“So, this was essentially your fault.” Ezra glared at Frankie.
“My fault?My fault?I was half dead from a concussion—”
“You weren’t half dead or I would have taken you to the emergency room—”
“I was a quarter dead from a concussion, so how can this be my fault? It seems to me, Ezra Jones”—and at this Frankie raised a finger and jabbed his shoulder—“that you have only yourself to blame for your poker habit and, well, all the rest of it!”
Ezra didn’t know whatall the rest of itmeant, but then he remembered how not even a few minutes ago, he had considered agency in his life: how it was easier not to have it but more fulfilling when you did. Before he could reassess and put Frankie in her place, from behind him came another voice, shrill and cutting. He turned and there was Mimi. Another fatal mistake in his planning: Mimi was his plus-one. He shouldn’t have left her alone.
“You were playingpoker?” she said. Ezra had a plummeting sensation that this was all about to go very wrong for him.
“Oh!” Gregory said, inexplicably backstage now too. Why was everyone back here and not out front enjoying the party, enjoying the mini quiches, the DJ, who was now playing “Livin’ on a Prayer,” Bon Jovi’s best anthem, in his opinion. Gregory wedged himself into their circle, then threw both hands over his mouth, his eyes wide and wild. “Oh, oh shit.”
“What?” Ezra said. “What,” he said again, this time not a question but a demand.
“Shit,” Gregory replied. “Thatmayhave been my fault?”
Frankie made little circles in the air with her hand above her head as if to say:See I told you and also obviously, which Ezra thought was pretty rich because, lady, it takes two to tussle.
“Confess,” Ezra said to Gregory.
Then Mimi said, higher pitched and louder, “You confess, Ezra!”
He held her gaze and pleaded: “Please, Mimi. Not now.” So Mimi scowled and tapped her high-heeled foot but did thankfully quiet.
“I had forgotten until just now,” Gregory said. “Someone had told me about the deal-in at Waverly’s. And man, you were just so... so...” He looked around as if someone could help him, but no one had any idea what adjective he was going to use, so he sighed and took a long sip of whatever it was he was drinking and continued. “Before we went out. Ezra, I mean, it’s like you were a vampire, and everyone had sucked the life from you.”
“No,” Frankie interjected. “That’s not right. The vampire is the one who sucks things from other people.”
Gregory looked confused then said, “Right, sorry, I’m drunk again. Anyway, I just wanted you to do something fun, to enjoy yourself, you know... like you used to. Everything about you now is about—” Gregory stopped himself. But the implication was there, and Ezra did not like it very much. Did not like it at all.Like you used to before Mimi. Everything about you now is about Mimi.“I totally forgot, and shit, I stayed at Lemonhead, and you guys moved on.” He seemed genuinely contrite. “I didn’t realize it was an issue. I mean, I knew, I guess. And I still told you.”
Ezra wanted to scream. He wasn’t overcome with his usual nerves or a fevered pulse or a heart that was going to beat out of his chest. He was furious. He was so fucking furious. At Frankie. At Mimi. At Gregory and his 1000-proof booze. At himself. At the ridiculous confluence of events that had led to right now. How did he arrive back at Middleton so full of optimism and, just twenty-four hours later, have everything unravel into a mess that he couldn’t even imagine he could mend?
“I’m going back to the hotel,” Mimi said.
“Mimi, please, don’t,” Ezra begged. “Or, I mean, I’ll come with you.”
“No,” she said with such certainty that Ezra was genuinely embarrassed in front of his friends, even if he was irate with them, even if some of them—well, ok, Frankie—were not his friends at all. “No! I didn’t even want to come here! I left my one vacation week with my family for this. And now I hear that not one day after you’re back with old friends... you’re gambling. And, you’re withher.”
She gestured to Frankie, who said, “Hey! I’m not part of this.”
But Mimi rolled her eyes and said to Ezra, “You and I had an agreement.”
Ezra did not interject here because she was right: he had understood her terms from the start—loyalty and honesty, and he had been happy to live with them because those were his terms too. It didn’t seem like the right time to raise the outstanding question as to why she was inexplicably lying about missing her flight. He didn’t care if she’d been late or distracted or... Ezra couldn’t think of another reason she wouldn’t have landed last night. It didn’t matter! He forgave her! He justwanted to slip the ring on her finger at midnight and move on from all of this! Why was it so hard to move on from all of this?
Mimi had turned to go, and Ezra started to protest, but Gregory touched his outstretched arm and said, “Friend, we should probably have a talk.” And Ezra was tired, he was so goddamned tired, so he simply watched Mimi leave, and with that, everything that Ezra had planned on, had planned for, disappeared.
THIRTY-THREE
Frankie
NINE FORTY-FIVE P.M.
Frankie was beginning to think that Steinway Auditorium was actually cursed. Maybe it had been built on sacred burial grounds or maybe it was just infested with significantly awful juju (she lived in LA; she believed these things from time to time whenever the notion struck her), because she had never gotten out of this godforsaken building without a spiral of shit going down.
They were back at the reception now. Gregory and Ezra were huddled in a corner, and Frankie desperately wanted to eavesdrop but instead lingered by the buffet, which had opened while they were all backstage churning up baggage from a decade ago. She gnawed on a rubbery piece of sirloin and watched Laila make a lap around the dance floor, likely looking for Alec Barstow, who really had disappeared entirely. Frankie wondered if they should file a police report, but she didn’t wantto incriminate herself with the campus police, and besides, she couldn’t remember the rest of the story anyway. Then she noticed Joni looking shaky while busing discarded dishes, and she called to her, “Joni, you don’t understand, this has nothing to do with you. We were a mess long before this.”
Joni tried to look reassured, but Frankie could tell she didn’t believe her. It was easy, necessary, to think that grown-ups got their lives together after college. To learn that life remained as messy at thirty-two as it was at twenty-two was to shatter the illusion that came with post-graduation dreams. Frankie walked over to her, and above the hum of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” she placed a hand on her arm and said, “Joni, it’s going to be ok. Really. If you’re ever in LA or need a job or could use some help, will you call me?” She had a business card in her wallet and placed it in the pocket of Joni’s starched white shirt.
