Come on, she told herself, say something. “That was fun,” she said, possibly a little too brightly. “Everyone seemed very happy with the garden.” She folded the menu and put it away, wondering if she would ever reach the point where conversation came easily to her.

Bob nodded, adding five little creams to his coffee. “I think they were. It was a perfect spot with plenty of sun, and we’ll monitor the pH levels and soil composition over time, obviously.” Scintillating conversation as ever, Bob, he thought to himself. What beautiful young woman doesn’t want to ponder soil composition?

Laura raised her eyebrows. “Do you taste the coffee anymore, or is it just flavored creamer at this point?” She sipped her coffee. It was unbelievably hot, but she managed not to scream and thought she carried it off pretty well.

He frowned, then realized what she was referring to. He tucked the little cream pots one inside the other. “They only hold enough to bathe an ant.”

Laura was puzzled. “Why would you bathe an ant? I think of them as pretty clean already.”

“No idea.” He wished he could think of something funny, but he kept noticing her eyelashes, or her freckles, and forgetting what he was going to say. Besides, he wasn’t really all that knowledgeable about ants. He tried to change the subject.

“What do your parents do?” Bob tried his coffee, too, and flinched. “How are you drinking this? It’s like lava.”

“They’re teachers, what about yours?”

He laughed. “They’re teachers, too!” He held up his hand to high-five, and they swatted at each other with moderate success. “Or at least, my grandmother, mother, and three sisters are all teachers. I don’t know about my dad, he left when we were young.” He didn’t seem bothered by this, as indeed he wasn’t. All those women had provided more than enough guidance, plus the half-dozen uncles and male cousins in his extended family were always around if he’d had a question that only someone with testicles could answer.

Laura asked, “What do they teach?”

“My mom teaches middle school everything, mostly social studies. I can name all fifty states in less than a minute.”

“Prove it.”

“Another time. Your turn.”

She looked at him and smiled. “Mom and Dad teach psychology and biology, my three brothers teach entomology, zoology, and botany.” She paused. “I not sure I could name all fifty states, but I can rattle off the Linnaean system of taxonomy.” She shrugged. “Animal kingdom only, probably, but I could take a swing at plants.”

“Wow,” said Bob, his hand still warm from the high five; he could feel it tingling. “I . . . uh . . . couldn’t.” He shook his head. “Not even sure what you said, all I heard was a lot of ‘ology.’ ”