Anything But Love (3 page)

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

T
he room looked beautiful.

As Jessica stood in the doorway and surveyed the scene, she felt an odd sense of detachment . . . almost as though she were a guest at someone else’s wedding.

Every detail was flawless. It all looked exactly as she had envisioned, and for a control freak, there could be no sweeter triumph.

If only she’d been the wedding planner instead of the bride. Then, at least, she could take some professional satisfaction in the planning and aesthetic instinct that had led to this moment of event-planning perfection.

Unfortunately, she was the bride. The jilted bride, she reminded herself, fighting the urge to turn and flee.

At least she wasn’t wearing her wedding gown anymore. She’d changed into the blue silk dress she’d planned to wear tomorrow, when she and Tom were supposed to leave for their honeymoon.

Once people saw her standing there, it was too late to run. She stiffened her spine, lifted her chin, and took a deep breath.

There were a surprising number of people here, all things considered. Had they come to jeer, as her mother had implied?

The first wave of guests reached her. She searched their faces, but there was no mockery or satisfied malice in anyone’s eyes. All she saw was kindness, warmth, and sympathy.

Would she have been so compassionate to someone else in her position? Or would she have derided them from behind the defensive fortress she’d spent so many years constructing?

That fortress was gone now. It lay in ruins all around her, exposing . . . what?

That was the danger in hiding behind walls for so long. Eventually, the walls became more real than whatever was behind them. Now that the walls had been destroyed, what remained?

She had a horrible feeling that the answer was nothing.

But she didn’t have to ask that question right now. Now she had something else to face: all the people who’d actually shown up at what had become a sideshow instead of a wedding reception, with herself as the main attraction.

The first person to reach her was Simone, which helped. Simone’s sturdy friendship and I-don’t-give-a-crap attitude was like a drink of cool water on a hot day. With Simone on her right and Vicki on her left, she might actually get through the next hour.

Then she saw Ben Taggart across the room.

Their eyes locked and Jessica felt a hot rush of embarrassment. Why did it bother her so much that he’d witnessed her humiliation? Hundreds of other people had, too—and almost all of them were a bigger part of her current life than Ben was.

Maybe it was because Ben had always been so honest himself, and so impatient with anything like artifice. In that brief moment when their eyes had met in church, he’d given her the same feeling he always had: that he was seeing below the surface.

The other guests had been smiling and happy for her—all the things you’d expect. But Ben had been frowning. Not in disapproval, exactly, but in . . . recognition? Concern?

She wasn’t sure what he’d been feeling. But he’d figured out what no one else but Simone had—that something was wrong. That the smiling face she wore walking down that aisle was a mask.

Now he was here, at the reception. Why? Was he reveling in her humiliation? That would be a little petty, considering that any grudge he might have against her was fifteen years old. Had he come because he felt sorry for her? That would be a hundred times worse.

A knot of people had drifted between her and Ben, obscuring her view of him. Now the crowd shifted and she got a clearer look.

He looked good, was the first unbidden thought that came to her mind. He shouldn’t, because he hated suits and he ought to look stiff as a board in one. But even though he’d always looked better in jeans and T-shirts, he looked good in suits, too.

He looked good in everything. He always had.

His dark hair was a bit longer than she usually liked on men, but it suited him. That, along with the lean power of his body and the rough, masculine planes of his face, made a fascinating contrast with the subdued lines of his jacket and tie.

And then, in a flashback to adolescence, her body responded with an electric rush that raised goose bumps on her skin.

They hadn’t seen each other in years and she was right in the middle of the worst day of her life, but apparently her hormones still clung to out-of-date programming.

But she’d been able to hide her reactions back then, when she was just a kid. She could certainly hide them now.

Especially if she didn’t get any closer. If there was any social function in the world at which she could abandon Emily Post’s rules of etiquette, surely this was it. She wasn’t going to “graciously greet all her guests,” damn it—especially when it came to Ben.

“I don’t know about you, but I think this occasion calls for hard liquor,” Simone said.

“I agree,” Vicki put in immediately. “In fact, that’s the best idea I’ve heard all day.”

Kate Meredith, Jessica’s other college roommate and Simone’s best friend, grabbed her hand.

“What do you say, Jess? Do you want to get drunk?”

She hadn’t been drunk since college. She started to say no, but the bar was on the side of the room farthest from Ben.

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

The band started playing a few minutes later. As people got up to dance with more abandon than you usually saw at a wedding reception, the crowd of people around Jessica thinned out until it was down to Kate, Simone, Vicki, and her other bridesmaids, who were clustered around her at the bar and matching her shot for shot.

“What is this called again?” she asked as she downed her fourth without coughing, an achievement she was unexpectedly proud of.

“Jägermeister.”

“Why does it taste so much better now than it did half an hour ago?”

Simone tossed down her own shot. “That’s the Jäger therapy kicking in. It makes everything go down easier.”

“Even getting left at the altar by your gay fiancé?”

Simone grinned at her. “Even that.”

The band started a song Jessica didn’t know, and Simone burst out laughing. “Who requested this? What a genius choice.”

Jessica listened until the song reached its two-word chorus: “Love
Stinks
!”

For just a moment she was horrified. Then, as the song went on, she started to giggle.

If someone had told her an hour ago that she’d actually be laughing at this reception, she’d have thought they were crazy.

“Thank you,” she said suddenly, looking around at the bridesmaids who hadn’t left her side since she’d entered the room.

“For what?” Kate asked.

“For being here. For getting me drunk. For putting up with me for the last year. For everything.”

Before she knew what was happening, the breath was being squeezed out of her in a group hug.

“Whoa. Okay, I need to breathe,” she said.

Then she heard an older female voice.

“Jessica?”

As her bridesmaids gave her space, she saw Ben’s mother standing there. Her husband was with her, but not, she was relieved to see, her son.

Amelia Taggart smiled and took her hand. “We’re leaving now, but we wanted to thank you for inviting us. Seth says it’s the most fun he’s ever had at a wedding reception.”

“Good food and good music, just like you promised,” he said.

Jessica had always liked the Taggarts. “The afternoon didn’t go quite the way I planned, but I’m very glad you came. Thank you.”

“It was our pleasure,” Amelia said. She hesitated a moment, and then she gathered Jessica in her arms for a hug. “If there’s ever anything we can do . . .”

“I’ll let you know.”

As soon as they were gone she looked around for Ben. Had he left before his parents? Or was he still here somewhere?

Scanning the room for him, she was struck again by how much fun people were having. The liquor was flowing at the tables as well as here at the bar. People were dancing, talking, eating, laughing.

It had turned out to be a pretty good party.

But as she watched her guests enjoying themselves, a wave of depression brought her own alcohol-inflated mood back down to earth. After all this was over, she would go to the apartment she and Tom were supposed to share . . . except that she would be alone.

Even here, surrounded by all these people—including some who were better friends than she’d given them credit for—she felt alone.

The bartender set her fifth shot on the mahogany bar. But as she started to reach for it, she finally caught sight of Ben. He was making his way through the crowd, but not toward the doors.

He was coming toward her.

Oh God. What did he want? To rub her nose in her humiliation, or to say something kind?

She honestly didn’t know which she’d hate more.

She left the shot on the bar, muttered something about needing the restroom, and fled.

The hallway outside the reception hall wasn’t very crowded. She really did need a bathroom, so she was glad to see the sign across the hall.

She was sitting on the toilet when she heard the outer door open. Two college-aged girls were chattering together as they came into the restroom, and she recognized their voices, although she didn’t know them well. They were cousins on her father’s side.

“Someone started a hashtag on Twitter. #JessicaWeddingFail. Have you seen it? It’s hysterical. I tweeted out the picture I took of her standing alone at the altar.”

“Oh my God, classic. That dress probably cost twenty thousand dollars. And the wedding had to be at least a hundred thousand. Can you imagine spending that much money just to tell the world you’re a fag hag? She’s been lording it over everyone for, like, years, and now Tom dumps her at the altar—for a
man
.”

They must have come in for a quick makeup check, because they left without using the facilities. Once the door closed behind them the bathroom was silent.

Jessica stayed where she was for a minute. Then she left the stall and went to the sink, turning on the faucet with shaking hands.

This was what her mother had warned her would happen. This was what her friends had shielded her from, at least for the last hour.

Almost every decision she’d made for the last fifteen years had been to protect herself from feeling vulnerable. All she’d ever wanted was to feel safe, strong, unassailable. She and Tom had decided to get married for the same reason—so they could help each other hide from the judgment of the world.

Now all that had been undone. She was exposed, weak, defenseless.

Not since eighth grade when the “mean girls” had bullied her for being a fat loser had she felt so powerless. Ben had told her over and over again that it didn’t matter, that she was better than all the kids who tried to tear her down, that he’d be her friend no matter what.

But the summer before ninth grade, she’d turned her back on Ben in order to forge a new path for herself. Two things had happened that summer: her uncle Jeffrey had moved out of the city, and her parents had offered to send her to a fat farm.

Her uncle’s leaving had put an end to something she’d never told another living soul—not her parents and not Ben. Once Jeffrey was gone, she’d decided to put the ugliness behind her. It would be as though it had never happened. She had a chance to start over, to remake herself—starting with her physical appearance.

By the time that summer was over, she saw a new future unfolding. She would never again be a victim, never again be on the outside, vulnerable and exposed. She would be on the inside, where it was safe. She would be popular, she would be beautiful, and she would never let anyone see her soft underbelly ever again.

Her plan had succeeded. And when her uncle passed away a few years later, it had seemed as though that part of her life was behind her for good.

Jessica turned off the faucet and leaned on the bathroom counter, staring at herself in the mirror. The one promise she’d made to her teenage self was that she’d never be anyone’s fool. Now, here she was—everyone’s fool.

She was a punch line. A hashtag. And as grateful as she was to Vicki and to her friends for standing by her today, they couldn’t change that. For the rest of her life, she would be known as the Park Avenue bride who’d been dumped at the altar. The socialite whose fiancé had left her for another man. Whenever she walked into a room, what had happened today would be the first thing—maybe the only thing—that anyone remembered about her.

It would follow her forever.

At the age of fourteen, she’d decided to reshape her life. She’d done everything she could to make a total break with the person she’d been, and she’d succeeded.

At twenty-eight, that option was no longer viable. In the age of social media there would be no escape, no burying of the past. There would be no place to hide.

But she could at least hide tonight. She could turn off her phone and leave this reception.

She wouldn’t even go back to the hall to say goodbye. She was sure her friends would forgive her for that, and no one else would blame her.

But when she emerged from the bathroom, she saw one obstacle to her plan. Ben Taggart, his back to her, was standing between her and the hotel exit.

Her heart leapt into her throat. Afraid he would turn and see her, she ducked into an empty function room.

There must have been an event in here not long before. There were coffee urns on one side of the room and cups scattered around the empty tables. Jessica sat down at one of them, put her elbows on the table, and covered her face with her hands.