“Still, Rhiz or not, you hurt me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“When was your time?”

“I was nineteen. Living in a lesbian collective in the German countryside, fighting with my comrades about gender essentialism. The Rhiz did not have such elaborate tech then. They sent a person. And a xeroxed manual.”

“What happens now?”

“I don’t know what your path will look like. For me, I took a trip to the old Rhiz-Port in the Catskills, got involved in a complicated triad, and worked out a plan to study anthropology in the United States for the purposes of Rhiz enrichment.”

“What is it like to go to the Rhiz-Port?”

“I wish I could go there for the first time again. When I saw the revered Elders in their courtyard, it was more than I had ever imagined for us all.”

“Could we go there together? And swim in the Lake of Release?”

She laughed. “Are you sure you wouldn’t regret not entering the Rhiz-Port as a single person and sleeping with a slew of Operatrixes?”

“OMG, no.” My voice went higher. “I missed you.”

There, I’d said it.

“I missed you, too, babe.”

I put my arm around her, and as we waited for her bags to come out, I thought of my parents, trooping around the world together, sharing cargo pants and carbide-tipped chisels.

I looked forward to the evening, when we would close the door of her apartment and spend the rest of the night inside, cooking, having sex, dreaming, reading, talking.

Aiden invited Stone and me back to the bungalow. He included Blithe, but Blithe said that he didn’t want to bring everyone down. I told him that we could handle whatever was going on with him. He said no.

I wanted to tell Aiden about the Rhiz and the Rhiz-Port, but I didn’t know all the rules. Part of me wanted to keep the childlike splendor to myself and not share.

“I feel like I saw your image at a bus stop somewhere,” Stone said to Rachel, and I cringed.

You weren’t supposed to talk to famous people about how famous they were, right?

“Probably my Vines shoot. They gave me their entire collection of colored tees, but I only wear white.”

“Is that a religious thing?”

“No, it just seemed easier.”

I thought that we would be eating amid awkward pauses in conversation, but somehow Stone and Rachel were drawn to each other. After dinner, they went to the garden with a bottle of calvados and didn’t return. Apparently, they were talking about the wedding, a subject I didn’t think Stone had any interest in.

“Hah! You’re so wrong, Pen. I love weddings. I love them anthropologically and viscerally. I love the ritual, symbolism, waste, hypocrisy, and dresses,” she told me when we got in the car.

“And what is it about Rachel that appeals to you?”

She stared. “Pen, you’re the one who hooked up with her for two years. You should be able to recognize the charm that she has, as a being who receives adoration and capital from all directions.”