The music ends and we stop dancing. I think maybe the crowd around us is staring at us, applauding maybe. But I don't see them or hear them. Sterling and I part, and we look into each other's eyes, and some sort of understanding passes between us. Neither one of us was meant for the world we were born into. At least that we have in common.

Sterling walks with me with my arm in his, and we go to the punch table where there are several drinks lined up with servants pouring glasses of wine and champagne and scotch and others that I can't immediately recognize. Drinking was never...