In the chap­ter from “The Last One at the Wed­ding,” the pro­tag­o­nist returns to his bed­room to find it clean and orga­nized, sug­gest­ing a house­keep­er had tidied up after a chaot­ic pre­vi­ous night. His suit­case is unpacked, the bath­room is free of vom­it, and even the cedar clos­et is clear of dad­dy lon­glegs. As he pre­pares for the wed­ding, he care­ful­ly unpacks his hand-tai­lored, pearl-gray tuxe­do from Italy. The pris­tine white shirt is com­ple­ment­ed by black onyx studs, and he feels pride in being able to tie a real bow tie, despite the acces­so­ry pack­age con­tain­ing a clip-on ver­sion.

Amidst dress­ing, his phone buzzes with a call from Vicky, who express­es con­cern for his well­be­ing. Their con­ver­sa­tion reveals ten­sion; he recounts a trou­bling inci­dent involv­ing a girl and drugs found in her cot­tage, which he strug­gles to dis­cuss. He describes her as a “very trou­bled per­son,” but also lies about the sit­u­a­tion con­cern­ing anoth­er indi­vid­ual, Dawn Tag­gart, claim­ing it was mere­ly a mis­un­der­stand­ing. He attrib­ut­es his mis­in­ter­pre­ta­tions to being unac­cus­tomed to the peo­ple in town, insist­ing every­thing has been resolved.

Despite his reas­sur­ances, Vick­y’s son Todd has been wor­ried about him, indi­cat­ing that some­thing deep­er may be amiss. Frank believes he has vis­i­bly upset her, but he main­tains the façade of nor­mal­cy, has­ten­ing to inform her that the wed­ding cer­e­mo­ny is immi­nent. Vicky’s lin­ger­ing doubts man­i­fest in her insis­tence on his well-being, prompt­ing Frank to assure her one last time that he’ll call her once home.

Ulti­mate­ly, he reflects on the toast he must deliv­er at the wed­ding, extract­ing a sin­gle sheet of yel­low lined paper with his speech draft. Despite his prepa­ra­tion, he is struck by the real­iza­tion that his words feel insin­cere. He acknowl­edges that he has­n’t tru­ly believed his own speech, reveal­ing an inner con­flict as he pre­pares to speak about the bride and her late moth­er, cul­mi­nat­ing in the under­stand­ing of his strug­gle with authen­tic­i­ty in that moment.