This is a work of semi-autobiography and therefore should be considered fiction. Names and events have been altered. "Seven Years Bad Luck" is an ongoing series. This is part seven.

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Well. I know what to do when I’m lost:

Get more lost.

I put my bag and wedding present on a chair in the corner. In this crowd, I can count on leaving them unattended and myself unburdened. Then I start on my odyssey, going room to room.

I feel so obvious when I do this, and I probably really am. None of the guests notice with the music and the wedding crowd, although I think some of the servers give me side-eye. For the rooms with people in them, I quickly stride and scan, taking things in and moving on quickly. For empty rooms, I linger.

When I was six, I lived in a gloomy house in Niceville, Florida, where there was always space by the doors to hide in. For the one year that I stayed in that house, I was a serial ghost. I would stay behind doors for hours, utterly quiet, until my parents or siblings finally walked through my door. When they did, I would jump out and scream, and I never failed even once to scare the living daylights out of my victim. My younger siblings would try to emulate me, hiding behind the doors as well, but they weren’t as good as me at that game, and always giggled to give themselves away. Silence made me deadly.

In retrospect, that was a poor game for preschoolers, my little brother and sister trying to copy me by staying quiet and still for long stretches of time. But at that time, it was one of the few games we had in common. I had withdrawn a lot after we moved.

Maybe something in me still wants to be that ghost. I touch things, just a little; a brush against the top of a cabinet; a slide of my fingers against the raised carvings of the picture frames. Stealing never appeals, but I always want to mess up the order of things in a room: take pictures off the walls, put standing frames in drawers, vases in closets. It might be that I just dislike the distraction of so many different things filling up a space: the walls in every bedroom I’ve ever had have always been blank.

There’s a carpeted central staircase that I race up on, not very sneakily. There’s a lot more servers upstairs, and I get a lot more looks. I’m probably not supposed to be up here. No one tells me off for being there, but I leave quickly anyway, trying to stay out of anyone’s way. I tromp back down to the bottom of the staircase, glance around quickly at the people still standing around.

Tina is standing in the front hallway, beside her groom. She’s chatting, a little wildly, to her guests, with so many people trying to catch her attention. I figure it doesn’t matter if there’s one more person there trying to take a moment of her time. Walking up to her, I hurriedly get her attention: “Tina, quick question.”

“Hm?” She turns her head half towards me, her eyes mostly on the people in front of her.

“When does the ceremony start?”

“Half past three,” she answers distractedly, her face turning more forward.

“Thanks,” I say, not willing to divide her attention further. Wedding days are tough on brides.

I glance at the elaborate mantle-piece clock in the hall: 2:32. Enough time for a further sojourn outside.