The others used to tease her that she had come to Berkeley ten years too late, but it was she who always rallied them, who demanded that everything he fair and right, she who fought for the underdog in every situation… It was she who had found Ellie when she died, who had cried so desperately, and had had the guts to call Ellie's aunt and uncle. It had been a terrible time for all of them. Ellie had been closest to Mary Stuart, and she had been a wonderful, gentle girl, full of idealistic ideas and dreams. Her parents had been killed in an accident junior year, and her three roommates had become family to her. Mary Stuart wondered at times if she would ever have been able to cope with the pressures of the outside world. She was so delicate as to be almost unreal, and unlike the others, with their life's goals and their plans, she had been completely unrealistic, a total dreamer. She died three weeks before graduation. Tanya almost delayed her wedding over it, but they all agreed Ellie would have wanted it to go on and Tanya said that Bobby Joe would have killed her if she'd postponed it. Mary Stuart had been Tanya's maid of honor, and Zoe was her only bridesmaid.

Tanya would have been in Mary Stuart's wedding too, except that she was giving her first concert in Japan at the time. And Zoe hadn't been able to leave school. Mary Stuart was married at her parents’ home in Greenwich.

The second time Tanya got married, Mary Stuart had seen it on the news. Tanya was twenty-nine, married her manager, and had a quiet ceremony in Las Vegas, followed by tabloids, helicopters, TV cameras, and every member of the press that could be deployed within a thousand miles of Vegas.

Mary Stuart had never liked Tanya's new husband. Tanya said she wanted kids this time, they were going to buy a house in Santa Barbara, or Pasadena, and have a “real life.” She had the right idea, but this time her husband didn't. He had two things on his mind, Tanya's career, and her money.