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LOVE THE ONE YOU'RE WITH by Emily Giffin
On Sale: May 13th
Hardcover
352 pages
ISBN-10: 0312348673
ISBN-13: 9780312348670
How do you know if you've found the one? Can you really love the one you're with
when you can't forget the one who got away? Emily Giffin, author of the
New York Times bestselling novels SOMETHING BORROWED, SOMETHING BLUE, and
BABY PROOF, poses these questions --- and many more --- with her highly anticipated,
thought-provoking new novel LOVE THE ONE YOU'RE WITH.
Ellen Graham leads
a storybook life. A successful freelance photographer living in New York City,
she is married to Andy --- a wonderful guy who happens to be her best friend's
brother. After losing her own mother at a young age, Ellen relishes the sense
of belonging in the Graham family and by any measure, seems destined for happily
ever after. But all of that is threatened on one rainy day, in the crosswalk of
Eleventh and Broadway, when Ellen has a chance encounter with Leo, the one who
got away nearly eight years ago.
In an instant, Ellen feels Leo's inexorable
pull on her heart and is dismayed to discover that she never really got over him
or their passionate but turbulent relationship. Despite her every effort to resist
Leo and be true to Andy, Ellen finds herself engaging in a dangerous dialogue
with Leo, all the while questioning her decisions and relationships.
Her inner struggle only intensifies when she moves with Andy to his hometown of
Atlanta and feels smothered by the Graham family and their genteel Southern world.
As the tension between Ellen's past and present collide, Giffin adroitly explores
issues of love and loyalty, and most of all, how difficult it can be to find individual
happiness in a shared life.
At once heartbreaking and funny, LOVE THE
ONE YOU'RE WITH is a tale of lost loves and found fortunes --- and will resonate
with anyone who has ever wondered what if.
-Click here to read
a review of SOMETHING BORROWED.
-Click here to read a review of SOMETHING BLUE.
-Click here to read a review of BABY PROOF.
Emily Giffin
is a graduate of Wake Forest University and the University of Virginia School
of Law. After practicing litigation at a New York firm for several years, she
moved to London to write full time. The author of the New York Times bestselling
novels SOMETHING BORROWED, SOMETHING BLUE, and BABY PROOF,
she now lives in Atlanta with her husband and three young children. You can visit
her at www.emilygiffin.com.
Thirty-three-year-old Ellen Graham seems to have it all. She has recently married Andy, a handsome, successful lawyer and the brother of her best friend Margot. Andy and Ellen live in a comfortable apartment in a charming area of lower Manhattan. Her days are filled with rewarding, creative work as a portrait and editorial photographer, and friendships with work colleagues and college peers. What's more, Andy and Margot's wealthy, generous, gracious Southern family has virtually adopted Ellen as one of their own, a true blessing to this working-class Pittsburgher who lost her mother as a teenager. After a long history of heartbreak and disappointment, Ellen is finally perfectly happy.
So why, when Ellen almost literally bumps into an old flame, Leo, on the streets of New York, is she suddenly filled with feelings of dissatisfaction? Leo was the love of her life, their relationship filled with the kind of passion, lust and drama that solid, reliable Andy sorely lacks. But dark, brooding Leo also broke her heart years ago, leaving a painful void that was only filled when she began her relationship with Andy.
Suddenly, though, Ellen just can't get Leo --- and questions of "what if?" --- out of her head. And when Leo, a writer and reporter, invites her to take photographs to accompany one of his articles, the two begin an uneasy --- and secret --- friendship. But does she want more? When Andy proposes that the two move back to his hometown of Atlanta, she envisions her days filled, not with meaningful work and the intensity of New York, but with country club dates, baby showers and Botox. Having reconnected with Leo, Ellen begins to long for an old way of life, an old version of herself --- and an old lover.
Near the end of LOVE THE ONE YOU'RE WITH, Ellen muses that love "is the sum of our choices." Emily Giffin explores this idea throughout Ellen's story, examining how the choices we make --- and the choices we let others make for us --- can shape entire ways of life. Ellen is perhaps more conscious of this truth than most --- she is well aware of the moments in her life (her opulent wedding, her move to Atlanta) when she let the will of others dictate the "choices" she made. With the future of her relationship with Andy in the balance, she finally has the chance to act for herself. Her thoughtful, heartfelt exploration of her own motivations and desires will keep readers riveted.
Giffin has made a name for herself by writing unpredictable, non-formulaic novels that defy categorization as "chick lit." With its appealing but deeply flawed protagonist and uncomfortable situations, LOVE THE ONE YOU'RE WITH will continue to fill a niche for readers who want a light novel that still hides a hard edge. What's more, with its themes of regrets, tough choices and marital disillusion, Giffin's latest will certainly speak to all readers. After all, who hasn't fantasized, in an idle moment, about what life could have been like if only we had made different choices?
Romantic, thoughtful and bittersweet, LOVE THE ONE YOU'RE WITH will continue to cement Giffin's reputation as a writer of complex, smart stories about equally complex and smart women.
--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl
 Click here now to buy this book from Amazon.com.
Chapter One
It happened exactly one hundred days after I married Andy, almost to
the minute of our half-past-three-o'clock ceremony. I know this fact not so much
because I was an overeager newlywed keen on observing trivial relationship landmarks,
but because I have a mild case of OCD that compels me to keep track of things.
Typically, I count insignificant things, like the steps from my apartment to the
nearest subway (341 in comfortable shoes, a dozen more in heels); the comically
high occurrence of the phrase "amazing connection" in any given episode of The
Bachelor (always in the double digits); the guys I've kissed in my thirty-three
years (nine). Or, as it was on that rainy, cold afternoon in January, the number
of days I had been married before I saw him smack-dab in the middle of the crosswalk
of Eleventh and Broadway.
From the outside, say if you were a cabdriver
watching frantic jaywalkers scramble to cross the street in the final seconds
before the light changed, it was only a mundane, urban snapshot: two seeming strangers,
with little in common but their flimsy black umbrellas, passing in an intersection,
making fleeting eye contact, and exchanging stiff but not unfriendly hellos before
moving on their way.
But inside was a very different story. Inside, I
was reeling, churning, breathless as I made it onto the safety of the curb and
into a virtually empty diner near Union Square. Like seeing a ghost, I thought,
one of those expressions I've heard a thousand times but never fully registered
until that moment. I closed my umbrella and unzipped my coat, my heart still pounding.
As I watched a waitress wipe down a table with hard, expert strokes, I wondered
why I was so startled by the encounter when there was something that seemed utterly
inevitable about the moment. Not in any grand, destined sense; just in the quiet,
stubborn way that unfinished business has of imposing its will on the unwilling.
After what seemed like a long time, the waitress noticed me standing
behind the Please Wait to Be Seated sign and said, "Oh. I didn't see you there.
Should've taken that sign down after the lunch crowd. Go ahead and sit anywhere."
Her expression struck me as so oddly empathetic that I wondered if she
were a moonlighting clairvoyant, and actually considered confiding in her. Instead,
I slid into a red vinyl booth in the back corner of the restaurant and vowed never
to speak of it. To share my feelings with a friend would constitute an act of
disloyalty to my husband. To tell my older and very cynical sister, Suzanne, might
unleash a storm of caustic remarks about marriage and monogamy. To write of it
in my journal would elevate its importance, something I was determined not to
do. And to tell Andy would be some combination of stupid, self-destructive, and
hurtful. I was bothered by the lie of omission, a black mark on our fledging marriage,
but decided it was for the best.
"What can I get you?" the waitress,
whose name tag read Annie, asked me. She had curly red hair and a smattering of
freckles, and I thought, The sun will come out tomorrow.
I only wanted
a coffee, but as a former waitress, remembered how deflating it was when people
only ordered a beverage, even in a lull between meals, so I asked for a coffee
and a poppy seed bagel with cream cheese.
"Sure thing," she said, giving
me a pleasant nod.
I smiled and thanked her. Then, as she turned toward
the kitchen, I exhaled and closed my eyes, focusing on one thing: how much I loved
Andy. I loved everything about him, including the things that would have exasperated
most girls. I found it endearing the way he had trouble remembering people's names
(he routinely called my former boss Fred, instead of Frank) or the lyrics to even
the most iconic songs ("Billie Jean is not my mother"). And I only shook my head
and smiled when he gave the same bum in Bryant Park a dollar a day for nearly
a year --- a bum who was likely a Range Rover-driving con artist. I loved Andy's
confidence and compassion. I loved his sunny personality that matched his boy-next-door,
blond, blue-eyed good looks. I felt lucky to be with a man who, after six long
years with me, still did the half-stand upon my return from the ladies' room and
drew sloppy, asymmetrical hearts in the condensation of our bathroom mirror. Andy
loved me, and I'm not ashamed to say that this topped my reasons of why we were
together, of why I loved him back.
"Did you want your bagel toasted?"
Annie shouted from behind the counter.
"Sure," I said, although I had
no real preference.
I let my mind drift to the night of Andy's proposal
in Vail, how he had pretended to drop his wallet so that he could, in what clearly
had been a much-rehearsed maneuver, retrieve it and appear on bended knee. I remember
sipping champagne, my ring sparkling in the firelight, as I thought, This is it.
This is the moment every girl dreams of. This is the moment I have been dreaming
of and planning for and counting on.
Annie brought my coffee, and I wrapped
my hands around the hot, heavy mug. I raised it to my lips, took a long sip, and
thought of our year-long engagement --- a year of parties and showers and whirlwind
wedding plans. Talk of tulle and tuxedos, of waltzes and white chocolate cake.
All leading up to that magical night. I thought of our misty-eyed vows. Our first
dance to "What a Wonderful World." The warm, witty toasts to us --- speeches filled
with clichés that were actually true in our case: perfect for each other... true
love... meant to be.
I remembered our flight to Hawaii the following
morning, how Andy and I had held hands in our first-class seats, laughing at all
the small things that had gone awry on our big day: What part of "blend into the
background" didn't the videographer get? Could it have rained any harder on the
way to the reception? Had we ever seen his brother, James, so wasted? I thought
of our sunset honeymoon strolls, the candlelit dinners, and one particularly vivid
morning that Andy and I had spent lounging on a secluded, half-moon beach called
Lumahai on the north shore of Kauai. With soft white sand and dramatic lava rocks
protruding from turquoise water, it was the most breathtaking piece of earth I
had ever seen. At one point, as I was admiring the view, Andy rested his Stephen
Ambrose book on our oversized beach towel, took both of my hands in his, and kissed
me. I kissed him back, memorizing the moment. The sound of the waves crashing,
the feel of the cool sea breeze on my face, the scent of lemons mixed with our
coconut suntan lotion. When we separated, I told Andy that I had never been so
happy. It was the truth.
But the best part came after the wedding, after
the honeymoon, after our practical gifts were unpacked in our tiny apartment in
Murray Hill --- and the impractical, fancy ones were relegated to our downtown
storage unit. It came as we settled into our husband-and-wife routine. Casual,
easy, and real. It came every morning, as we sipped our coffee and talked as we
got ready for work. It came when his name popped into my inbox every few hours.
It came at night as we shuffled through our delivery menus, contemplating what
to have for dinner and proclaiming that one day soon we'd actually use our stove.
It came with every foot massage, every kiss, every time we undressed together
in the dark. I trained my mind on these details. All the details that comprised
our first one hundred days together.
Yet by the time Annie brought my
coffee, I was back in that intersection, my heart thudding again. I suddenly knew
that in spite of how happy I was to be spending my life with Andy, I wouldn't
soon forget that moment, that tightness in my throat as I saw his face again.
Even though I desperately wanted to forget it. Especially because I wanted to.
I sheepishly glanced at my reflection in the mirrored wall beside my
booth. I had no business worrying about my appearance, and even less business
feeling triumphant upon the discovery that I was, against all odds on an afternoon
of running errands in the rain, having an extraordinarily good hair day. I also
had a rosy glow, but I told myself that it was only the cold that had flushed
my cheeks. Nothing else.
And that's when my cell phone rang and I heard
his voice. A voice I hadn't heard in eight years and sixteen days.
"Was
that really you?" he asked me. His voice was even deeper than I remembered, but
otherwise it was like stepping back in time. Like finishing a conversation only
hours old.
"Yes," I said.
"So," he said. "You still have the
same cell number."
Then, after a considerable silence, one I stubbornly
refused to fill, he added, "I guess some things don't change."
"Yes,"
I said again.
Because as much as I didn't want to admit it, he was sure
right about that.
Copyright © 2008 by Emily Giffin. All rights reserved.
-Click here to read an excerpt from SOMETHING BORROWED.
-Click here to read an excerpt from BABY PROOF.
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