I’m pretty sure showing up to the wedding with a boyfriend will tip his hand.

This is like living in some alternate reality: in one version, Jamey and I are living out a cozy and predictable romantic comedy, happily ever after, except in my parallel universe, the comedy is Will & Grace.

Being the keeper of Jamey’s secret is harder than it should be. Frankly, it’s unfair. I feel a sudden and desperate need to talk to someone who knows the true story.

That would be Ryan.

Hi! I type, and delete.

Hey! delete.

What’s going on? Delete.

What is the matter with me? It’s just Ryan — it’s not like it has to be the cleverest line ever written.

Do you like apple pie? I hit send.

When everything is finally dry, I pile both loads into my laundry basket and start the final ascent to the third floor. I’m developing thighs of steel. Although I’ve never been sure if that’s really a good look.

Still no answer to my text.

In my bedroom, I dig through the clean clothes until I find a pair of jeans and a long-sleeve tee. I pull my hair back with an elastic, grab my wallet and that quilted vest.

“Your plan was to bake an apple pie today and, with or without a boyfriend, that is what you are going to do,” I tell myself. Or applesauce. Not sure yet.

No answer.

At the Tedeschi store down the street, I buy a bag of McIntosh apples, some brown sugar, and a little block of cheddar cheese sealed in plastic. Jamey would never tolerate ingredients from the convenience store. If it wasn’t from Whole Foods, you’d think it was rat poison.

No answer from Ryan.

Back in my kitchen, I get out a bowl and start peeling. Okay, this is where it’s more fun if you’re doing it with a partner. It’s a lot of apples. Jamey would have researched all the different types of apples and he’d explain which was best for what use. He would get the stream of “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” on NPR, and we’d laugh at the jokes. We’d drink hard cider.

We had so much fun. So much damn fun.

“If you stretched these peels out end to end, they’d reach to Worcester.” It’s been so long since I spent an entire day alone, I am starting to talk to myself, just to see if my voice works. “Springfield maybe.”

No answer, either to my comment or my text. Maybe I should get a pet to talk to. A Betta fish. They have to live alone, too.

I make the pastry for the crust and roll it out. You didn’t know I had these culinary skills, did you? The granddaughter of Emmeline Shelton was not raised to buy frozen piecrust at the supermarket, no sir. It cracks a little in the center but I pinch it together. No one will know.

By 5:00, the scent of hot apples, cinnamon, and sugar fills my apartment and probably the apartment across the hall as well.

By 7:00, a golden brown and beautiful pie is sitting on my counter, cool and ready to cut. I briefly consider an Instagram shot, but truth be told, the lattice crust is patched in two places; Jamey would not approve.

At 9:00, I take a fork from the drawer and dig in, eating from the center of the apple pie out to the crust. Why bother with a plate? There’s no one here but me. I lick the syrupy juice from my finger.

Still no answer.

RYAN

We have five kids in my family: Ellen, Michelle, Dina, Tessa …and me.

Notice something different about that last kid?

Yeah. Mom and Dad heard it once I was born. “Kept trying till you had that boy, huh?” Wink wink. Nudge nudge.

Pretty sure it got old pretty fast.

Being the baby boy in a family full of older sisters means there are loads of picture albums with me wearing makeup, dressed in heels and dresses, and being paraded around like a pet. That’s pretty much what I was — a pet.

Because Mom and Dad didn’t expect to have a bumper baby at 43.

Tessa is the next in line, seven years my senior, and she lives on the South Shore outside of Boston. Everyone else is back home, in Concord, California, outside San Francisco. I came here first, a few years ago, and Tessa’s husband happened to get transferred here a year later.

I’m thinking about Tessa because I’m staring at a text from her right now. It’s Saturday. She has twin four-year-old boys. Which means this text is about:

We need you to babysit so we can go to a hotel and have wild monkey sex for a few hours, the text reads.

Tessa has no filter.

Carlos has blue balls. The buildup of semen is so bad, his irises are losing color. If this continues, his accelerated hair growth will be a function of the semen pressing on the hair roots.

STOP! I text back. None of that is biologically possible, but I get the picture. When do you want me to babysit?

How about four days ago? she replies.

I don’t have a time travel machine, I tell her.

Can’t you invent one, Mr. Cal Tech Engineering Grad? Slacker.

Oh, brother.

Er… sister.

Tonight? I’ll get pizza and watch Mythbusters with the twins.

Sounds good. Just don’t teach them how to build a toilet bomb. Be here at 3.

Toilet bomb? What kind of uncle does she think I am?

That’s for second grade. They’re still in preschool. Molotov Cocktails first, then we’re going to hack musical birthday cards to play burping sounds. A man has to pace himself, I reply.

Once a nerd, always a nerd, she answers. I have pictures of you when you were a kid. Get too cocky with my twins and I’ll embarrass you, she shoots back.

Show pictures of me when I was younger to anyone I care about and Carlos will drown in his own semen.

I get a smiley face in return and run through my day.

It’s Saturday. A rare weekend night off for me.

Carrie just got dumped and turned me into Friend Central. Call me Mr. Huggy.

Zeke’s grinding me mercilessly about being a wimp.

And he’s right.

Tessa’s dig about my former nerdiness makes me decide my next move. Lifting. When you lift, your world becomes nothing but metal and gravity. People pay thousands of dollars a year for testosterone supplements. I just need my apartment set of adjustable weights and some music to pump by.

Lifting is the answer to everything.

Bzzzz. It’s my apartment door. I press the call button.

“Yeah?”

“It’s me.” I only know one person with that accent.

“What do you want, fuckface?”