As guests poured through the door, clutching wine and flowers, hugs and introductions, the Jessica I remember reappeared. She shook hands with everyone, smiling, bowling them over with her beauty. “Hello, lovely to meet you, I’m Jessica. How do you know these guys? What do you do? Psychology? That’s so cool.” When Heather and Katie let themselves in with their spare key, Jessica stiffened for a second, then went over to say hello.

“Hi there, do you remember? We met in your first year of university?”

Heather glanced over at me and raised an eyebrow. “Of course. How could I forget?”

“Thanks for that,” I muttered as I filled her wineglass.

“Oh come on. It was all years ago.”

I couldn’t look after Jessica properly, as I was too busy performing the perfect host. I flitted from wineglass to wineglass, making sure everyone was topped up, popping my head around the kitchen door to check Ben was coping with the mammoth task of arranging charcuterie onto a plate. I’d met Douglas and Sophia before, but not his other colleagues. I managed to extricate from Joanie that she’d done a year abroad in America, and pulled Jessica over and said, “Oh that’s funny, Jessica used to live there,” and let her take over.

“I still miss In-N-Out Burger every day,” Jessica said, finishing her second glass.

Joanie nodded. “Oh, yes, I agree. Their animal-style fries were like my religion over there. Nothing here compares. So, when did you and your husband move back? Is he here tonight?”

Jessica shook her head. “Ex-husband,” she said, not dropping her smile. “But I moved back a few months ago.”

“Oh, of course, I’m sorry.”

Maybe I was imagining it, but the second Jessica said the word ex-husband, Joanie stood slightly in front of Frederick, blocking him from Jessica’s view.

Ben appeared in the kitchen doorway, wilting with a sheen of sweat and brandishing two giant sharing plates. “Ta-da!” he said, as I ushered everyone to sit down. “Starters!” He squeezed my sides through the thin fabric of my dress. Everyone dug into the olives and breads and hams, helping themselves, passing plates, draining their wine. We’d deliberated for ages about who would work well as a group, and it seemed to be paying off.

“Yeah, I’m a gynecological nurse at an STI clinic,” Heather told Douglas, looking meaningfully at the slab of wafer-thin meats he had on his plate. “You can ask me more about it when we’ve finished eating, I guess.”

He laughed but didn’t finish his meat. “I don’t even want to know how many of our students you’ve probably seen.”

“Hey, if they’re seeing me it means they’re being responsible.”

“True, true.”

Jessica leaned over, her face luminous in the candlelight. “Do you still give out free condoms? I remember feeling like it was the most exciting thing ever, getting a bag of free condoms.”

Heather reached into the pocket of her baggy jeans and handed a condom to Jessica and we all cackled with laughter.