“That sounds nice,” I say inadequately.

“Do you see what I’m saying?” He fixes me with an intense stare, and I suddenly notice the purple shadows beneath his eyes. God, he looks exhausted. “The light enters Manhattan… and becomes trapped. Trapped in its own world, bouncing backward and forward with no escape.”

“Well… yes, I suppose. Except… sometimes it rains, doesn’t it?”

“And people are the same.”

“Are they?”

“This is the world we’re living in now. Self-reflecting. Self-obsessed. Ultimately pointless. Look at that guy in the hospital. Thirty-three years old — and he has a heart attack. What if he’d died? Would he have had a fulfilled life?”

“Er—”

“Have I had a fulfilled life? Be honest, Becky. Look at me, and tell me.”

“Well… um… of course you have!”

“Bullshit.” He picks up a nearby Brandon Communications press release and gazes at it. “This is what my life has been about. Meaningless pieces of information.” To my shock, he starts to rip it up. “Meaningless fucking bits of paper.”

Suddenly I notice he’s tearing up our joint bank statement too.

“Luke! That’s our bank statement!”

“So what? What does it matter? It’s only a few pointless numbers. Who cares?”

“But… but…”

Something is wrong here.

“What does any of it matter?” He scatters the shreds of paper on the floor, and I force myself not to bend down and pick any of them up. “Becky, you’re so right.”

“I’m right?” I say in alarm.

Something is very wrong here.

“We’re all too driven by materialism. With success. With money. With trying to impress people who’ll never be impressed, whatever you…” He breaks off, breathing hard. “It’s humanity that matters. We should know homeless people. We should know Bolivian peasants.”

“Well… yes,” I say after a pause. “But still—”

“Something you said a while back has been going round and round in my head all day. And now I can’t forget it.”

“What was that?” I say nervously.

“You said…” He pauses, as though trying to get the words just right. “You said that we’re on this planet for too short a time. And at the end of the day, what’s more important? Knowing that a few meaningless figures balanced — or knowing that you were the person you wanted to be?”

I gape at him.“But… but that was just stuff I made up! I wasn’t being serious—”

“I’m not the person I want to be, Becky. I don’t think I’ve ever been the person I wanted to be. I’ve been blinkered. I’ve been obsessed by all the wrong things—”

“Come on!” I say, squeezing his hand encouragingly. “You’re Luke Brandon! You’re successful and handsome and rich…”

“I’m not the person I should have become. The trouble is, now I don’t know who that person is. I don’t know who I want to be… what I want to do with my life… which path I want to take…” He slumps forward and buries his head in his hands. “Becky, I need some answers.”

I don’t believe it. At age thirty-four Luke is having a midlife crisis.


SECOND UNION BANK

53 Wall Street

New York, NY 10005


May 23, 2002

Miss Rebecca Bloomwood

Apt. B251 W. 11th Street

New York, NY 10014


Dear Miss Bloomwood:

Thank you for your letter of May 21. I am glad you are starting to think of me as a good friend, and in answer to your question, my birthday is October 31.

I also appreciate that weddings are expensive affairs. Unfortunately, however, I am unable to extend your credit limit from $5,000 to $105,000 at the current time.

I can instead offer you an increased limit of $6,000, and hope this goes some way to help.

Yours sincerely,


Walt Pitman

Director of Customer Relations


49 Drakeford Road

Potters Bar

Hertfordshire


27 May 2002


Mr. Malcolm Bloomwood thanks Mrs. Elinor Sherman very much for her kind invitation to Becky and Luke’s wedding at the Plaza on 22nd June. Unfortunately he must decline, as he has broken his leg.


The Oaks

43 Elton Road

Oxshott, Surrey


27 May 2002


Mr. and Mrs. Martin Webster thank Mrs. Elinor Sherman very much for her kind invitation to Becky and Luke’s wedding at the Plaza on 22nd June. Unfortunately they must decline, as they have both contracted glandular fever.


9 Foxtrot Way

Reigate

Surrey


27 May 2002


Mr. and Mrs. Tom Webster thank Mrs. Elinor Sherman very much for her kind invitation to Becky and Luke’s wedding at the Plaza on 22nd June. Unfortunately they must decline, as their dog has just died.

Seventeen


THIS IS GETTING beyond a joke. Luke hasn’t been to work for over a week. Nor has he shaved. He keeps going out and wandering around God knows where and not coming home until the early hours of the morning. And yesterday I arrived back from work to find he’d given away half his shoes to people on the street.

I feel so helpless. Nothing I do seems to work. I’ve tried making him bowls of nourishing, homemade soup. (At least, it says they’re nourishing and homemade on the can.) I’ve tried making warm, tender love to him. Which was great as far as it went. (And that was pretty far, as it happens.) He seemed better for a little while — but in the end it didn’t change anything. Afterward, he was just the same, all moody and staring into space.

The thing I’ve tried the most is just sitting down and talking to him. Sometimes I really think I’m getting somewhere. But then he either just reverts back into depression, or says, “What’s the use?” and goes out again. The real trouble is, nothing he says seems to be making any sense. One minute he says he wants to quit his company and go into politics, that’s where his heart lies and he should never have sold out. (Politics? He’s never mentioned politics before.) The next moment he’s saying fatherhood is all he’s ever wanted, let’s have six children and he’ll stay at home and be a house-husband.

Meanwhile his assistant keeps phoning every day to see if Luke’s better, and I’m having to invent more and more lurid details. He’s practically got the plague by now.

I’m so desperate, I phoned Michael this morning and he’s promised to come over and see if he can do anything. If anyone can help, Michael can.

And as for the wedding…

I feel ill every time I think about it. It’s three weeks away. I still haven’t come up with a solution.

Mum calls me every morning and somehow I speak perfectly normally to her. Robyn calls me every afternoon and somehow I also speak perfectly normally to her. I even made a joke recently about not turning up on the day. We laughed, and Robyn quipped, “I’ll sue you!” and I managed not to sob hysterically.

I feel like I’m in free fall. Plummeting toward the ground without a parachute.

I don’t know how I’m doing it. I’ve slipped into a whole new zone, beyond normal panic, beyond normal solutions. It’s going to take a miracle to save me.

Which is basically what I’m pinning my hopes on now. I’ve lit fifty candles at St. Thomas’s, and fifty more at St. Patrick’s, and I’ve put up a petition on the prayer board at the synagogue on Sixty-fifth, and given flowers to the Hindu god Ganesh. Plus a group of people in Ohio who I found on the Internet are all praying hard for me.

At least, they’re praying that I find happiness following my struggle with alcoholism. I couldn’t quite bring myself to explain the full two-weddings story to Father Gilbert, especially after I read his sermon on how deceit is as painful to the Lord as is the Devil gouging out the eyes of the righteous. So I went with alcoholism, because they already had a page on that.

There’s no respite. I can’t even relax at home. The apartment feels like it’s closing in on me. There are wedding presents in huge cardboard boxes lining every room. Mum sends about fifty faxes a day, Robyn’s taken to popping in whenever she feels like it, and there’s a selection of veils and headdresses in the sitting room that Dream Dress sent to me without even asking.

“Becky?” I look up from my breakfast coffee to see Danny wandering into the kitchen. “The door was open. Not at work?”

“I’ve taken the day off.”

“I see.” He reaches for a piece of cinnamon toast and takes a bite. “So, how’s the patient?”

“Very funny.”

“Seriously.” For a moment Danny looks genuinely concerned, and I feel myself unbend a little. “Has Luke snapped out of it yet?”

“Not really,” I admit, and his eyes brighten.

“So are there any more items of clothing going?”

“No!” I say indignantly. “There aren’t. And don’t think you can keep those shoes!”

“Brand-new Pradas? You must be kidding! They’re mine. Luke gave them to me. If he doesn’t want them anymore—”

“He does. He will. He’s just… a bit stressed at the moment. Everyone gets stressed! It doesn’t mean you can take their shoes!”

“Everybody gets stressed. Everybody doesn’t give away hundred-dollar bills to total strangers.”

“Really?” I look up anxiously. “He did that?”

“I saw him at the subway. There was a guy there with long hair, carrying a guitar… Luke just went up to him and handed him a wad of money. The guy wasn’t even begging. In fact, he looked pretty offended.”