I was the one dancing with Max when it happened.

No one ever remembers who it was now, but it was me.

Actually, pretty much everything that night was me. Max and Babette had gone on a last-­minute, two-­week, second-honeymoon cruise around the boot of Italy that they’d found for a steal—and the return date just happened to be two days before Max’s sixtieth birthday party—smack in the middle of summer.

Babette had worried that she couldn’t book a trip with an end date so close to the party, but I stopped her. “I’ve got this. I’ll get everything ready.”

“I’m not sure you realize what a big undertaking a party like this is,” Babette said. “We’ve got the whole school coming. Three hundred people—maybe more. It’s a huge job.”

“I think I can handle it.”

“But it’s your summer,” Babette said. “I want you to be carefree.”

“And I want you,” I said, pointing at her, “to take a dirt-­cheap second honeymoon to Italy.”

I didn’t have to twist their arms. They went.