Jeff sits on the couch in the hotel & convention center lobby with his head buried in his hands. Katie is on her cell phone a few feet away.

"You're sure about that? Okay. Yes mom, we'll talk all about it soon." Katie disconnects the call and makes her way over to him. "So my Mom says hi."

"Oh God, what have we done?"

"Relax, we didn't do anything. You're not my father."

Jeff's head snaps up. "I'm not?"

"No. Turns out my long lost father is her old high school drama teacher.

"She slept with Mr. Cullen?!?"

Katie punches him in the arm. "Hello!?! You slept with my mom!"

"You're not my daughter," Jeff says as if to reassure himself that his nightmare is over.

"No. Apparently I am the daughter of the only straight high school drama teacher."

"So it's not weird, right?"

"No. It's not weird."

*********************

Niko is standing by himself at the reception hall entrance beside the table with the guest book when he feels two hands squeeze his shoulders from behind. He turns around to see Hilary who has a certain look in her eye.

"You have a room here tonight?" she asks.

"No."

"Then it's a good thing I got one for us. Room 1248 at 2:00 am sharp. Think you can remember that?"

"You better write it down."

Hilary grabs the pen from the guest book and then looks for something to write on. She sees a piece of a cocktail napkin peeking out of the front pocket of Niko's suit jacket. She pulls it out and is about to write when she starts reading. It takes Niko a second to realize what is written on the paper. He starts shaking his head and waving his hands frantically "No. No. No. Wait!"

But it is too late. Hilary is horrified as she reads out loud. "Five hundred dollars if Niko takes home a member of the bridal party?!? What is it with you people? You're all sick!" She slaps him across the face and storms off.

*********************

Louie wakes up alone in Cathy's bed. He smiles from ear to ear. Totally buck naked, Louie gets up and heads over to the chair in the corner of the room to grab his clothes. They aren't there. Louie frantically looks around the room for them. He looks under the bed, in the closet, behind the night stand. No luck.

"Why would she take my..." He stops. A light has gone on in his head. 'Of course, this was her plan all along. This is her payback. I ditched her at the Spring formal and now she's going to make me leave here naked and humiliated. Oh this was good. She must have been planning this for a long time. Everything just fell into place for her and I walked willingly into her trap.'

Louie paces around Cathy's hotel suite bedroom "Shit! Damnit! Shit." Louie stops. He looks over at her fancy dress which is slung over a chair. A sudden calm comes over him as he smiles a disturbing smile. "Yeah well, two can play the payback's-a-bitch game!" He grabs her dress, stuffs it in her metal garbage can and takes a lighter and lights it on fire.

*********************

Niko stands outside the hotel waiting for the valet. Seeing that he is not hidden away somewhere with the bride, Ashley is overcome with joy. She sidles up beside Niko.

"Hey loser. You going home?" she asks smugly.

"Getting the hell out of here, that's for sure!"

"Great, you can drive me home." Niko says nothing and continues to pout. "Don't be sour. It's just five hundred dollars. Or as I like to call it, my trip to Barbados."

From behind them, Jenny is being escorted out the front door by her mother. Jenny's mother goes from scowling to smiling when she sees Ashley.

"Ashley, you were a great MC."

"Ah, thanks. Did you guys have fun?"

"Sure, right up until the time this one decided to get into table wine." She looks at her daughter with disappointment and disdain. "Look at you. You can barely stand up and you smell like a sewer."

"Stop yelling at me!" Jenny screams.

"You just wait until we get home. And don't even ask me how that's going to happen. Your father and I have to stay to take Hilary and Owen to the airport and I'm not sending you off with some cab driver in the state you're in."

Niko overhears this and his head snaps up to attention.

*********************

When I was in college I went back to my grandmother's house and when I looked up at the wall, something amazing happened. I finally saw the pretty girl in that picture. That time and every time ever since. See that's the funny thing about perception. Once it changes, you can never look at things the same way again.

Jeff and Katie are sitting in silence on the couch in the hotel lobby.

"So again, it's not too weird, right?"

"No. It's not too weird."

Jeff stands up and pulls her up to her feet. "So we're good?"

"We're good."

Jeff leans in to kiss her but he freezes and looks at her. She has a troubled look in her eyes. The most he can muster is a kiss on her forehead.

This can mean taking a good thing and ruining it forever.

Katie can't keep up the charade one moment longer. "It's just so weird now!"

"I know."

*********************

Or it can take a hopeless situation and turn it around completely simply by looking at the same problem from a different angle.

Niko pulls out the written bet, looks at it again and smiles. He goes up to Jenny's mother. "I couldn't help but overhear your predicament. We were just about to leave anyway. We could make sure she gets home."

Drunk Jenny pipes up slurring her words considerably. "Hey, I like him. He's nice."

"You're sure you wouldn't mind?" Jenny's mom asks, clearly reaching out for that lifeline Niko is offering.

"Are you kidding? It would be my honor to...take home a member of the bridal party." Niko punches every word for Ashely's benefit. She suddenly gets a look of panic as she realizes what Niko is doing.

"He can't!"

"Why not?" Jenny's Mom asks.

"Yes Ashley, why not?" Niko asks, barely fighting back his smug grin.

"He's...been drinking."

"I haven't had a drink all night. Maybe you could take her home. Oh wait, have you been drinking?"

"Yes," she says through her gritted teeth.

"Then it's settled, Niko you can take Jenny home."

Ashley silently fumes as she realizes she's been beaten.

*********************

Or it could show us that something we once believed so fervently...

Louie, covering himself only with pillows, sneaks down the hallway and approaches the front door of Cathy's hotel suite'. Something in the corner of his eye catches his attention. He stops and turns to see Cathy in the bathroom steaming his suit with a hand-held steamer.

"Your suit was bunched up and wrinkled so I thought I'd steam it for you. I hope you don't mind."

...turns out to be something else altogether.

Louie is stunned and speechless. From the bedroom, the smoke detector starts going off. Louie runs out the door.

*********************

And so, as I go forward with this bizarre new journey, I'm going to try to roll with the new perspective it brings. One day you're looking at a picture of an old woman and the next, a young girl. And that's okay. You can't hang on to the way you used to see things. Because you either deal with this new perspective in a healthy, positive way...

Jeff and Katie in a long, but non-romantic embrace. A tight neutral hug. He kisses her on the top of her head and then pulls back and looks at her.

"The next guy better be good to you."

Katie smiles. "He'll have big orthopedic shoes to fill."

*********************

Niko sits behind the wheel of his car while Ashley pouts in the passenger's seat. Jenny is close to passing out in the backseat. The mother leans in to Niko's open window. "Thanks again. We feel so much better knowing she's in good hands."

"You can't be too careful. There's a lot of weirdos out there."

From out of nowhere a naked Louie jumps in front of the car and starts banging on the hood. "Let me in! Let me in!" Louie runs around to the side and tries to open the backseat door which is locked. He starts banging on the window.

"Sorry Lou. No shoes, no shirt, no ride," Niko says as he starts to drive off. Louie follows the car banging on the windows until it pulls away completely.

...or you get left behind.