“Went through college in a puff of smoke. Bad choices, or whatever you want to call those guys. Landing at the end of my overspent twenties with a monster of a guy who disappeared with most of my wallet.”

The wine takes over for both of them, just a few seconds.

“And next day,” Padgett prompts.

“Forget next day,” Nina says, with a flitty wrist. “I land, not just on my feet but, who would think, on very wealthy territory. We’re the same, Padgett, you’re just like me. And we’re out of the woods.”

Nina’s eyes are glittery, and her ring finger. She is marrying hers, a fleshy man who can’t stop talking—Padgett in fact met him at the speakeasy party, although she remembers little more than a story about Bolivians who got kidnapped—in tech too, of course. His role is sneakier, more backgrounded than the Vic’s. He works in private, helping things go public, and after a smattering of giddy dates, it’s Padgett’s understanding that he thinks Nina, elegant and fun, is the way to go. Padgett guesses she hopes they’ll both be happy. Happy appears to be what they want, the way victims of airline disasters, on inflatable boats in a nowhere ocean with not enough supplies, also want to be happy. “Out of the woods,” the fiancée repeats. “What about you?”

“It’s going well,” Padgett says.

“Better than bartending, I’m sure. But you’re breastfeeding the little baby and he’s not marrying you yet?”

“It’s not breastfeeding,” Padgett says, but it’s the yet that gets her. “I’m happy,” she tries. They are facing each other, but it feels like two secrets, two fortune-telling cards facedown.

“What is it?” Nina says. “You can tell me, Padgett. There’s something you’re scared of, I can smell it. A sex thing? I’ve heard all of that, from my old roommate who makes movies in the old Armory. Does he hit you? Bad drugs? Can’t be that, you’d like any drug he could find. He needs another baby? You can hire that out.”

“Animal proteins,” Padgett says, before she can stop herself, the first she has spoken of this out loud. She promised she would never, and she breaks the promise here, at the Brasserie What’s-it?

Nina is frowning and refilling. “What? Cosmetic something? Is he making you—”

Padgett shakes her head. It’s easiest to keep a secret when it’s drowned and forgotten. Something about synapses being quick, quicker than anything electronic. The Vic was flushed as a teenager monologuing about it while the cage rattled. “They’re testing a thing,” she says. “In a building. In a basement. It scares me.”

“Scares you what? Scares you how?”

“He has secrets.”