Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 115198 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 576(@200wpm)___ 461(@250wpm)___ 384(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115198 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 576(@200wpm)___ 461(@250wpm)___ 384(@300wpm)
“Hello, yes, up here, hello everybody.” Alex waves to a passing waitress carrying a tray of champagne flutes. “Could—excuse me, could you bring me one of—yes,” he says, taking a glass. “Thank you. I wanted to make a toast.” He laughs, sending a loud puff of air into the mic, and a few people around us exchange uneasy glances. “I know the toasts come later, after we all eat, but I suppose I couldn’t wait.” He stares down into his glass for a beat before he looks up with a smile. He seems the slightest bit calmer now, more collected. “My name is Alex, for anyone out there I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting. I’m Charlie’s oldest brother, and CFO of Weston Foods.” Another sharp laugh, and he shakes his head.
Near the edge of the stage, Charlie and Kellan look on, trusting, curious, and a little confused.
“Well, anyway, it’s my baby sister’s big day and it was absolutely gorgeous, wasn’t it?” He nods encouragingly at a smattering of unsure applause, and the clapping intensifies before Alex cuts it off abruptly. “Nice to have a family wedding. Isn’t it? I told my brother Liam—where are you? Ah, right there.” He points to me. “I told my brother Liam that he deprived us of all this.” Alex sweeps his arm, gesturing around the room. “A similar day of gathering, a day to celebrate his wedding to his lovely wife, Anna, five years ago.”
Beside me, Anna goes still. I blink down at her, and she looks up at me, bleak with understanding. Tears fill her eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she mouths, soundless.
I bend, kissing her forehead. “None of this is your fault.”
Jake leaves my side and approaches Alex on the stage, reaching for the mic. “Come on, man.”
Alex jerks it away, pushing him. “I got this,” he says, too loudly, and a few people near him wince. A feeling works its way through the room, like the calm before a storm, the sea pulling away from the shore before a tsunami builds. “Liam and Anna… see, their wedding was fast. So fast,” he continues, laughing, as he begins to pace. “One minute Anna Green is just a friend of Jake’s from UCLA, the next she’s married to my private, somber, golden-boy brother who never did an impulsive thing in his lifetime.”
In the distance, my mother’s voice rises up. “Alex. Stop.”
“No, Mom, this is okay. I’ll bring it all back, I promise.” He reaches up with the hand holding the mic and uses the back of his wrist to push his sweaty hair off his forehead. “My brother has spent the past five years telling us about his wife. A med student, excelling in her studies, wowing every professor she meets. A medical doctor in the family! Can you believe it? Every parent’s dream. But you see… the only Anna Green I could find at UCLA switched to a fine art major her junior year. There’s no Anna Green attending Stanford medical school.” He frowns in feigned confusion.
“Alex, stop it,” I call out, my voice deep with warning.
“There is an Anna Green who attended UCLA around the right time, but she recently worked as a convenience store clerk and rents an apartment in Los Angeles. That seems like it’d be a pretty nasty commute to northern California, where Liam lives, but what do I know?” He taps his chin thoughtfully. “Though I guess, if I’ve got the right Anna Green, she’ll be able to move back in with him now that she’s lost her job at the Pick-It-Up on Pico Boulevard.” He cups a hand to the side of his mouth and fake-whispers into the mic, “You never want to congratulate someone for getting fired, but in this case I can’t help but think it will be good for the marriage!” He stops and turns to walk the other way. Eyes follow his path, but many also flicker back to Anna, who’s gone as white as a sheet against me. With the guise of her pedigree slipping, their gazes turn harsh, judgmental, and they look at her with the disdain she’d expected all along.
“Oh, come on, friends! Who are we to get in the way of love? Who cares if she doesn’t really go to medical school? Who cares that she doesn’t even know what fork to use?” Alex huffs a laugh into the mic and a soft smattering of laughter drifts through the tent. “As long as my brother is happy, right?” He looks squarely at me. “At least, you look happy, Liam. It’s hard to know because we never see you. I mean, we wouldn’t have even seen you together here if that little scam artist right there hadn’t agreed to be your fake wife.”
I stare at him with thunder in my eyes. I want to destroy him.