"She's my best friend. Back in Belkend, I ... didn't get out much." Or at all.

"My parents were working with Rita on something, and asked her to spend a little time with me. She helped convince them that I would be okay if I went with her to her lab on occasion, under the guise of her studying the seventh fonon. Which wasn't actually much of a guise, there was some semblance of truth to it." Rita did want to research the seventh fonon. And what better test subject than an actual seventh fonist?