“And besides,” continued Alice, “you’ll be far too tired when you wake up even to think of getting up and onto a plane anyway. You’ll be exhausted, darling. Depleted. Drained. More tired than you’ve ever been in your life, more than if you’d just read the whole of War and Peace to a theater packed entirely with old-age pensioners after lunch. And Colin here can tell you a thing or two about pensioners after lunch. The snores can be deafening, can’t they, Colin?”

Colin only smiled. On the screen, his features were famously sullen, even menacing: off it, they seemed to diffuse and rearrange themselves into an expression so pleasant that it bordered on the vacuous.

“Which reminds me,” said Alice. “Have you decided about your hen party?”

“Not yet,” said Emma. In fact, now that she thought of it, Lulu had not so much as mentioned a hen party.

“Keep it relaxing.” Alice lifted a forestalling hand. “I know, I know, you’re about to say, ‘Oh, but Alice, my bridesmaid has such a marvelous idea, so amusing and original, she wants to go bungee jumping or organize a tiddlywinks tournament.’”

She must particularly remember, thought Emma, to tell Matthew about the tiddlywinks. He would like the tiddlywinks.

“Don’t let her, darling,” said Alice. “Be firm. Demand something that is pure relaxation, like a weekend at some wickedly self-indulgent hotel with a lovely, lovely spa and lots of beauty treats. Hot stones, or maybe mud. Oh, for heaven’s sake, will you listen to me.” Suddenly she stopped and slapped herself firmly on the hand. “You must forgive me, darling, I’m an eldest and frightfully managerial. You probably have the most wonderfully organized chief bridesmaid who’s got everything sewn up quite perfectly for you already.”

“Actually, I haven’t,” said Emma. “My chief bridesmaid is my younger sister, and I love her to bits, but she’s a bit, well, absentminded, really.”

“Younger sisters!” Alice cast her eyes to the heavens. “I’m sure we could swap war stories all day long. I have three, heaven help me, how many have you?”

“Two.” It was pushy, Emma knew, but she could not look Sophie in the eye if she failed to mention her now. “Oddly enough,” she said to Colin, “my youngest sister is an actress who recently worked with you.”

“Oh, yes?” Colin raised a politely wary eyebrow, and Emma began to regret having spoken. It had been two weeks since Sophie’s episode of St. Luke’s had aired, and she had not, after all, been called back to the show; it occurred to Emma now that she had only had Sophie’s account of Colin’s conversation with the director. But having raised the subject, she could hardly abandon it.

“It was the episode about the lawsuit,” she said. Then, giving him a polite escape should he feel the need for one, “She only had a small part, but she made a point of saying how kind and welcoming everyone was, which I gather isn’t necessarily the case on all sets.”