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"I'm here," Shiloh said, mustering up a smile. There was going to be a lot of mustering tonight, she could already tell.

"You're at our table," Becky said. "It's practically a journalism reunion. Everyone's here. Oh god, wait—you were at our table, but we thought you weren't coming, so we gave your seat to Aaron King, do you remember him? He was a sophomore?"

"I remember him—it's fine."

"But you should still come say hi. Everybody's here."

"No one can say no to Mikey," Shiloh said.

"You're so right," Becky agreed. "Plus we all thought there'd be an open bar." She laughed. "Oh well."

Shiloh followed Becky into the reception hall. She held her head straight and kept her gaze fixed, deliberately not scanning the room for familiar faces. Anyone that Shiloh would recognize was going to have to force their way into her field of vision.

 

They got to their table. There was Becky's husband and Tanya—god, Shiloh hadn't seen Tanya for years. And Tanya's husband, yeah, they'd met, hi, hi. Hugs. Hi. Nia. And Ronny. Shiloh hated Ronny. At least, she used to hate Ronny—did she still hate Ronny? She hugged him anyway. People, all these people. From the same tiny part of Shiloh's life (it hadn't felt tiny at the time). All these people who knew her and remembered her. They were all eating salads and sorry that they'd given away her seat—but that was okay, Shiloh didn't mind. She'd pull up a chair later. It was good to see them, she said—and it really was. It was good to know now who was here, from the old days.

And who wasn't.

It made sense that he wasn't here—he was in Virginia, wasn't he? The last time Shiloh had heard, he was in Virginia. Maybe someone would mention it later...

Of course he wasn't here. He was in the Navy. He was probably on the ocean somewhere. Probably didn't get back home much. She'd heard once that he didn't get back home much...

He wasn't here, and other people were, and she could enjoy this now.

Enjoy them. Enjoy something.

Shiloh didn't want to stand there hovering over her old friends while they finished their salads. She squeezed a few shoulders, then squeezed between tables to get to the one in the corner where Aaron King had been assigned to sit. (She actually didn't remember him.) There was a couple sitting there, surrounded by empty chairs.

"Mind if I join you?" Shiloh asked.

They didn't mind at all. They introduced themselves—Mikey's aunt and uncle—and told her they'd already eaten her dinner roll.

"We ate all of them," the uncle said. "We thought we had this table to ourselves!"

The aunt cackled warmly. "We were gonna eat your cake, too."

"You still can," Shiloh promised, sitting down. There was a white jar candle next to her plate, branded Mike & Janine, January 20, 2006.

Shiloh picked it up and sniffed it. Lavender.

She could look around now—now that she knew he wasn't here. It was safe.

The tables were set up at one end of the reception hall, and there was a dance floor on the other. Spotlights were already flashing onto a disco ball in the corner. Shiloh had been to three or four weddings here before, but this was probably the best she'd ever seen this place look. Someone had wrapped all the fixtures in Christmas lights. The chairs were swathed in tulle.

Shiloh liked weddings. Improbably. Still. She liked seeing people's best outfits. She liked beginnings. She liked the flowers and the favors and the little bags of Jordan almonds.

A lot of the other guests were people Shiloh vaguely remembered from high school...all of them looking a little older and fatter and knocked around by life to varying degrees.

It was easy to pick out Mikey's New York City friends. Art-world people. There was a woman in a bright yellow bandage dress and a man wearing black culottes and platform boots.

Shiloh used to take great pains not to be dressed like anyone else in a room—but she'd lost her edge. And she'd never had as much edge as these people. She felt dowdy in comparison. Thrown together. Even though she hadn't tried this hard in years.