At that instant, someone next to Maya turned. Her hair was still frizzy but had softened into gentler waves. Her skin was still acne scarred. She had smeared makeup over the crevices that used to cut so deep, darkening her. This was the clearest I’d seen Shruti Patel in some time. She was an occasional specter in my life, with a habit of appearing just when the material world felt most entrapping. She’d manifest at the periphery of my vision when I was drunk or high, or overlay herself on some brown girl. The memory of my own monstrosity? A reminder of the general futility of the games that comprised my life? Was she beckoning me to join her, wherever she had gone, looking at me through those marble eyes with that overfamiliarity I had always begrudged her, thinking, I know you, and you belong with me? Depending on the moment, I let her stand for all of those things, for her suicide—suicide itself—was the whirlpool swirling in my vicinity at all times, sucking into its gravity both every meaning I could toss its way and no meaning at all.

Are you making use of all you took?

Of course not.

I shook my head and Shruti slunk back into death.

The party had migrated to the kitchen. Prachi tittering with Hae-mi. Keya reaching for more Sonoma cabernet, despite swaying on her feet. Chidi all marble smile and head bobs, yammering at Maya about longevity. (“Really,” he said, “people have been trying to live longer for centuries, just look at the alchemists, only they didn’t have the rigorous experimental methods we do….”) Manu trailing everyone, attempting to bid Prachi good-bye, evidently leaving without the key Rodham contact.

“Whoops,” Keya said, sloshing wine down her pale green blouse. “Shit.”

“Keya came wedding shopping with me today,” Prachi said too heartily, as the girlfriends swarmed with club soda. “I’d need a drink, too! I’m sure I wasn’t easy to handle.”

Keya did not correct my sister, only grinned amiably as Maya mopped her. Manu attempted to wave good-bye through the crooners, but Prachi seized his palm and squeezed several times as though his hand were a stress ball, keeping him from leaving.

“Did you pick something?” Hae-mi cooed.

Prachi reached for her iPhone with her free hand and began swiping to show off options, before suddenly looking up. “Neil! Oh my god. I totally forgot. Guess who we saw at that bridal shop.”

“Who?” I said through another mouthful of cheese.

“I’m heading out,” Manu called to Prachi, who still held his hand. “I’ll email you about Christine?”

“No, wait, Manu, you won’t believe this either—”