“I don’t know,” I say, slowly. Letting her think about it before continuing. “I never really knew them, and the family I lived with after—my aunt, until she got sick, blood cancer—she never really talked about them. I was on my own pretty early on.” Being rich, with non-divorced parents of an acceptable age, and growing up in SoHo when it was still teeming with artists and bohemian crafters—Lena’s past was relatively self-explanatory. You stopped thinking about it the second she was finished telling it. It left nothing to the imagination. Mine, however, was interesting. How did an orphan get here? How is an orphan marrying a Walker?

“What does this have to do with their relationship?” Lena asks, ever the overzealous lion protecting her humble cub. “Shouldn’t you be asking about, like, when they moved in together, or how he popped the question or something? Let’s move on.”

Sarah crosses out a line in her notebook. “I guess we can leave your parents out of it.”

I look between the two of them. “Can you tell she works in PR?” I quip to Sarah, laughing, cutting the tension that Lena doesn’t notice she inherently creates. Sarah’s grateful for the interruption and now I’m posed as the good guy. I’m on her side, I want to divulge everything, but Lena is so rudely interrupting. And how sweet is a girl with an overprotective best friend.

The waiter returns and wordlessly, he picks up the bottle, offers it around, and leaves. Lena must have told him when she arrived that we weren’t ordering food and not to bother asking. She knows I wouldn’t eat anything—especially after two glasses of wine. Though I’d never finish this one. A symptom of not eating is that you get drunk very quickly.

“Now, this is a silly question, but I always ask because I love the answers...” She pauses, presumably giving me time to find this charming. I smile. I cock my head. I lean forward. I do all the things I’ve learned to do when I’m forced to remain pleasant. “What’s your favorite thing about your fiancé—about Graham,” she corrects, personalizing it for me. A fool’s attempt to claim friendship where there is none.