We all laugh, even Strad.

“I don’t suppose that’s ever happened to you,” Georgia says to Strad.

“No, I’ve never had a crush on an ugly lesbian,” he replies.

“Come on, I’m serious. Haven’t you ever developed feelings for someone you weren’t attracted to at first?”

Frowning in mock concentration, he says, “Oh, dear, I’d have to give it some thought when you’re not all looking at me.”

But we keep on looking. Even Lily. She’s clearly very interested in the topic.

Strad finally says carefully, “I don’t recall if that’s ever happened to me. But I’m sure it could, under the right circumstances.”

Penelope waves me over.

“What is it?” I ask her.

“I need to whisper something to you.”

I bend down to her level. Cupping her free hand around her mouth, she whispers in my ear, “This only just occurred to me. The weapon could be a tiny poisoned glass dart blown out of a tiny straw smuggled in the hem of a garment. It could be done one-handed with the hand that’s not cuffed. Strad is not safe right now.”

I blanch. She’s absolutely right. The metal detector wouldn’t have picked up a tiny glass dart and straw, and neither would the frisking.

Penelope warning me of this method seems to indicate that she’s not the killer.

On second thought, if she were the killer, she’d still have plenty of reasons to tell me of this method. In a flash, four possible reasons go through my mind, and I’m sure there are more:

1) She wants to divert my attention away from another method she’s about to use.

2) She is curious to see how I would have protected Strad against this method, had she thought of using it.

3) She wants to make herself appear more innocent.

4) She knows that by telling me about this method, she is forcing me to increase Strad’s protection, which will escalate the weirdness of the evening to a degree that might cause Lily to finally lose any remaining hope that Strad could ever fall in love with her, which will help her move on with her life.

Barely breathing, I say, “Strad, get up.”

“Why?” he asks, getting up.

“Come right this way.” I lead him out of the room and around the corner, while shielding him from the others with my body as much as possible. I bring him his chair. “Sit down.”

He sits. From my seat at the table, I will be able to see both parties while they won’t be able to see or hurt each other.

This is only a temporary solution because I’m sure Strad will not want to stay behind that corner for two whole hours. Maybe not even for two whole minutes. Therefore, I must come up with a better system to protect him from possible darts. I wish I could ask Georgia for ideas.

Luckily, it doesn’t take me too long to come up with one. I set myself to work immediately.

I open the living room closet and withdraw the big sheets of transparent plastic I bought to protect my furniture when my apartment was painted a few months ago.

“Why am I around this corner?” Strad calls out to me.

“Punishment,” I reply.

“Oh. Was I bad?”

“No. They were bad.” My new location hides me from his view as I unfold the sheets of plastic.

“What’d they do? They didn’t seem so bad.” As an afterthought, he adds, “Apart from ganging up on me and telling me what a jerk I am.”

I don’t answer.

He says, “Anyway, how is my sitting around this corner their punishment rather than mine?”

I open a drawer, looking for my roll of transparent masking tape. I reply, “I’m depriving them of the sight of you.”

“Is the sight of me that good?” he asks.

“They thrive on it.”

“Perhaps I should just go home, then. That would deprive them of it very effectively,” he says.

“No!” I exclaim.

“Why not?”

I don’t know what to say. I hope my silence will alert Georgia to come to the rescue.

She does, with: “Barb’s kidding. We weren’t bad. This is just a game we like to play called Hide the Guest.”

Still hidden from Strad’s view, I climb on a chair and start taping one end of a plastic sheet to the ceiling, letting the rest hang like a transparent curtain. This creates a dart-proof partition between my friends and the dining table.

While I do this with a few more sheets, until all my friends are behind plastic, Georgia explains the game to Strad: “You have to try to remember what each of us is wearing and what we look like, including eye color, hair color, presence or absence of glasses, etc.”

From behind the corner, he sounds mildly interested in this game. But then she has to ruin it by adding, “The point of the game is to test your level of self-centeredness.”

I kick my socked foot in the direction of her face, intentionally missing her by only an inch, which sobers her up temporarily.

I finish taping the last bit of plastic to the ceiling. Just in time, too, because Strad says, “You know what? I don’t really like the sound of this game. I’m sure I’d be terrible at it, so I’d rather just have a normal remainder of evening with you—”

He stops mid-sentence as he emerges from around the corner and beholds the plastic curtain with my friends watching him through it. And me, still atop my chair.

Stupefied, he asks, “What are you doing?”

“We’ve entered the phase of the evening called Partitioning,” I say.

“It’s totally creepy-looking,” he says. “It looks like you’re setting up some sort of weird execution.”

“Oh, no, on the contrary. I’m about to serve them seconds. They go so wild for seconds, they often throw their cake.”

We keep the conversation going for another hour. Jack throws most of his cake at the curtain to support my story. Not being a fan of lemon, it’s no big sacrifice for him. The others merely throw large crumbs. No one attempts to shoot darts, thankfully, not that it would matter much with the plastic sheets.

When the cuckoo finally screams twelve times at midnight and the danger is over (according to KAY’s rules), my friends really start acting mad. They cheer and clank their chains, demanding to be freed.

I unlock their handcuffs. They all, except for Lily, shake Strad’s hand, saying, “Congratulations.” Penelope even says, “Congratulations, you’ve made it.”

“Into the group?” Strad asks, his face lighting up. “You know, it did occur to me that this might be some sort of initiation. If you tell me that I have made it into the Knights of Creation, you’ll make me a very happy man.”

“No, I’m sorry,” Penelope says. “I just meant that you made it through this strange evening. There is no such thing as ‘making it into the Knights of Creation.’”

Strad is disappointed though he takes it well. In fact, he doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to leave, now that everyone is so cheerful and authorized to go to the bathroom unaccompanied. We move to the couch area and Strad says he’d like some more coffee, but asks if he can get his phone back to quickly first check his messages.

I get him his phone. He’s surprised to see he has three new ones.

As he listens to each one, our attention is drawn to his gasps and facial expressions, which become progressively more despondent.

He finally turns off his phone and says, “Barb, you ruined my day, possibly my life, by taking my phone from me. I have to go.”

“Why? What’s wrong?” Lily asks.

He speaks quickly: “First, some chick tells me there’s a fantastic film audition I’d be perfect for, in an alley. She gave me the address. It’s just a few blocks from here. She said she spoke to the casting people about me and they really want to see me, but it has to be soon because they’re closing casting at midnight, no exceptions. She said not to bother coming after that. She left me that message at ten o’clock. It’s now after midnight.”

“In an alley?” I ask faintly.

“Yes.”

I can’t believe what a close call that was. I took Strad’s cell phone into my bedroom right before the cuckoo scared us at ten. If I’d waited another ten minutes, Strad would have answered the call and gone.