Kiki nodded vaguely. Sarah remembered her friend as effortlessly efficient in the kitchen, but now she only alternated between sipping beer and working through an elaborate knot in her hair. Although this may have been nothing more than evidence of a new mother’s fatigue, it was easy enough to imagine that Kiki’s discernibly slower rhythm was an attempt to stall while deciding how to handle having heard Sarah over the baby monitor. That she knew Sarah had gone into her daughter’s room, picked her up, cuddled her until she cried, and snuck out of the room like a failed kidnapper.

“Sylvie’s perfect,” Sarah blurted out, laughing for good measure. As if self-awareness could somehow counteract such obvious naked longing.

Kiki smiled—was she blushing?—and gave a modest thanks.

“Those little lips and all that dark hair,” Heather chimed in. “Forgive me, but my ovaries are pulsing.”

“All right, all right,” said Karim. “Let’s go then.” He grabbed her waist.

“He wants a baby.”

“I think we got that,” said Sarah.

“I’ve always wondered about that expression,” Kiki said. “About ovaries. Does that actually happen?”

It was impossible to tell whether Kiki was mocking Heather or asking a frank question.

“I don’t actually ovulate, you know, naturally,” Kiki said. “So I don’t know.”

“Oh,” said Heather, “I didn’t mean to—”

“I never have. Or at least no one seems to think I ever have.” Kiki shrugged and started grating Parmesan cheese. “I’m just grateful to the entire field of reproductive medicine.”

“It is incredible what they can do these days,” Sarah said quickly, sounding glib and idiotic. Could her sentiments be any lazier? “So Sylvie was—”

“Very much planned; donor egg. Arman’s sperm. IVF.”

“Sounds like,” Matthew ventured, “you may have answered that question more times than you might have liked.”

“It’s okay. I don’t mind people’s curiosity. Most people just ask if she was an accident.”

“I mind,” Sarah said.

“What’s that?” Heather asked.

“I mind people’s curiosity. I’m sorry.”

“I remember,” said Kiki.

“What?”

“I remember how you hated when people nosed around, fished for some kind of story about why you had a baby so young.”

“Only in New York. Elsewhere I was nothing special.”

“How old were you?” asked Heather.

“When I had my daughter? Twenty-four.”

“What’s her name?”

“Well, you also looked younger than twenty-four,” said Matthew. “You were usually carded at bars. That added to it.”

“I guess I did look really young. I remember feeling ancient.”

“A baby will do that to you,” said Kiki.

Sarah found herself unable to bear Kiki’s being even slightly negative. “But—”

“But what?”

“You just look so young. You really do.” Though Sarah was ready to lie about so many other things, she somehow needed Kiki to understand this was true.