Entrance charge: 500 bucks if you’re boring. 100 bucks if you’re interesting. Drinks and dinner on the house if you’re fascinating. You pay 500 when you enter and we will refund the appropriate amount when we’ve had a chance to check you out.

The bar was bursting with people.

Not surprising, thought Anaina, that sign is a sure come-on. Who can resist it? Everyone wants to be assessed, right? We all need to be told we’re good, we’re great looking, we’re hot.

She’d never been in a bar alone before in her life, and the thought was scary. But scary for the old Anaina, whose name had been different in her previous life. Anaina was not going to be intimated by anything. Anaina The New was going to try it all, challenge it all, conquer it all, eat it all.

Of course she decided to go in.