The Wedding People

Chapter 15

The bachelorette party begins with a “water journey” at a nearby spa.

“I just wish they wouldn’t call it a water journey,” Marla says, standing in the changing room. “Then I could actually enjoy it.”

“Shh,” Suz says, and points to a sign on the door demanding that they whisper at all times. Not just for other guests, but for themselves. This is proving to be tricky for Marla and Lila, though.

“This is sort of like the hot springs in Baden-Baden, except not,” Lila says.

“Shouldn’t we be allowed to have our phones if this is our own personal journey?” Marla asks.

Phoebe waits for Lila to respond but then remembers that Lila almost never speaks directly to Marla, just stands there and lets Marla say whatever she wants.

“You can’t heal and sext at the same time,” Phoebe says. Phoebe meant this as a joke, but Suz takes it literally.

“Marla, oh my God, you sext ?” Suz asks.

“Don’t we all sext?” Nat asks.

“Do we?” Lila asks, looking off-balance in her tiny body and giant fake veil.

“Shh,” Marla says and gives Phoebe a look. But Phoebe has no time for it.

“Okay, so the woman at check-in told me we’re allowed to go in naked since this is a private event,” Phoebe whispers.

“Why would we want to be naked?” Marla asks.

“Why wouldn’t we want to be naked?” Suz whispers.

While the women debate in loud and hushed tones, Phoebe just takes off her clothes. She quotes Patricia without quoting Patricia.

“We’re too young not to be naked all of the time,” Phoebe says, and the women all disrobe, except for Marla.

“Marla, come on,” Suz insists as they enter the pool area. “If you’re not naked, that somehow makes us more naked.”

“You can’t be more or less naked than naked,” Marla says.

“So, those over there are the cold pools,” Phoebe whispers. “Fifty-five degrees.”

“Sounds painful,” Marla says.

“Apparently,” Phoebe says, reading from the literature, “cold pools help with inflammation, boost your immune system, cure your depression—”

“Fix your relationship with your mother-in-law,” Suz adds.

“And sometimes go grocery shopping for you,” Nat adds.

The women all separate into different tubs, each going on their own journey. Or maybe they just want an excuse to have some time alone. Marla goes to the hottest pool, and Phoebe gets in the cold one simply because it’s the one that promises to cure depression, though she knows that’s not how depression works. There is no quick fix, and sometimes trying to fix it only made it worse. Going to yoga three times a week only confirmed that she was truly a lost cause since not even yoga could make her feel better. But what else can a person do except keep trying? And the cold pool is easy enough. All she has to do is sit in it and be cold. Success, she thinks, as her toes start to go numb. She can feel herself start to relax, until Lila joins her.

“Gary’s mother cornered me for the third time this morning and asked why God has not yet made an appearance at this wedding,” Lila whispers as soon as she gets in. “I was like, Oh no, I completely forgot to invite him.”

Lila says it hasn’t been easy being so annoyed with a woman who has the beginnings of dementia.

“It feels truly evil to get mad at her,” Lila says. “But how many times do I have to explain that I’m godless? That I can’t get married at a church, because what church? I don’t have a church!”

She said she doesn’t believe in anything, except money. And what’s so bad about that? Money keeps the mansions upright on Bellevue, does it not? Money makes art, does it not? Money makes the world handicapped accessible, does it not? Did God do that? Maybe. If God made money.

“But Gary’s mother thinks that the marriage will be invalid unless I do it at a church. And who knew Gary’s family was that Catholic? Like, Marla and Gary never talk about God. They must be traumatized or something.”

Phoebe looks at her. “You’re paying a lot of money to relax right now. I suggest you try.”

“I’ve never been very comfortable relaxing,” Lila says. But then she slips a little farther into the water. “What do we do, just like, sit here? It’s so cold. Marla’s right. I don’t get it.”

“Take a breath,” Phoebe says.

The pool is so cold, the shock of it hasn’t worn off yet. But Phoebe likes the shock—likes how it reminds her she’s alive.

“Oh, remind me to tell you about my dream later,” Lila says. “It was about Jim. And it was awful .”

“Take another breath,” Phoebe says, and so Lila takes a deep breath. She leans her head back. She doesn’t seem to care that the hem of her fake veil sits in the water. Soon, the whole room quiets down, and it feels nice again. There is only the sound of water, dripping from each woman as they get out of a pool and into another. There is, finally, peace. Quiet unity among them as they silently pass each other until their journeys are complete.

B Y THE TIME they return to the hotel, Phoebe feels truly relaxed. So does Lila, whose face looks lost in some dream. When she is stopped by Jim in the lobby, it takes her a long moment to figure out what he’s saying.

“We have a problem,” Jim says. He has the red face of a man who has either been drinking all day or golfing all day or both. “Somebody fucked the vintage car in the parking lot.”

Nobody understands what this means, especially not the bride.

“Somebody fucked it up?” Lila asks.

“No. Somebody fucked it.”

The other women give Lila a little wave goodbye like this is none of their business. Suz mouths, Shower , before they all take off, but Lila doesn’t notice.

“I hear the words you are saying, Jim, but I truly don’t understand,” Lila says.

“I truly don’t know how else to say it, Lila. That’s what happened. The vintage car was… fucked.”

Lila stands there as if he just tossed a bucket of red paint on her.

“Right,” Phoebe interjects. “But I think our confusion is… what does that mean exactly?”

“Somebody literally stuck their dick in the tailpipe and ya know.”

“Ya know ?” Lila asks.

“Ya know,” Jim says.

“Why would anyone do that to my wedding car?”

“Why would anyone do that to any car?” Jim asks.

“ How does someone do that?” Phoebe is genuinely curious. She’s having trouble visualizing it, when Gary walks in with his golf clubs. Lila goes to him at once.

“Somebody fucked our car, Gary,” Lila says.

“Excuse me?” Gary asks.

He sets down the clubs, and a man in burgundy takes them away.

“Tell him, Jim,” Lila says, as if she had been there when it happened, as if now in front of Gary who knows nothing, Jim and Lila are the couple, the bearers of bad news, telling Gary what happened.

“Well, I was putting my clubs back into my car, and I saw the car just sitting there in the sunlight, and I thought, God, now that’s a beautiful vehicle,” Jim says.

“Jim, you don’t need to set the scene,” Lila says.

“I literally said one sentence,” Jim says.

“Well, it was a run-on,” Lila says. “Just get to the point.”

“I would already be at the point, if you hadn’t interrupted.”

“Okay, so just tell me what happened,” Gary says.

“So I was just standing there, looking at the car, admiring it, and then this guy just came into focus, standing right behind the car, with his thing in the tailpipe, and you know, it’s been a long day, I thought I was hallucinating for a second. But then I yelled at him to get the hell out of here, and he bolted.”

Gary doesn’t look horrified, but Phoebe is learning that Gary never reacts wildly to any situation. It seems important to him, as a doctor, as the only parent, to be presented with a problem and immediately go on a search for a solution. Like okay, yes, the car was fucked, but luckily he had prepared for this.

“We should tell the front desk,” Gary says.

“What’s the front desk going to do?” Jim asks.

“Call the police!” Lila says.

“And say what, Help, someone fucked my car?” Jim asks.

“I’m sorry, but I just don’t think you can fuck a car,” Phoebe says. She will die on this hill. “It’s a car. It can’t be fucked the way… a lawn mower can’t be fucked because it’s a lawn mower and not a living being.”

But Lila is not persuaded. She sits down on the velvet couch. Another thing ruined, just when she was starting to relax. She presses her fingers to her temples. Gary sits down next to her.

“I’m sort of having a panic attack,” Lila says.

“A real one? Or a figurative one?” Gary asks.

“A real one, Gary.”

But she doesn’t move or do anything at all. She just stoically shifts the hair out of her eyes. Reframes the veil around her face. The world’s classiest panic attack.

“What can I do?” Gary asks.

“I need you to ask Pauline for a different car,” Lila says.

“A new car?” Jim asks. “Why? That car is perfect.”

“The car has been fucked , Jim!” Lila says, but it’s Gary who flinches. “I can’t take that thing to our wedding, knowing what happened to it.”

“I mean, technically, the car is kind of the victim here,” Jim says.

“ I am the victim here,” Lila says sternly.

Nobody speaks. Jim looks at Gary with raised eyebrows. But Gary doesn’t return the expression. Doesn’t say a word. Just puts his arm around her like he did when Juice melted down on the wharf.

“Okay,” Gary says. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Good.” Lila adjusts her veil again, as if this will transform her back into the relaxed and happy bride who had not yet walked into the lobby. “I need to go get dressed for my bachelorette party.”

Lila walks away into the elevator. Jim and Gary and Phoebe all look at one another.

“Jim, why did you tell her that?” Gary asks.

“Because it happened!”

“Lila doesn’t need to know every single thing that goes wrong.”

“She’s not a child.”

“I know she’s not a child,” Gary says. “She’s an adult who is now stressed out for no reason. Like she would have even known?”

“She’d find out eventually.”

“How? No. She really wouldn’t have.”

“It’ll be fine,” Jim says. “I’ll handle it.”

“No, I’ll handle it,” Gary says.

“Fine, I’ll go back outside. See if I can find this pervert.”

Jim leaves Gary and Phoebe alone in the lobby. The groom and the maid of honor, left to handle the situation, and it gives Phoebe the feeling that they are Lila’s parents now.

“I honestly still don’t get it, though,” Phoebe says. “Is the tailpipe even the right size for that?”

“I guess it depends on the guy.”

“I guess he’d have to have like… used his hand first and then go into it?”

“Because you can’t like, use it as a…”

“No.”

“Shit.”

They laugh. Lila’s grandmother walks in.

“Gary,” Bootsie says, and she hands him a Tupperware container full of clear liquid.

For a second, Gary looks horrified, like it might be a urine sample.

“It’s a gimlet,” Bootsie says. “Can you make sure this gets to the Breakers for the reception?”

“Of course,” Gary says. “But that’s days away, Bootsie. And you know they can make you a gimlet at the wedding.”

“I make it a rule not to trust anything that comes out of the Breakers,” she says. “And nobody makes it like my guy. He’s only had forty years of practice. And who are you, my dear?”

“I’m Phoebe,” she says. “The maid of honor.”

Lila’s grandmother accepts this. Funny how people just believe you are who you say you are, Phoebe thinks. She’s not sure why she never realized this power that she had before. But it’s true. She is the maid of honor. She puts her hand on Gary’s shoulder and says, “I’ll handle it,” and Gary mouths, Thank you .

“Excuse me,” Phoebe says to Pauline at the front desk. “It seems that the bride will need a new car.”

“Is there something wrong with it?” Pauline asks.

She can see Jim’s problem: “Made love” is too weird. “Had sex with” doesn’t capture the spirit of the crime.

“Someone fucked it,” Phoebe says.

Pauline does not even blink, not even when one of her fake eyelashes falls off. She just continues to stand there, as if she is in the middle of training herself never to have another reaction again.

“That’s… highly unusual. We are very sorry for that. We will… make a note of it. None of our cars have ever… We’ll arrange for a new one right away. Oh, and please tell the bride that the Commodore’s Punch Bowl tonight is on me.”

Phoebe leaves and wonders how long Pauline will wait before she reaches out to pick up her eyelashes.

U PSTAIRS , P HOEBE TAKES a long shower to wash off the oils from the spa. Water—she can’t get enough of it this week. She is sure that she could live forever if she could always be in this shower. She turns off all the lights and scrubs herself with something called Oat Milk Soap for Human Beings. It works. She sits on the watery floor and feels more like a human being than she has in years.

She puts on her dress and then applies the makeup she bought earlier. She used to feel some kind of professorial obligation to despise the stuff, but if she is being honest with herself, she likes putting on makeup. She missed it during the pandemic. It’s a nice ritual, and if you do anything enough, that’s what it becomes. A ritual that has the power to make you feel something. She spreads the bold red stick across her lips, and she feels suddenly awake, ready for the evening.

D OWNSTAIRS AT THE bar, the women are clumped around Lila. They look bright against the dark-blue drapes, their cocktail dresses like different lollipops. But when Phoebe joins them, the mood is heavy.

“Do you think it had something to do with how beautiful the car was?” Suz asks.

“Like that’s why a person chooses to fuck some cars over others?” Nat wonders.

The women don’t know. None of them can begin to understand the psychology of car-fucking, except for Marla.

“That’s not how it works,” Marla says. “It has nothing to do with how hot the car is.”

“Can we not talk about the car?” Lila asks, with a new edge to her voice. She sounds like the Lila that Phoebe first met in the elevator.

“Let’s get some cocktails and bring them upstairs for the Sex Woman,” Phoebe says.

“Where’s the Drink Concierge?” Lila asks.

Suz gets a text, which is a public event for all of them, because she insists on keeping the phone face up on the table at all times.

“Ugh. I don’t know why my husband keeps texting me every little detail about the Little Worm’s shit,” Suz says. “Like he thinks I must know, right now, about what color it is. I’m at a bachelorette party!”

But it doesn’t feel like one until Ryun arrives with five glasses of the Commodore’s Punch. Lila looks relieved. She sips her cocktail, while Marla asks Ryun, “What’s the difference between a Drink Concierge and a bartender?” and “Why the u ?”

“Guess my parents thought it’d be more original,” Ryun says.

“Ugh. Why does everybody need to be so original these days?” Lila asks.

“Just wanted me to be special, I suppose.”

“But that’s the worst part!” Lila says. “Why were they so afraid that you wouldn’t be special? Why couldn’t you just be an ordinary baby?”

Ryun shrugs. He doesn’t know. “Turns out the joke’s on them because I’m not very special.”

Ryun is a surfer. Works here to support his lifestyle.

“I have literally no other ambition than that,” he says. He doesn’t even want to be a professional surfer. He is realistic. He knows that’s no life. He just wants to… do it.

“Well, good for you,” Lila says. “Don’t make anything of yourself. My mother wanted me to be special, too. She expects me to be her grand masterpiece. And she’s not even a painter!”

Ryun laughs, looks at her in her big fake veil and glittering sash. “You seem pretty special.”

Lila’s cheeks flush like she is already drunk, and maybe she is. “Thanks.”

Marla gives Ryun a death stare for flirting with the bride. Phoebe holds up her glass.

“A toast to the bride,” Phoebe says, and Lila smiles. “Now let’s go see the Sex Woman.”

T HE S EX W OMAN is already in the billiards room when they arrive.

“You’re late,” she says.

She stands behind a giant projector in a taupe suit and a low ponytail. She reminds Phoebe of her old self in the classroom, secretly angry at all the late students but trying desperately not to seem so. Maybe this is why Phoebe apologizes.

“Very, very sorry,” Phoebe says.

They sit down on the teal couch with their drinks. Lila gives them all a big smile, like she is better now. Ready to have some fun.

“Good evening, ladies,” the Sex Woman says. “And who is the special bride tonight?”

Lila raises her hand and the women cheer.

“Well, congratulations,” the Sex Woman says. “As you likely know, I’m a former colleague of Viv’s. We worked together not long ago while I was at the Atlanta Zoo.”

They all nod like they knew this.

“But ever since the pandemic, I’ve obviously made a bit of a career shift. Turns out there’s more money in bachelorette parties than the nonprofit sector,” she jokes, and everyone laughs. “But more seriously, in case Viv didn’t tell you, let me introduce myself. I am the world’s foremost international mating expert for the Ailuropoda melanoleuca , otherwise known as the giant panda. I have been the chief consultant to three national zoos. I have appeared on two different PBS conservation specials and have personally participated in the sexual intercourse of at least four pandas across the world.”

Nat and Suz laugh. Marla looks at Phoebe and nods her head, as if she’s genuinely impressed by the Sex Woman’s credentials. But Lila looks confused, whispers, “Is this Viv’s idea of a joke?” and they shrug. Phoebe suspects that if they were in grade school, this is when they would break into uncontrollable laughter. But they don’t. They are adult women. It does not feel right to make fun of any woman standing before them, not to mention pandas. It feels more like she’s at an academic conference and should raise her hand, inquire about the pandas. But it’s Marla who does it.

“You participated in panda sex?” Marla asks. “What does that mean?”

“Good question,” the Sex Woman says. She pulls up the first slide. “This is Mei Mei.”

She points to a sad photograph of a panda holding a single stalk of bamboo.

“I helped Mei Mei make love for the first time, probably one of the biggest achievements on my CV to date. For seven years, Mei Mei showed no interest in mating with the other pandas at the Atlanta Zoo. Our research suggests this is largely due to being in a state of captivity. In captivity, the giant panda has forgotten how to have sex. By trying to protect the pandas, we have nearly killed them.”

More photos of pandas in separate rooms. Pandas looking forlorn.

“This is actually very upsetting,” Suz whispers.

Phoebe is concerned, too. Phoebe wonders when she will break character, morph into the opposite of herself, rip out her low ponytail, pass out vibrators for each of them, like the stripper cop who arrives at the bachelor party angry and ready to make arrests, just before she removes her pants.

But maybe this is not a character? Maybe she’s truly just here to talk about pandas. Maybe Viv was a terrible maid of honor. Phoebe should have asked the Sex Woman on the phone what it meant to be a Sex Woman. But it’s too late now. Lila is staring at the Sex Woman like this is the worst kind of Sex Woman out there: the boring kind.

“During the pandemic, when we were all stuck at home every day, I realized that we, too, were in captivity. And just like Mei Mei, I, too, stopped wanting to have sex. And the only thing that carried me through this dark time was believing that there were other miserable and sexless folks out there who felt the same.”

She started hosting Zoom sex workshops, sharing her research, her discoveries. Clips from her workshops went viral, and by the time the pandemic was over, she had helped millions of people around the world want sex again.

“What we’ve learned from studying pandas in captivity is that they are, essentially, trapped in paradise. There is too much leisure, too much comfort, too much bamboo. Too much ESPN, if you know what I mean.”

Suz nods knowingly.

“The males stopped trying and the females no longer rubbed their anal glands over nearby trees like they did in the wild,” the Sex Woman adds, and Suz stops nodding. “All their needs were met. There was no flirtation, no foreplay, no delicate dance, because through captivity, we eliminated almost all of the natural Darwinian factors in panda mating. What we know now, what we all know now, is that we can’t just put two animals in a room and expect them to have sex. We can’t even expect them to want it. So why do we expect this of ourselves?”

The Sex Woman, and her colleagues, spent years teaching the pandas how to remember to want it.

“We showed them videos of other pandas mating,” the Sex Woman says. “Videos to stimulate them.”

“Like panda porn?” Suz asks.

“Yes.”

“Do pandas actually get turned on when they watch other pandas have sex?” Nat asks.

“Of course.”

“That’s kind of beautiful,” Suz says and looks at the rest of the group. But Lila is unmoved.

“It’s not beautiful,” Lila insists. “It’s porn, Suz.”

“Yeah, but panda porn.”

“Porn is not suddenly beautiful just because two bears are doing it,” Lila says.

“Are there… like… panda storylines?” Marla asks.

“Two pandas, one a billiards champion and the other needs to learn,” Nat says.

This was eerily close to a video Phoebe had caught Matt watching once. When she found him, she made it a point to join in on it, because he was so embarrassed to be caught. So they sat there and watched it and they critiqued the plot as if they were critiquing a television show—as if they didn’t enjoy it at all. But at some point during the billiards game, they fell silent. They watched as the man went up behind the blonde and stroked her arm, put her on the table. And Matt reached out for Phoebe. They had good sex for the first time in months, but after, Matt never brought it up again. Neither did she.

“You joke, but for pandas, it’s the matter of their continued survival,” the Sex Woman says. “And for you as well, no?”

The women nod.

“So, bride-to-be, this brings me to you,” the Sex Woman says.

“How in the world does this bring you to me?” Lila asks.

“Before you enter into your captivity, I mean, marriage,” she says, and winks, “I am here to give you the skills you need to make sure you always want it with your husband. I want you to leave here knowing that you will have not just a good sex life but the longest, and the wettest, and the hottest sex with your man.”

But first, she needs a little information.

“What’s his name again?”

“Gary.”

Then she asks Lila to describe her current sex life with Gary in one word.

“That’s so personal,” Lila says.

“That’s what we’re here to be, my bride,” the Sex Woman says.

“Okay, well, wonderful,” Lila admits.

“Wonderful!” the Sex Woman says, then asks the other women to do the same.

“Evolving,” Nat says.

“Verbal,” Marla says.

“Dead,” Suz says.

“Germinating,” Phoebe says.

“Now, I want you to think about the last time you got really turned on. See if you can locate what it was that got you so turned on. What made you really want to have sex? Not because your partner wanted to, and not because it had been weeks and you started to worry about how it had been weeks. But because you were overcome with desire. Because you didn’t want to do anything else but fuck.”

Then the Sex Woman passes out pieces of paper. They all write things down, and eventually, the Sex Woman says, “Let’s start with the bride. What was the last thing that really turned you on about Gary?”

Lila blushes and looks at Marla. “I can’t say with Marla here.”

“I am very aware that Gary’s a human being who has sex,” Marla says. “In fact, I caught him once.”

But Lila looks flustered. The difference between Lila inside Phoebe’s hotel room and Lila outside Phoebe’s hotel room is becoming jarring to Phoebe. Phoebe has become used to Lila’s honesty, the storming in, the sitting down, the immediate confession about whatever it was that was making her unhappy. It made Phoebe feel like a priest or a therapist. But out here, around these women, Lila is private. Guarded. Like it’s too difficult to be honest in front of Marla. Or maybe there is something about her sex life that she is terribly embarrassed about. But what is it?

“Oh, don’t be a bore,” Nat says. “This is your sex workshop, by the way.”

“Okay, fine, he’s a really good kisser,” Lila says.

“Can you be more specific about that?” the Sex Woman asks. “Do you remember a specific kiss? Was there anything special about it? Was it passionate? Did he use tongue?”

“Like a regular amount of tongue.”

But then her face gets red, like she’s already admitted too much.

“Why don’t I move on,” the Sex Woman says, and turns to Suz, who talks at length about a man she met at her college reunion, a man who used to tease her, a man who knew her before the Little Worm. Then Nat says something about her wife, Laurel, gardening, the dirt on her face, the passion she had for doing something totally unnecessary.

“The last time I was really turned on, I was being choked,” Marla says.

“Robert chokes you? I seriously cannot picture that,” Lila says.

“ Not Robert,” Marla says, and then bursts out crying. “Robert would never choke me. Not even when I asked.”

Robert is a man who uses bullet points on his Valentine’s Day cards to explain the three reasons why he loves her, and they aren’t even all that nice. He is a man who is pathologically incapable of complimenting her.

“And do you know what it’s like to never be complimented by your own husband?” Marla asks. “I always thought it was because he was a judge. He was like, professionally neutral. But then we’re at this work thing and I’m talking to this other judge, and he compliments my dress, like no big deal, and the next thing I know, we’re at his house on the Chesapeake, watching the midterm primaries—”

They burst into laughter. “Hot,” Suz says.

“I personally like to get choked while watching C-SPAN,” Nat says.

“Samesies,” Suz says. “But wait, how did he choke you?”

“He just reached out his hand and choked me.”

“I seriously do not get the appeal,” Lila says.

The Sex Woman reminds them all not to judge. “This is just about sharing,” she says. “Keeping in touch with our desires.”

She turns to Phoebe. “And what about you?”

“I was talking to a total stranger,” Phoebe says. “It was the first time I really wanted to have sex after I got divorced.”

“Wait, you’re divorced?” Lila asks.

“How do you not know that?” Marla asks. “She’s your maid of honor.”

“Let’s focus less on the divorce and more on what turned you on about this stranger?” the Sex Woman says.

“I don’t know,” Phoebe says. She thinks back to that night, that moment of sitting with him in the pink light of dawn. How when she told him she had come here to kill herself, he did not look away. “I liked that he made eye contact.”

“Eye contact can be very sexy.”

“He wasn’t afraid of looking at me. He wasn’t afraid of what I was saying. He wasn’t afraid of the worst parts of me. And this made me feel like those parts were okay. Like I could say anything. Be anything.”

The memory makes Phoebe smile, and the Sex Woman becomes curious. “What is making you smile right now?”

“I actually told him I wanted to fuck, and that should have been embarrassing, but it was really hot.”

“Announcing our own desires,” the Sex Woman says. “That can be very powerful. And now you know this about yourself. Now you know that when you are not in the mood, whenever you are starting to feel disconnected from yourself, you can ask yourself: What are you not being honest about?”

For the rest of the hour, the Sex Woman shows them short tutorials on how to touch themselves with various herbal lubricants, then concludes with a video of two pandas humping.

“May you all know such carnal bliss,” the Sex Woman jokes, and the women laugh and clap. Then the Sex Woman unceremoniously dumps a bunch of sex toys on the coffee table. One of the dicks rolls onto the ground.

“A vibrator can be a memory tool,” the Sex Woman says.

She tells them that, like the pandas, it’s important to stay in communication with their desires. Important to recognize their kinks when they start to show themselves. Important to touch our bodies if we have forgotten what it feels like to be touched. Then she looks at her watch. In only this way, she is like a stripper. Loyal to the minute hand of the clock.

“My hour is up!” She shuts down the projector. “Now, who wants to buy a dick?”

The women laugh. They all reach out, and Phoebe picks up a purple one.

“I almost forgot!” the Sex Woman says. “The complimentary Cum Rags.”

Suz holds one in her hand like it’s cashmere. “Wow—such a good idea.”

“So environmental,” Nat says.

“ W HY WOULD V IV hire that Sex Woman?” Lila asks at the restaurant.

“From what you used to tell us about Viv, it’s so like Viv to hire her,” Suz says.

They are having dinner at the White Horse Tavern. The oldest tavern in America, according to the menu. Dark green walls, high-back chairs, and thick wooden beams, yet food that is perfectly on trend. Shaved brussels sprouts and cabbage salads. Scallops in lemon herb sauce. Twin lobster tails on Phoebe’s plate. The house wine sits on the table in clear jugs, like they are Romans. It’s a little watered down and warm, but that seems to be the point.

“But we’re like, not pandas,” Lila says. “Like now when I have sex, all I’m going to think about is being a panda. I don’t see how that’s going to help anything.”

“I thought she was great,” Nat says. “You just didn’t share anything, so she couldn’t help you.”

“Why do I need help?” Lila says. “Our sex life is good.”

Everyone is getting bored of Lila’s refusal to say anything real. Marla turns to Phoebe and says, “So why did you get divorced?”

“You can’t just ask someone that,” Nat says.

“It’s okay,” Phoebe says. “My husband had an affair.”

“Asshole,” they all say in unison, except Marla.

“And you couldn’t forgive him?” Marla asks.

“He didn’t even ask me to,” Phoebe says.

“Are you going to get a divorce?” Suz asks Marla.

“I don’t think we should be talking about divorce,” Lila reminds them.

“Right,” Suz says. “Okay. So, uh, what’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever done in bed? Me first.”

Then Suz admits that once she sort of liked it when this guy in college poured hot wax on her.

“I wasn’t against it, but I wasn’t really for it,” Suz says.

Nat once pretended to be a nurse/tennis player in front of the camera for a college girlfriend, but only because it was her camera and she could delete the footage.

“A nurse and a tennis player at the same time?” Suz asks.

“A true theatrical challenge,” Phoebe says.

They laugh.

“That’s what she wanted,” Nat says. “An athletic nurse. Someone who can both be sporty and save lives.”

“What about you, Lila?” Nat asks.

“From the groom,” the waiter says, and interrupts with a bottle of wine that Gary had handpicked and delivered for Lila’s party. They all clap as the old man pours the wine into the glasses.

“Gary is so sweet,” Suz says. “Marc would never do that.”

“So?” Nat asks Lila. “What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever done?”

“I really don’t feel comfortable saying with Marla here.”

“Is it really that weird?” Nat asks.

“I’m not surprised,” Suz says. “All doctors are weird in bed.”

“All doctors are not weird in bed,” Lila says. “You can’t just say things like that.”

“Trust me, I slept with a lot of doctors during med school,” Suz says. “And they were all so bored of bodies, they always needed something extra.”

“Gary is so not like that,” Lila says.

“Then what is he like?” Suz asks.

“Just share with us,” Nat says. “We’re just trying to know you better. That’s all.”

“Okay, well,” Lila says, seemingly touched. “Gary’s just really sweet. The last time we had sex, Gary stopped halfway through to tell me that I looked so beautiful in the sunlight, I was like a Vermeer painting.”

The table is silenced.

“That’s not weird,” Nat says.

“That’s like, really beautiful,” Suz says.

“It would seriously take Robert two decades of therapy to ever say something like that,” Marla says.

“Well, I told you, we don’t do anything weird!” Lila says.

“It’s not even close to weird.”

“Why does our sex have to be weird? It’s not like it’s more special the weirder it is. Can’t I just have beautiful sex and be happy about it?”

“I don’t know,” Nat says. “ Can you be happy about it?”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Lila asks.

“You just don’t sound that happy about your beautiful sex,” Nat says.

Lila looks at Phoebe like she’s sending Phoebe a private message. Asking her with her eyes to end this conversation.

“Oh, I forgot!” Phoebe says.

Phoebe pulls out the pack of penis straws and puts them in the wineglasses. But the glasses are too short, the straws too long, the dicks too heavy. They look perpetually at risk of falling out of the glasses. They look wrong, too neon and vulgar for this quiet rustic tavern. The waiter eyes them suspiciously when he clears the plates, but Lila looks pleased by them. Pleased that sex is just a stupid joke again among friends. She leans in and takes a sip from the dick.

“It’s a real bachelorette party now,” Lila says.

But Marla reminds them that Gary bought this Bordeaux. Went to an actual award-winning vineyard to research it and pick it out.

“I refuse to suck a fifty-year-old bottle of Bordeaux through a neon-green dick,” Marla says. “This wine is meant to be savored.”

“Suck it slowly then,” Nat says, and everyone laughs.

“What would you think of men who drank beer out of plastic vaginas?” Marla asks.

“Can we not talk about sex?” Lila asks, as she takes a big sip from the tiny dick. “It’s so… historic here. I feel we should be talking about like… something meaningful.”

“Okay, like what?” Suz asks.

“Like Cubism,” Lila says.

“You want to talk about Cubism?” Nat asks.

“What is Cubism?” Suz asks.

“It’s honestly not all that interesting,” Phoebe says.

“Oh good, of course Phoebe knows. Say something about Cubism,” the bride demands.

They all look at her. Phoebe laughs a little. Cubism facts on demand.

“Well, it was an artistic and intellectual movement in the early twentieth century,” Phoebe says. “They believed if you aren’t seeing something from all sides, you aren’t seeing it fully. Should I seriously go on?”

“God no,” Suz says, but the bride nods.

B ACK AT THE hotel, the bridesmaids meet in the blue parlor for the in-house tarot reader.

“I’m Thyme,” says a woman sitting behind a glowing candle. Then she turns to the bride. “Would the bride like to go first?”

Lila nods, and Nat and Suz clap.

“Come with me,” Thyme says.

Outside the parlor, the bridesmaids take a breath in the hallway. Then like in the spa, they all go on their separate journeys. Suz calls her husband. Nat goes to her room for a power nap. Marla looks at Phoebe and says, “Drink?”

As soon as they sit down, Marla wastes no time.

“Do you hate me because I had an affair like your ex-husband?” Marla looks at Phoebe as if she’s waiting to be condemned.

Phoebe doesn’t nod or shake her head. “I don’t hate you. You’re not my ex-husband. And honestly, I don’t even hate him.”

“That’s a relief.”

“To be honest, the only reason I’d hate you is that you aren’t very kind to Lila.”

Marla nods. “It’s true.”

“If you bothered getting to know her, you’d realize she’s actually an interesting person,” Phoebe says. “And a good friend.”

“That’s very hard to picture.”

“You make her nervous,” Phoebe says. “She’s different around you.”

“Look, I know she’s your friend or whatever,” Marla says. “But I don’t have to like her just because she’s marrying my brother. She’s so spoiled. And ridiculous.”

“Well, you’re mean,” Phoebe says. “And having an affair.”

“See, you do hate me for it,” Marla says. “And I don’t blame you. I hate me for it. Some days, I just can’t believe I did that to Robert.”

“So why did you?”

“I felt like I would die if I didn’t.”

Twenty years of attending events together, twenty years of her husband looking at her in her dress and saying, “Not so shabby.”

“So the judge had something that your husband didn’t?” Phoebe asks.

But Marla doesn’t see it that way. She can see now that it wasn’t really about either of them.

“It was more about what I didn’t have,” Marla says. “According to our therapist, at least. The affair is the easy way out—the fantasy of believing someone else can give you what you don’t know how to give yourself.”

Phoebe imagines this is likely true about her husband.

“I think my husband fantasized about losing control,” Phoebe says. Her husband, so tightly wound, like his belt. A man who would only eat Oreos in private. “He couldn’t loosen up fully around me, and I don’t know why.”

“But that doesn’t mean it’s your fault,” Marla says. “It’s his fault. For not being able to do that. For not asking for whatever it was he needed from you.”

“I am starting to see that, I guess,” Phoebe says.

“I’m learning how to ask Robert for compliments. And he says he can’t, so the therapist suggested we start sexting. Like some kind of gateway drug into real compliments. And now I’m on the path to forgiving Robert and Robert is on the path to forgiving me,” Marla says. “That’s how the therapist describes it. And when we get to the end of the path, I guess we’re allowed to start having real sex again.”

She’s worried about how long this path will be.

“We’ve only been sexting since Tuesday and I’ve already run out of ways to describe my vagina,” Marla says. “It’s also very difficult sexting with one hand.”

“Is it working?” Phoebe asks.

“Inconclusive,” Marla says. “Mostly we just say filthy things to each other in between other very practical things, like, Suck my balls, dirty girl, and then, Did the guy come to check out the dishwasher leak?”

They laugh. “That’s marriage,” Phoebe says.

Phoebe thinks back to the failed sext she sent her husband, how scared she had been, how afraid. Phoebe feels such tenderness for that person who pressed Send.

“Do you regret it?” Phoebe asks.

“I regret hurting Robert,” Marla says. “I regret lying. I regret that I’m going to have to resign. But even before the affair, the trust was already gone. We were fooling ourselves to think it wasn’t. We had hurt each other in a million ways over the years, but then pretended like we hadn’t. The affair just brought all of that to the surface. And now look at us! We’re sexting! Look! My husband is telling me that he wants to pound my pussy as we speak!”

She holds up the phone.

“Progress,” Marla says. “Maybe when he gets here, we can actually have sex. That’s what I’m hoping for.”

B Y THE TIME it’s Phoebe’s turn to meet Thyme on the yellow couch, the candle is melted.

“It’ll still work, even without the candle,” Thyme says. Thyme picks up the cards. “Do you have a question for me?”

“Oh,” Phoebe says. “I haven’t really thought of one.”

“We can do a general time period, if you like.”

“No,” Phoebe says. She wants to have a question. “I guess I’ve been wondering what to do.”

“About what?”

“About anything. Like, where do I go from here? What’s next?”

She hasn’t yet let herself think about it—what happens after the wedding is over. Where does Phoebe go?

“Okay,” Thyme says. She pulls the cards. “Oh, wow. So the two cards I thought might appear appeared. The children and the career card. The Ten of Pentacles—it’s a card where she’s very focused on the pentacles. There’s no other focus. It’s one thing or the other for you, it seems. Which means you have probably been facing a big decision. Does that seem right to you?”

“It does.”

“The Empress is on her way out, so to me that reads as pregnancy is on the way out. This is tarot, okay, it’s your life, only you know, but what I am seeing is that children are not happening for you right now.”

Phoebe nods.

“But you have here the Hermit card. Your card. That’s you.”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“That’s a great sign, actually. I am really happy to see that, because that means that no matter what happens, you will always be here.”

She feels embarrassed at how quickly this has moved her. She doesn’t even believe it, and yet it’s affecting her. Sort of like watching horror movies that you know are fake, and yet you pull the blanket over your eyes every time someone gets stabbed. It feels so real.

“I’m seeing the Hanged Man,” Thyme says. “Your soulmate? He is hesitant. Or you are. One of you is stepping back. One of you is concerned. You’ve had a big conversation, it seems? Something has been decided?”

“Yes.”

“Whatever it was, here is the Eight of Wands. That means moving. Travel. You are going to be moving. Not Eat Pray Love –style. No. I am sorry, you will not be going to India. I am not seeing India in your future. But you may do something else. Something smaller. You may… buy a small property. And this property, it has something to do with money. It is a lot of money or there’s money in it. I’m not sure.”

It is no small thing to hear this woman reimagine a future for her. It doesn’t matter if it turns out to be true. It doesn’t matter if it’s bullshit. It doesn’t matter that Thyme is actually, as she confesses at some point, an aspiring writer trying to sell historical fiction about the American Revolution. For so long, Phoebe could not imagine another possible future for herself, and she marvels at how easily this woman conjures up a new property for her. It is so obvious to Thyme that Phoebe is destined for greatness, and also a lot of money, and maybe a waterfront duplex, and as soon as she says it, Phoebe wants it to be true. That is how these things work. That is why people come.

Thyme turns another card.

“And what is this? Your King of Cups is here,” Thyme says. “Your great love. Cups are love. And the king, well, he has, like, obviously the most of them. But this is in the future. This is not right now. The cups are moving toward you, but not here. Do not be impatient for it. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

She flips her last card. “And you! The Hermit. You keep coming up. This is so unusual. You are so present in this reading. It’s like the cards are telling me that no matter what happens, you are here. I’m sorry I can’t be more specific than that. That is all I can gather. You are here. Does that have any meaning to you?”

Phoebe begins to cry between her knees. “Yes.”

I N THE U BER on the way to the Boom Boom Room, the women share what Thyme predicted for each of them.

Suz is going to have seven children.

Marla is going to do well in e-commerce someday.

“That’s very specific,” Phoebe says. “Why not regular commerce?”

“She kept saying, E-commerce! I see you marrying an e-vendor!” Marla says.

“So much hotter than regular vendors,” Suz says.

“My wife and I are going to have a son,” Nat says. “And then immediately go to Italy.”

“I am going to come into property,” Phoebe says.

But when it’s Lila’s turn to share, she says, “She was just way off.”

“I thought you said she was amazing?” Marla asks.

“Did I?” Lila asks.

The tone is sharp, too serious. The sound of a day going bad. Maybe she has consumed too much alcohol for her size 4 body. Maybe it’s heels on all this cobblestone. Phoebe can feel the blisters forming.

But then they enter the Boom Boom Room, and Lila says, “Let’s dance!”

Nat and Suz shriek, as if nothing at all is wrong, and start dancing together in a way that reminds Phoebe of girls from her college. Phoebe never danced in college. Hardly danced at her own wedding. She and Matt, they weren’t dancers. They took lessons, though, learned the steps, learned enough to do a foxtrot. But she never danced like these women, without thinking because they have danced together like this so many times before, in their dorm rooms, at parties, hands in the air. She wonders if this is what high school was like for them—Lila being upset, then Lila not being upset. Then, wild dancing.

“Come on!” Lila says to Phoebe.

And so Phoebe joins. Phoebe has no other option left but to join—she tried to opt out, tried to sit on the sidelines, tried to leave this world. But she is still here. So she walks into the group, and they celebrate her arrival, clap and twirl around her. She feels silly at first, but they make it so easy. They are generous with their enthusiasm. They give it all to Phoebe, hold her hands and bump her hips, and by the time the song is over, Phoebe feels so overwhelmed, so part of the group, she excuses herself to go to the bathroom. She looks in the mirror.

I am here, she thinks.

“Shots!” Lila exclaims when Phoebe returns.

But Marla doesn’t understand. “What’s the point of doing shots at this age?”

“I believe the point is to get drunk really fast,” Phoebe says.

“Right. But why? Haven’t we all been drunk before?”

“If you don’t want to get drunk really fast, then I can’t ever explain it to you,” Nat says.

“Come on, Marla!” Lila says. “Be my sister.”

Marla seems touched.

“Okay,” Marla says, like, What the fuck, why not? I’ll be a sister. Marla takes a shot. Then another. “Let’s get drunk really fast.”

“I can’t believe I’m getting married!” Lila screams, and they all go back to the dance floor. Lila flips her hair, shows off moves learned from a childhood of dance recitals. She is the happy bride again, so girlish and excited with her friends, and it’s good to see.

But then the night is over, and the Uber can’t come for an hour. Too many people trying to get a cab at the same exact time. A man on the sidewalk chucks a glass at another man’s face, and it explodes everywhere.

They walk home. It’s a longer walk than Marla made it sound. By the time they reach their street, Lila takes off her veil. In the quiet space of night, with the courage of her drunkenness, she confesses that she knows Thyme was right about her.

“Right about what?” Suz asks.

“That I have no personality,” Lila says.

“She said that to you?” Nat asks, like there is no graver insult.

“She said, ‘My dear, you are a thousand different people orbiting around a pole,’” Lila says, in a French accent.

“She wasn’t French, though,” Marla says.

“Aren’t we all that pole?” Suz says. “I feel like that pole sometimes.”

Phoebe does, too. “Though sometimes I’m not sure there is even a pole.”

They laugh. Lila looks lighter. Relieved. But Nat looks at them all, disgusted. “Seriously, what’s wrong with you straight women?”

“This has nothing to do with us being straight,” Lila says.

“Yeah, what does this have to do with us being straight?” Suz asks.

“I just spent my whole life trying to determine who I am and what I like so nobody does it for me,” Nat says. “It’s important to me. But it’s like, none of you even bother to do that. You don’t even bother to think about who you are and what you might actually like.”

Nat is angry. Nat looks like she’s been wanting to say this for years.

“Well yeah, like I just said,” Lila says. “I have no idea who the fuck I am.”

Lila is stunned into a kind of silence by her own confession. Nat, too. It makes Nat burst out laughing, like she’s thrilled to have finally said what she’s always wanted to say. She puts her arm around Lila.

“We’ll figure it out,” Nat says.

Then it is silence, the sound of cobblestones and heels, all the way back to the hotel.

I N THE LOBBY , Lila seems startled by the lights of the hotel, even though it is mostly soft candlelight. She leans on Phoebe for balance.

“Shit,” Lila says. “I’m going to be sick.”

Lila vomits in the plant pot near the stairs. She keeps her face at the trunk of the olive tree. She laughs. She says, “Who put dirt in this bowl?”

Softly, from behind the desk, Pauline says, “Me.”

P HOEBE IS THE one who walks Lila back upstairs. The other women seem grateful. They seem very tired. Ready for bed. Six days is too long for any wedding.

But Phoebe is not tired of Lila. Phoebe is not tired of anybody. Phoebe feels like she has just returned from somewhere very far away. Phoebe is here .

“Ugh. My key is not working,” Lila says. “It must be your key.”

“Is your key not in your purse?” Phoebe asks.

“I don’t know. I’m too drunk to find it. I’ll just call Gary. I gave him an extra key.”

Lila leaves a message on his phone asking for help. When she hangs up, Phoebe is about to suggest that she search through Lila’s bag or go downstairs to get another key, but Lila slides the key into Phoebe’s lock.

“Ugh. I can’t get over this view,” Lila says, opening the door.

“It’s pitch-black.”

Lila gets on Phoebe’s bed. She leans back on a pillow like she is going to go right to sleep, so Phoebe takes off her shoes. There is blood on the back of Lila’s heel.

“Ugh. I’m bleeding again,” Lila says.

The blood darkens her mood.

“Nat is right,” Lila says. “I never think about what I might actually like.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I just worry,” Lila says. “I don’t think about what I want, I just worry about what might happen to me and then figure out how to keep those things from happening. And when I think I know what I want, I don’t even really know, because what I want is too… weird.”

“I thought you said you didn’t like anything weird.”

“It’s not like that kind of weird,” she says. “It’s awful weird.”

“What is it?”

“I can’t say it.”

“Just say it.”

“It’s too scary.”

“I told you I wanted to die. What could be scarier than that?”

Lila nods. “Okay. Fine. The last time I got really turned on, it was by Jim. Isn’t that awful?”

“Not necessarily,” Phoebe says. She takes off Lila’s earrings. Her sash. Lila holds her hands up like a child.

“We had a bonfire at the beach last night after the reception,” Lila says. “And Jim looked so good all night, oh my God, Phoebe. He sat next to me by the fire and he cracked a beer, and I was just looking at him, transfixed, and he like, caught me staring at him. He was like, What? And I don’t know why, but we just laughed. We laughed so hard, Phoebe, I can’t even explain it.

“And then I went to bed and I had this dream. I was in this big beach house. And Jim was there. But it’s not really Jim. And I am leaving the kitchen to go meet my guidance counselor, weirdly, but Jim won’t let me out of the house. Jim just stands there, blocking my way. He’s like, No. You can’t go meet your guidance counselor. And then he puts me up against the kitchen island and flips up my skirt and he says the dirtiest things to me… but it’s like Jim’s disgustingness is what turns me on. Isn’t that awful?”

“No,” Phoebe says.

“It’s awful.”

Phoebe tells her about her own fantasies, the ones of her ex-husband being awful to her.

“But you were thinking of your husband,” she says. “I like, never think about having sex with Gary. Not even when I’m having sex with Gary. I think about Jim.”

“Well, thinking of Jim doesn’t have to mean anything,” Phoebe says.

“It feels like it means something.”

“It could mean that you want his approval. Maybe it’s symbolic. Like, you want him to stand aside, give you permission, because of Wendy?”

“Oh my God, you sound like my mother now.”

“It would make sense.”

“What if I just… want to fuck him?” Lila asks. “Sometimes I want him so much I can’t stand it.”

“Then you want him.”

“But I can’t want him!” Lila says. “I’m Gary’s Vermeer painting. And Gary is so wonderful. I know he is. He treats me so well. He’s so smart. He’s such a good dad. But sometimes I just hate him.”

“You hate him?” Phoebe asks. “Why?”

“Because that day in his office, he put his hand on my shoulder, and he was like, This will all be okay. This new treatment can work. And the way he said it made me believe him. I really believed him. I loved him for it. I really did. But then my dad died. And it wasn’t okay. It’s still not okay. I mean, how could Gary just let my father die ?”

The thought of her father makes her sob, and Phoebe holds her. Her body is frail, skinnier than it seems.

“And we never talked about it. We never talk about anything. We always just pretend like everything is fine,” she says. “Like it was in the beginning. But it’s not. Because sometimes, I just can’t stand it when he touches me.”

Lila explains that this is why she’s always making sure they are busy doing amazing things.

“But then we’re at the Louvre, and I was bored. I was bored in Spain. Bored in Florence. I just kept thinking, Wow, Lila, you’re in Italy with your fiancé. Look at all those buildings. Look at those paintings. This old church. The cobblestones! And Gary was so fascinated, kept being like, Imagine the builders putting each one of these stones here by hand. But the whole time, I was honestly just like, I don’t care. I mean, how does anyone really care about stones ?”

She wipes her nose.

“Anyway. That’s what being with Gary sometimes feels like.”

“It’s like trying to care about stones?”

“It’s like having nothing to talk about anymore so you talk about stones,” she says. “And I’ve never been good at caring about those things. My mother is right. I’ve never had any imagination. I’m practically dead inside. Sometimes, I feel like I have nothing real to say ever.”

Phoebe shakes her head.

“No,” Phoebe says. “That’s not true. That’s not even what your mother really thinks.”

“No?”

“No,” Phoebe says. “And I don’t believe it, either.”

Phoebe has sat with so many students who confessed similar things. Students who did not describe themselves as “readers,” students who shrugged and were like, “Sorry, stories about women just aren’t my thing,” but then one day, something would click. One day, they were sitting down with her talking about how Rochester was such an asshole.

“It takes time,” Phoebe says. “Gary is twelve years older than you. He’s had a lot more time to… cultivate an interest in stones.”

“But you care about stones.”

“I’m twelve years older than you, too.”

“Then maybe you should be with Gary.”

“Why would you say that?” Phoebe asks, but Lila doesn’t answer. So Phoebe looks at her. Like a soldier, Phoebe remembers her first responsibility to the bride. To always be honest. To say what nobody else at this wedding will say.

“Do you want to marry Gary?” Phoebe asks.

“I don’t want to not marry Gary,” Lila says. “I don’t want to be alone.”

“You can be married and be very alone,” Phoebe says. “More alone than you are when you’re, well, alone. Trust me.”

Lila doesn’t say anything but looks at Phoebe, waiting for her to go on.

“Your husband is not going to take care of you the way you think,” Phoebe says. “Nobody can take care of you the way you need to take care of yourself. It’s your job to take care of yourself like that.”

“Did you read that on a pillow or something?” Lila asks, then grabs a pillow and puts it over her face, like she knows she’s admitted too much, even to Phoebe. Because saying things out loud is the first step to them becoming real.

“It’s a little long for a pillow,” Phoebe says.

“This pillow is so coconutty,” Lila says. “Ugh. I don’t know what I’m even saying. I just don’t know why it’s so hard to be a person sometimes. It shouldn’t be this hard. It makes no sense.”

They wait in silence for a moment. And then, from underneath the pillow, a voice: “What if I don’t want to marry Gary?”

Phoebe is careful to say nothing, because Phoebe is confused. On the eve of her own wedding night, Phoebe had no doubts. She wanted to marry Matt, wholly and purely. This is why it confuses her. She doesn’t know what you’re supposed to feel like. She doesn’t know what ensures a happy marriage. She doesn’t know if Lila’s ambivalence toward Gary means that they are doomed or if ambivalence means there is room to grow, room to become sure over the years.

But this is clear: “I don’t want to marry Gary,” Lila says again.

Phoebe takes the pillow off her face, and this strikes Lila as so suddenly funny, she starts hysterically laughing. When she laughs, Phoebe can see what Lila must have been like as a little girl, when she was still called Delilah, sleeping in her mother’s bed.

“Oh my God,” Lila says. She stands up on the bed. She shouts it. “Phoebe! I don’t want to marry Gary!”

“Okay,” Phoebe says, and pulls her back down. “Just maybe don’t shout it.”

“But I need to tell him. I need everyone to know.”

“In the morning.”

Maybe it’s the thought of morning or catching sight of her veil in the mirror, but she stops smiling.

“Ugh. This is not okay,” Lila says. “He’s going to be so upset. Everyone is. What am I going to do ?”

“Nothing now. Tomorrow, we’ll wake up and we’ll tell everyone together.”

“You’ll be with me?”

“Of course,” she says. “But for now just get some sleep.”

“I am really glad you’re here.”

“Me too.”

“And don’t worry,” Lila says. “I don’t snore.”

L ILA DOES SNORE .

She snores so loudly, Phoebe can’t sleep in the room. It reminds her too much of sleeping next to her husband, his loud vibrations taking over everything. Phoebe undresses in the dark corner, then wraps herself up in the fluffy robe.

She digs through Lila’s purse until she finds the other room key, lets herself in to the bridal suite, which is not very bridal. It’s called the Colonel. There are bright red floral curtains and red floral prints everywhere. A stuffy white carpet. A shoreline view that is somewhat ruined by a giant flagpole that cuts it in half. And a picture of a dead man on the wall who she assumes is the colonel.

She is surprised by how messy Lila is. She would have thought Lila to be aggressively organized. But her underwear is everywhere. Her life, spread out all over the room.

Phoebe starts to pick up some of Lila’s dresses, so that the morning won’t seem so overwhelming. It will be overwhelming enough, having to cancel this giant wedding. Having to tell everyone the truth. At least she can wake up to a clean floor.

But then she is startled by a knock on the door. She opens it.

“Oh,” Gary says. “You’re not Lila.”

Phoebe tightens the belt of her robe.

“Lila fell asleep in my bed,” Phoebe says. “Don’t ask. We had a long night.”

“We had a long night, too.”

Gary sits down on the floral love seat. Phoebe gets this terrible feeling, the same feeling she got when she looked at her cat in those final weeks before he died. How horrible, Phoebe thinks, to not know the truth about your own life.

“Was it a good one at least?” Phoebe asks.

“A weird one,” Gary says. “Let’s just say that I’m not the twenty-eight-year-old groom Jim remembers me to be. And now I’m just… drunk.”

Phoebe will not tell Gary what Lila confessed, of course. She would never. But not telling him makes her nervous. She doesn’t like this feeling of being dishonest with Gary.

“Why was it so weird?” Phoebe asks.

“He threw me the same exact bachelor party,” Gary says. “Brought us to the same exact cigar lounge. The same golf course. Bought me the same bottle of whiskey. I honestly don’t know if it’s because he was so drunk at the last one he didn’t remember what we did. Or if he is just… trying to upset me.”

“Why would he want to do that?”

“I don’t know,” Gary says. “I can’t shake this feeling that he’s mad at me.”

“For what?”

“Moving on. Forgetting his sister.”

“But you haven’t forgotten his sister.”

“But I think it’s what Jim thinks.”

Ever since Wendy’s diagnosis, Jim was the best friend he had. He was truly there for all of them after. He did everything. He cooked, he cleaned. Cried with Gary at Wendy’s grave, and they were brothers in that way. After, they went to Wyoming and shat side by side in the woods, then laughed hysterically with Juice into the night. But ever since he got engaged to Lila, it’s been different.

“I can get married again,” Gary says. “But he doesn’t get a new sister. Nobody can ever make that better. And I can’t explain it other than to say that sometimes, I feel like I’m betraying him.”

“I doubt he thinks of it that way,” Phoebe says.

“I promised to take care of his sister for the rest of her life.”

“And… you did.”

“But her life was supposed to be longer,” he says. “I’m a fucking doctor.”

“But wasn’t it lung cancer? That’s not even your specialization. Field? How do medical doctors say it?”

“Field,” he says.

But he’s too caught up in the emotion to joke.

“She complained about this cough, you know. And I kept telling her to go to the doctor, to be better when she cleaned her paints. I had known since art school that she needed to be more careful with that stuff. But I didn’t want to nag. She hated when people told her what to do, especially me.”

“That’s not why she got cancer,” Phoebe says. Maybe it’s the fatigue, or maybe this kind of thinking is just too close to her own, but she gets irritated. “If that was true, then every painter would be dead at thirty-five. It’s actually ridiculous to think any of this is your fault.”

“It’s not ridiculous,” he says. “I advise people medically all the time.”

“God, we’re all so ridiculous! Why do we all think everything is our fault all the time?”

“Must be some evolutionary thing.”

“Helps us survive somehow,” Phoebe says. “Even as it destroys us.”

“Yeah.”

Phoebe aches for him. Gary is lost. Stuck somewhere between his first marriage and his second marriage.

“What was she like?” Phoebe asks. “Wendy.”

“She was just this whirlwind of a person,” he says. “We met in college. She was an art student, and I was premed. I used to walk by the open studios on my way back from the hospital. That’s the first time I saw her, standing in front of this painting that was entirely red, and it was like she knew I didn’t get it. ‘It’s thirty shades of red,’ she said, and still I couldn’t see it. Not until she started pointing them out to me. And I fucking loved this about her. She could always see things I couldn’t. Seriously, all I could see was one giant blob of red. But then, a few days later, I saw all these different colors. And it was amazing.”

“I think that might be the best description of falling in love that I’ve ever heard,” Phoebe says.

They lived in Tiverton, in a beautiful old farmhouse that was featured in a small magazine about Tiverton. They had good friends, poets, writers, artists, actors, farmers who came over to drink beers in their backyard. Juice went to some private school in town where she bonded with other kids who thought it was fun to watch caterpillars build cocoons.

“We used to be fun. Once we stayed up and watched all three Godfather movies in one night. We used to create themed drinks for, like, Presidents’ Day. And it was perfect. It really was. But life is strange, always thinking this one thing is going to make you happy, because then you get it, and then maybe you’re not as happy as you imagined you would be, because every day is still just every day. Like the happiness becomes so big, you have no choice but to live inside of it, until you can no longer see it or feel it. And so you start to fixate on something else—you want a child, and then the child is here, and that happiness is so big, it begins to feel like nothing. Like just the air around you.”

Until it is gone, of course. Until you bury your wife or divorce your husband and then what? What do you do? Do you start all over again? Do you fixate on the new thing that you are sure is going to make you happy? How many times does a person do this over a lifetime? Is that just what life is?

“We had a whole life,” he says. “And that whole life… is gone. It seems absurd that I’m supposed to just get over that.”

“I don’t know if you are,” she says.

“But I have to,” he says. “I can’t go on like this.”

“Like what?”

“There was this quiet that came after my wife died,” he says. “This normal routine that developed that wasn’t really life but was very much like life. I could get through the day if I just concentrated on these very menial tasks. I used to love nothing more than like, just peeling potatoes for dinner. I swear I could feel okay as long as I was just peeling those potatoes. But then you asked me in the hot tub when I started to feel better, and it’s a hard thing to answer, because I’m actually not sure I’m better. I think I’ve just been stuck in that neutral place ever since. Where everything is… fine.”

He says being here is weirder than he expected.

“Everyone keeps looking at me and saying, Congratulations, you must be so happy,” he says.

“Why is that weird?”

“I’m not sure happy is a feeling for me anymore,” he says. “Ever since Wendy died, I don’t really think about what will make me happy. It’s like I decided at some point that I can’t ever be happy again, so I should just think about what will make other people happy.”

She nods. She looks out at the fireworks.

“That’s really why I went to Lila’s art gallery that day,” Gary says. “Because Jim really wanted to go. I said no, I was too bummed out. It was my wedding anniversary. But Jim kept pushing for it, and I wanted to make Jim happy. After all he did for us. I didn’t get why Jim of all people wanted to go to an art gallery. I think he thought he was making me happy, giving me something to do on a sad day. But whatever. We went.”

He walked around Lila’s mother’s gallery, annoyed with Jim, annoyed with himself. He knew the motions, the nodding of the head, the looking deeply at the colors to take in each one. But he couldn’t feel it, couldn’t feel anything, and he didn’t know if this meant something was wrong with him or the paintings. It was always Wendy who was the art critic—the one who would deem them bad or good, whereas Gary always went by the price. If the painting was being sold for a hundred thousand dollars, it must be good.

“But the painting of Patricia had no price on it,” he says. “It felt like an opportunity, a test. I stared at it for so long, thinking, Is this a good painting? Or bad?”

He had felt guilty when Lila came over and started talking like she expected him to take the painting home. Started describing where he could hang it, when it hadn’t even occurred to him to buy it.

“And then Lila walks into my office a few days later,” he says. “They had come to me for a second opinion. And it felt like such a coincidence, like we were being brought together for a reason. Lila was so hopeful that I became hopeful.”

Hope is a powerful thing. He looked at the old man’s pictures from the colonoscopy, and he saw the mass, but it all looked potentially fixable to him.

“I know I save lives, but I also ruin lives. I say a few words and then watch a person go from being one thing to another thing entirely. I didn’t understand that until a doctor did it to me and Wendy,” he says. “So I suggested one more round of chemo. I suggested this could work. Or at least potentially extend his life by years. And they were so happy. Man, I loved that feeling. It was such a high. I wanted more of it. I wanted to make her happy again. So I went back to the gallery and actually bought the painting.”

“At least, I tried to,” he says. “But she insisted I take it for free. A gift for taking care of her father.”

It felt good to take the painting home. To put it in his bathroom, just like Lila suggested. It felt like the first thing he had done since his wife died. A small step back into the world, a nice gesture, a fight against the entropy, something he could do to be human to another human. But mostly it was a decision to say: I don’t know if this is good or bad, but I think this painting is meaningful.

“Because that’s the point of art, isn’t it?” Gary asks. “Artists look at the world and see opportunities for creating meaning. Wendy was always looking at her own suffering and trying to see something in it. Even at the end, when she was dying. And I think that’s why I’ve always been jealous of artists. Every day, I look at a colon and I either see… death or shit,” Gary says. “I relied on Wendy to see other, more beautiful things for me.”

He leans back.

“Honestly, it’s nice to hear you talk this way about art,” Phoebe says. “I’ve actually been a little down on art.”

She tells him how lately she worries she always read books just for the feelings they gave her in the end, and she’s not sure how this is any different from reading porn.

“Weren’t you the one who told me you were impressed by those people?” Gary asks. “Those people who will read four hundred pages just to get off?”

“Oh, you mean like you?” she says, and he smiles.

“Well, I think it’s amazing,” Gary says. “How much work we’ll do just to feel something. I don’t think there is anything more human than that.”

Phoebe agrees. She feels such tenderness for him, but she doesn’t know how to say that, so she says, “I’ve missed talking like this.”

She loves deep, winding conversations that go up and down, especially in the dead of night when everyone should be sleeping. She has forgotten the way conversations, really good ones, can change her—shape-shift her like a tree. Sometimes leave her bare, sometimes leave her fuller.

“I’ve missed talking like this, too,” Gary says. “It’s very easy to tell you things, you know. Is this the effect you have on everybody?”

“Historically, no,” she says. “Often I’ve been known to make people more uncomfortable than they were before they started talking to me.”

“I can’t imagine it,” he says. “I feel like I could tell you anything.”

The honesty of his comment cuts right through her, and she can hardly bear it.

“You’re drunk.”

“It’s not just that,” he says, and looks hurt.

She should stand up. Go back to her room. But then she thinks of Lila standing on her bed, shouting, “I don’t want to marry Gary.” She thinks, this wedding is over. This man deserves to hear something true.

“I know,” she says. “I feel it, too.”

He scratches his beard, something he does, she notices, when he gets a little nervous. Once the wedding is called off, she thinks, Gary won’t have to shave it. It’s the first time Phoebe allows herself to fantasize about the wedding being called off. About a future where she can reach out and touch his face.

In some other version of this story, she would. And they would kiss. Then wake up and feel awful about it in the morning. But Phoebe knows too much to do that now. Phoebe has had too many awful mornings for a lifetime. So Phoebe just stands there, admiring his face, even the gray at the edges. Especially the gray. She didn’t understand that this is what happens as you get older—that the same thing that repulsed her when she was young is the same exact thing that draws her near now. There is something incredibly sexy to Phoebe about Gary’s gray hairs, his exhaustion, his genuine confusion about life, and she’s not sure she even understands why. She is drawn to the exhaustion of a lived life, to the man who has loved deeply and then lost suddenly and carries on. A man who has buried his wife and walked away and woke up to peel potatoes for dinner. A man who has lived through enough to appreciate the stones beneath his feet.

“So when did Lila tell you it was a naked painting of her mother?” Phoebe asks.

It’s good to see him laugh.

“Three months,” he says. “For three months I took a shower next to my naked future mother-in-law.”

She takes his hand and squeezes it. Gary looks surprised by her touch, but not confused. Sort of the way he looked when she stood before him in the hot tub and told him she wanted to fuck. As if he wants it, too, but cannot bring himself to admit it.

“I should go back to my room,” he says.

“Good night,” she says.

Gary leaves, and Phoebe gets in Lila’s bed. This time, she doesn’t fantasize about her husband or Mia or the girlies at Joe’s wine shop. She just thinks of Gary, how warm his hand felt, how the entire time she held it, he didn’t look away.