All Evelyn knows is that to wear white to someone else’s wedding is equivalent to a shootable offence. She puts on a green dress that reaches her heels, which she bought a year ago and has never had an opportunity to wear. Imogen says to wear gold jewellery with it instead of silver; Evelyn tries this and finds it suits her.

They sit cross-legged on the floor of Evelyn’s bedroom, knees pressed together, putting makeup on each other like they used to at sleepovers. It occurs to Evelyn that the last time they did this, Imogen ended up with a botched attempt at the cut-crease style of blindingly colourful eye makeup which was then popular on YouTube. Evelyn had almost an entire face of green: Imogen had gone a little too far with the eyeshadow, then decided to make the best of it by turning her best friend into a dinosaur.

Fortunately, they have since both learned the skill of light-handedness, and there are no such disasters this afternoon.

When they are finished, they stand side-by-side and look at themselves in the long mirror inside the wardrobe door. With a finger Evelyn traces the seam running down her side and is surprised to feel it against her own skin. There is a freedom in her limbs, as though she has been lately released from a performance in which she has been compelled to participate for a long time. She presses her nails into her palms and is struck to see the marks which are left there. She looks at her face—at her eyes and nose and chin—and at the slope of her shoulders, and the curve of her hips, and thinks: Oh, I know you.

The venue is an hour’s drive away, a late-19th century mansion which has operated as a luxury hotel since the ‘50s. They planned to take the bus, but Dave offered to drop them at the (significantly cheaper) hotel they’d booked to stay the night in, to which they said yes, thank you.

When they get out of the car Evelyn says goodbye to her father. He hugs her.

“Stay safe, guys. Don’t get too pissed.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

They check in at the front desk and are given a key and verbal directions to their room. It is small, but clean. There is a little bathroom, a wardrobe, and a double bed which takes up the majority of the space. The walls are pale yellow-green and the carpet is an unfortunate shade of vomit-beige, which Imogen calls food poisoning chic. But if not pretty, it is at least comfortable, and they have very few complaints.

They toss their bags onto the floor and leave the way they came, locking the door behind them. The ceremony starts at three—and there was traffic on the way, so it is already a quarter past two. Fortunately, it’s only a fifteen-minute walk to the venue, and after a short battle with Google Maps they find it easily.

The hotel is enormous and looks like something out of a Jane Austen adaptation. It is preceded by an expanse of flawlessly manicured green grass and shrubbery, cut up into geometric shapes by little cobbled footpaths and a driveway along the perimeter of the building, which must lead off into a carpark somewhere around the side. A wide stretch of lawn in the centre is being laid out with tables and lights.

At the reception they are directed to a great pillared room with polished floors and high chandeliers and tall arched windows overlooking the grounds. It has been made up like a particularly extravagant chapel, dozens of pews lined up in rows so that there is an aisle in the centre, and at the front a platform and a podium. They give their names to a tall bearded man with a clipboard at the door, and are ushered in.

They’d gone to a small school, with just over thirty people in their graduating class. It seems that almost all of them are in attendance. Evelyn guesses that there must be close to two hundred guests, seated or milling about, all engaged in smiling conversation. There are a couple of cameras set up on tripods near the front, which people dressed in black fuss over. She is reminded of the musicals the school used to put on.

“Do you reckon we’re just invited as props for Jess’ social media? You know, so the whole thing looks all big and glamorous?” Imogen says.

Evelyn hasn’t considered this. It’s true that she has only spoken to Jess, the bride, two or three times since graduation, and can’t remember talking to Bailey, the groom, at all. But to spend five days in a week for six years with little variation on the same thirty or forty people is to become something like family with them. You come to know them, in the way you might know cousins and second cousins and uncles and nieces. And so, seeing them after a couple of years apart feels more like a family reunion than anything. Perhaps you groan over the prospect, but it is inevitable, and it is an affectionate reluctance, after all. You know them inherently, if not completely, and it doesn’t occur to you to feel any more distant from them than you have the rest of your life.

But then, this is a big and glamorous wedding, and maybe Imogen is right.

Oh well, free food.

They are called over by a group of their old classmates to their right, including Areeha and Eliza.

“Imogen—Evelyn—I haven’t seen you guys in ages!” says Beckett, as fervid and redheaded as ever he was. Beckett has always reminded Evelyn of a young child, with his unbridled enthusiasm and constantly bruised knees.

“Hey, Beckett—hi, guys.”

There are exchanges of embraces and compliments, and Evelyn is pleased to see them all. Ben is asked about his promotion to manager at the café he works at, and Shreya says she is thinking of switching her degree from psychology to law.

She lets her gaze traverse the room, picking out familiar faces. There is Eugene, who sat next to her in modern history class. And there’s Bella, who in year eight shared a transient determination with Evelyn to start a book club. Idris, who asked her to a disco in year seven. Holly, who once told Evelyn after a particularly sunburnt summer that she was so freckled, she looked like a strawberry. Hugo, who she went out with for three months in year ten and who later came out as gay. And there is Spencer on the far side of the chairs, speaking to a pair of women—his mother, and someone else. He catches Evelyn’s eye and waves, but doesn’t come over.

The ceremony only goes for half an hour, and it feels like less.

How strange, how surprising, to see two people you went to school with at a floral altar, and a blue-suited celebrant beyond them. How astonishing that the striking woman in white and silver used to braid your hair at recess and confide giddily in you about the boy she kissed yesterday after PE. How confounding that the weeping, laughing man used to come to your house one afternoon a week to eat dinner and play video games with your brother while his parents worked late.

When they recite their vows, Evelyn can imagine that she is looking at a painting. The picture they make is so beautiful, so cohesive. In a way she can’t identify, they seem much older than they were at graduation.

They are pronounced husband and wife, and this seems so right, so unquestionable, that Evelyn cannot feel disturbed as she expected to. Afterwards, even Imogen has no sarcastic remark to make.

There is the recessional, and then the guests file outside to the lawns, now costumed with flowers and a white dancefloor and linen tablecloths. There is a little bar sheltered by a gauzy canopy and run by two bartenders whose movements are so fluid and easy they seem to dance. Servers dressed in black and white weave through the crowd carrying trays of appetisers.

The seating chart is displayed on a pair of white easels. She and Imogen have been assigned to table 12, with Beckett, Holly, Mia (another classmate, close friends with Holly), three people whose names she does not recognise, and Spencer. Imogen says, “great,” and makes a beeline for the bar.

A server offers Evelyn a feta pastry and she carries it to where Imogen is in line.

“Waste of time!” says Imogen, “Get on the free cocktails.”

“Fistful of food,” Evelyn says through a mouthful of pastry.

When they reach the front of the line, Evelyn asks for two piña coladas. These are made and placed on the counter extraordinarily quickly, and she wonders how many thousands of drinks the bartender has mixed and poured to become so precise and rapid. They take the drinks to their table, where Holly and Mia are already installed.

“Hey guys,” says Imogen, beaming with a note of dishonesty which Evelyn hopes they don’t detect. Imogen passively dislikes Holly, although she won’t say so. Holly is collectively understood to be blithely underhand, but she’s not hated because this is how she has always been, and she has always possessed the skill of making and remaking friends so that on falling out of favour with one set, she can slip gracefully in with another.

Mia is quiet and giggling in a way that first strikes you as nervous, but after three or four years you come to understand is her natural state. Evelyn was invited to almost all Mia’s birthday parties from when they were thirteen until they graduated, and still Evelyn cannot recall a time when Mia has spoken more than ten words together in conversation.

“Oh, my goodness,” says Holly, “It’s been forever. How are you both?”

They make small talk until Beckett and three partway-drunk men around their age drop merrily into four of the five remaining seats.

Beckett introduces his companions as Sam, Kit, and Abe, who were on the same football team as Beckett and Bailey through most of high school. They are as quick and uncomplicated as their monosyllabic names, and they make Evelyn think of more-than-usually charming ferrets. They grin and flirt and make nuisances of themselves, but are easy to laugh at.

Spencer doesn’t join them until it’s time for dinner. He is introduced to the ferrets and is welcomed energetically by Beckett and Imogen, who hadn’t known he was coming.

He slips into the seat beside Evelyn and hugs her.

“How’s Nethra?”

“Good, I think. Busy with her new internship at the art gallery.”

Spencer makes an exclamation about how well this suits her. Evelyn smiles and agrees.

“That’s right, you guys saw each other at that book launch,” says Imogen. “I’m incredibly jealous of you, Spencer. Nethra is so cool. Evelyn, you need to invite me to stay again.”

“Come whenever you like. It’s not as though I have classes to work around anymore.”

“Great. Go back, already, so I can follow you there.”

Over dinner, the table talks and laughs and laughs until they are breathless and the stars seem to dip low above their heads.

There are speeches, by turns heartfelt and farcical, and the cake is cut and served. The bride and groom dance to Frank Ocean, and then I Wanna Dance With Somebody comes on and the guests are enjoined to partake.

Imogen pulls Evelyn up from her seat and they are absorbed by the crowd of people flocking to the dancefloor. It is dark now, and there are white lights strung overhead so that everything is soft and loud and ethereal.

They are soon found by Spencer, then Areeha and Eliza. At some point Jess stands on a chair and tosses a pink bouquet behind her, which is caught by a woman Evelyn has never seen before. Familiar faces come and go, stopping to dance or chat over glasses of cold water each time Evelyn detaches herself from the throng.

It must be past ten when Jess appears beside her. Evelyn shouts and wraps her arms around the bride. Jess presses her forehead against Evelyn’s, and everything is a little unfocused, but they look each other in the eyes, as best they can.

“Are you happy?” says Evelyn above the clamour.

“Yes,” says Jess. “No one has ever been as happy as I am.”

“I’m glad!”

And then she is gone, whisked off by the fairies.

Sometime around twelve, Evelyn and Imogen call an Uber. Spencer walks with them to the front of the hotel, where they stand in silence, arms folded against the chill night air.

“That was fun,” says Imogen finally.

“Do you know,” says Spencer, as though something has just occurred to him, “I really thought it wouldn’t happen. I thought fate would intervene somehow. There would be a storm, or a problem with the venue, or one of them would change their mind, and it would all be a false alarm.”

Evelyn thinks that Spencer was right: it was a false alarm. When she received the invitation she imagined it blaring at her, warning of stagnancy and telling her to go, go, go, like the fire alarms in school. The phantom echo of it has been ringing in her ears, but slowly the ringing has dulled, and now all is quiet inside her skull. But there was no alarm in the first place, or if there was it didn’t come from anywhere outside her.

It’s okay, she thinks. There are infinitely worse things than to be twenty years and five months old, caught somewhere between knowing and not knowing, but with the time and space to feel around for a foothold.

“I’m glad fate didn’t intervene. It was good, I think.”

Their Uber arrives, and they say goodbye to Spencer. He says to stay in touch, and they agree readily.

“Good luck with the band,” says Evelyn.

“Good luck with the crisis,” says Spencer.

They climb inside and he shuts the door behind them. In the five minutes it takes to get to their hotel, Imogen falls asleep on Evelyn’s shoulder.

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