The term is a holdover from Meg’s and my days as assistants. It basically means there will be an excess of cocktails, complaints, and, in this case, crying. The host of Emergency Brunch need give no advance explanation, but these days, now that Meg has kids, and all of our lives have more responsibilities than they did seven years ago, it is only invoked in dire situations.

I wait for them under a heat lamp on the patio at Maison Pickle on the Upper West Side, a box of tissues in my lap. It’s unseasonably warm, the sky blue and flecked with fluffy clouds, but all I see is gray.

It feels like, if I had been even halfway paying attention, I might have seen this coming from a mile away. That’s the most embarrassing part. An essential piece of me knew something wasn’t right with Ryan for a while now, and I spent a long time trying to shut that piece up.

I’m dreading having to say the word breakup aloud to Meg and Rufus, to make the nightmare real. When I see them come up from the train at Eighty-Sixth Street, this dread manifests like a brick over my chest.

As it turns out, I don’t have to say anything. My friends take one look at my face—puffy; my hair—greasy; and my freshly resized engagement ring—very much not on my finger—and they know.

“Fuuuuuuuuck, Lanie,” Rufus says, planting a kiss on my head as he sinks into the chair next to me.

“We need a bottle of prosecco,” Meg calls to the nearest waiter. “And three shots of tequila.”

“Damn, mama,” Rufus says to her. “Are we going clubbing after this? Because I’ll need to change.”

“It’s called the Kate Moss,” Meg says. “You take the shot and sip the bubbles, and it helps, okay?”

“I never argue with Kate Moss,” Rufus says, obliging. He takes off his sunglasses and sets them on the table next to his keys, his phone, his sunscreen, and his thirty-dollar lip balm. Meg and I bought him a man bag last Christmas in an attempt to limit the amount of real estate he always takes up on restaurant tables, but he’s set in his ways.

“So, what happened?” Meg silences her phone. She does this only for very significant conversations. It makes me feel a grateful swell of love for her.

“We were out last night,” I say, my stomach knotting at the memory. “We were having a good time. Like we always do. But then, I don’t know, suddenly it became clear that whenever we talk about getting married, it’s like the word has two different meanings. One for Ryan, one for me. And when I pushed on that a little, the whole thing just fell apart.” I snatch a tissue and blow my nose.