“Never again, Lily,” I told myself through gritted teeth. “You’re never getting that drunk again.”
Becca was asleep on the sofa, the television quietly on Bravo, when I walked into our apartment. She had the blanket from the back of the sofa over her and had changed into yoga pants and a T-shirt, but she was still wearing her makeup from the night before. An open bottle of wine sat next to an empty glass on the coffee table.
She woke up with a small start when I shut the front door behind me. “What time is it?” she murmured sleepily.
“A little before eight,” I said. “Go back to sleep.”
She squinted up at me. “You look terrible.”
I sighed. “Thanks, Bec.”
She sat up suddenly, taking in my unconventional outfit. “That’s not your shirt. How much fun did you have last night?” She swung her legs off the sofa and I sank down beside her.
“I don’t remember.”
“Always a good start. I thought you were coming home. I was waiting up for you.”
“I was going to. But Amy called. She’s getting married.”
Becca let out a low whistle. “And she wants you in it?” I nodded and she counted on her fingers silently. “Five?” I nodded again.
“Including both my younger brother and my younger sister.”
“Wow.”
I leaned my head back against the wall. “I swear, Bec, if you get engaged this year and want me to be in your wedding, I will never forgive you.”
“I came home alone last night and drank most of a bottle of wine myself in yoga pants, then fell asleep watching reality TV. I think you’re safe.” I smiled tightly. “So whose shirt is it?”
“One of the groomsmen’s.”
“Which one?”
“Whichever one is still sleeping it off in that hotel room.”
“Wait, you saw him this morning, but you don’t know who he is?”
I shook my head. “He was facing the wall. Fight or flight kicked in, and I needed to get out of there fast.”
Becca started to laugh. “This kind of thing could only happen to you. You know that, right?”
“I know.” I stood up and untied the ribbon at my waist. “I’m going to take a shower and wash the shame off. You want to get pancakes when I’m done? If I have to be in five weddings in the same year without even a boyfriend, I’m going to need all of the carbs.”
CHAPTER TWO
Of course, the story of how I got here starts well before the events of Megan’s engagement party. I could take the David Copperfield approach and begin with my birth, but then we would be here for way too long and you would completely lose interest before I got to the juicy stuff, like sleeping with an anonymous groomsman and going viral for being the world’s worst bridesmaid. So it’s probably best to start with the basics.
My name is Lily Weiss, and I am my mother’s worst nightmare. In other words, I am a single, thirty-two-year-old spinster who lacks even the hint of a marital prospect and who is therefore increasingly unlikely to provide her with the grandchildren that she wants yesterday.
Or, as I like to spin it, I am a fabulous career woman who refuses to settle for anything less than true love.
Which would be an easier sell, I suppose, if my career weren’t the most singularly boring job on the planet. Unique? Definitely. Well paying? Nothing lavish, but I’m doing okay. Fabulous? Absolutely freaking not.
I work as the Director of Communications at the Foundation for Scientific Technology. Capital letters theirs, not mine. Such a great title. Such a lame reality. It boils down to writing a lot of press releases for a huge science nonprofit. The foundation funds research experiments around the world, and I write about the findings of those experiments. Which sounds cool until you realize the experiments have no practical application to everyday life. Studies on marine sponge life don’t exactly cure cancer.
It would probably be a total dream job if I liked science, but I don’t. I majored in journalism in college because it was as far from my particle astrophysicist father’s world as I could get. Don’t get me wrong, I adore my dad. But he started his crusade to convince me to follow in his footsteps as soon as I emerged from the womb, and even that early, I wasn’t feeling it. For my eighth birthday, he got me a telescope and a journal to chart the stars in. That telescope sat there collecting dust while I scribbled my first story, about a pony named Chloe, in the journal.
But even majoring in journalism, I was told every time I had to write a technical article that my calling was science journalism. Apparently I have a knack for explaining complex concepts in layman’s terms—maybe that’s what comes from being raised in a household where neutrinos and quarks were dinner-table conversation. And writing jobs are scarce. Writing jobs that pay enough to keep me from sleeping in my childhood bedroom and eating breakfast with my parents every morning are even scarcer. It may not be groundbreaking journalism, but my science-minded colleagues seem impressed with my ability to communicate their efforts to the rest of the world daily.