“That’s Chef Guy at the stove, doing the heavy lifting,” said Micah, pointing to a plump black man in an apron.

Guy smiled widely as they approached. “Salut, ma cherie,” he said in a distinct French accent as he leaned in to kiss her on both cheeks.

“Can I help with something?” she asked, aware of the busy hive around her.

Micah handed her a glass of white wine and gestured to a counter stool. “Relax a bit first. You’ve been running around all morning, am I right?”

Karina nodded as she sat. “I helped open the store this morning. Feels good to get off my feet for a minute.” The wine was crisp, not too sweet, and made her feel very adult. The only times she’d tasted good wine like this were when she had a few sips at special dinners with her parents. The kitchen was fragrant with pungent herbs, garlic and turkey roasting in the oven. Karina took in the scene: knives scraping against boards, people laughing and chatting as they reached past each other, mismatched aprons, and assorted wineglasses scattered along the long granite countertop. The space was filled with people who represented a mix of complexions and races. It felt messy and delicious and warm and festive.

“When you’re done,” Micah nodded toward her glass, “I’ll show you around the property.” Karina warmed at the prospect of some time alone with him. She took one last sip and stood up. As they walked through the main hallway, Karina found herself continually surprised at the scale of the house: the ceilings were soaring; the dining room housed an enormous round table set for fourteen; the family room sported a television screen the size of her bed.

When Micah led her outside, Karina averted her eyes from the swimming pool at the center of the backyard. She spotted a grove of lemon trees off to the side and detoured in that direction. “How many trees are there?” she asked, leaning closer to smell the fruit.

“We have about a hundred left. We had to clear a lot of them to make space for all this.” Micah waved his arm toward the field of dark soil lined with irrigation tubes and pointed out where they connected to the underground well. “We’re almost finished with the composting system,” Micah said, leading her up a slope. “I want to put in solar panels on this hillside to generate all our electricity, but that’s a big investment—sixty grand—so I’m still trying to collect the money. Eventually we’ll be a closed loop system, taking nothing from the earth we don’t put back in some way. Imagine, if everyone lived like this, how many problems we could fix—climate change, water shortages . . .”

“Did you know 70 percent of freshwater use is for agriculture?” Karina said. Her mind traveled back to the seminar that had brought her and James together, the hours they spent in the library poring over journal articles on drought, water delivery systems, desalinization plants. “And food production will need to grow by over 60 percent over the next twenty years, just to keep up with population growth?”