Ilka and Lucinella, two characters who join the group of friends later ... are constructed primarily through dialogue, as the friends talk to (and sometimes over) one another.

"I have a lot going on, but I feel a lot of my friends do not show an interest unless I talk about someone I'm dating," she states. And these don't seem to be a group of fair-weather folks ...

Friends sitting around a table, talking and laughing ... been something of a loner and her intense involvement with this group was something new. Then, just before the pandemic struck, it was ...