“Done,” I finally say.

“What? You mean it’s fixed?” She jumps to her feet with grabby hands reaching for the dress.

I pass it back to her and watch her squirm into it. “Be careful. The zipper isn’t defective, but it’s not as high quality as it should be for a dress that expensive.”

She turns around so I can zip her up, and with her gaze steady on the wall ahead of us, she says, “Thanks, by the way.”

I’m honestly shocked to hear unadulterated gratitude come out of her mouth. I can’t help but assume that not having to make direct eye contact with me made the exchange possible for her.

“I guess this means you owe me,” I say.

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

We all watch from the balcony at the back of the house as a helicopter lands on the helipad painted to look like the Before Midnight clock.

“Is it weird that I always assumed the helipad was edited to look like that?” asks Jenny. “Like some kind of TV magic?”

Stacy props her elbow on the railing and cradles her chin in her hand. “Or is it weirder that this show has its own helipad?”

Addison’s date is a Before Midnight classic, the helicopter date night, and I can’t help but take just a sliver of joy thinking about how miserable Henry will be.

Below us, a cluster of crew members escort Henry, dressed in a slick suit with a black tie. He glances up to us, and everyone crams up against the edge of the balcony to get a millisecond of face time, like we’re all at a concert and Henry is the headliner we’ve waited hours for.

“Evening, ladies,” he says, tipping his chin to us, his eyes bright with terror—something only I seem to notice.

My eyes widen, and I give him a slight thumbs-up. All I can hear is him telling me he’d rather lie naked in a pit of scorpions than fly on a helicopter.

He inhales deeply, and I can see all the ideas running through his head, trying to figure out how he can get out of this at the last minute. Fall and break an arm? Fake a death in the family?

He’s herded off quickly, and I can feel the energy of all the other women ease, like they’ve all been sucking in for the camera. (Bleh.)

A legion of cameras follows Addison through the wildflower field, her white shawl billowing gracefully behind her. Henry greets her at the helicopter, giving her a kiss on the cheek, and helps her inside as he follows just behind her.

I do feel just a little bit bad for him. RIP, Henry.

Sara Claire lets out a soft sigh. “Am I so silly for admitting I really had my hopes set on the helicopter date?”

“Hell no,” says Chloe. “I’m scared of heights, and helicopters are basically flying deathtraps. No, thank you.”

Anna yawns. “I’m not feeling great.”

I turn to her. “Are you okay?”

Her mouth turns into a frown. “Just a headache. I think I’m going to lie down.”

I squeeze her hand. “I’ll come check on you later.”

“How can it be this depressing to live in an epic château?” Jenny opines.

With the doors closed behind them, Addison and Henry take off, the helicopter hovering for a moment and then circling overhead for the cameras. A few girls wave up at them, and a camera down below focuses in on us, all clustered around this railing in our pajamas like a bunch of sad sacks.

“That’s it,” Stacy says. “We need pizza and wine.”

“Um, I don’t think Domino’s delivers to the Before Midnight château,” I tell her.

“To the kitchen, ladies!” Stacy calls, leading the charge.

Downstairs, we all crowd around the island as Stacy pulls together some ingredients for a quick pizza dough. She then portions everything out for us to each make our own mini pizzas, giving us instructions in what I assume is her librarian voice.

“You’re like an antidepressant in human form,” I tell her.

“I guess it’s just the librarian in me taking over. When I’m not at the reference desk answering the same questions over and over again, I’m dreaming up the cheapest programs I can come up with for my kiddos.”

“Do you miss them?” I ask.

“I do,” she says slowly. “But I don’t miss all the bullshit red tape I have to deal with. I just wish I had enough resources to do good by them, but I feel like I’m just writing grants to keep my head above water.”

“Have you thought about what you’d do with the prize money?” I ask.

She peers up at me. “Pay off some student loans. Buy my library kids some great stuff we could use like iPads and design programs and as many new books as their hearts desire. What about you?”

“Oh God, nothing as selfless as you,” I tell her. “Don’t laugh, but I want to start my own line. I’ll start with shoes. Move into accessories and then clothing. At least that’s the plan. My brain is basically a useless cinder block at the moment, and I haven’t come up with a design I love in months.”

“You’ve got writer’s block,” she says. “Or I guess in your case, it would be designer’s block.”

“Is there a cure, doc?”

She smiles and pats my shoulder. “I’m not much of a writer, but my ex was. One time I had them in to talk to my kids about writing and they said that you can get a block for a number of reasons. Sometimes you’ve made a wrong choice and you have to go back and start over. Sometimes you’ve run out of inspiration and have to rediscover what made you so passionate in the first place. But whatever it is, it helps to take things in bite sizes. Start small. A sentence…or maybe for you a line. A color. A fabric. And then go from there.”

“You’re really smart,” I tell her.

“I think you mean my ex was really smart.”

I shake my head. “Nope, definitely meant you.”

“Well, you’ll get past this and then one day you’ll wonder how you’ll ever have time for all the ideas you have. And when you get that line of your own, I’ll be the first person at the store, buying my pair of Cindy originals.”

“First pair is on me,” I promise her.

We find some spaghetti sauce to use as pizza sauce and scour the fridge for any toppings we can find. I go with banana peppers and extra cheese.

We all take turns cooking pizzas and reminiscing about our lives back home as we go through a few bottles of wine. Back in Wisconsin, Chloe runs social media for her parents’ chain of gas stations, Cheese Stop. She also headlines a folk band and plays all over the Midwest on the weekends. Gretchen is a massage therapist from Las Vegas with two moms both named Linda. Valerie is a former dancer for the Miami Heat and a current hairstylist with a son named Carson. Samantha is a nurse with plans to go on to med school after the doctor she was engaged to dumped her for having a job that was too demanding. Jenny is the big surprise—a divorcé and trial lawyer who specializes in malpractice lawsuits.