Leonard couldn’t survive five minutes in there; he always ended up in the kitchen with the women. They were the ones talking about stuff he actually cared about: gossip, basically, about real or fictional people. Women were kind, so they never kicked him out, though he had no kitchen skills, beyond chopping things and opening jars. I, like all the girls and most of the boys in the class, smiled at this description—at how the women tolerated Leonard, despite his incompetence. But my smile felt a little mechanical. Why were the women always in the kitchen, and what was it that Leonard had
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