The Truth About Ever After (28 page)

“You
know, there are actually plenty of people in the world who have money and who
don’t give a shit about all this. Plenty of people who work for their money,
and enjoy what they have, and don’t turn into terrible people.”

“It’s
not about the money, you child,” she spat. “Money means nothing. That’s what
you never understood. It’s about being part of this society.” She gestured
around her as if to include the club and everything in it. “It’s about being a
part of this class of people.”

That
time, I did laugh. “Oh, Sarah, you’ll always be this unhappy as long as you
hold onto that kind of crap.”

She
shook her head. “You don’t understand. It was always easy for you to do your
own thing.”

“No,
it wasn’t,” I said. “
You
made it
hard. You made it hard for any of us to do something you didn’t approve of.”

She
smiled, as if that had been a compliment. “But you did it anyway,” she
murmured. “You married that guy and you ditched all of us, and you got your
little job. I’ve always wondered why. You never struck me as very strong, you
know. Maybe I was wrong.”

I
thought about that. Was I strong? Was I really any better than the sad and
broken girl in front of me? I thought about Kara, so resigned to the fact that
she would stay with her cheating husband. Then I thought of Eric, two hundred
miles away. I hadn’t spoken with him in three days.

I
had always thought I was better than these girls.
The Sarah
Vandermarks
and Beth Carters of the world.
Even
Kara—in my heart of hearts I had thought I was better than her, less
shallow, more emotionally connected to my family and friends. But in reality, I
was just the same. I had allowed greed and selfishness to come between
me and my husband
. I had wanted a baby above all else,
becoming so self-absorbed that I didn’t even realize how unhappy he was.

Eric,
the man who was supposed to know me better than anyone, apparently was
convinced that I cared more about his success than his happiness. According to
him, my family and I were smug and self-important. How was that any different
from what I had always thought about Sarah?

At least you care
, I thought to myself, and the
realization was like a balm to my heart.
At
least you want to be better
.
At least
you try
.

“You
know, my mother told me something once,” I said, feeling a lump form in my
throat. I was suddenly so, so grateful for that parents that I’d been born to.
“When the business was first taking off, things were really hard for me. I had
to switch houses and schools and people were being so terrible to me.” I met
her eyes and she had the grace to look slightly abashed.

“I
felt like my life had been ruined, like I would never be happy again. But my
mother, she told me I was wrong. She said that my life was what I chose for it
to be. I could choose to let bullies be mean to me, I could choose to change so
I fit in with them better. I could choose to let all the changes get to me. Or
I could choose to be happy anyhow. I could choose to live my life how I wanted,
with the people and the things that mattered to me.”

She
was staring at me, a hard, calculating expression on her face. I wondered if
she was even capable of understanding what I was saying to her.

Suddenly,
it didn’t matter to me anymore. I don’t know what it was, exactly—maybe
the fear of losing Eric had suddenly put everything into perspective. All I
knew was that Sarah
Vandermark
meant literally
nothing to me anymore. I had allowed her to control me, to affect me, to hurt
me for years—and why?
Because I was scared?
Because I could still remember what it felt like to be a lonely, scared little
kid?

I
wasn’t a little kid anymore. I had things in my life that were so much bigger
than the petty, ridiculous words of the girl in front of me. And I was done
wasting my time.

“I
chose to be happy,” I said, turning to go, knowing she was probably beyond my
help. She probably wouldn’t even want it. “I make that same choice every day,
Sarah. I choose to be happy.”

Chapter Twenty-eight

“All
right, we have snacks, we have virgin-cocktails, and we have Disney movies. I
think that should just about do it, right?”

Jen
grinned up at me from her position on the couch. “That sounds perfect, Kiki,”
she said. “Thank you so much for doing this.”

“Hey,
it’s tradition,” I said, setting down my armful of potato chip bowls and bags of
candy bars on the coffee table. I grabbed a pillow from the armchair and
plopped down on the floor, leaning against the couch. I looked up at Jen. “Do
you need anything before we get started?”

“Nope,”
she said, pulling her blanket more firmly over her ginormous belly. “I’m good
to go.”

Jen
and I had a long-standing tradition of spending the first Monday after a big
event together, just
vegging
out.
Jen
called it essential decompressing time.
Whenever we had a big weekend
wedding, we would clear our schedules for the following Monday so we could
relax together. Sometimes we would go to a spa for massages, or catch an
afternoon matinee. But days like today were my favorite—we had agreed,
since Jen couldn’t leave the house anyway, that we would stay in pajamas, eat
junk food, and indulge in our shared love of Disney movies. I had been looking
forward to it for weeks.

Once
I had my pillow arranged and I felt comfortable, I pressed play and the
familiar strains of the opening music of
Beauty
and the Beast
began.

“I
love this movie,” Jen sighed.

“It’s
classic,” I agreed happily, grabbing a handful of potato chips.

“Ginny
and Annie will never watch this kind of stuff with me,” Jen said wistfully.
“They don’t know what they’re missing.”

When Beauty and the Beast
finished, I groaned. “I don’t want to
move,” I whined. “I’m in a food coma.”

Jen
laughed. “We did eat a shocking amount of junk food already.”

With
a hefty sigh, I pulled myself from a lounging position and crawled over to the
TV stand. “Okay,” I said, grabbing a few DVD cases and holding them up for her
to see. “What next?”

“
Little Mermaid
,” she said. “Definitely.”

I
smiled. I loved when Jen let her guard down like this. So much of the time she
came off as being so professional, so together and in control. But it made me
ridiculously happy when fun, silly Jen came out to play. She was a blast to be
around.

I
started up the DVD and settled back into my nest of pillows. For a minute, as
the opening credits rolled, I allowed my mind to wander. It had been a long
time since I’d relaxed like this. With the wedding, and everything happening
with Eric (I suppressed a small shudder at the thought), things had just been
too crazy.
Too crazy to even process.
I felt like I
had been operating on autopilot for the last few months, just trying to get
everything done, just trying to get by.

Behind
me on the couch, Jen was singing softly to herself as Ariel wished to be part
of the human world. I was so relieved the wedding was over. No more running
myself ragged, no more dealing with Sarah effing
Vandermark
.
It was a relief to be able to move on.

And
yet… what would I do now to occupy my time? What would fill the long stretches
of my waking hours? I pictured myself, alone in my empty condo after work,
struggling to find something to do, anything to keep my mind off the mess that
was my family.

A
voice on the screen snapped me out of my reverie. “Eric!”

I
froze. Eric. How stupid of me, to forget that this was the movie with Prince
Eric. And now I had to sit here for the next hour, listening to that name, his
name, said over and over.

“Kiki,
what’s wrong?”

Suddenly
I was crying without even knowing why. “Eric,” I gasped.

“Oh,
sweetie, do you miss him?” Jen asked, leaning over awkwardly to pat my shoulder.
“You should have used this time off to fly over to Chicago to visit.”

“He
probably wouldn’t even want to talk to me,” I sniffed, wiping at the tears that
now flowed freely down my face. “God, Jen, I’ve screwed up so badly.”

“What
are you talking about? Why wouldn’t he want to talk to you? Kiki, for God’s
sake, turn off the movie and tell me what’s going on.”

I
did as she asked, flipping the movie off and rummaging through our mess on the
table for a tissue. Once I was together a little bit more, I moved up to the
end of the couch, pulling her feet onto my lap and snuggling down into her
blanket.

“Things
have been awful, Jen,” I told her. “Just awful. We were fighting all the time,
about the stupidest stuff. There was just so much tension after… after I…”

“After
the baby?”

I
looked at her gratefully, relieved she hadn’t made me say it myself. “Yeah.
God, we were even fighting about money. I never thought something like that
would come between us. Right before we left we had this huge fight, about his
job and my family.” I felt a familiar flush, remembering his words, remembering
my anger.

“When
he left I think we both considered it a… a break, I guess. We don’t really talk
much, not even on the phone.” I caught sight of Jen’s horrorstruck expression
and it reiterated what a big deal this was. We were practically separated, but
I don’t think I’d realized it until I saw it in Jen’s face.

“Holy
crap, Kiki. This is really serious.”

I
nodded, feeling the tears start to threaten again.

“Well,”
she said, drawing herself up the way I had seen her do a million times when she
was ready to tackle a problem. “What are we going to do about it?”

I
looked at her in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“This
is your marriage, Kiki. It’s your family. You can’t just let things slide. You
can’t play it by ear. You need to fix this. We need a plan.”

I
felt helpless in the face of her efficiency. “I just don’t know, Jen,” I
sighed. “You didn’t hear him, the things he said about my family. He must
really hate us.”

Jen
snorted and I looked up at her in surprise. “Give me a break, Kiki. He doesn’t
hate you. He’s crazy about you. Anyone can see it. God, haven’t you ever seen
the way he looks at you? So he freaked out about the millionaire family thing.
Big deal. It was bound to happen sooner or later. He’ll get over it, you’ll
move on.”

“Do
you really think it’s that simple?”

“There’s
nothing simple about it,” she said firmly. “Marriage is complicated and it’s
hard work. But he’s your family, Kiki. You promised to love him forever, not just
until things got crappy.”

“But
what if he doesn’t love
me
anymore?”
I whispered, my darkest fear. As I said the words I realized that there was a
part of me that had always been afraid of it, afraid that one day he would open
his eyes and I would be the annoying, ditzy, spoiled rich girl again, the girl
he didn’t even want to spend a single night with back in college.

“He
does,” Jen said firmly, grabbing my hand. “I know he does,
Kiks
.
And deep down, you know it too.”

I
smiled at her weakly, feeling a little better, but Jen winced in response.

“You
okay?” I asked.

“Yeah,”
she said, rubbing her belly. “I think I ate too much.”

“I
shouldn’t be upsetting you with all this crap,” I said. “Let’s just turn the
movie back on and you can relax.”

“No
way,” she said, shaking her head. “No way are we
gonna
sit here and watch the
Little Mermaid
right now. You need to get on a plane and go see your husband.”

I
laughed. “Jen, I have to work tomorrow.”

“The
wedding is over, Kiki,” she said. “We don’t have anything big booked for
weeks.”

“Yeah,
but the office is a complete disaster. We’ve just put everything on hold for
ages now, waiting for the wedding to be over. God, I don’t even know what’s on
my desk—”

Suddenly
Jen was clutching my hand hard, her face screwed up in pain.

“I
think that was a contraction!” she gasped. I felt the blood drain from my face.
Holy crap! Was Jen having the baby? Wasn’t it way too early?

“Don’t
panic,” she said, releasing my hand. It felt like she had broken several
fingers. “The doctor said this could happen and it didn’t necessarily mean
anything. I should probably start to time them though, just in case.”

“Okay.”
I said shakily, reaching for my phone. “We can do that.”

I
watched her face, anxious for any sign of pain. I felt completely out of my element.
Shouldn’t I be calling Matt? Hell, shouldn’t I be driving her to the hospital?

“Are
you sure we shouldn’t take you in?” I asked. “Just to be sure?”