But who was Margot kidding? Nick didn’t suffer guilty pangs.

Margot had to get out of there.

You can’t tell me you wouldn’t love an opportunity to vent your frustration with your family to a friendly acquaintance.

Goddamned Griff, Homecoming King, was right. She would love.

Margot told herself that the Boarding House was on her way home. She told herself that she would just poke her head in, and if Griff wasn’t instantly visible, she would leave.

She stepped into the welcoming energy of the Boarding House bar; the air smelled like roasting garlic and warm bread and expensive perfume. The lighting was low, the good-looking patrons were exuding a happy buzz, and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” was playing.

Ha! Margot thought. Got that right.

She stepped up to the bar, where there was one leather stool available. She didn’t see Griff, and she considered leaving. But the barstool looked comfortable; it would be nice, maybe, to just sit and have a drink by herself. She was lonely nearly all the time, but so seldom alone.

She ordered a martini. She tried not to appear self-conscious, although the word described her exactly. She was conscious of herself sitting alone, sipping a stronger drink than she should be having at this hour, waiting for…

A tap on the shoulder.

She turned around. Griff.

“You came,” he said. He sounded full of boyish wonder at that moment, as if discovering the presence of Santa Claus on Christmas morning.

Margot sipped her martini. She would not let him rattle her. She would be her genuine self. But she was struck by the ocean of colors contained in his eyes; she felt as if she might drown in them.

“It was on my way home,” Margot said.

He was wearing a white button-down shirt and jeans and a navy blazer. He now sported three-day scruff, which was even sexier than two-day scruff.

“You came to see me,” Griff said. “Admit it, you did.”

There was the smug confidence that Margot had expected. She juggled a dozen possible replies in her head, but then she settled on the truth. “You were right,” she said. “This morning.”

Griff’s eyes widened. “About what?”

“I would love an opportunity to vent my frustrations with my family to a kindly stranger. I would like to detail the many ways they are destroying my spirit.”

Griff held up open palms. “By all means,” he said. “Detail away.”

“Have you ever lost anyone?” she asked.

Griff said, “You mean, other than when my wife walked out?”

Margot said, “Yes. I mean, has anyone close to you died?”

Griff said, “My younger brother. Highway accident. I was twenty-five, and he was twenty-one.”

Margot stopped for a second. She thought, My siblings, they drive me insane, I despise two out of the three of them right now. But what if one of them died? Impossible to imagine; they were her brothers, her sister. She couldn’t go on without them. “Oh,” she said. “Wow. That’s awful. I’m so sorry.”

Griff nodded. “This isn’t supposed to be about me. This is supposed to be about you.”

Margot said, “You’re a good guy, right?”

Griff shrugged. “My daughter seems to think so, but she’s only twelve, so what does she know?”

Margot’s guilt kept her silent. She thought about how painfully ironic it was that the one person she had really and truly wronged this year was the very same person she was now about to confide in. Griff would hate her if he knew what she’d done. He would be right to hate her. She should go. She couldn’t sit and tell him things with this insidious secret gnawing at her, but she couldn’t confess, either.

He said, “Have you ever lost anyone?”

“My mother,” Margot said. “Seven years ago, to ovarian cancer.”

She could feel his eyes on her face, but she couldn’t look at him.

Margot said, “My mother left a notebook behind for my sister filled with instructions for this wedding. She wrote them down because she knew she wouldn’t be around to see it.”

Griff pinched the bridge of his nose. “Oh, man,” he said. “That’s tough.”

“Tough,” Margot agreed.

The song changed to “Watching the Detectives.” Griff tapped his thigh. “You like Costello?” he asked.

Margot nodded. “Love him.”

“She’s filing her nails while they’re dragging the lake,” he quoted.

Her favorite line.

She said, “My father remarried a woman named Pauline. Nice woman. I have no complaints except that she’s not my mother. They’ve been married five years. This morning, as I was driving my dad to Sankaty, he told me he’s going to ask Pauline for a divorce.”

“Because…” Griff said.

Then, together, they said, “Because she’s not my/your mother.”

Margot thought, This guy gets it.

She said, “I also have two brothers. There’s Kevin, who is eleven months younger than me, but who acts like he’s older. He’s got this superiority thing, he’s always right, always in charge.” She stopped herself. Since Griff had lost his brother, it might be in poor taste to complain about her own brother. She said, “What was your brother like?”

“This isn’t about me, remember.”

“Just tell me,” Margot said.

Griff sighed. “Well, he was rebellious. He rode a motorcycle, he had a bunch of tattoos, he started smoking in middle school, and drinking in high school. But here’s the thing: he was brilliant, went to MIT for three semesters, then took a semester off and went to mechanics’ school to learn how to fix classic muscle cars, Plymouth Barracudas, Shelby Cobras, Corvette Stingrays.” Griff took a sip of his drink and a deep breath. “And he could play the piano by ear. At my grandparents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary, he had everybody singing until long after midnight.”

The song changed to “Lawyers, Guns and Money.”

Margot said, “You like Zevon?”

“I went home with a waitress,” he quoted. “The way I always do.”

“How was I to know… she was with the Russians, too,” she said. Again, her favorite line.

She said, “Then there’s my brother Nick, the lothario. Loves women, and can’t seem to exercise any restraint.”

Griff nodded. “Familiar with the type.”

Margot wasn’t sure why Nick’s behavior surprised her. He had always been like this. He had taken two girls to the senior prom. He had run through entire sororities at Penn State. Margot had heard a rumor that he slept with one of his law school professors. But Finn? Why Finn? There were plenty of single women at the wedding-any of Jenna’s hippie-dippy teacher friends, or he could have had a reprise with Autumn.

“So tonight…” Margot said, but she trailed off. She didn’t feel like talking about what Nick had done that night.

“Tonight, what?” Griff said.

Margot said, “My ten-year-old, Carson, barely passed the fourth grade. And my daughter, Ellie, is a hoarder.”

Griff laughed. He had a very nice laugh, she remembered now.

She said, “Remind me of your kids’ names. I know you told me, but I haven’t been blessed with your memory.” Many times a candidate would include a line on his or her résumé that said something like Married fourteen years, devoted mother of four. And Margot would always tell them to scratch it. Everyone loved their kids, and half of everyone loved their spouse. It didn’t belong on a résumé, and it shouldn’t be discussed with a potential employer unless it directly affected the candidate’s work history-as it had in Griff’s case.

He said, “My daughter, Colby, twelve, thinks I hung the moon. Sons Ethan and Tanner, ages ten and eight, think Robinson Cano hung the moon. I don’t see them nearly enough. Every other weekend.”

Margot said, “Mine fly to California the last weekend of every month to see their father. Who informed me two days ago that he is getting married again to a Pilates instructor named Lily.”

Griff rattled the ice in his glass. He was drinking something and Coke, maybe bourbon like all the southerners at the rehearsal dinner, and Margot thought for a second about how good he might taste if she kissed him, sweet and caramelish. She chastised herself for thinking about kissing Griffin Wheatley, Homecoming King, and then she admitted to herself that she had been thinking about kissing him ever since she saw him on the ferry.

Griff said, “My ex-wife, Cynthia, is due to give birth in a few weeks. To Jasper’s baby.”

Margot finished her drink and waited for her eyes to cross. Griff’s wife had fallen in love with his best friend, Jasper, who was also his direct boss, which explained Griff’s sudden departure from the Masterson Group and was the reason why Margot met him in the first place. Griff hadn’t wanted to tell Drew Carver or the rest of the top brass at Tricom about Jasper and his ex-wife. Margot understood: candidates never wanted to share the messy ways that their personal lives intersected with their professional lives. But it hadn’t mattered; Tricom had wanted him for the job… until.

She said, “That. Totally. Sucks.”

“Precisely,” Griff said. He flagged the bartender for the check. “You should really get home. It’s late.”

Margot straightened her spine with what she hoped was a graceful, yoga-like movement. The alcohol, rather than making the edges of things soft and hazy, had turned her field of vision clear and sharp. Was Griff trying to get rid of her? Had she bored him? Did her problems seem petty and obvious, standard fare for an educated, upper-middle-class white woman of a certain age? Her children were healthy, she had a job, money, friends. She was divorced. So what? She had lost her mother. So what? Everyone lost his or her mother eventually. There were people in this world with real problems. There were children in the cancer ward, there were men in Bangladesh being paid twelve or fifteen cents a day to dismantle old cruise liners for scrap metal, there were millions of people across America who had to work the third shift. Margot had no reason to complain.