“Well, I tried,” he said. “I mean, I told him.”

“About Kmart?” Frankie asked.

Gregory nodded, looking grim.

“It’s not the worst thing in the world, the stealing,” Frankie said. “I mean, we all have our shit.”

“Of course it’s not the worst thing in the world!” he snapped. “But wouldn’t you think he’d want to know? But he didn’t. He did not! He was furious with me for telling him.”

“Shooting the messenger.” Frankie shrugged because that did sound exactly like Ezra: upset at the outcome, not at the cause. Ten years had come and gone, and here they were exactly the same. Frankie reconsidered. She hoped she had evolved, even just in tiny shifts. Brick by brick, Fred used to say when she was learning a new piece, and she was surprised to think of him now. Still though, brick by brick to self-improvement too.

“Well, you can’t blame a guy for trying,” Gregory said, just as the DJ came on the mic and said, “We are not only celebrating April and Connor, but a new century in ninety minutes! The countdown has begun!” And then cued up “Electric Boogie.”

They stood there and watched some middle-aged guests attempt to wiggle their bodies to the choreography, with April and Connor at the center of it, both of them looking overjoyed, truly elated.

The thing was, Frankie did blame a guy for trying. She blamed Ezra for a lot a decade ago. Not the pregnancy. That was on her. She had realized on her way back to the dorm from Steinway that she’d skipped two days of her pills when she was deep into her final econ project and lost track of everything else around her. She had only herself to blame for the mess. She’d trudged back to her room, and all around her, students were carrying on with their lives unencumbered. Someone was blasting Depeche Mode too loudly from their window; a group of boys was playing Hacky Sack on the quad. All of them had their whole futures available, wide open. And Frankie, who had tried so hard to chart her own course after high school, realized that with the pregnancy, hers was already written. But Ezra didn’t want to hear any of that. He’d wanted to be her savior instead.

By the time she’d made it back to her room and fell onto her bed and smashed her face into the pillow, Frankie was nearly incandescent with rage. The pregnancy she owned. The rest of it was on him. That he didn’t stop to ask her what she wanted. That he simply leapt to their future and ignored her future. That he seemed truly happy at the possibly of her joining him in New York, of their duo becoming a trio. So, yes, she did blame a guy for trying.

Now, with “Electric Boogie” booming behind them, she looked at Gregory and said: “So what’s he going to do?”

And he shrugged. “Who knows. Chase after her, apologize, propose.” He swallowed the rest of his drink and set his empty glass on a gold-linen-covered table littered with napkins smudged with lipstick and dirty plates with half-eaten buffet bites. Everything that started out so beautiful eventually fell apart, Frankie thought.