So now she was desperate to get a grip on herself. She flipped off the TV, tossed the remote into the cardboard box, and slunk behind the bar to prepare herself a cocktail. True, she’d been sober for a few months, at least until last night, but if there were ever a time for throwing back a shot, surely, it was now. Was it possible that she and Ezra had reconnected last night and somehow that had spiraled into a spontaneous wedding? She shuddered and reached for the Absolut, just like she would have ten years ago.

Ezra emerged from the back office, and perhaps it was because, in the span of fifteen minutes or so, Frankie had forgotten how mangled his face was, or perhaps his face had gotten . . . worse . . . over that respite, but either way, he looked broken. His shoulders drooped and his head hung lower, and goddammit, Frankie found herself attracted to his mess. She’d never been a fixer. She was intuitive enough to know that you couldn’t fix anyone if they couldn’t heal themselves. Or maybe it wasn’t intuition, maybe it was her childhood and its traumas that made her wise. But either way, here now with Ezra, something fluttered in her. She couldn’t remember a time when he’d ever been so unkempt, and there was something honest about it, even if none of it were by choice.

“I’m drinking,” she said, and hoped her hands didn’t jitter. “I’ve decided. It’s the only way through.”

He lifted his head just enough to level her with a look.

“That seems like a decidedly terrible idea.” He flopped a hand. “So naturally, Frankie Harriman would come up with it.”

Frankie set down the Absolut with a little too much force, and it rattled the bottles on the rest of the bar.

“Also,” he said, “it’s eleven thirty in the morning, and I realize this wouldn’t be the first time you’ve been drunk before noon, but don’t you think we should try to show up to April and Connor’s wedding still standing? Aren’t you a bridesmaid?”

Frankie opened her mouth to reply, then closed it. She remembered all the things she didn’t like about Ezra Jones just then: his condescension, his rigidness, his total lack of fun. How could she have married him? How, it must be asked, could she have loved him? She squeezed the contented-looking images from the VCR and the Polaroid out of the corners of her mind.

“Fine, fine!” she said, waving her own hand in the air. The engagement ring caught the light from the ceiling, and they both let their eyes linger, then fall to the floor. “What were you doing back there? Let me guess: trying to reach your future wife?”

Frankie regretted it as soon as it was out of her mouth. She knew she should at least be trying to be a little bit less of a bitch, but then she was often at her sharpest, some might even say at her best, when she felt cornered. She couldn’t help it. She wasn’t going to apologize for it.