“Maybe I’ll just stick to dancing. It’s like you get all the good parts of sex without the disappointment, without the inevitable letdown, the shame spiral, whatever.”

“Oh, honey. Let’s not give up on the whole enterprise, shall we?”

I consider this. Do I not owe it to myself to explore beyond Luke? To have some sort of awakening? I need someone real—someone who moves me a little—to put between me and Luke. After all, he had lovers before me and—I realize with stomach-dropping dread—has almost certainly had lovers since. That’s what I came here to do, isn’t it? To disappear. To forget.

Penny Is Getting Married!

THE WEEKEND Penny and Captain Stewart Granger got married at the historic downtown Roosevelt Inn in Coeur d’Alene is my last truly good memory of her.

To the surprise of no one, Penny had a big wedding. She invited all of her high school friends and all of her coworkers from the clinic, as well as just about everyone else she’d ever known. Penny had been the kind of little girl who dreamed of her wedding day, who dressed up as a bride for Halloween when she was eight and when she was ten, who married off her Barbie dolls at every opportunity. She wanted the big dress, the bridesmaids, the tiered cakes, the whole shebang. My parents, having seen worse than I had, were happy to indulge her: as though the maelstrom of taffeta and buttercream could wash away all of the darkness that preceded it.

She was getting married in August, so fortunately I was able to come see her more frequently leading up to the wedding. Other than a handful of training camps, summers for me meant rehabbing whatever was injured, time in the gym, and cross-training on my mountain bike. I came up one weekend to go with Penny and my mother to Marcella’s bridal boutique in Spokane to look for a dress. My mother and I sat on plush white couches, drinking glasses of champagne while the attendant wrestled Penny into the complicated gowns.

The first dress Penny came out in was a strapless ballroom gown with a voluminous tulle skirt. The dress engulfed her petite, busty frame, but Penny was beaming.

“Well?” she asked us.

“Oh . . . well, do you like it?” my mom said diplomatically.

“I feel like a princess,” Penny said, gazing at herself in the three-way mirror. “Katie, what do you think?”

“You kind of look like a cupcake.”

Her face fell.

“I mean you look like a beautiful cupcake. But, Penny, it’s a lot.”

“You just don’t want to have a dress that wears you,” my mom added.

Penny huffed. “Sorry we can’t all be six feet tall.”