She didn’t answer. The aroma of the cooking meat and of the garlic, oregano and seasoned bread crumbs she’d suffused it with filled the room and made him realize how hungry he was. He set down the knife and took another sip of his beer.

After a moment he said, “I’m really thinking of saying yes, if only for my career. It’ll be a learning experience and it’ll make Tim happy—and Walter too, one hand washes the other, right? And maybe, who knows, I’ll pick up some ideas about my own thesis—or how to go about it anyway. It’s not a big deal. Really.”

“After what you went through the other night? You told me it was pure hell—you were out in the yard, Fitz, out in the yard in your underpants, slamming into things, and you tell me you’re going to be a guide? What if you get the drug, which by the way, I resent, because I’m not invited, isn’t that right?” She shoved the pan angrily to one side, all elbows, and set a pot of water on the burner with a stark clatter of metal on metal. For a moment neither of them spoke. He watched her go to the sink to rinse her hands, then take up her glass and drain it in a single swallow. “And if you do get it,” she said, “and you have a reaction like the other night, what then? Who’s going to be your guide?”

“I don’t know, Tim, I guess. Or Ken or Walter or anybody. Besides which, it’s only going to be psilocybin and only thirty milligrams—”

“Jesus, you sound like a chemistry major. ‘Only thirty milligrams’—isn’t that more than what we got the first time? A full third more?”

“If I get it,” he went on, “which is take your pick, roll of the dice, fifty-fifty chance, and even if I do, I can handle it, I’m sure I can—”

“Oh, really?” She glanced beyond him into the front room to make sure Corey wasn’t listening. “The way you handled it the first time? There won’t be any women there, will there?”

“No. All men.”

She was right there now, right at his elbow, and he didn’t want to look up at her or prolong this or get into a wrangle over nothing—he’d already made up his mind. It was his profession, his obligation, and when you came down to it, what business was it of hers?

“All men,” she said, and gave a low growl of a laugh. “Great,” she said. “And so who are you going to screw then?”