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Chapter One
The gray slush of Fifth Avenue seeped through the seams of my shoes, soaking my socks as I trudged down the famed New York City street. Monday was living up to its reputation. The cold squish spread over my feet, and I stopped in front of a bright department store window, resenting NYC and this trip in particular.
Jamming my hands in the pockets of my lightweight raspberry-colored coat, I glanced at the rushing throng. It would be obvious to any onlookers that I didn’t belong. I didn’t have the dark-hued wardrobe. Native New Yorkers streamed past me on the sidewalk in a collage of black and gray.
A teenager walking five dogs stopped to look at the holiday display, the dogs bouncing and yipping around him. As I watched, a Pomeranian and a dachshund crisscrossed their leashes around him. Before I could call a warning, he stepped back from the window and tripped on the ensnarement, landing on the sidewalk.
My ER nurse training kicking in, I sprinted the few steps to his side. “Are you okay?”
He blinked at me and scratched his head, still clutching the collection of leashes in his hand. “Yeah.”
I crouched down and untangled the two lines that were wrapped around him, and the Pomeranian licked my face. I laughed. “Was that kiss for me, sweetie?” The other dogs jumped excitedly around me. “Okay, everyone, behave.”
The dogwalker raised his eyebrows and frowned like I might be talking to him too, but he didn’t question it as I helped him to his feet. “Thanks,” he said, keeping slightly narrowed eyes on me as if not quite trusting my motives.
“No problem.” Funny how fast a dog could lift the spirits. I checked that the leashes were no longer encircling him before I stepped away, wiping my cheek of doggy affection. “It’s always great to start the day with a kiss!”
His eyes rounded with alarm, and he hurried off. He was already at the corner when my phone buzzed with a text. I pulled it from my pocket and fumbled it, watching it fall into a snowbank just as I caught sight of the sender.
Joshua Whittaker.
TheJoshua Whittaker. My heart seized and my head screamed that twenty-seven was too young to die of a caller-ID-induced heart attack.
But it wasJosh. Josh my former best friend. Josh my ex-love. Josh who stranded me and my broken heart and would likely be unavoidable this week at my little sister’s wedding. Our five-year silent standoff had yet to be breached. I dove into the gray-and-black snow and retrieved my phone to read the words he’d ventured after all this time.
Can’t wait to catch up with you this week.
That was it? What kind of mind game was this?
My phone rang in my hands before I could further contemplate the text and dissect all its possible ramifications.
Lindsay was calling. My gut contracted with dread. What wedding catastrophe was befalling my sister now? Against my will, my finger swiped the screen to answer.
Her panic was audible before I even said hello.
“Margot, where are you? You said you’d be back twenty minutes ago.” There was a rustle and when Lindsay spoke again, her voice was a whisper, though she sounded closer to the phone. “You were supposed to ick-pay up anet-Jay.”Pick up Janet. And keep her occupied so Lindsay wouldn’t have to deal with Janet’s unsought input on the wedding. Lindsay’s fiancé’s older sister was proving to be far too interested in the smallest of details. It was only a matter of time until Lindsay’s ticking time bomb of emotional C-4 detonated.
“Sorry.” I’d taken my time getting coffee this morning and had been dragging my feet getting back. I’d heard of brides with cold feet, but it wasn’t usually an issue for the maid of honor.
Lindsay hadn’t even really wanted me to be here. Our mom had extracted promises from us long ago that Lindsay and I would be each other’s maid of honor. Then we’d at least appear to be the best friends Mom had always wanted us to be. “I’ll be right there to take on Janet duty,” I reassured Lindsay before taking a sip of my coffee.
There was a pause on her end, and I could picture her narrowed eyes glaring at the phone in her hand. “Is this one of those times when you say you’ll be right there, but you take another hour and a half to get somewhere, wandering around lost in your imagination?”
I sputtered out my coffee. “What? No! Of course not. I’m leaving very soon. To be there. And help you with Janet.”
Despite how convincing I sounded to myself, Lindsay’s voice climbed an octave. “You know the seamstress is here right now sewing those pearls back on?” Lindsay had experienced a minor wardrobe emergency yesterday when two beads she’d been fondling had unraveled from the neckline of her wedding gown. It took me forty-five minutes of crawling around on the hotel floor to find them and a half hour on the phone with the dressmaker, begging, before she agreed to come to the hotel to repair it. Yes, I remembered. “Well, I could always have her make some last-minute adjustments to your dress. Maybe cut a panel out of the back so it’ll show your underwear, or I know! Add some weird ruffles that all point to your crotch.”
Would Lindsay resort to formalwear sabotage? She was bluffing. She had to be. I was almost sure she was bluffing. She cared how her bridesmaids looked. We were a reflection of her. I hoped. I clutched the phone tighter.
“I’ll be there. Soon, Linds. Really, really soon.”
Lindsay sighed into the phone. I’d oversold it with the doublereally.
“It’s not like you evenknowthe N.Y.C.” Lindsay actually said the letters too—the“N.Y.C.” instead of New York City. I’d wanted to go to college intheN.Y.C, too, but I’d stayed in Atlanta and helped my Dad through cancer. I hadn’t made it here and she had. Ever since then I’ve felt that NYC might have given me an IOU for a future adventure. Which unfortunately would not be happening this week since Lindsay’s wedding would be the sole focus of the city’s attention.
“Nope, I don’t.” I kicked one shoe against the other, knocking off a small chunk of slush. Someone in the foot traffic jostled me from behind, and I stepped closer to the department store window. As Lindsay went on to enumerate the ways I was disappointing her as a maid of honor, my eyes focused on the window display in front of me for the first time.
I stopped breathing.
