MARCH 2019

I never realized just how much planning goes into a wedding—from the flowers to the rehearsal dinner to the invitations to the band, the details are enough to make a severe OCD sufferer such as me spiral out of control. One thing Burke and I have decided on in the past forty-eight hours—besides that we are definitely going to hire a wedding planner—is the date: September 21, 2019. That’s for two reasons. One, we both think September is the best month to get married but don’t want to wait until 2020, and two, the Earth, Wind & Fire song. You know the one I’m talking about. Do you remember … the twenty-first night of September? Love was changing the minds of pretenders. This year, September 21 falls on a Saturday. The song can be our first dance. It’s perfect.

I still haven’t told Andie anything, which I suppose is strange. I used to imagine that the second I got engaged I’d call her screaming, but things aren’t the way they used to be. The list of things I keep from Andie seems to be ever accumulating these days. For example, I haven’t told her about Burke’s brief stint in prison. I haven’t told anyone. Burke was barely out of college when it happened, and he was naive. Plus, it was a white-collar offense—it’s not like he did something violent. The whole thing was an astronomical mistake on Burke’s part, yes, but one he learned from a long time ago. Attempting to explain the situation to my family and friends would only cause unwarranted concern.

I do have to tell Andie we’re engaged, though, and the clock is ticking. We have a long-standing dinner on the books tonight—one we’ve rescheduled too many times already—and it’ll be the right place to drop the news.

I send my last work email of the day and close Outlook. The clock on the upper right-hand corner of my laptop screen reads 5:55. Fuck. I press my lips to the clock on the screen and kiss it five times. Then I touch it five times with my right hand, then do the same with my left hand. Then it’s on to the rest of the clocks/time-telling devices in the apartment: phone, the monitor attached to my laptop, dishwasher, microwave, stovetop, and finally Burke’s iPad, which I finish touching just as the time ticks to 5:56. Phew.

Burke says more germs are on your phone screen than a public toilet seat, but fortunately (and miraculously) germophobia is not a symptom of my particular strand of OCD.

Six o’clock—fifty minutes until I have to leave for our seven o’clock reservation at Rosemary’s. I shower and blow-dry my hair halfway. Tinted moisturizer, under-eye concealer, and a little bit of mascara is enough. I squeeze into my favorite dark wash J Brands—they’re harder to button than they were the last I wore them, but whatever. It’s been a long, happy winter of too much Cab and stinky cheese. I can lose the weight before the wedding.

I choose an oversize Vince sweater to complement the tight jeans. Zipping up my brown leather boots and long black puffer jacket that resembles a sleeping bag, my winter uniform is complete. In New York, spring can never come soon enough.

Now that I’m ready to walk out the door, it’s time for my exit, and I’m relieved Burke’s not here. It’s not that I mind when he witnesses my routines—he’s going to be my husband, and I’m not trying to hide anything. It just isn’t my most flattering moment, the way I have to knock on the door in a specific pattern before I can leave.

One two three four five six seven eight; eight seven six five four three two one. One count up to eight, one count down from eight. All closed doors, every time. Revolving and electric sliding doors don’t count, which is a big break in a city like New York.

Only when I’m finished knocking can I open the door and exit the apartment, a sweet-and-sour mix of relief and shame heavy in my bones. I skip down the four flights of stairs—some elevators are okay, but the rickety one in my building makes me feel as if I were in a closed coffin.

Unfortunately, my building is prewar, which means old swinging doors in its lobby. This is my eighth year living on West Eleventh Street, though, and Ivan and the rest of the doormen don’t even blink when I do my knocks. They also know there’s no point in opening the door for me; if it’s closed to begin with, I have to do the knocks. If the door is propped open, which is often the case in the late spring and summertime, I’m off the hook. Those are my favorite months in the city.

Heading south on Waverly Place, I relish that I can slam my boot on every crack on the sidewalk without caring. This wasn’t always the case—it took substantial strides in therapy and an upped dose of Anafranil, but I got there. I am no longer Jack Nicholson in As Good as It Gets.

Still, I’m feeling a little panicked as I approach Rosemary’s. Breathing deeply, I think of Dr. Salam’s advice to focus on the good parts of someone that you love, the reasons why you love them. With Andie, it’s always easy to remember.

In the fall of seventh grade, after Mom died, I was so sad I couldn’t speak, my vocal cords gnarled underneath my collarbone, choked by grief. For weeks after the funeral I hid inside and screwed my eyes shut while the world outside browned and fell and curled in on itself, another death. I stayed in bed and refused to go to school. My mind was a videotape on repeat: My mother’s colorless face hours before she stopped breathing and the door of that awful waiting room. And me knocking, knocking, knocking, a never-ending count to and from the number eight: one two three four five six seven eight; eight seven six five four three two one. My brother on the chair in the corner listening to his Discman, head bent between his knees.

If I’d been older, maybe it would have hit me differently. But I was twelve, and the only life I knew was one in which the sun rose and set with Mom. I didn’t understand my girl-obsessed older brother, or my quiet, reserved father. Mom had been my ally in the family, the one who took me shopping at the mall and rented our favorite movies from Blockbuster and made sure we decorated every inch of the house at Christmastime. She was my best friend, and it didn’t feel possible to exist in a world without her.

In the weeks that she’d been gone all I craved was the weight of her warm, soft body, the comforting rise and fall of her chest. My pillow was damp from days and nights of muffled sobs. Even though I should’ve been back in school by then, my father simply stood in the doorway of my bedroom and, from within his own black cloud of grief, told me that I didn’t have to go back until I was ready.

It was Andrea Roussos who finally rang our doorbell one afternoon after I’d missed yet another day of seventh grade. When no one answered, she let herself in and marched straight up the stairs and into my bedroom.

“Skye!” Andie shook me awake, though I wasn’t really sleeping. She sat down on the edge of my bed, and I looked up to her clear hazel eyes, the tiny freckles that dusted her Grecian olive skin. “You have to get up. You have to come to school. We’ll be motherless together, and we’ll be okay. I swear.”

“Motherless,” I repeated with a shudder. “You’re not motherless, Andie.”

“I basically am.” She glanced away, and the pain in the contours of her face quickly morphed into something resembling resilience. “She may have given me life, but she’s not a mother. You’ve seen her. She doesn’t get off the couch. She stays in her bathrobe all day and swallows pills and watches ER. That’s how it’s been for years, and you know it, Skye.”

I sat up in bed. I nodded because it was true; nine out of the ten times I saw Mrs. Roussos she was wearing sweats and sitting in front of the TV in the den, ignoring the world around her. Andie and her younger sister had grown up microwaving their own frozen dinners except for the rare nights when Mr. Roussos came home from work early with takeout. Over the years I’d overheard my parents whispering about Eileen Roussos’s addiction to painkillers on more than one occasion. It’s getting bad, my mother would tell my father, her voice hushed.

“I miss her, too, Skye,” Andie whispered, her eyes watery. “I know it’s not the same, but I loved your mom so much. She was the best mom in the world. You’re so lucky you had her. She’ll always be yours.”

“She loved you, too,” I managed, hot tears dripping down my cheeks.

“Come on.” Andie pulled my arm. “Get out of this bed and get dressed and let’s go for a walk. It’s sunny out. We’ll walk into town and get sandwiches at the deli. Aren’t you hungry?”

I nodded. My stomach was eating itself—I was hungrier than I’d bothered to notice.

Andie wrapped her arms around my neck and hugged me so tight I almost couldn’t breathe.

“You’re my best friend, Skye Starling.”

Best friend.