Isabel a was drunk. It was happy hour and her friends had ignored her requests to go somewhere that served food. She’d ended up sitting on a bar stool in her rumpled work clothes, plotting to stop for pizza on the way home, when Harrison approached her and introduced himself. And because she could think of nothing better to say, she asked, “Do people cal you Harry?”

“No,” he answered. He looked as though she’d asked if people cal ed him Bob or Walter.

“Oh,” she said. She shouldn’t have had the third dirty martini. She could hear her voice from somewhere deep inside her head. And from in there she sounded retarded.

Isabel a was tired. It was already almost eight o’clock and it would be a lot of work to talk to someone new. She had to be at the office early the next day. She contemplated excusing herself, getting up, and leaving. She could be home in her pajamas with pizza in thirty minutes.

But then her plan seemed too hard to carry out and so she let herself sit there. And after a few minutes, she leaned forward on the stool in a wobbly way and kissed Harrison in a crowded bar.

And that was how Harrison and Isabel a met.

Her friends cal ed him handsome, but what he was, was pretty. He had high cheekbones, delicate features, and flawless coloring—porcelain skin and cheeks that flushed natural y when he was excited. His shirts were never wrinkled. Even untucked at the end of a day, with his tie pul ed loose, he looked staged, like somebody had gotten him a wardrobe for “end of the workday.”

Around him, Isabel a felt sweaty and bloated more often than not. She wanted to apologize when she got a pimple or had to blow her nose. She was fairly certain he never had boogers.

Harrison met new people graceful y, shook guys’ hands and grasped their arm with his left hand. He kissed girls on the cheeks and remembered names. He was always interested in conversation, tilting his head at whoever was talking, nodding and interjecting every so often, but not enough to be obnoxious.

“He’s the one!” Isabel a’s friends said. “We can’t believe you found him!”

The ones with boyfriends and fiancés were relieved for Isabel a. She was twenty-seven and they al agreed it was about time. The single ones were sort of happy and a little annoyed. They’d been at the bar that night too. Isabel a was pretty, but not gorgeous. Where had they been when he’d come up to her? (But for the most part, they were happy, of course.)

Harrison knew how to date. He made plans to go to dinner at restaurants where they could drink margaritas and hear each other talk. He took her to movies and then to a diner for gril ed cheese. He always paid. He cal ed when he said he would, and held the door for her. The first night she stayed at his apartment, he woke up early and came back with two cups of coffee.

“I like him,” Isabel a told her friends. She sounded miserable. “He’s real y fun. It makes me feel sick.”

Isabel a knew enough by now to know that this wasn’t a common occurrence. You didn’t just bump into a nice guy that you liked every day. She was positive that she was going to mess it up.

Harrison and Isabel a had been dating for three weeks when he mentioned the ski trip. He brought it up casual y one day, as though the thought had just occurred to him that very moment, asking, “Do you want to go skiing for New Year’s?”

Isabel a was in a panic almost immediately. She had been up most nights wondering if they would exchange Christmas presents, imagining the horror of handing him a wrapped box and being greeted with an uncomfortable look. New Year’s hadn’t even entered her mind yet. She was trying to deal with one holiday at a time.

“Isabel a?”

“What?”

“New Year’s? A bunch of my friends are renting a house in Vermont. It should be fun.”

“Fun” was a relative term, Isabel a knew. Something that seemed fun when compared to doing nothing could real y end up being a horrific mistake. And a weekend with strangers could be up there with a car crash.

“Do I know any of them?”

“Um … I’m not sure. You met Parker, right?”