"I guess because you don't feel it," he said in a low voice.

"Huh?"

"There's no one you want to spend your life with," he explained. "Unfortunately for me. When you do feel that way, Roxy, you'll understand. You take the bad with the good. The poorer with the richer, the sickness with the health, the however the rest of it goes. It's not all l.u.s.t and scintillating conversation. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad. Sometimes you're just at peace deep inside yourself because that person you married is yours."

I shook all thought of Robbie out of my head and forced myself to think hot thoughts of Nathanial, good-looking, dark haired, undimpled Nathanial. If I slept with him, wouldn't I fall for him? Not that it worked for guys. But didn't women get emotional over men they slept with?

Yeah, men they're already in love withor at least in serious like with, I heard Miranda say in my head.

I wanted to sleep with Nathanial, whose middle name I'd already forgotten. I wanted to want another guy. I couldn't want Robbie. It just didn't make sense. Not after everything that had happened.

And so after a nice (if dull) time in a French restaurant, in which we went over the same ground we had covered on dates one and twoour siblings (neither of us had any), our college majors, which films we thought would win the Academy AwardsI invited Nathanial upstairs for a nightcap. I eyed Miranda's note on the coffeepot: Sleeping over at Lucy's against my better judgment! Don't do anything you'll regret.

I tossed her note in the silverware drawer, then headed back into the living room, where Nathanial sat on the futon, his arms folded behind his head. He stared at me; I stared at him. And before I had the gla.s.ses even steady on the table, I straddled him, pressed myself against that amazing chest, that amazing pelvis.

In two seconds, a purple square wrapper was on the floor. And for the next half hour, I had incredibly boring s.e.x with a guy who wasn't Robbie. Of course, Nathanial didn't fall asleep two seconds later or mysteriously remember that he had a midnight dentist appointment or that he had to get up really early in the morning for work (not that I had firsthand experience with this, but I did listen to my friends). Instead, he stroked my hair. He told me I was lovely. He asked if I was hungry and wanted him to whip me up an omelet. A half hour later, he lay spooned against me, fast asleep. And that was when I allowed myself to cry as quietly as I could.

The next morning, Nathanial was leaving as Miranda was arriving. He kissed me and said, "I'll call you tonight."

"I have a wedding tonight," I told him. "I'll call you soon, okay?"

He eyed me, then smiled and left.

Miranda folded her arms across her chest. "Unbelievable. You're the guy." She grabbed my hand and sat me down on the futon. "So did you sleep with him? How was it?"

I tied my bathrobe tightly around me and dropped down like a lump on the futon. I covered my face with my hands.

"Rox?" Miranda said, sitting down next to me. "What?"

"He's not Robbie," I said. "Granted, Robbie is amazing in bed. But it wasn't just that the s.e.x with Nathanial was dull. It was that he wasn't Robbie." I stared at the condom wrapper. "Why wasn't it better? Nathanial is so hot! He's everything I'm looking for in a guy. Why don't I feel anything?"

Miranda squeezed my hand. "Rox, it's not about the checklist, it's about the guy. Even I know that, and I don't know anything."

"No, I don't know anything."

"You know bad s.e.x from good," Miranda said, handing me half her cream-cheese-and-lox-topped bagel.

Brianna Love's wedding dress cost twelve thousand dollars. A bargain by Hollywood standards. I spent the rest of the morning and afternoon trying not to think about Nathanial or Robbie, or Jackie's wedding, which I'd have to leave for in a few hours.

And so I lay on my bed, alternating between reading Chapters Seven, Eight and Nine of Beau and Bri: The Courtship of the Century and reading People magazine, which had a spread devoted to her wedding plans. Her gown was so similar to mineexcept mine was eleven thousand four hundred dollars cheaperlow cut and ornate with puffs and beads and cap sleeves and yards and yards of tulle and a train that went on and on. "I'm just a simple girl," Bri told the People reporter. "But on my wedding day, I really will feel like a princess!"

I hadn't even liked my wedding gown. How stupid was that? My mother loved it. Rita Roberts loved it. "I just want something simple," I'd said for the hundredth time from my perch in front of the three-way mirror in the bridal shop.

"Simple is boring!" they said in unison. "This is a wedding gown."

But I hated it. I tried on twelve other dresses, all of which were wrong, wrong, wrong. And then Rita asked me to try on the one she and my mother loved. She took a picture of me with her cell phone (gotta love technology) and sent the photo to Robbie with a what do you think? A minute later, his mother handed me the phone.

You're too beautiful for words, he'd text-messaged back.

By then I'd pretty much stopped trusting my judgment when it came to my wedding. I didn't like anything. Not the entree samples. Not the wine. Not the flowers. Not the bridesmaid dresses, which were between teal and royal-blue. I wasn't sure if I hated everything because I didn't want to get married or because I hated everything. And so I said okay to everything to make it go away. Forgetting that the day after Thanksgiving was going to come whether I hid under the covers or not.

I flopped over onto my stomach, picked up my pencil and got back to Bri and Beau's fairy-tale life.

My cousin Jackie was eighteen years old. She was saying "I do" to her high-school sweetheart, a nice guy named Vincent who adored her. No one on either side of the family thought she was too young. I was planning to interview her and her husband when they returned from their honeymoon. On the phone a few weeks ago, Jackie had said, "Do I like that he hangs out with his stupid friends every Friday night? No. Does he like that I scream my head off if he dares leave a dirty sock on the bathroom floor? No. Does either of us think we're always gonna want to have s.e.x three times a day?" She laughed, then said, "Yeah. Vince is so hot. Anyway, Roxy, if we didn't think we'd be married forever, we wouldn't be getting married, would we?"

Good point, my cousin.

And so, on this very cold February night, I took a car service to Bay Ridge, to the church in which I myself was going to be married. Everyone whom I'd interviewed or had yet to interview had been married in this church. They'd taken their vows of for better or for worse to heart, and for better or for worse, they were still married, still loving, still fighting, still doing what it took to stay together, because no matter what, they either loved each other or they loved the marriage. And that was what it tookI was beginning to understandthat was the secret. As Robbie had said, they had to want to be there. Both parties had to either love the other or they had to love the marriage. It turned out to be as simple and as complicated as that.

As I headed up the stone steps, I spotted Patty's unmistakable gorgeous red hair. She'd just walked inside. I strained my neck around the tall men in front of me; yup, there was Robbie, right beside her, his hand on the small of her back.

My stomach twisted. Then it twisted again for twisting in the first place. I broke up with him. I ran away from our wedding. For a reason! Reasons! I don't want to go on a second date with him.

Then why does the sight of Robbie with Patty break your heart? Why can't you wish them well? It's just a platonic date, I reminded myself. He's not in love with Patty. You don't have to worry.

Hypocrite, I yelled at myself. You had s.e.x with someone last night!

I took a deep breath and forced myself up the stairs. My aunt Maureen (she wasn't the mother of the bride; Jackie was the daughter of my father's sister) suddenly grabbed me into a hug, and I was so happy to see her after all these months that I almost started crying.

"Look at you!" she said, cradling my face between her hands. She studied my scalp. "Whoever did your color did a decent job," she added, winking at me. "G.o.d, I've missed you."

"Me too, Aunt Maureen," I said. "I'm sorry I've been such a stranger."

She shook her head. "I'll have none of that. I know you're figuring stuff out. It's not easy being twenty-five and independent. But it's probably a good thing to be. I've spent the past three months trying to get your mother to believe that, but she's holding out for you to come home."

I squeezed her hand. "Thanks, Aunt Maureen."

"Your uncle is talking football with his cronies," she said. "How about you escort an old broad inside."

I smiled and slipped my hand around her arm and inhaled her perfume and felt both stronger and sadder. How I'd missed her. How I'd missed home.

My father's brother, my uncle Frank, stood in the center of the last pews, directing guests. "Bride's side or groom's," he asked me.

I smiled at him. "Uncle Frank, it's me, Roxy."

He eyed me. He had no idea who I was.

"Roxy Marone," I said. "Your brother's daughter?"

"Roxy?" He squinted at me. "You're not Roxy."

"I changed my hair. It's dark again and shorter and straight."

"Rox?" He squinted again. "You don't look like you at all."

I smelled my mother's trademark perfumeWhite Shoulders. "This is what you want?" she whispered into my ear from behind me. "For your own family not to recognize you?"

I whirled around and just hugged her. She sighed and shook her head, but hugged me back.

"Do you recognize me?" I asked her.

She eyed me. "Yes." Tears came to my eyes, and she whipped a tissue out of her little beaded purse. She dabbed under my eyes. "I may not understand you, but I love you."

"Me too," I said, and we hugged again.

I felt eyes on me and I turned to find Robbie staring at me. Then Patty looked over and frowned, and I looked away.

It was going to be a long night.

At the reception I said h.e.l.lo to relatives I hadn't seen in months, but most of them didn't recognize me. They smiled polite smiles, momentarily confused at how this person they didn't know knew their names or children's names. My former bridesmaids acted strangely around me. "You just don't look like you," they said. "Or act like you."

"But I'm me!" I told them. It was no use. Conversations petered out and they drifted away.

For the first two hours of the party, I sat with my parents and their crowd. I watched Robbie and Patty dance. Watched her arms around his neck. His hand at her waist. Her mouth so close to his ear, his neck, his mouth. Finally, I couldn't take it. I stared at the seven-tiered wedding cake.

"May I have this dance?"

I turned around to find Robbie holding out his hand.

"I don't think Patty would like that," I whispered. I'd forced myself to lay low, out of his radar and off the dance floor. Patty had been nice enough to ask how I felt about her going for Robbie. It wouldn't be fair of me to parade around the dance floor. I'd been thrilled to have an excuse to say no to a few drunken male guests.

"Patty's making out with Evan by the buffet," he said, smiling. "I think it started as an attempt to make me jealous, but now they're really going at it." I glanced over, and there, indeed, was Patty, lip-locked with Evan McDonald, a guy who'd been nuts about her for a long time.

I took Robbie's hand and we began slow dancing to Frank Sinatra.

"I guess I was hoping you might be a little jealous at seeing me with another woman," he said. "I know, immature. But a guy can hope. I guess I just have to say goodbye."

Butbut what?

I could feel Robbie sizing up my hesitation. "Roxy, if you have feelings for me, say so. Say something."

"I slept with someone else," I said before I could stop myself. The words came out of my mouth almost on their own.

"Are you in love with him?" he asked, no change in his voice. Or his expression.

I shook my head, surprised that I'd told him, surprised by his lack of reaction. "I thought that if I slept with someone else, the spell of us would be broken. That I could move on."

"And?"

"And it didn't change a thing. I'm as confused as ever."

"Did the b.a.s.t.a.r.d hurt you?" he asked, his green eyes glinting.

"No," I said. "Not at all. Other way around, in fact. I think he really liked me."

Robbie stepped away from me. Now his expression changed. "So you're going around breaking hearts."

"I'm just confused, Robbie."

He let out a deep breath and ran a hand through his silky blond hair. "You know what, Roxy? I finally have it through my thick skull that I'm not what you want. I thought I could show you that I am. I thought that by answering your personal ad, I could show you that the guy you let get away is the one you're actually looking for. That I can order Thai food with the best of them. That I support you in your decision to keep your own name. That I'll wait till our thirties to start a family. That I'll live in Manhattan or Mars or anywhere you want. I thought if I could show you that I've changedthat I'm willing to changethat you'd come running back to me. But now I finally realize that's not the case. Because you're not looking for a guy who wants this or that. You're looking for something else. I don't know what that is. So I just need to let you go. Bow out gracefully, as the song says." He turned to walk away.

"Robbie" I had no idea what I was going to say. But I didn't want him to walk away from me. Please don't go.

"Oh yeah. One more thing. I go by Rob now." And then he disappeared into the crowd.

At the crack of dawn I was still flipping and flopping on the twin bed in my old bedroom in my parents' house. I needed to see Robbie. I needed to try to explain. I threw on my wool coat and my boots and slipped down the stairs and out the back door in the kitchen. I ran the three blocks to my old apartment and let myself in, using the key I never could take off my keychain.

I knocked on the apartment door. Nothing. I knocked harder. Finally I heard footsteps. Then the locks turning. And then there he was, sleepy and rumpled and gorgeous.

"I think I understand what I was looking for, Robbie. I mean, Rob."

He gestured for me to come inside and closed the door behind me. "What's that?"

"Hokey as it sounds, I was looking for me. And I didn't think I'd ever find who that was by becoming Roxy Roberts and cooking elaborate meals and hanging out with the female relatives. I still don't want to do any of that. But I do know that I love you."

And that was the truth. I loved Robbie Roberts. I didn't love what came with him, but I loved the person he was. Not the person he was trying to be. I finally understood that I loved that he was trying. We could both try. But we had to start from scratch, as these new people we'd become.

His shoulders sagged with relief. "I love you too, Roxy. It took me a long time to realize how stubborn I was about some ridiculous things. I don't have to live in Brooklyn to be close to my family. I can live a half-hour drive away. You don't have to change your name to make me sure that we're married. You don't have to cook when I can either learn or starve. It's you I want, Roxy. Not a lifestyle. You."

Tears filled my eyes. "We've got a lot to learn about ourselves and each other."

He nodded. "A lot to learn."

I smiled. "So, I was wondering if you'd like to go on that second date sometime."

"Yes, I would," he said, beaming. "Are you free right now?"

"Oh, I'm free," I said.

At work on Monday morning, Team Wedding met in the conference room to celebrate our hard work. Lucy had turned in the final ma.n.u.script of Beau and Bri: The Courtship of the Century.

"This weekend I almost had my membership in the Breakup Club upgraded from special status to official member," I told Lucy, Miranda and Christopher as Christopher pa.s.sed out plastic cups of orange juice. "Robbie was about to walk away for good. But I came to some big realizations and we talked for hours about who we are and what we want, and tonight we're having our third date!"

"I guess I'll be sleeping over at your place tonight, Lucy," Miranda said, winking at me.

Christopher raised his cup of orange juice. "Here, here. To the Breakup Club."

"Actually, I think we should change our name," Lucy said.

"To what?" I asked.

Lucy smiled. "The Wakeup Club."

Four cups of orange juice clinked in the air.

COMING NEXT MONTH.