The One & Only: A Novel by Emily Giffin Page A

call Coach Carr and tell him that I’d taken his advice. But, of course, there was no way I’d ever do such a thing. I had his cell but had never called him and instead left messages with Mrs. Heflin. There was nothing so pressing that it warranted bothering him at home—and breaking up with Miller hardly constituted “pressing” to anyone but me. Apparently including Miller.
    Instead I picked up the phone and called Lucy, even though I knew that anti-Miller sentiment was inevitable and wasn’t really in the mood to hear him bashed. I needed to talk to my best friend—my “bosom friend,” as she had called us since reading
Anne of Green Gables
in grade school, even writing a quote from the book in calligraphy and giving it to me for Christmas one year:
A really kindred spirit to whom I can confide my inmost soul.
    Although there was one thing I’d never confide in her, the quote was true, always had been. It didn’t matter that we weren’t much alike on paper. That I thought the best of people, and she often assumed the worst. That I was an introvert, and she could work a room like nobody I’d ever seen but her mother. That I was even-tempered, and she was moody and dramatic. That I was no frills, and she was all frills. That I loved football, and she simply tolerated it. The list of differences was endless, but, in the end, none of them mattered. What mattered was that we completely accepted each other. That I had her back, and she had mine. That we shared a common history, going all the way back to our mothers’ collegiate friendship. Lucy had always been more like a sister than a friend, especially in a crisis, and I needed her now.
    “I just ended things with Miller,” I said after she answered.
    “Good for you,” she said, as if I’d given her a weather report. “Long overdue.”
    “C’mon, Lucy,” I said. “I’m really sad. I’m going to miss him … It’s not like there are many other options around here.”
    “You’re right. I’m sorry. But, Shea, you totally did the right thing.”
    “It still hurts,” I said, thinking that in some ways it hurt more than being dumped because there was no anger to distract me.
    “I know. I’m sorry,” she said as I thought of the many times Lucy had soothed me after a breakup over the years.
    “Do you want to come over?” she asked me now. “Open a bottle of wine?”
    I considered this, but decided sleep was what I needed most. “Thanks, but I’ll probably turn in.”
    “Okay. I’m headed home, too. Call me if you need me.”
    “Where are you now?” I said.
    “At my dad’s. Wow, that sounds so weird.”
    “Maybe we should keep calling it your parents’ house. I mean, your mother made it a
home.
And …” I struggled to find the right words to comfort my best friend. “It will always be hers.”
    “Thank you, Shea,” Lucy said. “I hope you’re right.”
    “I
am
right,” I said. “Everyone knows that your mother is irreplaceable.”

Five

    A bout a week later, I agreed to meet Lucy at her parents’ house. My mother was joining us as well, with the plan to go through Connie’s closet, a task I couldn’t possibly dread more.
    “Any word from Miller?” Lucy asked as we waited for my mother, late as usual.
    “No,” I said, watching her mix up a fresh batch of sweet tea, heaping in the sugar just the way Coach Carr liked it. “Probably easier that way.”
    Lucy nodded in agreement as we heard the garage door rumble. “Daddy’s home,” she said.
    I instinctively stood up a little straighter, then reached up to fluff my hair.
    Lucy narrowed her eyes and gave me a funny look. “Did you just fix your
hair
?” she said, staring at me.
    “No. Of course not,” I said, feeling embarrassed though I wasn’t sure why.
    “Okay. ’Cause it looked like you did that thing you do in bars when a hot guy walks in.”
    “What thing?”
    She imitated me perfectly.
    “I didn’t do that,” I said, feeling certain I was telling the