I could, because he was rich.

“Congratulations,” I said to him.

“We eloped.” Max beamed.

Charlie stepped forward and held out his hand. A thin gold band circled his left ring finger.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Charlie,” he said genially, in a genteel, upper-class British accent, and I replied, “We’ve already met.”

He looked at me without recognition. “I’m so sorry,” he said, shaking his head sincerely. The party raged on around us. A drunk woman barged into him and he guided her back into the hallway. “Nice to see you again.”

I’d said it on impulse, to see what he would do. Behind him in the doorway Max rolled her eyes.

“She’s messing with you. You’ve never met because she never ever goes out ever,” Max had said decisively, exhaling and stubbing out a cigarette into the stairwell. (I did go out. All the time. But I was always steps—blocks, even—behind her.) “Don’t be mad—we didn’t have a wedding. We eloped. Nobody even knew we were dating. It’s only been six weeks.”

“I’m not mad,” I told her. “I hope it was fun.”

“It was so much fun.” She nodded. “Hold on. Let’s get drinks,” she demanded of him, before giving me a quick hug. “Stay right here,” she insisted.

I nodded. “Sure thing,” I said.

“Nice to meet you,” Charlie said. I smiled at him and watched them walk away.

“Seriously, don’t move!” Max yelled.

I waited until they were around the corner, and then I walked out the door and didn’t come back.

I didn’t see Charlie again until my next show, The Distance Between Our Moral Imaginations, where he stood dutifully by Max’s side as she worked the room and I stood paralyzed in the corner.

“We met in the Atlanta airport when we were kids, can you believe that? But I mean, it was obvious even then. She’s a total genius,” Max squealed, over and over. “She’s the last sincere artist in the whole goddamn world. Look at these things. Don’t they make you want to burst into tears?”

At some point Charlie brought me a drink, a Campari and soda.

“You don’t want that,” he said conspiratorially, taking away my glass of cheap white wine. “It’ll give you a headache. Drink this instead.”

“I want to be drunk,” I confessed. “This is terrifying. All these people.”

“They don’t see you, you know,” he said. “You’re wallpaper. Whether that makes you feel better or not, I don’t know, but it’s true.”

It did make me feel better, actually, and we fell into an easy conversation, until Max decided it was time to go, and we all hugged goodbye, and they left. That was two years ago.