Teach me how

Now

NOW

We are being very rowdy, our laughter echoing into the dark night. It's the champagne, of course. Several bottles have been emptied already and are standing on the floor by the wall like trophies.

"Taryn," Ella says, "remember that time we were celebrating Tuesday in our room..."

"Which time?" I say. There had been many Tuesday celebrations, though we took turns whose room we celebrated in. What are we drinking to? I dunno, Tuesday?

"I don't know, one of them, and you got locked out of your apartment, and went to sleep in some dude's bed, and then he got back from his girlfriend's in the morning and thought you were a stalker?"

"I don't recall this," I say. "But it sounds totally plausible. Remember when you threw your shoes out the window and they fell on that Freshman's head who always used to smoke outside?"

"Yes! That's because he would sit there endlessly, barefoot, smoke and complain about how stressed out he is—while smoking and not studying—and then also complain his feet were cold! 'Oh and my feet are, like, really cold!' I did him a favor!"

"Yeah but you hid and he saw me and then got me all in trouble, and I had to make up a bullshit story about it, and you just laughed from around the corner... Cause you were such a fucking bitch back then?"

"Still am! So..."

The laughter drowns out the last of her words, and more bubbly makes its way around the table.

Miles stands. "Before I find out more shenanigans about my sister—I'm telling mom, Ella—let's drink! To reunions!" he says.

"Hear, hear!" sounds discordantly around the table, which is too big to allow clinking, so we just raise our glasses and then drink.

"Let's not let it be another ten years!" Ella says, smiling down at all of us from the head of the table.

Chris, seated by her side, looks at her with a puppy dog eye and says, "Yes, let's not!"

He adores her and has since we all first met. If they had superlatives in college, he'd be voted "most likely to marry Ella." She'd be voted "most likely to succeed."

"I want to drink to my beautiful bride," Chris stands next.

"Awww..." Everyone but me says in unison. We drink again.

Miles is whispering something in his wife Melissa's ear, and she's smiling and blinking as she listens. Chris and Ella are like smitten cartoon characters, gazing into each other's heart-shaped eyes. Even Jackson, sworn bachelor, now sits with his arm draped around the back of Jasmine's chair.

I am currently not involved in any entanglements or situationships, though I do have a decently committed relationship with Tinder for intermittent entertainment. I'm at this shindig solo. As such, I don't particularly want to watch the people canoodling around me, so I decide cast a look around the property instead.

The house—a hacienda, really, the kind you only see in movies, with sprawling grounds and thickets of tropical greenery—is absolutely gorgeous. We're outside, on the slate patio at a grand table under an impressive pergola surrounded by flickering tiki torches, smoke curling into the dark velvety sky. It's at once grand and cozy.

I could live like this.

Melissa raises her glass next. She says, "I want to drink to the group. I know I'm newer here, but I feel like I've known you all forever."

"Except me," Jasmine pipes up. "I'm the newest." She giggles.

"Well, I like you, all the same," Melissa says, gracefully.

She's always graceful. Miles lucked out with her, but I suppose when one is the only male student in an entire graduate program of Comparative Lit PhD hopefuls, the options are plentiful.

"I like you too!" Jasmine says.

"What a love fest," Jackson grumbles, but his voice is overpowered by a collective "Hear, hear!"

We drink.

Jasmine turns to Chris and Ella. "So, guys," she says, resting her elbows on the table, and her chin on her hands. "Why did you wait so long to get married? Ten years, I'm told?"

Chris and Ella look at each other, shrugging. They're asked this question at least twice a week, so their answer is well rehearsed and tired.

"Ella wanted to get her career stable," Chris says.

"Chris wanted to finish his PhD," Ella says.

"And now we can finally settle down," they say practically in unison. Then they kiss. Then Jasmine, apparently overcome with tenderness at the sight, turns and kisses Jackson, who concedes to being kissed, but keeps his eyes open. Then Melissa kisses Miles with a loud smooch. It's a chain reaction. A domino effect of kisses. I consider making a joke about being the piece that stops the dominoes from falling, but think better of it. Instead, I stand up and start gathering plates.

"Oh, no," Ella protests weakly, leaning on Chris's shoulder, "don't clean up."

"My ass is starting to hurt from all the sitting," I say. "Don't worry about it. Plus, there's dessert."

In the kitchen—the huge, marble kitchen, with copper cookware hanging off a rack in the ceiling—I place the dirty dishes in the sink and eye the dishwasher. I decide I draw the line at loading the dishwasher as a guest. Instead, I open the fridge. Inside are the juicy ridiculously red strawberries, fat blueberries, passion fruit with their thick shiny skin.

My arms are loaded with bowls of fruit when someone taps me on the shoulder.

It's funny, you'd think it would be the tapping that would startle me and make me jump, but it isn't. Someone taps me, and I turn around smiling, thinking Ella has grown a conscience and decided to come and help me. Instead, I see him, and he says, "Hey," like a stab to the heart, and that's what makes me jump and drop everything.

"Shit!" I skitter out of the way of the plummeting crystal bowl, which hits the marble with a loud noise. Shards of glass fly in all directions like shrapnel.

"Nice to see you too!" he says, grinning. His voice is just the same.

"Lee," I breathe.

He keeps grinning.

On my end, I feel my lips trembling and can do nothing about it. I try to stretch them into a smile, but fail.