Anna felt better after she took a healthy swig from her brother’s flask. The vodka burned going down, but she needed to get over her frustration and relax a little so she could enjoy the night. She could count the number of fights she and Alexander had had in their three years as a couple on one hand. That was before tonight. She certainly wasn’t looking to throw down with him, but she really found the whole convo to be infuriating. It had turned from a calm discussion to a fight when he demanded to know why she was being so selfish. “You hate the city. Why are you insisting on this?”

“I don’t hate the city, number one. And secondly, it’s a stupid tea party. Why don’t you sit and drink tea with Eleanor and her god-fearing, grating friends for three hours on Sunday and see if you like it?” She was as stunned as he was by her outburst and fought the urge to apologize immediately. She was sorry for yelling but she wasn’t sorry for what she’d said. It was something she had been feeling for a while but had never had the guts to say: Eleanor was perfectly nice but could be unbearably whiny and entitled if she didn’t get her way.

Alexander didn’t yell back, because it wasn’t his way. He just said they would discuss it further when she came home from the party.

“Alexander, the party won’t even get going until after midnight,” she said, perhaps unwisely. “I’m staying out late; don’t wait up for me. I’ll call you in the morning.”

He started to respond, but she cut him off saying she had to go and hanging up the phone. The whole thing made her feel a bit queasy, and invigorated. She was annoyed she missed the limo ride, but found her solitary Uber to be exactly what she needed, a little time to herself.

When she arrived at the party, Anna ran into a few people she knew from the summer she spent six weeks at Juilliard, one of whom was the cellist in a string quartet she used to play with. Anna had played violin since she was five years old and was, after almost ten years of lessons and daily practice, an accomplished musician. She had garnered lots of attention from her teachers who praised her proficiency but fretted over her lack of emotion when it came to her performances. These comments always irritated her because she was never quite sure what exactly was meant when she was instructed to “feel the music.” She enjoyed playing when she was younger because she liked the praise, and it made her father happy, but as she got older it was hard for her to figure out if she liked it because she was good at it, or if she liked it because she actually liked it.