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than some of her married friends had even known their husbands.
    Some women confided in her that they wished they had been brave enough to buck tradition the way she did, but then they’d gone ahead and done the expected thing to make everyone else happy. Others couldn’t believe this was what she really wanted. When she and Dan had been together two years, they were out with a coworker of Dan’s and his fiancée one night. “Are you two close to getting engaged?” the woman asked her. “No,” Kate said. The woman patted her hand and whispered, “You probably just haven’t cried enough yet.”
    Dan joked that they should tell everyone they were both divorced,since if you’d done it once, people usually left you alone. It explained something that was otherwise unfathomable: the reason why two people in love did not want to marry.
    For a while, Dan had told anyone who asked that they were boycotting marriage until their gay friends could take part. It was mostly a lie, but it tended to shut people up. The real reasons were too complicated, and anyway, no one ever believed them. You could spend hours telling someone in great detail about how you didn’t think the state had any business playing a role in your most intimate relationship, how you were wary of the Wedding Industrial Complex, and they’d still come away thinking,
So basically you’re afraid of commitment
.
    But now their gay friends could get married. Kate remembered the evening Jeff and Toby had told them they were engaged. They had come up from the city for the weekend, and they were all sitting on the deck, watching the sun set.
    “Do you hate me?” Jeff asked after he broke the news.
    “Yes,” she said.
    “I’m going to be a Bridezilla, you know that, right?”
    She groaned. “This is gonna be even more painful than May’s, isn’t it?”
    “More painful, but less tacky,” he said. “The good news for you is we won’t be doing a real bridal party—we’re a bit old for all that, right? Though we want Ava to be the flower girl. If I can’t wear a pouffy white dress, by God, she’ll have to wear one for me. And we want to do it out here in the country. So you’ll have to help me find a caterer and a florist and all that. We’ve already got the venue booked.”
    “Where?” Dan asked.
    “The Fairmount,” they said, and then joined hands.
    “Oh God. They’ve gone over to the dark side. They’re even speaking in unison now,” Dan said. He got up from his chair. “I think we might have a bottle of champagne left over from New Year’s. I’ll be right back.”
    As Dan walked inside, Jeff went on, “We booked the garden for a sunset ceremony and cocktails. Three-hundred-and-sixty-degree views of the mountains and the Hudson.”
    Toby beamed. “It’s stunning, Kate. As long as it doesn’t rain, we’ll be fine.”
    “Mother Nature best not be messing around that day, let me tell you,” Jeff said. “I’ve waited ten years for this.”
    Kate smiled. “I’m sure she wouldn’t dare cross you.”
    “Now the actual dinner will be in the Riverview Ballroom. Gettingthat room on a Saturday in April is nothing short of a miracle, but we did it,” Jeff said. He sounded more proud than he had when he passed the bar exam, or won his first major case. “Picture this: Floor-to-ceiling windows. A neutral color palette of cream, mushroom, and sage that looks flawless with any wedding decor you choose.”
    Dan returned then with the champagne and four glasses. Kate grabbed hold of the edge of his shirt as if to keep herself from falling, even though she was sitting down.
    “Honey, stop. We’re scaring her,” Toby said.
    “No, no!” Kate said. “Go on. The views sound amazing. And whatever you said about mushrooms. That sounded good, too.”
    She wanted to be happy for them. They were her best friends. She and Jeffrey had always been close, the two black sheep of the family. He was gay and she was Kate, and that was all there was to