“Because love,” I said, “conquers all.” That night I slept on the couch.

Kelly was scared of her sister’s potential. Julie was the smart one. The genius bored by the ways of the world. She’d aced her SATs. Valedictorian. Mensa begged for her membership. Kelly? Her mind was a mechanical ox, endlessly plowing. She memorized two dozen SAT preps — 2260. She stampeded through book after book, writing cramped notes in the margins, and filed chapter outlines in folders coded by color. She cut back on sleep — in bed at eleven, breakfast at four — and pounded kale-colored pills that promised to “double her memory.” She was embittered by over- ambition. And because we both knew that if Kelly were in Julie’s position she would’ve caved, my job, after their phone calls, was to offer Kelly pessimistic comfort: Julie’ll be fine — but not that fine. She would overcome most, but not every odd. In the end, she’ll live a practical life of domestic travails. This very nearly came true.

Julie and Wes struck up something like friendship. But he was in love with her. He proved it with gifts: dinners, necklaces, dresses and shoes too nice for the coast. One night he took her out on his fanciest boat, Prescylla. She hadn’t told him about Greg or Theo. They were part of a fragile, parallel world that would collapse if it bumped into the salty, sumptuous world furnished by Wes. And on the boat she imagined a life without Theo, a life in which she gave up searching, a tranquil life, where the future didn’t emerge from the past, where she would learn to love her homely, generous husband, and be happier for it.

The next morning Wes asked her to marry him. “Sure,” she said. Wes ran to the prow, joyously screaming, and Julie, realizing what she had done, began to see herself growing old in a prison cell papered with money. When they docked she kissed him, lengthily, and told him she needed to put in her notice at work. She walked to the auto body shop. The mechanic wanted seven- hundred for the Buick. “But I’ve heard some things that might make me go lower.” He smiled tightly, lips chewing teeth, as he dropped his hand to her waist. She slapped him, and paid $450, plus whatever he charged for new tires.