Sunset in Central Park (From Manhattan with Love #2) - Sarah Morgan Page 0,3
I don’t understand why people put themselves through this when they could just stab themselves through the heart with a kitchen knife and be done with it.”
Eva shuddered. “You’ve been reading too much horror. Why don’t you read romance instead?”
“I’d rather stab myself through the heart with a kitchen knife.” And it felt as if she’d done just that. She was looking at Robyn Rose, but she was remembering her mother, incoherent with grief on the kitchen floor while her father, white-faced, had stepped over her heaving body and walked out the door, leaving Frankie to clean up his mess.
She stared straight ahead and then felt Eva slide her arm through hers.
“One day, probably when you least expect it, you’re going to fall in love.”
It was a remark typical of Eva.
“That’s never going to happen.” Knowing that her friend was emotionally vulnerable, Frankie tried to be gentle. “Romance has the same effect on me as garlic does on vampires. And besides, I love being single. Don’t give me that pitying look. It’s my choice, not a sentence. It’s not a state that I’m in until something better comes along. Don’t feel sorry for me. I love my life.”
“Don’t you want someone to snuggle up to at night?”
“No. This way I never have to fight for the duvet, I can sleep diagonally across the bed and I can read until four in the morning.”
“A book can’t take the place of a man!”
“I disagree. A book can give you most things a relationship can. It can make you laugh, it can make you cry, it can transport you to different worlds and teach you things. You can even take it out to dinner. And if it bores you, you can move on. Which is pretty much what happens in real life.” Unlike her father, her mother had never married again. Instead, she burned through men as if they were disposable.
“You’re going to make me cry again. What about intimacy? A book can’t know you.”
“I can live without that part.” She didn’t want people to know her. She’d moved away from the small island where she’d grown up for precisely that reason—people had known too much. Every intimate, deeply embarrassing detail of her private life had been public knowledge.
Paige walked back to them. “The phone call was the groom.” Her voice was crisp and businesslike. “He called it off.”
Eva made a distressed sound. “Oh no! That’s dreadful for her.”
“Maybe it isn’t.” Despite the fact she’d already guessed what had happened, Frankie’s stomach churned. “Maybe she had a lucky escape.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because sooner or later he’d cheat on her and break her heart. Might as well be now before they have kids and a hundred and one Dalmatian puppies and innocent bystanders are injured in the fallout.” Not wanting to admit how gutted she was to have been proved right yet again, Frankie leaned forward and removed the Queen Anne’s lace from the pitcher.
“A hundred and one puppies of any breed would put pressure on a marriage, Frankie,” Eva said.
“And not all men cheat.” Paige checked the time on her phone, and the diamond on her finger caught the sunlight and glinted.
Seeing it, Frankie felt a flash of guilt.
She should keep her mouth shut. Eva loved dreaming and Paige was newly engaged. She needed to keep her thoughts on marriage to herself.
“It will be different for you and Jake,” she mumbled. “You’re one of those rare couples that are perfect together. Ignore me. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Paige waved her hand and the diamond glinted again. “You and I don’t want the same thing, and that’s fine.”
“I’m a killjoy.”
“You’re the child of divorced parents. And it wasn’t a happy divorce. We all have a different perspective on life, depending on our own experience.”
“I know I overreact, though. It wasn’t even my divorce.”
Paige shrugged. “But you lived through the fallout. It would be crazy to think that wouldn’t affect you. It’s like washing a red sock with a white shirt. Everything ends up tainted.”
Frankie gave a half smile. “Am I the white shirt in that analogy? Because I’m not sure I’m white-shirt material.”
Eva studied her. “I agree. I’d say you were more of a combat jacket.”
“Robyn has gone upstairs to fix her makeup.” Paige steered the conversation back to work. “The guests will be arriving any minute. I’m going to talk to them.”
“We’re canceling?”
“No. We’re going ahead, but now it’s not a bridal shower—it’s a party. A celebration of friendship.”