The place where Joanie’s hosting her book party is scene-y, with an adjoining bar that I’d seen countless times on Instagram in the days before my fiasco. The bookstore itself is arty, with splashy stippled walls and shelves lined with trendy reading: everything from social justice-adjacent “readers” to obscure poetry to coffee-table monographs. The room in which Joanie is speaking is so crowded that I can barely see her at the front when we arrive.

She’s making some joke about birthing a baby and a book at the same time and then starts to read a passage. I scan the room, seeing if I recognize anyone, if anyone recognizes me. Thankfully, all eyes seem be focused forward, so I haven’t been spotted. There are the book club ladies dispersed in the crowd with their various spouses, a lot of parent-aged people in expensive-looking natural-fiber outfits, husbands in shorts and sockless loafers, sipping on artisanal beer. A couple of kids who begin to cry and have to be shushed by their parents, or nannies, who knows which.

Joanie reads a passage about homeschooling toddlers, how her three-year-old, now five, had endless tantrums day in and day out, interrupting the lesson plan. How Joanie ended up renouncing any kind of screen-time preschool and doing it all herself, reading one book on early childhood education, and setting up her own “home office” in her apartment where she created lesson plans, usually on a whim. That now, two years later, back in regular school, little Kaya was number one in her class at reading, which Joanie is certain was because of her time being homeschooled, which, she drops in quickly, almost as an afterthought, only lasted two months before she hired an in-home tutor.

Page isn’t listening. Her eyes are scoping out the room instead, looking for someone. I follow her gaze, notice the curve of her lip when she spots what she wants to see. A sandy-blond guy, alone, with scruff and visible ankles.

Joanie drones on, so I tell Page I’m getting a drink and wander off toward the bar, a darkened, wood-paneled alcove with funky stained glass lamps and vintage book covers papering the wall, things like pickled eggs and brined oxtail on the menu. I take a seat, still within earshot of the reading, and order myself a gin drink infused with lavender. Then I find out that this whole event is open bar and order a second before I’m finished with my first.

A man joins me, wiry and slight, thinning hair and thick glasses. But I know that at these types of events, the diminutive men are usually the ones you can’t underestimate. He tilts his glass at me. Water. “Vera MacDonald,” he says, a fact on his tongue not a question. “My wife said you’d be here tonight. She’s the one reading right now.” He finishes his water.