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As the newcomers filtered into the kitchen to say hello to Dinah and George, Talulah slipped to the outer edge of the party and stood against the wall, grateful that she was no longer the center of attention. But she had only a short reprieve before Bob, Averil’s oldest brother, noticed her. “Wow. What areyoudoing here?” he asked.
Before Talulah could come up with an appropriate answer, Averil slugged him playfully on the arm. “Oh, stop,” she said. “Iinvited her.”
Bob didn’t seem mollified. The family had probably been talking viciously about the woman who’d stood up their brother at the altar—and doing it for so long and as recently as the funeral—that he wasn’t willing to welcome the runaway bride back into their circle. “Oh, yeah? What’d Charlie have to say about that?”
“It was his choice to come today,” Averil replied. “I told him she’d be here.”
“You expected him to miss a family meal forhersake?”
“Bob, that’s enough,” Dinah said.
“Charlie comes over all the time,” Averil said in her own defense. “He’s a big boy. Missing one meal wouldn’t kill him. And Talulah was one of my best friends growing up. I haven’t associated with her since we graduated, because of Charlie. I deserve some consideration in this, too, don’t you think?”
Wishing she could simply disappear, Talulah shifted from one foot to the other. “I’m sorry,” she started to say, but Bob spoke over her.
“She didn’t have to wait until the wedding to break up with him,” he said. “There’s no excuse for that.”
Talulah was certain they’d been saying that to each other for fourteen years. And they were right. She didn’t know how to make them understand what went on in her head and heart back then, but she wasn’t willing to let Averil continue to stand up for her, especially against family members. “I owe you all an apology,” she said, loudly enough that even Bob’s wife and two kids, both preteens, suddenly stopped talking and began to pay attention. “I was barely eighteen when I almost married Charlie. It might be easy to say I should’ve handled it differently. And I sincerely wish I had. But... I couldn’t. I didn’t want to disappoint him.”
Charlie had come all the way into the kitchen, too, behind his big brother. When he heard what she said, he made a sound that indicated he was incredulous, but she’d come this far—she could only persevere with her speech. “I didn’t want to disappoint Averil, either,” she continued. “After all, it’s not every day you have the chance to become a sister to one of your best friends.” She looked around at the rest of the family, all of whom were staring at her. “To be honest, I didn’t want to disappointanyone. I did express some reservations privately to Charlie and suggested we hold off on getting married. But he said we just needed to start our lives together and everything would be okay.”
“I don’t remember saying that,” Charlie grumbled.
“We had that discussion,” Talulah insisted. “What I did—it doesn’t happen out of nowhere. There were signs. You just didn’t want to see them, and I kept trying to forge ahead—for your sake and Averil’s and my family’s.”
“Because marrying me would be so terrible?” Charlie said.
“No. I knew it wouldn’t be,” Talulah replied. “Or I would’ve backed out sooner. What I’m saying is that you deserved more than I could’ve given you. You deserved someone who was madly in love with you and devoted to you and would stick with you through thick and thin—not a woman who had to talk herself into staying in the relationship. I loved you,” she said, and his gaze dropped to the floor. “Part of mestillloves the boy you used to be, even after all the years you’ve hated me. But I’ve never beeninlove with you, Charlie. Not the way I’m in love with Brant.”
His family, most of whom had been unable to meet her eyes as she spoke, suddenly looked up. “Did you sayBrant?” Bob asked and focused on Averil for confirmation. “Did you hear that?”
Talulah felt sick inside. Instead of waiting for the right time and place, she’d just blurted out her true feelings before they could even eat dinner.
“That can’t be true...” Averil said, her voice barely above a whisper. “You only want him because I do.”
Closing her eyes, Talulah kneaded her forehead. “That isn’t why, Averil. That’s the reason I’ve been trying to talk myselfoutof loving him. Do you think I want to disappoint you again?”
Tears instantly filled her friend’s eyes, and she pushed her way through the people crowded around them as she left the kitchen.
“You can’t be serious!” Charlie exclaimed. “What does he have that I don’t?”
She shook her head. “I can’t explain it, Charlie.”
“But...you’re not going to stay here and marry him, are you? I bet you’ll back out at the last minute, like you did to me. You can’t handle commitment. That’s what it is. But I don’t care. He deserves to know what it feels like.”
“We haven’t even talked about marriage.”
“You’d have to give up your dessert diner to move back here.”
“I realize that.”
“And what about Paul? He thinks you’re coming back to him.”
She ignored the “to him” part, even though she knew Charlie had phrased the statement to make her look and feel as bad as possible. “I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she admitted, and after mumbling yet another apology to the others—who were all gaping at her—she hurried through the kitchen so she could let herself out of the house.
Before she drove away, however, she retrieved Mitch’s teddy bear from her back seat and left it on the doorstep.
It was the first time they’d been together in public as a couple. Brant was relieved that all the sneaking around was over, that he and Talulah could go wherever they wanted, whenever they wanted. It would now be much more obvious—to everyone—that Talulah had dropped him just like she’d dropped Charlie if she never returned from Seattle after she went home. But he wasn’t one to worry too much about what other people thought. If she didn’t come back to him, embarrassment would be the least of what he’d suffer.
