I needed tears again, but just enough to make my eyes gleam. No track marks on my cheeks—that would be overkill. “This will make me really happy,” I croaked.

Luke dropped his head to his chest and sighed. “Then we have to do it.”

I flung my arms around his neck. “I want a cheeseburger now.”

It was just the right cute, quirky Ani thing to say because Luke laughed.

“You are ridiculous,” Nell said when I walked into Sally Hershberger Downtown. “Fucking eat something already.”

I chose to take it as a joke and went to do a little spin for her, but Nell seized a crumpled magazine from the pile on the coffee table and glared at Blake Lively on the cover. I sat down next to her in reception, stung. The prepubescent model behind the front desk asked if we wanted coffee. “A latte,” I said.

“Skim?” she asked.

“Whole milk.”

“Still doesn’t count as food,” Nell muttered.

My hairstylist appeared before us. “Oh my Godddd.” Ruben pressed his hands to his face like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone. “You have cheekbones.”

“Don’t encourage it.” Nell flipped a page in W with so much force she tore it half out of the magazine. Nell and I just weren’t talking about it. Any of it.

“Oh, please.” Ruben shooed her away. “It’s her wedding. We can’t have fucking Shamu walking down the aisle.” He offered me his hand. “Come on back, gorgeous.”

Ruben said I should do big Brigitte Bardot hair now that my face was so slender. “You can’t do that on porkers.” He twisted my hair into wet knots all over my head. “Just makes them look bigger.” Ruben had never suggested Brigitte Bardot hair for me before I’d gotten down to 104 pounds.

Mom said she didn’t even know why I was bothering to get my hair done in New York when the second I got to Nantucket the humidity would undo it all. I told Ruben that, and he pshawed. “Your mama doesn’t know anything about anything.”

Luke had left for Nantucket earlier in the week, but I didn’t have the same liberty at The Women’s Magazine. When I requested Friday off in addition to the two weeks I needed for my honeymoon, the managing editor balked. But LoLo stepped in and made it happen. She approved of my honeymoon choice—eight days in the Maldives and three in Paris. I still hadn’t talked to her about London, even though Luke had given his answer to the partners, and it was a go.

“Fabulous,” she said. “And the Maldives are sinking, you know. So run, run, before it’s too late.”

Ruben had a tan bald head and glasses that sloped on the end of his elegant nose. He never pushed them up, the way Arthur used to. Just squinted over their tortoiseshell ledge as he fed sections of my hair through a round brush, twisting and turning at the bottom until the ends coiled like peppy ribbons securing a Christmas present.

Nell glanced at her watch. She had wandered over with my latte twenty minutes ago, handing it off to me with a slight, apologetic smile. I guess she figured I was going through with it and there was no point in continuing to punish me. “It’s almost eleven,” she said. Our flight was out of JFK at 2:00, and we still had to get back down to my apartment to collect my luggage.

Ruben worked some product into my hair, whipped off the black robe, and planted a loud kiss on the top of my head. “I want pictures,” he said. “You are going to make the most gorgeous bride.” He held his hand over his heart, and I watched him tear up in the mirror. “Ugh!” he cried. “Just the most gorgeous bride.”

Nell and I tore into my apartment, shimmying the wet off our coats and umbrellas. It had started to rain on our way downtown, and getting a cab was going to be difficult now.

“Seriously,” Nell said. “We have to go.”

I was going through the fridge, tossing anything that would spoil over the next two weeks.

“I know,” I said. “I have to trash this stuff though. I can’t come back to a smelly apartment. Drives me crazy.”

“Where’s your trash room?” Nell grabbed the garbage bag out of my hands. “I got it. Just get everything together.”

The door slammed behind Nell, and then I was alone. I dropped to my knees, pushing through the cleaning supplies we keep in the cabinet beneath the sink. I found a box of clean garbage bags and wedged it loose. A row of bottles shifted, and something fell, rattling as it spun. The object was a seafoam green blur only until it sputtered, ran out of gas, and went silent on its side. I pinched it between my fingers and studied it, wondering how long I had before Nell returned to the apartment and caught me on the ground, shaking like a wet dog.

“The first time I ever heard of Ani was in an e-mail my brother sent me on November sixth, 2011.” The speech in Garret’s hand fluttered as he brought it closer to his face to make out the words.

“‘I’m bringing a girl home for Thanksgiving,’ he said. ‘Her name is Ani and it’s pronounced “Ah-nee.” Not “Annie.” If you screw it up, I’ll kill you.’”

The room vibrated with pleasant laughter. Oh, those Harrison boys.

Garret glanced up from the paper in his hands. “I think you know when two people are meant for each other when you see that they’re better people together than they are when they’re apart.”

A hum of agreement.

“Ani is one of the sweetest girls I’ve ever met, but let’s just say it, she’s a little kooky.” There was robust laughter at that, which shouldn’t have surprised me as much as it did. Wasn’t that the personality I’d meticulously crafted for Luke? Adorably quirky? The razor-sharp spokes that sliced through every now and then, the thing that kept him on his toes, the extra little bonus? “And I know that’s what my brother loves about her. It’s what we all love about her.”

I looked at Nell. She mouthed “Sweetest girl he’s ever met?” and rolled her eyes. I looked back at my soon to be brother-in-law and hoped no one else had noticed.

“And my brother.” Garret laughed, and the crowd did too. They knew he was gearing up for something good. “Well, not many people can keep up with my brother. He’s the last one at the bar and the first one on the surfboard in the morning. You get out there, and he’s been riding the waves for an hour and he’ll want to stay out an hour longer than you do and you’re like, dude, you made me take a Jameson shot at three in the morning, I can’t.” Garret covered his forehead, like he had a headache. “God bless you for putting up with that, Ani (Annie), excuse me, Ani (Ah-nee).” The laugh track was at full volume now, and, with Herculean effort, I joined in.

Garret waited patiently for the room to quiet down. A smile ate up half his face as he continued. This was going well. “But that’s what’s so great about Luke and Ani. They don’t ‘put up’ with each other. They love each other unconditionally, inhuman amounts of energy and all.”

Luke’s hand found my own, gnarled into a claw, as though a paralysis had settled into the bones. My whole body creaked as he pulled my hand into his lap. With my other, I churned the discovery I’d made in our kitchen. I’d kept it close since I left New York, considering what to do with it, how to play it. Nell had badgered me the entire flight. “Jesus. What’s wrong?” “You know how much I hate flying,” I’d said to the window.

“My brother needed someone like Ani. Someone to show him what it’s really all about, this life. Family, kids, stability.” He smiled right at me. “She’s it.”

I rubbed my cheek on my shoulder, against a nonexistent itch.

“And to that point, Ani needed someone like my brother. Someone to be her rock. Someone to calm her down when she starts to spin”—there was a strong, almost hostile emphasis on that word, and a knowing wink at Luke—“out of control.” When she starts to spin. I felt like I was standing outside of my body as I understood, with piercing clarity, that Luke made fun of me, of my rabid terror, of my silly, hard-earned phobias, over beers with his brother and friends. “She’s ridiculous,” I realized I could hear him say, and everything in me ached with that raw, ruthless exposure.