Sweet Caroline(32)

She picks at a loose thread on the hem of her top. “That was lovely, Caroline. Thank you.” Then she sits forward. “Look, I’m not going to do anything stupid. But isn’t it fun to dream? Pretend?”

“Then let’s get to it. Matthew McConaughey, Elle has you in her sights, bubba.”

“Oh, one more thing.” Elle jabs her finger in the air. “Must have compassion for the arts and be able to pronounce and spell renaissance.”

“You go, girl. Set that bar high.”

“Sorry I’m late.” Jess hurries toward us, breathless, her hair tousled. “Ray called and I couldn’t get him off the phone.” She flops down in the chair opposite Elle. “What’d I miss? Why are these yearbooks here? With stickies?”

Elle flattens her palm on the stack of yearbooks and explains the whole process to Jess, who, to my surprise, thinks it’s brilliant.

“Let me grab a latte and we can get started.” Jess flashes her sweet smile at both of us while digging money from her handbag.

“Oh, bring me a chocolate biscotti,” Elle says.

“Caroline, what about you?” Jess pauses beside the handrail. “Latte, espresso?”

“Nothing for me just yet, thanks.”

Getting comfortable, I scan the faces on the glossy yearbook page, wondering how ten years went by in a day. “Oooh, Rocky Galloway, good choice. I heard he’s a sports agent, living in Miami Beach.”

Elle lifts her eyes from the yearbook she’s perusing. “I could definitely go for the jock type. Miami? Not so sure. But he could move, right? Telecommute. Fly out of Savannah for business.” She taps her page. “Carter Daley. What about him?”

“Married, four years ago.”

“Rats.”

“Tim Norton.”

”Married.”

“Ah . . .” She flips her wrist. “I didn’t want to be Elle Norton anyway.” I freeze when my eyes fall on the next page. Elle has every color flag pointing to one picture. Mitch O’Neal. My pulse rushes. She can’t be serious.

“Elle, you have every flag around Mitch?”

“Yeah, I know.” She leans over. “He’s single, right? And he doubles on my celebrity list.”

She cannot be serious. An instant picture of them kissing, cuddling, sours my stomach. Oh, I don’t feel well. How could I deal with my best friend married to . . .

The love of my life.

Stop right there, Caroline. Mitch is only your friend.

“Two of my best friends, married.” I swallow. “H-how cool.”Or not. Getting over Mitch was the hardest thing in my life—other than dealing with Mama.

Yet, I never considered the next phase—falling in love and getting married. It’s one thing to know he’s dating celebrity women who are more like movie characters than real people, but falling in true love?

“Caroline, you’re over him, right? Moving on with J. D.”

I squirm. “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I want you to go out with him.”

“So you’d rather see him with a Hollywood skank or some bimbo groupie.”

“So? You want to be with a man who has such poor taste in women?”

Elle rolls her eyes. “As I recall, he loved you first. Look, don’t get your panties in a wad. He’s one of a dozen great choices, Caroline.”

Um-hmm. But so far he’s the only one with all arrows pointing to him. “You’d be crazy not to list him as number one, El. He’s kind, romantic, amazing to look at, rich, and apparently a renewed man of faith. Besides, who’s to say he’d go for you anyway.” The words sound harsher than I mean.

Elle’s eyes darken. “Why wouldn’t he go for me?” Her bracelets slip down her arm with a clatter as she brushes her silky hair off her shoulder.

The tension between us could hold up a gorilla and her babies. “It’s Mitch, Elle. My Mitch. Yes, you’re beautiful and talented. Any man would be lucky to have you, but . . . Mitch? What do you want me to say?”

“That you’d be happy for me. And you forgot educated and well traveled.”

The blood drains from my cheeks. “I see. And I’m not. So you’d be a better match for the famous and well-traveled Mitch O’Neal.”

“Caroline, no, that’s not what I meant.”

“Look—” I close my eyes and take a deep breath. “Mitch is available. So . . .” I force myself to look in her eyes. “Go for it.”

The truth is, in perfect Caroline-world this conversation would never happen. My mama would’ve never run out on us, nor died at the youthful age of fifty. I would’ve gone to college and graduated with honors and certainly never inherited an old man’s café. Mitch would be a P.E. teacher at Beaufort High, with a football championship trophy. Not one, but two. Still a star. And we’d be married with two-point-one kids.

Jess breezes into this mess with a large latte and a couple of chocolate biscotti. “Okay, what did I miss?”

Elle drops me off at the carriage house a little after eight because, as she predicted, it’s raining. Operation Wedding Day went well—after the Mitch tension—and we laughed at old pictures and read the inscriptions our classmates wrote to Elle.

Elle, you are the sexiest girl in fifth period P.E. even though you are weird. Call me. Mark Hammond.