A woman learns that her coworker, Nicola, is getting divorced. She can’t help but be jealous. Nicola and the woman live in New York City. The woman remembers the party when Nicola met her recent ex-husband, Evan. Back then, Nicola was married to another man, a painter-turned-professor named Paul. The party was a boring university event, in which wives of professors lingered while their husbands mingled. Evan, a writer, came up to the woman first, before getting bored and moving over to Nicola. After that, Nicola and Evan had an affair. She divorced Paul, eloped with Evan, and went on a trip to Paris with her new husband. There, Nicola and Evan became fed up with one another: Evan just wanted to write, while Nicola wanted to go out. Jealous and enraged, Evan threatened to kill Nicola, before accidentally swinging a knife and chopping off his own middle finger. Upon hearing the story of Evan’s missing middle finger, Nicola’s coworker is shocked. She tries to figure out the mechanics of that move–it seems very unlikely that someone aiming at someone else would cut off their own middle finger–but she’s never able to. A few years later, Nicola’s moved onto another office and she’s married to a violinist. Meanwhile, her ex-coworker is still perplexed.