Nina shook her head. “He was remarkably uninformed for a scientist.”

The pizza came, and Nina busied herself separating the cut slices, blotting the excess oil with a handful of napkins, sprinkling red pepper flakes, getting fresh water, and all the other things you do once the pizza arrives. Laura was fascinated by the speed and accuracy of Nina’s small, pale hands flashing like the white gloves of a magician setting up a trick. She was like a little bird, one moment still, the next a flurry of movement. Laura thought of something and leaned forward.

“Did you know your hair exactly matches the plumage of the orange fruit dove?”

Nina raised her eyebrows. “Nope, I had no idea there even was an orange fruit dove, not going to lie.”

Laura sighed. “You’ll look it up later, I expect. Anyway, scientists can be dumb as bricks about things they don’t know anything about.” She added, “Which is, to be fair, true of everyone.” She folded a long slice of pizza and took a big bite. “Oh my god, it’s almost as good as New York pizza.”

Nina looked around wildly. “Shhh! The owner will one hundred percent throw you out if he thinks you’re dissing his pizza.” She wiped her chin. “I guess I get what you mean. Your fiancé—”

“Ex-fiancé.”

“Sorry, ex-fiancé, probably knows a lot about his area of whatever . . .”

“Membrane transport systems.”

Nina paused, considered whether to dig deeper, decided she wouldn’t be able to understand the answer even if she could formulate a question, and moved on. “I’ll take your word for it, but he definitely knows next to nothing about mental health.”

Laura got redder. Nina chewed her pizza and watched her new friend.

“There’s no need to be embarrassed about struggling to deal with an emotional and physical trauma.” She put her elbows on the table. “In some ways it’s easier to understand than, say, social anxiety, which I have.”

“You do?” Laura was puzzled. “You seem so confident.”

Nina shook her head. “For some reason you don’t make me anxious, and anyway, I do better one-on-one than I do in a group. Plus I’ve been going to therapy, and I take medication, which I don’t always want to do but which I decided was part of accepting, once and for all, that I’m a grown-up.” She looked around for the waitress. “I want a soda, do you want one?”

Laura shook her head and said, “I always thought being an adult meant being able to handle everything yourself.”

Nina nodded. “Sure.”

Laura frowned. “But then . . .” She tailed off.

“You don’t literally handle everything alone, though, right? You wouldn’t operate on your own burst appendix or install your own linoleum.”

Laura shook her head.

“Right, so why is it more grown up to handle your own emotional and mental health? There are experts for that.”