She was here to watch her live-in boyfriend, Stephen, onstage. She spoke to J.J. as she sat down on the other side of Monica. Vivian slipped her coat off, and the moment I saw the dress I knew why she was running late. She’d gone home from her job as administrative assistant at an insurance agency to change. The dress was a little slip of nothing, black with a beading of bronze and gold beads so that it shimmered as she moved. Seeing J.J. and Vivian in their party dresses made me half wish I’d changed for the show, but I’d have been truly late. I could have taken something to work to change into, but in all honesty it hadn’t occurred to me until just that moment. Oh, well.

Micah leaned in and whispered, “You look great.”

I whispered back, “Was it that obvious?”

“To me,” he said, and squeezed my hand. I squeezed back and we shared that smile that was mainly just for us. Nathaniel was the only one who got to share that smile sometimes, and he wasn’t here because he was going to be onstage.

Jean-Claude’s hand touched the edge of mine, and I took the hint, leaning my head against his shoulder and taking his hand. He had been a ladies’ man for centuries and he swore that I was the first woman to make him feel a bit insecure. I tended to be hard on the egos of a certain kind of men. The ones who normally swept women off their feet had never moved me much, because I’d always felt that if they swept me off my feet they’d practiced on a lot of women before me, and would practice more with women after me. I’d rarely been wrong on that. Besides, the normal sweep-you-off-your-feet tricks often left me puzzled. I still wasn’t sure if I should apologize to Jean-Claude for throwing his game off this badly, or take a certain pride in it.

There was a part of me that still believed if I’d fallen into his arms easily he’d have wooed me, won me, and left me for other game by now. Was that unfair, my own insecurities talking, or just truth?