LITMIR.BIZ

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do not marry Andrea. Blood pounded in Andy’s ears. Oh, how delighted you sounded to see her again! Should she fly into the bathroom or run out the door? The next time she saw him, they’d be exchanging rings in front of three hundred people, including his mother.

      Someone knocked on the suite’s front door before opening it. ‘Andy? What are you doing here?’ Nina, her wedding planner, asked. ‘Good god, you’re going to ruin that dress! And I thought you agreed you wouldn’t see each other before the ceremony. If that’s not the case, why didn’t we do pictures beforehand?’ Her constant, unrelenting talking drove Andy crazy. ‘Max, stay in that bathroom! Your bride is standing here like a deer caught in headlights. Wait, oh, just hold on a second!’ She scurried over as Andy tried to stand and fix her dress at the same time and extended her hand.

      ‘There,’ she said, pulling Andy to her feet and smoothing her hand over the dress’s mermaid skirt. ‘Now, come with me. No more disappearing-bride antics, you hear? What’s this?’ She plucked the note from Andy’s sweaty palm and held it aloft.

      Andy could actually hear the pounding in her chest; she briefly wondered if she was having a heart attack. She opened her mouth to say something, but instead a wave of nausea came over her. ‘Oh, I think I’m going to—’

      Magically, or maybe just from lots of practice, Nina produced a trash can at exactly the right moment and held it so tightly to Andy’s face that she could feel the plastic-lined rim pressing into the soft underside of her chin. ‘There, there,’ Nina nasal-whined, oddly comforting nonetheless. ‘You’re not my first jittery bride and you won’t be my last. Let’s just thank our lucky stars you didn’t have any splash-back.’ She dabbed at Andy’s mouth with one of Max’s T-shirts, and his smell, a heady mixture of soap and the basil-mint shampoo he used – a scent she usually loved – made her retch all over again.

      There was another knock at the door. The famous photographer St Germain and his pretty young assistant walked in. ‘We’re supposed to be shooting Max’s preparations,’ he announced in an affected but indeterminate accent. Thankfully, neither he nor the assistant so much as glanced at Andy.

      ‘What’s going on out there?’ Max called, still banished to the bathroom.

      ‘Max, stay put!’ Nina yelled, her voice all authority. She turned to Andy, who wasn’t sure she could walk the couple hundred feet back to the bridal suite. ‘We’ve got to get your skin touched up and … Christ, your hair …’

      ‘I need the necklace,’ Andy whispered.

      ‘The what?’

      ‘Barbara’s diamond necklace. Wait.’ Think, think, think. What did it mean? What should she do? Andy forced herself to return to that hideous bag, but thankfully Nina stepped in front of her and pulled the duffel onto the bed. She rooted quickly through its contents and pulled out a black velvet box with Cartier etched on the side.

      ‘This what you’re looking for? Come, let’s go.’

      Andy allowed herself to be pulled into the hallway. Nina instructed the photographers to free Max from the bathroom and firmly shut the door behind them.

      Andy couldn’t believe Barbara hated her so much that she didn’t want her son to marry her. And not only that, but she had his wife chosen for him. Katherine: more appropriate, less selfish. The one, at least according to Barbara, who got away. Andy knew all about Katherine. She was the heiress to the von Herzog fortune and, from what Andy could remember from her early rounds of incessant Googling, she was some sort of minor Austrian princess whose parents had sent her to board at Max’s elite Connecticut prep school. Katherine had gone on to major in European history at Amherst, where she was admitted after her grandfather – an Austrian noble with Nazi allegiances during World War II – donated enough money to name a residence hall in his late wife’s honor. Max claimed Katherine was too prim, too proper, and all-around too polite. She was boring, he claimed. Too conventional and concerned with appearances. Why he dated her on and off for five years Max couldn’t explain quite as well, but Andy had always suspected there was more to the story. She clearly hadn’t been wrong.

      The last time Max had mentioned Katherine, he was planning to call and inform her of their engagement; a few weeks later a beautiful cut-crystal bowl from Bergdorf’s arrived with a note wishing them a lifetime of happiness. Emily, who knew Katherine through her own husband, Miles, swore Andy had nothing to worry about, that she was boring and uptight and while she did, admittedly, have ‘a great rack,’ Andy was superior in every other way. Andy hadn’t thought much more about it since then. They all had pasts. Was she proud of Christian Collinsworth? Did she feel the need to tell Max every single detail about her relationship with Alex? Of course not. But it was a different story entirely reading a letter from your future mother-in-law, on the day of your wedding, imploring your fiancé to marry his ex-girlfriend instead. An ex-girlfriend he had apparently been delighted to see in Bermuda during his bachelor party and whom he had conveniently forgotten to mention.

      Andy rubbed her forehead and forced herself to think. When had Barbara written that poisonous note? Why had Max saved it? And what did it mean that he’d seen Katherine a mere six weeks earlier and hadn’t breathed a word about it to Andy, despite giving her every last detail of his and his friends’ golf games, steak dinners, and sunbathing? There had to be an explanation, there simply had to be. But what was it?

       2

       learning to love the hamptons: 2009

      It had long been a point of pride for Andy that she almost never went to the Hamptons. The traffic, the crowds, the pressure to get dressed up and look great and be at the right place … none of it felt particularly relaxing. Certainly not much of an escape from the city. Better to stay in the city alone, wander the summer street fairs and lay out in Sheep Meadow and ride her bike along the Hudson. She could walk into any restaurant without a reservation and explore new, uncrowded neighborhoods. She loved summer weekends spent reading and sipping iced coffees in the city and never felt the least bit left out, a fact that Emily simply refused to accept. One weekend a season Emily dragged Andy out to her husband’s parents’ place and insisted Andy experience the fabulousness of white parties and polo matches and enough Tory-Burch-clad women to outfit half of Long Island. Every year Andy swore to herself she’d never go back, and every summer she dutifully packed her bag and braved the Jitney and tried to act like she was having a great time mingling with the same people she saw at industry events in the city. This weekend was different, though. This particular weekend would potentially determine her professional future.

      There was a brief knock at the door before Emily barged in. Judging from her expression, she was displeased to find Andy flopped on the luxurious duvet, one towel wrapped around her hair and another under her arms, staring helplessly at a suitcase exploding with clothes.

      ‘Why aren’t you dressed yet? People are going to be here any minute!’

      ‘I have nothing to wear!’ Andy cried. ‘I don’t understand the Hamptons. I’m not of them. Everything I brought is wrong.’

      ‘Andy …’ Emily’s hip jutted out in her magenta silk dress, just under where the billowy fabric was cinched tight by a triple-wrapped gold chain belt that wouldn’t have fit around most women’s thighs. Her coltish legs were tanned and accessorized with gold gladiator sandals and a glossy pedicure in the same shade of pink as her dress.

      Andy studied her friend’s perfectly blown-out hair, glimmering cheekbones, and pale pink lip gloss. ‘I hope that’s some sort of sparkle powder and not just your natural exuberance,’ she said uncharitably, motioning toward Emily’s face. ‘No one deserves to look that good.’

      ‘Andy, you know how important tonight is! Miles called in a trillion favors to get everyone over here, and I’ve spent the past month dealing with florists and caterers and my fucking

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