Somewhere a fork hit a plate.

Two hundred people turned.

Amber’s face went scarlet, and she grabbed at the tablecloth behind her to cover herself, and her eyes swept the room in a panic until they found me.

I lifted my glass to her, an inch, no more.

And she understood, all at once, exactly what had happened, and exactly who had done it.

What she did not understand — what neither of them understood yet — was that the glue was the smallest trap I had set for them that night, and by far the kindest.

I call it the kindest because a torn dress is a thing a person recovers from.