Arranged Read Free

remember all that wishing and hoping I did on the North Star? Turns out it did change my luck. For the worse.
    It all started when I ran into my ex-boyfriend, Tadd.
    It was about six weeks after the breakup. Through a supreme act of will, I hadn’t spoken to Stuart since I left. I’d worked my way through the first three stages of breakup grief—Good Riddance; I Did the Right Thing, Right?; and Maybe I Should Call Him to See if He’s Okay?—and settled on I Should and Will Be Alone Forever.
    I spent the weekend revising the book I’m writing, after receiving a bunch of comments from my literary agent. I was having trouble making the changes she wanted, and by Sunday, I was feeling down on myself and disconnected. The cold, steady rain—and the fact that I’d spent the entire weekend in pajamas—wasn’t helping. When the weatherman said it might snow, I decided to go shopping for a new winter coat. My old one seemed to have gone missing in the move. Hopefully, this was the last time I’d have to send two burly men to pack my stuff in absentia.
    Strike that. I will never have to do that again. You got that, Anne? Good. Continue.
    Anyway, I was walking through Banana Republic when I smacked right into Tadd. Winded, I looked up into his blue, blue eyes. I took in his features, the way the gray crewneck he was wearing hugged his straight shoulders, and I felt my stomach whoosh. Then I realized who it was. Or, to be honest, I realized who it was when Tadd said, “Anne, hi!”
    How did this beautiful man know my name? I looked closer. “Oh. Hi, Tadd.”
    “It’s been a long time.”
    It had been. We’d met when I was twenty-four. I was working at a small weekly paper. The owners hired Tadd as their lawyer when a large company offered to buy him out. Tadd spent a couple of days at the paper to learn the business, and I was assigned to show him around. He was the best-looking thing I’d seen since I graduated from college, and I made sure he knew I was interested and available. We dated for over a year, and then I broke up with him, though the precise reason why was fuzzy to me at that moment.
    “Yeah, it has.”
    “Yeah.”
    “So,” I said after an awkward pause, “what have you been up to?”
    “Life . . . work . . . working out . . .”
    As Tadd droned on, I remembered why I’d broken up with him. He’s the most boring man on earth. In fact, if I’m being totally truthful, the only interesting thing about Tadd is how good-looking he is.
    Oh my God, how did I go out with him for over a year? Was there really nothing that connected us except his looks? What the hell was wrong with me?
    Through the haze of his boringness, I heard him say, “And I got married last year.”
    “What was that?”
    “I said, I got married last year. My wife’s trying on clothes back there.” He motioned toward the fitting rooms.
    “You’re married?” I felt funny, like I’d been winded again.
    “Are you all right?”
    I tried to seem calm. “I’m fine.”
    “You look pale.”
    I guess I failed. “Just store disease, I guess. I hate shopping malls.”
    “You do?”
    Crap. Tadd loves to shop, and in the first flush of love, we spent many weekends in stores like this one, trying on clothes and smiling when the shopgirls said how good we looked together. Tadd looks even better in a store mirror than in real life, and I loved looking at him in that slightly distorted way. But there was no point explaining this to him. I can’t even explain it to myself.
    “I do when I’m tired. It’s been a long week.”
    “Oh, sure.”
    “So, how did you meet your wife?”
    His face lit up. “She’s a lawyer in my office . . .”
    I tried to look interested, but all I could think was that the King of Boring was married and I was still single. Well, maybe she was into his money. Oh, right, she was a lawyer too, she had plenty of money of her own. Well, maybe she was equally boring and didn’t know any better. Yeah, that