Frankie Harriman took a long last look in the mirror on the back of the bathroom door of her decently appointed hotel room. The lighting was, as expected, quite grim, but even without the shadowing and the unflattering overtone of yellow, she startled herself. She fidgeted with the hem of her oversize wool sweater, tried tucking it into the waist of her Levi’s, then decided that made her look like she was trying too hard, so untucked it, but she still wasn’t happy. She turned to the side and gave herself a final once—over. It would have to do. The rehearsal dinner invite had called for College Chic! and this was all she had: her old J.Crew fisherman sweater that she’d dug out of a box in the back of her closet in her Los Feliz apartment and her vintage Levi’s, which she now bought at a used—clothing store on Fairfax, but she may just as well have been wearing the ones from 1989, the year they graduated. The last time she’d set foot on campus at Middleton University.

She had been as surprised as anyone that she willingly accepted her freshman—year roommate’s request to be a bridesmaid (how do you really turn that sort of thing down?). Months later, she checked off “Yes! Party Like It’s 1999,” rather than “Y2Nay,” on the invitation, and after sealing the envelope and dropping it in the mailbox on the corner outside her office, it wouldn’t be a lie to say that she regretted it and immediately thought of a million and one excuses as to how she could bail last minute. She always had excuses at the ready, and to be honest, half of them weren’t even lies: her artists inevitably got themselves into trouble or she was headed out on tour or there was some sort of unforeseeable crisis to manage.