All She Ever Wanted - Barbara Freethy [50]
"Absolutely," Natalie replied.
"Should we wait for Madison?"
"She can catch up."
Catching up was all they did for the next few hours. Natalie had never thought being with Laura and Madison again could feel so perfectly right, so natural. After the initial awkwardness and polite conversation had passed, Madison declared Natalie's apartment a disgrace to the medical profession, and Laura's dirty-blond hair color a disgrace to her stylist. Natalie retaliated by asking Madison how her breasts had grown so much since college, and Laura got even with a crack about Madison's "last season" designer purse. Then they'd kicked off their shoes, flopped onto the couch and chairs, and dug into dinner with an enthusiasm that rivaled their college days.
Without ever consciously declaring an intent to avoid conversation about Emily, they'd somehow managed to do just that, sharing stories instead about their lives in the past few years. Laura talked about her big wedding, her children, life as a suburban PTA soccer mom. Madison related tales of her travels in Europe and more recently her encounters with celebrities and millionaires in the Big Apple. Natalie had skipped over the trials and tribulations of becoming a doctor to entertain them with fascinating stories from a big city emergency room. It quickly became clear that their lives had taken them in completely different directions. They had little in common now, except where they'd been.
"You've certainly lived a glamorous life," Laura commented when Madison finished sharing the details of her last trip to Paris. "But I notice you haven't mentioned any significant men in your life, and I'm sure there have been many."
A cloud passed through Maddie's eyes before she tossed her blond hair over one shoulder and said with a shrug, "There have been a few. I almost got married last year. I had the dress, the church, the hall, and had sent out the invitations."
"You didn't leave him at the altar, did you?" Laura asked, clearly horrified at the idea.
"I thought about it," Madison said candidly. "But that would have been really mean, and he was a nice guy. Too good for me, really. Now he's probably thanking his lucky stars that I ran out on him. We wouldn't have worked."
"Why not?" Natalie asked. "What went wrong?"
"He bored me. I looked at him one night and saw my life flash before my eyes. He wanted a wife, children, a dog, a house in Connecticut." She shook her head. "I realized I didn't want any of that. It was too easy, too predictable. Years from now, I'll probably realize I made a huge mistake. My mother certainly seems to think so."
"Maybe you didn't make a mistake," Laura said. "If it felt wrong to marry him, it was probably wrong. If you'd gone ahead with it, you might have found yourself in a huge mess, with kids in the middle of it all. Then you'd really be stuck."
"Are you talking about me or yourself?" Madison asked bluntly.
"You, of course."
"Liar," Madison said. "What's happening with you and Drew?"
Laura picked up a throw pillow from the couch and wrapped her arms around it. "He travels a lot for work. He's distracted all the time, especially by this woman in his office, who's beautiful and smart and not his wife."
"Is he cheating on you?"
"I'm sure he's not. I mean, I'm not exactly sure. He might be or he might just be thinking about it. I don't know what to do. I try to be the perfect wife, but I'm falling short. I don't want my marriage to fail. It's the only thing I've ever done right in my life. I'm holding on as tight as I can, but it still feels like it's slipping away from me." She paused. "And I can't believe I just said that out loud."
"Have you told Drew how you feel?" Natalie asked.
"I've tried, but he's too busy or uninterested to care. He keeps saying he's working all these hours for me, for the family, to be the provider I always wanted. He makes me feel guilty."
"Oh, honey, you were born guilty," Madison said with a laugh. "And Drew knows just which buttons to push. He always has. Why did you marry him so quickly anyway?