“Take your weights back to the bin and set up at the bar for calf raises.” This is always the part of class that gives me the most anxiety—because I need to deposit my weights and get to my favorite spot at the bar quickly but politely, when all I want to do is elbow the slow movers out of my way. “I’m going to be on TV and I’m not here for my health, bitches!” I settle for the accidental bump, the one I typically reserve for the Singers. You know those people, just so fucking happy to be alive, bouncing down the street, buds in their ears and faces repulsive with pleasure as they belt out the lyrics to some noxious Motown classic. I’ve gotten bold, bumping them with my enormous bag as I pass by, savoring their outraged “Hey!” behind me. No one gets to be that happy.

I’m a little gentler in class. I wouldn’t want to alter the image the instructors have of me, one carefully crafted to impress and endear: the sweet but slightly standoffish girl who will always take the most advanced option in the thigh work portion of class, no matter how intensely her legs tremble.

Fortunately, by the time I dropped my weights in the bins and turned around, I saw that my favorite spot was wide open. I looped my towel around the bar, placed my water bottle on the ground, and bobbed up and down on the balls of my feet, all the while pulling my stomach back toward my spine and pinching my shoulder blades together.

The instructor said, “Nice form, Ani.”

For an hour, I tucked, sucked in, squeezed, lifted, and pulsed. By final stretch, my limbs felt like the pad thai noodles I’m always craving, and I debated scrapping the two-mile run back to my apartment. But as I stood to return my mat to the cubbyhole in the front of the room, I caught a glimpse of myself in the front mirror, specifically of the roll bulging over the back of my tank top, and reconsidered.

In the locker room after class, some girl who had phoned in all three of the abdominal sets said to me, “You were so good!”

“Sorry?” I had heard her, of course.

“During abs. That last position, I tried to let go of my legs and I couldn’t hold myself up for even one count.”

“Well, it’s the place I need it most so I push myself as hard as possible.” I patted my tummy, swollen against my extra-small Stella McCartney for Adidas yoga pants. Ever since wedding planning began, my binges have returned to their high-school-level intensity. For the last few years, I’d been able to contain them to Sundays, and the occasional Wednesday night. Overexercising and restricting myself the rest of the week kept my weight steady at 120 pounds (willowy when you’re five ten, squat when you’re five three). My goal for the wedding, and, most important, the documentary, was 105, and knowing what I was going to have to do—and soon—to attain that seemed to be exacerbating my cravings as of late. I felt like a deranged bear storing up for anorexia.

“No way!” the girl insisted. “You look great.”

“Thanks.” My eyes trailed the back of her body as she turned from me to open up her locker. She had a long, narrow torso offset by wide hips and an expansive, flat ass. I couldn’t decide which was worse—going gentle into that mom-jeans-wearing night, or fighting it, Botoxed and hungry, every step of the way.

I slogged home, my feet dragging along the West Side Highway. It took me twenty-five minutes to run two miles, which, even factoring in the stops I had to make to wait at lights so as not get run over by a car, was pathetic.

“Hey, babe.” Luke didn’t bother to look up from the iPad on his lap. When Luke and I first started dating, my stomach used to latch on to the word “babe,” hold it like those claw games in an arcade would a little stuffed animal, a miracle they came up with anything because everyone knows they’re rigged. It was all I ever wanted in high school and college, some broad-shouldered lacrosse player jogging up behind me and slinging his arm over my shoulder, “Hey, babe.”

“How was your workout?”

“Eh.” I peeled off my sweaty top, shivered when the wet hair stuck to the nape of my bare neck, no longer barricaded by the Lululemon. I went to the cabinet, located a jar of organic peanut butter, and dipped a spoon into it.

“What time are you meeting them again?”

I glanced at the clock. “One. I have to get going.”

I allowed myself a single spoonful of peanut butter and a glass of water before getting into the shower. It took me an hour to get ready, much more than I spend primping for dinner with Luke. There were so many women I was dressing for. The tourists on the street (this is how it’s done), the salesgirl who would kiss my ass only when she noticed the Miu Miu label nestled in the leather quilts of my bag. Most important today, the one bridesmaid, premed, who at twenty-three years old had boldly declared that if she didn’t have kids by the time she was thirty, she was freezing her eggs. “Advanced maternal age is directly correlated with autism.” She sucked on her vodka soda so hard it spat a bubble into the air. “All these women having kids in their thirties. It’s so selfish. If you can’t lock it down before then, adopt.” Of course, Monica “Moni” Dalton was sure she’d lock it down before she was stuck with a three handle. She hasn’t eaten a processed carb since the Sex and the City finale, and her stomach looks like it’s been Photoshopped.

Except, three months from now, Moni will be the first of us to turn twenty-nine, and there will be no man next to her in bed to rouse her with birthday sex. Her panic smells chemical.

Moni also happens to be the most fun to dress for. I love catching her studying the delicate ankle straps on my sandals, the way her eye travels in unison with my emerald. She’s no stranger to Barneys herself, but that bill goes to her parents. Not cool once you’re on the wrong side of twenty-five. At that point, the only acceptable person to foot your bills is your man or yourself. For the record, I do foot my own shopping bills (everything but the jewelry). But I’d never be able to do that if not for Luke. If not for him taking care of everything else.

“You look nice.” Luke planted a kiss on the back of my head on the way to the kitchen.

“Thanks.” I tugged at the sleeves of my white blazer. I could never roll the cuffs fashion-blog right.

“You guys are getting brunch after?”

“Yeah.” I stuffed my bag with makeup, sunglasses, New York magazine—which I’d purposely leave sticking half out of the bag so everyone would know I’m reading New York magazine—gum, and a rough version of the wedding invitation our timid stationer had drawn up.

“Hey, so this week—one of my clients really wants us to go out to dinner with him and his wife.”

“Who?” I unrolled the cuffs of my blazer and rolled them up again.

“This guy, Andrew. From Goldman.”

“Maybe Nell knows him.” I grinned.

“Oh God.” Luke puffed out his cheeks, concerned. “I hope not.” Nell makes Luke nervous.

I smiled. Kissed him on the lips. Tasted stale coffee on his breath. Tried not to shudder. Tried to remember the first time I saw him, the real first time: at a party when I was a freshman in college, everyone else in Seven jeans, me smothered by the waistband of my khakis. Luke was a senior at Hamilton, but his best friend from boarding school went to Wesleyan. They visited each other frequently over the years, but because I was only a freshman, that party fall semester was the first time I’d ever seen him. Luke wanted Nell then, before he knew what a ballbuster (his word) she could be. Fortunately or unfortunately, Nell was hooking up with Luke’s best friend, so it wasn’t happening. When I got home that night, smarting from Luke’s perfunctory “Hello,” I strategized. The guy I wanted wanted Nell, so I watched Nell closely. I ate the way she ate, leaving almost three quarters of food on the plate (she had a stockpile of blue pills to induce indifference to even the most devastating of carbs) and made Mom buy me the clothes Nell wore when I came home for Thanksgiving break. Nell taught me that I’d been playing it all wrong: Pretty girls had to appear as though they weren’t trying to be pretty, which I had made the fatal mistake of doing at Bradley. There were times Nell went out in her father’s polo, nasty old Uggs, and sweatpants, no makeup, just to prove her loyalty resided with her own gender. Pretty girls also had to have a self-deprecating sense of humor and point out when they had a blistering pimple and talk about their explosive diarrhea to assure other girls that they weren’t interested in the role of man-eating minx. Because if the others sensed any level of deliberate prowess, they’d end you, and you could forget about the guy you wanted. The snarling force of a pack of girls could wither the most screaming boner.