Free The Guy Not Taken by Jennifer Weiner

lost in the woods and were hoping for a passing plane to spot you. Here I am. Here I am.
    My father read The New York Times . Or at least when he lived with us, he used to. He’d walk to the end of our driveway early on Sunday mornings, magisterially clad in his black terry-cloth bathrobe, with Milo the bulldog trotting ponderously in his wake, and carry the newspaper into the living room, closing the door behind him so that he could absorb the news of the daywithout distraction. I don’t know if his scrutiny of the paper extended to the wedding announcements, but ever since my engagement I’d had a fantasy of him showing up on my wedding day to tell me what a lovely and obviously accomplished young woman I’d turned into; how sorry he was to have missed the last eight years of my life; how lucky David was to have me. Sometimes, in my daydream, he would get choked up as he told me that he knew he didn’t deserve it, but could he have the honor of walking me down the aisle? In the daydream, I never cried. Sometimes, I even told him no.
    As the tuxedo-clad waiters whisked away my untouched plate of sautéed skate with hazelnut beurre blanc, asparagus, and pommes Anna and replaced it with a glass flute filled with cassis sorbet, David gave me a kiss. Then he sniffed, frowning. “Was that you?”
    I shifted in my seat as Nicki breezed over from the bar to stand at the head of the table with her glass in her hand. “I’d like to say a few words, if I might.”
    “Ah,” said Lillian. “The sister of the bride!”
    “Fuck,” I whispered, at the same moment David whispered, “Oh, no.” Too late. Nicki clambered on top of her undoubtedly expensive upholstered chair to beam down at the assembled guests, most of them David’s out-of-town relatives and his father’s important clients. She wore a tight suede skirt and a clingy chocolate-brown sweater. Her hair, shiny and brown, swung around her shoulders; her high-heeled tight-fitting leather boots stretched to her knees and added three inches to her height.
    “Hi, I’m Nicki Krystal. Some of you may recognize me from QVC,” was how she began. David’s mother blinked. I swallowed a mouthful of icy sorbet and pasted a smile on my face. After spending years lurching from one college, one city, onejob, and one boyfriend to another, my little sister, now twenty-five, had finally gotten her act at least semi-together and landed a job modeling Diamonique jewelry on cable TV. She was by far the most famous member of our family. At least from the wrists down.
    “I shared a room with Josie for seventeen years. I know her better than anyone in the world. And there are some things about my sister that I’d like to share with her new family.”
    I sank down in my seat, smoothing my pleated black-and-white-pique skirt over my knees and thinking that the less my new family heard from Nicki, the better it would be for all of us.
    “First,” said Nicki, thrusting her index finger dramatically in the air, “she’s not normally this thin.”
    David’s father let loose with a big, hearty ho-ho-ho . Lillian craned her neck around to stare at me in surgically perfected profile. I gave her a nervous grin, feeling myself start to sweat through the armpits of my black silk top.
    “Now, I don’t know how she did it!” Nicki said. “But seriously, David, if there’s a buffet anywhere on your honeymoon, my advice is don’t let her near it, because I don’t know how many calories the human body can handle in one sitting.”
    I pretended to wipe my lips and groaned quietly into my napkin.
    “Number two!” said Nicki. “She generally likes books better than people. I mean, I take it she likes you all right . . .” She favored David with a smile, which he weakly returned. “But as for the rest of humanity, forget it. If you ever have a party—and you probably won’t, because my sister, as you’ve probably figured out, is not big on socializing—but if you ever do, she’ll