Mona mentioned the breakup with Carlos to Carissa. The revelation elicited a teary, half-coherent monologue about Carissa's breakup with her own girlfriend, the cause of which remained vague but seemed to stem from Carissa's not being very attracted to women. Out of sympathy and loneliness, Mona invited Carissa over for a night's dinner and drinking. Carissa was no cook; after ratifying the veganness of Mona's ingredients, she planted herself on the couch with a glass of wine and began clicking the remote.

"Hey, you get BBC News?" she said after a minute. "That's cool."

Mona had forgotten about BBC News, although she'd signed up for cable specifically to get it. She listened with half an ear while cutting green peppers for the lasagna.

"–of protesters from sixteen nations in Tiananmen Square has secured the release of several hundred Chinese political prisoners, practitioners of the Falun Gong religion. The protesters, themselves followers of Falun Gong, flew over a few weeks ago in solidarity. Our Beijing correspondent has the story."

Mona emerged from the kitchen to watch. "Stay on this channel. My mom is on this mission thing."

"Wow," said Carissa. "I guess activism runs in the family."

"I never thought of it that way," Mona said.

The Beijing correspondent showed footage of a human chain stretched across Tiananmen Square—no tanks in sight. A battalion of police armed with riot gear soon arrived. But no violence erupted, and the story moved to speeches from politicians and celebrities. At the end of the report, the camera turned to an old Chinese man, who looked like an appetizer next to a stout black matron in a flowered housedress. He was introduced as one of China's preeminent Falun Gong masters, she as Flora Debevois of Galveston, Texas, and as the old man began to speak, she began beamingly to translate:

"Our American friends have demonstrated, once again, the power of the committed individual. We have always said that nothing is more powerful than the human will, and again we have been proved correct. We view the release of our brothers and sisters as a beacon of hope, and as a sign of better things to come."

Mona laughed a tear-blotched laugh of disbelief and pride; and although her mind had already queued up enough counterarguments and counterexamples to last through the lasagna and well into the chocolate soufflé, she only said, "You can't argue with results," and returned to the peppers.