The Next Best Thing. Kristan Higgins

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СКАЧАТЬ of time when such fun awaited them. Which was ironic, given that Ethan loved to both eat and cook.

      After the first six months or so, when I wasn’t quite so soggy, Ethan backed off a little, started doing the things normal guys do. For about two months, he dated Parker Welles, one of the rich summer folks, and to me, they seemed quite nice together. I liked Parker, who was irreverent and blunt, and assumed Ethan had found his match, so I was quite surprised when Ethan told me they’d broken up amicably. Then Parker found out she was pregnant, informed Ethan and politely declined his marriage proposal. She stayed in Mackerly, living in her father’s sprawling mansion out on Ocean View Avenue, where all the rich folks live, and gave birth to Nick. Why she passed on Ethan is a mystery—she’s told me time and again she thinks he’s a great guy, just not the one for her.

      After Nicky came into the world, Ethan and I found ourselves hanging out once more. I guess the privileges part was bound to happen eventually, though neither of us planned on it. In fact, you could say that I was stunned the first time he—well. More on that later. I should think about something other than Ethan.

      Looking around my apartment, I sigh. It’s a nice place—two bedrooms, a living room, big sunny kitchen with ample counter space for baking. Prints hang on the walls as well as a large photo of Jimmy and me on our wedding day. The furniture is comfortable, the TV state—of—the—art. My balcony overlooks a salt marsh. Jimmy and I were in the process of moving into a house when he died. Obviously I hadn’t wanted to live there without him, so I sold it and moved here, Ethan’s proximity a great comfort.

      I had imagined that Ethan and I would spend more than ten minutes breaking up, and I find myself at a bit of a loss for what to do. It’s nine—thirty on a Friday night. Some nights, Ash, the Goth teen who lives down the hall, comes over to play video games or catch a movie, but there’s a high school dance tonight, and her mother forced her to go. I could go over the syllabus for the pastry class I teach at the community college, but I’d just be guilding the lily, since I planned that out last week. My gaze goes to the TV.

      “Fat Mikey, would you like to see a pretty wedding?” I ask my cat, hefting him up for a nuzzle, which he tolerates gamely. “You would? Good boy.”

      The DVD is already in. I know, I know, I shouldn’t watch it so much. But I do. Now, though, if I really am moving on, if I’m going to find someone else, I really do need to stop. I pause, think about scrubbing the kitchen floor instead, decide against it and hit Play.

      I fast—forward through me getting ready, watching in amusement the jerky, sped—up movements of Corinne pinning the veil into my hair, my mother dabbing her eyes.

      Bingo. Jimmy and Ethan standing on the altar of St. Bonaventure’s. Ethan, the best man, is cracking a joke, no doubt, because the brothers are laughing. And then Jimmy looks up and sees me coming down the aisle. His smile fades, his wide, generous mouth drops open a little and he looks almost shocked with love. Love for me.

      I hit Pause, and Jimmy’s face freezes on the television screen. His eyes were so lovely, his lashes long and ridiculously pretty. A muscular physique despite cooking and eating all day, the longish blond hair that curled in the humidity, the way his eyes would half close when he looked at me…

      I swallow, feeling that old, familiar tightness in my throat, as if there’s a pebble lodged in there. It started after Jimmy died—I’d actually asked my cousin Anne, who’s a doctor, to see if I had a tumor in there, but she said it was just a classic symptom of anxiety. And now it’s back, I suppose, because I’m about to, er…move on. Or something.

      The last part of becoming fully alive again—because when Jimmy died, he took a huge part of me with him—would be to find someone new. I want to get married and have babies. I really do. I grew up without a dad, and I wouldn’t willingly take on single motherhood. And though I’ll always miss Jimmy, it’s time to move on. Finding another husband…it’s a good idea. Sure it is.

      It’s just that I’ll never love anyone the way I loved Jimmy. That’s the truth. And given how I was ripped apart when he died, it’s probably a good thing. I never want to feel anything like that again. Ever.

       CHAPTER THREE

      ON WEDNESDAY, I RIDE MY BIKE around Ellington Park. It’s a gorgeous day in early September, the breeze off the ocean spicing the salty air with a hint of autumn leaves, just beginning to turn at the tips. My spirits are bright as I pedal along the park. One would be hard—pressed to feel glum on such a sparkling day as this.

      Mackerly, Rhode Island, is as charming and tiny a town as they come in New England. Roughly two hundred yards off mainland Rhode Island, we boast two thousand year—rounders, five hundred more summer folk and a lot of pretty views of the ocean. A tidal river bisects the island, and all traffic, foot and otherwise, must cross that river.

      James Mackerly, a Mayflower descendant, planned our fair town around a massive chunk of land—Ellington Park, named after his mother’s family. On the far end of the park is the town green, notable for a flagpole, a memorial to the Mackerly natives who died in foreign wars and a statue of our founding father. The green bleeds south into Memorial Cemetery, which in turn leads to the park proper—gravel paths, flowering trees, the aforementioned tidal river, a playground, soccer field and baseball diamond. The park is dotted with elm and maple trees and enclosed by a beautiful brownstone wall. Farther up Narragansett Bay are Jamestown and Newport, and so Mackerly, being a little too tiny, is often overlooked by tourists. Which is fine with most of us.

      The Boatworks, where Ethan and I both live, is directly across from the south entrance of the park. Bunny’s is across from the north entrance, in view of the town green and the statue of James Mackerly sitting astride Trigger (well, the horse’s name wasn’t known, but we all call him Trigger). If I were a normal person, I’d head over the little arched footbridge, enjoy the gorgeous paths through the park, walk through the cemetery and emerge onto the green in front of the bakery and all the other little stores in the tiny downtown—Zippy’s Sports Memorabilia the building right next to and owned by Bunny’s, Lenny’s Bar, Starbucks and Gianni’s Ristorante Italiano. If I went that way, my route to work would only be a half mile. But I’m not normal, and so each day, I circumnavigate the park, stretching a half—mile route to three miles, heading west down Park Street so I can cross the river on Bridge Street, then turn again onto Main.

      I don’t like the cemetery. I love the park, but I can’t go into the cemetery. Instead I ride around it. Every day, which is a great excuse for exercise.

      I duck to avoid smacking my head on a low—hanging branch as I cruise along the cemetery wall. Underneath a generous chestnut tree and very close to the street is my father’s grave. Robert Stephen Lang, age 42, Beloved Husband and Father. “Hi, Daddy,” I call as I pass.

      Even before my dad died, and long before Jimmy, I’d hated the cemetery, and for good reason. When I was four, Iris’s husband, Uncle Pete died (esophageal cancer after a lifetime of Camels Unfiltered). I hadn’t been allowed to see him in the hospital—the hospice ward is no place for a kid—and so I didn’t realize how thin and wasted he’d become. The casket was closed at the wake, and pictures of a younger, healthier Pete had adorned the funeral home.

      At any rate, we all went to the cemetery, the men somber in their suits, black umbrellas provided by the funeral home hovering above the mourners. It had been a wet spring, and the ground was soft, saturated with rain. Our heels sank into the earth, and rainwater seeped into our shoes. I was sad, of course…all those grown—ups crying quite unnerved four—year—old me. I was about to become considerably more upset.

      Cousin СКАЧАТЬ