The day after I heard about Janis’s cancer, I had e-mailed Yegina, telling her what I knew, and saying that I’d decided to take the gallerina gig after all. Yegina had apologized for not informing me about Janis sooner. I’ve only known a week, but I couldn’t betray her trust. I hope you understand. I understood. It was an unspoken rule that Janis traded in everyone’s secrets, but no one knew hers.

“I can’t get into details,” I said, “but our fearless leader is arming herself with scandalous information to do a behind-the-scenes takedown.”

“Is she?” Yegina said thoughtfully. “That doesn’t sound like her.”

“She wants to save the institution—well, both institutions—but not the man. Things were getting really heated up downtown, and she thought she had to act fast.”

There was a silence. “Interesting. But then how would you write about Brenae? If it’s all behind the scenes?”

“That’s the complicated part. I’ll have to tell you more after it’s done. How’s the conference today?”

“I just got to the main building. Hiro flew to D.C. this morning to meet me, and then he asked me to marry him,” she announced. “I didn’t say yes.”

“You didn’t?”

“He was so sweet about it.” She sounded overwhelmed. “He told me that in Japanese conjunctions don’t work exactly the same as in English, that Hiro and Yegina wouldn’t have an and between them, we’d just be HiroYegina, and that’s what he wants to be in any language, and then he rambled on about unity and proportion in symphonies and trees. I kind of lost him there, but he was so sweet, and I told him I’d have to think about it.” She paused. “I feel awful.”

Yegina’s feelings about marriage were like a burn victim’s about fire. After a long, painful divorce from Chad the jobless sitar player, she’d never wanted to get hitched again. But I also knew how much Hiro meant to her, how calming his influence had been on her usually frenetic existence. He liked taking care of my friend. He had fixed all her broken window screens. He had bought her a high-end blender. He made a killer cheesecake, Yegina’s favorite dessert. I couldn’t think of anything negative about Hiro, except that his proposal was a pretty fast move for someone who liked cultivating hundred-year-old shrubbery for a hobby. He and Yegina had only been dating six months.

“Don’t feel awful,” I said. “He should know you’re coming to weddings from a different point of view.”

“But that’s the problem,” said Yegina. “If I explain my objections to marriage, he’ll probably agree with me. He won’t want to get married. And then we never will.”

“So say maybe,” I said, glancing back into the gallery. The students were clustered, talking. What conversation was I missing?