That’s what matters now.

When I walk in the house, Eddie is already home, changed into shorts and another one of his button-down shirts. Now that I’ve seen inside his closet, I know he has dozens of them in a variety of colors. Men can do that—find one thing that looks good, then wear it for the rest of their lives, pretty much.

“There’s my girl,” he says brightly as I walk in. I smile as I greet him, but it’s clear I’m upset because he immediately frowns.

“Everything okay?”

I step easily into his arms, sighing as they come around me, my head fitting just there underneath his chin.

“Long day of wedding dress shopping,” I say, and he chuckles at that, his hands making soothing strokes up and down my back.

“Sounds exhausting,” he says. “Beer?”

I nod even though I already have a slight headache from those two glasses of champagne earlier, plus it’s barely even three in the afternoon.

Pressing a kiss to my forehead, Eddie lets me go and walks to the fridge while I set my purse down and go into the kitchen, grabbing a couple of limes from the silver bowl on the counter.

“You’re sure you’re alright?” Eddie rubs a hand down my back, and I make myself smile at him as I chop limes into wedges for our beers.

“Yeah, fine,” I say, then shake my head, using the back of my hand to push back a lock of hair from my forehead. “I just ran into Tripp Ingraham today, and he was weird.”

Eddie stills, looking down at me. “Weird how?”

I’m not actually sure how much of this I want to get into with him. My nerves are still jangled, and I’m afraid Eddie will get the wrong idea if I tell him the truth. That he might think what Tripp said about Eddie and boats got to me, scared me.

I tell myself that it didn’t.

So, I smile up at Eddie, letting the knife fall to the counter. “Oh, you know. The kind of thing you’d expect from a guy like him.”

I twine my arms around Eddie’s neck, pressing my body close to his. “He thinks I’m marrying you for your money.”

Some of the wariness leaves Eddie’s face, and he puts both arms around my waist, hands resting on my hips. “Hope you told him that you were actually in it for the sex.”

“Obviously,” I say, and when he lowers his head to kiss me, I nip at his lower lip, Tripp Ingraham and his bullshit forgotten.

17

Later, we sit outside in the big wooden Adirondack chairs in the yard, a fire crackling away in the big stone ring in front of us. Nearby, the grill smokes, and the scent of cooking meat reminds me of those summer nights in Phoenix, when the air was so still and so dry it felt like a loose spark could send everything up in flames.

The grill turned over, the burning coals spread over the gravel yard, Jane, the real Jane, crying, Mr. Brock’s red face, a sweating beer can in one hand, a pair of tongs in the other.

His KISS THE COOK apron with a giant frog on it, its lips red and obscene in a pucker, me sprawled in the rocks, my hand burning, my face stinging, thinking how stupid that apron was, how stupid it was that a man like him had this much power over all of us.

I haven’t thought about that for such a long time. I’ve pushed it all away, but now here it is, this ugly memory, in this perfect place.

Looking down, I study my engagement ring again, turning my hand this way and that, catching the light of the flames.

That’s over. That can’t touch you. No matter what John says.

Next to me, Eddie sighs, his long legs stretched out in front of him.

He really does look good tonight. I think of how slightly ragged he was when I first met him, how those edges have smoothed a little in the past few months, and I feel a little surge of satisfaction. I did that, I think. I’ve made him happy. He’s like this because of me.

And soon, I’m going to be his wife.

I think about the wedding dresses I saw today, the veil there in the window I’d itched to put on my head.

“I think we should elope.”

I don’t know I’m going to say the words until they’re out, but then they are, and I realize I don’t want to take them back.

Eddie pauses, his beer lifted to his mouth. Then he takes a sip, swallows, and lowers his arm before looking over at me and saying, “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“It’s just … I don’t have a big family,” I say. “And I hardly know anyone in Birmingham, or at least no one I’d want at my wedding.”

Eddie smirks slightly at that, raising his eyebrows.

“I don’t want that John asshole at my wedding, either.”

Reaching over, he takes my hand, his thumb making circles on the heel of my hand.

“Janie, say the word, and we’ll get married at the courthouse tomorrow. Or we’ll go to the lake. Hell, we can go up to Tennessee if you want, rent one of those cheesy mountain chalets. I think they even have drive-through wedding chapels in Gatlinburg.”

I smile, but don’t say anything, ignoring the weird sinking in my stomach at the idea of marrying a man like Eddie, but still having the kind of wedding girls like me always get. Cheap, fast, tacky. When I suggested eloping, I was imagining saying our vows on a white-sand beach, an intimate wedding night in a big bed with gauzy mosquito netting. I wasn’t imagining pulling up to a window like we were grabbing french fries and heading to a motel advertising free parking on a neon sign.

Still, what I know for certain is that I can’t get married here. I can’t walk down an aisle at a big church in a big dress and see the Campbells and the Carolines, Bea’s friends, comparing me to her.

I head inside, picking up our empty beers as I go. When I slide the patio door open, there’s a sound from somewhere above me.

I freeze there in the doorway, one ear cocked toward the ceiling, waiting.

There’s another thump, followed by a second, a third.

Sliding the patio door closed behind me, I glance back out at Eddie.

He’s still sitting in his Adirondack chair, hands behind his head now, his chin lifted to the evening sky, and I creep a little deeper into the house.

The sounds are rhythmic now, a steady thump thump thump like a heartbeat.

I think about that story they made us read in middle school, the one with the man buried under the floorboards, his murderer thinking he could still hear the old man’s heart, and for a horrified moment, my brain conjures up Bea.