I accept a glass from the server and lift it toward Lisa’s. “I always did get into trouble with you.”

She laughs again. Leans in close. The liquor on her breath is much stronger than the bubbly they’re handing out. She wobbles a little, and I put out a hand to steady her. Even in her heels, she’s still a few inches shorter.

“That’s saying something. You got in trouble a lot.” Lisa steps back so rapidly I’m left cupping empty air. Her gaze goes to someone else across the room, and she waves as her eyes light up. She calls out a name.

“It’s Beth,” she says. “I’m going to go say ‘hi.’ You coming?”

Beth and Lisa had been cheerleaders together, but Beth and I had never been friends. They angle their bodies toward each other to giggle over gossip about our other classmates. I am not a point on this triangle until Lisa pulls me a step closer so she can tell me all about so-and-so’s boob job, and Beth chimes in that the dentist husband of someone else has been schtupping the orthodontist husband of yet another.

I am … included.

I don’t have any gossip to share; if anything, I’m sure there would be plenty of whispers about my family. My son, who attends school with the children of some of these people, but who stands apart from them. My husband, who’s always on the road. And, of course, there’s always the side-eye glance you get when you’ve been known to show up slurring to the preschool play. Mommies have long memories. I brace myself for the questions, but although Beth looks me up and down and takes in every inch of me, every hair in or out of place, even my expensive shoes that are nevertheless several seasons old, she doesn’t ask me a single question.

There’s a reason why I always got into trouble when I hung around with Lisa. She’s always been a real force of nature, hard to resist. Before I know it, the three of us are laughing and clinking our glasses together. Beth waves over the circulating server with the platter of puffed pastry treats, and Lisa disappears, then returns from the bar with three more glasses of chilly golden bubbles. The drink tastes better now, either because I’ve already downed two glasses or she’s upgraded us to something better, I can’t tell.

“This is going right to my head.” I lift the empty glass.

Lisa eyes me as she drains the last of hers. “Not a drinker?”

“Oh, she was never into that, were you, Jewelann?” Beth says, and that’s how I know that she does know the gossip.

We share a look, but it’s one of understanding. She doesn’t keep that figure with Pilates and clean eating alone. We all have our own ways of numbing our pain. Mine used to come in a prescription bottle I lied to my doctor for, so I’m really in no place to judge.