This is a work of fiction.

Names, characters, places, and incidents either are

the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 by Eliza Kennedy

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of
the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC,
New York.
www.crownpublishing.com

CROWN is a registered trademark and the Crown colophon is a trademark of

Penguin Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data

Kennedy, Eliza, 1974–
I take you : a novel / Eliza Kennedy. —First edition.
pages cm
1. Women lawyers—­Fiction. 2. Female friendship—­Fiction.
3. Key West (Fla.)—­Fiction. I. Title.

PS3611.E5585183 2015
813’.6—­dc23
2014010352

ISBN 978‑0‑553‑41782‑1
eBook ISBN 978‑0‑553‑41783‑8

Printed in the United States of America

Book design by Lauren Dong

Jacket design and illustration by Ben Wiseman

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

First Edition

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 S ATUR DAY

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 1

I’m getting married.

He’s perfect!
It’s a disaster.
“You’re crazy,” Freddy says as she hands me another drink. “Will is
adorable. He’s got a cool job. He cooks. He’s super sweet.”
“He’s everything I’m not,” I say. “He cancels out all my flaws.”
“Ha ha!” Freddy says. “Nope.”
We’re at a club downtown. It’s dark, hot, crowded and insanely loud.
Nicole is playing with her phone at the other end of the table. The rest of
the girls are dancing by the DJ booth.
“You’re a pig in a poke!” Freddy shouts over the music. “You look
good on the outside, but buy you and bring you home?” She tosses back
her drink. “Forget it.”
I sigh. “I’m not even sure how things got to this point.”
“Is that right?” She jabs at me with one of her pointy purple nails.
“Did he trick you into saying yes? Did he distract you with, like,” she
waves her hands in my face, “whoo! whoo! pretty lights? Then shove
the ring on your finger?”
“It was very romantic!” I protest. “The moonlight, the museum!”
She nods thoughtfully. “When Patrick proposed, he hid the ring in
the mouth of his bearskin rug.”
“The one in the foyer?”
“The one in the media room.”
“Why have I not heard this story before?”
“He made me crawl around on the ground, searching for it,” she
adds. “Stark naked.”

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 4    E L I Z A K ENN E DY

I miss Patrick.
“Also handcuffed,” she says. “Which, you know. Helped.”
I’m about to follow up on this little tidbit when someone sits down
next to me. He’s cute. I smile at him. He smiles back.
“I can kill people with my mind,” I tell him.
He laughs and says, “Can I buy you a drink?”
He’s British. I fall deeply in love.
I reach up and touch his curly hair. Soon we’re kissing. He tastes like
smoke and bourbon. I could kiss him all night, but Freddy pulls me onto
the dance floor. We weave and twist and shimmy. We twirl and bob. We
spin each other around.
“Did you bring las drogas?” I shout.
She looks surprised. “I thought we were cutting back.”
“Winifred! Tonight of all nights?”
She grabs her purse from our table and leads me to the bathroom.
When we get back, the cute British guy is gone. Nicole is still texting.
Leta and Chelsea and Joy are bouncing up and down in their seats like
maniacs, shrieking along with the music, their drinks flying everywhere.
I love this. I am so happy right now. I want to have a bachelorette
party every week.
“Let’s make prank calls!” I say.
“Let’s go to a strip club!” Freddy says.
“Yes!” we all yell, except for Nicole, who is still goddamned texting.
My phone pings. It’s a message from Philip.
—Wilder. I need you to come in right away.

I stand up, a little wobbly. “Kiss Mommy good-­bye, girls!”

“Now?” Freddy cries in disbelief. “They can’t do this!”
I pat her on the shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”
Ha ha! Nope.
The office is a madhouse. Paralegals racing through the halls with
stacks of binders and file folders, night secretaries printing and photo-
copying like the fate of the world hangs in the balance. I’ve never shown
up to work in this condition before, so everything is strange and new
and a little hilarious. I start to laugh, which gets me some dark looks.
Then I hit an unexpected pocket of turbulence in the hallway. Oh no—­

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 I TA K E Y O U   5

I’m going down! Fortunately, a wall saves me. You know what? Thank
God for walls. Whoever put them in this hallway had a lot of foresight.
Whoever invented them was a freaking—
I slip inside a bathroom and splash water on my face. That’s better.
I head for my office. The light is on in Lyle’s room, so I stop by.
There he is, surrounded by piles of paper and greasy take-­out contain-
ers, banging away at his laptop, looking all sweaty, pale and infarcted.
Lyle and I work on the same litigation team, for the same partner. I’m in
my second year at the firm, he’s in his fifth. You could say we’re friendly
rivals. Kindred spirits. Just super, super close.
“Go fuck yourself,” he says.
I drop into a chair. “What’s up, Mighty Mouse?”
He sighs heavily. “How many times have I asked you not to call me
that?”
“Eleven. What’s going on around here? It’s after midnight.”
“The plaintiffs in the Lucas case filed a motion for a preliminary
injunction.” He’s still typing furiously. “We have forty-­eight hours to re-
spond. Can you help?”
I flick at a piece of sparkly club confetti stuck to my dress. “Afraid
not.”
Lyle reads through what he’s typed, hits return, hits it harder, shouts
“Fuck God!” at the screen, hits return really hard, exhales, cracks his
neck and turns to me. “She. Cannot. Help.” He’s doing his annoying
third-­person zombie monotone thing. “Why. Is she. Here?”
Pesky confetti—­I flick at it again. “Because Philip. Texted. Her.”
Lyle frowns. “He’s here?”
“Apparently, Wee One.”
“Philip doesn’t know how to text.”
I shrug. “Maybe his secretary taught him.”
“Betty’s ninety. Why did he text you?”
“Lyle is. Troubled. Lyle wonders why the partner. Did not text. Him.
Lyle fears. He is out. Of the loop.”
He picks up a pen and grips it tightly.
“There is so much love in your eyes right now, Lyle.” I hold a hand to
my heart. “I can hardly stand it.”
For a second I think he’s going to lunge across the desk and stab me

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 6    E L I Z A K ENN E DY

in the eye, but he manages to rein it in. “Out,” he says, pointing at the
door with the pen. “Now.”
I walk up two flights to the forty-­fifth floor, where the partners have
their offices. The lighting is dim and expensive, the carpeting plush.
Even the air smells better up here—­crisp and fresh, like it was just im-
ported from the Alps, which, who knows? I stroll the hallway, admir-
ing the expensive art and framed artifacts from the firm’s glorious past.
Sepia-­tinted photographs of the founding partners. Thank-­you notes
from robber barons and titans of industry. A letter from Theodore Roo-
sevelt bitching about his bill.
Philip is reading a brief, feet up on his desk. I pause in the doorway.
I oh-­so-­casually lean against the door frame. I kind of miss. So I knock
and say, “Yeth, Mathter?”
He glances at me over his reading glasses. “Wilder. Come in.”
He’s wearing a tuxedo. “I just came from a charity function,” he ex-
plains.
“Whoa.” I hold up my hands. “Hey. A charity function. Let’s not get
so specific, okay?”
He regards me silently for a moment, then returns to his reading. I
perch on the edge of one of his wing chairs and wait.
It’s a nice tuxedo.
I shift my attention to his desk. It is massive, baroque, intimidating.
I get completely lost in its swirls and whorls and ornate floral motifs.
I wonder who carved them. Orphans, probably. Eighteenth-­century
French orphans. I picture them toiling away at the workhouse, their
tiny, chapped hands trembling in the cold wind sweeping across the
plains of . . . ​wherever. Someplace French. Fumbling for their wood-
working tools, dropping them, lopping off a finger here, a toe there.
Tearing strips of lace off their smocks to make chic little tourniquets,
then getting back down to business.
I start to ask Philip about them. I think better of it.
I fold my hands in my lap. My dress is riding up. Way up. Red zone!
I tug at the hem. Something rips.
Philip tosses the brief on his desk. “So,” he says. “You’re getting
­married.”

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 I TA K E Y O U   7

“Yeppers!” I give him two dorky thumbs‑up. Why? And why am I

here? I really shouldn’t be. “We’re flying down to Key West tomorrow.”
He smiles. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you!”
“We need you to cancel it.”
“Sorry?”
“Postpone it, rather.” He lifts his feet off the desk and sits up. “Just
for a few months.”
I’m outraged. They can’t do this! I want to get married! Will and I
are soul mates!
“No way,” I say. “Je refuse.”
Philip is sifting through a pile of papers, searching for something. He
stops and looks up. “This is your first marriage?”
“Yes, and—”
“I remember my first.” He goes a little misty. “It’s true what they say.
The first marriage really is the best.”
“Good to know, but—”
“The next deposition in the EnerGreen litigation is scheduled for
Friday.” He’s consulting a sheet of paper plucked from the disarray.
“The witness is an accountant. Peter Hoffman.”
“Hoffman?” I say. “The guy with the e‑mails?”
“According to Lyle, Mr. Hoffman is not ready to be deposed. We
need someone to prep him.” He glances at me, eyebrows raised.
Oh. Philip’s just confused. “That’s the fraud part of the case,” I re-
mind him. “I work on the environmental claims.” I cross my legs and
smile at him. Problem solved.
But he frowns and shakes his head. “Lyle says that you know the
documents. You know the record. It has to be you.”
I should have known who was behind this. “Lyle is lyling—­I mean,
he’s lying, Philip! He’s trying to ruin my wedding. He—”
Philip looks at me over his reading glasses. He’s all stern school­
master to my unruly little student. I’m totally digging it. I lift my chin
and stare back at him defiantly. I try propping my elbow on the arm of
the chair, but it’s really slippery, which is weird for brocade. I fold my
arms instead. “You’re going to have to find somebody else.”

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 8    E L I Z A K ENN E DY

Philip launches into this big speech about how EnerGreen is the
firm’s most important client . . . ​this is a historic case . . . ​billions of
dollars at stake . . . ​furious government agencies breathing down our
necks . . . ​so much public scrutiny since the oil spill . . . ​the true test of a
lawyer’s commitment is her willingness to make sacrifices for the good
of the client . . .
Honestly? I can’t focus. His voice is so smooth and measured. Al-
most hypnotic. And I’m distracted by how the light from the desk lamp
makes his silver hair gleam. Philip has good hair. Great hair. But then,
he’s a good-­looking man. He—
“—because this witness’s documents are rife with potential pitfalls,
he must be well prepared for his deposition, and you, Wilder, must be
the one to prepare him. I have some information that you should find
welcome, however. By a happy coincidence, Mr. Hoffman is vacationing
in the Florida Keys this week. He wishes to be deposed there, and the
plaintiffs have consented.” Philip smiles at me.
The tuxedo, plus the reading glasses, plus the smile?
He’s killing me right now.
“This, then, is our plan,” he continues. “You will meet with Mr.
Hoffman on Tuesday at his resort, a place called,” he glances down
at the sheet, “Tranquility Bay. Doesn’t that sound charming. I will fly
down Thursday evening. On Friday, I will defend the deposition,” he
glances up, “with your assistance, of course. By Friday evening you will
be free to enjoy your well-­deserved time off.”
I think this through. “So I don’t have to postpone the wedding.”
“Correct.”
“Then why did you say—”
“Because I love how outrage focuses your attention.” He smiles again.
I close my eyes. “Send someone else,” I say faintly.
“Very well, I will,” Philip says. “On one condition.”
I open my eyes. We gaze at each other in silence.
I stand up and shut the door. “Dress on or off?”
He comes around from behind his desk. “What a question.”
I reach back for the zipper. “I want you to spank me again.”
“You enjoyed that?” He stretches out on the long leather sofa. I climb
on top of him.

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 I TA K E Y O U   9

“No,” I say, my mouth close to his ear. “I hated it.”

Afterward, I lie beside him and rest my head on his chest. That was
exactly what I needed. And exactly why I left my party. Maybe that was
obvious. It wasn’t obvious to me. Not right away.
I feel his hand on my head, his fingers combing through my tangled
hair. Philip has a lot of stamina for an old guy. I think about old guys.
They’re all right. They’re all so very, very—
“Wilder?”
“Yes, sir?”
I love calling him “sir.” It’s making me excited all over again.
Subservience!
“Something is troubling me,” Philip says.
“I’m sorry to hear that, sir.”
I feel him separate one curl from the rest, twirling it around his fin-
ger, tugging it gently. “The fact is, I may have misled you just now.”
“In what way?”
“You still have to prep Hoffman.”
I sigh contentedly and pat his chest. “I know.”
He raises his head to peer at me. “You do?”
I sit up and stretch. I start gathering my clothes. “Of course. And I
don’t mind.” I look down at him. “Although it was wrong of you to try
to coerce me.”
“I know.” He smiles. “Wasn’t it wonderful?”
It really was. So I let him coerce me again. Then I coerce him for a
while. Then I get dressed and get a cab and go home.
Will and I live in a loft on North Moore Street. Before he moved
in five months ago, the place was spare and chilly and barren—­much
like my soul, as Freddy likes to say. Now it’s cozy and inviting, full of
Will’s old furniture and art and the beautiful things he picks up on his
travels.
He must have heard me stumble out of the elevator, because he’s
waiting at the door. In a t‑shirt and pajama pants, his hair all tousled
from the shower. Freddy’s right—­he’s so cute.
He yawns and smiles at me. “Hi, Lily.”
“Baby! You waited up.”
Logs are crackling in the fireplace. Soft music is playing. I collapse

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 1 0    E L I Z A K ENN E DY

in his arms. He searches my face with loving eyes. “Do you need the
bucket?” he asks tenderly.
“Not yet,” I whisper.
He helps me to the sofa and hands me a glass of fizzy water. Aspirin.
A mug of tea. He had it all waiting for me.
I stretch out and rest my head in his lap. He covers me with a blan-
ket. “Did you have a good time tonight?” he asks.
I don’t deserve him. I know this.
“It was okay.”
He brushes a few strands of hair from my forehead. “You look beau-
tiful.”
The fact that I acknowledge that I’m a terrible person doesn’t make
me any less terrible. I know this, too.
I gaze up at him hopelessly. “I’m a pig in a poke, Will!”
“I love you just the way you are,” he says.
“Oh, ha,” I say weakly. “Ha ha.”
I’ll be better. I will!
I’ll find a way to be worthy of him.
“We have an early flight,” he says. “Let’s get you to bed.”
“I love you, Will!” I cry. “I love you so, so much.”
And at this moment, I do. I really do!
He grins at me. “Then I have a great idea.”
“What’s that?”
“Let’s get married!”
Oh, Jesus.
I close my eyes. “Okay!”
What am I doing? What have I done?
Stop. Just . . . ​calm down.
It’s going to be fine. Totally fine!
How? Not sure. Really not sure about that. But it is. I know it is.
Everything’s going to be fine.

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 SUNDAY

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 2

The drive toJFK is tough. I have to use my bucket twice. Check‑in

and security are special little hells. Will coaxes me through the terminal.
I basically crawl down the aisle of the plane and collapse into my seat.
The woman next to me is whimpering, her head between her knees.
I touch her back gently. “Are you okay?”
“I’m so friggin’ sick!” she moans.
“Hey, me too! I had my bachelorette party last night.”
She lifts her head. “Get outta here!”
Her name is Lola. She’s getting married in Boca Raton in three days.
“Marry on a Wednesday,” Lola informs me, “and you’re less likely to
divorce. Like, way less.”
“No kidding?”
“They proved it,” she says solemnly. “With statistics.”
Naturally, we start swapping war stories.
“There’s one tuxedo shop on the island,” I tell her. “Our wedding
planner drops off the deposit, and a few hours later the place is robbed.
At gunpoint.”
“I might know the guys who did that,” Lola says.
“They were caught a couple of days later.”
“Oh,” she says. “Then no.”
I lean across Will to look down the aisle. “When do you think they’re
going to start the beverage service?”
“We haven’t left the gate yet,” he murmurs.
“This formalwear bullshit is bullshit,” Lola says. “Bettina, my maid
of honor? She’s, like, one of those all-­natural girls? Doesn’t buy paper
towels? Eats the shit out of kale?”

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 1 4    E L I Z A K ENN E DY

“Oh yeah.” I nod sympathetically. “I know the type.”

“I choose this strapless dress for the bridesmaids, right? Gorgeous.”
Lola purses her fat little shrimp-­colored lips. “Now Bettina says she
won’t shave!”
“Yikes!”
“It’s disgustin’! All brown and tufty?” Lola shudders. “Like she’s
stashin’ a couple of those animals up there. You know the ones?”
“Hamsters?”
“No. Olinguitos.”
“Olinguitos?” I repeat.
“They’re from Ecuador.” She shakes her head. “Cross-­eyed little
fuckers.”
I try to steer the conversation back on track. “The first resort we
booked for our guests was super eco-­conscious, like your friend,” I say.
“Solar powered, carbon neutral, zero emissions, you know?”
“Like with the crappy lightbulbs?”
“Exactly. But get this.” I lean closer to her. “It closed down last month,
after they found a dead hooker in the cistern.”
“Oh, shit!” Lola cries.
“Right?”
“That’s so nasty!”
“I know!”
She picks thoughtfully at a bit of orange skin flaking off her nose.
“I got these girl cousins comin’ to the wedding? Identical twins? Real
heavy?” She pauses. “They’re totally doin’ it.”
I feel my mouth drop open. “With each other?”
“Always sneakin’ off during family functions, like to the garage?
Writin’ these weird poems to each other?” She takes her phone out of
her bag and starts scrolling through her photos. “Lemme see if I got a
picture. You won’t believe how gross.”
Will mutters, “She’s kicking your ass at this game.”
I turn to look at him. He’s hunched over his phone, his long body
pretzeled into the tiny seat. He’s wearing a hooded sweatshirt and a
faded green baseball cap pulled low over his unkempt hair. He hasn’t
shaved, and he’s so absorbed in whatever he’s typing that his glasses have

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 I TA K E Y O U    1 5

slipped to the very end of his nose. Basically, he looks like a handsome
vagrant, not someone who speaks four dead languages.
I nudge him. “They just closed the door. You can’t text in here.”
He nudges me back. “Try to stop me.”
I snatch his phone away. He grabs for it, but I hold it out of reach. “I
need that!” he protests.
“You are so addicted to this thing.”
“Addicted,” he says. “I’m addicted.”
“Please. I’m an amateur compared to you.”
He reaches for it again, but I hold it tight. “Ian has a question about
my research proposal,” he says, laughing. “I have to answer!”
“The first step toward recovery,” I tell him, “is admitting that you
have a problem.”
He folds his hands in his lap. “I have a problem.”
“A serious problem.”
“I’m a very sick person,” he says obediently, “and I need help.”
“Good boy.” I look at the phone more closely as I hand it back to
him. “Wait—­is this new?”
“It’s my work phone,” he replies, finishing his text.
“The museum gave you a phone?”
“For when I travel.” He powers off the phone and slips it into his
pocket. “All the curators get one.”
“That makes sense,” I say. “In case one of those burning archaeolog-
ical emergencies crops up.”
Will sighs. “Here we go.”
“Like if those pesky Nazis try to steal the Ark of the Covenant
again.”
He takes my hand. “Have I ever told you how much I appreciate the
respect you have for my work?”
I kiss his cheek. “You’re welcome, baby.”
We finally take off. Lola and I have a friendly-­but-­sort-­of-­not tussle
over the shared armrest. I doze for a while. An elderly woman comes
out of the restroom. I unbuckle my seat belt.
Lola eyes me dubiously. “You goin’ in there?”
“Sure. Why?”

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 1 6    E L I Z A K ENN E DY

“I never use the toilet after some old lady.”

“Seniors,” I say. “They’re so tidy.”
“They’re filthy sluts,” she informs me.
I slap her leg. “Lola, you crack me up!”
“What do they give a shit about STDs? They’re basically dead! My
great-­aunt Rita, she’s eighty-­four? She’s got a colostomy bag, and, like,
rickets? Had gonorrhea three times!”
“Poor lady!” I say.
Lola snorts. “Auntie Rita ain’t no lady, honey.”
Will sticks some kind of bran muffin from hell in my face. “Why
don’t you try to eat something?”
Looking at it makes my stomach churn all over again. “I don’t think
I can.”
“One bite?”
I take one bite, to please him.
“He’s a keeper,” Lola announces. “He’s a prize.”
I rest my head on his shoulder. “I know.”
“Mine impregnified a stripper at his father’s bachelor party,” she con-
tinues.
“Wait,” I say. “His father’s bachelor party?”
“Fourth marriage,” Lola explains.
“Sounds like my family. Was this before you guys met, or . . . ?”
“Nah. Benny and me been together since high school. But he made it
up to me. See?” She shows me her engagement ring.
“Beautiful,” I say.
“Big-­ass,” she agrees.
“What happened to the baby?”
“Cordelia’s almost three,” Lola tells me. “So cute! Gonna be the
flower girl.” She picks up her phone. “Lemme see if I got a picture.”
We have a layover in Miami. Our plane to Key West is smaller, and
the rows have only two seats. I have no one to talk to but Will, and his
nose is buried in a book.
I nudge him. “What are you reading about?”
“Epictetus,” he says, not looking up.
“The suburb of Cleveland?”
Will turns a page. “That’s the one.”

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 I TA K E Y O U    1 7

I nudge him again. “I’m bored. Talk to me.”

“Why don’t you read a book?”
“I’m not that bored. Tell me about Epictetus.”
He closes his book and adjusts his glasses. “He was an ancient phi-
losopher. A Stoic. He was born into slavery in the first century AD, in
what’s now Turkey. But he lived most of his life in Rome and Greece.”
I snuggle into my seat. I love listening to Will talk about his intellec-
tual interests. He’s so adorably precise and methodical. Long, compli-
cated sentences roll right out of him. It’s kind of like being engaged to
an audiobook.
I pick up one of his hands and start to play with it.
“Epictetus believed that our capacity for choice is our greatest
strength and the source of our freedom. It allows us to recognize the
very limited number of things in life that are within our actual control.”
I like Will’s hands. They’re strong and calloused—­from all his field-
work, I guess. He’s got long fingers with big knuckles. Bony wrists. I
hold one of my hands up and compare them, palm to palm.
He breaks off midsentence. “Are you trying to distract me?”
“Of course not!” I let go of his hand. “Why, is it working?”
“Always.” He smiles down at me. “Where were we?”
“Choice. Freedom. Control.”
“Right.” He collects his thoughts. “Epictetus believed that all human
suffering is the result of our futile attempts to control things that are
not within our power to control. Our bodies, our possessions. External
events. Other people.”
“Epictetus was anti-­suffering?” I say. “What a coincidence—­I’m
anti-­suffering!”
“Only by renouncing our desires and attachments can we obtain a
measure of inner peace and live in harmony with the universe.”
“I’m really thirsty,” I say. “Would you mind renouncing your attach-
ment to that orange juice on your tray?”
“Why don’t I renounce it onto your head?”
“I don’t think that would be harmonious with the universe, Will.”
“True,” he agrees. “But it would provide me with some much-­needed
inner peace.”
By the time we land in Key West I’m feeling a thousand times better.

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 1 8    E L I Z A K ENN E DY

I spot Mom the instant we walk into the terminal. She’s leaning against
a wall with her hands shoved deep in her pockets, saying something to
a little grey-­haired woman who’s hopping from one foot to the other,
scanning the new arrivals anxiously. Mom’s faded auburn hair is pulled
into a messy ponytail, and her ivory skin—­the sign of a true Florida
native—­seems to glow amid the peeling tourists in their tropical shirts.
She looks relaxed and natural. Nowadays I only see her when she and
Gran visit me in New York. She looks so out of place there, an anxious,
scruffy stray among the hyper-­groomed lynxes prowling the streets of
Manhattan. Here, she belongs—­which explains why she never wants to
leave. That and her business. She renovates old buildings, historic Flor-
ida architecture, mostly. She’s become a real expert. She dresses the part,
too: paint-­spattered cargo shorts, old t‑shirt, work boots.
Mom sees me and launches herself off the wall. She throws her arms
around me, already sniffling. What a softy.
“Lily! You’re really here!”
“I’m here,” I say into her hair, which smells like lemons and sawdust.
She releases me, laughing and wiping her eyes, and we both turn to
Will. “This is my mother, Katherine,” I tell him. “Mom, this is Will.”
Yes. They’re meeting for the first time.
Mom’s speechless. She turns pink. “This is . . . ​I’m so . . . ​this is
amazing!” She ignores his outstretched hand and hugs him, too.
The grey-­haired lady is hovering around us. “Oh, sorry!” Mom says.
“I forgot! Lily and Will, this is Mattie.”
Mattie. Our wedding planner. Mom hired her five months ago, when
Will and I got engaged and decided to have the wedding down here. Al-
though “hired” might be the wrong word. Liberated from an asylum?
Rescued from a storm drain, where she was adjusting the antenna on
her mind-­control helmet and crooning to the manatees? Because Mattie
is completely—
“Thank goodness you made it!” She clutches my hand in her skinny
little paw. “I was so worried. The weatherman said there was a low-­
pressure zone over the Southeast, and a storm building over the Atlan-
tic. All I could think about was you and Will, trapped on a plane!” Her
bright blue eyes widen. “There was a flight stranded last year in Minne-

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 I TA K E Y O U    1 9

apolis for twenty-­eight hours! A seeing eye dog had a seizure! What if
that happened to you?”
Help me, Epictetus. Luggage finally starts tumbling onto the carou-
sel. Mattie is standing right next to me. I edge away. She fidgets closer.
I’m about to tell her that she’s going to need a flashlight pretty soon when
she clears her throat and says, “Lily? Did you get my . . . ​my thing?”
“Your thing?”
“Yes, my, my . . . ​oh, God bless it!” She slaps her forehead. “What’s
the word? My . . . ​you know . . . ​with the . . . ?” And she wiggles her
fingers.
“Piano?” I say, taking a wild stab.
“No no no, it’s the thing with the . . . ​and you use the . . . ?” She’s still
doing the finger thing.
“Gloves?” I say. “Fake fingernails? Little baby worms?”
“E-­mail!” she cries. “Did you get my e‑mail?”
Mattie has a bad memory. It made our phone conversations a chal-
lenge. “No,” I say. “Nothing today.”
She frowns. “Aren’t computers so unreliable?”
“Actually, they’re pretty—”
“I’ll just tell you what I wrote. I wrote—” She breaks off and starts
whirling around. “The gown! Where’s the wedding gown?”
“It’s okay,” I say, trying to calm her down. “Freddy’s got it.”
“Well, he’d better give it back!”
My hangover is threatening to return with a vengeance. Fortunately
Will steps in. “Freddy is Lily’s maid of honor. She made the dress. She’s
flying into Miami this afternoon and driving down with another brides-
maid.”
Mattie nods slowly. “I see. That’s . . . ​well, I don’t want to question
your judgment, but I don’t think that’s a very good idea. There’s that
low-­pressure zone, and you know how inexperienced drivers skid right
off Seven-­Mile Bridge all the time. . . .”
Our suitcases finally appear, and we head out to the parking lot. I
glance at Mom.
“Don’t,” she says.
I hold up my hands. “I didn’t.”

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 2 0    E L I Z A K ENN E DY

“Our options were very limited,” she points out.

“I didn’t say anything, Mom!”
She ignores me, getting all worked up. “This is what happens when
you’re in such a rush to get married!”
I tilt my face to the sun. The sky is a brilliant blue, and a breeze off
the ocean rustles the leaves of the tall palms circling the parking lot.
Hard to believe that only five hours ago Will and I were in slushy, grey
New York. “Relax, Mom. Mattie’s a gem. She’s going to be a wonder-
fully Zen influence on us all.”
We both laugh. Then she asks, “Are you happy to be home?”
I hear the concern in her voice. I turn and see it in her eyes. I throw
my arm around her shoulders and kiss her cheek. “Very.”
She looks like she’s about to say more, but instead she starts helping
Will load our suitcases into the trunk of Mattie’s car.
“Now, Lily.” Mattie glances at me in the rearview as she steers out of
the lot. “First thing tomorrow we need to go to Blue Heaven and review
the menu for the rehearsal supper.”
“Aye aye, Cap’n.”
“Oh, I’m not the captain of this ship!” Mattie laughs. “I’m just the . . . ​
the . . .”
“Bosun?” I say.
“Swabbie?” Will suggests.
“Master gunner?”
“Powder monkey?”
Mom turns around and gives us a look like Children, please.
“First mate,” Mattie says brightly. “You’re the captain, and I’m the
first mate. But about the rehearsal. We have a number of options. We
can do fish, or we can do pasta, or chicken, or chicken with pasta, or fish
and chicken together, although I’m not sure that’s wise. . . .”
We’re driving along the south shore of the island. To our left is
Smath­ers Beach. Sails dotting the horizon, volleyballs flying through
the air, pale bodies littering the sand. Bicyclists and skateboarders and
drunks clutching paper sacks. Standard Florida wintertime fun.
“They do an excellent appetizer. It’s called . . . ​oh, I forget what it’s
called. Something to do with raw seafood. But perhaps that’s not a good

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 I TA K E Y O U    2 1

idea, now that I’m giving it a little bit of a think. Perhaps not. After all,
you wouldn’t want to poison everyone the night before the wedding. . . .”
“Not everyone,” Will says agreeably.
We pass a block of shabby pink condos, a scrubby park, a motel. We
could be anywhere—­anywhere poor and southern and sad—­except that
to our right, visible between buildings and through rusted chain-­link
fences, are the salt ponds, long abandoned, slowly being reclaimed by the
mangroves, and the feeding pelicans, and the silence.
I lean forward and tap Mom on the shoulder. “When do Jane and
Ana get here?”
“They arrived last night,” she replies.
“Really?”
“Yep!” She quickly turns to Mattie and asks her a question.
“Your stepmothers?” Will asks. I nod. The wedding isn’t for six
more days. I wonder why they’re here already.
Mattie takes a right, then a left onto Truman. We pass an auto-­parts
store, a self-­storage lot, a supermarket. A large strip club, its parking lot
empty this early on a Sunday. All at once, things get lush. The vegetation
takes over, crowding the ramshackle buildings on their tiny lots. Palm
and banana-­flower trees, snow bushes and oleander, hibiscus. A million
other trees and shrubs whose names I don’t remember, or never knew.
And bougainvillea everywhere, trailing along the white picket fences
and climbing the low concrete walls, crazy and pink and relentless.
We’re on White Street now, entering my old neighborhood. Bring on
the quaint! The streets are narrow, some only one-­way alleys dark with
foliage. The sidewalks are cracked and weedy. But the homes—­tiny
shotgun cottages, towering Victorians, pastel conch houses—­are beau-
tiful. They flash by, only a detail springing out here and there. A set of
tall white shutters. A sloping tin roof. A porch ceiling painted sky blue.
I relax into the backseat and squeeze Will’s hand. I thought it would
be strange, coming home. I thought it would be hard after so long. But it
feels natural. It’s like a warm embrace.
Meanwhile, Mattie has barely paused for breath. “Martin has rec-
ommended gardenias for the centerpieces, but I wonder whether that
strikes the right tone.”

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 2 2    E L I Z A K ENN E DY

“Who’s Martin?” Will asks.

“The florist,” Mattie says. “He’s very talented, but I’m worried that
he’s not quite . . .” She taps her forehead. “All there, if you know what I
mean.”
A scrawny chicken darts across the road. Two kids on bikes appear
out of nowhere, racing alongside the car. A girl and a boy, maybe ten,
maybe twelve. My heart stops. It’s me and Teddy. For an instant I’m
sure of it. The boy has sun-­streaked, shaggy hair. The girl is all arms
and legs. They’re screaming with laughter, swerving around potholes,
banging into each other. The boy glances over his shoulder and starts
pedaling faster. They veer down a side street, skidding, almost crashing.
The boy hollers. The girl shrieks. Our car keeps moving.
I twist around, craning my neck to look out the back window. But
I’m too late. They’re gone.
Will is watching me. “Friends of yours?”
I try to think of an answer, but I can’t. So I shake my head, and
smile, and say nothing.

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 3

A few more turns,a few more beautiful old Florida blocks, and
we’re home. Our bags are barely out of the trunk before Mattie tears off,
muttering something about napkin rentals. I gaze up at the house. My
house. It’s an old island Queen Anne with a double-­decker veranda and
a round tower on one side. Lavish scrollwork drips from every available
surface, barely visible through the palms and the banyans in our tiny
front yard.
Will looks impressed. “You grew up here?”
“It seemed so much bigger back then,” I say.
“Maybe the new color makes it look smaller,” Mom suggests. “Do
you like it? I did a little research at the preservation commission last
year—­this is the original yellow.”
Will turns to her with amazement. “How did you match it?”
Mom launches into an earnest explanation as he listens, rapt. He’s not
kissing her ass, either—­he lives for random historical details like this. I
push through the wooden gate and run up the steps.
Ana is hovering just inside the front door. “Lilybear!” She hurls her-
self at me like a tiny tornado. “How the hell are you? How was the
flight? Look at your hair—­good Christ!”
Will follows me in. “Is this Will?” Ana says. “Listen to me—­what a
moron. Of course it’s Will!”
“Will, my stepmother Ana. Ana, Will.”
He holds out his hand. “This is such an honor.”
She takes his hand in both of hers and gives him a dazzling smile.
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that, Will. I get far more death
threats than compliments. Last week, I—”

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 2 4    E L I Z A K ENN E DY

“Ana. You’re tearing his arm off.”

“Sorry!” She lets loose with her raucous laugh. “Professional h ­ azard.”
Will laughs, too. He seems totally comfortable around her, which is
a relief. Ana tends to intimidate people. She’s in Congress—­serving her
eighth term in the House, one of the distinguished gentlewomen from
California—­so she’s got a real aura of power about her, which is some-
how magnified by the fact that she’s barely five feet tall. She’s fierce and
scrappy—­famous for her tirades on the Sunday talk shows and for an-
tagonizing her constituents at town-­hall meetings. She’ll say anything,
to anyone, which tends to provoke either fanatical devotion or homicidal
rage.
She looks wonderful. I haven’t seen her since July, when she was in
New York for a fund-­raiser. There, she was dressed in one of her ugly
power suits and all cranky from having to ask rich people for money.
Here, she’s the real Ana—­long hair loose, eyes twinkling. I hug her
again. “I’m so glad you’re here,” I whisper.
She whispers back, “We need to talk.”
“Lily darling.” We all look up as Jane descends the staircase. She’s
wearing a shimmery blue dress and scary-­high heels. Her perfectly
straight, perfectly platinum hair floats gently around her. She zeroes in
on Will, showing him her expensive teeth. The poor boy is going to go
blind from all this smiling.
“Will, this is my stepmother Jane,” I say. “Jane, Will.”
She holds out an elegant hand. “I hope your flight down wasn’t as
wretched as mine,” she says, in her flat, slightly bored voice. She’s look-
ing him in the eye, but I know she’s also appraising every inch of him—­
clothes, shoes, haircut.
“Oh, no!” Will says, sincerely concerned. “You had a rough flight?”
But she’s already turned to me, all business. “Let me see it.”
I give her my left hand. She scrutinizes the ring from a distance, then
closer. She turns it on my finger. Her brow would be furrowing right
now, except that it hasn’t done that in years. She looks up at me at last.
“Where is the diamond?”
Will clears his throat. “There isn’t one. It’s a replica of a Roman ring
in the British Museum. The Romans didn’t use gemstones in their—”

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 I TA K E Y O U    2 5

“And why is it all . . . ​scratched like this?” Jane asks, picking at the

ring with a sharp fingernail.
“I had an inscription added,” Will says hopelessly. “In Latin.”
I pull my hand away. “Give it a rest, Janey. I love my ring.”
“So do I,” says Mom, coming through the front door. “It’s very arti-
sanal.”
I can feel Will cringing. He hates that word. Jane gives me a look of
boundless pity, then drifts toward the living room. Will watches her go.
I squeeze his arm sympathetically. I always marvel at how Jane is the
opposite of Ana, in almost every way. She’s cultured and poised. A fancy
society type who spends her time organizing galas and minimizing her
cleavage wrinkles. Condescending to maître d’s and pretending to care
about art. Hiring huntsmen to lead all the younger, prettier women into
the woods and . . . ​you know.
“Gran!” I yell.
“Kitchen!” she yells back. Something crashes in the distance.
I turn to Ana, who’s typing on her phone. “She’s not cooking, is she?”
Ana nods grimly.
“Is that a bad thing?” asks Will.
Before I can answer, Gran shoots through the dining room with
crazy hair and flour on her nose. “Finally!” she growls. I get another
crushing hug. Then she leans in to smell my breath.
“Cut it out!” I whisper, pushing her away. “Gran, this is Will. Will,
this is my grandmother Isabel.”
Gran looks him up and down while she takes his hand. “What a
pleasure,” she says. “I’ve heard so little about you.”
He laughs. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
I clap my hands together. “I have an idea—­let’s go out for lunch!”
Gran yanks on a lock of my hair. “Nice try. Food’s ready.”
We file into the dining room and sit down. The table is a crime
scene. There’s a sickly looking salad, slabs of greyish meat heaped on
a platter and a tureen filled with . . . ​I don’t even know what that is.
Gruel, maybe? We fill our plates dutifully. Silence descends, interrupted
by occasional gagging noises.
“Thank you, Isabel,” Will says. “This is delicious.”

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 2 6    E L I Z A K ENN E DY

Ana smothers a laugh. Mom sighs. Jane shakes her head sadly.
Gran points her fork at Ana, who’s checking her phone. “Put that
machine away before I toss it into the fucking street.”
“Mother, please!” Mom says. “We have a guest!”
“I’m expecting an important e‑mail,” Ana protests.
“Do it, Izzie,” Jane drawls. “You’d be performing a public service.”
I catch Jane’s eye and hold up my lemonade glass. I mouth, Vodka?
She pretends not to understand.
Sunlight is filtering through the tall windows and bathing my
mother figures in a heavenly glow. I’m so happy to see them—­they’re
rarely all in one place like this. I look over at Will. He’s fidgeting in his
seat and moving his silverware around, aligning it with the edge of the
table. He steals a glance at them across the table, then looks away. But
when Mom leans toward him to say something, he responds with a big,
goofy grin. So he’s not too overwhelmed. Good.
“Why are you guys here already?” I ask Jane and Ana.
Jane smiles serenely. “Lovely to see you too, darling.”
“Seriously. The wedding isn’t for a week.”
She shrugs, touching the glittering pendant of her necklace. “You
know I can’t stand New York in February.”
“A likely story.” I turn to Ana. “What about you?”
“The House is in recess.”
“There’s nobody running the government?” I widen my eyes. “How
is anything going to get done?”
She chucks a roll at me. “Aren’t you funny.”
“So, Will,” Gran says sharply. He snaps to attention. “Lily tells me
your mother is Anita Field.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Anita Field,” Ana says. “How do I know that name?”
“She’s the United States Attorney in Chicago,” I explain. Ana nods
and rises, picking up her empty glass. I raise mine. Vodka? She rolls her
eyes and disappears into the kitchen.
“A federal prosecutor for a mother,” Jane remarks. “How was that,
growing up?”
“A little like Guantanamo,” Will says cheerfully. “Before they banned
torture.”

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 I TA K E Y O U    2 7

“Your mother has an excellent conviction rate,” Gran allows.

“Did you ever try any cases against her?”
“Never,” Gran says. “And now I never will.”
Will looks puzzled. “Izzie retired in December,” Jane explains.
Gran snorts. “Retired, my ass. Forced out is more like it.”
“Oh, Mother,” Mom says. “You know it was time.”
Gran is—­was—­a criminal defense attorney. One of the best in south
Florida. She opened her own practice right after law school, when none
of the good old boys would hire her. It wasn’t work for a woman, they
said, but she quickly proved them wrong. She was smart and tenacious
and hardworking. And she won—­a lot. She quickly moved on from
representing petty criminals to really big cases—­drug smuggling, police
corruption, capital murder. She built her own firm from the ground up,
hiring and training other lawyers, working all over the state.
When I was little, I used to sneak in and watch Gran at work. You
could do that in the courts in Key West back then. She held juries in the
palm of her hand. She tied witnesses up in knots. She stood up to other
lawyers—­often smug, self-­righteous men—­and outsmarted them, over
and over again. It looked like so much fun.
Unfortunately, Gran had been slowing down for a few years. She
was crankier than usual. Forgetting things and making mistakes. Her
partners finally intervened. She wasn’t happy about it, but she couldn’t
deny the truth of what they were saying. So she very reluctantly stepped
down.
“I can’t imagine what life would be like without work,” Will says to
her. “It must be a hard transition.”
Gran is touched by his sympathy. She hides it by jabbing me with her
fork. “Elbows off the table! You’ve got the manners of a damn hillbilly.”
Ana reappears from the kitchen and sits down. She looks at her plate,
moving the food around warily with her fork. “What are we eating?
Chicken?”
“I think it’s pork,” Mom says.
“It’s fish,” Gran says.
Will says, “I love the rice.”
Gran says, “It’s polenta.”
“How is that possible?” Jane murmurs.

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 2 8    E L I Z A K ENN E DY

Gran throws her fork down. “Goddammit! I used a cookbook this

time!”
“Think positive, Iz,” Ana says. “Your kitchen skills could jump-­start
a new career. The legal profession’s loss might be the prison food indus-
try’s gain.”
We laugh. “To hell with all of you!” Gran shouts, but she’s smiling.
“Seriously,” I say, “it’s hard to believe I haven’t eaten this badly in
thirteen years.”
Will turns to me curiously. “What?”
The chatter at the table dies away. “I, um, haven’t been back in a
while,” I explain.
“In thirteen years?”
Everyone is watching now. “More or less. Since I moved north to live
with Dad and Jane. I sure have missed Gran’s home cooking!” I give
him a big, diversionary grin. It doesn’t work.
“You never came back? Not even to visit?”
Mom saves me. “We don’t give her a chance, Will. We’re too happy to
come to her.” Gran nods in agreement, her fierce little eyes fixed on me.
“Tell us what you do, Will,” Ana says quickly. “Something with mu-
seums, right?”
“I work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” he replies, with a touch
of pride that’s totally adorable. “I’m an associate curator in the Depart-
ment of Greek and Roman Art.”
They look suitably impressed. At my urging he explains a bit more
about what he does, some of the digs he’s been on and articles he’s writ-
ten and exhibits he’s designed. They’re hanging on every word.
“I am astonished that we haven’t met before now,” Jane says. She
turns on me. “Why haven’t you brought Will uptown?”
I frown apologetically. “I wanted to, but there’s that new ordinance.”
“What new ordinance?”
“You can’t travel north of Fifty-­Ninth Street unless you have a white-­
hot poker shoved up your ass.”
“Lily,” Mom says. “Your language.”
Jane just smiles. “Classy as ever, darling. Still, I expect to see you at
my benefit in April. It’s at the Pierre.”
“Is it black tie?”

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 I TA K E Y O U    2 9

Jane looks appalled that I would even ask. “What other kind is
there?”
I do like men in tuxedos. “We’re so there.”
I reach for another handful of potato chips. Jane catches my eye. “Re-
member, darling, marriages come and go, but wedding photographs are
forever.”
“Leave her alone,” Ana snaps. “She’s too thin as it is.”
“It’s those ridiculous hours,” Mom adds.
“She needs to put in long hours if she wants to be a good lawyer,”
Gran says.
“Hello?” I wave at them. “She’s right here in the room with you. Feel
free to address her directly.”
“When are you going to quit that awful firm?” Mom demands.
“When Ana hires me.”
Ana chuckles. “Good one.”
“We’d have so much fun! I want to be quoted in all the newspapers
as Representative Mercado’s ‘trusted aide’ and ‘longtime political oper-
ative.’ ”
“Never going to happen, Lilybear,” Ana says. “You’d be a huge lia-
bility.”
“Exactly!” I say enthusiastically. “I’d distract the press from all your
real scandals.”
Ana only laughs.
“Why would Lily be a liability?” Will asks.
There’s the briefest of awkward pauses before Ana says, “I’m only
teasing! Great lemonade, Izzie!”
“Delicious,” Jane agrees.
I head into the kitchen to find the damn vodka myself. When I come
back, Will is saying, “Did you renovate this house yourself, Katherine?”
Mom blushes. “Almost twenty years ago. It was my first full resto-
ration. That’s why it looks so awful.”
“It doesn’t!” Will protests. “It’s beautiful.”
She waves him off. “I was such a rookie. I just cringe whenever I look
at the joinery.”
“Me too,” Ana says. “I always think, nice place, but what’s with the
fucking joinery?”

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“Oh, Ana,” Mom sighs. She tells Will, “We don’t usually curse this
much.”
“That’s true,” I say. “We reserve profanity for special occasions. Like
divorces.”
Will laughs. He likes them. And they like him, too—­I can tell. He
props his elbows on the table. “So, speaking of divorces . . .”
They all laugh—­they’ve been waiting for this. “You want to know
the batting order.”
Will points at Mom. “I think . . . ​you were first, Katherine?”
“That’s right,” she says. “Then Ana, then Jane.”
“I was followed by Annette,” Jane explains. “But,” she pauses deli-
cately, “we’re not close.”
“Henry is currently married to Ekaterina,” Ana says. “The mail-­
order bride.”
“That’s cruel,” Jane says. “You know he paid extra for DHL.”
They all laugh. “Trina is super sweet,” I tell Will.
“Lily!” Ana cries. “She’s three years younger than you are.”
“She’s so awesome! She set up my wireless.”
“Have you met Henry?” Mom asks Will.
“Not yet. I’m a little nervous. Any words of wisdom?”
“Don’t get in a drinking contest with him,” Ana advises. “You’ll
lose.”
“Don’t let the British accent fool you,” Gran says. “He’s as dumb as
a post.”
“And whatever you do,” Jane tells him, “don’t look too deeply into his
eyes. He’ll hypnotize you. Like a snake.”
Mom, Jane and Ana glance at one another, then dissolve into laugh-
ter. Gran snorts contemptuously and stands up to collect our plates.
“You all get along so well,” Will marvels. “How did that happen?”
My mothers exchange another look, half proud, half bashful. “What’s
the quote, Kat?” Ana says. “Something like, before we could call each
other sister, we had to call each other a lot of other things first.”
“Before the laughter came the tears,” Mom agrees.
“And the lawsuits,” Jane notes.
“The restraining orders,” Ana says, “the reconstructive surgeries.”
Mom smiles. “Now we’re one big, happy family.”

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 I TA K E Y O U    3 1

“With one wonderful thing in common,” Jane says.

They all look at me. “Aw,” I say.
We choke down pie on the veranda while Mom shows Will around
the house. They get into a real nerd groove talking about foundation
piers and heart pine—­I can hear them laughing upstairs. Eventually I
call a taxi so that we can take our bags to the hotel.
Jane puts a hand on my arm. “Stay behind a minute. We’d like to
speak with you about something.”
I walk Will to the door. “Was it hell?”
He laughs. “Are you kidding? I’m in love with all of them.”
“You can stop, idiot. They can’t hear you.” I reach on my tiptoes to
kiss him. “See you at the hotel?”
“I’m meeting Javier at the airport at five. We’ll find you after.”
He leaves. I wander into the living room and stop short. They’re all
there, composed like some Victorian portrait: Jane and Gran on the
green velvet sofa, Mom and Ana standing behind them. Everybody star-
ing at me, looking dire and a little constipated.
“Do I have something in my teeth?” I say.
“He doesn’t know a damned thing about you, does he?” Gran de-
mands.
“Who, Will?”
“No,” she snaps. “Mr. Clean.”
Mom clears her throat nervously. “What your grandmother is trying
to say, honey, is that we’ve talked it over, and—”
Ana cuts to the chase. “We think you should call off the wedding.”
I sink slowly into a chair. “What?”
Jane leans forward and takes my hands in hers. “We love you, dar-
ling. You know that.”
Ana nods. “But you’re not exactly marriage material, are you?”
I have to laugh at this. “Are you serious? I’m getting a lecture on
marriage from a bunch of divorcées?”
“Who better?” Jane counters. “We all know exactly what it’s like to
be married to someone who is, let’s just say, constitutionally unsuited
for it.”
She looks at me meaningfully. I roll my eyes.
“Will seems like a very nice young man,” Gran says.

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“He’s charming,” Mom agrees.

“And kind, and intelligent,” Jane adds. “And normal.”
“He’s all wrong for you,” Ana says.
“Gosh, thanks.”
“No no no, honey! That’s not what we mean. It’s just . . .” Mom
pauses, struggling to articulate. “It’s just that you’re such a . . . ​a free
spirit!”
“A live wire,” Ana suggests.
“A brazen slut,” says Jane.
The others glare at her. She shrugs as she adjusts a bracelet. “I really
don’t see the point in mincing words.”
“Lilybear, we don’t think you’re ready. We don’t want Will getting
hurt. Or you, of course.”
“You guys make me sound like a real nightmare.”
“You’re a very sweet person,” Mom says. “You’re the light of our lives.
You’re so full of joy, and fun—”
“And love! For Will!” I cry. “I’m so full of it!”
“Are you?” Ana fixes me with her no-­bullshit stare. “Are you really?”
I stare right back. “So this is why you and Jane came down early. To
stage a little intervention.”
Gran starts jabbing one of her gnarly fingers at me. “Don’t change
the subject, Lillian Grace! You’ve been engaged for what, five months
now? How long have you even known this boy?”
“Six months.”
Gran shakes her head slowly. “What is the damned rush? You aren’t
pregnant, are you?”
They all freeze with these looks of complete horror on their faces.
“Of course not!” I retort.
They breathe a huge sigh of collective relief. Then they start right
back up.
“Izzie’s right,” Ana says. “Do you really know Will? And does he
know you?”
“Does he know about your . . . ​your various interests?” Mom asks
delicately. “Your . . . ​you know, your habits?”
“He knows me well enough.”
“He can’t,” Jane insists. “He wouldn’t be here if he did.”

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“You obviously didn’t tell him this is your first time back,” Ana adds.
“Does he know why you left?”
“No,” I admit.
Gran scowls and throws up her hands.
“Ladies, ladies,” I say breezily. “Aren’t you being a bit dramatic about
this?”
“No!” they all cry.
“Will and I are great together. Can’t you see that? We have chemis-
try. We have good patter.”
“Patter,” Ana repeats. “You’re marrying him because you have good
patter.”
“He’s cute. He’s sweet. He . . . ​he cooks!”
“Lily.” It’s Jane’s turn to lock her eyes on mine. “Be serious, for a mo-
ment. Why are you doing this? Why marry someone you barely know?”
I don’t answer.
“We think we have the right to ask,” she adds.
I try to explain. But I have a hard time gathering my thoughts. Fi-
nally, I say, “Will is a really nice person. He’s fun to talk to. We have a
great time together.”
“Those sound like reasons why he’d make a fine boyfriend, Lillian
Grace,” Gran says, with uncommon gentleness. “But they aren’t reasons
to marry him.”
“Do you understand what marriage means, honey?” Mom asks. “It’s
not some joke. We’re very concerned. We don’t want to see you turn out
like your—”
“Don’t, Mother,” I warn her. “Don’t say it.”
“You need to be honest with him about who you really are,” Ana
tells me.
“Or we will be,” Jane adds.
I smile sweetly and give them the finger.
“Enough.” Gran stands up. “We’ve said our piece. Please do us the
courtesy of thinking it over.” She heads for the kitchen, but stops. “By
the way, I asked around about your future mother-­in-­law.”
“And?”
“Watch yourself. She’s a killer.” With that, Gran vanishes through
the swinging doors.

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