Bev nodded, then switched her attention to James. “So, are we having cake or what?”
The question seemed to jog everyone’s memory and conversation abruptly halted. Anne’s attention snapped to James, and he quickly jumped up to his feet.
“We’ll be right back!” he sang out, as the two of them scurried to a nearby table that had a bright pink cake dome in the center. They huddled together for a moment, then James lifted the dome and turned around with the homemade cake in hand. Anne quickly worked to light the candles dotted across the top while the table began to sing “Happy Birthday,” each at their own distinct pitch. Within a few notes, the cake was ablaze.
James slowly placed the cake in front of Ellis and gave him a kiss just as the song concluded. Ellis’s smile was broad as he looked from his husband to the rest of the table, to the slightly asymmetrical layers caked in buttercream in front of him. Then he leaned forward and blew out the candles. The table erupted in cheers.
“How old are you, Ellis?” Bev asked as he cut into the cake.
Cricket snorted out a laugh. “Oh my God, Bev. You can’taskthat.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s rude,” Cricket replied, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “What would you do if someone asked you that?”
“Try me.”
“Okay, how old are you?”
Beverly shrugged. “Seventy-two.”
Freddie was impressed. He wasn’t an expert on women’s ages, by any means, but in the short time he’d known Beverly, he had come to see her as more of a contemporary. Not only in how she spoke—curse words and hilarious anecdotes—but how she carried herself. Even now, as she relaxed back in her chair, she was wearing Converse and oversized gray pants with a huge blazer on top of a T-shirt.
“Well, you look fantastic,” Ellis said.
Beverly eyed him suspiciously. “Don’t sound so shocked.”
Ellis blanched. “Oh, I didn’t mean… It’s just…”
“You’re very cool,” James said, saving his husband.
“For a seventy-two-year-old,” Beverly murmured.
Across the table, Anne let out a rueful sigh even as she smiled. “Bev, you’re cooler at seventy-two than I was at twenty-two.”
“I don’t know about that.” The older woman threw Anne a wry grin. “You know what they say, a woman can be hotter at twenty-nine than she was ten years before.”
Anne laughed, even as her cheeks flushed even more.
The conversation moved on as pieces of cake were passed around the table. Ellis wanted to hear about all the changes Freddie was making to the apartment, while Anne listened to a conversation between Bev and Cricket about the current state of New York City’s penal system.
“Our civil rights are at stake! And you should feel the toilet paper in the holding cells. It’s awful,” Cricket lamented.
Bev nodded solemnly.
For the first time in years, Freddie forgot to look at the time, letting the music and the conversation and the wine swallow up the night. By the time he finally pulled out his phone, it was one a.m. and the party was fading. Glen was trying to wake up Cricket, who was asleep on a nearby chaise lounge, and James was yelling at a pedestrian down on the sidewalk about public urination.
“That’s my cue,” Bev said, standing up and taking a bottle of wine with her. “Anyone else coming?”
Anne nodded from where she sat beside Ellis on the other side of the table. Her eyes were closed, and she looked only moments away from sleep herself.
Ellis sighed, looking down the table at the remnants of dinner and cake.
“Do you need help cleaning up?” Freddie offered.
“No, it’s all right. I’ll make him deal with it,” he said, motioning behind him to where James was now flipping off someone below. Then Ellis nodded down to Anne. “Can you make sure she gets back to her place in one piece, though?”
“Sure,” Freddie replied, working to sound nonchalant.
