We drank, both of us. A swish, a thud of the glasses back on the bar, and I slid mine to admire the rings it made on the dark wood, also so I could have something in motion to look at.

“Tell me about your history work.”

“Uh, well. I don’t know. I’m supposed to be writing about the Gilded Age. But I’ve been messing with some stuff about an Indian dude in the gold rush.” I shifted uncomfortably. I hadn’t tried to explain Snider to anyone. It felt strange to try to account for what I’d been doing for the past weeks. “But really, mostly it’s the Gilded Age.”

It suddenly seemed that without directly discussing the span of time that had passed since we’d last seen each other, we would, in fact, have nothing to say.

“I watched your video,” I said, before my bravery dissipated. “Your speech.” She squinted, honestly; perhaps she’d given many speeches. “Miss Teen India?”

“Oh, yeah?” She shook her hair so it curtained her face, briefly, then re-parted it. “I got in trouble for that. They gave me three minutes to blabber about tech, and I went rogue.”

I bristled to see that she’d considered invoking Shruti a radical act. “You’re proud of it.”

“I mean, yes. I was given a platform. I wanted to say something with it. I was angry with that organization—it made girls anorexic and anxious, and I didn’t grasp how much damage all the high school messaging had done until I got to college….” She slowed as her eyes flicked across my face. “Huh,” she said, almost disinterestedly. “You’re pissed.”

“Yeah.” I was speaking with an assurance that would have eluded a younger me. And yet I was afraid to push too hard, in case she retreated back to whatever world had possessed her for so long. “You traded on it.”

“What do you think I traded it for?”

My hand shook and beer sloshed. “You don’t think you got credit for being this… prophetess of mental health? You didn’t feel hypocritical? You just tied everything up. Like it was all way back in the past.”

“But it is, Neil,” she said sadly. “It is way back in the past. That doesn’t make it any less horrible. But it’s there. It’s too late.”

The bartender was forming a kind of metronome, clinking liquor bottles against each other and stacking glasses. I turned to Anita and was surprised to find her unblinking eyes still on me. All her concentration seemed to be focused on convincing me—of something.

“You think about her a lot, don’t you?” Anita said more softly.

“Most days.” I drew on my beer glass with my pinky. “I’ve never told anyone.”

“Why not? I don’t mean about the lemonade. I mean about—her.”