Andrew looked at me. “Ani was my best student though.”

I busied myself smoothing my napkin on my lap. “You don’t have to say that,” I mumbled. We both knew how epically much I’d disappointed him.

“And now she’s one of the best writers at The Women’s Magazine,” Luke said, fatherly, proudly. What a crock. Like Luke doesn’t think my “career” is just some cute filler phase before we have kids. He reached across the table and put his hand over mine. “She’s come a long way.” That was his warning shot. Luke doesn’t like it when people bring up Bradley. I used to think it was because he was trying to protect me, felt so moved by that. Now I realize, Luke just wants everyone to get over it already. He still doesn’t want me participating in the documentary. He can’t quite explain why, or he can, but he doesn’t want to offend me, but I know what he’s thinking: You’re embarrassing yourself. In the Harrison world, nothing is more admirable than rimy stoicism.

“Hmmm.” Whitney tapped her nail, pink as a ballet slipper, on her lower lip. “The Women’s Magazine? I think I’ve heard of that one.” Husband hunters always say this when they find out where I work. It’s not a compliment.

“I didn’t know that’s where you ended up,” Mr. Larson said. “That’s fantastic.” He gave me the nicest smile.

Whitney noticed. “It’s been forever since I’ve picked it up. But I used to read it like it was my Bible before I met Andrew. Isn’t that what they call it? The Women’s Bible?” Her laugh was dainty. “I imagine I’ll be confiscating it from my daughter’s room at some point, the way my mother used to!” Luke laughed politely, but Mr. Larson didn’t.

I found the smile I use when children are the topic of conversation and put it on. “How old?”

“Five,” Whitney said. “Elspeth. We have a boy too, Booth. He’s almost one.” She made googly eyes at Andrew. “My little man.”

Oh, Jesus. “Great names,” I told her.

The sommelier appeared by Luke’s side and introduced himself. Did we have any questions about the menu? Luke asked if everyone was okay with white, and Whitney said she couldn’t imagine drinking anything else in this heat.

“Let’s do this Sauvignon Blanc.” Luke pointed to an eighty-dollar spot on the menu.

“Oh, I love Sauvignon Blanc,” Whitney said.

Dukan didn’t permit wine, but I had to drink to socialize with women like this. That first glass, the endorphins ballooning in my stomach, it was the only way I could realistically feign an interest in her world. Her kid’s piano lessons, her Van Cleef push present. I couldn’t believe Mr. Larson had succumbed to a woman whose greatest aspiration in life was to do the supermarket glide. When the waiter came by with the bottle, I accepted his pour gratefully.

“To finally meeting your lovely wife.” Luke raised his glass. Lovely. What a gross word. I used to love these dinners, used to love working for the wives’ approval. What an accomplishment it was when it finally blasted across their faces. Now, I was just bored. Bored, bored, bored. Is this what I’m killing myself for? Is this what I really thought would fulfill me? Twenty-seven-dollar roast chicken dinner and a fiancé who sweetly fucks me when we get home.

“And yours.” Andrew clinked his glass against mine.

“Well, not yet.” I smiled.

“Now, Ani.” Whitney was doing that thing I hate, pronouncing my name “Annie” instead of “Ah-nee.” “Luke says the wedding is in Nantucket. Why there?”

Because of the privilege inherent in the location, Whitney. Because Nantucket transcends all classes, all areas of the country. Go to South Dakota and tell some sad smug housewife you grew up on the Main Line, and she doesn’t know she’s supposed to be impressed. Tell her you summer on Nantucket—be sure to verb it like that—and she knows who the fuck she’s dealing with. That’s why, Whitney.

“Luke’s family has a place there,” I said.

Luke nodded. “Been going since I was a kid.”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s going to be gorgeous.” Whitney leaned an inch closer to me. She had that hungry breath. Hollow and stale, like nothing had passed through her lips for some time. She asked Andrew, “Didn’t we go to a wedding on Nantucket a few years ago?”

“Martha’s Vineyard,” Andrew corrected. His knee brushed mine again. The wine coated my throat like cough syrup, and I realized how much better he looked older. There were a million things I wanted to ask him, and I was agitated and resentful that Luke and Whitney were here, hijacking this moment from us. “Is your family from Nantucket?” he asked Luke.

Whitney laughed. “No one is from Nantucket, Andrew.” Nantucket’s ten thousand locals would disagree, but what Whitney meant was that people like us weren’t from Nantucket. It used to thrill me when a woman like this assumed I was cut from her cloth. It meant my mask was that convincing. When did that assumption start to strum the rage? Once I got the ring, the Tribeca zip code, the Waspy white knight on one knee, once I wasn’t so distracted by trying to get my formerly French-manicured hands on all these things, I was able to take a step back and reassess. There is very little that is noble about me, and even I’m finding it hard to believe that anyone could be satisfied, really satisfied, by this existence. Either every member of the tartan club is just walking around, spiritually bereft, and not talking about it, or this truly is enough for them. I thought the end game must be pretty fucking spectacular if they were willing to protect it like they were. Luke and his entire family, his friends, their wives voted for Mitt Romney in 2012. His pro-personhood bullshit could prevent rape and incest victims, women whose lives were in danger, from having safe abortions. It could shut down Planned Parenthood.

“Oh, that will never happen,” Luke had said with a chuckle.

“But even if it doesn’t,” I said, “how can you vote for someone with a stance like that?”

“Because I don’t care, Ani.” Luke sighed. My silly feminist wrath had been cute once. “It doesn’t affect you, it doesn’t affect me. What does affect you and me though? Obama taxing the shit out of us because we’re in the highest bracket.”

“That other stuff does affect me, though.”

“You’re on birth control!” Luke bellowed. “What do you need an abortion for?”

“Luke, if it weren’t for Planned Parenthood I could have a thirteen-year-old right now.”

“I’m not doing this,” he declared, and lunged at the light switch on the wall. He stalked to the bedroom, slamming the door behind him, leaving me crying alone in the dark kitchen.

I told Luke about that night at a time when he was enamored with me, which is the only time you should ever tell anyone something shameful about yourself—when a person is mad enough about you that disgrace is endearing. Each nasty detail made his eyes bigger and yet somehow sleepier, like it was all too much to really take in, he’d process the rest later. If I were to ask Luke right now what happened to me that night, I don’t think he could tell me. “Jesus, Ani, I don’t know, it was bad, okay? I know something bad happened to you. I get it. You don’t have to remind me every fucking day.”

He knows it’s bad enough that it shouldn’t be talked about, at least. That was a major point of contention when I was first considering the documentary. “But you’re not planning on talking about that night, right?” “That night,” such comforting synecdoche. I actually had been toying with the idea of speaking into the camera, brazenly recounting what Peyton, Liam, and Dean (God, especially Dean) had done to me, but there was a problem. I didn’t have the emerald yet. And I wanted that dazzling green brag on my finger by the time we started shooting. So I twisted my mouth like I’d bitten into a lime after a tequila shot and said, “Of course not.”