Five Years Earlier

Jonathan and Cass Coyne watched as the bride opened her mouth to receive the first bite of wedding cake, a four-tiered monstrosity covered in fondant roses and edible pearls. The groom, intoxicated, jammed the fork in too deeply and the bride gasped as the tines probed the back of her throat.

“Christ,” Cass said, reaching for Jonathan’s elbow. “These two need to work on their coordination. That first dance was nearly an amputation below the knee.”

Jonathan laughed. “Be nice!”

Jonathan and Cass had been married for just three months and had already attended four weddings since their own. They were at the age when their peers were coupling at rapid speed, and so the newly married Coynes were often bopping to “Celebrate” and clinking champagne glasses on the weekends. They’d developed a wicked party game (Cass’s invention, though Jonathan happily played along) where they would bet on how many years the bride and groom would last. They would record their bets on one of the monogrammed cocktail napkins and keep them in a locked desk drawer at home. Neither of them had yet to come up with what the prize for a correct prediction would be, other than the obvious satisfaction of accurate fortune-telling.

“I think these guys have ten years tops. They can’t dance, he’s a drunk, and she looks like she wants to murder him for shoving that buttercream flower down her throat.”

“Disagree,” Cass said, facing her husband. “She used to be really overweight and is still insecure because of it. And he was super awkward when he was younger—I can tell by the high school friends. It’s a perfect match.”

“That’s quite a calculated analysis, Mrs. Coyne,” Jonathan said. “So you’re going fifty-years-plus?”

“Correct,” Cass said. “Just like us.”

“Just like us,” Jonathan said, handing Cass the pen from his inside suit pocket. “Though hopefully we stick for better reasons.”

“Of course,” she said. Cass sounded certain. But he noticed she didn’t offer any window into what sort of virtues might fuel their marriage for the long haul.

“You don’t suppose anyone’s ever bet on us, do you?” Jonathan asked. He hated to think of people from his past judging him or judging Cass—or worse, judging what they had together.

“I hope not.” Just the thought made Cass ill, as though suddenly she was a nude model in art class and everyone around her was sketching her most objectionable flaws, the ones she habitually lied about.

The Coynes looked at each other for a moment. Separately, they reflected on what would be exposed if their own lives were examined under a microscope, or a walk down memory lane. And then they both shifted their gazes to their place settings, where generous slices of cake had been placed before them.

Cass took the napkin on which she and Jonathan had scribbled their predictions and crumpled it up.

“This is mean, isn’t it?” she asked her husband.

“Agreed,” Jonathan said. “Though we’re still fifty-plus.”

“Totally.” Cass lifted a forkful of cake and artfully placed it between Jonathan’s waiting lips. “We are totally fifty-plus.”