“Pretty dire. I didn’t know how to talk about the price beef was fetching and calf roping or bull riding—he loves the rodeo—and he didn’t know what to make of Midnight. He told me about his last shift with the ambulance, when a guy had a heart attack and then he’d had to pull a baby out of a wreck. Finally we got down to what television shows we watched, and I kind of feel like it’s all over if that’s the main topic you can come up with. Not that you can’t find out a lot about people from that,” she added, in case that was Manfred’s fallback position when he was on a date.

“I’ve talked about television, I admit it freely,” he said, trying to keep a straight face, but they started laughing again.

“It was awful,” Fiji said. “Assuming he ever calls again, I think I’ll give it a pass. That’s what I get for going out with someone who had nothing but hotness going for him.”

“Hey, it could have turned out good.”

“Yeah, but . . . it didn’t. I lost a few hours of time. And a little of my self-respect. And I never discovered if the hotness was all attitude.”

“I ran into Bobo the other evening, and he knew you were going out with Travis McNamara.”

“Yes, I told him,” she said, in a voice so even you could have put a level on it. She shrugged. “He seemed pleased.” She was trying as hard as she could to look neutral about that, but in fact the feelings chased across her face. Defiant, angry, sad.

“He was pretty worried about it. He thought Travis was too rough for you.”

Looking much more cheerful, she sat up straight, took a deep breath, and said, “Thanks for coming over and listening to my crap. I’ll bet there was something you wanted to talk about?”

“That confidence you gave me. It was great.”

Fiji brightened even more. “I’m so glad! It was something new I was trying out. How long before it wore off?”

“That’s the only problem. I’m still getting, like, flashbacks,” he said, trying not to sound uneasy. “I can’t tell if some plan I have is actually a good idea, or if I just think so because I’m under the spell. Kind of like Olivia thinking she’s had a good idea if she has it in the chapel.”

Fiji looked thoughtful. “Okay . . . what you’re saying is it’s working too well? That you feel you might have lost your judgment?”

He nodded vigorously. “Exactly.”