“Do we all have to answer the question, or is it one person per question?” Mac wanted to know. Ursa yawned and Mac said, “No, you have to stay awake. Dinner is at ten.” Rainy scratched her foot with her other foot and tried to pretend she wasn’t terrified of what they’d ask her. Let it be one question per person, she pleaded mentally.

Tara settled it. “One each or it’ll take forever.” They’d each draw a question and, unless it was their own, they’d have to answer.

“They can’t just be any questions. You have to ask really prying questions,” Tara emphasized. But they all knew each other—had known each other for years. They’d only be prying into Rainy’s life with their drilling nosiness. You only have to answer one, she reminded herself, tapping her foot with the pen.

She scribbled down her question, hoping the others would be just as straightforward, and tossed her slip into the ice bucket Mac had put on the table for that purpose. Maybe she shouldn’t have drunk her wine so fast; she was feeling weird. She wished Grant would call her so she’d have an excuse to leave the room. It would be a great time for Viola to go into labor, she thought miserably.

“Okay, okay,” Mac called. “Here it is...first question.” She held the slip of paper up, reading it carefully to herself before her face underwent several expressions, one of them embarrassment.

“Spit it out, Mackenzie,” Ursa said, and then added: “I hope it’s mine!” She rubbed her hands together theatrically.

Mac cleared her throat. “What was your first sexual experience? Describe in great detail.”

Braithe cackled.

“Yessssss!” Ursa sat upright.

Mac looked around at them nervously and then reached for her wineglass.

“My youth group was on this camping trip,” she said. “So the guys were in one area and the girls in another and we had a chaperone in each camp. One day, the girls arranged to meet the guys at the lake after our youth leaders fell asleep. They were going to skinny-dip, but I didn’t want to do it, because I was, like, terrified we’d get caught, so I stayed behind in the tent.” Her face got really pale, and Rainy felt sick. This wasn’t going to be good. She wanted to reach out and tell Mac that she didn’t owe anything to these women, and she didn’t have to say another word if she didn’t want to.

“Anyway, there was this guy I kind of liked but he never really spoke to me, even when I tried to talk to him. The others hadn’t been gone for more than ten minutes when he crawls into the tent where I’m lying in my freaking purple sleeping bag...and he starts to kiss me.”