One of the guests—a tall, unsmiling man in a blazer—stood up, pried the glass out of her hand, and took her by the shoulders. The other guests stared and clutched their napkins as he turned her towards the double doors and walked her out, still talking about love and admiration. She seemed happy enough to be walked. The doors closed behind them, leaving the room in uncomfortable silence. Then Pete cleared his throat and made a joke about alcoholics, and everyone laughed. Dave, who was sitting at the next table, felt a little bad for the girl.

At the end of the evening, after the newlyweds had retired to their room and the last of the guests had trickled out into the night, Dave happened upon the Rolling Stones girl in the lobby. She was slumped in a fat armchair in front of the slow trickling fountain full of chubby, bronze cupids. He tapped her on the arm.

“Miss, are you okay?” he asked in Cantonese. She nestled her cheek into the back of her chair in a drowsy-eyed, childish sort of way. Dave took the chair facing her and tried again in English.

“Are you okay? Can I get a taxi for you?” When she still didn’t answer, he added, “Nice speech. I mean it.”

She looked up at him with a grimace. “I’ve never done this before,” she said. “Crashing a wedding. Crashing anything.”

Dave said he believed her, and that it was all right. She shook her head. No, no, she wanted to explain. She was a camera operator for TVB and had spent all day shooting a drama about three feuding generations of oil tycoons.

“The director’s a moron,” she said, “and after being yelled at all day I just wanted to be somewhere else before going home to bed. I was going to meet a friend at the hotel bar, but he stood me up, and I ended up drinking by myself. The bartender asked me if I was escaping the wedding, and I said what wedding, and—well, you know the rest.”