On This Day Read Free

not sure why that is or why it bothers me that it is. Maybe I’ll settle for a BMW, a classic that’s in mint condition, the style with the boxy body design, and with leather that’s nicely broken in. I can see myself driving something like that. Phil would give me his old line: “Cars like that are the owners’ nightmares and the mechanics’ dreams come true.” But if my marriage was over and I was forced to live on my own, well, I’d learn not to worry about such things. I would learn to simply live and let live.
    Now if only I can make it through this day.

Chapter 2

S UZETTE
    A nother wedding. Good grief, it’s the fourth one this summer, and it’s only the end of June, and, frankly, this wedding is one that I wouldn’t have minded skipping altogether, being held out in the sticks like this. What
were
they thinking? I heard that the groom’s mother, Catherine Fairbanks, had the nerve to call this a “destination wedding.” Get real. A destination wedding is Bermuda or Maui or even Malibu, if you can’t afford to leave the mainland. This place is the kind of destination that anyone with sense would go out of their way to avoid.
    Even so, I am highly aware that the groom
is
the Fairbankses’ “favorite” son. And in Catherine’s defense, it was the bride and groom who picked this location. And in the groom’s defense, he is the one who’s holding up the family name. Michael has made his parents proud, whereas their older son, David, decided to take acompletely different direction. Right now I’m sitting across from David’s dowdy wife and have been unsuccessful in getting a word of conversation out of her. Not that I particularly care, since I’m sure she’s as boring as she looks, but I do like to appear socially adept to any onlookers. However, this unimpressive woman is speaking to no one. Honestly, she just sits there like a lump, looking overly hot and overly plump in that dreadful orange dress that does absolutely nothing for her skin tone. According to my husband, she and David have been a complete disappointment to the elder Fairbankses. Jim also said that it broke Catherine Fairbanks’s heart when David dropped out of graduate school about ten years ago to pursue a
career
in teaching. On top of this, he married a teacher! And everyone knows that teachers are just a step above the poverty level.
    Consequently, I suppose we had no choice but to come up here and show our support for the Fairbanks family. They probably need us here to bolster their spirits. And, of course, there’s the fact that Jim recently took Michael under his wing, so to speak, at the law firm. So I suppose it’s only right that I put my best foot forward (which I do quite splendidly in these Manolo Blahnik shoes). It’s all for Jim’s sake. Appearance matters in his world. And I am oh so good at keeping up appearances.
    Still, I can’t get over this location. Not an airport within a hundred miles, mind you, and it took us nearly three hours just to drive up here from town. And this inn—well, it reminds me of a bad day at summer camp, with its dusty, graveled parking areas.Haven’t these people heard of pavement? Have they no idea what all those sharp rocks do to the soles of expensive shoes? And the rooms here are so tiny, with nothing but queen-size beds, for heaven’s sake! Who can actually sleep in a bed that small? I mean, I love Jim, but I don’t love feeling his elbow just inches from my nose—a nearly perfect nose, I might add, which cost me nearly ten grand to get just right.
    I guess I should’ve been relieved when Jim stayed out so late last night. At least I got a few hours of undisturbed sleep. But I was a little surprised since he doesn’t usually go for bachelor parties. He says they’re just an obvious excuse to get drunk and act like adolescents. But then he rolls in at a quarter past three, tiptoeing so as not to disturb me. But I was already awake, since I’d gotten up to close the window