Page 104 of Save the Date
“Hi,” he said, shaking Cara’s hand politely. “I’m an old friend of Brooke’s. Pete Haynes. Sorry to interrupt your lunch.”
“Not at all,” Cara murmured.
“The thing is, Pete, Cara’s my wedding planner. I’m getting married next month.”
“July the sixth,” Cara said helpfully.
If he was stunned, he didn’t show it. “You’re engaged?”
Brooke held up her left hand, where Harris Strayhorn’s diamond solitaire twinkled from her slender ring finger. “I am.”
“Oh.” He shifted from one foot to the other as the news sunk in. “That’s great. Good for you. Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” Brooke said. She gave him a bright smile. “How about you? Is there a wife down there on Cumberland Island?”
“No,” he said, pressing his lips together. “Nothing like that. Anyway, I gotta get going. It was nice to see you again, Brooke. And uh, good luck with the wedding and everything. I hope you’ll, uh, be very happy.”
“I’m sure we will be,” Brooke said. Cara watched Brooke watching him weave his way through the crowded tables to the dining room exit. The waitress came over, and dropped the leatherette folder with the bill on the table, but Brooke picked it up before Cara could.
“My treat,” Brooke said. She tucked some bills in the envelope. They both stood to leave.
“You’ll go over the seating chart?” Cara prompted.
“I swear. Email it to me again, and I’ll let you know,” Brooke promised.
“Today?”
“Absolutely.”
Cara stood and took her pocketbook from the back of the chair. She couldn’t help but notice that the slip of paper with Pete Haynes’s email address was right where Brooke had left it.
41
Cara was headed back to the shop when her cell phone rang.
“Hi Brooke. Did you have a chance to look at the seating chart this quickly?”
“Sorry, not yet. Cara?”
“Yes?”
“About what I said. Earlier, in the restaurant. About me and Pete. You probably think I’m awful. A total slut.”
“I don’t think that,” Cara said. “Anyway, it was a long time ago. You said yourself, until today you hadn’t seen the guy in years.”
“It’s been five years. I’m not trying to excuse what I did, but you have to understand. That summer? Before I moved to Atlanta and started law school, it was like I was in this little bubble, and the only reality was me and Pete. I still can’t explain it. I loved Harris, and I knew we would get married eventually. But he was in Atlanta, and I was in DC. And Pete was right there. And we had so much fun together, it was like we were kids back in high school again.”
“Brooke. Why are you telling me all this? I’m not judging you.”
“I know,” Brooke said, sighing. “Maybe I’m trying to explain it to myself. The thing is, at the time, it didn’t seem wrong. As long as Harris didn’t know about Pete, and Pete didn’t know about Harris, I thought nobody could get hurt. And they didn’t. It was just that one summer.”
“Five years ago,” Cara said.
“And it’s over,” Brooke said. “Okay. This was weird. Forget I called. Forget I told you any of it.”
“Any of what?”
“Thanks, Cara,” Brooke said.
