Café Boulud had always been our emergency spot. Martin was friends with the head waiter, so we always got the best table, in the center of the restaurant, where we could see absolutely everyone. With its perfect wineglasses and unforgettable food, it was a good place to go to forget your troubles.

An hour later, I was sipping a glass of rosé across from Martin, who was clad in fitted black pants, a thin black cashmere sweater, and a pair of Stubbs & Wootton smoking slippers. He said, “You know you’d have to give up booze for nine months.”

I rolled my eyes. “Of course I know that, Martin. I’m not an idiot.”

“And cheese and deli meat and sex and sushi.”

I could feel my brow furrowing. “You don’t have to give up sex.”

He shook his head. “I’m sorry. If I’m paying you to grow my unborn child, I don’t want some man’s skanky sperm mixed in there with it.”

“I don’t sleep with people with skanky sperm,” I said, realizing that I hadn’t thought about any of this. “Plus, I’m not going to let him pay me.” I hadn’t even considered payment in this ill-conceived plan. But no, this was a greater-good endeavor, payback, a nice gesture to right my stance in the universe, which had seemed shaky as of late. I would not let him pay me. But I would let him give me a baller job.

Martin studied me. “Is there something more to this? Have you decided that you want to be a mother after all? Because you could adopt or have an egg donor or a million other things. I know you and Thad didn’t want children, but you’re allowed to change your mind.”

I considered it briefly, but I didn’t think that was it. Over the years, I had moved from simply coming to terms with not being able to have children, to embracing that that wasn’t the life I wanted anyway. I shook my head. “I still don’t want to be a mother. But this will be like the investigative piece of a lifetime. It’s, like, the story you never think you’ll get, and then it lands in your lap.”

He put his hands on the table and said, “Look, I don’t want to be the one to ask this, but it has to be asked.” He looked at me inquisitively. “Are you in love with Parker?”

I had to put my napkin to my face to keep from spitting my wine across the table. “I mean, really? Parker is the annoying kid brother I never wanted. No. I am not and have not ever been anything resembling in love with him.”

I looked out at the sun streaming on the bald head of Mac Montgomery, Mrs. Judy Lanham’s paramour. Yes. Her paramour. Her husband was in a nursing home, and she had made no bones about moving on, whether her husband was alive or not. He was no longer available for the season’s activities, so he might as well have been dead.