Echo Bridge

Chapter 1

Up until the very end, I'd always thought of Ted as one of the golden seniors at Belknap Country Day: broad, blond, captain of the soccer and lacrosse teams, keeper of a 3.7 GPA, and generally well-liked and admired. He drove a Range Rover handed down from his older brother, and his dress code button-downs came from Pink and Ralph Lauren. At first glance, you'd think he must be that same rich jock you've seen since Hollywood discovered the youth market and started making movies about high school. But he wasn't. He was funny and generous and kind. He looked after his younger teammates and helped teachers rearrange their classrooms. In the movie of my life that used to play in my head at all times, where age and era were no object, Ted was played by Brad Pitt, circa Legends of the Fall. And at the end of our sophomore year, he'd dumped Elaine Winslow—lean, blond, blue-eyed, All-American gorgeous; nationally ranked golfer; widely recognized as the most beautiful girl in school, even by some of our teachers—to go out with me. So you knew he had taste.

From a distance, Ted and Elaine had seemed like a natural fit, with their matching coloring and the easy, modest way they each handled their athletic accomplishments. But the way Ted told it, when he and Elaine went to the school production of Othello and I emerged in my white accordion-pleated chiffon gown and began professing loyalty and duty to my husband and father, that was it for Ted. There could be no one else for him but me. If a boy ever tells you it was your Desdemona that got him, you should probably think long and hard about that before you start blushing and giggling, even if he does have broad shoulders and a smile like a spotlight. He showed up backstage after curtain call on the third and final night of the performance with a dozen of those red-tipped white roses, and I completely forgot whatever ideas I'd had about Paul Patterson, who played Othello and had put word out that he wanted to hook up with me at the cast party.

Ted had only broken up with Elaine the day before. Supposedly, she was devastated. She retreated from the crowd of friends she shared with Ted after that, hanging out mostly with her younger sister and acquiring a new boyfriend, Marshall Rye. He was on the ski team and part of no single clique, but he was friendly with everybody and so was a lock for the "Citizenship Award" at the end of the year, when we would all vote for who was basically the nicest person in our class. Even so, Elaine and I avoided each other, and on occasions when we couldn't, we each caught the other giving the side-eye. We were both so different, it was impossible not to make comparisons. She was Grace Kelly and I was Sophia Loren.

But the role of Ted Parker's paramour had been re-cast, and I'd gotten the part. He came to every single performance of all of my plays junior year. The unspoken trade-off was that I went to all his games and cheered like a good girlfriend. I could not have cared less about Belknap Country Day's athletic record, but I did care about Ted. He took it hard when the team lost, which meant he'd be distracted and edgy until the next game. He was much more fun coming off a victory, clapping younger players on the back and accepting congratulations and compliments with a modest duck of his blond head and an adorable blush creeping up his perfect jaw. So out of my love for him, it was "go get 'em, BCD soccer!"

They beat Charles River Academy one Friday, late September of senior year. It was a blue and gold afternoon that, as Ted drove us to the victory party, was slipping into one of those crisp, starlit New England nights that I still miss, in spite of what happened on that particular one. The party was at Melissa Lewis' house, which was in one of the newer developments in town, where the houses were large but lacking in character, and there were rules about holiday décor and yard maintenance. Belknap is on the border between metro Boston's suburban sprawl and farm country. As a result, the town is an odd mishmash of strip malls and split-levels with quaint mom-and-pop shops and historic homes featuring plaques noting the pre-Revolution dates of construction. As far as setting a mood, Belknap posed a problem: were we in a John Hughes movie or a Thornton Wilder play? Granted, this was not a concern plaguing my friends as we gathered around the keg on Melissa's deck, but I was an actress and film connoisseur; atmosphere was important to me. I never got to choose the soundtrack in Ted's car, though—he drummed the wheel in time with John Mayer. Live.