It’s Harper’s birthday, but she says she doesn’t believe in celebrating birthdays or buying presents because it’s childish, it’s attention-seeking, it’s stressful, it’s capitalism run amok. I accepted this and swallowed my urge to make a fuss, lecturing myself internally about respecting Harper’s wishes and not buying her a gift even though I am exceptionally good at gift-giving and already had three options planned. Then Jesse suggested we go to the pub for a few drinks as a household just to mark the occasion in some way, and Harper agreed, and she invited Penny, then some of her friends, and Penny invited more people, and suddenly it’s a whole party, and I had to buy a present in a rush and ran out of time to wash my hair.

Now I’m sitting at the pub, holding a soda water, which is my default drink when I’m out, even though I don’t like it. I wish I had ordered a Coke but somehow, I am less embarrassed ordering a soda water than a Coke. I don’t know why—there is just a random hierarchy of non-alcoholic drinks in my head and how ashamed of each one I should be, and Coke is at the bottom, the most shameful, because someone from school once rolled their eyes at me when I pulled a can of it out of my bag to drink at a party. The always-hovering psychologist in my brain says, let’s analyse why you attach shame to soft drinks at all. But no, that is a thought for when I am lying in bed or sitting in an Introductory Microeconomics lecture, not now.

We have commandeered a bunch of couches in the corner of the pub, and Penny is sitting across from me. She’s wearing a slinky satin dress she found in an op shop, and her red hair is in a long ponytail, trailing over one shoulder. Her skin looks like she has somehow applied a flattering photo filter to real life.

She leans over, suddenly.

‘Okay, I have a surprise for you, Brooke.’ Her face makes me nervous.

‘What is it?’ I say, trying to look like I’m open to surprises, like I’m a perfectly normal person who enjoys unexpected things.

‘It’s a good surprise,’ Penny says. But if someone has to clarify the surprise is good, that means they think it might not be good.

I falter a little. ‘What is it, Penny?’ I say.

‘Henry is here!’ Penny opens her arms wide.

‘What, here here? Now?’ I stand up, then quickly sit down. Jesse is looking all around, in a very unsubtle way. I want to yell at him to stop it.

‘Yes!’ Penny says. ‘He just walked in.’ She starts waving someone over.