She creeps the door open and there is the Vic, on the staircase like a Caesar, and to her disapproval—for what that’s worth—he’s had his baby brought to the bar, the fox he was bragging about, right next to him in a bundle bound to the chest of, of course, a male nanny, looking maybe twenty years old in a hooded top with the name of a band she actually sort of likes. It is he who is talking, earnestly, or at least a show of earnestly, and why, how drunk is everyone, to let the nanny make a toast? With a tall ginger glass he finishes hands up with “That’s what I’m talking about!” and the room goes nuts with cheers and claps and the baby cries and everyone awws and the baby cries harder and everyone laughs. To Padgett it feels like a pagan sacrifice, like the baby will be devoured at the Viking table by Shandra and the other vixen harpies. But instead the music just comes back on and Padgett steadies herself. The poor baby. First chapter of a bitter memoir, right there. Alarmingly, the nanny heads down the twisty stairs right toward her, one hand holding his drink and the other holding the baby close.

“You missed it,” he says. “I saw you sneak to the bathroom right when I arrived.”

“You’re sweet to notice.”

“I never get ducked out on. It makes me curious.”

“Don’t be.”

“I mean, everybody wants the speech.”

She looks at him, familiar now with his eyebrows raised from magazine articles she always skips. Behind his head the yakker waggles his eyebrows. Martin is laughing and looking down at his list on the bar, and Padgett has the feeling, uneasy but not disasteful, that this was what he meant by the plan.

“You’re Vic. The Vic.”

He bows a little, toward the baby. Father, not nanny. Billionaire, not undergrad. This is San Francisco, is where it is, she thinks, and then stops thinking a bit.

“Your turn now to say your name,” he says. “That’s how we’re doing it this year.”

“Padgett.”

“Padgett. As in the Padgetts who—

“Friend of the bartender,” she says, “or something.”

“Maybe you could buy him another shoe.”

“You noticed that.”

“I’m like that.” The Vic is not even cracking a smile but his eyes are all tinsel. “I noticed you and I’m still noticing. The bartender makes good drinks, though. I’m glad my spies noticed him for me.” He sips through the straw and then, over the baby, tilts it to Padgett so she can sip too, and recite the recipe.

“Artisanal ginger ale, cheap whiskey, lemon bitters.”

“I’ll have you know,” the Vic says, “that Hallowed Spirits whiskey is my company.”

“Oops.”

“Yeah.”

“OK, but to be fair you own everything.”