“I’m so sorry we’re late,” she says as I descend. “It’s hard to find this place in the dark, huh? We must have driven past the gate three times. It gets very dark up here. Like, spooky dark. I’d never...” She continues but I zone her out, instead centering on her photographer, a twenty-three-year-old named Rufus Hunter, standing behind her. I knew this would be a picture-perfect moment and I let him immortalize it with his camera: me Cinderella-ing myself down the gorgeous mahogany staircase in my strappy lace dress, red lips turned up ever so slightly in a wry smile. The smile means nothing to anyone right now, but when this picture graces the pages of the New York Times with Sarah’s exclusive feature about everything that will go down tomorrow, my face will have everyone wondering how much I knew.

The answer: everything.

“So good to see you. We were just sitting down for dinner.” I reach my hand out and receive her limp one in return, like shaking hands with a dry dead fish.

I switch gears to Rufus who, in his jeans, T-shirt, and bomber jacket looks like someone who lives in Bed-Stuy and is a vegan because it’s the single greatest way I can reduce my carbon footprint.

“Eliza Bennet,” I say, shaking his hand, warm in mine. This is a grip more appropriate for someone who works at the New York Times. Thank God Sarah’s highest-stakes interview is a bridezilla wearing couture, not someone like President Obama or even a Real Housewife.

“Thanks for having us,” Sarah interjects, moving in front of Rufus like a dog establishing dominance. “Your in-laws have such a beautiful home.”

“Thank you,” I say, looking around like I’m admiring it, too. I always feel strange accepting a compliment for something that has nothing to do with me. “They’ve actually given us a plot of land on the mountain to build our own snowy escape. It’s where we’ll be having the ceremony tomorrow.” It took everything in me to say that with a straight face. Pleasantly smiling. Voice an octave higher than usual. Snowy escape. It feels like I’m reading from a Lifetime movie script.

Sarah’s gasp of excitement was only matched by Rufus’s stare of pure boredom. “I love that,” she says. She opens her overwhelmingly large purse, digging through it until she finds her notebook, and then repeats the process for a pen. It’s painful to watch but I smile as if I’m not embarrassed by the whole thing.

“Well, if you’re ready...” I begin as she finishes scribbling my statement on a coffee-stained page. “We can join everyone outside.”