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shortly after our chosen drinks were delivered to our table.
    “So who are we missing then?” asked Trevor blithely, and an uncomfortable silence ricocheted between us.
    “Matt and Cathy said they might be a little late,” Sarah said quickly, and Dave, who clearly was in tune with his future wife, immediately forestalled any awkwardness by embarking on a long and improbable story about his recent experience with a parking attendant.
    We were all still laughing when I noticed a few diners at other tables glancing up in appreciation toward the entrance. Without looking up, I knew they had arrived. Individually they had always had the ability to turn heads; I knew that only too well from my own time spent by Matt’s side. But together they were phenomenal. Magazine-photo perfect. Movie-star beautiful. The combination was almost breathtaking and as they made their way toward us I noted that they both looked, if anything, even more stunning than they had five years earlier.I’d never felt so plain in my entire life. And empty. Because I knew that in another life, with another roll of the dice, there would have been someone sitting at this table to reassure me that was simply not so.
    Cathy had dressed to stun, that much was obvious. The figure-hugging black halter-neck dress did exactly what it was supposed to do; the neckline and thigh-high split gave tantalizing glimpses of both cleavage and long tanned legs. Her hair was blonder than I remembered and fluffed to perfection about her face. But it was Matt who drew my eye; who had always drawn my eye, I admitted honestly. Like Phil, he too looked taller and broader than I remembered. His dark suit and crisp white shirt looked expensive, and from their immaculate fit I guessed they hadn’t been bought off the peg. His face was leaner, more chiseled than it had been, although his eyes, as they met mine and smiled in greeting, were still the same. I tried to smile convincingly back, thinking suddenly that this was just like earlier today when I had stood before my old house: that strange feeling that here was something that was mine, but yet clearly wasn’t mine anymore.
    There was the usual round of greetings and I was glad of the flurry of hugs, handshakes, and hellos, for it meant that by the time Matt leaned down to kiss me lightly on the cheek, I had pretty much suppressed my purely hormonal reaction at seeing him again. Cathy too leaned over to kiss me hello, and I saw something unreadable flicker behind her eyes as she took in my scarred face. Not that the scar itself should be a shock to any one of them. They had all visited me in hospital many times in the immediate aftermath of the accident. Until I had driven them all away, that was.
    The evening was both a success and a failure. On the surface, we appeared to play our roles well. There was the happycouple-to-be, surrounded by their old friends, gathered together from far and wide to wish them well. But it felt like we were all second-rate actors in a rather unoriginal play. We all said the right things, raised our glasses for toasts at the appropriate moments, but somehow the effort of
not
saying something about the last time we had all sat together around a dining table was so immense that it suffocated any real pleasure. I wondered how it felt to Kate and Dave and if they were aware of it too.
    I had assumed, incorrectly as it turned out, that most of the old group had still met up during their university breaks, so it was surprising to learn that although they had seen each other in ones and twos, not once in the intervening years had there been an event where everyone had been together. I hadn’t known that the loss of Jimmy and my own disappearance had so effectively dissolved the glue between us.
    At least there were no awkward gaps in the conversation. There was enough ground to cover in bringing everyone up to date with their lives that silence wasn’t the problem. We learned that Matt had been working in