Remember When 3: The Finale (Remember Trilogy #3) (26 page)

  
He slipped a hand around the back of my neck, holding my teary eyes fixed to his. “You were my first love, babe. I want you to be my last.”

   I
threw my arms around his shoulders, just bawling like a big sap into his neck. “I
know
you love me, Chester. I love you, too. More than anything.” I kissed him then, my heart positively overflowing for the awe-inspiring man within my grasp. His arms wrapped around my waist, lifting me to him, crushing me against his length. I pulled back, looked right into those gorgeous blue eyes and saw the truth I’d always known
:

  
“I’m not me without you.”

JULY 2006

Chapter 31

THE WEDDING DATE

   I was standing there, in my blush-colored gown, staring at the sliver of glass in the door of my church, checking out my reflection. My makeup… was perfect. My hair… was cooperating for once. Over the past year, I’d learned that that’s all it took to look good: Lots of money to hire professionals.

   The wedding
ceremony was about to start, so I took my place at the back of the aisle. I looked to the front of the church and saw Bruce, so handsome in his tux, and shifted my gaze over to my father… standing at the altar. I peeked over my shoulder to find Sylvia just beaming gorgeously and looking as beautiful and happy as ever. Dad and she were finally making this thing official.

  
The music started, and I counted ten Mississippis before starting down the aisle. It wasn’t difficult to keep a smile plastered on my face during my walk, but once I spotted Trip in the pews, I’m sure I looked like a complete doofus with my uncontrollable grin. Then again, he was smiling at me like I was the only person in the room.

  
Sitting next to him were Lisa, Pickford, and all three kids. The twins were getting ready to start Kindergarten in the fall, and I made Lisa promise me she’d always send them to public school. Where does the time go? I felt like it was only yesterday when
we
were in school, and now my childhood best friend was getting ready for
her kids
to start. Before we know it, those two will be in high school, living it up as hard as we did back in the day.

  
Lisa grabbed the baby’s chubby fist and waved it at me as I walked past. Allison was just as beautiful as her big sister.

  
And her mother.

   I said a quick prayer that all her children would be lucky enough in their lives to find a best friend as amazing as mine.

* * *

   The reception was at the country club one town over. We were blessed with a
perfect day—sunny and breezy—affording us the opportunity to take advantage of the outdoor party area.

   By the time we made our way inside to the ballroom, we were stuffed from the endless
fare of the cocktail hour, and still had a whole sit-down dinner to look forward to.

   I grabbed Trip out of his chair and pulled him onto the dance floor, figuring we could work off some of that food before Round Two
of the feeding frenzy.

   Plus, I just wanted to dance with him.

   The floor was packed with the people I loved most in my life. Dad and Sylvia were dancing nearby, and next to them were Mr. and Mrs. DeSanto. Bruce and his new girlfriend were swaying to beat the band, Pickford was twirling Julia around in his arms, and Lisa had partnered with Caleb. Aunt Eleanor and Uncle Conrad decided to join in, and my cousins were there, too, along with a bunch of other family and friends that we didn’t get to see too often.

  
Aunt Eleanor and I had a pretty big talk one day about my encounter with her sister. Well, I guess I did most of the talking. Aunt El spent most of our conversation with a sad smile glued to her face, tears brimming in her eyes as she squeezed my fingers off. I almost got the impression that she was more relieved to hear about
my
closure on the situation, rather than revel in the peace I’d hoped to bring
her
. Between Bruce’s shoulder shrug, my father’s non-reaction, and Aunt Eleanor’s happy tears, I realized I was the only one out of the four of us who hadn’t already let my mother go years before.

  
The wedding wasn’t the first time my cousins had been back in the same room as Trip. A few months after The Tree, I’d brought him to my dad and Sylvia’s engagement party. I’d given Stephen the heads up, but I was still worried about how the meeting was going to go down. My cousin had practically arrested Trip a few years back, and had expressed some initial concerns when he heard we were back together. We all had a long talk before dinner, and Trip and he had since found a way to make nice. I wanted any lingering awkwardness from that incident to be settled long before the wedding, and mercifully, it had been.

  
Because there I was, dancing with him once again.

 
He was spinning me around, crooning along to “Chances Are”
as he did so.

  
He stopped singing to smirk out, “Hey babe? This place is no rooftop, but I guess we can cut one hell of a rug anywhere, huh.”

   He pulled my wa
ist in tightly against his side and dipped me backwards over his arm, planting a smiling kiss against my breastbone. I smacked his arm until he straightened us back up and then playfully chastised him. “You smoothy. Still working the moves on me? Don’t you realize you already
got
me?”

   “Oh, I realize. I guess
I just still can’t believe it.” He spun me out and back in again as I giggled, watching one his eyebrows raise comically. “Should I have kept my distance that night instead?”

   Every moment had led us here.
Every second of our lives. Every beat of our hearts. The answer was a big, fat
no
.

   I pursed my lips to keep from smiling.
“Hey Trip?”

  
“Yeah?”

   “I wouldn’t have changed a thing.”

   He grinned wickedly at that, pulled me in close, and buried his face in my hair. I heard him take a huge inhale before he said, “God, Lay. What
is
that? Do you have any idea how many random shampoo bottles I’ve sniffed over the years, trying to find this scent? ‘Cause I
know
what kind of shampoo you use, and that’s not it. I’m beginning to think it’s just
you
.”

   My shoulders started shaking, cracking up at his admission. I’d spent the same years sniffing bars of soap. Even during that first trip out to his California house, I’d come t
o the same realization that he had: It was just him.

   It was always him.
 

   The wedding guests spent their time gawking at Trip all evening, despite the warning we put out to the family not to treat him like a sideshow freak. Thank God for my cousins. They took shifts running interference
for all the curious rubberneckers intent on bugging him all night.

  
Not that I couldn’t deal with it or anything. I’m kinda used to it by now. After all, that part of him is just make-believe. The part that’s all mine is what’s real.

  
After all that we’d been through—all the laughs and the heartache and the mistakes—the reality was that we were who we were. Not perfect. Just perfect together. More importantly, while the future wasn’t mapped out, we at least had the knowledge that we’d always be together through it. The words spoken at our high school graduation came back to me:
We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

   Whatever it was, I knew it was going to be great.

NOVEMBER 2006

EPILOGUE

  
Trip bought my old apartment building in the village.

  
The plan is to rent out the other eight units, but keep the entire top floor for ourselves. I’d originally wanted to knock down
all
the walls on the fourth floor, but Trip wouldn’t hear of it. He’s making me leave my old apartment exactly as it was when I lived in it. So, I have to content myself with remodeling the other three units on that floor into a penthouse suite instead. I’m not complaining. The plans my father and Jack have drawn up are beautiful. Trip and I spend most of our time in Jersey anyway, but it’ll be nice to have a space in the city to hide out when we’re not at the
TRU
, or when Lisa and Pick or any of our other friends want a place to crash for the night. As with our California home, we plan on doing a lot of entertaining there.

   My downstairs n
eighbor Angelo passed away, and his son found three letters addressed to me from way back in ninety-four. Trip had written the wrong apartment number on the envelopes and they’d been sent to Angelo, who never bothered to give them to me. One day during the demolition, Anthony showed up and just handed them over, apologizing and explaining what had happened. Trip put down the sledgehammer and the two of us sat right there on the floor amidst the rubble to read them. I won’t bore you with the details contained within those letters—most of what he’d written had been about his daily life out in Los Angeles; auditioning, playing hockey, etc.—but there’s a part of that first one I think that’s worth sharing:

  
It started off as all the others, telling me about the latest dramas taking place in his seedy apartment building
(
but hey, it’s near the beac
h
), talking about his latest audition
(
I don’t know. I don’t think I got the part. Tawny Everett was there doing the readings, though. Right there in the room! She called me “cute”. It was so freaking awesome
!
)
, and mentioning how he was dropping out of school
(
It’s not why I’m here anyway
.
How’s the new apartmen
t
?
)

   But then, a few paragraphs down:

It’s hard out here. It’s lonely. It’s fake. I’m thinking of packing it in and coming home.

Will you be there if I do? You’ve only got this last year of school and I thought maybe we could make some plans. I miss you like crazy and I just want to come home to you.

You’re my home, Lay-La
y
.

   And yeah. He was right. If I had read that back when I was twenty-one, I would’ve been scared half to death.

  
But I would have taken him up on his offer. I would have welcomed him back into my life with open arms.

  
And then where would we be? Would we have torn each other apart, so young and so clueless, or would we have built each other up? Would I be writing? Would Trip really have given up acting? Would he have grown to resent me because he did?  

  
I could ask myself those questions until my head hurt.

  
Thankfully, I’m not tasked with having to
find out the answers. Somewhere in a parallel universe, Trip and I are miserable together. Just not in this one.

   Along with the apartment build
ing, Trip bought his old house in Norman from his mother, and she bought a new one out in Malibu to replace it. I never thought in a million years when I was standing in that foyer back in ‘91 that someday it would be my house. The demons of that first night have been exorcised, triumph over my first memory of the place. It’s a beautiful home, and we shared our first kiss right out there in the driveway, confessed our love properly for the first time right there in his old bedroom. It’s the good memories my mind keeps alive.

  
I suppose it helps that we christened every room within the first two weeks, however.

   A few day
s after we’d moved in, Trip replaced the destroyed portrait of his father, hanging it in the same spot in the hallway where it once was. I still work on him from time to time—
unobtrusively,
nowadays—trying to help him heal his conflicted feelings about his old man. We’re making progress. But for now, the little things let me see that he’s learning to forgive. He doesn’t need to say the words.

  
I set up my office on the third floor, in a room whose window can see the hiking trails out in the woods. Hidden from the trees, underneath the boughs, is our clearing. The place where we’d spent one amazing night in a shabby, turquoise tent; the place where I found out Trip was in love with me. Tucked in a drawer of my desk is a stack of letters and cards he and I had written each other over the years, reunited at last, and tied up with a bow, as if they were a gift. They are. Framed on the wall—in spite of my too-cool boyfriend’s protests—is the first letter Trip ever wrote me, his Mind Ramble. He has some reservations about his sappiness being put on display, but I had a promise to keep to myself.

  
My fiction novel, “The Last Act” is coming out this winter, but my Trip memoir was released a few months ago. It’s doing well. Trip was finally able to get on board with Fields as the publisher, once he realized that aside from the random call relayed through my agent, I didn’t need to have much contact with the guy. Devin’s book-publishing branch had pretty much cornered the market on celebrity tell-alls and was the most logical house to ensure it would be marketed with the proper enthusiasm. His
magazine
, however, is still spewing out the same old celebrity gossip, and reporting on the latest “news” with their usual brand of cheese. Their cover story last month was about Ella Perez having a love child with Sasquatch or something. I don’t know. I don’t really pay much attention to those things these days.

  
Case in point: Don’t believe everything you read in the tabloids.

  
I’m working on my next novel. It’s a story about a twenty-six-year-old writer in New York City who’s trying to break into a journalism career when her ex-boyfriend suddenly pops back into her life.

  
I just
wonder
where all these book ideas could possibly come from.

  
I’ve written under some different pen names, but most of the time, I write as L.P. Warren. The P stands for Prudence, which, God help me, is my middle name. Aside from Clapton and Springsteen, my mom was a pretty big Beatle fan, too. I make a modest living from being a writer, and that, amongst other things, keeps me happy.

   I may not be at the top of the New York Times Bestse
llers List—
yet
—but I love what I do, and I’m pretty sure that’s more important. No matter what stories I write, however, I kind of hold a special place in my heart for that memoir. I hear some other people do, too.

   Act
ually, you may have heard of it. It’s called “Remember When”.

* * *

   “WELCOME ST. NICETIUS CLASS OF ’91”

   We’re at the Meadowbrook Ballroom in New York City’s Times Square for our reunion. Our last shindig was originally scheduled for early fall of 2001, but in the weeks after 9/11, a high school get-together didn’t seem so important. So, in true St. Norman’s fashion, we bucked conventionality and decided to have a fifteenth in order to compensate for that canceled tenth.

   Everyone
has turned out in full force for the thing, and it’s pretty incredible to have the whole gang back together under one roof again.

   I
see Penny and her husband all the time, being that she still lives in Jersey and is related to Pickford and all. But that hasn’t stopped us from hanging out most of the night, boogying with Becca and her husband. He’s a really nice guy, but I can’t help but be startled by his appearance. He looks an awful lot like Cooper.

  
Coop had come up for a visit over the summer, but this is the first time I’ve been in the same room with his wife Suzy since their wedding last year. She’s a gorgeous redhead with a pixie cut that I’d never be able to pull off. She’s also a very patient woman. Not only did she tough it out waiting on that ring for so many years, but she’s smiling through this entire evening, getting along really well with her husband’s old crowd.

   We’re not the easiest bunch to take.

   Rymer’s already tied one on, and I keep waiting for his inevitable queries to poor Suzy, wondering aloud whether the carpet matches the drapes or something.
He’s always had a thing for redheads.
Then again, he may be a little distracted, as he’s been spending the whole night hitting on Margie Caputo. He always said she gave him the best head he’s ever had, and I guess he’s looking to recreate history.

   At least she’s got that going for her, because hot damn, that chick’s ass has gotten fat.

   Oh hey! I just realized Lisa owes me ten bucks!

  
My best friend will probably kill me for this, but…

  
Speaking of fat
… Lisa finally dropped all the baby weight and looks terrific. She says that “High School Reunion” is the best diet she’s ever gone on. She thinks we should have one every year.

   She also thinks she should play matchmaker to get Heather
Ferrante and Mike Sargento back together. Sarge got divorced a few years back and Heather came here alone. She looks fantastic, and I’m pretty sure he’s already noticed. Those two haven’t left the dance floor all night. I think Lisa’s meddling may be thwarted once again, because it looks as though those two are reuniting just fine on their own.

   Even still, Lisa has Pick
making arrangements for us all to go to a Knicks game this winter as his guests. It should be a blast.

  
It’s good to have old friends.

  
Speaking of old friends… Trip is currently in cahoots with Miramax to direct his next movie. With all that obsessive attention to detail, I don’t foresee any issue with a transition from working in front of the camera to being
behind
it. I don’t think he’ll ever give up acting, but for now, this is the avenue he’s choosing to pursue. He’s really excited about it
.

  
The Jenna/Bert movie got shelved once Trip turned down the role. At first, I thought he was trying to appease me, and I found myself in the unfathomable position of trying to convince him to take the part. If the script was as great as he claimed, I didn’t want him to miss out.
That show of trust earned me an appreciative grin, his astounded gratitude, and a sound tongue-lashing (the good kind this time). Ultimately, though, the decision to bail on the project was made on his own. He finally realized that the idea of working with his ex-fiancée and The Lizard Perv simply turned his stomach, and didn’t want to deal with their pain-in-the-ass personalities over the many months of filming. No script was worth putting up with that.

  
Slap Shot
came out late last fall. It gave good box office, but it wasn’t the kind of film to get nominated for a ton of awards. But that’s okay. Trip was never in it for the accolades.

  
Speaking of accolades… I’d finally met Paul Newman at the premiere.
When Trip introduced us, Paul kissed my knuckles, gave Trip a wink, and told him, “This one’s a keeper.”

  
I almost died. It seriously has gone down in the history books as one of the (many) highlights of my life.

  
Almost anytime Trip and I find ourselves getting into a pointless argument, one of us will remember to defuse the situation with our adopted truce phrase, “What would Paul do?”

  
It may sound stupid, but it works for us.

  
Trip’s foundation had been doing really well already, but the buzz has really picked up since that CNN interview. When Hurricane Katrina hit, Trip was one of the first celebrities to speak out about how poorly the residents had been treated, and his organization soon partnered with the American Red Cross to aid in the disaster recovery. Not long after, my cousin and my brother got on board, and arranged for ERF to team with Habitat for Humanity to start the rebuild. With Jack and Bruce leading the project, Trip’s foundation has been responsible for over twenty new houses in the New Orleans area this past year alone.

   The collaborations with such like-minded organizations have been ongoing.

  Trip took me with him on a couple visits to Africa. He’d been all over the continent as a teenager during his globetrotting phase, and never forgot the conditions in some of the countries there. We’re currently in talks with UNICEF, putting the funds together to build a school in Uganda. I joked and suggested we name it
St. Norman’s
.