She had been as surprised as anyone that she willingly accepted her freshman-year roommate’s request to be a bridesmaid (how do you really turn that sort of thing down?). Months later, she checked off “Yes! Party Like It’s 1999,” rather than “Y2Nay,” on the invitation, and after sealing the envelope and dropping it in the mailbox on the corner outside her office, it wouldn’t be a lie to say that she regretted it and immediately thought of a million and one excuses as to how she could bail last minute. She always had excuses at the ready, and to be honest, half of them weren’t even lies: her artists inevitably got themselves into trouble or she was headed out on tour or there was some sort of unforeseeable crisis to manage.

But here she was despite all of that. At April and Connor’s wedding. At Middleton after a decade. With a magenta taffeta bridesmaid’s dress with an oversize bow on one shoulder hanging in the closet next to the hotel robe. There were so many places she would rather be—anywhere, really—but she knew she owed it to April to show up and stand beside her when she vowed herself to Connor for life.

She’d tried to convince herself otherwise. She’d poured herself a whiskey a few months back, the day before she had to go to a wedding shop in Beverly Hills to pick up her bridesmaid’s dress, and dialed Laila Simpson, the college friend she was still tightest with, and ran through why her presence wasn’t really necessary. She’d stayed in closer touch with Laila than April in the years since they graduated; whenever Laila was in LA, they toasted each other and got drunk at whichever hotel bar Laila’s pharmaceutical company was putting her up at. That afternoon, Laila went quiet on the other end of the line for a beat, then said, “You know, Frankie, you have this big, incredible life, and I’m never here to tell you how to live it, but April gave you a shoulder to lean on when you needed it, and it’s probably time that you reciprocated.” Frankie knew she was referring to the night they graduated from college, when the two of them—Laila and April—had hailed her a cab and hugged her goodbye and called her the next morning to make sure she was ok, but she hadn’t thought about all of that in so long. It was easier not to think about any of that. Because that’s how Frankie marched forward. By never looking back.

Frankie wanted to protest, to say, But there are bigger reasons, more terrifying reasons for me not to come. But that wasn’t true. There was just one.

Ezra Jones.

Tonight at the hotel, Frankie tousled her blond hair one last time in front of the mirror and swiped on bright red lipstick. She checked her teeth and ran her fingers under her armpits because she couldn’t remember if she’d put on deodorant. She knew she was more frazzled than usual (as a former child piano prodigy, Frankie Harriman had been trained like a show dog to overcome any nerves), so she stared at her reflection until her pulse slowed, and she told herself that Ezra Jones was just a small sliver of her past, a hiccup, a forgotten glimpse. She didn’t have to speak to him, she didn’t even know if he’d be here at April and Connor’s wedding, and she certainly didn’t ask. Frankie often advised her musical artists on how to avoid drawing unnecessary attention to their weaknesses, and she thus knew that asking was doing just that.