“And will someone tell me when to, like, hand it to him?” I asked, nervously shifting on my heels. I hadn’t mentioned it to Eliza—or Lola or Cleo for that matter—but I’d slipped a thank-you note inside the front pocket of the jacket. Nothing elaborate, but in case I was unable to clearly express myself on TV, I wanted to make sure I said thank you. Because if I took away the weirdness of this situation, all that remained underneath was gratitude, and—if I was being honest—the lingering memory of his touch, which still sent electric shocks through my body every time I thought about it.

“Pete will cue you with a question,” Eliza replied before briskly exiting the room.

Priya reached into a giant pouch attached at her hip and spritzed my hair deliberately with hair spray. “All set, honey.” She winked at me and followed Eliza out the door.

“Promise me,” I said, turning to Lola and Cleo, “that we’re going out for mimosas after this, no matter how it goes.”

“Fran, I called in sick for you,” Lola said, offering me a loving smirk. “You’re stuck with me today whether you like it or not. Also, worst-case scenario, we can discuss the gorgeous woman I met in the bathroom earlier. I’ve already slid into her Insta DMs.”

“You’re unbelievable, you know that?” Cleo shook her head at Lola, but she was smiling too. This was classic Lola: confident, unabashedly brave, ready to flirt even while peeing.

“Maria, my TA, is handling seminar prep,” Cleo assured me. “First round is on me.”

“I love you guys,” I said, my heart racing.

“And we’ll start figuring out your new life plan,” Lola said, reaching over to grab something out of her bag. “I got you a present that we can all do together later.”

She passed a small white box to me, and one to Cleo. “A DNADiscovery kit?” I asked, reading the delicate black font across the front.

She nodded, all-knowing. “Remember when you said the other night that losing your job felt like losing your identity? Well, now you can get to know more about the rest of you. And we’ll do it with you. It’ll be fun!”

She said this with a shrug of her shoulders, as if spitting into a bottle alongside friends were a typical bonding activity, like a night out playing pool.

“I’m pretty sure I know my results already,” Cleo said with a scoff. Both sets of her grandparents had emigrated from Korea.

“And I’m going to be, like ninety-nine percent Ashkenazi,” Lola said, laughing. “But you never know! One of my interns found a whole set of cousins they didn’t know about.”

My stomach churned at the thought of digging into my ancestry. There were some things we just didn’t talk about in my family, the main one being my birth father.