“Yeah,” Shannon said, sliding onto the barstool beside Georgina. She wanted to bide her time and watch the bartender for clues.
“Mikey, can you get a drink for my friend?” Georgina asked the bartender.
Mikey blinked at Shannon, as though he’d been waiting for her order since the dawn of time.
“Just a beer, thanks,” Shannon said. She turned and beckoned for Russell to come over. Russell came begrudgingly, his eyes furtive. He ordered a beer from Mikey, too.
“So, Georgina,” Shannon said, “are you, um…”
“You’re going to ask if I got kicked out?” Georgina asked, laughing. “I didn’t. Not yet! But I’m on probation. Oops.” She laughed. “Mikey keeps telling me I should give up on neuroscience, anyway.”
“I think we know too much already,” he said stoically. “About the brain. We weren’t meant to know everything.”
“Huh,” Shannon said.
Mikey gave her a look of resentment.
“Do I know you from somewhere?” Russell asked Mikey.
“Dunno. Do you come to this bar?” Mikey asked.
Georgina chimed in, “He’s Dina’s boyfriend. You and Dina used to be best friends, right, Shannon? Mikey, does Dina still talk about Shannon? I never figured out what happened between you guys.”
Shannon flared her nostrils. “People drift apart.”
Mikey didn’t answer. He turned around to scrub the counter. Shannon was beginning to sweat in her armpits and on her palms. She had no idea how she was going to get Mikey to confess to blackmailing her mother, if he even was. She kept the recording app open on her phone at all times, but she hadn’t yet found a reason to start.
For a little while, Georgina regaled them with stories from what she called her “lost semester.” Apparently, she’d had a whale of a time, dating around, avoiding assignments, forgetting appointments with professors, and “digging myself into a big, old pit,” which was how she put it.
“I’m so sorry, Georgina,” Shannon said. “You should let me know if you need anything.”
“That’s so sweet, Shannon!” Georgia raised both of her hands and slurred. It was clear that this wasn’t her first beer of the night. It wouldn’t be her last, either.
And then, all at once, Dina was there. She stood like a shadow to Shannon’s left, waiting for them to notice her. Georgina called her name first. “Dina’s here! We were just talking about you.”
Shannon turned her head slowly, wondering if she’d be able to sense Dina’s guilt at once. But Dina’s face was difficult to read, just as it always had been. Even back when Dina had copied her lab experiment two years ago, Shannon hadn’t been able to tell.
Shannon and Russell had talked endlessly about being strategic. They’d discussed ways they could get Dina and Mikey to confess to their crimes. But now that Dina was before her, her eyes enormous, Shannon felt herself losing her cool.
This woman before her—the same woman who’d lived with Shannon for years in undergrad—had had an affair with Fred Peters. This woman had snuck around behind Shannon and Arietta’s back and created a separate, parallel life with their father and husband.
Shannon felt rage bubbling up in her stomach. She reached for the envelope, ready to show everyone at this bar what Dina had been up to.
“Shannon,” Russell muttered in warning. “Do you want to go outside and talk?”
“No. I don’t want to talk,” Shannon said. “I want Dina to tell me, here and now, in front of every person in this bar, why she had an affair with my father. I want her to confess.”
Georgina let out a gasp, but everyone else in their immediate vicinity was quiet. Dina looked like she wanted to murder Shannon. Mikey looked vaguely bored.
Dina wet her lips. She seemed to be weighing up exactly what to say and what to reveal.
At the last second, Shannon remembered to press Record on her phone’s app.
“Oh, babe,” Mikey said finally. “Is she talking about that guy who had the stroke?” He cracked an ominous yet strangely gooey smile, then explained to Georgina, “We had this plan to blackmail Dina’s fake older boyfriend for cash. But he basically kicked it when he was over in Italy.”
“It was Greece,” Dina corrected, her tone dark.
Mikey’s smile waned. Georgina didn’t seem to know what to do, so she kept giggling like her life depended on it. Something about the dynamic was off.