I MOVED VERY quickly toward the side door. This time I was lucky enough to be wearing sneakers. I made it to the footbridge in really good time. Plenty of moonlight. But there was no sign of Tallulah and Gus.

I finally turned back toward the house, and I heard voices. But the voices weren’t coming from outside, and they weren’t coming from the woods. In fact, they seemed to be coming from inside the main house. Maybe somebody had wanted to get away from the noise of the party. Maybe somebody wanted to rest on a sofa. But maybe it was Gus and Tallulah.

I stepped onto the back porch. No voices now. I ventured into the empty kitchen. Still no voices. The mystery deepened. In the hallway I could hear stage whispers from upstairs. Gus and Tallulah. Damn them.

The stairs creaked with age. My brilliant solution? I took them two at a time.

When I got to the landing I heard the voices clearly: They were coming from the little room next to the master bedroom, the room I used as an office.

Instead of rushing in like a crazy person, yelling “Aha!,” I slowly, softly, and carefully opened the door. Tallulah and Gus were at my desk. The printer on the nearby table was churning out pages. To my surprise, there was no smoke in the air, no sweet smell of pot.

Tallulah saw me first. “Oh, my God!” she shouted. “It’s Gaby!”

Gus spun around and positioned himself in front of the printer, the printer that was turning out a small mountain of papers.

“Hey, shouldn’t you be with your guests?” he asked. “With Marty?”

I threw him a suspicious glance, ignored the questions, and said, “What exactly are you two doing?”

“Bet you thought we were in here smoking dope,” Gus said. “Am I right?”

“Don’t you want to be surprised?” Tallulah asked.

“I’m sure that, whatever it is, I’ll be surprised,” I said, and Gus finally handed me a sheet of paper.

“It’s something we’re giving to every guest when they leave,” Tallulah said.

What they’d handed me was testimony to computer creativity and Photoshop. There I was with my arms extended. Holding on to one arm were Lizzie, Claire, Seth, Emily, Bart, Mike, and Andie. On the other arm was Marty. At the top of the page was the headline “JUST ONE MORE TO LOVE!”

It was incredible—touching and real (although why they used a photo of me in a turquoise T-shirt I’d never understand).

“This is sweet,” I said. “But why’d you wait until the last minute?”

“Duh, maybe because we didn’t know who to put on your left arm,” Tallulah said.

“Yeah,” said Gus, as he handed me two other sheets of paper. “We had to be prepared for anything. Maybe even Benny at the gas station. Ha ha.”

On these two sheets the picture of me and the children remained the same, but one had Tom as my marriage partner and the other Jacob.

Marty appeared at the door. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“Look at this wonderful photograph,” I said, making sure to hand him the sheet that featured him.

“Incredible,” he said. Then he grabbed my hand and said, “We should get back to our wedding.”

“Thank you both,” I said, hugging Tallulah and Gus.

At the door, Marty turned and asked, “How’d you know I was going to be the groom?”

Tallulah shrugged, but with Gus there was always a comeback.

“Lucky guess.”