The Missing Apostrophe
- Robert tracks down Zulfikar Sharif, who got kicked out of his graduate program in Oregon and out of the US for his role in the lab mess. (Yes, we know he's totally innocent; but he did let his computer get hacked, so from outside, it's hard to tell what was Sharif or what was Rabbit/The Mysterious Stranger.) So Zulfi is back in Kolkata.
- They talk about their weird experience: Sharif talks about being hijacked; Robert talks about losing his poetic ability. Robert also talks about how he lost his ability to be a truly colossal jerk.
- Anyway, Zulfi is enrolling in the department of Bollywood Studies, which hopefully will keep him from more conspiracies.
- As for Robert, thanks to his work on his composition project, he got hired as a consultant for a communications company called Comms-R-Us. Yeesh.
- Unfortunately, Miri is still not talking to Juan (who went away for the summer).
- Alice seems like a "ghost of her former self" (37) now that she's home.
- One night, with Bob out of town (and out of touch), Miri comes in to tell Robert about some research she's done on restoring his ruined arm.
- Robert confesses that he set up Alice, which Miri already knows, but doesn't quite believe. After all, no one can figure out how what Robert did could lead to what happened to Alice.
- Also Alice is back in Training. (Like JITT training—the kind that could do serious brain damage to most people.) So Miri has no one to turn to.
- Robert tells her that Juan is a good friend who deserves better. (From her POV, all she knows is he didn't come down into the tunnels with her.) Robert uses himself as an example of someone who made the wrong decisions about friends: he drove his sister away and his wife and now he can't make it up to them.
- Which is probably around the time that Miri really decides to give Robert Lena's number.
- Robert agonizes over that number and then sends a little message.