The air smelled like sea salt and camellias, and as I perched on my toes to keep the backs of my heels from sinking into the lawn, I thought to myself that stilettos weren’t the best choice for footwear.

“Excuse me,” said a voice, and a young woman appeared at my elbow. She was in her early twenties and wore a navy blue dress, a little austere for the light airiness of the occasion. Her eyes flickered with recognition, a look I knew well, but instead of saying the typical Aren’t you Tasty Gloss? she spoke professionally and courteously. “We’re asking everyone to take their seats.”

I picked a chair second from the back row and watched as wedding attendants, clad in pastel-toned long dresses and suits and beach-waved hair, swept down the lawn aisle. When Jordan finally emerged, resplendent in a Vera Wang tuxedo, the crowd stood until he was at the altar with his husband-to-be.

Seven years ago, in the same season, I said the same vows as Jordan was saying now, in the same warm dusky light. It hit me suddenly, as it always did—the pang of the dissolution, burning hot in my chest.

Rose had attended my wedding. Cassidy had not. We’d hired a high-end planner and every time she had suggested something, I’d run it through my head, wondering what Rose would have to say about it. How she would judge it. How it would photograph and be in Us Weekly. And yet, it had been a beautiful wedding.

Yes, our relationship had started as a PR move, and I had been wary. I wasn’t a big sports fan and I wondered if maybe dating an actor would have been a better pick than an athlete. I understood Hollywood types, I’d said to the other girls. I could understand their motivations, their wants. Even more significantly, I could understand their schedules. But Kevin had been a “safe” choice. He was a great Clippers player; had a toe in the entertainment industry (his sister, Kate, whom everyone now knows as the Kate Rodgers but at the time was a budding actress on a long-running soap, had taken him as her companion to a few red carpet events); was good-looking and a gentleman. It was hard to find a pro athlete who checked all the boxes. After what had happened to Cassidy, our cautionary tale, we needed to make sure that the men with whom we were aligning ourselves were not violent or scary.

But it turns out cheaters cheat. We’d been together for three years, off and on, on and off, culminating in an “all or nothing, it’s forever or it’s over” proposal that sounded more romantic when he said it. We planned a wedding in six months, and then six months after the wedding he was caught with his pants around his ankles and a twenty-year-old in his Lotus. In hindsight, I’m grateful that I knew I wasn’t ready for kids when we found ourselves accidentally pregnant in the early days of our dating, and I took care of it swiftly. Children with him would have made the separation infinitely more complicated. As it was, when the news of his cheating came to light it was years after the abortion and it was one thing I whispered thanks for.

A bloom of anger rushed through me when I thought again of his betrayal. The ensuing hurt was amplified when more women came out of the woodwork. Tabloids paid for stories, real and fake; well-meaning family emailed the highlights to me, as if I hadn’t seen them already. He came out with a story about how he fell in love with some teenage starlet, and he filed for divorce to be with this girl who couldn’t legally buy alcohol.

I should have dragged his name through the mud; it should’ve been me who ended it. I should have been more forthright about my pride. I took the tabloids to the lawyer and I made bank off them. I made him pay for every cent. The media then took his side, calling me a shrew. You can never win. He was the one who was wrong, and everyone was happy to pity me until I grew the strength to fight for the truth, fight for what was mine, and then I was a headstrong bitch who took her ex-husband for all he was worth. The world hates strong women. Just look at how they treat Rosalind McGill.

Inside, I gave a quiet wish that Jordan and his beloved would have a better life together. That they got it right.

“I now pronounce you husband and husband.”

I clapped fervently with the rest of the crowd, hoping that our collective enthusiasm would seal their union with joy and permanence. The couple grinned and danced back down the aisle.

Once the wedding party had dispersed, the photos had been taken, the dinner served then plates cleared, the sounds of the wedding relaxed into a pleasant buzz of conversation and clinking coffee spoons. A deejay set up in a corner let the last notes of the ceremonial dances fade away, flicked on a mobile light machine, and segued into the Jackson 5. Guests crowded the dance floor and, one by one, tossed off their heels to cavort barefoot. My table-mates left to dance.

I was stirring a Splenda into my black coffee when a hand floated into my vision. It held a dessert plate of cake, an offering. “Oh, no thank you,” I began to say, but it wasn’t the catering staff making the rounds with wedding cake, it was Ian. I jumped up to give him a hug. “Ian!” I had to raise my voice over the music, which was now blasting something in the Top 40. “Congratulations!”

“All alone there, Yumi?” His voice was kind. There were smile lines around his eyes and some of his hair had gone gray, but he still looked as he had fifteen years ago. He flashed me a happy grin and sat down in one of the vacated chairs.

“None of the others could make it,” I said, sitting down again and eyeing the cake. It was white and looked to have a stripe of fruit jam in between layers. I could smell the buttercream. “Merry is handling a Soleil crisis and Rose is doing god knows what . . .”

“I thought as much.” He nudged the plate closer to me as he leaned forward. “I was hoping that Cassidy would come. It would have been nice to see her.”

“Yeah. Well.” I felt the sudden lump in my throat and swallowed, rubbed my nose with one hand. Fuck it, eat the cake. I picked up the fork.

“I’d like to attend the funeral, if I can.”

“Fuck, Ian, why are you sitting here with me? You should be happy. You should be cutting up the dance floor. Why do we have to talk about Cassidy now?”

He reached over and took my hand, fork and all, in between both of his. “Because.” His giant paw was warm and comforting. I brought a shoulder up to my cheek to dash a tear away, letting out a small breath.

“Thanks.” I cleared my throat. “It’s on Wednesday. Houston. I’m surprised Em didn’t send you the info.”

“I haven’t been on your payroll in years. I don’t know why your staff would bother to tell an old man like me where a service would be held. But thank you. I’ll call the office and get the address.”

The music, pulsating noisily in the background, started the opening bars of a familiar tune. A quick cut of the eyes at the dance floor: the grooms and all of their friends shrieked with recognition, and they began to chant while shimmying and flailing to the beat.

What did you say what did you saaaay

When I told you I wanted it that way

You couldn’t cut it, you weren’t the one

But I still wanna have some fun

Our voices were young, almost childlike. We were eighteen when we recorded those lyrics. “I swear, I didn’t request this.” Ian leaned back, seemingly content to watch the group pantomiming with grand arm gestures. “One of the guests must have asked for it.”