Thanksgiving Day announced itself through the aroma of baking poultry in the air. Even still lying in bed with an entire storey of the house separating me from the kitchen, it was tangible. Although it was actually Marianne who announced the festivity, given that there would be no meal without all of her hard work in the kitchen these past two days. Though we never cooked this much at home, the scent reminded me of a family holiday. My heart grew heavy for a minute, but I reminded myself how lucky I was to be with these kind people for Thanksgiving this year. The men had better be aware of what they had in Marianne.

After swiftly getting up and changing, I hurried downstairs to support her. All of Thanksgiving morning ended up going into more cooking, decorating, and preparing all sorts of other things. Being Marianne, she thanked me exuberantly and blew my contribution out of proportion when my help had really been miniscule. Breakfast was more or less skipped, but John and I managed to sneak away for ten minutes to eat some toast.

At noon, John's brother and his fiancée arrived. I was in the dining room setting the table when the doorbell rang. Happy voices greeted each other before John reentered the room tailed by two people in their late twenties: the younger version of his dad I had seen in the photos, wearing a gray sweater with the collar of a white button-down shirt peeking out from underneath the crew neck, and a gorgeous blonde in a waist-hugging maroon dress, pantyhose, and a white cardigan. I was glad I had carved out the time to take a shower and get changed earlier. In my black cotton tights, black skirt, and soft, cream-colored sweater I at least didn't feel entirely inadequate next to all these beautiful people.

For a second, there was another stab in my chest thinking of the family Thanksgiving at the Bellamys' we could be having right now, casual, low-profile, little hassle, all for the price of a mediocre holiday dinner instead of this undoubtedly delicious feast. I quickly presented a big smile and stepped around the table.

John introduced me: "Andrew, Laura, this is my friend Grace. Grace, my brother Andrew and his girlfriend Laura."

"Fiancée," Andrew corrected and grinned.

Laura rolled her eyes playfully and muttered under her breath: "It makes no difference in this situation." Then she stretched out her hand and sent me a dazzling smile. "Hi, I'm Laura, it's so nice to meet you, Grace."

Andrew jumped right in and shook my hand firmly. "Good to meet you."

"You, too," I replied politely. I wanted to say, 'I've heard so much about you', but I hadn't. Just like I had heard little about his parents beyond their occupations. The realization was surprising to me because he talked a lot, but John was a very private person.

Just then, Marianne rushed into the room, still putting on one earring, and shouted a warm welcome to her son and future daughter-in-law before she engulfed each of them in a tight hug.

"Thanks so much for having us over, Marianne! You didn't go to too much trouble preparing dinner, did you?"

Marianne denied and waved her hand dismissively, but John and I secretly exchanged a knowing smile behind her back. When I looked back at Laura, my eyes met hers and she mirrored our expression. Of course Marianne had gone to too much trouble. I was willing to bet she was known to do that, and not just before holidays.

Minutes later, Mr. Jay unlocked the front door, greeted everyone and kissed his wife, then took off his dress shoes. Going to the office on Thanksgiving Day was strange to me, what could be so important that it couldn't wait until Monday or at least Friday? But I didn't know the first thing about lawyering, he probably had his reasons.

"How long until the game starts?" he asked.

"About 20 minutes," Andrew informed him.

Mr. Jay motioned toward the TV room and his sons accompanied him. They offered Laura and me to come along, but I was glad Laura declined first so I would feel okay staying, too.

"I could not care less about football," she explained.

"Me neither," I admitted. "Most sports, but I especially don't understand football."

"Tell me about it," Laura groaned. "Like, what are they doing? Is anything moving in that game? The ref blows the whistle every thirty seconds and then those two dozen brutes of men jump onto each other."

"Right?" I could get used to her. "Ugh, I usually feel like they'd put me in front of the Un-American Activities Committee or something when I say I don't like football."

Laura let out a snorting laugh that caught me off guard. It didn't match the preppy, bourgeois Barbie I saw at all. When she took note of my stunned face, she smirked and shrugged.

***

The time the turkey needed to finish roasting, Laura and I used to get to know each other better. She asked me questions about myself, my friends, college, and my family. I told her about Jessica and Linh, about The Early Republic and my social psych class, about the last book I had read for fun over the summer, The Catcher in the Rye (read it in school, but I hadn't understood it then), and I even told her a little bit about Southern Maine and my parents' divorce and my sister.

When I eventually asked about her, she told me everything there was to know about her, or so she claimed. I got the sense that there were always more layers to her and was happy to find my first impression of her was wrong—I was beginning to notice a pattern of judging people too quickly.

Laura was Franco-Canadian-American, her mom's side of the family being from Québec and her dad's side being from Cape Cod. She and her younger brother and older sister had been raised bilingual and each spoke another language apart from their native languages, hers was Spanish. She had volunteered abroad with Doctors Without Borders the previous year where she had helped vaccinate children against polio in Pakistan. Now she was a pediatrician at a hospital in Manhattan.

"How did you and Andrew meet?" I rested my chin in my palm. We were seated beside each other at the dining table, the fabric of the white tablecloth soft against my elbow.

She grinned bashfully. "It's such a cliché story, I can't even believe this happened to me. Senior year in college at UPenn, we were in the same tiny, weird English class we both needed to graduate, but we weren't close then. If anything, I thought his out-of-place pseudo-profound philosophical musings were obnoxious. Much later, he told me he was trying to impress me back then. Anyway, we graduated and lost touch quicker than you can say 'I know that I know nothing'—until we ran into each other again during orientation at Columbia where Andrew went to law school and I to med school. We met at the administration office.

"Our relationship was a nerve-wracking slow-burn, full of miscommunication."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Ugh, it's all so silly in hindsight. It took us forever to make it official even after we'd been dating without a label for months. Finally, when my roommate moved out, I asked Andrew to move in with me on a whim. I've never regretted the decision, except for when he snores."

"So you've been together for how long, then?"

The way she spoke about her relationship was so down to earth, so humble and calm that it sounded like they'd been married for 40 years.

"It'll be 5 years this spring. It's not long, I know."

Um, that sounds long to me.

"I honestly didn't expect to get married so young. But when Andrew asked me, it felt like the most natural thing in the world. It was, like, 'duh', you know?"

"Wow, that's amazing," I said earnestly.

"The date is set for February, the first weekend of your winter break.We picked the date so John can come.It'll be wonderfully awful. We wanted to have our closest friends and family there, but eventually caved to our parents and expanded the guest list to about 100. And there's also so much social expectation attached to marriage, you know?"

I could imagine, so I nodded.

At this time, Marianne popped her head in the doorframe to the dining room where we were sitting. There was a splotch of gravy on her apron, but she looked impeccable otherwise, even after two days of intense cooking and cleaning labor.

"Are you girls talking about the wedding?" she asked, and Laura nodded. "Grace, you should come!"

"Me?" I exclaimed in surprise. "But I'm neither friends nor family."

"Sure you're a friend!" she said sincerely. "The more the merrier, and I know John would like a friendly face there to help him weather the quirky relatives. Especially since his girlfriend will be traveling at the time."

So John's girlfriend was spending winter break abroad. She seemed like the type whose family would tour Europe for a week and think they'd immersed themselves in 'the European culture'.

But even without her, going to the wedding? Me? I looked to Laura who seemed not fazed in the least by Marianne's hijacking of her guest list. On the contrary, she looked at me expectantly while Marianne excused herself back to the stove.

Something inside me said 'bad idea'. Sure, Laura seemed great, but I barely knew her. "You don't have to be polite. I'm not crashing your wedding because your brother-in-law would potentially like to host me again. And it's not like he said something to me about it."

Laura exhaled. "He wouldn't. The Jay men wouldn't be caught dead talking about feelings or other sentimentalities. Haven't you noticed?"

Wow, I had gotten lucky with that slam dunk of asking Mr. Jay about his favorite spots on campus. If I believed Laura, it could have gone differently.

"I guess. But why would you want me there? You don't invite everyone you meet."

"Of course not. I'm inviting you. And Andrew is fine with it, too."

My eyebrows knitted together. I knew him even less than his fiancée. "How do you know?"

"He's fine with anything as long as I'm marrying him," she replied with a mischievous grin.

I smirked. "Alright, I'll think about it."

As much as I already liked Laura, no way in hell was I going to that wedding. After the recent fight, it was evident Liam would want to murder me if I went to a frickin' wedding with John.

"You'd be the only one who could save John from their Aunt Betty's champagne-driven rants. I'm expecting your RSVP by tomorrow."