“Lizzie’s got a new boyfriend?” Angelo, I can tell, is trying to cut back on his carbs. He’s only dipping celery sticks. Maybe he’s on South Beach to control his belly fat, which is not enhanced by the white polyester shirt he is wearing. Why won’t he listen to me and stick to natural fibers? “How did I not hear about this? The LBS must be on the fritz.”

“LBS?” Chaz echoes, his dark eyebrows raised.

“Lizzie Broadcasting System,” Shari explains to him. “Where have you been?”

“Oh, right,” Chaz says, and swigs his beer.

“I told Rose all about it,” I say, glaring at all three of them. Someday I’m going to get my sister Rose back for that Lizzie Broadcasting System thing. It was funny when we were kids, but I’m twenty-two now! “Didn’t she tell you, Ange?”

Angelo looks confused. “Tell me what?”

I sigh. “This freshman on the second floor let her potpourri boil over on her illegal hot plate and the hall filled with smoke and they had to evacuate,” I explain. I am always eager to relate the story of how Andrew and I met. Because it’s superromantic. Someday, when Andrew and I are married and live in a ramshackle and tomato-free Victorian in Westport, Connecticut, with our golden retriever, Rolly, and our four kids, Andrew Jr., Henry, Stella, and Beatrice, and I’m a famous-well, whatever I’m going to be-and Andrew’s the headmaster at a nearby boys’ school, teaching children to read, and I get interviewed in Vogue, I’ll be able to tell this story-looking funky yet fabulous in vintage Chanel from head to toe-while laughingly serving a perfect cup of French roast to the reporter on my back porch, which will be decorated entirely in tasteful white wicker and chintz.

“Well, I was taking a shower,” I go on, “so I didn’t smell the smoke or hear the alarm going off or anything. Until Andrew came into the girls’ bathroom and yelled ‘Fire!’ and-”

“Is it true the girls’ bathrooms in McCracken Hall have gang showers?” Angelo wants to know.

“It’s true,” Chaz informs him conversationally. “They all have to shower together. Sometimes they soap each other’s backs while gossiping about their girlish hijinks from the night before.”

Angelo stares at Chaz, bug-eyed. “Are you shitting me?”

“Don’t pay any attention to him, Angelo,” Shari says, going for another chip. “He’s making it up.”

“That kind of thing happens all the time on Beverly Hills Bordello,” Angelo says.

“We didn’t shower all together,” I say. “I mean, Shari and I did sometimes-”

“Tell us more about that, please,” Chaz says, opening a new beer with the church key my mom had provided near the cooler.

“Don’t,” Shari says. “You’ll just encourage him.”

“Which bits were you washing when he came in?” Chaz wants to know. “And was there another girl with you at the time? Which bits was she washing? Or was she helping to wash your bits?”

“No,” I say, “it was just me. And naturally, when I saw a guy in the girls’ shower, I screamed.”

“Oh, naturally,” Chaz said.

“So I grabbed a towel and this guy-I couldn’t really see him all that well through the steam and the smoke and all-goes, in the cutest British accent you ever heard, ‘Miss, the building’s on fire. I’m afraid you’ll have to evacuate.’”

“So wait,” Angelo says. “This dude saw you in the raw?”

“In her nudie-pants,” Chaz confirms.

“So by then the halls were all smoky and I couldn’t see, so he took my hand and guided me down the stairs and outside to safety, where we struck up a conversation-me in my towel and everything. And that’s when I realized he was the love of my life.”

“Based on one conversation,” Chaz says, sounding skeptical. But then, having a philosophy master’s degree, he is skeptical about everything. They train them to be that way.

“Well,” I say, “we made out the rest of the night, too. That’s how I know he’s not gay. I mean, he got a full stiffy.”

Chaz choked a little on his beer.

“So, anyway,” I say, trying to steer the conversation back on track, “we made out all night. But then he had to leave the next day for England, because the semester was over-”

“-and now, since Lizzie’s finally done with school, she’s flying to London to spend the rest of the summer with him,” Shari finishes for me. “Then coming back here to rot, just like her-”

“Come on, Shar,” I interrupt quickly. “You promised.”

She just grimaces at me.

“Listen, Liz,” Chaz says, and reaches for another beer, “I know this guy’s the love of your life and all. But you have all next semester to be with him. Are you sure you don’t want to come to France with us for the rest of the summer?”

“Don’t bother, Chaz,” Shari says. “I already asked her eighty million times.”

“Did you mention we’re staying in a seventeenth-century French chateau with its own vineyard, perched on a hilltop overlooking a lush green valley through which snakes a long and lazy river?” Chaz wants to know.

“Shari told me,” I say, “and it’s sweet of you to ask. Even if you’re not exactly in a position to be inviting people, because doesn’t the chateau belong to one of your friends from that prep school you went to, and not you?”

“A trifling detail,” Chaz says. “Luke would love to have you.”

“Ha,” Shari says, “I’ll say. More slave labor for his amateur wedding franchise.”

“What’re they talking about?” Angelo asks me, looking confused.

“Chaz’s childhood friend from prep school, Luke,” I explain to him, “has an ancestral home in France that his father rents out during the summer sometimes as a destination wedding spot. Shari and Chaz are leaving tomorrow to spend a month at the chateau for free, in exchange for helping out at the weddings.”

“Destination wedding spot,” Angelo echoes. “You mean like Vegas?”

“Right,” Shari says. “Only tasteful. And it costs more than one ninety-nine to get there. And there’s no free breakfast buffet.”

Angelo looks shocked. “Then what’s the point?”

Someone tugs on the skirt of my dress and I look down. My sister Rose’s firstborn, Maggie, holds up a necklace made of macaroni.

“Aunt Lizzie,” she says. “For you. I made it. For your gradutation.”

“Why, thank you, Maggie,” I say, kneeling down so that Maggie can drop the necklace over my head.

“The paint’s not dry,” Maggie says, pointing to the red and blue splotches of paint that have now been transferred from the macaroni to the front of my 1954 Suzy Perette rose silk party dress (which wasn’t cheap, even with my employee discount).

“That’s okay, Mags,” I say. Because, after all, she’s only four. “It’s beautiful.”

“There you are!” Grandma Nichols teeters toward us. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere, Anne-Marie. It’s time for Dr. Quinn.”

“Grandma,” I say, straightening up to grasp her spool-thin arm before she can topple over. I see that she has already managed to spill something all down the green crepe de chine 1960s tunic top I got her at the shop. Fortunately the paint stains from the macaroni necklace Maggie made for her are somewhat hiding the stain. “It’s Lizzie. Not Anne-Marie. Mom’s over by the dessert table. And what have you been drinking?”

I seize the Heineken bottle in Grandma’s hand and smell its contents. It should, by prior agreement with the rest of my family, have been filled with nonalcoholic beer, then resealed, due to Grandma Nichols’s inability to hold her liquor, which has resulted in what my mom likes to call “incidents.” Mom was hoping to head off any “incidents” at my graduation party by letting Grandma have only nonalcoholic beer-but not telling her it was nonalcoholic, of course. Because then she would have raised a fuss, telling us we were trying to ruin an old lady’s good time and all.

But I can’t tell if the beer in the bottle is of the nonalcoholic variety. We had stashed the faux Heinekens in a special section of the cooler for Grandma. But she may have managed to find the real thing somewhere. She’s crafty that way.

Or she could just THINK she’s had the real thing, and consequently thinks she’s drunk.

“Lizzie?” Grandma looks suspicious. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be away at college?”

“I graduated from college in May, Grandma,” I say. Well, sort of, anyway. Not counting the two months I just spent in summer school getting my language requirement out of the way. “This is my graduation party. Well, my graduation-slash-bon voyage party.”

“Bon voyage?” Grandma’s suspicion turns to indignation. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“To England, Grandma, the day after tomorrow,” I say. “To visit my boyfriend. Remember? We talked about this.”

“Boyfriend?” Grandma glares at Chaz. “Isn’t that him right there?”

“No, Grandma,” I say. “That’s Chaz, Shari’s boyfriend. You remember Shari Dennis, right, Grandma? She grew up down the street?”

“Oh, the Dennis girl,” Grandma says, narrowing her eyes in Shari’s direction. “I remember you now. I thought I saw your parents over by the barbecue. You and Lizzie going to do that song you always do when you get together?”

Shari and I exchange horror-filled glances. Angelo hoots.

“Hey, yeah!” he cries. “Rosie told me about this. What song was it you two used to do? Like at the school talent show and shit?”

I give Angelo a warning look, since Maggie is still hanging around, and say, “Little pitchers.” It’s clear from his expression that he has no idea what I’m talking about. I sigh and begin steering Grandma toward the house.

“Better come on, Grandma,” I say, “or you’ll miss your show.”

“What about the song?” Grandma wants to know.