“You know you can propose literally any day of the year,” Frankie offered.

Ezra leveled her with a look the best he could. One of his eyes spasmed under its own weight. “Do you ever just not have an opinion?”

Frankie considered this. No, she rarely did not have an opinion. Her opinions were what literally defined her, what made her career. As far as she was concerned, this was part of her charm. She thought this was something he used to love about her: that whenever he was waffling, he would tell her the two options and ask her to choose. Advanced art history or abnormal psych? Chinese chicken salad or beef with broccoli? Absolut or Amstel? Frankie would make an unequivocal choice for him and always chose, she thought, correctly. If she didn’t or hadn’t, he never said otherwise. Who chose for him now? she wondered. She suspected it might be Mimi. But even as they chipped away at each other, she hoped, for his sake, this wasn’t the case.

“We need to get moving,” she said, standing quickly. The room spun, and she flattened her hand against the table. Ezra was by her side immediately, grasping her elbow, keeping her steady.

“You ok?”

Frankie nodded. Of course, this was a preposterous question because she wasn’t ok. But she found herself in the unusual position of merely wanting to be compliant. Things were messy enough already.

“You both could probably use a doctor,” Joni offered from the cash register. “Is there a reason you’re here and not there?”

Frankie looked at her for a beat and didn’t reply. How to answer a question that felt loaded, too complicated to explain to this nice stranger. Neither of them wanted to admit weakness, neither of them wanted to be the first to say mercy, neither of them wanted to simply say: help.

Beside her, she heard Ezra sigh.

“Do you have anyone you could call from last night?” he asked. “Maybe to help us sort this out?”

Frankie shook her head. She knew that her voicemail would be only work emergencies or her mother. She didn’t know how to reach Laila without her cell—she hadn’t committed her number to memory. Who else was there? No one. Her artists were used to her rescuing them, not vice versa. Frankie had set up what she deemed a perfect hierarchy in her life: she was at the top, everyone else clung to rungs below her, and until this very moment, she’d never considered the ways that this might not serve her.

“What about Gregory?” Frankie said. For reasons she didn’t yet remember, she felt sure that he’d been part of the debacle last night. Perhaps he was with them at the scavenger hunt? She jostled with the idea. Something about it felt familiar. “I think he was with us?”

Ezra scowled. “Like I didn’t think of that. I tried his room too. He’s not picking up.”

They thanked Joni, who told them she’d be at the café until three p.m. if they needed anything but no later because she had a second gig tonight, and Ezra held the door for Frankie, and then they were padding through the snow, headed west through the main artery of the grounds. Middleton was a sprawling, sleepy campus: rolling hills, Gothic architecture, lawns of bright green grass when they weren’t blanketed with leaves in the fall and snow in the winter. Statues of founding fathers sprung up in front of fountains, footpaths with raised wooden bridges crossing small bubbling brooks. It was all so postcard beautiful, as if you could become more serene just by looking at it.