Ros shook his hand and looked to me in disbelief—what on earth was I doing linking arms with Oliver Teller? I pressed myself closer to Oliver and hoped Ros took note of exactly what they were missing.

After that, for a moment, for one brief shining moment, everything was convivial. Sure, I’d had to change out of the Cinderella dress, but I was on Oliver Teller’s arm, and that seemed to be tickling some part of Ros’s reptilian brain the same way the Cinderella dress would have. Jess hounded Oliver about whether they were going to be renewed for a third season, told him about all the fan boards she participated in. Touchstone had taken over stirring the risotto, and Audrey and Phoebe were out on the porch, looking out over the river. The house was filled with the sounds and smells I had imagined. The dinner was happening; it was really happening.

And there was Ros.

“Hey,” they said, touching my free arm to pull me away from Oliver Teller. “I’m really sorry we were late.”

Their apology hung between us for a moment. I wanted to yell at them. I wanted to kick them in the shins, take them by the shoulders, say, What the fuck, we planned this, and you showed up with some bullshit excuse about a wolf when you were off having sex, which you already do, constantly, while I’m probably going to die a virgin. I wanted to say, I wore a dress for you, but you were too late to see it. I wanted to say, Maybe you don’t want me, but I thought at least we were friends.

Ros looked at me with their big amber eyes.

“I’m really, really sorry,” Ros said.

“You were late,” I said.

“I know,” they said.

My anger threatened to boil up and over. We’d planned this. We’d planned this, and they were late.

But I didn’t want to make a scene. I didn’t want to ruin the party. So I tugged on the tag of their T-shirt, the place where their chain used to be, and pushed my anger down the way we’d learned to press down coffee grounds in Henry’s french press.

“It’s fine,” I said. “Let’s just eat.”

No one was hungry. It was too hot, for one thing, and for another, we’d gorged ourselves on the deviled eggs and the artichoke dip and the cheese. Everyone managed a few polite bites, but for the most part the risotto sat in gluey lumps on our plates, developed a kind of skin-like sheen that reminded me of sci-fi movies—something horribly alien and natal.