I rose when the room started applauding, realizing how many more people were in those chairs than there had been around the dinner table the other night. Either more had arrived or many had forgone dining with Tibby entirely. Though my heart wasn’t racing—I was too drunk to be nervous—my legs wobbled. I tried to concentrate on walking but couldn’t be exactly sure where my raised foot was going to land. I managed to make it to the microphone and found, miraculously, that I was still holding Lonnie’s story. I unfolded the paper and cleared my throat.

I had intended to just plow through the piece, but as I stood there in front of everyone it occurred to me that I should perhaps relish this moment, when I was Lonnie Bernard—young writer, effortlessly beautiful, universally desired, daughter to all manner of privilege.

I looked out at the crowd—looked at them smiling at me, and for a split second mistook the situation entirely. It was like a flashbulb went off and suddenly everyone seated before me was familiar. I saw Lonnie’s mother and father, though of course I had no idea what they looked like. I saw her old girlfriends from Marymount, her boyfriends, camp counselors, nannies, and teachers. They weren’t wearing uniforms or any other identifying articles, but I recognized their faces as Lonnie would’ve. They seemed to recognize me too. They were just staring blankly, waiting for me to start speaking. I was drunk, of course, but it seemed far less like an inebriated fantasy than a real, if momentary, lapse of some kind. I thought about Lonnie’s belief in ghosts as a temporary overlap between worlds. The image was gone as quickly as it had arrived. The room returned to normal. The experience had scared me, and I wondered if that was what dispelled it.

“Thanks to Tibby Walbridge,” I said, my voice shaky, feeling sober now.

The strangers in front of me clapped politely.

I looked down at the paper, thankful it was there, thankful to have Lonnie’s words to guide me through the rest of my time at the microphone. Though I tried to add expression, tried to concentrate on the paragraphs and sentences, the meaning behind them, it was impossible. Each individual word was separate from those surrounding it in my mind. I knew the story, and seemed to be reading it, but I didn’t comprehend the meaning at all that time around—I was just reading a long list of words. I was, however, thankful my hand wasn’t shaking the paper too violently. I was thankful the waver in my voice was minimal.