“Guess not,” she continues, lining up our hands and returning the gesture with minimal force as if touching a palm scanner from an old sci-fi movie.

“Why didn’t you say sooner?”

She’s not making eye contact anymore.

“Well, I don’t know! Because . . .”

“Not to be dramatic, but if you say it was because you didn’t want to make me feel bad about my own college stuff, I will, sincerely, set myself on fire here and now.”

Between this and Ming, I’m tired of being seen by my friends as so breakable. As if the fact that my future is dead on arrival is an unspoken truth traveling the pipes and tunnels of Manhattan.

“Fair enough,” she says. “Sorry. Yeah, it’s looking good for Princeton. Fingers crossed.”

“I’m crossing them for you, for whatever it’s worth.”

I actually am. A universe where Corinne Troy matriculates at Princeton sounds very fair.

“While you’re at it,” she says, turning back to Marvyn, “please put those societal hacks of yours to good use by getting me ‘Nine Minutes in Heaven’ with that.”

I am mentally throwing up in my mouth. “It’s ‘Seven Minutes.’”

“I’m going to need nine for what I have in mind,” Corinne says absentmindedly, and it almost sounds like a purr. Good God.

Marvyn suddenly lets out a sharp laugh as he films one of his friends pushing someone into the water and then turns the camera around to himself to give it a signature grin.

“You could do better, but a deal’s a deal, I suppose. The key to winning the attention of our dear host is a two-to-one Laughter/Ego split.”

Corinne seems confused. I break down the recipe.

“Laugh at the first two things he says, and then, on the third thing, ask him a leading question about himself. Do you work out? What was the last country you visited? Were you always this funny? And then laugh twice again. Laugh, laugh, ego. Rinse and repeat until he can’t stop thinking about you . . . because he thinks you’re always thinking about him. Ta-da.”

I’m not making this up. I’ve seen Marvyn slide an arm around many permutations of this exact breakdown.

“That’s so problematic,” Corinne notes after a disgusted beat. “On so many levels.”

“If you’re expecting Roxane Gay discourse from Callan you’re in for a very long courting.”

“Well, I’m not doing that,” she says. “Out of the question.” She looks over to Marvyn, who just cannonballed into the water, purposefully splashing someone’s phone and cackling when he swims out again.

“Okay,” Corinne says, despite the sight. “I’m going in. I’ll improvise.”

“You can’t be serious!”

“Oh, Corinne would be on the train home right now, but Cori . . .” She shrugs. “Cori finds sleazy to be a bit of a turn-on, but she’s not turning into a thot either.”