Jennifer Weiner - Best Friends Forever

Best Friends Forever Best Friends Forever Best Friends Forever ALSO BY JENNIFER WEINER Good in Bed In Her Shoes Little Earthquakes Goodnight Nobody The Guy Not Taken Certain Girls A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020 This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Copyright 2009 by Jennifer Weiner, Inc. Al rights reserved, including the right to repro duce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

For information address Atria Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 ATRIA BOOKS and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Nebraska by Bruce Springsteen. Copyright 1982 Bruce Springsteen (ASCAP). Reprinted by permission. International copyright secured. Al rights reserved.

The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1866-2483049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com. Library of Congress Cataloging-inPublication Data Weiner, Jennifer. Best friends forever: a novel / by Jennifer Weiner.1st Atria Books hardcover ed. p. 1. 1.

Female friendshipFiction. I. Title. PS3573.E3935B47 2009 813.54dc22 2009013503 ISBN-13: 978-1-4391-6549-2 ISBN-10: 1-4391-6549-1 Visit us on the Web: http://www.SimonandSchuster.com For Susan Abrams Krevskymy BFF I cant say that Im sorry for the things that we done At least for a little while sir me and her we had us some fun FROM NEBRASKA BY BRUCE Best Friends Forever SPRINGSTEEN CONTENTS

That he was outside in a parking lot, on his back in the gravel, and he was freezing. Also, except for his shoes and socks, he was naked. He sat up, his stomach roiling as a wave of pain swept through him, and wiped his head again, flicking drops of blood onto the gravel. Hed fol owed a girl out here. A girl her name was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldnt quite get it. A high school girl, an old classmate, with flashing white teeth and red soles on her shoes.

Come to my car, shed whispered. Its warm. Theyd kissed for a while, with the girl backed against the drivers-side door, her mouth fiery underneath his, their breath steaming in the blackness, until she pushed him away. Take off your clothes, shed said. I want to see you. No way. No way.

Hed squirmed out of his clothes, kicking his pants off over his shoes, dropping each garment in a pile on the gravel, and when he looked up, naked and shivering in the cold, one hand cupping his cock, she was pointing something at him. His heart stoppeda gun? but almost before hed thought the word, he saw that it wasnt a gun but a cel phone. The flash was bril iant, blinding him as she snapped a picture. Hey! he shouted. What the fuck? See how you like it, shed snarled. See how you like it when theyre laughing at you.

Hed lunged for her, trying to snatch the phone. What is your problem? Whats my problem? shed answered, dancing backward on her red-soled shoes. Youre my problem. You ruined my life! She dived into the car, slamming the door before he could grab the handle. The engine roared to life. Hed jumped in front of her, thinking shed stop, but judging from the cuts on his side and the terrible sick throbbing in his head, maybe she hadnt.

He groaned again, pushed himself upright, and peered at the country club, which was empty and locked. Through the darkness, he could see the tennis courts off to one side, the golf course behind the building, the sheds and outbuildings underneath a stand of pine trees a discreet distance from the club proper. Clothes first, he decided, and stumbled painful y toward the nearest building. Clothes firstand then revenge. TWO Looking back, the knock on the door should have scared me. It should at least have come as a surprise.

My housethe same one I grew up inis set at the farthest curve of a cul-de sac in Pleasant Ridge, Il inois, a Chicago suburb of fourteen thousand souls with quiet streets, neatly kept lawns, and wel -regarded public schools. There are rarely pedestrians or passersby on Crescent Drive. Most weeks, the only signs of life after ten p.m. are the flash of headlights on my bedroom wal on the nights that my next-door neighbor Mrs. Bass has her Shakespeare Society meeting. I live alone, and Im general y asleep by ten-thirty.

But even so. When I heard the knock, my heartbeat didnt quicken; my palms did not sweat. At some level underneath conscious thought, a place down in my cel s where, the scientists tel us, memories reside, Id been waiting years for that knock, waiting for the feel of my feet moving across the floor and my hand on the cool brass knob. I pul ed open the door and felt my eyes get big and my breath catch in my chest. There was my old best friend, Valerie Adler, whom I hadnt spoken to since I was seventeen and hadnt seen in person since high school ended, standing underneath the porch light; Valerie with her heart-shaped face and Cupids-bow lips and lashes heavy and dark as moths wings. She stood with her hands clasped at her waist, as if in prayer.

There was something dark staining the sleeve of her belted trench coat. For a minute, we stood in the cold, in the cone of light, staring at each other, and the thought that rose to my mind had the warmth of sunshine and the sweet density of honey. My friend, I thought as I looked at Val. My friend has come back to me. I opened my mouthto say what, I wasnt surebut it was Val who spoke first. Addie, she said.

Her teeth were gleaming, perfect and even; her voice was the same as I re membered from al those years ago, husky, confiding, an Ive-got-a-secret kind of voice that she currently deployed to great effect, delivering the weather on the nightly newscasts on Chicagos third-rated TV station. Shed been hired six months ago, to great fanfare and a number of bil boards along the interstate announcing her new gig. (Look who just blew into town! the bil boards read, underneath a picture of Val, al windswept hair and crimson, smiling lips.) Listen. Somethingsomething real y bad happened, she said. Can you help me? Please? I kept my mouth shut. Val rocked back on high heels that seemed no thicker than pins, gulping as she raked both hands through her hair, then brought them to waist level and began twisting her belt.

Had I known she had that haircut, that buttercup-yel ow color, that shoulder length style, with layers that curled into ringlets in the rain, when Id given my hairdresser the go-ahead? I made a point of not watching her station, but maybe Id caught a glimpse of her as I changed channels or the bil boards had made an impression, because somehow here I was, in flannel pajamas and thick wool socks, with my ex-best-friends hair on my head. Look at you, she said, her voice low and ful of wonder. Look at you, said Valerie. You got thin. Come in, Val, I said. If time was a dimension, and not a straight line, if you could look down through it like you were looking through water and it could ripple and shift, I was already opening the door.