Love the one youre with

pulled the stopper out of the sink and watched the water drain, slowly at first but then in a loud whoosh. I dried my hands and wiped down the counter with a monogrammed G hand towel. I had the sense that I was stalling, but stalling for what, exactly, I wasn't sure.

That's when Andy looked at me and said, 'So. Ellen?'

Feeling somewhat nervous, I avoided his gaze and replied, 'Yeah?'

Andy cleared his throat while he fiddled with a box of match-sticks on the counter and then said, 'When we get back to the city… what do you say we go out? Grab some dinner or something… Just the two of us?'

There was no mistaking it-Andy was asking me out. My mind raced, thinking about the implications of going out with my best friend's brother. Wasn't it a risky proposition? What if we got serious and things ended badly? Would Margot take sides? Would our friendship survive? Or at the very least, would it be too awkward for me to ever return home with her? And so it occurred to me, in that second, to say no or to make up an excuse of some sort and avoid any potential conflict of interest. There were thousands of eligible men in Manhattan; why go down this road?

Instead, I looked into his blue eyes, icy in color, but warmer than any brown eyes I had ever known, and said coyly, carefully, 'I think that plan has some potential.'

Andy crossed his arms, leaned back against the island, and smiled. I smiled back at him. Then, just as we heard Margot making her way into the kitchen, he gave me a mischievous wink and whispered, 'And just think. If all goes well… you've already met the family.'

For the rest of the weekend, my excitement grew as Andy and I exchanged many knowing glances, particularly the following evening when Stella probed into her two sons' dating status.

'Isn't there anyone special?' she asked as we played Scrabble at the leather table in the game room.

James laughed and said, 'Yeah, Mom. There are lots of special girls… If you get my drift.'

'James,' Stella said, shaking her always professionally coiffed golden head, and feigning exasperation for her middle child, as she spelled out the word gnomes with her remaining letters.

'Good one, Mom,' Andy said adoringly. And then to me, 'Do you know that Mom never loses this game?'

I smile, noting how Southerners drop the word my when talking about their parents. 'I've heard that,' I said, feeling both impressed and slightly intimidated by the Graham matriarch. In fact, winning board games was only one of the many things I'd heard about Stella over the years that contributed to her beloved, almost cult-like, status in her family. Smart, stunning, strong Stella. Charming and charmed, she certainly wasn't going to die of cancer-I was sure of it-but rather asleep in her own bed, at the ripe old age of ninety-four, with a smile on her face, and that perfect head resting on her silk pillowcase.

'That's 'cause she cheats,' James said in his slow, deep drawl, an accent so much thicker than rest of the clan's-which I chalked up to his general slothfulness that permeated even his speech. He winked at me and said, 'You gotta keep your eye on her real good, Ellen. She's a slippery one.'

We all laughed at the preposterous image of the ever-proper Stella Graham cheating, while she shook her head again, her long neck looking particularly graceful. Then she crossed her arms across her gray couture dress, the heavy gold charms on her bracelet sliding toward her elbow.

'What about you, Andrew?' Stella asked.

I felt my face grow warm as I fixed my gaze on her Eiffel Tower charm, undoubtedly a gift from Margot's father, who I call Mr. Graham to this day, the only one not playing tonight. Instead he was reading The Wall Street Journal by the fire and occasionally consulting the dictionary and playing arbitrator of controversial words.

'What about me?' Andy said, evading his mother's question while looking simultaneously amused.

'He dumped Felicia,' Margot offered up. 'Didn't I tell you that?'

Stella nodded, but kept her eyes on Andy. 'Any chance of reconciling with Lucy? Such a sweet, pretty girl,' she said wistfully. 'I loved Lucy.'

James cracked up and then imitated Ricky Ricardo, 'Luuuuuuuu-cy! I'm home!'

We all laughed again, while Andy shot me a fleeting, eyebrows raised, insider's look. 'Nah. I'm over Lucy,' he said, his bare big toe finding my stocking-covered one under the table. 'But I do have a date lined up next week.'

'Really?' Margot and Stella said at once.

'Yup,' Andy said.

'Potential?' Margot asked.

Andy nodded as Mr. Graham looked up from the newspaper with minor curiosity. Margot once told me that her father's only wish was that Andy someday move back to Atlanta and take over his law practice-and viewed his marrying a Yankee as the only significant roadblock to his dream.

Sure enough, Mr. Graham peered over the paper and said, 'Is she from the South, by chance?'

'No,' Andy said. 'But I think you'd all really like her.'

I smiled, blushed, and looked down at my letters, taking it as a good sign that I had an F, A, T, and E on my rack.

So that's how Andy and I got our start. Which is why visiting Margot's family (whom I now refer to as Andy's family, having made the switch somewhere between our first date and marriage) always feels like a bit of a sentimental journey for me, like reading an old love letter or returning to the site of an early-relationship date. And I am thinking of all of this now, about a week after Margot's big baby news, as Andy and I fly to Atlanta for a weekend visit.

It is a smooth flight and there is not a cloud in the cobalt blue February sky, but I am still a bit on edge. I am a nervous flyer, perhaps inheriting the skittishness from my mother who refused to do so altogether. Not that my parents could ever afford to fly anywhere, a fact that pains me as I watch my father and Sharon jet off to Florida every winter, where they embark on their gaudy Caribbean cruises. I want my father to be happy, but sometimes it doesn't seem fair that Sharon gets to enjoy the fruits of my father's retirement-and the fact that I have long since learned that life's not fair doesn't really ease the blow.

In any event, the flight attendant now makes a chipper announcement that we are nearing Hartsfield-Jackson Airport and that we should return our seats and tray tables to their upright position. Andy follows instructions and repositions his USA Today crossword to his lap. He taps his paper with his pen and says, 'I need a four-letter word for summit?'

'Apex,' I say.

Andy shakes his head. 'Doesn't fit.'

I try again. 'Acme?'

He nods. 'Thanks,' he says, looking proud of my crossword prowess. He is the lawyer, but I am the wordsmith. Like his mother, I now routinely kick his ass in Scrabble and Boggle-and really all board games. Which is fine by Andy-he has almost no competitive instinct.

As the plane softly swerves, I grip my armrest with one hand, Andy's leg with my other. I close my eyes, thinking again of that moment in the kitchen so many years ago. It might not be as titillating as striking a love connection with a dark stranger while sequestered on a murder trial, but in some ways it was even better. It had substance. A sweet, solid core. A foundation of friendship and family-the simple things that really mattered, things that lasted. Andy wasn't about mystery because I already knew him by the time he asked me out. Maybe I didn't know him well, and the knowledge I did have was mostly filtered through Margot-but I still knew him in some fundamental, important way. I knew where he came from. I knew who he loved and who loved him back. I knew that he was a good brother and son. I knew that he was a funny, kind, athletic boy. The sort of boy who helps with the dishes after Thanksgiving dinner, ulterior motive or not.

So when Andy and I went on our first date a few days later, we were much farther along than your average couple out on a first date. We were at least in fourth-date terrain, able to skip the autobiographical, get-to-know-