“I’m an activist, remember? They arrest us, take us in, then they let us go without charging us. It’s a game we all play. If I didn’t get arrested every once in a while, people would think I didn’t know how to do my job.” She was hogging the taro fries and he let her.

“Who pays your salary?”

“George Soros, who else?”

He could hear that it was a joke she had used many times before. He laughed anyway.

“I suppose I should be more ladylike and take little bites, but these are really good.” She took another fry. “Mmm. Heaven. Why do you want to know who pays me? Conservatives ask me that. You’re not a conservative; I can tell by the way you part your hair.”

“How do conservatives part their hair?”

She waved away the question. “We get by on contributions and favors. I aspire to minimum wage. My office is a big closet in a small church. I’m going to turn thirty in a couple of years, and I live in an apartment in my parents’ basement two blocks from my dad’s shop. When I move out, they’ll rent it and take a cruise.”

“Meanwhile, they’ve got your back.”

“Mom’s a school librarian. I think she gets what I do.”

“And your father?”

“A repairman. He fixes everything from lamps to computers—anything that plugs into the wall. He wears a pocket protector in his shirt and carries about a hundred keys on his belt. He worries about me all the time.”

“A fixer—a rare talent these days,” Ted said.

“So now you know everything about me.”

“Everything?” he asked.

“What do you want to know?”

“Do you like baseball?”

“Boring. Slow death.” She speared the last fry.

The pang was less devastating than he would have thought. That it was not a total deal killer was a revelation. Maybe he was finally growing up.

Kenzie blithely continued as though they were discussing sports in general and not one of his obsessions. “Football is less boring but barbaric. I don’t know why it’s legal. Hockey is like gladiators on ice. Basketball is good, but it’s hard to be a fan in New York. I’m still getting over the Knicks trading Patrick Ewing.”

“What were you then? Ten? Eleven?”

“It was traumatic.”

“How about the Nets?”

“You’re kidding.”

“The Liberty?”

“Is this like some kind of a test? Like if I say I like women’s basketball, I’m gay or a feminazi or something?”

Jill had often teased Ted that his ability to recognize the sexual orientation of women was subpar, but he held no doubts about this woman. “No, but I’m not going to invite you to go to a game with me if you don’t like women’s basketball.”

“I thought we were meeting to exchange information.”