“Okay, okay,” I say, then, “Whoa!” as I almost fall backward off the piano bench. I laugh, so everyone else knows it’s okay to laugh. I kick off my Amina Muaddi slingback pumps, saying loudly to the party fray, “It was the shoes, it was the shoes!”

I run my hand through my hair, which is now no longer neatly parted but raked through and swept to the side.

“Okay,” I go on. “I’m terrible at toasts but I want to thank you all for being here for my thirtieth birthday, and say that I can’t wait to have you all over next year. For my thirtieth birthday.”

I lift my glass once more as everyone laughs at my joke, then down the rest of my champagne. I look around for Grayson but don’t see him anywhere.

Tonight, I am playing the role of the charming, charismatic hostess who is wildly at ease and deeply clever. If this personality were a cocktail, it would be one part Zelda Fitzgerald, one part Serena van der Woodsen, and a few dashes of each character Kate Hudson has ever played. I’m serving it shaken, strained, and straight up.

It’s a persona well-aided by the fact that all I’ve eaten today are some undipped crudités and a pearl spoonful of caviar, having only glanced at the crème fraiche and blinis.

“Happy birthday!” someone yells, and everyone else chimes in.

Another bottle of champagne gets popped and I lift one hand to point with approval at the guy who opened it.

This party was supposed to be outside, under the amber lanterns in the backyard with a big band playing. Usually LA evenings are cooler this time of year, and it never rains, as the song “It Never Rains in Southern California” is there to remind you. Even if that song was actually about the disillusionment of people with dreams in this city, I think of it every rare wet day. Like today, because seemingly out of nowhere, it began to pour. I hadn’t looked at the forecast because we never have to in June. And I guess somehow no one else did either.

The catering crew had scrambled to bring all the bottles and glasses indoors as the rain began. Some guests left, because there are always people who give up the second there’s a location change, even if it’s by twenty yards. Everyone else made their way inside, some covering their hair, others rescuing bottles of wine from the tables.

It’s so warm that I decided to open the accordion window walls that face the yard and then leaned against the column between them to watch the frenzy. Rain-drenched Barry Keoghan lit a cigarette and walked leisurely across the backyard with his shirt mostly unbuttoned, stopping in the middle of the lawn to look up at the sky.