The Boyfriend of the Month Club (40 page)

“Sarah, are you really in love with my brother? Because if this is some kind of rebound, then maybe it’s not too late to—”

“Grace, I’ve never loved anyone
but
Charlie.”

“Really? Because I thought you did a pretty good imitation with Craig.”

“Craig was a mistake.”

“No shit.”

“Why are you mad at me? I thought you’d be thrilled! Wasn’t it just last month you were trying to get me and Charlie together?”

“Yeah, get you together on a
date
. That’s how it works. First you go on some dates, then you get serious. Then you get engaged, and then you get married. The whole process usually lasts longer than twelve hours.” She knew she sounded like a bitch, but she couldn’t help herself.

“You think I’ve taken advantage of Charlie.”

“Does this have anything to do with what I told you the other night? About Craig cheating on you with Carla before the wedding? Is running off to marry Charlie some kind of revenge against Craig?”

“Grace, listen to me. I’m glad you told me about Craig and Carla! It made everything so much easier for me.”

“Easier?”
Grace began pacing the living room. “You’ll have to explain that one, Sarah, because right now all I can think about is the sound of your voice six months ago when you called to tell me that you’d just caught your husband in bed with another woman. If you don’t remember, maybe I can replay it for you, because
believe me
, that voice has pretty much haunted me every day since.”

Sarah flinched. “I’m sorry. I should have told you the truth a long time ago.”

“So tell me now.”

Sarah downed the rest of her margarita like she was going to need it.

“The reason I was so hysterical on the phone that night wasn’t because I was upset about finding Craig and Carla together. Although, I have to admit, it was a shocker. I was hysterical because I gave up Charlie for
nothing.
Grace, I’ve been in love with Charlie since . . . well, I could say that I’ve been in love with him since I was seventeen, only that wouldn’t really be true. That was more of a schoolgirl crush. But I can honestly say that I’ve been in love with him, I mean
really
in love with him, for the past six years.”

Grace stopped her pacing.
“What?”

“Charlie’s version of our getting together wasn’t exactly honest,” Sarah said. “He made up that whole story of me discovering my feelings Saturday night to protect me.”

“You’ve totally lost me.” Grace took a huge swig of her margarita. Sarah wasn’t the only one who needed a little fortification.

“Do you remember the weekend that a bunch of us all went up to the Florida-FSU football game and we stayed at that bed-and-breakfast in Micanopy? I’d just gotten my interior design license and I was going out with Martin and you were dating that guy Pete.”

“The one who kept doing the Seminole chop in my face every time Florida scored a touchdown? What an asshole!”

“Yeah.” Sarah laughed a little. “And Charlie and some of his friends showed up, and he brought that girl with him, the one who laughed at everything he said like he was some kind of rock star and we kept making fun of her behind her back?”

“Trish the Dish. Blonde, long legs, big boobs.”

“God, I think I still hate her.”

Grace conjured up a fuzzy image of that weekend. She remembered Sarah acting strange. Oddly quiet one minute, giddy the next.

“From the minute that weekend started, I was a mess inside and I couldn’t figure out why. And then it hit me: I was jealous of Trish. And I don’t mean jealous in a little way either. I wanted to freakin’ knock her out.”

“
That’s
when you realized you were in love with Charlie?” Grace asked.

“You remember how we tailgated after the game, and that by the time we got back to the inn it was really late? And everyone just crashed because they were so drunk and tired. But I wasn’t drunk and I wasn’t tired, so I took a walk to clear my head about . . . you know, all these
strange
feelings I was having. A cold front had come in and I hadn’t brought my jacket with me, so I cut my walk short. And when I got back to the inn, Charlie was sitting on the porch in one of those big rocking chairs, smoking a cigar, which was weird because I’d never seen him smoke before. And he gave me his jacket and he showed me how to smoke the cigar the right way, but I just kept coughing and we started laughing. And I knew, I mean, I just
knew
that he’d seen me leave and that he’d been sitting there waiting for me to come back all that time.”

Grace held her breath.

“We must have talked for at least four hours. And he told me . . . well, we kissed, and
oh my God
, Grace.” The look on Sarah’s face made Grace swallow hard. “It was beyond anything I’d ever felt, and I knew then that Charlie was the only one for me and I wanted to wake you up and tell you everything.”

“Why didn’t you?” None of this made sense. This was Sarah, her best friend, who told her everything. Only apparently not.

“I wish I had, because I wanted to tell someone. I wanted to tell
you
, but I was afraid you might . . . Remember how we used to make bets on how long Charlie’s girlfriends would last? I think deep down I was afraid that you might try to talk me out of him.”

“Talk you out of him? Why would I have talked you out of my own brother?”

But in that instant, Grace knew what Sarah said was true. On some level, just like Abuela and Mami, Grace had suspected there was something between Charlie and Sarah, only that level was buried so deep inside it hadn’t found its way to the surface. Not until that night at Grace’s apartment when she’d seen them bantering and caught the look of sheer longing on Charlie’s face. But even then, Grace hadn’t suspected the depth of those feelings. Or that Sarah felt them just as strongly. Grace hadn’t wanted to.

Sarah took a deep breath and continued. “So I thought, okay, this is it. It all begins now and I won’t have to tell Grace because she’ll
see
it. Only the next day he was the old Charlie again, calling me squirt and acting like nothing had happened between us. Then, about a week later, we went out for coffee and he told me he was sorry, that it would be dumb of us to start something because if—and I could tell what he really meant was
when
—it went sour, it would be too awkward between you and me, since you were my best friend and I was already practically part of the family. So it was best to just leave things the way they were.”

“Charlie got cold feet.”

“I was so angry, Grace. I started yelling at him right in the middle of Starbucks.”

“
You
yelled in public?”

“Oh, yeah. I showed out bad. I told him he was just a big coward and that he didn’t deserve me and that one day he would be sorry.”

How could all this have gone on and Grace not known about it?

Sarah, who was like a sister to her. Sarah, who Grace loved just as much as she loved Charlie, had gone through all this and had never said a word to her.

“Then I started dating Craig and we got serious and I thought, this is it again. I was at a crossroads, and surely Charlie would say something or do something, but he never did. It’s not that I didn’t love Craig in my own way. But I was settling and it was just stupid. Really, really stupid of me. And then before I knew it, Craig asked me to marry him and I said yes. And Mother planned this
huge
wedding, and everything cost a fortune, and a few days before the wedding Craig and I got in a big fight. He told me that he loved me but that if I wasn’t really into it that we should call the whole thing off. And I freaked and told him that there was
no way
I was backing out.

“Then, the night before my wedding . . . the night
before
my wedding, Grace! Charlie knocked on my door at two in the morning. He’d been drinking. He asked me to call things off with Craig and give him another chance. If he thought he’d seen me angry before, he hadn’t seen anything yet. What was I supposed to do? Call everything off because Charlie had finally come to his senses?” Sarah blinked, and Grace could see she was fighting back tears. “I told him he was too late and to get the hell out of there and to never talk to me again unless he had to.”

Sarah’s stubborn and unforgiving
. Charlie hadn’t been talking about Craig; he’d been talking about his own relationship with Sarah. The thought made Grace shiver.

“My brother is a total idiot.”

“
I’m
the idiot. If I’d just swallowed my pride and had some guts, I’d have called off my wedding.”

“But what he was asking . . . the night before your wedding! I don’t know how he could have expected you to change your mind like that.” Then something occurred to Grace. “If I’d told you about Craig and Carla, maybe you would have.”

The realization that Grace’s omission had done so much more harm that she’d even imagined was staggering.

“I don’t know, Grace. I was angry at Charlie. And I wanted to hurt him the way he’d hurt me. Maybe this was how it was all supposed to happen. Maybe Charlie and I had to go through everything to get to where we are now.”

“You think you were supposed to stay married to a lying scumbag for two years before you got your happily-ever-after?”

There was a long silence before Sarah spoke again. Her voice was low and Grace had to strain to hear her. “Craig didn’t cheat on me until after
I’d
cheated on him. At least, not while we were married.”

“But that’s not possible!” Even as she said it, Grace realized that
anything
was possible. Everything she thought she knew about herself, about Sarah, even about her own brother had been challenged in the past few days.

“Last May, when Craig was out of town on business, I ran into Charlie at the gas station.” Sarah shook her head. “Not the most romantic place in the world, but it was the first time since the night before my wedding that Charlie and I had been alone together, you know, without family or someone we knew around. We talked and I followed him back to his place and I think it took us about all of five minutes before we started tearing off each other’s clothes. You have
no
idea what it’s like to want something so badly for so long and then finally have it.”

Grace wasn’t sure she wanted to hear this. This was Sarah and Charlie, and it was just all so weird. Incestuous, almost. But not. She forced herself to listen.

“Charlie wanted me to leave Craig right away, to file for divorce. And that’s what I wanted too, but even though I was deliriously happy, I couldn’t get it out of my head that what I’d done was wrong. It was
adultery
, Grace.” Sarah’s voice started to shake. “I told Craig and he begged me to go to counseling, to see if we could give our marriage another try. And I felt like I owed him that at least. And Charlie was angry with me for giving in to Craig. And I was angry at myself and—”

“Wait! I’m confused. After you caught Craig with Carla and you decided to file for divorce, why didn’t you and Charlie get together then?”

“Charlie and I left things so badly. He didn’t understand how after we’d been together, I could . . . you know, try to make things work with Craig. But I swear I never slept with Craig again. I just couldn’t. Not after being with Charlie.”

“Male pride,” Grace said, shaking her head in disgust.

“That night you told me Charlie was moving to Miami . . . I almost threw up in the car. I must have called him a dozen times and hung up before he could answer. Then, at the meeting Saturday night, when Phoebe accused Charlie of sexual harassment . . .” Sarah’s face went red. “Well, you saw my reaction.”

“You were awesome,” Grace said. “I was so proud of you!”

“I realized then that Charlie and I had been playing some kind of stupid game to see which of us would be the first to cave in, and I didn’t care anymore. So I drove to his house. I didn’t even have to say anything. I rang his doorbell and . . . The look on his face when he saw me . . . He grabbed me and we started kissing and he threw some clothes in a bag and we jumped in his car and when I asked him where we were going he just kept laughing and telling me I’d find out. And we got to the airport and he paid this outrageous fortune for tickets to Vegas and I thought, okay, we’re going on a romantic getaway. But then . . . right there at the counter, in front of everyone, he got down on one knee and he asked me to marry him.

“And I said yes. Well, I think I actually
screamed
yes, and everyone around us started clapping, like we were in some corny movie! And Grace, I’ll be honest, even though it would have been nice to have you and my parents and your parents and Abuela there, I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.”

Tears were running into Grace’s margarita. She wiped her nose on the edge of her sleeve. “It’s the most
perfect
thing I’ve ever heard.”

Sarah nodded, her own tears running down her cheeks. “I’m going to hell, aren’t I?”

“If you’re going to hell, then so am I.”

“No,” Sarah said. “This isn’t going to be fixed by saying three Hail Marys and two Our Fathers. I’m really going to hell. Or worse. There’s probably a special place for people like me. Someplace like limbo where the dead babies who aren’t baptized go, only it’s for all the selfish Catholics who break commandments and don’t care. I bet Sister Perpetua would know what it’s called.”

Grace began to laugh at the utter ridiculousness of it all, only Sarah was right. Not about the going to hell part, because Grace didn’t believe God worked that way. At least, not the God Grace believed in. But they’d managed to make a big muck out of the sacrament of marriage, and Grace had to take some responsibility in it as well. The fact was, she should have told Sarah what she suspected about Craig before the wedding, no matter how uncomfortable the whole thing might have been.

“Sarah, remember that night outside Florida Charlie’s when we were waiting in the car before the boyfriend club meeting and you asked me why I was trying to get you and Charlie together now? Why I hadn’t tried, like, five years earlier?”