It didn’t work. “Although,” said Nick, “that isn’t totally true. After she had her accident, she changed her mind completely.”

Madeleine looked vaguely interested. “You had an accident? What happened?”

Laura opened her mouth, but Nick pointed his finger and talked over her. “One minute she was all set to go to grad school and deepen her study of whatever it was she was interested in— can’t remember right this second, this is excellent wine—and then she was like, yikes, broke my leg, guess I’ll be a nurse instead.” He laughed around at everyone, not that anyone else was laughing. “You can only imagine what her parents thought about that!”

Laura frowned. Nick was drunk and this was deeply annoying.

“What’s wrong with being a nurse?” asked Libby, puzzled. He noticed Anna was frowning at Nick now, and welcomed this development. He hadn’t liked the other guy from the get-go and was more than happy to help him dig himself a deeper hole.

“Nothing,” said Nick, “if that’s as far as your brain will take you, but Laura’s much too smart for that. She has a gift for science, she could have changed the world.” He looked at Laura and had another thought. “Of course she needs to get her mental illness sorted out, no one’s going to take her seriously if she keeps bursting into tears all the time, it’s hard enough being a girl already.” He looked owlishly at the women at the table. “Sorry, but that’s the truth, whether it’s fair or not, and a scared little girl isn’t going to get tenure, is she?”

Several mouths opened to respond, but then a new voice chimed in.

“Hey,” said Nina Hill, who was standing at the kitchen door. “I knocked but nobody heard me, and the door was unlocked . . .”

“Who’s that now?” asked Madeleine, who was getting very tired of everyone talking about someone else.

“I’m Nina,” said Nina, coming into the kitchen. She looked at Maggie. “I’m sorry for walking in, I wanted to bring Laura this.” She held up a T-shirt that read Trivia Bowl Semifinals, with a truly repulsive design of question marks in various colors. “Our team got through to the semis and I wanted to discuss our plan of attack.”

There was a pause, then Nick said, “Wait, you’re on a trivia team?” His tone of voice would have been the same had he been commenting on her new hobby of trafficking stolen body parts.

“Not just any team,” said Nina staunchly, “the best team. My team.”

“And who are you again?” Madeleine was getting overwhelmed by the number of attractive girls in the room.

“She’s my boss at the bookstore,” said Polly.

“Oh,” said Madeleine, “another shop assistant.”

Nina frowned. Luckily for Madeleine, Nick was still on a tear.