Why was she standing so expectantly?

What did she want him to say?

Was she waiting for him to have a complete meltdown before the night even started?

Well, he wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of having to manage him. No way. Even if this was his last Calhoun + Calhoun soirée. No, he refused to cause a scene before the first guest had even arrived.

“The emerald drop earrings were a perfect choice,” he said instead.

The whistle of a sudden gust of wind howled from outside, a slow whine. The snap of a tree breaking, startling the catering staff in the kitchen. It was one of the taller aspens he’d been admiring a few moments before. He watched as it fell to the ground, swallowed by the snow.

Zara

It’s amazing how much snow can fall in two hours. By the time we were on our way to the party, there must have been another three inches. Less cars on the road, less plows. They couldn’t keep up. The driver seemed nervous navigating the roads. He had stopped spouting Aspen trivia and was mostly silent. The windshield wipers were on full blast and it didn’t even help. We could only see like two or three feet max.

Hoping to help us all relax, I had Dave plug in my phone and I tapped open Spotify. I know Spotify is kind of evil. It takes like a trillion plays to make any real money. Which is fine for artists like me—the math works in my favor—but up-and-coming artists get fucked. On the other hand, it’s pretty incredible to have just about every album ever recorded right there in your pocket. And it’s awesome to think that some young kid living in the middle of nowhere could randomly stumble on an album like Claudine Longet’s Love Is Blue. I hit “play” on her soft, magical song “Snow” and asked Dave to turn it up.

It’s all over and you’re gone

But the memory lives on