“We’ll start with four orders of these and these, and maybe two of the live octopus, just to try,” she says, looking down at her menu. “Oh, and they need drinks.” She gestures down the table toward us.

I flip the menu over but the waiter is standing behind my chair before I locate the drinks.

“Umm...” I feel my face grow hot. “Water is fine,” I say.

“I was going to go with the sake...” Braden says, turning toward me for the first time since we sat down, but really he’s turned toward the waiter. “Which would you recommend?” Braden holds up the menu.

“Either of these.” The waiter points to two items.

“All right, let’s go with the Premium then, thanks.” He picks up his menu and then my own. “And she’ll have some too.”

The waiter nods and takes both menus. I guess I didn’t need to attempt to decipher it after all. I wait for him to ask for the ID that I don’t have, but he walks away without a word.

“Okay,” Ava says, sitting up taller. “Where was I?”

“You were making a huge mistake, again,” Christine says.

“Right.” Ava nods as she swings her purse from the back of her chair onto her lap, the metal Gucci logo catching the light. “So I go over to ‘watch a movie.’” She lowers her voice and makes it sound dopier, clearly doing her boy voice. Pulling a pack of cigarettes out of her purse, she taps the pack against her wrist. She pulls one out and puts it between her lips, then sparks a bedazzled lighter with expert technique.

I look around to see if anyone else is shocked. Surely you can’t smoke in here?

She takes a drag before continuing her story. “So we watch all five minutes of some dumb robot fighting movie before we’re very much not watching the movie anymore.”

The waiter parts the bamboo and steps into the room with a tray of ceramic carafes and tiny cups. “You can’t smoke in here,” he says as he sets down the glasses.

Ava puts out the cigarette on a ceramic plate, smearing black ash over the intricate flower design. “Anyway, so there we are, half-naked, with Transformers like, battling each other or whatever in the background, when his phone goes off.”

The waiter sets a tiny glass in front of me, and Braden reaches to fill it with a clear liquid from the carafe.

“And he literally takes his hand off my...” She looks around the restaurant. “Well, you know, and goes and checks his phone. And then, I kid you not, he tells me he has to go, because a girl who is Platinum just asked to meet him at Joe’s Bar. He says it like, of course I’ll understand that he has no choice.” She throws back a shot of sake.