Naomi is halfway through her junior year at Georgetown; her international relations major is a disappointment to their mother because it’s boring (“Like so you can be a diplomat?” she asked, when Nao announced it as a sophomore. “Like because a Jew who cares about the human rights of Palestinians should help negotiate peace in the Middle East,” she replied) and to their father because it’s unlikely to make her rich.

Lulu doesn’t understand it either—it’s way less sexy than the international-travel-and-intrigue thing she first imagined—but that makes sense: Her sister has never in her life chosen the sexy option. She’s steady and straightforward, well suited to the patient unknotting of delicate, complicated problems.

“You’re interested in the same things,” Bea told Lulu once, in a rare moment of extreme earnestness. “Isn’t diplomacy just like high-level social management, when you think about it? Knowing the gossip on everyone? Knowing who you can ask for what?”

“I guess,” Lulu said then. She remembers it now, listening to Nao talk through the politics of the office where she’s interning this semester. Maybe Bea had a point.

When Naomi goes to the bathroom, Lulu does what she always does: takes out her phone and snaps a Flash of her face washed out by the window’s light. You can’t see much of anything, but it’s kind of cool looking. She’s trying to figure out whether she wants to filter it when Naomi slides back into her seat at the table. Lulu automatically clicks her screen dark and puts her phone down.

“Don’t let me interrupt,” Naomi says.

“No, it’s fine, I’m done.”

“Are you, um, were you Flashing?”

“Oh my god, no.”

“You’re not?”

“I mean, I was on Flash, but no one—no one says that, Naomi.”

“I don’t know.” There’s something in Naomi’s tone that sets off warning bells in Lulu’s head. “I don’t really know anything about it.”

“It’s not that interesting.”

“It is sometimes, though.” Naomi has been looking down at her hands in her lap, but when she says this she looks up. She looks Lulu in the eye.

Fuck.

“One of my friends was writing this paper for a feminist studies class,” Naomi says. “About the narrative possibilities of young women— Whatever, it doesn’t matter. Anyway. She was doing some research. She found this video.”

Lulu buries her face in her hands. “Nooooooo,” she says.

“I’m not—we don’t have to talk about the video itself,” Naomi says. Lulu imagines forcing her prim, reserved older sister to discuss sex with her, and feels only marginally better. “I just wanted to check in with you about it. First of all—do Mom and Dad know?”

“Know about what?”

“That there’s a sex tape of you on the internet.”

“It’s not a sex tape, Naomi, Jesus.”

“A make-out tape.”