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  In the kitchen, they could hear Suzanne fumbling with the blender, letting out a stream of profanity in her lilting Southern accent as she did so. “Why don’t I help her?” Kate said, standing. “I need to call Jeff to check on Adrian anyway.”

  “Oh, that reminds me, I should make sure Jake gave Bonnie her tummy medicine before he put her to bed,” Marci said and trailed behind Kate into the house.

  “So, Rebecca, how was work?” Beth said.

  “Fine, thanks.”

  “Marci and Suzanne are in the huge master and Kate is in the back bedroom. I put my stuff in the other queen room. I thought we could share, unless you’re a fan of bunk beds.”

  “Sure,” Rebecca said. She and Beth had known one another for a long time, but at moments like this their relationship had the awkward feel of acquaintances rather than old friends. With little in common other than the friends in the other room, they sat in silence as the other women all talked on their phones in the kitchen. Apparently Suzanne had either called Dylan or gotten a late-night call from her assistant, Chad. After a professional disaster last year, Suzanne had more than rebounded. She ran a thriving nonprofit in addition to planning events for an ever-expanding roster of Atlanta’s elite, and it seemed that she and Chad never went off duty.

  “It’s great, isn’t it?” Beth said, as though she could read Rebecca’s thoughts. “How well she’s bounced back from everything that happened last year?”

  “Yes, it is,” Rebecca said. Even though she had always envied Suzanne’s poise and social status, she had not enjoyed watching her friend suffer the year before. Still, a famous, young, hot-as-hell fiancé was probably a pretty good consolation. “It really is.”

  “What about you then?” Beth said suddenly.

  “Sorry?”

  “When are we going to see you settled with your Prince Charming? Like in Marci’s blog?”

  “Uh, I don’t know,” Rebecca fumbled. “I’m not even really seeing anyone right now.” And haven’t for the last two years.

  “I’ve always heard that love finds you when you quit looking for it,” Beth said.

  Rebecca held back the withering retort that occurred to her—how easy it was to give sage grown-up dating advice when you’d been with the same guy since you were fifteen. She just nodded. What could she say? I found love my sophomore year in college, and he’s married to our friend who’s ten feet away?

  “I know this must be hard on you,” Beth said gently.

  Stop, Rebecca thought, tears brimming unexpectedly in her eyes. Just stop. For some reason, the sympathetic tone in Beth’s voice was more cruel than any coldness she’d experienced from her friends over the past few years. Sometimes she thought she hid her feelings for Jake well, and other times it felt as though they were just below the surface—a fact that everyone knew but no one mentioned. “I’m fine,” she said.

  “I know,” Beth said. “But is fine enough?”

  Rebecca said nothing. She willed someone in the other room to please, for the love of God, come out and end this horrible conversation. She knew Beth was trying to be caring, but Rebecca didn’t need this kind of caring. Mothering was what Beth did best, and it was the absolute last thing Rebecca needed.

  Mercifully, Beth seemed to sense that her nurturing superpowers were not well received, and she turned her attention back to the bride-to-be. “I think I get what Suzanne is saying, you know? About how it feels like her wedding is for the whole world instead of for her and Dylan?”

  Rebecca shrugged. “I guess that’s part of marrying someone famous. You have to learn to live with the idea that the world is watching you.”

  “Maybe,” Beth agreed. “But I can see how it’s hard. The reporters have been all over her for months. She had to get Chad to leak a fake wedding date for September just to get them to back off for a while.”

  Rebecca thought about this for a moment. Invest yourself, she thought, as the authors of her book might say. You cannot create meaningful friendships if you are sitting on the sidelines.

  “You know what? You’re right, Beth.”

  “I am?”

  “Yes. Suzanne is our friend and I think we should try to help her.”

  “What? We can make Dylan Burke somehow not an international superstar?”

  “No,” Rebecca said slowly. “The public will have their expectations, but maybe we can give Suze what she wants, too.”

  “I’m confused,” Beth said.

  Rebecca’s head was spinning. Maybe she could be the good guy for once. “Can you get Suze’s phone away from her and get it to me for a few minutes?”

  There was a clatter as the plastic margarita pitcher hit the kitchen floor on the other side of the wall, and Suzanne’s voice: “Oh, shhhhugarcakes!”

  Beth and Rebecca both smiled. “I think that’s doable,” Beth said. “What do you have in mind?”

  4

  When she finally stumbled to the bedroom she would share with Beth during the weekend, Rebecca felt quite tipsy. She was intoxicated both by the brutal margaritas Suzanne had concocted and the excitement of the plan the rest of them had created in snatches each time Suzanne left the room. Beth was already out cold, still wearing her clothes and draped diagonally across the bed.

  Rebecca hoisted her suitcase carefully onto the bed, trying not to think about what Beth had said about looking for her own Prince Charming. Such an absurd, outdated cliché. And still painful.

  She also wrestled with the idea that had planted itself in her brain lately and seemed to be taking hold despite her attempts to ignore it. It had been on the tip of her tongue tonight, and it had been hard not to say it to Beth. She was afraid that saying it out loud would make it true.

  Maybe, she thought in these moments, everyone is capable of truly loving just one person. And if you waste that love on someone who is unavailable, you simply don’t get another chance.

  After some fumbling with the zipper, and opening the door a little to let in light from the hallway, she was able to get her bag open. The contents swam in her vision; something was not right. Something had been moved, she saw right away. The clothes around the edges of the case were still rolled up neatly, but in the middle, underneath the pajamas she had slid in herself this morning, they were sloppier. She pulled out the pajamas and saw her sundress had been moved to cover something foreign.

  Rebecca opened the bedroom door another few inches to cast more light, and Beth snuffled and rolled over in her sleep. When she crept back to the bed and reached for the new item in her bag, her fingers touched something velvety and soft. When she picked it up, it was solid underneath and heavy.

  Her first thought was that there had been a mistake at security. Several of those guys had seemed extra shifty and weird today. But these were her pajamas, just as she’d worn them the night before. What the hell? It was some kind of velvet bag with drawstrings at the top and something bulky inside. She took the bag out of her suitcase and down the hall to the bathroom, where she could look at it in the light.

  The bag was deep-purple velvet, with a lavender feather embroidered across the front. Oh, shit. Valerie. For a moment, she hoped that it had simply been a late-night mistake on Valerie’s part, but when she reached into the bag, the note she found dispelled all confusion. Under the note, her fingers brushed something rubbery and firm, and she cringed. She was able to open the bag wide enough to see without taking it out: it was a full-sized, hot-pink, penis-shaped vibrator.

  Rebecca sat down on the toilet, dazed. What am I going to do with this? I’m sharing a room with Beth. What if she finds it and thinks I’m a pervert? I could just kill Valerie. She thought about just throwing it in the bathroom trash next to her, but the bag had THE PURPLE FEATHER, SAN FRANCISCO stitched in bold letters under the feather logo. Kate and Beth shared this bathroom with her, and everyone knew she’d been in San Francisco the night before.

  It would have to go back to her suitcase, she decided, and she would bury it under everything el
se, along with the note. It was in Valerie’s neat cursive, on hotel stationery, with an insipid smiley face at the bottom. “Kid, you need this more than anyone I’ve ever met. Enjoy your vacation. ‘Come’ back rested. Ha, ha.—V”

  * * *

  Everyone in the house slept in the following morning, except Marci, who emerged from her room fully showered and dressed, while the other girls were still lounging in their pajamas and nursing the coffeepot. Even though she hadn’t drunk much, and had clearly risen early, Marci looked almost as tired as everyone else. Suzanne was the worst off, and wore dark glasses even on the living-room couch, clinging to her coffee cup like a life preserver. We should get her a nap, Rebecca thought.

  Kate and Beth were at the kitchen table, where they had cleared the empty cups and bottles from the previous night and were now idly flipping through magazines and tourist brochures. Rebecca filled a coffee cup and joined them. She watched as Marci plopped down beside Suzanne on the couch, and they both stared straight at the television, which no one had yet bothered to turn on.

  “What’s your excuse?” Suzanne muttered eventually.

  “What?” Marci said.

  “You look like shit,” Suzanne said.

  “Uh, thanks? I can always count on you for a lift.”

  “No, really. You look tired. But you barely touched a drink last night.”

  A smile flitted across Marci’s lips, but she contained it. By now the other two girls had tuned in to the conversation. “I think you drank enough for both of us, my friend.”

  “So. What’s. Your. Excuse?” Suzanne repeated. Rebecca wondered why she was grilling Marci this way, and why Marci’s feathers weren’t more ruffled by the rude line of questioning. Maybe it was Rebecca’s inability to understand this strange, adversarial interaction that had kept her from having close girlfriends.

  Marci glared at Suzanne momentarily and then burst into laughter. “I think you are wasting your talents as an event planner. We need you interrogating terrorists or something.”

  “Are you serious?” Suzanne said, ignoring Marci’s attempt to deflect. “Really? Already?”

  Marci nodded. From across the room, Beth stood up. “Wait, are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  Rebecca was completely lost. Only when she heard Marci say something about “ten weeks, so we’re not really telling anyone” did she realize. Marci was pregnant, again. Jesus. Little Bonnie was not even a year old yet. Soon they were all crowded around Marci in the living room, everyone asking questions and laughing, and calculating how old Bonnie would be when her new baby brother or sister arrived.

  This didn’t technically impact her, but Rebecca felt overwhelmed nonetheless. Life was moving too fast. People seemed in such a hurry to get married, settle down, and have babies. What was the rush? They were still in their midthirties. There was plenty of time for all this, wasn’t there? Of course she knew that her feelings for Jake played a role: Marci being pregnant reminded her that Marci and Jake were having sex. Duh, Bec, of course they’re having sex. They are married, after all. But somehow this indisputable evidence brought the idea to the forefront of her mind, and it was opening the same old wound from her quiet battle for Jake’s heart four years ago.

  Rebecca shook her head to banish the images from her mind. She tuned in to the conversation to find that Marci was talking about Jake’s reaction to the pregnancy.

  “He’s thrilled, of course,” she said. “I mean, we both wanted a big family.”

  “But?” Suzanne said.

  “Well, I guess he thinks it’s a little soon after Bonnie. And he’s … well, he’s sort of ticked with me for letting it happen.”

  “Letting it happen?” Beth said. “Like he had no part in it?”

  “Well,” Marci said, her voice rising to a squeak. “I might have told a teensy white lie about birth control.…”

  “Marcella Beatrice!” Suzanne said. “You didn’t!”

  Beth shook her head, tut-tutting. Kate giggled.

  “Look,” Marci said, “it’s not the end of the world. It happened, and I know Jake will be thrilled when he gets used to the idea. He thought we should put more space between the kids, but I’m thirty-five.…”

  There was a collective groan from the other women. Except for Kate, who was nearly ten years younger, they were all the same age. Rebecca wondered if Marci had any idea of her impact on Suzanne and Rebecca, who did not yet have children, when she judged herself essentially too old to reproduce.

  “Well, you know what I mean!” Marci protested. “I know it’s fine to have babies for a few more years now, but why wait? Once you’re married and ready for kids, I mean.” This last seemed to be directed at Rebecca herself. She could have slapped Marci in that moment. She reminded herself that assaulting a pregnant woman was a felony.

  “One reason to wait would be that your husband isn’t ready for another baby,” Rebecca said, gritting her teeth in a painful attempt at a smile. “For example.”

  Marci glared at her, and Rebecca felt exhilaration: half-scared to have challenged Marci so openly, half-proud of herself for standing up for Jake.

  “Okay, okay,” Suzanne said gently, “ease up, everyone. The most important thing is that you and the baby stay healthy. And of course we’re all thrilled for both of you.”

  “Of course,” Rebecca said, plastering on a smile. Damn. She was trying so hard to be a good person, but sometimes … Marci just brought out the worst in her.

  “Hey, Rebecca,” Beth intervened. “Didn’t you say you were going to the grocery store? Can I come with you?”

  “Um, sure,” Rebecca said slowly.

  * * *

  When they pulled out of the gravel driveway in Marci’s SUV, Beth turned to her. “What the hell is going on with you and Marci?”

  “What?” Rebecca said. “Nothing.”

  “Right, nothing,” Beth said.

  “I don’t know,” Rebecca said. She sighed. She was so tired of holding it all in, and this most recent conversation with Marci made her feel as though she was not doing such a great job with that anyway. “It’s just that Jake is my friend, too, and sometimes I think Marci takes him for granted.”

  “What do you mean?” Beth said. Her tone was neutral, but something told Rebecca to tread lightly.

  “I don’t know; it’s hard to say. Maybe I’m just tired from work. Don’t listen to me.”

  “Maybe you need to listen to yourself,” Beth said. “Because an observer who didn’t know better might think you’re still in love with your friend’s husband. And that, my dear, is a recipe for disaster.”

  Rebecca sat in stunned silence as Beth navigated to the neighborhood market. By the time they had unglued themselves from the sticky leather seats and the screen door banged behind them on the way in, Beth seemed to have dropped the subject. Rebecca was relieved that she didn’t press the point any further, but she also couldn’t get Beth’s words out of her mind as they scoured the shelves, looking for supplies.

  She felt nervous—a nagging sense that nothing was quite right. Last night on the porch, her little scheme had felt thrilling and noble. Even talking to Dylan at almost midnight had felt only slightly daring. He had still been up, of course—even though he had kept his word to Suzanne and was not doing a formal tour this summer, he and a few of his bandmates were still out several times a week, listening to other bands.

  But the whole plan felt a little ridiculous by morning light, and Rebecca was almost embarrassed by her own gall in suggesting it. If she could have taken it back now, she would have done so in a split second, but the wheels were in motion already. The girls were excited. Dylan was on his way. It was sink or swim now.

  Rebecca could say none of this to Beth, who was strolling happily along the tiny store’s aisles, picking things up and putting them into the rickety old shopping buggy. “Beth, how on earth are we going to make this work?”

  “Don’t worry,” Beth said, with a glint in her eye that led Rebe
cca to suspect she was tackling this challenge with the same fervor with which she would construct a baking soda volcano for her kid’s class project. “We just have to think outside the box.”

  They left the tiny grocery half an hour later with the frenzied owner helping them out to their car. They loaded up four dusty boxes of mason jars in various sizes, some leftover holiday votive candles that smelled like cinnamon, the two least expensive fishing poles they could find, a couple of wind socks with fluttery ends, underwater disposable cameras, and a large pack of industrial-strength toilet paper. Rebecca also held a grocery bag with some snacks and skim milk, so they would have something to walk in with upon returning to the beach house.

  Beth whistled happily on the drive home, and Rebecca marveled at her confidence. As soon as Rebecca had proposed this plan the evening before, Beth had embraced it with certainty and excitement. It was as though they were planning a Cub Scout meeting and Beth had perfected the recipe for gummy-worm cupcakes. Rebecca, on the other hand, checked her phone every six minutes, chewed her nails, and had to resist the urge to steal Marci’s SUV to drive all the way to Charleston. Maybe for better supplies. Maybe to catch a plane and be gone. What if Suzanne didn’t like this? What if she was offended? Suzanne was the most sophisticated event planner, most stylish person, Rebecca had ever known. Was toilet paper strung between fishing poles really going to cut it?

  5

  By Friday afternoon, Rebecca and Marci had reached a sort of silent truce. Rebecca regretted her snide comments from that morning, but Marci no longer looked venomously angry. In fact, she didn’t seem to be registering much emotion at all. Tiredness had overcome her features and beaten down everything else. Rebecca wondered how the human race continued at all, given the sheer awfulness of pregnancy and childbirth. She had never particularly wanted children; not that she had to give it much thought since she had never been in a serious relationship. But even if she had, Marci’s whitewashed face and ill temper made her second-guess the whole enterprise.