“Aha,” I say. “The universe has spoken.”

Beyond the fountain, trimmed boxwoods and yuletide camellias flank a couple of cast-iron benches; behind them, a wide expanse of lawn angles away into infinity. We sit, Vani and I on one bench, Hannah and Compton on the other. “Kira.” Compton tucks an errant strand of glossy hair back into formation. “Obviously you aren’t going to work with Artie Smert. But do you ever think about sharing your perspective?”

“Of course not,” I say. “I see no reason to relive the most devastating thing I’ll ever experience just to provide fleeting entertainment for a bunch of ghouls. I know how it works: every little facet of my life would be sensationalized and contorted to look controversial. Conflict sells. Drama sells. What doesn’t sell are the anguished inner reflections of an introvert.”

Even in the dim light, I can see Compton’s eyes narrow.

“Maybe your inner reflections wouldn’t work on television, but you know where they would?”

“Com, wherever you’re going with this, I don—”

She holds out a slim-fingered hand. “Hear me out, Kiki. Other people want to capitalize on your life and, as you say, they would contort what happened to reflect their own priorities. You don’t need to do it to be famous; you need to do it to control the narrative.”

“No. Never. I’d hate people knowing about my circumstances, whether it came from me or someone else. Even if you set aside the consequences of my decision, I committed a serious breach of the ethics of my profession. It cost me my job.”

“Not exactly,” Compton points out. “You could explain. People would be sympathetic. You could write a book.”

“I could write nonfiction in the field of infectious disease, sure,” I say. I keep my voice light. “I have written nonfiction in the field of infectious disease, and somehow that failed to interest more than five people until the pandemic. But a memoir would be, by definition, my personal story.”

Compton’s face takes on a mulish cast I recognize as a precursor to more arguing, but before she can speak again, Hannah bails me out. “Of course you’re entitled to privacy, Kiki. All of us are.”

This shuts Compton up. Possibly the thought of her own experience during the pandemic—or if not hers, Hannah’s—is enough to deter her; in any case, she remains quiet as Vani picks up the conversational slack.

For December, the night is mild, the air breezy and rich with the scent of mulch and pine and winter camellias. I rest my back against the bench and bob in a tide of the lulling, familiar sound of my friends’ voices—Hannah’s clear sweet murmur, Compton’s clipped vowels, Vani’s singular blend of the American South and the south of India—as they chat about the party.