Told in Emily Belden's signature edgy voice, a
novel about a young widow's discovery of her late husband's secret and her
journey toward hope and second-chance love.
Twenty-nine-year-old Charlotte Rosen has a
secret: she’s a widow. Ever since the fateful day that leveled her world,
Charlotte has worked hard to move forward. Great job at a hot social media
analytics company? Check. Roommate with no knowledge of her past? Check.
Adorable dog? Check. All the while, she’s faithfully data-crunched her way through
life, calculating the probability of risk—so she can avoid it.
Yet Charlotte’s algorithms could never have
predicted that her late husband’s ashes would land squarely on her doorstep
five years later. Stunned but determined, Charlotte sets out to find meaning in
this sudden twist of fate, even if that includes facing her perfectly coiffed,
and perfectly difficult, ex-mother-in-law—and her husband’s best friend, who
seems to become a fixture at her side whether she likes it or not.
But soon a shocking secret surfaces, forcing
Charlotte to answer questions she never knew to ask and to consider the
possibility of forgiveness. And when a chance at new love arises, she’ll have
to decide once and for all whether to follow the numbers or trust her heart.
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Well, that’s a first.
And I’m not talking about the fact that I brought a
date to a wedding I’m pretty sure didn’t warrant me a plus-one. I’m talking
about grabbing a wedding card that just so happened to say “Congrats, Mr. &
Mr.” on my way to celebrate the nuptials of the most iconic heterosexual
couple since George and Amal. This—and a king-sized KitKat bar from the
checkout lane—is what I get for rushing through the greeting card aisle in
Target while my Uber driver waited in the loading zone with his f lashers on.
It’s Monica and Danny’s big
day. She’s my coworker, whose gorgeous face is constantly lining the glossy
pages of Luxe LA magazine. Not only because she’s one of the leading
ladies at Forbes’s new favorite company, The Influencer Firm, but
because this socialite-turned-CEO is now married to Daniel Jones—head coach of
the LA Galaxy, Los Angeles’s professional soccer team. If you’re thinking he
must look like a derivative of an American David Beckham, you’re basically there.
Let’s just hope their sense of humor is as good as their looks when they see
the card I accidentally picked out.
Before I place it on the gift table, I stuff the envelope with a
crisp hundred-dollar bill fresh from the ATM. Side note: I think wedding
registries are bullshit. Everybody wants an ice cream maker until you have one
and never use it, which is why I spring for cold, hard cash instead. I grab a
black Sharpie marker from the guest book table, pop the cap off, and attempt to
squeeze in a nondescript s after the second “Mr.,” hoping my makeshift,
hand-drawn serif font letter doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb. I blow on the
fresh ink, then hold the pseudo Pinterest-fail an arm’s length away. That’ll
do, I think to myself.
I lift a glass of red wine from a caterer’s tray as if we choreographed
the move and check the time on my Apple Watch, which arguably isn’t the most
fashionable accessory when dressing for a chic summer wedding. But aside from
the fact that it doesn’t quite match my strapless pale yellow cocktail dress,
it serves a much greater purpose for me. It keeps my data front and center,
right where I want it, not on my phone buried somewhere deep in my purse.
Bonus: the band, smack-dab on the middle of my wrist, also covers a tattoo I’ve
been meaning to have lasered off.
Other than telling me the time, 7:30 p.m., it also serves up my
most recent Tinder notifications. I’ve gotten four new matches since this
morning, which isn’t bad for a) a Saturday, since most people do their
Tindering while zoning out at work or bored in bed at night; and b) a
pushing-thirty New York native whose most recent relationship was the love-hate
one with a stubborn last ten pounds. That’s me, by the way. Charlotte Rosen.
Though present and accounted for now, the battle of Tide pen vs.
toothpaste stain went on for longer than I intended back at my apartment,
causing me to arrive about half an hour late to the cocktail hour. Which means
I for sure missed Monica and Dan’s ceremony in its entirety. I, of all people,
know that’s rude. I’m someone who is hypersensitive to people’s arrival tendencies
(well, to all measurable tendencies, to be honest; more on that later). But I’m
sort of glad I missed the I Dos, as there is still something about witnessing the
exchange of vows that makes me a little squeamish. I got married five years ago
and, well, I’m not married anymore—let’s put it that way.
The good news is that with
time, I can feel it’s definitely getting easier to come to things
like this. To believe that the couple really will stay together through it all.
To believe that there is such a thing as “the one”—even if it may actually be
“the other” that I’m looking for this next go-round.
Late as I may be to the wedding party, there are some perks to my
delayed arrival. Namely, the line at the bar has died down enough for me to
trade up this mediocre red wine for a decent gin and tonic. Another perk?
Several fresh platters of bacon-wrapped dates have just descended like UFOs
onto the main floor of the venue, which happens to be a barn from the 1800s.
Except this is Los Angeles, and there are no barns from the 1800s. So instead,
every creaky floorboard, every corroded piece of siding, and every decrepit
roof shingle has been sourced from deep in the countryside of southwest Iowa to
create the sense that guests are surrounded by rolling fields, fragrant orchard
blossoms, and fruiting trees. The reality being that just outside the wooden
walls of the coveted, three-year-long-wait-list Oak Mill Barn stands honking,
gridlocked traffic on the 405 and an accompanying smog alert.
As I continue to wait for my impromptu wedding date, Chad, to come
back from the bathroom, I robotically swipe left on the first three guys who
pop up on Bumble, another dating app I’m on, then finally decide to message a
guy who looks like a bright-eyed Jason Bateman (you know, pre-Ozark) and
is a stockbroker, according to his profile. We end up matching and he asks me
for drinks. I vaguely accept. Welcome to dating in LA.
I’ve conducted some research that has shown that after the age of
thirty, it becomes exponentially harder to find your future husband. What
number constitutes exponentially? I’m not sure yet, but I’m working on
narrowing in on that because generalities don’t really cut it for me. Thinking
through things logically like this centers me, calms me, and resets me—no
matter what life throws my way. All that’s to say, I’m officially in my last
good year of dating (and my last year of not having to include a night serum in
my skin care regimen), and I’m determined not to wind up with my dog, my
roommate, and a few low-maintenance houseplants as my sole life partners.
“Sorry that took so long,” says Chad, returning from the men’s room
twenty minutes after leaving. “Did you know the bathroom at this place is an
actual outhouse? Thank god it was leg day at the gym—I had to squat over the
pot. My quads are burning nice now.”
Confession. I didn’t just bring a date to the wedding, I brought a
blind date.
No worries, though. Monica knows how serious I am about the path
to Mr. Right and supports the fact that I go on my fair share of dates to get
me there quicker. Plus, he isn’t a total stranger; she knows him—or, she met
him, rather. He attended her work event last week at the LA County Museum
of Art and is supposedly this cute, single real estate something or other. Of
course he tried to hit on her and, unlike most beautiful people in Los
Angeles, Monica actually copped to being in a committed relationship with
Danny. (Who doesn’t like to brag they’re marrying Mr. Galaxy himself?) So she
did the next best thing and gave him her single coworker’s Instagram handle and
told him to slide into my DMs. It’s a bold move on her part, but I appreciate
her quick thinking and commitment to my cause, Operation: Reclassify My
Marital Status.
Since Chad first messaged me a week ago, I’ve done my homework
on him. And I’m not talking about just your basic cyber stalking. I’m talking
about procuring and sifting through real, bona fide data. It’s essentially a
version of what I’m paid to do for a living—track down all the “influencers,”
people with a lot of fans and followers on the internet, and match them to
events we plan for our clients so they can post on social media and boost our
clients’ profiles.
Some may think my side-project software, the one that computes
how much of a match I am with someone, is a bit…much, but I don’t
see it that way at all. I’m on the hunt for a man who is a true match for
me—one who won’t just up and leave in the blink of an eye. I left things up to
fate once and look how that turned out. I’ll be damned if I do it that way
again.
While I studied up on Chad, I conducted a hefty “image search,”
yielding about a hundred photos of him that have been uploaded across a variety
of social platforms over the years. In real life, I’m pleased to say he checks
out. Chad is over six feet tall, tanned, and toned, with coiffed Zac Efron hair
that’s on the verge of being described as “a bit extra.” From the shoulders
up, he’s an emoji. A walking, talking emoji. But as I step back and admire him
in his expertly tailored suit, he looks like a contestant on The Bachelor.
In retrospect, Chad is just the right amount of good-looking to complement my
physical appearance, which can be described as a made-for-TV version of an
otherwise good-looking actress.
“Something to drink, sir?” one
of the caterers asks Chad.
“Yes. A spicy margarita.
Unless… Wait. Do you make the margarita mix yourselves? Or is it, like, that
sugary store-bought crap?”
Eek. I had forgotten my discovery that Chad is a bit of
a…wellness guru. I guess so is everyone in LA, but I can’t help but be taken
aback when I hear that there are people who actually care about the scientific
makeup of margarita mix.
“Fuck it. Too many calories either way,” Chad announces before
giving the waitress a chance to answer his question. “I’ll just take a
whiskey.”
“Splash of Coke?”
“God, no. So many empty calories.”
With his drink order in, Chad rolls his neck around and pops
bones I never knew existed. Then, one by one, the joints in his fingers. The
sound makes me a bit queasy but I’m trying to focus on the positive, like his
beautiful hazel eyes and the fact that cherry tomatoes and mini mozzarella balls
with an injection of balsamic vinegar are the latest and greatest munchie to
hit the floor.
Chad turns to me with a smile, his palm connecting with the
small of my back. “Should we find our seats? What table are we at?”
Good question, I think to myself. I’m at table six. Chad
is…on a fold-up chair we will have to ask a caterer to squeeze between me and
Monica’s great-aunt Sally? I kind of forgot to mention to him that I didn’t
really get an official okay to bring him tonight.
“Table six,” I say pleasantly
with a smile.
“Six is my lucky number. Well,
that, and nine, if you know what I mean,” Chad says with a wink
accompanied by an actual thumbs-up.
The waitress comes back with
his whiskey neat, and he proposes we clink our glasses in a toast to meeting up
as we make our way to the table. Still not over the lingering effects of his
immature, pervy sixty-nine joke, I reluctantly concede to do the cheers
with the perpetual high-schooler.
“So, what did you think of
Monica’s event?” I say to break the ice as we take our seats at the luckily
empty round table.
“Well, I don’t really know what
she does for a living, but she is fine as hell. I mean, that’s why I hit
on her last week at the LACMA. Sure, I saw the ring on her finger, but couldn’t
resist saying hi to a goddess like her. My god, that woman is something else.”
I nod in agreement. Partly because, yes, Monica Hoang needs her
own beauty column in Marie Claire, stat. And partly because I’m too shocked by his
crass demeanor to really do or say anything else. Did I say Chad reminded me of
a contestant on The Bachelor? I think I meant he reminds me of a guy
who gets sent home on night one of The Bachelor.
“She said you’re a real estate…attorney, was it?” I awkwardly
segue. “What’s your favorite neighborhood in Los Angeles?”
It sounds like I’m interviewing him for a job, which in a way, I
am. But had I known the conversation was going to be like forcefully wringing
out a damp rag, just hoping to squeeze out something semidecent, I would have
never invited him to join me at the wedding. In fact, I likely wouldn’t have
gone through with a date, of any kind, at all. Conversation skills rank high on
my list of preferred qualities in a mate. Looks like he’s the exception to the
rule that attorneys are good linguists, because my app sure as shit didn’t
predict this fail.
So how does my software work, then? Well, it’s all about
compatibility. My algorithm is programmed to know what I like and what I’m
looking for in the long term. So to see if a guy is a match, I comb through his
online profiles, enter the facts I find out about him, and generate a report
that indicates how likely he is to be my future husband or how likely we would
be to get a divorce, for example. One of the most helpful stats is how likely
we are to go on a second date. I’ve determined that anyone scoring above 70
percent means that chances are good we’d go out again. And, well, a second date
is the first step to marriage. You get the point. Anyone below a 70, I ignore
and move on. Chad pulled a 74, which is a solid C if you’re using a high school
grading system. Not stellar, but certainly passable with room for improvement.
As it’s turning out, there’s a lot of room for improvement.
“Huh? I’m not in real estate,” he says with a confused look on
his face.
“Oh, Monica said you were an attorney at Laird & Hutchinson?”
“Well, yes, that’s the name of our firm. The Laird side is real
estate. But they acquired Hutchinson a couple years ago, and that’s the side of
the practice I work on.”
“What kind of law is Hutchinson?”
“We’re the ‘Life’s too short, get a divorce!’ guys. You’ve
probably seen a few of our company’s billboards.”
Chad slides his business card my way, and as soon as I see the
logo, I picture those billboards slathered all over the bus stop benches down
Laurel Canyon Drive and feel physically ill. Not only because he’s in the
business of making divorce seem cheeky, but also because I’m wondering what
other things I might have missed or gotten wrong about Chad.
“Wait. So have you
ever been divorced?” The
question pops off my tongue involuntarily. As soon as the words come out, I
remember he reserves the right to ask me the same question in return and
immediately regret posing it. I’m not ready to explain the demise of my first
marriage.
“Me? Nah. Never married.”
Luckily, a server reappears to take our dinner order. But let it
be known that if Chad had asked, I would have explained that I didn’t give up
on my life partner because I was frustrated he failed to load a dishwasher in
any sort of methodical way. I didn’t just get bored and say “screw it,”
chalking the whole thing up as just a starter marriage (google it, this is a
thing now). In fact, if anyone abruptly left anyone, he abandoned
me out of nowhere.
“Would you like the chicken and veggies or the short rib and
scalloped potatoes?” the caterer asks me.
“Short rib and potatoes,” I say, a game-time decision made
entirely by my growling stomach.
At that, Chad looks at me like I rolled into the Vatican wearing
a tube top. “You sure about that, Char? There are so many hidden carbs in
potatoes,” he whispers with a hint of disgust.
First off, Char is reserved for people with a little more tenure in
my life, thankyouverymuch. And secondly—
“Yes, I’m sure. An extra scoop of potatoes if possible,” I say,
loud enough for our waitress, who jots down the special instruction.
“Chicken for me. Extra veggies,” my 74 percent match requests.
There it is. His wellness obsession flaring up again. I’m
racking my brain for what to say next to a guy who screams “dead end” to me.
Excerpted from Husband
Material by Emily Belden, Copyright © 2019
by Emily Belden. Published by Graydon House Books.
About the Author
EMILY BELDEN is a journalist, social media
marketer, and storyteller. She is the author of the novel Hot Mess and
Eightysixed: A Memoir about Unforgettable Men, Mistakes, and Meals. She lives
in Chicago. Visit her website at www.emilybelden.com or follow her on Twitter
and Instagram, @emilybelden.
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