My twenty-fourth birthday fell on a Friday, which meant that Ella had decided to throw me a party. I actually hadn't wanted a party - I'd proposed a quiet dinner with neither more nor less than her and Marcus at some restaurant we both liked, but she had overruled me with the determination of a woman who knew what was best for her friends.
"You're turning twenty-four," she declared over coffee a week earlier. "Which means you're not having a quiet dinner with just us. You're having a party. A proper party with people."
And so I had a party. At a rooftop bar in Capitol Hill looking out over the city with a spectacular view, my birthday was celebrated by a who's who of my social circle. My university friends, my research lab colleagues, Ella's friends, Marcus's friends - even a few folks I actually wanted to spend time with were there. If only my suspicions about Ella's involvement in their presence hadn't been so keenly, painfully accurate...
