My One and Only. Kristan Higgins
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and forced myself to take a deep breath of the salty, moist air, savoring the tang of baitfish (hey, I was a local). I listened to the sound of the endless island wind, which buffeted my house from two directions this night, bringing me strands of music and laughter from other places, other homes. Calm down, Harper, I told myself sternly. Nothing to panic about. Not yet, anyway.
“I’m getting a glass,” a voice said. Kim, my neighbor and closest friend. “Then I want to hear everything.”
“Sure,” I answered. “Who’s with the kids?”
“Their idiot father,” she answered.
As if summoned, Lou’s voice shattered the relative quiet as he yelled across the small side yard that separated our homes. “Honey? Where’s the box of Pull-Ups?”
“Find them your damn self! They’re your kids, too!” Kim bellowed back.
This was followed by a shriek and a howl from one of Kim’s four sons. I suppressed a shudder. Our houses were only a few yards apart, though happily, mine jutted out past hers, preventing me from having to witness their particular brand of domestic bliss.
“This house is a pigsty!” Lou yelled.
“So clean it!” his bride returned.
“How do you keep the magic?” I asked, taking another sip. Kim smiled and flopped down in the chair next to me.
“You’d never know we were screwing like monkeys last night,” she said, helping herself to the wine.
“And how do monkeys screw?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Fast and furious,” she laughed, clinking her glass against mine.
Kim and Lou were happily (if sloppily) married. Not exactly my role models, but reassuring nonetheless. They’d moved in a couple of years ago; Kim appeared on my doorstep with a box of Freihofer’s doughnuts and a bottle of wine and offered friendship. My kind of woman.
“Mommy!” came the voice of one of the twins.
“I’m busy!” she called. “Ask your father! Honest to God, Harper, it’s a wonder I haven’t sold them into slavery.” Kim often claimed to envy my single, working woman’s life, but the truth was, I envied hers. Well, in some ways. She and Lou were solid and affectionate, completely secure in the happy way they bickered and bossed each other around. (See? I had nothing against marriage when it was done right.) Their kids ranged in age from seven to two. Griffin was the oldest and had the soul of a sixty-year-old man. Once in a while, he’d come over to play Scrabble and admire Coco. I liked him; definitely preferred him over the four-year-old twins, Gus and Harry, who left a path of chaos, blood and rubble wherever they went. The two-year-old, Desmond, had bitten me last week, but seconds later put his sticky little face against my knee, an oddly lovely sensation, so the jury was still a bit torn over him.
“So are you engaged?” Kim asked, settling in the chair next to me. “Tell me now so I can start my diet. No way am I going to be a bridesmaid weighing this much.”
“I am not engaged,” I answered calmly.
“Holy shitake!” Kim, who tried not to curse in front of her kids, had invented her own brand of swearing, which I’d latched on to myself. “He turned you down?”
“Well, not exactly. My sister called during negotiations, and guess what? She’s getting married.”
“Again?”
“Exactly. But it gets better. She just met him a month ago, and guess what else? He’s…” I paused, took another slug of liquid courage. “He’s my ex-husband’s brother. Half brother, actually.”
She sputtered on her wine. “You have an ex-husband, Harper? How did I not know this?”
I glanced at her. “I guess it never came up. Long ago, youthful mistake, yadda yadda ad infinitum.” I wondered if she bought it. Both of us ignored the screeches that came from her house, though Coco jumped on my lap, channeling Chihuahua, and trembled, cured from her terror only by a potato chip.
“Well, well, well,” Kim said when I offered no further information.
“Yes.”
“So Willa just…ran into your ex-brother-in-law?” Kim asked. “Sure, it’s a small world, but come on. In New York City?”
I hadn’t asked about that, a bit too slammed by the mention of…him…to properly process the information. After all these years of not thinking about him, his name now pulsed and burned in my brain. I shrugged and took another sip of wine, then leaned my head against the back of the chair. The sky was lavender now, only a thin stripe of fading red at the horizon marking the sun’s descent. The tourists who’d come to watch the sunset clambered back into their cars to head for Oak Bluffs or Edgartown for dinner and alcohol—Chilmark, like five of Martha’s Vineyard’s other towns, was dry. Ah, New England.
“So will you be seeing him again? The ex? What’s his name?”
“I guess so, if they actually go through with it. The wedding’s supposed to be in two weeks. In Montana.” Another sip. “His name is Nick.” The word felt big and awkward as it left my mouth. “Nick Lowery.”
“Yoo-hoo! Harper, darlin’! Where you at? Did you talk to your sister? Isn’t it just so exciting! And romantic? My stars, I almost peed my pants when she told me!”
My stepmother charged into the house—she never knocked. “We’re out here, BeverLee,” I called, getting up to greet her—bouffanted, butter-yellow hair sprayed five inches off her scalp (“The bigger the hair, the closer to God,” she often said), more makeup than a Provincetown drag queen, shirt cut down to reveal her massive cleavage. My dad’s trophy wife of the past twenty years…fifteen years younger than he was, blond and Texan. Behind her, my tall and skinny father was almost invisible.
“Hi, Dad.” My father, not one to talk unless a gun was aimed at his heart, nodded, then knelt to pet Coco, who wagged so hard it was a wonder her spine didn’t crack. “Hi, Bev. Yes, I talked to her.” I paused. “Very surprising.”
“Well, hello, there, Kimmy! How you doin’? Did Harper here tell you the happy news?”
“She shore did,” Kim said, immediately sliding into a Texas accent, something she swore was unconscious. “So excitin’!” She caught my eye and winked.
“I know it!” BeverLee chortled. “And oh, my, Montana! That’s just so romantic! I guess Chris worked out there one summer or some such…whatever, I can’t wait! Hoo-whee! What color’s your dress gonna be, honey? Jimmy, what do you think?”
I glanced at my father. He rose, put his hands in his pockets and nodded. This, I knew from experience, would be his contribution to the conversation…Dad was silent to the point of comatose. But BeverLee didn’t need other people to have a conversation, and sure enough, she continued.
“I’m thinking lavender, what do y’all think? For you, Harper, not me. I’m fixin’ on getting this little orange number I saw online. Cantaloupe-mango, they called the color, you know? And y’all know how I love orange.”
“I’d better go,” Kim said. “I hear glass breaking over at my house. Talk to you soon, Harper. Bye, Mr. James, Mrs. James.”
“Honey, y’all don’t need to call me Miz James! I told you that a million times!”
“Bye, BeverLee,” Kim said amiably. She tossed back the rest of her wine and gave me a wave.
“See you,” I said to her, then turned to my father and stepmother. “So. Before we pick out the dress, maybe we should talk about the, uh, wisdom of this event?”
“Wisdom? Listen to you, darlin’!” BeverLee exclaimed. “Jimmy, get your butt in that-there chair. Your daughter wants to talk!” She came over to me and pulled my hair out of its ponytail and started fluffing, ignoring my squirm. “Honestly,