We wandered a few steps into the gardens until we were under a tree. I felt the old, careless joy. Oh Andy? She’ll do anything, she will. The cold rain fell on my bare arms and it fell on London, filling the gutters and flowing into the storm drains. Elsewhere, it fell on woods and fields, on the Savernake Forest and the old earth fort at Barbury, on the manor and whoever lived there now, and—a little further still—on the gravestone at Saint Helen’s, where I still thought nothing on earth would ever bring me.

“You should have a coat on,” he said. I put my hands inside his suit jacket. The heat was radiating through his shirt. He put his hands on either side of my waist. Even in the heels, I had to get on tiptoe. White shirt, white teeth, dark blond hair. His name is one of the things I lost. I kissed him. Or he kissed me. And it was like finding a door to a warm room unlocked on a cold night and slipping inside. Lovely, until the bridesmaid showed up.

When I finally found Peter, he was sitting alone in the American Bar. I thought he’d gone, that I had, not for the first time, ruined everything. I called a waiter and ordered us two glasses of champagne, feeling the panic draining away. The smile Peter gave me was thin.

“Some things don’t change.”

“You were four hours late.”

Peter looked at his hands. His voice was tight. “It has, of late, been hard to get away.”

But I didn’t ask. Once again, I missed the chance.

“Did you have fun?” When I didn’t reply, Peter said, “He looks like David. That young man. When you think about it.” It was a little bit like having a bomb thrown at you from a very great height, watching it turn as it fell toward you through the air.

“Do you think so?” I took my drink in a gulp.

“Is it because of David that you’re not with anyone?”

I signaled the waiter for another. “Do you remember when everyone used to say they didn’t mind gays as long as they didn’t ram it down their throats? But it’s heterosexuality that’s rammed at people, Peter.” I started laughing. “Like a shopping cart, right in the back of the knees.” I got up and mimed it for him, earning a worried look from one of the barmen. “Seeing someone nice?” Ram. “I know a lovely chap, just your sort.” Ram. “What about kids?”

Next, I remember standing at the sink in the marble bathroom. In the mirror, the bridesmaid’s hot, hurt eyes were boring into mine. Beside her, I looked like the wicked queen: black hair, now turning to frizz, gray eyes, mouth red, like someone’d slapped it.

“Sometimes I look so much like my mother,” I told her.