“Robert, you little worm,” a voice calls—and yes, now I recall the black SUV I loaded and unloaded with flowers after my party.

“Hello, Luna,” I reply, greeting Bonnie McAlister, as well—and two women on my couch who don’t introduce themselves, which I appreciate, because I don’t care to meet them, either—and Nick, too, perfectly healthy and terribly smug. He’s sitting next to Elizabeth, his feet propped on my coffee table. I’m looking at him still when I tell Luna, “Three times in one week. Might be a record.”

“Aren’t you the luckiest?” she says.

“What’s the occasion this time?” I ask.

But it’s Elizabeth who answers with a semi-smile, and her cadence is peculiar—artificial but knowing, seductive almost—when she says, “We’re planning our book club.”

Luna points at me. “No thanks to you, naughty boy. I practically begged you to give Elizabeth the message.”

Holding her gaze but harder, Elizabeth says, “Don’t you love Luna’s idea, Robert? She wants to revamp her book club to make use of my brain. Isn’t that flattering?” Elizabeth is so proud of herself for discovering what she thinks she knows, as if I’d derived pleasure from passing off Luna’s suggestion as my own. Elizabeth doesn’t understand that my moves are strategic, that my strategies are designed to protect her from humiliating herself. Liking Nick’s attention is one thing. Needing it would be a disgrace.

“Feeling better?” I ask Nick.

“Much,” he says. “Elizabeth talked me into an immune-booster tea from that café by the farmer’s market. With all due respect for modern medicine, the tea might have worked miracles.”

The ladies giggle, and Bonnie says, “You do have such nice color now.”

One of the unidentified women says, “Yes. You’re glowing.”

“You did look peaked earlier,” says Luna, reaching over Elizabeth to pat Nick’s knee. “Poor thing.”

Elizabeth says, “I drove Nick to the pharmacy for antihistamine and we swung by Java and Juice for a ginger tonic afterward. Bumped into these ladies, and here we are.”

“Kismet,” says Luna, “and not a moment too soon. Swear to God, the last book we read was a cookbook, for Christ’s sake.”

“It was bull-honkey,” Bonnie tells me. “Movie stars don’t eat like that.”

Luna rolls her eyes. “We’re desperate for new blood. Elizabeth is going to revive us, and thanks to Nick, we’re off and running. He mentioned Elizabeth’s favorite book, and not a single one of us had read it. Aren’t we pitiful?”