One might think Bottle Grove is named for its shape on the map, or perhaps a nickname that became official over time, as more and more drinkers left glass souvenirs on stumps and boulders. Wrong. There is actually a Bottle family, still hanging on in the city, and in fact Lil is one of them, still using her honorary seat on the board of directors that surveils the grove so she can peep around at all clubhouse functions, ensuring the park’s integrity with her nosiness. She is maybe sixty, her hair done very strictly, and her eyes pendulum the reception room and the wide porch. She married into the Bottles, a refugee from another old family out of money, and now the Bottle money is pretty much gone too, buried in real estate too precious to sell. Everything is getting set up.

The only other persons working the wedding are the Mexican caterers, although they are also not, for the most part, Mexican either—nobody much is, it’s the wrong neighborhood—and two barmen hired from close by. Their bar is also called Bottle Grove, and is housed about a mile away, on a couple of commercial blocks huddled around the mouth of a streetcar tunnel. The businesses there rise and fall, a hardware store that used to be a bank, coffee that used to be toys, a Japanese restaurant that used to be a Japanese restaurant. This bar, home to numerous schemes both commercial and personal, is slightly too fancy for the area, not quite hip but trying, and also something of a dive. It’s one small room with nice tables and no television, kept dark enough that not everyone can be recognized. Behind the bar is a very curated selection of bottles, an old ringy cash register, and a box of cell phones patrons have left behind. The place would be nice if it were a nicer place.