“Okay,” Elena says. “We need one more case of champagne and two of San Pellegrino up at the bar by the flower arch, and then you can finally go ahead and start setting up.”

“And, let me guess, Roderick hasn’t shown up yet,” Jenny says, her hands on her hips.

Elena gestures around herself, indicating a mansion and grounds utterly free of Roderick.

“Do you see him? No? He’s not here. Just carry the cases, weightlifting is good for your bone density when you get older. You can thank me when you don’t have osteoporosis,” Elena says, looking back down at her clipboard.

Jenny rolls her eyes dramatically, probably a little too dramatically, then bends to pick up a case of bottled water.

“He’s an hour late. You’re going to at least write him up, right? Give him a red flag or whatever?”

“Yup,” Elena says, glancing into the back of our white catering van and checking something off on her clipboard.

I grab the case of champagne. Jenny and I follow the path from the mansion’s service entrance to the landscaped front yard, where the bar is already set up and festooned with white flowers. A hundred feet away, up on a terrace and past some rose bushes, I can see the other guys setting up the last of the white chairs, tying ribbons along them.

“He’s probably still surfing or something,” Jenny grumps, still complaining about Roderick. “And then he’s just going to waltz in here, two hours late, and smile his stupid smile at Elena and bat his eyelashes, and she’s just going to let it slide because Roderick is the golden boy around here.”

She stops to look around her box and navigate a few steps.

“Roderick, can you lift this heavy box?” she says in a high-pitched, mocking voice that I guess is supposed to be Elena. “Roderick, thank God for your big muscles! Roderick, some female guests are upset, can you go talk to them?”

I don’t answer Jenny. We’ve only been working this weekend catering gig together for two weeks now, but I already know to just let her rants run their course. I also know that she’s got a huge crush on Roderick, so I just let her keep talking as we cross the lawn and deposit our boxes under the bar.

“Who’s getting married, do you think?” she asks, changing the subject suddenly.

I look up at the house, around at the gardens.

“I did find the price to rent this place,” I admit. “Five hundred grand.”

Jenny gasps.

“No, it’s not,” she exclaims. “Just to rent it! Not even for tables and chairs and meals?!”

“I think so,” I say, though I didn’t really investigate further.

“Brad and Angelina,” she guesses. “George Clooney. No, he already got married to a lawyer. Jennifer Aniston? What about her?”

Jenny goes on, and I chime in sometimes. Even if I can’t keep up with the speed or volume of her conversation, I do like her. She’s friendly, easy to talk to, and she’s been working for Platinum Catering for six months already while she tries to get her acting career started.

I’m not sure that’s going to work out for her. She’s shown me a few of her audition tapes, and for all her in-person charm and verve, I think she may have picked the wrong career.

“Oh!” she exclaims, cutting herself off mid-sentence. “Here, I brought you a wedding ring. I had an extra because a few months ago I lost the one that I usually wear, so I got this one for cheap from a secondhand store near my house, but then I found the one I like again. That one does kinda turn your finger green, though, watch out.”

“Thanks,” I say, as she drops it into my hand. “Is this really gonna keep the creepy old dudes away?”

She just laughs.

“You’d be surprised,” she says. “I can turn down some self-important asshole twenty times and he’ll come right back, like what I need is convincing, but the second I say I’m married? Whoosh, gone.”

I roll my eyes and slide the plain gold band onto my ring finger. It’s maybe half a size too big, but it’s good enough.

For just a moment, I stare at it, thinking. It’s the first time I’ve worn a ring on that finger since I broke up with Alistair, and even though it doesn’t look a thing like the wedding bands we’d picked out — those were way gaudier — I still feel a pang of I-don’t-know-what in my chest.

It’s not regret. It’s not longing.

Nostalgia, maybe? Wondering whether I should have chosen the sure thing, the steady future, instead of the one I did take?

He did finally stop calling. It only took about fifty tries, but at last he seems to have gotten the message that it’s over, finished, and I’m not interested in trying any more.

And of course, Liam didn’t call. To be honest, I still think about him more than Alistair, still wish that I’d done that morning differently. Said goodbye, at least; gotten his phone number as well so at least I could call.

What if I wrote my number down wrong?

What if he thought it was junk mail and threw it away without seeing my note?

What if...

“Or maybe it’s some studio bigwig, you know?” Jenny’s now saying as she jams champagne bottles into a giant bucket of ice. “I feel like those guys always go in for lots of secrecy, acting like they’re famous and shit, but then when you find out that you’re catering the top-secret wedding of Gary Shinington, and you’re like, who?”

“Maybe,” I agree, and grab a champagne bottle.

I shove it into my own ice bucket, and try to chase visions of Liam’s stupid face from my brain.

Just forget him, I tell myself. Find some hot surfer bro, have a fling, and forget about Liam.