“Jenny looked, as usual, elegant and as fine-drawn as a young doe, but oddly muted, as if she had been outlined in sepia.”

“In my universe, when a dork like Oscar pushes up on a girl like Jenni, he usually gets bounced faster than your tía Daisy's rent checks, but Jenni must have had brain damage or been really into fat loser nerdboys, because by the end of February she was actually treating him all civil and shit.”

“This was something he'd done a great deal of when he was very young, so young the memory was washed to sepia with age.”

“Back in the general office, she had to listen to Jenny and Annie banging on about how good-looking Matthew's son was and how he had obviously got all the good genes. "Matthew's first wife must have been very beautiful," Jenny was saying, looking over at Helen for a reaction.Helen had cleaned herself up in the ladies on the way up, and now she was mascara free but still red-eyed, so she kept her headdown and pretended she couldn't hear. No such luck she would get away with that though..."He was asking about you," Jenny shouted over. "Wanted to know which one was the slut that his dad had gone off with.""Of course he was," Helen said sarcastically, knowing that Leo would never stoop that low.”

“Me?" he said in some surprise. "I won't be dancing! It's the bridal dance. The bride and groom dance alone!"For one circuit of the room," she told him. "After which they are joined by the best man and first bridesmaid, then by the groomsman and the second bridesmaid."Will reacted as he had been stung. He leaned over to speak across Jenny on his left, to Gilan.Gil! Did you know we have to dance?" he asked. Gilan nodded enthusiastically.Oh yes indeed. Jenny and I have been practicing for the past three days, haven't we, Jen?"Jenny looked up at him adoringly and nodded. Jenny was in love. Gilan was tall, dashing, good-looking, charming and very ammusing. Plus he was cloaked in the mystery and romance tat came with being a Ranger. Jenny had only ever known one ranger and that had been grim-faced, gray-bearded Halt.”

“It took a moment to recognize Timothy... her first love. There had been a time when the mere sight of his handsome face had made her catch her breath. It had taken her years to recover from losing Timothy. Now the pain of his loss was muted and somehow apart from her, as if a broken engagement had happened to some other young, naive girl. She looked at him, and all she could think was, Thank Goodness. Thank goodness she's escaped marrying him.”