Regardless of superstition or omen, here were my friends, who had come from all points on the United States map, and there was my dress and my new brown cowboy boots. And there was my soon-to-be husband and his vintage tuxedo, waiting to marry me.

The night before the trek out to the Mojave Desert, I had a funny exchange with a friend from work, a lesbian in a long-term relationship.

Years earlier, when we were both new to the organization, she sat down in my office and we instantly began talking about our mothers. Soon we were eating Thai food and discussing films and plans with our partners, all of it creating a friendship of years. I appreciated many things about her, and she me, especially how we were total opposites. As the adage goes, opposites attract. My fiancé even knew that part of it, jokingly referring to her as my “boyfriend.”

That day before I embarked on my wedding trip, she and I kept missing each other. My phone rang as I barreled down the hill from work, car windows down, smoking my second cigarette of the day (because I had started smoking again in those months of gut-wrenching anxiety leading up to my wedding). I answered, one hand on the wheel, the wind blasting my face. There she was, my friend.

I had left her a message on a Post-it written in two different ink colors (even the pen seemed to be conspiring to keep us from having contact that day) saying I was sorry not to see her just as I was about to go out and become not-single. On the phone she referred to the note, the universe’s plan to keep us apart, in a way that sounded jokingly outraged. The delicious frisson of acknowledgment made me squirm in my seat.