothering to toast we both finish our champagne.

“No, it isn’t that. Well, not exactly.” She hesitates again. “But they were relying on your name to sell that book. And the numbers weren’t even close to what was anticipated.”

I’m getting older by the minute and it’s possible that new gray hair is sprouting. I’m in no mood to pry news I don’t want to hear out of her. “And?”

“And neither is Rip Tide. In fact, there’s been a decided dip in sales over the last two reporting periods. A cooling, if you will.”

Our eyes meet. Without discussion her hand goes up. The waitress hurries over and refills our champagne glasses. I remain silent as I wait for Chris to finish. It’s not as if I don’t watch my numbers—all writers do. Given online sales rankings and the author portals set up by publishers that supply sales figures on an almost daily basis, it’s almost impossible not to have a decent idea of how things are going. But I’m always on deadline, and I’ve discovered the hard way that nothing shuts down my imagination faster than fear. So I try not to check too often, and I’ve developed an aptitude for denial. I continue my silence and add a raised eyebrow when the waitress departs.

“There’s been a general falloff in women’s fiction over the last eighteen months. You’re not the only one who’s lost readers.”

Lost them? Where did they go? Siberia? And am I really supposed to feel good about not being the only loser? “What is Trove planning to do about it?” This is, after all, supposed to be my publisher’s issue. I’m supposed to write the books, they’re supposed to market and sell them. Hitting the big lists is something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Once you’ve done it a time or two in a big-enough way it can become almost automatic. The thrill gives way to expectation. Everyone forgets that it can stop at any time. There are plenty of once-huge names that aren’t anymore. And I’m not anywhere near ready to go quietly into that good night.

“Well,” she says with a sigh. “They don’t think it’s marketing. They think you may have lost some of your focus. That you may be just kind of going through the motions.” She swallows and manages not to drop her eyes.

“So I just have to write a better book and everything will be fine?” I can hear the anger and panic in my voice. When I was first starting out publishers would put almost nothing behind a debut and then blame a lack of sales on the author. I’ve seen what they can accomplish for an author when they want to and I’ve been fortunate enough to be on the receiving end of their largesse for almost long enough to have forgotten what being overlooked feels like. My readership has been growing for so long I’ve let myself forget that anything that can get bigger can also shrink.

I’m not hungry, but I reach for the tea sandwiches anyway. Tears threaten but I refuse to shed them. Not here in The Plaza. And not in front of this woman who has helped make me what I am.

“Don’t worry. Your core fan base is incredibly devoted. True diehards. They’d read the phone book if your name was on the spine.”

Is it just me or does this imply that my books don’t have to be that good because my readers—or at least those who haven’t gotten lost—will read them anyway? I want to put my face in my hands and cry. Actually I’d like to put my head down on the table and close my eyes. But only if I could wake up tomorrow younger, firmer, and with sales numbers that don’t make it so hard to swallow.

“So what are you doing for your fortieth?” she asks brightly.

“I’m sleeping in tomorrow and I don’t plan to write a single word.” Though under the circumstances maybe I should. “Spencer is taking me out to dinner.”

“Oh, where?”

“I don’t know,” I say, matching her smile even though my brain is running around in circles shrieking in distress. “He said it was a surprise.”

“He’s a keeper, that one,” she says with another smile.

There’ve been quite a few men over the last two decades. I mean I’m not exactly a femme fatale, but I’m not chopped liver yet, either. Though I guess I might be after tomorrow. Happily, Spencer Harrison is smart and funny and he understands the rigors of succeeding in a creative field. Relationship-wise we’re in the perfect place—monogamous and committed without any of the angst that comes from wanting to take things to another level. I mean it’s not as if either of us is looking to get married. I’ve pretty much stopped thinking about my biological clock and have accepted that I may never be a mother.

Chris raises her glass. “To you, Lauren. To your fortieth. And to your talent and to future success. I know this next book will be your best yet!”

We clink and drink then decimate most of the desserts even though every bite is difficult to swallow and sits in my churning stomach like a lead weight. We talk about the weather and plays and movies we’ve seen. We don’t speak any further about my sagging sales. But then we don’t need to.

Bree

D-day

Manteo

Someone is in the room. I realize this at the same time I notice that my cheek is pressed against a hard surface and my neck is stiff as if I’ve been in this position too long.

A hand grasps my shoulder, shakes gently.

“Wha?” My mouth is dry and cottony. My eyes are caked shut.

“Happy birthday.” The voice belongs to my husband, Clay. I can feel him leaning over me.

I yawn and blink my eyes open. I discover that the hard surface underneath my cheek is my desk. I apparently fell asleep with my arms spread across it in supplication. The fingers of my right hand are locked around my computer mouse. The pages I printed out yesterday are damp with drool. I manage to raise my head, swipe at the corner of my mouth, and focus on Clay’s face.

He’s six-two, almost six-three, and I have to crane my aching neck to meet his eyes, which are a bright, changeable blue. His blond hair has darkened. He’s still broad and solid, but not the football star heartthrob he once was. He’s holding a chocolate cupcake with one lit candle in it. Our sixteen-year-old daughter, Lily, stands next to him bearing a mug of coffee. She sings “Happy Birthday to You” quickly, on key, and with a minimum of emotion.

“Did you finish?” she asks,