There is blood on the tires and a crumpled hat, men’s size seven, on the seat. The police look deep in the brush. Nina insists. The high schoolers leave, and end up sprawled over each other on a grassy hill closer to the zoo. The sex is good. The sex was always good with Reynard around, Nina thinks sadly, recalling other exhausted nights, and when the police amble back to her, they learn about the wedding—“He was officiating!”—and head downhill and—this is the rest of the story the Nickels tell—end the party with flashing lights and interviews. Ben turns the music off, Lil turns the lights on. People get their coats. The barmen load everything away as the police give up. A drunk driver fleeing an accident is not even a story, so frequently does it happen. Past the porch, it is very dark now. Nobody finds Reynard, or the broken bottle in the amphitheater.

Still, for most it’s been a good night, if strange. Martin gives the keys to Stanford to drive the van, planning to walk to his apartment, not as ratty as you might think, between the forest and the bar, Bottle Grove and Bottle Grove. The solitary late walk is Martin’s almost every night, after closing. He heads on up, away from the wedding, knowing it is nothing but raccoons and skunks, maybe a rare fox, skittering around him in the woods. Sometimes the homeless camp here, but not on a night full of sirens. He is not frightened. He even shortcuts before he reaches the last curve, slipping off the paved path to lean his way through the dirt and trees. Martin does not yelp, not even a snort of surprise, when the streetlamps slipstream through the eucalyptus to show him the figure of Padgett, sitting on a log with her feet up and a cup in her hands. She looks like the cover of an album he hasn’t thought about in years. He loves it. He should play it when he gets home tonight.

“Hey,” she says first.

“Hey. You OK?”

It sounds like one little kid to another after someone’s fallen off a bike, and it makes her smile. “Yeah. What are the cops here for?”

“Runaway cater-waitress. It seems she was paid beforehand and did a shitty job and left early. That’s federal time, my friend.”

She shivers a little, not from cold, and sips from what he sees now is a real porcelain cup, the ones the coffee came in after dinner. “You are so high,” he tells her.

“No.”

“I know you are.”

“Well, yeah, because you gave me the cocaine.”

There is no arguing this. The three of them, Stanford too, did lines during the ceremony. Martin sits down on the log next to her, which she likes, his doing it without her offer.

“I had to bail,” she says. “I had to quit.”