A friendly looking redhead dressed as Ariel, with her arm around the waist of a tall Hispanic Prince Eric.
An aloof brunette dressed as a vampire, whispering something to her vampire boyfriend.
A few couples across the room who had been engaged in a group convo but are now staring at where I’ve just brought singledom into a party clearly meant for pairs.
“Everyone, this is Evie-slash-Hermione! Evie, this is . . . everyone!”
I wave, muttering to Steph out of the side of my mouth in my best Bogart, “You didn’t tell me this was a couples thing.”
“It’s not, really. It just ended up that way!” she chirps, pulling me deeper into the living room. “I promise it will be great.”
For a second, when I spot two women dressed as Beyoncé and Nicki Minaj snuggling on the couch, I think she might be right. This is an open-minded group, and I am a strong female choosing to embrace her independence and attend a party alone. Nothing to feel out of place about here.
But then she steers me past the main cluster of guests and parks me at the Red Bull–and-vodka table.
So that’s how it is.
“Is Morgan at least here?” I ask hopefully, happy to entertain Steph and her husband Mike’s toddler all night if it helps me look even a fraction less awkward.
She looks at me with a dramatic little pout. “At the sitter’s. How’s work, by the way?”
My shoulders sag, resigned. “It’s fine. Tyler—the Broadway actor I signed in March? He isn’t here full-time with his wife and kid until the end of November, so I told him I’d check on them. I basically spent the day in a Child Sensory Training and Integration seminar where babies play with cooked pasta in giant plastic bins for seven hundred dollars an hour.”
There’s an understandable beat of silence before Steph leans in closer. “You didn’t.”
“I did.” And talking about it again, I remember how incredulous I was when we walked in. A group of tiny women in white jeans with their perfectly dressed, smudge-free children staring excitedly at giant bins of cooked noodles. But as the hour went on, and I saw Bea’s joy over the naughtiness of playing with her food for fun, my cynicism over the ridiculous parenting extravagance lessened, and I started to feel like, Yeah, this is pretty awesome.
But that is exactly how your brain gets corrupted in this town. Seven hundred dollars an hour to squish noodles in their chubby fists. These kids could have an awesome time playing with macaroni in their bathtub at home for a buck fifty.
“You aren’t her nanny,” Steph reminds me with gentle outrage.
“No, I know. But I adore Tyler, and his landing the lead in Long Board was a huge coup for us both.” A coup I sort of needed, and Steph knows it, too. “I’m happy to check in on his family, obviously, but yeah. Not a nanny. How about you? Things are good?”
“Yeah. Ken’s been acting a bit weirder than usual, but—” She mimes tipping a bottle back dramatically and I laugh. The office cocktail hour with Ken Alterman—my old boss—was always an adventure.
Someone catches Steph’s eye from across the room, and despite my pleading headshake, she gives my shoulder a reassuring squeeze and says, “Hold tight, I’ll be right back.”
And then she’s gone.
You’d think I’d be used to this sort of thing by now—navigating a room full of matched-up people, alone—but somehow it never really gets easier.
I pull my phone out of my robe pocket, quickly texting Daryl.
Jerk. I am the only singleton.
It was a couples party? I didn’t know!
Neither did I.
I would have faked diarrhea in traffic.
Actually, that might have been more pleasant.
With a mental groan, I glance covertly at the time before tucking my phone away again. I can stay for forty-five minutes, right? That seems like a length that communicates, I value your friendship and am so glad I came! and No, I am absolutely not rushing out the door so I can continue slipping into spinsterdom in peace. I feel like there should be a clear rule: if you’re unmarried at my age and have been a bridesmaid more than seven times, you should be automatically allowed an early exit from any couples event without ever being deemed an asshole.
With this decided, I inspect my vodka choices, pulling the most expensive one from an array of multicolored bottles.
“Is this the third-wheel table?”
Because I’m midpour, I answer without turning around. “The one with all the booze?” I ask. “It should be. I mean, it’s the least they can do.”
“Then I’m sorry, but I need to ask you to leave,” the man says sternly, and just as I turn in surprise, I feel him lean in a little behind me to say more quietly: “I was assured I was the only single person hired to work this event.”
He’s closer than I expected, and so my laugh is cut off when I see him.
Is he kidding? He’s single? No way am I this lucky. His hair is dark, longer on top, and as I watch him bend to inspect some of the bottles, he pushes it back from his forehead. Not like he’s fixing it in any way—quite the opposite, because now it’s standing straight up—but like that’s an unconscious thing he does. I immediately notice how comfortable he seems in his skin, loose and easygoing enough that it’s a solid guess he wasn’t just planning a bout of fake intestinal distress to make a dive for the nearest exit.
He smiles again, and when I look down to what he’s wearing, I have to close my eyes to stifle a laugh.
“Did Steph put you up to this?” I ask.
“What?” He follows my gaze. It’s subtle, but with the hair, green eyes, and glasses I can tell where he was going with the white shirt and loose tie beneath a gray zip-up jacket. Harry Potter. The lightning-bolt scar drawn on his forehead helps; that probably should have immediately tipped me off.
His brows furrow. “Oh my God.” He takes in my robe, the tie, the wand, the wild dark hair I teased to within an inch of its life while I sat in traffic. “Are you kidding me? The only two single people at this party and we match?”
I can’t stifle the laugh this time, and it tears from me, surprising him as it does everyone who has ever heard it. I am small but my laugh is mighty.
He stares at me with a slow-growing, amused grin. “Wow.”
“Hi.” I hold out my hand. “I’m Evie.”
“Is that short for Evil?” He pretends to be scared as he tentatively returns the handshake. “Are you sure you’re Gryffindor? Your laugh makes me think you have a secret lab and are building an apocalyptic robot dog that’s going to eat every smug person here. Slytherin for sure.”
“It’s short for Evelyn. The cackle is my gift. It keeps the delicate ones away.”
“I’m Carter.” He points two thumbs at his chest. “Not delicate, I promise.”
Is he . . . flirting? I consider the rolling tumbleweeds of my dating life and marvel that I can’t even tell anymore.