“Hey, Jess!” All of them jump as a coat is thrown over the table and Jessica is wrapped up in an embrace. Two girls, one white, one black, come in a flurry to the table, shattering the spell.

“I didn’t know you were inviting friends,” Carmen says, then makes a face that Jessica can’t see but Kierk can, causing Kierk to darkly laugh-sputter into his beer.

“What is this, the attractive academic support group?” the white girl who’d introduced herself as Jen says.

“Yeah,” Carmen replies, “we’re having T-shirts made.”

Soon, the other girl, Chelsea, is deep in conversation with Jessica and Alex, while Jen has integrated herself with Carmen and Kierk. Jen is good-looking in a girl-next-door kind of way. Kierk notices that she wrinkles her nose when she laughs, which he likes. Soon they’re hitting it off. Jen is apparently getting her MFA in creative writing at NYU, but knows Jessica through Chelsea, and the two of them go back to high school. Jen and Kierk end up talking about literature.

After some time she says—“Are you sure you’re a scientist?”

“No,” Kierk responds, drawing a laugh.

Eventually Carmen gets up to go get more beer, and Jen hands her cash.

“Just get us whatever.” Carmen pauses for a moment before nodding her head and as she turns and walks to the bar she mimics under her breath—“Oh just get us whatever!”

At the bar the lone bartender is taking forever to service some forty people, and Carmen is stuck behind all of them. Two men have already approached in just the time she’s been waiting here, each independently asking if she’d like them to muscle their way through and get her whatever she is waiting for, on them of course. Carmen wonders if people knew how predictable they really were, thinking of that Borges quote, something like—“the universal history is the reapplication of a limited set of metaphors.” You could say the same thing about people.

While looking at her phone and trying to project unapproachability she keeps glancing back at Kierk and Jen, who are leaning in closer to hear each other.

“Hey, are you waiting for a drink? Want me to wade through? It’s on me,” someone says to her, and Carmen looks up to see a well-dressed man. Glancing back, Carmen sees that Kierk and Jen are still head-to-head. Turning back to the guy, she flashes a smile, bites her lip. Ten minutes later, they each carry a tray of drinks, maneuvering through the crowd. Approaching the table, there is some kind of a scene going on. Jen is standing up angrily.

“Oh, I’m sorry, am I boring you? Am I boring you?” Jen is saying. Kierk is kind of slouched back, looking up at the ceiling like he cannot believe what is happening. Jen continues—“I’m sorry, sorry that my fucking opinions are so inferior—”