“He’s dead to me.”

“You had a fight, is all.”

“Six years ago. And he never calls me.”

“He calls me, and says you never call him.”

“And meanwhile he’s still married to Her Awfulness, and he still makes money defending rapists.”

“Alleged.”

“It’s not alleged, they’re really married.”

“Honey, your brother is a lawyer, that is the description of his job. He’s successful. He’s happy.”

“So am I successful,” Padgett says, mortified at her own hissing tone. She sees the server start toward her with water, and Padgett gives her the look of no thank you and the server gives her the look of OK but it’s fucking midnight and could please you and your mother leave and Padgett snaps back with I know it’s fucking midnight, oh God do I know it, and I am already planning to drastically overtip due to the fact that I am, as you very well fucking know, Mrs. Victor de Winter and the server gives a look, retreating, of OK I was just saying, and she’s gone and Padgett misses her terribly.

“Of course you’re successful,” Lil is saying, like of course Padgett is a princess in a castle. “But you found him mourning his wife. You need the deal sealed, more than whatever hat trick you found—”

Padgett’s mother tilts her head to look at her, and so, Padgett swears, does the bottle.

“What’s wrong with you,” Lil says, perking up. “Are you nauseous?”

“I’m not nauseous,” Padgett says. “I just don’t care, I mean know, what you’re talking about.”

Lil’s eyes narrow like a fortune-teller’s. “I’m talking,” she says, “about your marriage. That little girl will be in his heart all day and all night.”

“Actually, all night,” Padgett says, “Kit sits in a chair that has a screen built right into it that’s worth too much money, and laughs at me eating her sweet potatoes, because this month Vic is closing some loop, and all day she’s at a preschool which operates under the principles of Japanese folklore.”

“Have another one,” Lil says, smiling very fiercely. She sounds like a bartender, if only. “Have a real baby of your own. You’ve landed him, but land him for life, a husband like that. Whatever tricky charms you picked up will fade, but that baby, Daddy’s little girl, will never really belong to you. Every time we meet, Gail, and you take the menu and order wine, my heart just aches with worry.”