Cherry narrates a 1984 dinner party hosted by her friend Hazel, a hairdresser she met through Hazel's salon. Cherry reflects on their long, unequal friendship—one she admits she has often taken for granted. She describes the evening's atmosphere: a hot night relieved by a southerly buster, an impressive Black Forest cake that became Hazel's signature dish, and lively conversation among the guests.

A bearded man introduces chaos theory to the table, explaining how tiny changes in initial conditions can cascade into enormous effects—the famous butterfly effect. The conversation stalls when the group realizes none of them have experience with tornadoes, and Hazel, increasingly drunk, shepherds everyone to the lounge room for coffee.

Hazel urges Cherry to tell the group about her mother, Madame Mae, the fortune teller. Cherry resists but Hazel persists, revealing Cherry's mother's profession to the other guests. An attractive man flirtatiously asks Cherry to read his palm; she declines, noting her mother always said she had "the intuition of a potato." His wife, visibly annoyed by his attention to Cherry, questions the legality of fortune-telling. The bearded man confirms it was technically illegal, prompting Cherry's internal reflection on the historical persecution of women perceived to have supernatural powers, including the last woman executed for witchcraft in the British Isles.

Cherry also reflects on her grandmother, who secretly read palms and kept her earnings in a biscuit tin to bet on horse races—teaching Cherry the value of financial independence. Rather than continue defending fortune-telling, Cherry deftly redirects the conversation to the bearded man, who holds forth on why mobile phones will never achieve widespread use. The chapter ends with the doorbell ringing, and Cherry notes she felt no shiver of premonition at the sound.