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punctured balloon. Like I told Rachel, it’s not exactly that Will’s mother and I don’t get along, but so far we haven’t quite managed to connect yet. It’s in the little things. She’ll tell a joke and I won’t get it. I’ll try to be funny and she’ll look at me like I need to be locked into a mental institution, that sort of thing. Also, since Will is her only child, she has a mother-bear protective attitude toward her cub. She eyes me warily all the time as if trying to figure out if I’m going to hurt her son. She looks at me like I’m after Will just for his money or simply because I like to toy with men’s hearts before I rip them out and eat them. I’m not quite sure what I need to do to convince her that I only want her son to be happy, that both of us want the same thing for him.

    There are so many millions of things that can put a strain on a relationship. Money, sex, work, a pathological jealousy toward your significant other’s ex, what have you. When you add the stress of in-laws on top of that, it’s truly a wonder that any relationships manage to survive at all.

    “Sounds great!” I swallow hard as my heart sinks into the pit of my stomach.

Chapter 3

    T he next day, I try to continue doing research for my meeting with the execs from Woodruff Pharmaceuticals, but I just can’t focus. Instead, I sit in my study at my big desk and spend my afternoon trying to figure out if I want a wedding. On the one hand, I love weddings. Especially in an era when families are spread out across the country (if not the globe), weddings are a great excuse to get everybody together. On the other hand, I’m a chronic worrier, and I’ve seen women who are much stronger than me crack under the pressure of planning a wedding. I’m not sure I want to put myself through that. Also, when I was in college I worked at a country club as a waitress and the experience gave me insight into the unsavory dark side of matrimony. The club hosted many a wedding reception and almost without exception, every bride went through the day in a kind of stressed-out trance, constantly snapping at her friends and family. And it’s not just strangers who I’ve known to have a less than paradisiacal wedding day. After Mom married Frank, she and her two sisters didn’t talk for two years. Her sisters had been Mom’s bridesmaids, and Mom yelled at them over something stupid—because they didn’t walk down the aisle just so or something—and boy-oh-boy did they get pissed at her. She was stressed out, and what happened was understandable, but it taught me that a wedding might be the most expensive party you ever throw in your life, but that doesn’t mean you’ll have any fun at it.
    I needed a mother’s advice, so I run downstairs, grab the cordless phone off the wall in the kitchen, and give Mom a call.

    “Hello?”

    “Hi, Mom.”

    “Eva, darling, how are you?”

    “I’m good,” I say, pacing around my kitchen. I have an ultramodern kitchen, with a refrigerator with stainless steel doors, a stainless steel cooktop, and a matching washing machine. I have shiny black Corian countertops and white stone tile floors that match the white windowframes and white cabinets. I love this kitchen. It almost makes me wish I could cook so I had an excuse to spend more time in it—almost.

    “How are things with Will?”

    “Really good. In fact, I think Will and I might get married some day, and I wondered—”

    “That’s so exciting! When do you think you’ll set a date?”

    “I don’t know. It’s not official or anything.”

    “I’m so happy for you. I have to say I’m still amazed at how quickly everything has been moving with him. Wasn’t it after the second date that you started looking at bridesmaid dresses online? That just floored me. After all those years of you thinking you didn’t want to get married.”

    “Well, I still have a lot of fears about it, but it turns out that it wasn’t that I didn’t