NATALIE

THREE YEARS AGO

“So, you’re really going to make me stay for this?” This being yet another one of my father’s extravagant work parties.

The question was for my mother who primped in front of the full-length mirror inside of her closet, a closet that was probably larger than most peoples’ living rooms.

“Oh, for god’s sake, Natalie, stop being such a child. If making an appearance wasn’t good for business, we wouldn’t be asking you to do it!” She talked through her bee-stung lips, smoothing her cream-colored satin dress over the curves of her hips before sliding her diamond-ringed fingers along her salon-blonde hair and then toying with the sapphire necklace that hung precariously close to her surgically enhanced, spray-tanned cleavage. “Your father didn’t become a member of the most prestigious plastic surgery clinic in Seattle by himself—he did it with our support—and besides, everyone is going to want to see you, to see what a beautiful young woman you’ve grown into.”

Oh, sure.

She made it sound like a family reunion when the guest list was mostly comprised of women—and men—who’d gotten plumped or pruned, snipped or stitched, invited to tempt and tantalize another chunk of invitees who were still considering their first procedure or adding to an already long list of body modifications that had made my father a very wealthy man.

The vast majority of any interest bestowed upon me came from people who thought I’d gone under my father’s knife, that the very talented Dr. Lincoln Bouchard was responsible for the smooth slope of my nose, the fullness of my lips or my big, wide blue eyes.

“There’s a word for eyes like yours,” Dad liked to say with a twinkle. “And that word is expressive.”

Looking expressive and not frozen or paralyzed was something my father’s clients valued, right along with big boobs and trim waists. My own decently sized breasts, long legs and curvy hips didn’t get as much commentary as my eyes, and I figured it was because I was only eighteen, and people weren’t supposed to go around asking eighteen-year-old girls if their plastic surgeon fathers had done their boobs. But not everyone was stopped by that small measure of decorum.

Queries about any part of my body used to make me run away in embarrassment—I mean, I’d only been about thirteen the first time I’d been asked by some random lady at one of these parties how I liked my new nose, a nose that wasn’t any different than the one I’d been born with. When I’d mentioned it to Dad, he just said to smile whenever someone asked something like that and to tell the asker that anything was possible with plastic surgery.

So, that’s what I’d done in the last couple of years, taken such questioning in stride, confirming to anyone who asked that whatever body part in question was indeed crafted by my father, not adding that it was his DNA, not any of his surgical instruments, that made me look the way I did.

I rolled my eyes at my mother and leaned against the frame of the door to the closet and crossed my arms over my chest. I hated the fact that I was already dressed to the tens in a formal summer dress and heels when all of my friends were likely in shorts and tank tops and grabbing their favorite bikinis for a weekend at the lake.

“Don’t give me that look,” Mom snapped, turning her eyes away from the mirror. “You think all of this is free?” She extended her arms and looked around her closet where beautiful, expensive clothes hung, just like they did in my own wardrobe. “Appearance is everything. And what your father needs today is for everyone to see a beautiful wife and a beautiful daughter and to be entertained—”

“You expect me to entertain them too?” I interrupted, knowing how entitled and bratty I sounded, but I didn’t care. Wearing a short dress and heels and doing my make-up as well as they could at a Sephora counter and pretending I’d gone under my father’s knife was one thing, but having to come up with something witty to say to these people was quite another. All I wanted was a day to be free and have fun instead of spending it being a walking false advertisement for my father’s business or following the strict game plan my parents had for my life.

“I’ll expect you to stand on one foot and sing the national anthem if that’s what’s asked of you.” She eyed me with all seriousness, not a single ounce of kidding in her voice.

And if I were to somehow balk at the idea of fulfilling my exemplary daughter duties, Mom would make me pay for it in a way that was fully supported by my dad. She’d find a way—she always did.

“You going to cut off my credit cards like you did the last time I misbehaved?” I asked, raising my eyebrows, wanting to gauge just what kind of punishment I might receive and whether or not attempting to skip out on today would be worth it.

She laughed softly. “Or perhaps we’ll just cancel your slot at Stanford and send you off to the Peace Corp for two years.”

The threat of yanking me out of college before I’d even begun made me stand at full attention. “You wouldn’t,” I said, lacking conviction because I knew my parents all too well.

“I would,” she answered with a slight, even smile. “Now help zip me up, dear.”

And just like a dutiful daughter, I did.

I’d do everything else she, or my dad, asked of me too. I could roll my eyes and cross my arms and argue with them until I was blue in the face, but my parents always won. Being eighteen and having graduated high school, I should have been stronger, more independent, but I wasn’t.

I was weak, and I hated myself for it.

* * *

It was a beautiful June day, breaking a long stretch of gloomy, cool ones that we here in the Pacific Northwest liked to refer to as June-uary. I’m sure my friends were having a great time at the lake while Mom and Dad showed off the vast landscaped grounds of our six-thousand-square-foot house in the foothills east of Seattle, grounds that were kept beautiful by a small squadron of landscapers. I’d never seen my father mow any part of the huge lawn or pull up a single weed, and the only gardening I’d ever witnessed my mother doing was cutting the stems of several flowers that she then arranged in a vase. I remember her throwing them out the next morning—she said they weren’t symmetrical enough. After that, she’d only ordered her flower arrangements from a florist that was as obsessed with perfection as she was.

And because I was their daughter, their one and only child, I hadn’t ever risked getting dirt under my nails either, nor had I been expected to lift a finger where any type of physical labor was concerned. Not only was I exempt from raking up leaves or helping to shovel the very rare snows that fell during the coldest of winters, I’d also never had to clean my own room or organize my own drawers or cook my own meals. Cynthia, our housekeeper, had done absolutely everything with an ever-present smile on her face, like doing for us was what she lived for.

“Why are you all the way over here by yourself?”

The voice belonged to Cynthia, and I’d startled slightly at her sudden appearance, as if my thoughts had conjured her.

“Just trying to avoid the crowd,” I said, forcing myself to smile even though I was still annoyed at being stuck here when I should have been off at the lake with all of my friends.

She’d found me in what I called the peace garden, a space with a small cobblestone patio and bench, surrounded by ornamental trees, flowering bushes and a variety of blooms that overlooked the final portion of a man-made water feature that ran the entire length of the property. It began as a waterfall and koi-filled pond near the main house before running into several creeks and other ponds before ending here where the water would re-circulate underground and find its way back to the beginning.

“Your mother asked after you,” Cynthia said, sitting next to me on the bench. “She won’t be happy if she can’t locate you.”

“I know that.” Mom’s threat about sending me off to some foreign country to volunteer for two years hadn’t been forgotten, though I had considered it might not be the end of the world. I might have even learned how to cook. “I just wanted a few minutes… to steel myself.”

Cynthia placed her caramel-colored hand on my knee. “I know it can be hard to always be on,” she said, offering a smile, her teeth bleached as white as my mother’s. “But it is so much better than the alternative, honey. Before I had this job, I’d been working three to make less than I do here, and then I’d been treated like garbage. Your parents are good people, Natalie, and they reward perfection.”

This hadn’t been the first time Cynthia had alluded to the story of her past life with me, how she’d been married to an unworthy man and had worked herself to exhaustion just to afford a crummy apartment outside of Seattle’s city limits until my parents hired her when she was in her mid-thirties. It was her way of telling me how lucky I was, how any other girl would adore the life I was given, a life of luxury and without want, a life where every door had already been opened for me.

But that’s what I’d hated, the feeling that I’d never had to work to earn anything like Cynthia had. She deserved the fancy clothes she now wore, the facials, spa treatments and expensive hair cuts Mom sent her to get while everything I’d ever gotten was just given to me. Even bad grades or trouble at school had a way of being wiped clean.

I still cringed at the memory of Mom walking me back into my chemistry class the day after school was let out for the summer of my eighth grade year. I’d received a failing grade on my chemistry final because I hadn’t studied—it was an act of rebellion more than anything, even though I did hate chemistry. But Mom had talked Mr. Coates into letting me take it over again after I’d had an entire extra week to study. I could tell by the look of annoyance in his eyes he hadn’t wanted to, but considering the amount of money my parents donated to the school each year, he hadn’t had much of a choice.

“You’re right,” I told Cynthia, pushing a smile across my face. “I was just feeling sorry for myself.”

At this, she nodded, as if feeling sorry for myself was exactly what I’d been doing and that there couldn’t possibly be another reason I’d be upset. It’s always been this way, this notion that nothing should trouble me when I’d been surrounded with so much privilege. But when I’d been eleven, and my cat, Pedro, had died suddenly, privilege was not something I’d imagined easing my pain. I hadn’t even begun to properly mourn his loss when, the very next day, my parents brought me a new cat they proactively named Peco for me. He was orange and white with long hair, just like Pedro, but Peco was not Pedro. I’d cried and said I didn’t want another cat, that they couldn’t just replace the one I’d had for as long as I could remember.

“How do you think Peco feels knowing you don’t want him?” Dad had asked me, making sure to look at the new cat with a glum expression, an expression I knew would change to impatience if I didn’t see things the way he wanted me to.

“I think it makes him sad,” Mom had added in. “And sad isn’t how any of us should feel.”

“Wipe your tears away,” Cynthia piled on, acting in her role as ally to my parents. “There is so much to be thankful for, don’t you think?”

And so it went, me accepting Peco and trying not to cry when I thought of Pedro, as if he’d never existed at all. That’s just how things went, making bad, unhappy events disappear. Sometimes I wondered what would happen if I had died. Would my parents have just adopted a girl with the same dark blonde hair I had and forgotten they’d ever had me?

“Come on, honey,” Cynthia said putting a hand out to me as she stood up, the pale blue dress she wore tailored perfectly to her body, a body that had gone through a number of surgical changes over the years. “Let’s go. There are people you’re meant to meet.”

“Okay,” I said, begrudgingly leaving my hiding place.

In the time I’d spent in the peace garden, a whole slew of people had arrived for the party. This particular celebration was the annual gala for the plastic surgery clinic, each year held at one of the homes of the current owners and practicing surgeons, my father, Dr. Louisa Hellman and Dr. Jack Pierce.

Louisa’s house was similar to ours and only a few miles away while Jack’s was a nearly hundred-year-old home in Seattle, big and “lovingly restored by Jack’s own hands,” his wife would say. I’d always loved Jack’s house most of all, though it had been a couple years now since I’d been there. There were nooks and crannies and places to hide, places you could catch your breath without worrying that anyone would find you.

“Oh, my goodness, is that you, Natalie?”

Cynthia stopped at the woman’s words, as did I. I’d been walking at her side like some kind of zombie, hoping that nobody would notice me or want to talk.

“Hi,” I said, putting on a smile and lifting my eyes to the woman. It was Jack Pierce’s wife, turning away from a small group of women it looked like she’d just been talking to.

“Mrs. Pierce,” Cynthia said, tilting her chin downward. “So lovely to see you. I’ll excuse myself and leave you to catch up with Natalie.”

“You don’t have to…” Mrs. Pierce put her hand out, as if trying to keep Cynthia from walking away. “She didn’t have to go,” she said to me, almost apologetically. “She never sticks around much for me to get a chance to talk to her.”

I shrugged. “I suppose she has something to check on inside.”

The party was a catered affair, but Cynthia would have wanted to make sure everything ran smoothly. But besides that, I don’t think she felt worthy to have much more than small talk with my parents’ friends and business associates. I half imagined that, whenever things didn’t go according to plan or if Cynthia thought she’d overstepped some line or disappointed my parents in some minute way, she went into her room and flogged herself as punishment.

“I guess.” Mrs. Pierce laughed and shrugged too. “Jack and I don’t have anyone working at our house… I mean, no housekeepers or gardeners. I think if we did, I’d be asking them to sit down to coffee all day, feeling bad making them pick up after us.”

“They do get paid,” I reminded her, feeling myself smile. I liked Mrs. Pierce—I always had.

“Yes… I suppose you’re right.” She waved her hand through the air as if she were being silly.

But I didn’t think she was, not at all.

When I didn’t say anything, she cleared her throat and turned slightly to wave at the group of women she’d been with, a group that was now moving along at some mention of another friend just arriving.

“You look really pretty,” I told her, knowing that I had to make myself sociable at some point.

I’d decided I was at least lucky it was Mrs. Pierce that I could be sociable with, and telling her she looked pretty was an absolute truth. With long, curly red hair, creamy white skin and brown eyes set into a beautiful face, gorgeous might have been a better, though perhaps more awkward descriptor.

“Oh, do I?” She laughed again, a sweet, genuine laugh. “I never know just what to wear to these things. I always go and buy something new, but it seems so wasteful. Seems like we should be feeding the homeless or doing an animal rescue instead, doesn’t it?”

“Probably.” She put me at ease, and I was beyond thankful I hadn’t been stuck with someone who only wanted to ask me about my college plans and accomplishments or take guesses as to what parts of my body might have been surgically altered. “Would you like to sit down for a bit?” I asked, just then noticing my parents eyeing me from across the yard, slight smiles on both of their faces.

“I’d love that.”

I didn’t lead her to the peace garden. If I were going to sit and chat with someone, I wanted my parents to see it, to see that I was doing just what I was supposed to. I instead took her to a spot along the man-made creek with a bench and several Japanese maples to keep us shaded and out of the sun.

“It’s so seldom I really get a chance to talk to you,” she said once we were sitting, far enough from the crowd of people not to be heard but close enough to be seen. “I’ve watched you grow up over these last few years, and I sort of feel like… oh, I don’t know… like you’re a niece or a god-child or something. And now you’re going off to college. Stanford isn’t it?”

I nodded. “I’m leaving at the beginning of August to settle in.”

“Are you excited?” she asked, her eyes bright.

“Yes, but it’s going to be weird too. I’ve never been away from home.” I didn’t add that I’d never cooked or cleaned or done a load of laundry. I’d actually had nightmares about turning all of my clothes pink because I didn’t even know how to turn on a washing machine, let alone keep the colors from bleeding together.

“Oh, I’m sure it will be a great adventure,” Mrs. Pierce said, clasping her hands together. “I was a starving student during college, but I didn’t care. There was a bit of a thrill in trying to keep everything together, and I never would have met Jack had I not been waitressing that summer before my junior year.”

“You met Mr. Pierce in college?”

I hadn’t known, probably hadn’t even given much thought to how they or any of the other couples here met. My own parents had been paired when they were still teenagers, not by some blood oath or traditional ritual, but by the expectations of my grandparents who were all successful in their own right. And I’d known too, that I was expected to marry the person my parents chose for me, a man I wasn’t even all that fond of.

“I sure did. He was just starting medical school and came in to study nights at the diner I was working at. When things were slow, I’d sit down with him, and we’d talk… and eventually, we fell in love.” She got a faraway look in her eyes as her lips turned into an even bigger smile, as if she were seeing those moments happen all over again in her memory.

“That’s the kind of thing you read about in novels,” I said, never imagining people really found one another that way. “You and Mr. Pierce are really lucky.”

“We are. And please call him Jack—and you can call me Marjorie. You turned eighteen a month ago, and that makes you an adult, Natalie. So I certainly think it’s okay to call us by our first names.”

“Okay… Marjorie.” I smiled as the name traveled past my lips. “And thank you so much for the gift you and Mr. Pierce… Jack, sent me. I hope you got my note?”

They had sent me a travel case that was both aesthetically pleasing and useful along with several literary classics Marjorie noted every young woman should read. And I’d enjoyed writing a thank you note to them, a nice reprieve among the dozens of other notes I’d had to write for things I didn’t want from people I didn’t really even know or like.

“We certainly did. And I really do hope you had a wonderful celebration with your friends.”

“I did. It was… really memorable.” I lied to her in saying that, but I didn’t think it fair to make Marjorie think I’d been miserable on my eighteenth birthday. I’d had wanted to spend it only with my friends of course, my real friends, the ones who were at the lake this weekend. But the vast majority of the attendees were the ones I called the fakes. They were all approved of by my parents, well groomed, well educated and from families with connections, vetted and drafted over the years my parents had gone full throttle in wanting only to associate with the mighty and powerful, moving well beyond whatever expectations I imagine my grandparents ever had for them. Some of the kids I was expected to socialize with weren’t half bad, but the other half, snotty and entitled and rude when not being watched, made me feel as though my birthday had been hijacked just to remind my parents of how exclusive we’d all become.

I shouldn’t have been—and I wasn’t—surprised.

“I’m sure they’ll miss you, but you’ll make new friends in college, and you’ll keep in touch with the best of the ones back home. And maybe you’ll meet the one, the man of your dreams.” She was excited in saying this before the light in her brown eyes fizzled, and the smile on her face turned downward in realizing her mistake.

Because like everyone else, Marjorie had to know of my current relationship, one that my parents touted every chance they got.

“Oh, aren’t they just the perfect match!” Mom liked to practically shout about myself and Michael, the man I was expected to marry if I wanted to remain in my parents’ good graces.

“And so well-mannered,” one of her friends would usually reply, eyeing Michael like he was a prize when he was really just part of the rude, snotty and entitled set I couldn’t stand.

“And so handsome,” another friend would always supply, looking at my boyfriend like a vulture set on seducing him.

“I don’t think Michael would like that very much,” I said lightly, wanting her to know that I realized she’d momentarily forgotten about him and wasn’t meaning to be cruel.

“That’s right.” She pulled herself right back together, then looked around. “Is he here? Michael?”

“He’ll be along,” I said, not bothering to follow her gaze and find him if he’d already arrived. “He let me know that he’d be late, but he won’t miss this.”

Michael Eldridge never missed an opportunity to schmooze. I’d known him since my first day at private school, and we’d somehow ended up dating my sophomore year after I’d said yes to going with him to a dance. Not long after, he’d presented me with a promise ring I felt obliged to accept and which I still begrudgingly wore. I didn’t doubt that me getting the ring had been masterminded by our parental units. They liked to tout us as a quintessential pairing, like he was an aged wine and I was a cultured, exotic cheese.

Michael’s father was a partner at a law firm, his mother a cardiologist, with Michael being groomed to be one or the other. We’d marry somewhere in the middle of all our schooling, though I wouldn’t mind waiting until all was said and done. Since I’d been pushed toward being a doctor since I’d been old enough to speak and say the word, “doc—tor,” both of us would be in school for years, and I figured one of us would come to our senses in the meantime. There was very little romance in a relationship based on a business arrangement, and I liked to believe there was something more for both of us out there.

Needless to say I wasn’t counting the minutes until his arrival or losing any more time being upset about whether his reason for being late was true or not. He’d said it was because of a family emergency—though his parents were on vacation in Barbados—and he sent a huge bouquet of flowers to express his regrets for his expected tardiness. Sucking up came naturally to him, and my parents were fine with the fakeness as long as Michael behaved himself and put out the right image.

“Do you… do you love him?” Marjorie asked, turning back to me, looking as though she was willing to make us both a bit uncomfortable if it meant I might get something off my chest.

“Of course I do.” I said it so quickly, so rehearsed, that I doubted she believed it. But what good would it do to tell her that there were days that I could barely stand Michael?

“Well, you are still young,” she said. “The world is big, and you never know who else you might end up meeting.”

“I’m not disturbing any girl talk, am I?”

The voice was Jack’s, Jack who now stood above Marjorie and I, tall and lean in a crisp white shirt and dark gray trousers, a faint, manly smell emanating from him that told me either he or Marjorie knew how to pick just the right cologne.

“Maybe you are,” Marjorie teased at her husband. “I thought Natalie and I had found a good hiding spot.”

“Nope. You’re both in plain sight,” he replied with a giant smile on his face. “And I’m glad you are. I needed a minute. It’s nothing but shop talk over there.” He glanced back toward the crowd of well-dressed guests filling our yard where I noticed my father and Louisa with half a dozen other people I recognized as clinic employees.

“All work and no play,” Marjorie said with a sigh. “At least you know when to stop,” she told Jack before taking his hand.

They made a beautiful couple, and I briefly put my hand to my heart, unable to completely hide my awe at them.

Jack was tall and dark-haired with the kind of chiseled features you’d expect to see on a male model or an actor and not so much on a doctor, not a real life doctor. He was trim but built, the kind of guy other men might underestimate and then be sorry they had. And then there was the smile, one that revealed a man who could be as funny as he was serious, a man who made time for what was really important. In Marjorie was his perfect match, her big brown eyes pulling you in and demanding you see how beautiful she was, both inside and out. They were in their early thirties and without children, but I didn’t doubt they’d start a family soon and that their kids would be just as beautiful as they were.

“You won’t tell your father I don’t especially like living just to work, will you, Natalie?” Jack joked with me.

I shook my head. “I think he already knows.”

“And yet I’m still one-third owner of the practice,” he said with a laugh.

“Might have something to do with your father starting the clinic,” Marjorie added with a daring smile.

“Ah, yes, there’s that.”

“I’m sure you would have earned your spot even without your father,” I said, even if that was likely untrue. I didn’t imagine Jack as being the same as my father who lived and breathed his work, who would spend sixteen-hour days focusing on his career, even if it cost him time with me or my mother. He and Mom both had told me that was the sacrifice to gaining a spot at a world-renowned clinic, and it was a sacrifice I didn’t think either of them minded making.

“I guess we’ll never know,” he said.

“And there she is!” I heard the male voice I immediately identified as Michael’s before looking up to see his slim form walking toward us.

“Oh, Jesus…” I mumbled, sighing into myself.

“What was that?” Marjorie asked me.

“Nothing,” I said, making sure I accompanied my response with a smile. And then I looked up to Jack, just for a moment.

There was an expression of concerned confusion on his handsome face, as if he knew, just as his wife did, that I wasn’t excited in the least to see my boyfriend.

“I knew I’d find you somewhere quiet,” Michael said in a loud, amused voice. “That’s my sweet Natalie, always running off from the crowd.”

“I wasn’t meaning to hide.” I stood, just as tall as my boyfriend in my heels, and gave Michael the put on, megawatt smile I’d been primed on. “You’re the one who’s late.” I stepped forward and grabbed onto his arm, making sure to stand close to him in case my parents happened to be watching.

“For which I apologized in advance,” he reminded me, kissing me chastely on the cheek. “Did you enjoy the flowers?”

“I did,” I lied. I couldn’t have cared less about the flowers, but it was just easier to pretend around Michael, to put on an act and be another person instead of wallowing in the misery of being myself and stuck with a man I’d be happy to be without.

“Hello there, Mr. Pierce,” Michael said, extending his hand. “And Mrs. Pierce.” Once he’d finished shaking Jack’s hand, he lifted Marjorie’s to his lips and kissed it.

“So… traditional,” Marjorie said with a look of uncomfortable surprise on her face.

“Should I be kissing every woman’s hand here?” Jack asked in a sort of mock horror edged in amusement.

“I only reserve it for women like Mrs. Pierce,” Michael said in his defense before turning to me, his green eyes aglow. “And for Natalie of course,” he added on, taking my hand and kissing it before pulling my body to his and planting a full kiss on my lips.

I fell right into it, the way I was supposed to. I considered it acting and wondered if I’d be any good if I ever auditioned for something on the stage or maybe a commercial where I’d have to kiss some actor with bad breath. I pushed the taste of his mouthwash out of my mind, along with the sickly sweet smell of his cologne and the way in which the smooth skin of his cheeks made me feel as though I were kissing a boy and not a man. When all was said and done, I’d been left breathless, but only because Michael had sucked the air out of me.

“Well, that was…” Jack seemed at a loss for words.

“Very romantic,” Marjorie filled in.

“I do my best,” Michael said with an annoyingly proud look on his baby face, the sandy blond hair surrounding it cut into the most conservative of styles.

“We should go and mingle,” I said, tugging on Michael’s arm. I was embarrassed that a couple as real and perfect as Jack and Marjorie had to witness a couple as fake and ridiculous as Michael and I any longer than necessary.

“You’re done hiding then?” Michael asked, loosening his collar.

“Yes,” I responded, noticing it was actually he who was trying to hide a hickey under the fabric of his shirt.

“Well, it was lovely talking to you, Natalie.” Marjorie stood and hugged me, a move made slightly awkward because of Michael’s arm around me.

“You let us know if you ever need anything,” Jack told me with a sincere, protective smile before all of his attention returned to his wife.

“I will. Maybe I’ll see you both before you leave,” I said, hoping I would.

“Sure we will,” Michael said, now being the one to pull me away.

“I hope so,” Marjorie tagged on as Michael and I were walking away, along the creek and then over a small bridge.

“They’re a bit much, don’t you think?” Michael asked once we were well beyond earshot of the couple.

“No,” I said, turning back to see Jack now sitting on the bench next to Marjorie, his arm around her. “I think they’re lovely.” And I very much doubted Jack allowed women other than his wife to give him hickeys.

Michael laughed, shaking his head but holding onto my hand if only for show. “There’s just something about them that’s off, too cookie cutter and basic. They’d probably be happier living in a tract house with about a million kids.”

I didn’t bother telling Michael the only thing off about them was that they weren’t like most of the other couples here. I didn’t think he would have understood what it was to really be in love and not to just pretend. He wouldn’t get that it was far more powerful to see two people sitting alone on a bench, content and absorbed in one another, than it was to receive a giant bouquet of flowers or to be kissed with over-the-top passion only because there was an audience.

No, those sorts of things weren’t for people like Michael to understand.

I took one last look at Jack and Marjorie before looking ahead, readying myself to talk about future plans and facelifts with the partygoers. And maybe one day I’d get so used to it, putting on the fake smile and showing fake love and expressing excitement for a fake face that I’d eventually forget what was real.

Maybe one day, just like Michael, I’d no longer understand what real love was all about.