“Oh, I’ve never been here before!” Like Andrew’s executive assistant, Gina, all of Katie Gallagher’s sentences end with her voice going up as if she’s asking a question. Constantly. It feels like I’m being interrogated by Kimmy Schmidt.

We’re at the flagship store for Grind It Fresh! and I’m already regretting combining Katie with caffeine. Pixie-like in her tininess, she makes me feel like the star in the B-movie Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. Bird-boned and covered in freckles, Katie has wispy, almost-white hair cut in a flattering short style and wide brown eyes that make her look just enough like a bobblehead that I underestimate her.

The coffee shop door jingles. No, wait. That’s Spritzy’s collar. I turn to find myself in an abrupt hug with my mom, who is murmuring apologies for being late.

“Mom, this is Katie Gallagher. Katie, my mother, Pam Warrick.” It’s been a few days since the fiasco at Mom’s house with the paparazzi, but I can tell she’s still frazzled. The police and Gerald have been great, navigating Mom through all the statements she needs to make. Gerald and his guys are helping to form a buffer between her and law enforcement. Mom doesn’t know it, but Andrew insisted on having a security team watch her, too. I hate lying to her by omission, but she would completely freak out if she knew. I don’t like it, but then again, my preferences about any part of this wedding don’t seem to matter.

Cue Katie’s entrance into my life.

Handshakes and pleasantries over, Katie offers to get me another breve latte and Mom gives her a simple coffee-with-cream order. As Katie skitters off, Mom turns to me with a pained expression.

“Wedding planner? She looks like she hasn’t gone through confirmation at the local parish yet. Anterdec hires some very young employees.”

“According to Shannon, she’s just a few years younger than us.” And probably sleeping with James, I want to add.

But don’t.

“I’m sure she’s nice, but does Anterdec really need to assign an employee to your wedding?”

“Fifteen hundred guests, Mom.”

She pales. “James said it would be big,” she says in a voice filled with disbelief. “But that many? It’ll all be Andrew’s side! There’s just you and me. Maybe Aunt Betty Jean from Scranton. Her son Luke.” She searches through our short-branched family tree. “Your father isn’t exactly going to make a star appearance,” she adds, accent slipping back into a tough Revere tone.

“He’s still incarcerated,” I say with a sigh.

“How do you know?”

“Andrew.”

“Andrew?”

“He has people who pay attention to this sort of thing.”

“Fathers in jail?”

“Security.”

Her eyes narrow. “You’re starting a life that is so unfamiliar to me. Limousines and cocktail parties at homes in Weston. Fifteen-hundred-person weddings at Farmington and security teams. It’s so overwhelming.”

“It is,” I agree.

A few beats pass as she watches me, then lets out a wistful sigh. “But you’ll accept it all because you love him.”

I nod. “It’s not exactly a life of torture, you know? Every relationship has tradeoffs. I’m marrying a billionaire CEO who gets stalked by paparazzi sent by his publicity-chasing father.”

“Sounds like torture to me.”

“Really?” Somehow, I’m relieved to hear this.

“You don’t have a choice, though, do you? You and Andrew can’t just live a quiet life like the rest of us can. It’s not even an option for you.” Her pitying look almost sends me to tears.

“He’s worth it, Mom.”

She pats my hand. “I know he is. I see how he treats you. And not just with money,” she adds, scratching Spritzy behind the ears and looking out the window, eyes tracking people as they walk past. “He really loves you. I’m so glad you found what I never could.”

Katie returns just then, balancing three cups of hot coffee in a triangle between her hands. I stand to help, swallowing back emotion that tastes like salt and shock. What the hell am I supposed to say to all that?

“Pam! Amanda! Here we go! Caffeine should be its own food group, shouldn’t it?”

“No,” Mom says seriously, genuinely perplexed. “It really shouldn’t. Technically, it’s a methylxantine, and — ”

“She’s joking,” I whisper. I take a sip of overly hot coffee and welcome the pain.

“Oh.” Mom smiles primly and sips. “I see.”

Awkward silence covers us like a dark cloud. I can tell Katie is not accustomed to any deviation from social niceties. The reason I can tell is this: I, too, struggle with such deviations. Tracking every single emotion radiating off of people around me to gauge how their internal state will affect their behavior is an inborn trait, one I cannot shut off.

No matter how hard I try.

She nervously pulls out a small tablet computer and starts tapping, her fingers across two different apps, one a checklist, one a calendar.

“Now,” she says brightly, eyes so wide, lashes so long. “I’ve already emailed each of you a PDF of the game plan, plus set up accounts for you to log into the planning software.”

“Planning software?” Mom asks.

“Yes. Wedding planning is basically the same as project management, so Anterdec is working on the beta version of wedding-planning software to add as a service for all our properties that offer weddings.”

“Do we have a Gantt chart for the flowers?” Mom jokes.

“Oh, no,” Katie says with a laugh. “Gantt charts are sooooo 1990s. We’re running this as a scrum wedding, but don’t worry. I have you both down as pigs, not chickens!”

Mom chokes a little.

“So,” Katie says, dumping a huge binder labeled McCormick Wedding Plan on the table between the three of us, “First of all, let me say what a delight it is to work on this wedding. I was supposed to facilitate Declan McCormick’s wedding, but that mother-in-law of his.” She makes a growling sound like a kitten with a bone caught in its throat. “What a pain!”

Mom’s eyebrows go up. “Marie is a good friend of mine.”

“And she’s got such a great work ethic, taking on the entire wedding like that!” comes her unctuous reply. Katie’s mouth is stretched in a smile so wide, I half expect her to tip her head back and insert a walnut in it. Like all millennials, she pretends her phone buzzes and buries her face in the glowing screen as she buys herself a few seconds to recover from the faux pas.

“Excuse me! Have to take this. It’s an actual phone call where I’m expected to talk and everything!” Katie leaps up and scurries outside.

In her absence, we thumb through the binder, which looks more like Bill Belichick’s playbook than a romantic wedding’s schema.

“Just let her do as much of the work as you can,” Mom advises.

“But I want a say in my own wedding.” I point. “James wants to dictate the menu! And the guest list. At this point, I half expect Katie to hand me a blueprint for sexual positions on the honeymoon.”

Mom yawns, choking halfway through as my words sink in. “Oh, Amanda. It was never your wedding to begin with.”

“What do you mean?”

“When you marry into a family like theirs, you lose control. Trust me, sweetie. I like James. He’s a nice man. Sharp as can be. But he has his own agenda, and fighting that is going to be Sisyphean.”

“It might have helped if you’d said this, say, a few months ago!”

“You had stars in your eyes, Amanda. I wasn’t going to burst your bubble by being pragmatic.” Any other mother speaking like this would ooze sarcasm, or use a know-it-all tone. Mom is all common sense and compassion. Logic and reality rule her carefully shaped world.

“If it’s the all-James, all-the-time show, why not give in and just let him plan the wedding? That’s what Shannon ended up doing with her mother,” I counter.

“If that’s what you want.”

My face heats up, gut turning to ice, my breathing quickening as angry tears wash over me. This isn’t what I want. Not one bit of it.

“Missionary position it is for our Anterdec resort honeymoon, then!” Mentioning sex flusters my mother. I know this.

I do it because I know this.

“What should Amanda do, Spritzy?” Mom asks her dog, physically turning away from me to talk to an animal who weighs less than a corsage. Shocker – Spritzy doesn’t have an opinion.

“I thought you’d want to help me plan the biggest day of my life,” I say softly.

“No, thank you,” Mom says in a tiny voice, pretending to be Spritzy.

I close my eyes and count to ten. We don’t have the kind of relationship where I yell at her.

No need to start now.

“I mean you, Mom,” I finally say.

“But honey, it’s the biggest day of your life. Do what you want.”

What I want is a mother who will make the insanity machine turn off, unplug the power cord, remove James’ batteries, share my outrage even as I accept my impotence.

As I open my mouth to say all that, Katie reappears.

“Oh, goody! You’re looking at the bible.” She pats the wedding planner binder. “Before we get started, we just need to get pictures out of the way.”

“Yes, the wedding day photographs are a major part of the ceremony,” I agree. Frankly, this is one area where having Anterdec handle it is fine with me.

“Oh, no! I meant right now!” Two people with camera equipment come into the near-empty coffee shop, one setting up a light, the other aiming a long lens at us.

“Right now? We’re meeting with the photographers to talk about the wedding this far in advance? Shouldn’t we do this at the wedding venue?”

Her big eyes widen, bulging like a puppet’s. “James didn’t tell you? These are pre-wedding shots. At every step possible, he wants Anterdec’s in-house media to control the message to websites and periodicals. We determined that if we provide images that are more in line with our branding, we can head off the horrible paparazzi shots.”

“You...what?”

“Mother and daughter planning the wedding. Tender, loving photographs that capture the moment spontaneously. With the wedding binder, without. Holding hands, whispering furiously. With the dog, without…” She pulls a concealer stick and fake eyelashes out of a bag at her feet. “But first, we need to enhance your features slightly.”

“I didn’t consent to be photographed!” Mom objects.

At the word ‘consent,’ both of the photographers halt and look at Katie.

“You didn’t get a waiver?” one asks.

Katie beams, pulling two pieces of paper out from a thick binder. “Here they are.”

The look on Mom’s face says: I told you so.

Never your wedding to begin with.

“I don’t feel well,” I announce, telling the truth. Standing abruptly, I push the light filter aside. It has the consistency of a kid’s kite, making me wish I were tied to a string and carried on the wind, high above the city, all these problems my mind can’t stop tracking nothing important. Mom shadows me as I move away, holding Spritzy in one hand, the rest of her coffee in the other.

“Oh,” Katie says, eyes pinging between me, Mom, and the photographers. “I scheduled two hours for this. We have so many decisions to make.”

“No,” I say.

Katie blinks furiously.

“No?”

“No. I don’t have so many decisions to make. You do.”

“Me?”

“You.” I slide the wedding planner binder toward her and tap it twice with my index finger. “It’s all yours, Katie.”

“Mine?”

“You have carte blanche to make every decision.”

“Every decision?”

“Aside from who’s in the wedding party and the honeymoon, yes.”

“Every decision!” Her face turns into the sun, shining with a radiance you only see after the clouds part. “Really?”

“Yes.” Mom gives me major side-eye.

I’m crushed by her tiny little bird arms strangling me in a hug. She starts jumping up and down, dragging me with her. “You have no idea how happy this makes me! No one ever does this! Ever! Between James’ and my decisions, this wedding will blow your mind.”

“It already has,” I reply. “It already has.”

* * *

“Pssst.” I look up from my desk to see Carol’s disembodied head poking into my office at an angle. She’s bending around the door frame and my eyes are just bleary enough from too much screen time to have a surreal visual moment, head floating in midair.

I knew I watched that new Stephen King movie trailer a few too many times last night.

My heart races as I say, “What’s up?”

“Can I come in?”

“Uh oh. What’s wrong? Did Malinda screw up the field reports on the nail salon chain again?”

She shakes her head, walking toward me with a face full of mixed emotions. “Um, did you know you and Pam are on all the gossip sites?”

“You mean James’ stunt with the corporate wedding planner today? Mom and I met with Katie Gallagher at Grind It Fresh! to make a bunch of decisions, but James turned it into a photo session. I thought we made the photographer stop before he got a picture.”

“These don’t look professional to me. More like paparazzi photos.” She hands me her phone. Pictures of me with my mom, facing the plate glass window in the coffee shop, dot the website. Close-ups of Mom, of Spritzy, and of me.

With Katie’s giant wedding planner book between us.

“Anterdec CEO’s fiancée plans wedding with mother,” I read from the screen. “Could be worse.”

“Keep reading.”

I scroll down to find pictures of my mom with James. Mom and James at a cocktail party. Mom and James at some outdoor dog festival. Mom and James laughing together outside his Back Bay home.

Next headline: “But which wedding?”

“‘Which wedding’? Huh? What do they mean?”

“Keep reading,” Carol warns, watching me carefully.

“Sources say James McCormick and Pam Warrick are more than just future in-laws. Seen around town in a series of dates, sources speculate that Andrew McCormick and Amanda Warrick might not only be husband and wife soon: they may be stepbrother and stepsister if the romance between their parents continues to heat up.”

I scream.

Wouldn’t you?

One long sound bellows out of me, moving up an octave as I let it all out. All of it. Every stupid, pompous comment from James. Every frustrating chirpy moment with Katie. Every time I second-guess myself in the run-up to getting married. Every detail I ask my mom for help with and get no response.

All of it.

Maybe I have lungs like Jamie Lee Curtis, because Andrew comes running into my office, primed and ready for battle, stopping short when he sees Carol standing next to me, her phone on my desk, my screams dying as I realize a small crowd of people hover at my door.

“What happened?” His eyes comb over me and he drops to the ground on one knee, touching my arm, my leg, my knee. “Where did you get hurt?”

Josh pushes through the crowd. “Amanda? Are you okay?” He gives Andrew a wary look. “Is someone bothering you?”

Andrew cuts him down with a glare. “I came running in as soon as I heard you scream,” he says to me.

“I’m afraid that’s my fault,” Carol explains.

“I told you to stop sneaking up on people and giving them titty twisters,” Josh chides Carol. “It’s only funny the first time.”

She dives in to get Josh but he moves away, then folds in half, her fingers caught on his tugging strap.

“What the hell is wrong with them?”

“Wrong? That’s normal behavior,” I say. “But that is not!” I shove the phone in his face, so close to his eyes that he has to hold it back in order to read. As I watch the recognition of the words and their meanings hit him, it digs the truth in deeper.

“Those assholes,” he murmurs. “Dad and Pam are just friends!”

“I know that. And you know that. But ‘stepbrother and stepsister’ is clickbait to rake in ad money for gossip sites. More eyeballs when it’s dirtier, right?”

“Good grief. I’ll get the PR department on this.”

“How do you know they’re not already in on it? Did you know your father set Katie Gallagher up with a camera crew for my coffee date with her and Mom today?”

“He did?”

“I stopped him.” I point to the phone screen. “But I couldn’t stop the paparazzi.”

“He’s really out of control. I’ve already spoken with him once. I’ll do it again.”

“I’m so sick of this. So tired.”

Josh and Carol beat it, leaving us alone. Tears well up in my eyes. I’m not surprised. The screen goes blurry and I wonder if Mom is about to become a paparazzi target in her own right. Before, she was involved tangentially, through her connection to me.

Being connected to James so directly carries its own weight.

Andrew holds me, his hand touching the small of my back with a grazing gesture that shoots tingles up to the base of my skull, the sensation spreading until I’m one big warm muscle that breathes for the sake of him. It’s not a sexual feeling, but more one of being able to breathe fully. I’m connected to someone else, back in focus even as I feel every ounce of emotional pain.

“You know what I do when I get too overwhelmed?” he asks, rubbing my back as I cry on his shoulder.

“You have sex with me.” Sniff.

“I was about to say ‘go swimming,’ but if sex is an option...” As he chuckles, his chest vibrates.

“Andrew, I’m really not in the mood.”

“For sex, or swimming?”

“I don’t know.”

“Hey. Hey,” he stresses. “None of this is acceptable.”

“No. It’s not.”

“I’ll put a stop to Dad. I promise. Tomorrow, I’ll talk to him. But until then, I have an idea.”

I sniff. “Does it involve your father and an Arctic ice floe?”

“No, but it does involve water.”