Marcus found the good tablecloth in the linen closet, folded beneath a stack of towels that hadn't been touched since they moved in. He shook it out over the dining table while Dana argued with the oven, which had been running twenty degrees cold since March.

"Just add ten minutes," he said.

"I did. Then it was dry last time." She pulled out the chicken, poked the thickest part of a thigh, and put it back. "Fifteen more."

They'd invited the Okonkwos and Dana's coworker Rachel, who was bringing a new boyfriend nobody had met. Four guests, six chairs, one of which wobbled unless you sat perfectly still. Marcus carried it back to the bedroom and replaced it with the desk chair, which was black mesh and looked ridiculous, but at least it wouldn't dump anyone on the floor.

At six-forty Dana asked him to open the wine so it could breathe. At six-forty-five she asked if he'd swept, and he said he had, and she looked at the corner by the radiator where a small drift of cat hair had accumulated, and he got the broom without saying anything.

Rachel arrived first, eleven minutes early, apologizing. The boyfriend's name was Tim. He shook Marcus's hand too hard and admired the bookshelves. The Okonkwos came at seven-fifteen with a bottle of something and a foil pan of jollof rice that Dana had specifically told them not to bring.

The chicken came out fine. Slightly dry at the edges, but nobody mentioned it, and Ada Okonkwo asked for the recipe, which Dana said she'd text.

At eleven, alone in the kitchen, they worked through the dishes without discussing it—Marcus washing, Dana drying, the mesh chair still pulled up to the table behind them.

"Tim was okay," she said.

"Tim was fine."

She put a plate in the cupboard. "It went well, I think."


The lasagna had been in the oven for forty minutes when Denise realized she'd forgotten to buy bread.

"I can go," Marcus said, already reaching for his keys on the hook by the door. He was still in the T-shirt he'd worn to mow the lawn that afternoon, a faint line of sunburn across the back of his neck.

"Change first. You smell like grass."

"They're going to smell like whatever they smell like too."

But he went upstairs anyway and came down in a clean button-down, and Denise handed him a list she'd written on the back of a gas receipt: bread, ice, the sparkling water Priya liked, the one in the green bottles.

While he was gone she wiped down the counters twice and moved the mail off the dining table into a drawer, then took it back out because the drawer wouldn't close. She set the pile on the stairs. The lasagna sat cooling on the stove, its edges bubbled brown, and she thought, not for the first time, that she'd used too much ricotta.

Marcus got back at six-fifteen with everything except the green bottles. The Kroger had the blue ones. He also had a bunch of yellow tulips, which he put in the pitcher because neither of them could remember where the vase had gone.

The Ellisons arrived first, then Priya and her boyfriend Tom, who nobody had met. Tom turned out to be a high school chemistry teacher with a laugh that startled the cat. They ate in the dining room with the good plates, and someone spilled wine, and Marcus said don't worry about it and went for the paper towels.

By eleven the guests were gone. Denise washed, Marcus dried. Outside the kitchen window a neighbor's motion light kept clicking on and off.

"Too much ricotta," she said.

"Nobody noticed."


The peppers were burning, and Elena was the only one who noticed.

"Marcus." She waved a dish towel toward the stove. "The peppers."

He turned from the sink, hands dripping, and pulled the pan off the burner. "They're not burnt. They're charred. That's a technique."

"That's what your mother says about her rolls."

He flicked water at her. She dodged, laughing, and went back to arranging the cheese on the wooden board they'd received as a wedding gift six years ago and used maybe twice a year. Brie in the center, because Diane liked brie. Crackers fanned out like a hand of cards.

They had forty minutes. Marcus vacuumed the living room while Elena stashed the mail pile in a drawer and lit the candle that smelled like cedar. He'd changed his shirt twice; she'd given up on her hair and pulled it back.

"Did you get wine?"

"Two reds. And the seltzer for Priya."

"You're a good man."

"I'm a competent man," he said. "Good men remember napkins."

She found the cloth napkins in the linen closet, behind the extra sheets.

Diane and Priya arrived at seven-ten with a bakery box and an apology about traffic on the parkway. Tom came at seven-twenty, alone, because Bethany had a migraine. Everyone stood in the kitchen anyway, the way people always did, ignoring the living room entirely.

The chicken was slightly dry. Nobody said so. Priya told a long story about a coworker who'd been stealing yogurt, and Tom laughed so hard he had to set down his glass.

At eleven, they walked everyone to the door. Marcus turned on the porch light. Elena hugged Diane twice.

Afterward, standing at the sink, Marcus washed and she dried, and neither of them said much. The candle was still going in the other room. She reminded him. He went and blew it out.


Marcus found the good tablecloth folded in the linen closet, still smelling faintly of the cedar block Priya's mother had given them years ago. He shook it out over the dining table while Priya stood at the stove, tasting the dal with a wooden spoon.

"Too much cumin?" she asked.

He came over, took the spoon from her hand, and blew on it. "It's good. Maybe more salt."

"That's what I said last time and you said it was fine."

"Last time it was fine. This time it needs salt."

She swatted at him with a dish towel and he retreated to the dining room, counting out forks. Four people, three courses—though the third course was just the pie Dana was bringing, which Priya had insisted was too much and Dana had insisted was not a big deal.

At six-forty, Marcus realized they had no ice. He drove to the Kroger on Belmont in his slippers, bought two bags and a bottle of the Malbec Priya liked, and got back with eight minutes to spare. She had changed into the green blouse and was lighting a candle that had been in the cabinet since Christmas.

Dana and Ellis arrived at ten past seven, apologizing about traffic on the parkway. Ellis had brought his own beer, which Marcus thought was funny and Priya thought was slightly rude, though neither said so.

They ate. The dal was good. Ellis told a long story about his brother's failed attempt to install a hot tub, and Dana kept correcting the details, and by the end nobody could remember the point. Priya laughed anyway.

Afterward, Marcus washed and Priya dried, and they talked about whether Dana seemed tired, and whether they should have people over more often, and agreed they probably should, knowing they wouldn't for a while.


Marcus found the good tablecloth crumpled at the back of the linen closet, smelling faintly of cedar and last Thanksgiving.

"It's wrinkled," he called toward the kitchen.

"Iron it, then," Dana said. She was standing over a pot of something that had gone from simmer to alarming. "Or fold the wrinkles under. Nobody's inspecting the tablecloth."

He set up the ironing board anyway, which was how she found him twenty minutes later, hunched and squinting, pressing the same corner over and over while the local news murmured behind him.

"You've been on that corner since I put the bread in."

"It's a stubborn corner."

She kissed the back of his neck and took the iron away from him. "Go find the wine glasses. The real ones."

There were six real ones, and two had a film on them from the dishwasher, so Marcus stood at the sink with a dish towel and the tap running hot, buffing while Dana rearranged the platter of cheese she'd already arranged twice. She kept moving the olives.

"They're just Sarah and Tom," he said.

"And Priya."

"And Priya, who has seen our bathroom in a much worse state than it's in right now."

At six forty, the doorbell rang, which meant somebody was early, which meant it was Tom. He came in holding a bottle by the neck and apologizing, and Dana hugged him and said she was glad, honestly, she needed someone to open the wine.

Marcus dimmed the overhead light because the fixture made everyone look tired. The bread came out slightly dark on the bottom. Nobody mentioned it. Priya arrived at seven with a pie from the grocery store still in its plastic dome, and Sarah arrived at ten past, breathless about parking.

They ate. They stayed too long, in the good way. At eleven, standing at the sink together, Dana said, "The tablecloth looked fine."

"It looked pressed," Marcus said.


By six, the kitchen smelled like garlic and burnt butter, and Marisol was scraping the ruined first batch into the trash while Dev pretended not to notice.

"You could just say it," she said.

"Say what?"

"That I always try a new recipe when people are coming over."

"I would never." He was setting the table, counting forks under his breath. They only had five matching wine glasses, so he put the odd one at his own place, a squat tumbler from a gas station in Nevada they'd stopped at eleven years ago and still hadn't thrown away.

The second batch of scallops came out right. Marisol tasted one off the spatula and made a small satisfied noise, and Dev came over and opened his mouth like a bird until she gave him half of one.

"Salt?"

"It's good. Don't touch it."

The Kellys arrived first with a bottle of wine and their eight-year-old, Fiona, who had been promised she could watch a movie in the back room. Then Priya, alone, apologizing for Sam's shift at the hospital. Everyone stood in the kitchen even though there were chairs, the way people do.

Dinner ran long. Somebody knocked over water and nobody minded. Tom Kelly told the story about the raccoon in his attic again and Dev let him tell it, catching Marisol's eye once across the table, both of them keeping perfectly straight faces.

Around ten, Fiona fell asleep on the guest bed and had to be carried out sideways through the door. Priya stayed to help with dishes and then left too, and the house went quiet in that sudden way.

Marisol sat on the counter with the last of her wine. Dev leaned against the sink, dish towel over his shoulder.

"That was nice," she said.

"You were nervous for nothing."

"I know." She nudged his hip with her foot. "Leave the pans. I'll do them tomorrow."

He left the pans.


Marcus was scrubbing the roasting pan when Dana came in with the grocery bags, one strap sliding down her shoulder.

"They were out of the good bread," she said. "I got the sourdough instead."

"That's the good bread."

"It's the second good bread." She set the bags on the counter and started unpacking. Rosemary, a wedge of Parmesan, two bottles of wine she'd argued herself into buying. "Did you call your sister back?"

"I'll call her tomorrow."

"You said that Tuesday."

Marcus dried his hands. "I'll call her tomorrow."

Dana let it go and started on the salad. Marcus put the chicken in at four-fifteen, which he claimed was too early and Dana insisted was exactly right, and then he vacuumed the living room while she moved the pile of mail from the dining table to the top of the refrigerator, where it would live for the next three weeks.

At six they had twenty minutes and nothing left to do. They sat on the couch with the lamps on and the smell of rosemary coming through the house.

"The Kellers are going to talk about the addition," Dana said.

"For an hour."

"At least an hour."

The Kellers arrived first with a bag of clementines. Priya and Tom came ten minutes later, apologizing about traffic on the parkway. Marcus carved the chicken standing up, badly, and Dana reached past him for the platter without comment. The wine went faster than expected. Tom told a story about his father's boat that he had told before, and everyone let him.

Around ten, Amy Keller mentioned the addition. Dana caught Marcus's eye across the table and looked down at her plate.

They cleaned up together after, Marcus washing, Dana putting away, the leftover chicken going into a container that didn't have a matching lid.

"That was nice," Dana said.

"It was."

She turned off the kitchen light and they went up.


Marisol found the good tablecloth folded at the bottom of the linen closet, still creased from the last time they'd used it, two Thanksgivings ago. She shook it out over the dining table while Dev stood at the stove, adjusting the flame under a pot of rice.

"Did you salt this?" he asked.

"I salted the water. Not the rice."

"That's the same thing."

"It is not," she said, and went to get the napkins.

They had invited the Nguyens and Ruth from Dev's office, which made five, which meant pulling the folding chair from the garage. Dev went out for it and came back with a spider web in his hair and a scrape on his knuckle from the doorframe.

"You're bleeding on the chair," Marisol said.

"Barely."

She got a Band-Aid from the kitchen drawer, the one with the takeout menus and the dead batteries, and wrapped it around his finger while he held his hand out flat and patient, like a child.

The guests arrived at seven-ten, all at once, apologizing for parking. Ruth brought a bottle of wine that Dev opened badly, pushing half the cork into the bottle. Linh Nguyen laughed and said it happened to everyone. They ate at the table with the good tablecloth and the mismatched chairs, and the rice was fine, unsalted or not.

Around nine the conversation drifted to a neighbor's fence dispute, then to whether anyone still watched network television. Tom Nguyen told a long story about his father's truck. Marisol caught Dev's eye across the table twice, once when Ruth mentioned a coworker they both disliked, once for no reason at all.

Everyone left by ten-thirty. Marisol rinsed plates while Dev stacked them, working out a rhythm without discussing it. He blew out the candle. She turned off the kitchen light, and they went up.


Marcus found Diane in the kitchen at four-thirty, standing over a cutting board with a look of mild betrayal.

"The recipe says twenty minutes to prep," she said. "It's been forty and I'm still on the onions."

"They always lie about that." He set the grocery bag on the counter and pulled out the wine, two bottles, one red and one white, because he'd forgotten to ask what she was making. "Chicken?"

"Chicken."

"White, then."

He put the red in the pantry for later and started on the dishes she'd already accumulated, which was most of them. Behind him she scraped onions into the pan and the smell filled the room, that good browning smell, and she made a small satisfied noise.

At five-fifteen he vacuumed the living room while she showered. At five-forty he changed his shirt twice, and she came out with wet hair and told him the first one had been fine.

"You said it had a stain."

"That was Tuesday. Different shirt."

The Okoros arrived at six-ten with a pie, and Angela Reyes came at six-twenty apologizing about traffic, though everyone knew she was always twenty minutes late and had been since college. They ate at the dining table, which they used maybe six times a year, and Marcus told the story about the plumber and the crawlspace, and Diane let him tell it wrong in one place before correcting him, which was part of the routine.

James Okoro helped clear plates. Angela stayed too long, as she did, and Diane kept refilling her glass, which didn't help.

At eleven-forty the house was quiet again. Marcus loaded the dishwasher while Diane wiped the table.

"That went well," she said.

"You were right about the white."

"I usually am." She turned off the kitchen light behind him.


Marisol found the good tablecloth crumpled in the linen closet, smelling faintly of cedar and last Thanksgiving.

"It's wrinkled," she called toward the kitchen.

"Iron it, then," Dev said, not unkindly. He was standing over a pot of rice, lifting the lid every thirty seconds to check on it, which she had told him a hundred times was the surest way to ruin rice.

"Stop peeking."

"I'm not peeking. I'm supervising."

She set up the ironing board in the living room and worked at the creases while Dev moved between the stove and the sink. The apartment was small enough that they had to narrate their movements to avoid collisions. *Behind you. Coming through. Watch the corner.* At six-fifteen, Dev realized they'd forgotten wine, and Marisol sent him to the store two blocks down while she chopped cilantro and pretended not to notice that he'd left the burner on low under the dal.

The Osmans arrived first, then Priya, then Kenneth, who brought a bottle of something expensive and apologized for being late in a way that suggested he wasn't sorry at all. Six people around a table meant for four. Dev kept getting up to refill things. Marisol kept telling him to sit down.

The rice, as it turned out, was fine.

Kenneth told a long story about his sister's divorce. Priya explained the plot of a show none of them had watched. Somewhere around ten o'clock the conversation broke into two halves and stayed that way, and Marisol looked across the table at Dev, who had a fleck of cilantro on his chin, and thought about telling him, and didn't.

They left at eleven. Dev washed; Marisol dried. Neither of them said much. Outside, a car alarm went off and then stopped.

"That went well," Dev said.

"It did," she agreed, and put the good tablecloth in the hamper.


Marcus found Elena in the kitchen at four, surrounded by a mess she seemed to have created on purpose.

"The recipe said julienne," she said, holding up a carrot cut into something closer to a plank. "I don't know what julienne means."

"Matchsticks." He took the knife from her and demonstrated, three quick strokes. "Like this."

"Fine, you do the carrots. I'll do the wine."

"You'll drink the wine."

"I'll do that too."

They worked around each other in the narrow galley kitchen, a choreography twelve years old. He roasted the chicken. She made a salad, then remade it after remembering Dev had gone vegan in March. The apartment smelled like garlic and lemon, and someone upstairs was learning the trumpet, badly.

At six Elena stood in the doorway of the bedroom holding two shirts. "Blue or the gray one?"

"Blue."

"You didn't look."

He looked. "Blue."

Their friends arrived at six-forty with a bottle of Malbec and a store-bought pie that Priya apologized for twice. Dev found the good speaker and put on something with a bass line. They ate at the small table, elbows touching, passing dishes clockwise because there wasn't room to reach.

Priya told a story about her mother and a rental car in Portugal that made Marcus laugh so hard he had to put down his fork. Elena kicked him under the table when he started to tell the one about the wedding, but he told it anyway, and she ended up finishing it for him, correcting the details.

By eleven the candles had burned into puddles. Priya and Dev left with leftovers in Tupperware they promised to return, though everyone knew they wouldn't.

Elena leaned against the counter while Marcus filled the sink.

"That was good," she said.

"You forgot the bread."

"There was bread."

"There was bread in the oven." He pulled it out, black. They looked at it together.

"Nobody noticed," she said.

"Nobody noticed," he agreed, and turned the water hotter.


The Aftertaste of Cumin

Dana found the good tablecloth at the bottom of the linen closet, creased into squares, smelling faintly of cedar. She shook it out over the dining table while Marcus argued with the oven.

"It's preheating," he said. "It says three-fifty. It's at two-ninety."

"It's a nineteen-year-old oven."

"It's a liar." He slid the tray of chicken thighs in anyway, then stood with the door half-open, letting heat wash over his forearms.

They had invited the Okonjos and Sarah from Dana's office, which meant five people and four matching chairs. Marcus carried the wooden stool up from the basement and wiped a decade of dust off the seat with a paper towel.

"That's mine," Dana said. "I'll take the stool."

"You'll take a chair. I'll take the stool. I'm the one who forgot we don't own furniture."

At six-thirty she toasted the cumin seeds too long and the kitchen filled with a dark, nutty smoke. Marcus opened the window over the sink and fanned a dish towel at the smoke detector, which chirped once anyway, resentfully.

Sarah arrived first with a bottle of wine and an apology about parking. The Okonjos came twenty minutes later with their four-year-old, who had refused the babysitter, and who fell asleep on the couch under Marcus's fleece before the salad came out.

The chicken was good. Someone said so twice. Dana talked about the new manager at work and did an impression that made Marcus laugh into his glass. Emeka told a story about his father's Peugeot that had no ending, and everyone laughed anyway.

At eleven the Okonjos carried their daughter out like a folded chair. Sarah stayed for one more glass, then didn't.

Dana ran water into the roasting pan. Marcus leaned against the counter, drying a serving spoon he'd already dried.

"That went fine," he said.

"It went fine," she said, and handed him another.


Nadia found the good tablecloth folded at the back of the linen closet, still creased from the last time they'd used it, sometime around Thanksgiving. She shook it out over the dining table while Marcus wrestled with the leaf, which always stuck.

"Lift your end," he said.

"I am lifting my end."

It gave with a sudden pop, and they both stepped back, laughing, as the table widened into something that could seat six.

The chicken had been in the oven since five. Marcus had brined it the night before, an ambitious move he now regretted, since the kitchen smelled like rosemary and he could no longer tell if the smell was good or overwhelming. Nadia tasted the vinaigrette off her finger and added more mustard without telling him.

"Did you text Dave about the cat thing?" she asked.

"He says Priya's fine as long as it's not in her lap."

They put the cat in the bedroom with a bowl of water anyway.

The Kirklands arrived first, seven minutes early, with a bottle of wine and a bag of clementines from their neighbor's tree. Dave and Priya came at seven twenty, apologizing about parking. Everyone stood in the kitchen for a while, the way people do, until Nadia herded them toward the living room and Marcus opened the wine.

Dinner ran long. The chicken was good. Someone spilled a little water and Priya blotted it with her napkin before Nadia could get a towel. They talked about a school board meeting, a dog that had gone missing and come back, whether anyone still used their fireplace. Marcus told a story about his father that Nadia had heard forty times and still liked.

At eleven, the last car pulled away. Nadia started the dishwasher. Marcus let the cat out, and it walked the length of the table like an inspector, unimpressed.


The Delgados had been arguing about the chairs since four o'clock.

"We only have five that match," Marisol said, wiping down the dining table for the second time. "The sixth one is that wicker thing from the porch."

"Then I'll sit in the wicker thing." Ray was at the stove, tasting the sauce off a wooden spoon. He winced. "Too much oregano."

"There's no such thing."

"There is, and I've achieved it." He reached for the sugar, added a pinch, tasted again, and made a face that meant it would be fine.

Marisol moved through the house with a laundry basket, collecting the evidence of ordinary life—Ray's reading glasses, a phone charger, the mail from Tuesday. She hid it all in the bedroom closet and shut the door, which was, they both knew, where it would stay until Sunday.

The Kims arrived first, with a bottle of wine and their eleven-year-old, who had been promised he could watch TV in the other room. Then came Dave from Ray's office, alone, apologizing for Steph's cold.

They ate in the kitchen instead, because it turned out nobody wanted to move to the dining room. Ray's chicken was good and he said so himself, twice. Marisol kicked him lightly under the table.

Sarah Kim asked about the bathroom renovation, and Ray launched into the saga of the tile guy, and Marisol let him tell it wrong—the tile guy had come on a Thursday, not a Monday—because he told it better that way.

Around ten, Dave helped carry plates to the sink. The Kims collected their son, who had fallen asleep on the couch with his shoes on.

Afterward, Marisol washed and Ray dried, the radio low.

"Wicker chair never came up," she said.

"Told you."

"You didn't tell me anything."

He hung the dish towel on the oven handle, where she would move it in the morning.


Marisol found the good tablecloth folded in the linen closet behind the beach towels, still creased from Thanksgiving. She shook it out over the dining table while Dev stood at the stove, poking at the chicken thighs with a fork he'd been told twice not to use.

"They're not done," he said.

"They've been in forty minutes."

"The thermometer says a hundred and fifty."

She came over, looked, and adjusted the burner. "That's the pan sauce, not the chicken."

The Ortegas were coming at seven, and Whitney from Dev's office, who was newly single and had never been to their house. Marisol had vacuumed the living room twice because Dev had walked through it with his shoes on. He'd apologized and then done it again.

At six-forty they discovered they had no ice. Dev drove to the Circle K on Weldon and came back with two bags and a package of tortillas nobody needed. Marisol lit the candles on the sideboard, blew one out because it smelled too strongly of cinnamon, then relit it because the room looked bare without it.

Whitney arrived first with a bottle of Malbec and an apology for being early. Dev poured her a glass while Marisol set out the olives. When the Ortegas came, Luis brought his own hot sauce, which he did every time, and Elena hugged Marisol and asked whether they'd finally fixed the guest bathroom faucet.

Dinner ran long. The chicken was fine. Luis told the story about the boat again and Dev let him, catching Marisol's eye across the table. She refilled water glasses. Whitney laughed harder than the story deserved, which everyone appreciated.

By eleven the last car pulled out. Dev started the dishes; Marisol dried and put away, bumping his elbow in the narrow galley.

"That went well," he said.

"You used the fork."

"I did use the fork."

She hung the towel on the oven handle and turned out the light.


Marcus found the good tablecloth in the wrong drawer, which meant Nadia had folded it after the last time, which meant she'd been the one to clean up while he fell asleep on the couch. He didn't mention it. He shook it out over the table and pressed the creases with his palm.

"Did you get the bread?" Nadia called from the kitchen.

"Two loaves. The seeded one and the plain, because I couldn't remember which the Okonkwos hate."

"Neither. It's the rye."

"Then we're fine."

She was standing over the stove in her socks, prodding at a pan of chicken thighs that had rendered more fat than expected. The kitchen smelled of thyme and garlic and something faintly scorched. Marcus reached past her for the wine opener, and she leaned back into him without looking, a half-second of weight, and then she was chopping again.

They had forty minutes. He set out six plates and realized there would be five people, then put one back. She asked him twice whether the potatoes looked done and both times he said almost, which was what he always said, and she poked them herself anyway.

The Okonkwos arrived early with a bottle of something and their daughter's college news. Dev came late, apologetic, still in his work clothes, and Nadia handed him a glass before he finished the excuse.

Dinner ran long. Someone spilled a little wine on the tablecloth and Marcus said don't worry about it and meant it. Nadia told the story about the flooded basement and let him take over the ending, which was the part he was better at. There was cake from a bakery box, and coffee for three of them, and Dev did the dishes over everyone's objection.

At eleven-thirty they stood in the doorway waving. Then Nadia said, "That went well," and Marcus turned off the porch light, and they left the last of the glasses for morning.


Marcus found Dee in the kitchen at four-thirty, standing over a cookbook with flour on her wrist.

"The recipe says two hours," she said. "I read it as one."

"So we eat late." He pulled the vacuum from the hall closet. "Nobody's coming to inspect the roast."

"Priya will notice."

"Priya brings her own hot sauce to restaurants. She notices nothing."

He ran the vacuum over the living room rug, catching the corner of the coffee table twice, while Dee peeled carrots into the sink. The disposal groaned when she flipped the switch and they both looked at it.

"That's a Monday problem," Marcus said.

By six the house smelled right—garlic, thyme, the particular warmth of an oven that had been on too long. Dee changed into a green sweater and came back down to find Marcus arranging cheese on a cutting board in what he clearly considered an artful spiral.

"It looks like a target," she said.

"It looks intentional."

Priya and Ben arrived at six-forty with wine and a bakery box. Ben immediately asked about the disposal, having heard it groan through the door, and spent ten minutes on his back under the sink with a flashlight in his mouth while Priya stood in the kitchen telling Dee about her sister's divorce.

They ate at seven-fifteen. The roast was slightly dry. Nobody mentioned it, and Marcus quietly passed the gravy twice.

The conversation went the way it always did: work complaints, a long argument about whether a particular movie was good or just long, Ben's story about the parking garage that Dee had heard three times and still laughed at. Priya took her shoes off at some point and folded her legs under her on the chair.

They left at ten-thirty. Marcus stacked plates while Dee wrapped the leftover potatoes.

"That was nice," she said.

"Ben fixed the sink."

"Then it was very nice."


Marisol found the good tablecloth in the linen closet, folded beneath a stack of beach towels they hadn't used since August. She shook it out over the dining table while Danny argued with the oven.

"It's preheating," he said. "It says it's preheating. It's been saying that for nine minutes."

"Did you press start twice?"

He pressed the button again. The oven beeped in a way that sounded like agreement, and he went back to the cutting board, where four chicken thighs waited in a pool of marinade he'd improvised from soy sauce, honey, and most of a lime.

They had invited the Petersons and Marisol's coworker Renee, who was bringing a boyfriend nobody had met. Three couples, one small table, and a folding chair from the garage that Danny had wiped down with a paper towel.

"Do we have enough wine?"

"There's the bottle from Christmas."

"That's a dessert wine, Danny."

"Then we have one bottle and a six-pack."

She sent him to the store. He came back with two bottles, a bag of ice they didn't need, and a bunch of tulips that were already drooping, which he stuck in a mason jar because the vase was somewhere in the basement.

The Petersons arrived early. Renee arrived late, apologetic, her boyfriend holding a store-bought pie. The chicken was slightly dry; nobody said so, and Danny said it himself twice until Marisol nudged his foot under the table. Bill Peterson talked at length about his commute. The pie turned out to be excellent.

By eleven the dishwasher was running and the folding chair was back in the garage. Marisol sat on the counter, still in her sweater, while Danny scrubbed the roasting pan.

"That went well," she said.

"The chicken was dry."

"Nobody cared." She reached over and turned off the light above the sink. "Leave it to soak."


The Kitchen at Six

Dana had the radio on low, some jazz station that played too many commercials, while she pressed a knife through the last of the fennel. Behind her, Marcus was doing something loud with the recycling bin.

"They're not going to look in the garage," she said.

"I'm not doing it for them." He came back in wiping his hands on his jeans. "I'm doing it because it smells like a brewery out there."

The house smelled like braised chicken and burnt sugar, because he'd let the shallots go too far and started over. She'd noticed and said nothing, which she counted as a kindness.

At six-fifteen he set the table wrong—forks on the right—and she moved them without comment while he went to change his shirt. He came back in the blue one she liked and asked if it was too much. It wasn't.

The Okonkwos arrived first with a bottle of wine and a story about their daughter's driving test. Then Pete, alone, because Renee had a migraine, and he apologized four separate times about it until Marcus put a beer in his hand and told him to sit down.

Dinner ran long. The chicken was good. Marcus told the story about the canoe, and Dana let him tell it wrong because the wrong version was funnier. Someone knocked a water glass and nobody cared. Pete stayed until eleven, past everyone, talking about his mother's house in Ohio and whether it was worth keeping.

After, they stood at the sink together. Marcus washed, she dried, the way they'd done it for nineteen years without ever deciding to.

"Renee didn't have a migraine," Dana said.

"I know." He handed her a plate. "I know."

They finished the dishes. He turned off the porch light. Upstairs, she found his blue shirt on the floor and hung it up.


Marcus found the good tablecloth folded in the linen closet, still creased from the last time they'd used it, sometime around Easter.

"It's wrinkled," he called toward the kitchen.

"Nobody looks at the tablecloth," Priya said. She was chopping cilantro, the knife going fast in that way that always made him nervous. "Set out the wine glasses. The ones without the chip."

He counted four, held them up to the window light, and found the chipped one on the third try. Outside, the neighbor's sprinkler had come on and was hitting the fence in a rhythm, tick tick tick.

The chicken had been in the oven forty minutes. Priya opened the door, poked it with a fork, and made a face.

"It's fine," Marcus said.

"It's pink at the bone."

"Then it needs more time. That's not a crisis."

She shut the oven and wiped her hands on the dish towel hanging from the stove handle. "Did you text Dave about the parking? He's going to circle the block for twenty minutes and then be in a mood."

"I texted him."

"Did he answer?"

"He sent a thumbs up."

Priya considered this. "That could mean anything."

The Hendersons arrived first, with a bottle of red and a story about the highway. Dave and Lena came ten minutes later, Dave already complaining about the parking, and Priya caught Marcus's eye across the room and lifted one eyebrow half an inch.

The chicken came out at seven-forty, more or less correct. Somebody spilled a little wine on the tablecloth and everyone said it didn't matter. Lena talked about her sister's divorce for a while, and then the conversation went somewhere lighter.

At eleven, after the door closed, Priya sat down on the kitchen floor with her back against the dishwasher.

"That was good," she said.

Marcus handed her the last of the wine. "It was."


The apartment smelled like garlic and burned rosemary. Priya had walked away from the pan for maybe ninety seconds—long enough to answer a text from her sister—and now Danny was scraping the blackened bits into the trash with the side of a spatula.

"It's fine," he said. "We start over. We have more rosemary."

"We have one more sprig."

"Then we have exactly enough."

She let him take the pan. He was better at the stove anyway; she was better at the parts of hosting that involved talking, which was why she'd spent the last twenty minutes arranging a cheese plate that would be dismantled in four minutes flat.

They had four people coming: Marcus and Jenna from Danny's old job, and Priya's friend El, who was bringing a date nobody had met. Priya had asked three times whether they should worry about dietary restrictions. Danny had said no three times. At six-forty he googled whether pancetta was vegetarian, just to be sure, and Priya laughed at him from the couch.

The guests came ten minutes apart, which meant three separate rounds of coats and hugs and "you found parking?" El's date turned out to be a soft-spoken man named Owen who worked at a plant nursery and who immediately noticed the dying fiddle-leaf fig by the window. He told them, kindly, that it was getting too much afternoon sun. Danny said he'd been telling Priya that for a year. Priya said Danny had never once said that.

Dinner took longer than planned. The chicken needed another fifteen minutes, so people ate bread and drank wine standing up, and someone put on a playlist that was mostly songs from 2009. Marcus told a story about a coworker's disastrous PowerPoint. Jenna cried laughing.

Everyone left by eleven-thirty. Danny washed; Priya dried. They agreed the rosemary had been fine.


Marisol had the kale massaged and salted by four o'clock, which she considered a personal triumph. Dev was still in the garage, hunting for the folding chair with the wobbly leg they'd sworn to fix last summer.

"It's behind the bikes," she called through the screen door.

"It's not behind the bikes."

It was behind the bikes. He carried it in, set it at the table, and tested it with the heel of his hand. Still wobbly. He slid a folded index card under the short leg and declared the matter closed.

They had known the Nakamuras for six years, since Dev and Ellis worked the same terrible contract job in Sacramento, and the Nakamuras always brought wine nobody had to pretend to like. Still, Marisol wiped the baseboards in the hallway, which nobody would look at.

At six, Dev burned the first batch of shallots and started over without saying anything about it. Marisol saw the blackened pan in the sink and said nothing either, which felt like a kindness they had worked out over eleven years.

The doorbell rang while she was still barefoot. Ellis and Kate came in with a bottle of Grenache and a paper bag of Meyer lemons from their neighbor's tree, and for a while the kitchen was too small for four people, everyone reaching around each other for the corkscrew.

Dinner was chicken thighs, the kale salad, bread from the good bakery on Third. Ellis told a long story about his father's hearing aids that made Kate cover her face. Somebody spilled water. The wobbly chair held.

Later, after the door closed and the porch light went off, Dev washed and Marisol dried, and she told him the shallots had been fine, actually. He said he knew. She hung the towel on the oven handle and turned off the light.


Marisol found the good tablecloth folded in the bottom of the linen closet, smelling faintly of cedar. She shook it out over the dining table while Dev stood at the stove, poking at onions with a wooden spoon.

"They're sticking," he said.

"Turn it down. You always have it too high."

He turned it down. Outside, a car door slammed, but it was only the neighbor coming home from work. Marisol set out five plates, then remembered Priya wasn't coming and put one back.

"Did you tell Tom about the wine?" Dev asked.

"I said bring whatever. He'll bring that terrible Malbec."

"I like that Malbec."

"You like everything."

At six-forty she went to change and came back in a green sweater, her hair still damp. Dev had gotten the onions soft and was adding the tomatoes, and the kitchen finally smelled like something. He handed her a spoon to taste. Too much salt, but she said it was fine, and he added a potato anyway, the way his mother used to.

The Kims arrived first, early, holding a bakery box. Then Tom, alone, with the Malbec. There was the usual awkward shuffle in the entryway, coats piled on the bed in the guest room, someone stepping on the dog's tail.

Dinner ran long. Ellen Kim talked about her mother's hip surgery. Tom told a story about a coworker that everyone had heard before, and Dev laughed anyway. Marisol got up twice for more bread. At some point the conversation turned to whether the school levy would pass, and stayed there a while.

They left a little after ten. Dev started the dishes while Marisol wrapped the leftover chicken.

"That went well," he said.

"Tom seemed down."

"Did he?"

She thought about it, holding the foil. "Maybe not."

He handed her a wet plate, and she dried it.


The Hendersons had exactly four hours before their guests arrived, and Marcus was already behind.

"You said you'd get the wine at lunch," Dana called from the kitchen, where she was trimming green beans into a colander.

"I said I'd try." He appeared in the doorway holding a grocery bag. "I got it now. Two reds, one white, because I couldn't remember what Priya drinks."

"White. She always has white."

"Then we have a spare."

Dana handed him the vacuum without looking up. He took it and started on the living room rug, working around the coffee table where their cat had shed a gray constellation. Marcus moved the ottoman, found a stray sock beneath it, and pocketed it rather than walk upstairs.

The chicken went in at five. Dana had made it a dozen times—lemon, garlic, too much rosemary because Marcus liked it that way. She burned her wrist on the oven rack and swore, and he came in with a paper towel and cold water without being asked.

"It's fine," she said.

"It's red."

"It's fine."

They set the table together, the good plates that lived in the hutch and came out maybe six times a year. Marcus folded the napkins wrong; Dana refolded two of them, then left the rest.

The Kelleys arrived at seven with a plant. Priya came ten minutes later, apologizing for traffic, and did in fact ask for white wine. Marcus caught Dana's eye across the room and she raised her eyebrows slightly, which meant *don't*.

Dinner ran long. Someone spilled water. Tom Kelley told a story about his brother's boat that he'd told before, and everyone laughed anyway.

At eleven-thirty, the last car pulled out. Dana stood at the sink with her sleeves pushed up. Marcus picked up a dish towel.

"That was good," he said.

"It was," she agreed, and handed him a plate.


The lasagna had been in the oven for forty minutes when Dana realized she'd forgotten to buy bread.

"I can go," Marcus said, already reaching for his keys on the hook by the door. He was wearing the gray sweater she'd given him two Christmases ago, the one with the small hole starting at the left cuff.

"The good bakery closes at six."

"Then I'll get grocery store bread and we'll act like it was always the plan."

Dana laughed and went back to the salad, tearing romaine into a wooden bowl her mother had passed down. Through the kitchen window she watched him back the Civic out of the driveway, pausing too long as always to check for the neighbor's cat.

By the time he returned, she'd set the table with the cloth napkins and lit the candle that smelled vaguely of cedar. He put the bread on the counter and kissed the back of her neck, then started opening the wine.

"Corkscrew's in the drawer with the batteries," she said, without turning around.

The Alvarezes arrived at seven-fifteen, apologizing for traffic, holding a bottle of red and a container of cookies from Priya's mother. Everyone stood in the kitchen for a while because that's where people always stood, and Marcus refilled glasses while Dana pulled the foil off the lasagna and let it rest.

Dinner ran long. They talked about Priya's new job, about a movie half of them had seen, about whether the city was actually going to fix the intersection on Ellsworth. Someone knocked over a water glass, and Marcus mopped it with a dish towel while Dana kept talking, one hand on the back of his chair.

At eleven the Alvarezes left. Dana rinsed plates; Marcus dried and put them away wrong, the way he always did. Neither of them mentioned it.


Marcus found the good tablecloth crumpled at the back of the linen closet, smelling faintly of cedar and last Thanksgiving.

"It's wrinkled," he called toward the kitchen.

"Iron it, then," Priya said. She was pulling the roasting pan out from under the stove, banging it against the broiler drawer. "Or fold the wrinkles under. Nobody looks at a tablecloth."

He ironed it anyway, badly, on the dining table itself with a bath towel underneath. Priya came through carrying a bag of Brussels sprouts and paused to watch him work the iron in tight, anxious circles.

"You're supposed to go with the grain."

"Fabric doesn't have a grain."

"Everything has a grain."

By six they had a system going. She trimmed the sprouts; he halved them and tossed them in oil with too much salt, then corrected it with lemon. The chicken had been in since five-fifteen. Marcus put on the Talking Heads record his brother had given them, and Priya, wiping her hands on a dish towel, danced two bars of something loose and unserious before returning to the cutting board.

"Did you text Dana about the wine?"

"She's bringing red. Eli's bringing bread, apparently."

"We have bread."

"Now we'll have more bread."

At six-forty Marcus discovered they owned only three matching wine glasses. Priya said she'd drink out of a jam jar and mean it as a joke, and then she did, all evening, and it became the thing everybody laughed about.

The four of them ate at the ironed tablecloth with the lights low because the dimmer switch was broken and stuck that way. Eli spilled water. Dana told a long story about her landlord that went nowhere and was funny for that reason. Priya's hand found Marcus's knee under the table sometime around dessert, and stayed there while the coffee went cold.


Marisol found the good tablecloth folded at the bottom of the linen closet, still creased from the last time they'd used it, two Thanksgivings ago. She shook it out over the dining table while Dev stood at the stove, pushing onions around a pan with a wooden spoon.

"They're going to be here at seven," she said.

"It's six-forty."

"That's what I'm saying."

He turned the burner down and came out to help her smooth the corners. The tablecloth had a wine stain near one edge, faint and pink. Marisol angled it so the stain would sit under the bread basket.

They had invited four people: Priya and her husband Tom, and the Reyeses from two houses down, who had lived on the street longer than anyone and knew which neighbors were feuding. Dev had made a braise that had been in the oven since four. Marisol had bought a lemon tart from the bakery on Ninth and transferred it to one of their own plates, which she considered a reasonable deception.

The Reyeses came first, early, with a bottle of red and an apology for being early. Priya and Tom arrived at ten after, having circled the block looking for parking. Everyone stood in the kitchen for a while, the way people do, until Dev started handing out glasses and steering them toward chairs.

The braise was good. Tom asked for the recipe and Dev said there wasn't one, which wasn't quite true. Mrs. Reyes talked about the sycamore the city wanted to take down. Marisol refilled water glasses. Somebody knocked over the salt and Priya threw a pinch over her shoulder, laughing at herself.

They left a little after ten. Dev washed, Marisol dried. The kitchen window had gone black and reflected the two of them back, moving around each other, not saying much.

"That was nice," she said.

"It was," he said.


The onions had been sitting on the cutting board for twenty minutes before Priya finally attacked them, and by then Marcus had already vacuumed the living room twice.

"You missed under the couch," she said, not looking up.

"I moved the couch."

"You moved the couch and then didn't put it back straight."

He crossed the room, nudged the couch two inches left, and stood there evaluating it with his hands on his hips until she laughed at him. Outside, the light was going soft and orange over the neighbor's fence, and the Petersons' dog was barking at something, probably nothing.

The plan was chicken thighs with lemon and olives, rice, a salad Priya insisted on making because Marcus tore the lettuce wrong. He'd bought a bottle of wine he wasn't sure about and two backup bottles he was.

"Did you text Dana about the shellfish thing?"

"That's Kevin. Dana's the gluten one."

"God." He wrote both on a sticky note and put it on the fridge.

They ran out of time around six-thirty, the way they always did. Priya changed her shirt twice. Marcus wiped down the bathroom sink with a paper towel and hid the laundry basket in the closet. At six-fifty-two the doorbell rang and they looked at each other across the kitchen — a quick, conspiratorial look, the kind that had gotten them through eleven years — and then she pulled the chicken out of the oven and he went to the door.

Kevin brought flowers. Dana brought a pie she admitted was from the store. Somebody knocked over a water glass during the second round of drinks and nobody minded much.

After they left, near midnight, Marcus stood at the sink with his sleeves pushed up and Priya dried, and they went over everything everyone had said, agreeing that it had gone well.


Marcus found the good tablecloth crumpled at the bottom of the linen closet, smelling faintly of cedar and last Thanksgiving.

"It needs ironing," he called toward the kitchen.

"Then iron it," Priya said. She was standing over a pot of dal, tasting from a wooden spoon, adding salt in the tiny pinches her mother had taught her. The rice cooker clicked over to warm. Outside, a leaf blower whined somewhere down the block, and the November light was already going amber at four-thirty.

He set up the ironing board in the dining room and worked out the creases while she moved behind him, setting down water glasses, then reaching past his shoulder for the salt shaker he'd forgotten. They'd rearranged the table twice. Six chairs around a table meant for four made the room feel crowded in a way Priya insisted was cozy and Marcus privately thought was a fire hazard.

The Vances arrived first, early as always, Dave holding a bottle of red and Christine holding a store-bought pie she apologized for twice. Then Yusuf, alone, because Anna's flight from Denver had been delayed. He took off his shoes at the door without being asked, which Priya noticed and appreciated.

Dinner ran long. The dal was too spicy for Christine, who drank three glasses of water and said it was wonderful. Marcus told the story about the raccoon in the garage and got the ending wrong, and Priya corrected him from across the table, and he let her finish it because she told it better.

At ten, Yusuf checked his phone and said Anna had landed. Everyone stood at once, the way people do, and there was the long slow business of coats and leftovers in Tupperware and promises to do this again in a month.

Afterward Priya washed and Marcus dried, not talking much, the window over the sink black and reflecting them both.


Marguerite discovered the wine glasses were dusty at four in the afternoon, which meant she had to run them through the dishwasher, which meant the dishwasher was full when Theo needed to rinse the colander.

"I'll do it by hand," he said, and did, standing at the sink with his sleeves pushed up while the potatoes boiled behind him.

They had made this menu before—roast chicken, potatoes with too much butter, a salad Marguerite would insist on calling simple even though it took her twenty minutes. The Ferrises were coming, and Dana from the clinic, and Dana's new boyfriend whose name they had both written down separately and both forgotten.

"Aaron," Theo said at five, from memory, triumphantly.

"Adam."

"One of those."

She set the table with the good napkins, which were only good in the sense that they were cloth. Theo carved the chicken badly and she took the knife from him without comment and finished it herself, and he leaned against the counter eating a piece of skin, and she let him.

The guests arrived within eleven minutes of each other, which felt like a small mercy. Adam turned out to be Adam. He brought a bottle of red that Theo held up to the light approvingly, though he later admitted he had no idea what he was looking for.

The evening went the way these evenings go. Bill Ferris talked too long about his knee surgery. Dana laughed at something Marguerite said and put a hand on her arm. The potatoes were gone by eight-thirty. Someone spilled a little wine and everyone said it was fine.

At eleven-forty, alone in the kitchen with the dishwasher running again, Theo dried a serving bowl and said, "That was good."

"It was," Marguerite said. She was rinsing the roasting pan. "Bill's knee, though."

"Bill's knee," Theo agreed, and hung the towel on the oven door, where she would move it later.


The chicken had been in the oven forty minutes when Priya realized she'd forgotten to buy bread.

"I can go," Marcus said, already reaching for his keys on the hook by the door. He was still wearing the shirt he'd worn to work, the collar loose, sleeves pushed to his elbows.

"The good bakery closes at six."

"Then I'll get grocery store bread and we'll pretend it's rustic." He kissed the side of her head on the way past. "Don't touch the salad. I have plans for the salad."

Priya set the table while he was gone, four places at a table meant for six, which always looked slightly wrong. She lit a candle, then blew it out because it smelled too much like vanilla and would compete with dinner. She turned on music, changed it twice, settled on something instrumental.

Marcus came back with a baguette and a bottle of wine he hadn't been asked to buy. He put on an apron over his work clothes and started tearing lettuce with the specific violence he brought to all kitchen tasks.

"Dana texted. They're running late. Something with the sitter."

"Good. The chicken needs another twenty."

They worked around each other in the narrow kitchen, a choreography twelve years in the making — she reached past him for the olive oil, he stepped left without looking. At one point he said, "Do you think we should have made two vegetables," and she said, "No," and that was the end of it.

Dana and Robert arrived at seven-forty with a store-bought pie and apologies. The chicken was slightly dry. Nobody mentioned it. Robert told a long story about his brother's boat that Marcus had heard before and laughed at anyway.

By eleven the dishwasher was running and Priya was sitting on the counter, eating leftover salad with her fingers while Marcus untied his apron.

"That was nice," she said.

"It was."


Marisol tasted the sauce again and made a face. "It needs something."

"Salt," Dev said, from where he was folding napkins into shapes that were supposed to be swans but had come out looking like small, defeated hats.

"It's not salt."

"It's always salt."

She added a pinch, tasted, and didn't give him the satisfaction of agreeing out loud. The kitchen smelled like garlic and browning butter. Outside, the November dark had come early, and the window over the sink held their reflection—her in the apron with the burn mark, him barefoot on the cold tile because he'd forgotten to bring slippers down.

"Did you get wine?" she asked.

"Two bottles. And the seltzer for Priya."

"Lime?"

He paused. She could hear him not answering.

"Dev."

"I'll go now. It's four minutes."

He came back with limes and, inexplicably, a bag of frozen peas, which he set on the counter like an offering. They had eleven minutes. Marisol wiped down the table twice. Dev put on music, then changed it, then changed it again, settling finally on something with no words because Marisol said lyrics made her talk louder.

The Kaminskis arrived first, early, with a plant. Priya and Theo came twenty minutes late with an apology and a story about parking. Everyone stood in the kitchen instead of the living room, the way people always did, and Dev kept refilling glasses while Marisol pulled the bread out too late and served it slightly dark, and nobody minded.

They ate. Theo told a long story about his boss that went nowhere and was funny anyway. Priya asked about the trip to Ohio. At some point Dev's hand found the back of Marisol's chair and stayed there.

Later, scraping plates, she said, "It was the salt."

"I know," he said.


The lasagna had been in the oven for forty minutes when Priya realized they'd forgotten bread.

"I can go," Daniel said, already reaching for his keys on the hook by the door. He was still in the shirt he'd worn to work, the collar softened by the day.

"The good bakery closes at six."

"Then it's grocery store garlic bread and nobody says anything about it."

She laughed and went back to the salad, tearing romaine into a wooden bowl her mother had given them when they moved into the apartment three years ago. Through the window over the sink she could see the parking lot, the maple that had finally lost the last of its leaves. She heard the car start.

By the time he came back, she'd set the table with the cloth napkins and lit the two candles they'd been saving since somebody's wedding. Daniel put the bread in the oven and stood behind her a moment, hand on her hip, looking at the table.

"It looks nice," he said.

"It looks like we're trying."

"We are trying."

The Kellers arrived at seven with a bottle of wine and their eight-month-old, Rosie, who fell asleep on the couch under Daniel's jacket within twenty minutes. Marcus talked about the new job, the commute, whether it was worth it. Erin ate two helpings and apologized for it and Priya told her to stop apologizing and take a third.

At some point the conversation turned to a neighbor's dog that had gotten loose, and then to a movie none of them had finished, and then it was after ten and Rosie woke up crying.

After they left, Daniel washed and Priya dried. The kitchen window had fogged. She put the last plate away.

"That was good," he said.

"It was," she said, and turned off the light.


Marisol got home first, which meant she got to choose the music. She put on something with horns in it and started chopping onions at the counter, still in her work clothes, sleeves pushed to the elbows.

Dev came in twenty minutes later carrying two bags of ice and a bottle of wine that had been on sale.

"You bought the sale wine," she said.

"I bought the *good* sale wine." He set the bags in the sink. "Did you get bread?"

She had not gotten bread. He put his coat back on.

By the time he returned, the apartment smelled like garlic and browning meat, and Marisol had changed into jeans and was wiping down the coffee table with a paper towel, muttering about dust. They had four people coming: Angela and Ruth from Dev's office, and Marisol's cousin Teddy and his girlfriend, who nobody had met yet.

"Do we own six matching plates?" Dev asked, up on his toes in the cabinet.

"We own five. The sixth one is the one with the chip. Give the chip to Teddy, he won't notice."

Teddy noticed. He held it up and said, "Cousin, this plate has *seen things*," and everyone laughed, and the girlfriend — Priya, who turned out to be a veterinary tech with a loud, surprising laugh — said she'd once eaten off a hubcap at a wedding, and after that the table loosened up.

The stew was good. The bread was excellent. Ruth stayed after the others left, helping Marisol dry dishes while Dev sat at the table, chair tipped back, telling a long story about a copier repairman that didn't quite have an ending.

When the door finally closed at half past eleven, Marisol leaned against it.

"That was nice," she said.

Dev was already asleep on the couch with the lights on.


Marisol found the good tablecloth in the bottom drawer of the hutch, the one with the faint wine stain near the corner that no amount of scrubbing had ever lifted. She spread it out and turned the stain toward the wall.

"They're going to be late," Dev said from the kitchen. He was standing over a pot of dal, tasting it off a wooden spoon, then adding more salt without being asked. "Priya's always late."

"Twenty minutes, tops." Marisol counted out four wine glasses, held one up to the window light, and rubbed a water spot away with her sleeve. "Did you get bread?"

"I got bread."

"The sourdough?"

Dev paused. "I got the other one. The seeded thing."

She let it go. He had also gotten flowers, which were now crammed into a mason jar because their actual vase had cracked in the move two years ago and neither of them had replaced it. Marisol thought the mason jar looked better anyway.

Priya and Tom arrived twenty-five minutes late, apologizing about parking. Tom handed over a bottle of red and immediately went to look at the record player, which he did every time. Priya followed Marisol into the kitchen and started slicing cucumbers without being asked, the way she always did.

Dinner ran long. The dal was good; everyone said so twice. Tom told a story about his boss that he had told before, and Dev laughed anyway. At one point Priya spilled a little wine on the tablecloth, gasped, and Marisol waved her off — "It's already got one, look" — and turned the corner around to show her, and Priya laughed so hard she had to set down her glass.

After they left, near midnight, Dev washed and Marisol dried. Neither of them said much. The kitchen window was open and someone down the block was still awake, moving a car.

"That was good," Marisol said.

"Yeah," Dev said. "That was good."


Marcus wiped down the counter for the third time while Elena argued with the oven.

"It's not preheating," she said. "The light's on but it's cold."

"Did you press start?"

She glared at him, then pressed start. The oven clicked and began to warm.

"We're never speaking of this," she said.

He laughed and went back to the salad, tearing romaine into a wooden bowl they'd gotten as a wedding gift eleven years ago from an aunt neither of them could reliably identify in photographs. Outside, a car door slammed—not their guests, just the neighbor's kid coming home late.

Elena had made her mother's chicken with olives and preserved lemon, which required exactly the kind of unhurried attention their weeknights never allowed. She'd taken the afternoon off. Marcus had come home early to vacuum and had gotten distracted by a box of old photographs in the closet, which was why she'd found him sitting cross-legged on the bedroom floor at five-fifteen, holding a picture of himself at twenty-two with a terrible mustache.

The Okonkwos arrived first with a bottle of wine and their four-year-old, Adaeze, who fell asleep on the couch before dinner was served. Priya came twenty minutes later, apologetic, still in her scrubs.

They ate at the table with the wobbly leg, propped with a folded matchbook. Someone brought up a movie nobody had seen. Priya told a story about a patient who'd swallowed a AAA battery, and everyone groaned appropriately. Marcus refilled glasses. Elena kicked him under the table when he started to explain, unprompted, the correct way to sharpen a knife.

By eleven the guests had gone. Elena rinsed plates; Marcus dried and put them away wrong, as always, the bowls stacked with the pasta dishes.

"That was nice," she said.

"It was." He hung the towel on the oven handle. "Your mustache picture's on the fridge now, by the way."

"I noticed."


Marcus had been chopping onions for ten minutes and still hadn't gotten through the second one.

"You're crying," Dana said, dropping a bag of ice into the sink.

"It's the onions."

"It's your knife. You never sharpen it." She pulled the whetstone from the drawer beside the stove, ran it under the tap, and held out her hand. He gave up the knife.

The Ramirezes were coming at seven, along with Dana's coworker Priya and Priya's boyfriend, whose name neither of them could remember. Marcus had guessed Todd. Dana was fairly sure it was Trevor.

"We can just not say his name," Marcus said.

"For three hours?"

"People love being called 'man.'"

She handed the knife back, and it went through the onion like it was going through water, which annoyed him slightly. He put the rice on. Dana went to deal with the bathroom, which meant hiding the laundry basket in the closet and swapping the hand towel for the nicer hand towel they only owned for guests.

At 6:40 the smoke detector went off. The chicken thighs were fine—just aggressive about it—but Marcus stood on a kitchen chair fanning the ceiling with a dish towel while Dana opened the windows, and the November air came in cold and good.

The Ramirezes arrived first, with wine and their daughter's science fair story. Priya came at 7:20 with the boyfriend, whose name was Trent, and who turned out to know a startling amount about ice hockey. Dana caught Marcus's eye across the table twice: once when Trent said "Trent," and once when Elena Ramirez asked for the chicken recipe.

They stacked plates in the sink at eleven and left them there.

"That went well," Dana said, sitting down on the arm of the couch.

"You should sharpen the other knives too," Marcus said, and she threw the good hand towel at him.


Marcus found Dana in the kitchen at five-thirty, standing over a pot with a wooden spoon and an expression of open suspicion.

"It's too thin," she said.

He leaned in, tasted from the spoon she held out. "It's soup. Soup is thin."

"It's supposed to be a stew."

"Then add flour or something." He opened the fridge, moved a carton of oat milk aside, found the beer he'd bought Thursday. "Do you want me to run out for bread?"

"There's bread. It's in the freezer." She was already pulling a bag of flour down from the shelf above the stove, dusting her forearm white. "The good glasses are in the dining room hutch. The ones from your mother."

"We're using those?"

"Ellen broke one of the others last time."

Marcus set the beer down and went to get them. The hutch stuck, as it always had, and he worked the door with his shoulder until it gave. Six glasses, mismatched by one. He rinsed them at the sink while Dana whisked flour into cold water in a coffee mug, muttering something about roux.

Ellen and Peter arrived at six-forty with a bottle of wine and a story about traffic on the parkway. Dana hugged them both while still holding a dish towel. They ate at the table with the leaf put in, which made the room feel formal in a way none of them acknowledged. The stew had thickened. Peter asked for the recipe and Dana said honestly that she'd have to reconstruct it.

Afterward Ellen and Marcus argued pleasantly about a movie neither of them had liked. Peter helped clear. At ten-fifteen there were goodbyes at the door, the cold coming in, promises to do this more often.

Dana washed. Marcus dried, and put his mother's glasses back one at a time.

"That went well," she said.

"You were nervous for nothing."

"I wasn't nervous."

He handed her the last plate.


Miriam had the roast in by four, which meant she spent the next hour reorganizing the refrigerator to make room for the salad bowl. Dev came in from the garage with three folding chairs and a complaint about the neighbor's leaf blower.

"They're going to be late anyway," he said. "Tomas is always late."

"Not when Priya drives."

He set the chairs around the table and stepped back to look at them, then swapped two so the wobbly one faced the wall. Miriam handed him a dish towel and pointed at the wine glasses drying on the rack, still spotted from the dishwasher.

They had bought this table at an estate sale eleven years ago and it had never once been level. Dev wedged a folded receipt under the leg while Miriam laid out cloth napkins she'd found in the linen closet, ironed poorly, in a shade of yellow neither of them remembered choosing.

The doorbell rang at six forty. Priya brought flowers still in their grocery store plastic, and Tomas brought a bottle of red and an apology for the traffic on the parkway. Their son Eli, seven, went immediately to the bookshelf and pulled down the atlas, as he did every time.

The roast was slightly overdone. Nobody said so. Dev carved it standing up, narrating the difficulty, and Miriam poured water and told the story about the plumber who had called her "ma'am" nine times in one visit. Tomas talked about his mother's knee surgery. Priya took thirds of the potatoes.

At nine Eli fell asleep on the couch with the atlas open on his chest, and the four adults lowered their voices without deciding to.

After they left, Dev washed and Miriam dried. She said the yellow napkins had to go. He said he'd liked them. She hung the towel on the oven handle and turned off the kitchen light.


The Chens' apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar by six-thirty.

"You caramelized it too long," Marcus said, peering into the pan.

"I caramelized it exactly right." Priya nudged him aside with her hip. "Go put the leaf in the table."

He went. The dining table was a hand-me-down from his aunt in Sacramento, and the extension leaf lived behind the coat closet, wrapped in an old bedsheet. Marcus wrestled it into place, then discovered the table wobbled. He folded a business card under one leg. It still wobbled. He folded another.

"Do we have candles?" Priya called.

"We have the ones from the blackout."

"Those are three inches tall."

"Then we have short candles."

She came out to look at the table, still holding the wooden spoon. "It looks nice," she said, surprising him. "Turn off the overhead. The overhead makes everyone look sick."

The Rodriguez-Bells arrived at seven-ten with a bottle of wine and their four-year-old, who had refused the babysitter. Dev went immediately under the table and stayed there for most of the appetizers, accepting crackers passed down to him. Anna talked about the reorganization at her firm. Sam talked about a leak in their basement, then about a man on his commuter train who clipped his fingernails every morning.

Priya's chicken was good. Everyone said so, and she believed them, and Marcus said, "Tell them about the sugar," and she kicked him under the table and hit Dev instead, who shrieked with laughter.

They ate the store-bought cheesecake straight from the tin. By ten Dev was asleep on the couch with his shoes off, and Anna carried him out over her shoulder like a duffel bag.

Marcus washed. Priya dried and put away, because she knew where things went. Neither of them said much. The dishwasher was broken, and they were used to this, the two of them at the sink, the window black above the faucet, the water going warm and then hot.


At four o'clock, Mara started the sauce, and Dev went out for bread.

He came back with a baguette, a second baguette because the first looked lonely, and a bunch of tulips that had been marked down.

"They're half dead," Mara said, taking them.

"They're half alive."

She trimmed the stems at an angle the way her mother had taught her and put them in the blue pitcher, which leaked, so she moved them to a mason jar. Dev set the table. He counted out four forks, then remembered the salad, and went back for four more.

"Did you tell Priya seven or seven-thirty?"

"Seven," he said. "But she'll come at seven-forty."

The sauce needed salt. It always needed more salt than Mara believed. Dev tasted it, added salt, and she pretended not to notice him being right.

At six-fifty they were both in the bedroom changing shirts, bumping elbows at the dresser, and Dev asked if the blue one made him look like a substitute teacher. Mara said yes and he wore it anyway.

Priya and Tom arrived at seven-forty with a bottle of wine and an apology about parking. The apartment filled with that specific noise of four people trying to talk in a kitchen. Tom stirred things he wasn't asked to stir. Priya held the mason jar up and said the tulips were beautiful, and Dev said, "They were half dead," and Mara said, "They were on sale," and everyone laughed for slightly too long.

They ate at the table with the wobbly leg. Somebody's knee kept knocking it. The pasta was good; the bread was excellent; the salad went mostly untouched, as salads do.

Afterward Priya and Tom stayed for tea, then left at eleven with a container of leftovers Mara pressed on them at the door.

Dev washed. Mara dried.

"That was nice," she said.

"It was," he said, and handed her the pot.


The Kitchen at Six

Dana was pulling the roasting pan out when Marcus came in with the grocery bag and announced that they were out of the good olive oil, so he'd bought the one in the green bottle instead.

"That's fine," she said, though it wasn't, particularly. She set the chicken on the stovetop to rest. "Can you do the salad? The lettuce needs washing twice, there's grit."

He rolled his sleeves and ran the water. Through the window over the sink, the neighbor's dog was digging at the fence line again, and he considered mentioning it, then didn't. Instead he asked whether Priya was still avoiding dairy.

"She said she's fine with butter now. Just not milk."

"That's not how that works."

"It's how it works for Priya."

At 6:40 they realized they had four dining chairs and five people coming. Marcus carried the desk chair down from the spare room and Dana wiped the armrests with a paper towel, and they agreed it looked deliberate, sort of, if you didn't look at it directly.

The Ferrises arrived first with a bottle of red and a story about the highway construction. Priya came twenty minutes later, apologizing, holding a store-bought pie she'd tried to disguise by putting it on a real plate. Marcus poured wine and forgot who had asked for water. Dana carved the chicken badly and nobody said anything except Tom Ferris, who said it looked great, which meant he'd noticed.

They talked about a coworker's divorce, then about whether to get a heat pump. At some point Dana got up for the salt and Marcus caught her wrist as she passed and said, quietly, that the potatoes were good. She squeezed his shoulder and kept going.

After, at eleven, they stood at the sink in the dim kitchen, him washing, her drying, saying almost nothing, and it was the easiest part of the night.


Miriam found the good tablecloth at the back of the linen closet, still creased in squares from the last time. She shook it out over the dining table while Dev chopped shallots at the counter, the knife tapping fast against the board.

"Did you salt the water?" he asked.

"I salted it."

"You said that last time."

"Last time I salted it," she said, and he laughed, which was the point.

The apartment smelled like garlic and the eucalyptus candle she'd lit and then forgotten about in the bathroom. Dev had the radio on, some station that played too many commercials, and every few minutes one of them turned it down and the other turned it back up. Miriam counted out forks. Six people, four matching forks, two that didn't match. She put the mismatched ones at her end and Dev's.

The Cardosos arrived first, early, with a bottle of wine that Dev put in the freezer because nobody had thought to chill anything. Ana Cardoso followed Miriam into the kitchen and stood in the way, talking about her mother's hip, while Miriam tried to get past her to the oven.

Then the Kims, then Rob, who came alone and apologized for it twice.

Dinner was chicken with too much lemon. Everyone said it was perfect. Rob told a long story about a coworker and a parking garage, and Dev laughed in the wrong place, and Miriam kicked him lightly under the table without looking up from her plate.

By ten the wine was gone and the candle had drowned in its own wax. Dev walked everyone down to the street while Miriam scraped plates. When he came back up he took the dish towel off her shoulder and started drying.

"Too much lemon," he said.

"I know."

"It was good, though."

"I know," she said, and handed him another plate.


By six o'clock, Dana had chopped everything twice, because the first onion had been too coarse and she couldn't stand the way it would look floating in the soup. Marcus came in from the garage carrying two folding chairs and set them against the wall.

"They're dusty," she said.

"I know. I'm going to wipe them."

He got a rag from under the sink, damp, and worked over the vinyl seats while she scraped onions into the pot. The kitchen smelled like butter and thyme. Through the window over the sink, the neighbor's motion light kept clicking on for no visible reason.

"Did you get bread?" she asked.

"Two loaves. One's the seedy kind Priya likes."

"She'll notice."

"That's the idea."

At six-forty he changed his shirt and came back down and found her holding a serving bowl in each hand, deciding. He took the white one from her, which was the one she'd wanted, and put it on the table.

The Okonkwos arrived first with wine and a story about traffic on 35. Priya and Tom came fifteen minutes later, apologizing, having circled the block for parking. Everyone stood in the kitchen for a while the way people do, in the narrowest part of the room, until Marcus herded them toward the living room with a plate of olives.

The soup was good. Dana said it needed salt and nobody agreed with her. Tom told a long story about his mother's cat that made Marcus laugh so hard he had to set down his glass, and Dana watched him laugh and felt something warm and slightly proprietary.

They talked about a school board vote, a coworker's divorce, whether anyone still used their basement. At eleven the guests found their coats.

Afterward Marcus washed and Dana dried, and when the counters were clear she leaned against him for a second, tired, before turning off the light.


Marcus found the good tablecloth wadded in the back of the linen closet, creased into stubborn diagonals.

"Iron or fake it?" he called.

Priya leaned out of the kitchen, wooden spoon in hand. "Fake it. Put the candles over the worst part."

She'd been braising short ribs since two, and the whole first floor smelled like red wine and thyme. Marcus set four places, then went back and set five when he remembered that Danielle was bringing her new boyfriend, whose name neither of them could keep straight. Devin? Dustin.

"Dustin," Priya said. "He does something with insurance."

"Everyone does something with insurance."

She handed him a spoon of sauce to taste. He said it needed salt. She said it didn't. He agreed it didn't, actually, and she added a pinch anyway.

At six-forty they had a small standoff about the music. Marcus wanted the jazz playlist. Priya said the jazz playlist made her feel like they were pretending to be older than they were. They compromised on something instrumental and nonspecific, and Marcus turned it up too loud, then down too far, then finally to a volume they both forgot about.

The Kellermans arrived first, ten minutes early with a bottle of wine and their eight-year-old's apologies — she had a fever, so it was just the two of them. Danielle and Dustin came at seven-twenty with a store-bought pie still in its plastic dome.

Dustin turned out to be quiet and easy, good at asking questions. He and Marcus ended up discussing gutters for a full fifteen minutes. Priya caught her husband's eye across the table during it, and he made a face, and she almost laughed into her water glass.

They ate too much. Someone knocked over the salt. Around ten-thirty the guests began the long ritual of leaving, standing in the doorway, putting coats on, talking another twenty minutes.

Afterward Priya washed and Marcus dried, and neither of them said much, which was fine.


By four o'clock the kitchen smelled like garlic and lemon, and Priya had already burned the first batch of pita chips.

"They're fine," Marcus said, fishing one from the trash. "See? Character."

"They taste like a campfire." She swatted his hand and slid the second tray in, setting a timer on her phone this time. "Did you get ice?"

"Two bags. And the wine Dana likes, the one with the bird on it."

"The heron."

"The heron."

He wiped down the table while she assembled the salad, and they argued mildly about whether the good napkins were worth the ironing. Priya won by pointing out that Marcus had once used a paper towel at Thanksgiving. He got the iron out.

The Kowalskis arrived at six-thirty with a bottle of Prosecco and their eight-year-old, Ruby, who immediately asked to see the cat. Dana came ten minutes later, still in her scrubs, apologizing about a shift that ran long.

"You're fine," Priya said, pressing a glass into her hand. "Marcus hasn't even carved the chicken."

"I'm resting it," Marcus called from the kitchen. "There's a science."

Dinner was loud in the good way. Ruby dropped a fork twice. Tom told the story about the rental car in Tucson, which everyone had heard, and everyone laughed anyway. Marcus refilled glasses without asking. Priya noticed Dana going quiet around the second course and moved her chair a little closer, and they talked in low voices about Dana's mother while the others debated whether the new bakery downtown was any good.

Afterward there was a lemon cake that came out slightly sunken in the middle. Marcus called it a crater. Priya called it rustic.

By eleven the house was quiet, and they stood at the sink together, him washing, her drying, the cat weaving between their ankles.

"That was nice," she said.

"The chips were fine," he said.

"They were not."


Mara found the good tablecloth folded at the bottom of the linen closet, creased in squares from the last time they'd used it, sometime around Thanksgiving. She shook it out over the dining table while Daniel stood at the stove, pushing onions around a pan with a wooden spoon.

"They're bringing wine," he said. "Priya texted."

"Then we don't need to open the bottle from your mother."

"We're never going to open that bottle."

Mara straightened a fork, then moved it a half inch and left it alone. The dining room got the last of the west light this time of year, gold across the wall, and she considered leaving the overhead off entirely, then decided that was too much. Candles, then. She dug two out of the junk drawer, mismatched, one lavender and one plain white.

Daniel tasted the sauce and made a face. "Salt."

"Or that dried oregano."

"The oregano is from 2019."

"Oregano doesn't go bad."

"Everything goes bad."

He used it anyway. Mara swept the front hall, mostly moving the dust around, and hid the recycling bin behind the coat rack. Upstairs the shower ran; the cat had gotten shut in the bathroom again and yelled about it until Daniel let her out.

Ben and Priya arrived twelve minutes early with a bottle of red and a bag of clementines, which nobody had asked for and everyone was glad about. They ate in the dining room with the candles going crooked. Ben told a long story about his brother's boat. Priya asked about the bathroom renovation and Mara said, honestly, that they'd stopped talking about it in March.

Afterward Daniel washed and Mara dried, and they could hear Ben and Priya still laughing in the other room about something they'd missed.

"That went fine," Daniel said.

"It went well," Mara said, and hung the towel on the oven handle to dry.


The kitchen smelled of garlic and burnt oregano. Priya scraped the blackened edge of the focaccia into the trash while Marcus, still in his work shirt, unloaded grocery bags onto the counter.

"They're not going to notice," he said.

"Dana notices everything." She turned the bread over, examining it like an X-ray. "Remember the couch."

"That was one time."

"She said it looked *lived in*." Priya set the loaf on a wooden board and covered the dark side with a dish towel, which struck her as both ridiculous and effective.

Marcus started on the salad. He was slow with a knife, methodical, cutting cucumbers into rounds so even they looked machine-made. Priya moved around him to check the oven, then stopped and pressed her forehead briefly against his shoulder blade.

"Twenty minutes," he said.

"Nineteen."

They had done this before, dozens of times over nine years, and there was a rhythm to it: Marcus lighting the two candles they never lit otherwise, Priya rearranging the throw pillows and then rearranging them back. He put on the playlist. She turned it down two notches.

Dana and Kwame arrived at seven-ten with a bottle of red and a story about the parking on Chestnut. They ate at the small table with one leaf extended, elbows close. Kwame ate three pieces of the focaccia, including a burnt one, without comment.

The conversation went from Dana's sister's divorce to a documentary about octopuses to whether anyone actually liked the new grocery store layout. Marcus refilled glasses. Priya laughed at something Kwame said and knocked her fork onto the floor.

They left at eleven, coats on, still talking in the doorway about the octopuses.

Priya loaded the dishwasher. Marcus washed the pan by hand because it wouldn't fit.

"That went well," he said.

"She didn't say anything about the couch."

"See."

"Give her time," Priya said. "She'll text about it tomorrow."


Marcus found the good tablecloth at the back of the linen closet, still creased from the last time they'd used it, sometime around Christmas. He shook it out over the dining table while Dana called from the kitchen that the oven was preheating and had he remembered the ice.

"I got two bags," he said. "They're in the chest freezer."

"Okay, but did you *break them up*? Last time it was one solid brick."

He hadn't. He went out to the garage and dropped each bag on the concrete a few times, which felt satisfying, then brought them in and dumped them into the cooler with the beer.

Dana was tasting the sauce off a wooden spoon, frowning. "It needs something."

"Salt."

"It's not salt." She added a squeeze of lemon, tasted again, and made a face like she'd solved something. "Okay. Set out the water glasses, the ones without the chips."

They had forty minutes. Marcus wiped down the bathroom sink and hid the laundry basket in the bedroom closet. Dana changed her shirt twice and asked him if the first one had been better; he said honestly that he couldn't remember the first one, and she laughed and kept the second.

The Hendersons arrived at seven with a bottle of red and a foil-covered dish nobody had asked for. Priya came ten minutes later, apologizing about traffic on the interstate. They ate in the dining room with the good tablecloth, and the pasta was good, and Ben Henderson told a long story about his neighbor's fence that got funnier the longer it went.

Afterward, Dana rinsed plates and Marcus dried, both of them still half-laughing about the fence. The dishwasher was loaded badly. Neither of them fixed it.

"That was nice," Dana said.

"It was," he said, and turned off the kitchen light.


By four o'clock the kitchen smelled like garlic and burnt butter, and Marisol was standing at the stove with a wooden spoon, scraping the bottom of the pan while Dev read the recipe aloud from his phone.

"It says medium-low," he said.

"It's been medium-low."

"It says fifteen minutes."

"Dev." She held up the spoon. "Taste."

He tasted it, considered, and reached past her for the salt. She let him. That was the arrangement they'd worked out over eleven years: she cooked, he adjusted, and neither of them admitted the other was necessary.

He set the table with the good plates, the ones from his mother, and then noticed the water spots and carried them back to the sink to dry with a dish towel. Marisol asked him to open the wine so it could breathe, and he opened two bottles because he could never remember whether Priya drank red.

The Kaplans arrived first, at six-thirty, with a bakery box and a story about the parking. Priya and Tom came twenty minutes later, apologizing, still wearing their coats. Everyone stood in the kitchen the way people do, holding glasses, blocking the refrigerator, until Marisol herded them toward the table.

The chicken was slightly dry. Nobody said so. Tom took seconds anyway, and Dev caught Marisol's eye across the table and made a small face, and she made a smaller one back.

They talked about a neighbor's fence dispute, and a movie two of them had seen, and Priya's father's hip. Sarah Kaplan spilled a little wine and Dev said, honestly, that the tablecloth had survived worse.

By eleven the guests were gone. Marisol rinsed and Dev loaded, and they got the last pan clean at eleven-forty. He turned off the kitchen light. In the dark hallway she said, "That was nice."

"It was," he said, and followed her up.


Marcus found Diane in the kitchen at half past five, standing over a pot with a wooden spoon in one hand and her phone in the other, reading a recipe she'd made a dozen times before.

"It says twenty minutes," she said. "I've been at this for thirty-five."

He leaned over her shoulder. The risotto looked fine to him, but he'd learned not to say so. Instead he took the spoon and stirred while she opened a bottle of wine and poured herself half a glass.

"Did you get the bread?"

"Two loaves. The seeded one and the plain, because Ellen doesn't like seeds."

"Ellen loves seeds."

"That's Kate."

Diane wiped down the counter, which was already clean. Marcus set the table with the good plates, the ones from her mother, and then had to move everything a few inches left because the leaf in the table wasn't seated right. He knelt and shoved it into place with the heel of his hand while Diane held her wine out of the way.

The Hendersons arrived at six-forty with a salad in a wooden bowl, and Kate arrived ten minutes after that, apologizing about traffic on the parkway. Marcus took coats and hung them on the banister because the closet was full of camping gear he kept meaning to move. Diane brought out the risotto, which was, as it happened, perfect.

They talked about Kate's sister's new house, about the school budget vote, about whether the deck needed staining again this year. Somebody knocked over a water glass and everyone pretended not to notice while Marcus mopped it with a dish towel.

By ten-thirty the plates were stacked in the sink and the last of the wine was gone. Diane walked everyone to the door in her socks. When she came back, Marcus was already running the water.

"I'll wash," he said, "if you dry."


Marcus found Dana in the kitchen at four-thirty, scowling at a recipe on her phone.

"It says the chicken needs to marinate four hours," she said.

"So we tell them it's a Tuesday chicken. Low expectations."

"It's Saturday."

He took the phone, scrolled, and suggested they skip the marinade and just double the garlic. Dana agreed too quickly, which meant she'd already decided that and wanted witnesses.

They worked around each other in the small kitchen with the choreography of nine years. He chopped; she wiped the counter he'd just dirtied. When she reached for the good olive oil, he moved his elbow without looking. The radio played something they both half-knew.

At five-fifteen Dana remembered the bathroom hand towels were the ones with the coffee stain. Marcus found the guest set in a closet, still creased from the package, and hung them crooked. She straightened them later without mentioning it.

The Petersons arrived at six with a bottle of wine and their four-year-old, Owen, who had not been part of the plan but was welcome anyway. Owen wanted to see the dog. The dog wanted to see the chicken.

"He'll eat plain noodles," Rachel said apologetically.

"We have plain noodles," Marcus said, and Dana looked at him, and he mouthed *do we?* and she nodded toward the pantry.

Dinner ran long. The garlic was, everyone agreed, correct. Tom told a story about his boss that he'd told before, and Marcus laughed anyway. Dana refilled glasses. Owen fell asleep on the couch under a throw blanket while the adults kept their voices down out of habit rather than necessity.

At ten-forty the Petersons carried their son out into the cold. Dana and Marcus stood in the doorway waving, then closed it and looked at the table.

"Dishes tomorrow," she said.

"Dishes tomorrow," he agreed, and turned off the kitchen light.


Marcus found Priya kneeling in front of the oven, squinting at the roasting pan.

"It's not browning," she said.

"It's been forty minutes."

"It's been fifty-five. I set a timer."

He leaned over her shoulder. The chicken sat pale and glistening, herbs sliding off the skin. Marcus reached past her and turned the dial up to 425, and she let him, which meant she'd already considered it.

"The Kelleys are always late anyway," he said.

"Dana's late. Tom shows up on time and stands in the driveway."

Marcus went back to the dining room, where he'd been setting out the good plates, the ones from her grandmother with the faint blue rim. He counted them twice, then folded napkins into rough triangles. In the kitchen, Priya was crushing garlic with the flat of a knife and swearing mildly at the cutting board, which wobbled.

"You need to shim that," he said.

"I need a new one."

"Same thing."

At 6:50 the doorbell rang. Tom Kelley held a bottle of wine in one hand and a paper bag in the other, and Dana came up the walk behind him with their daughter's soccer trophy still in the car, apparently, because she mentioned it twice. The Nguyens arrived eleven minutes later with a store-bought pie they apologized for.

The chicken, in the end, was fine. Slightly dry at the breast, good at the thighs. Marcus carved standing up and gave Tom the wings without asking because he knew. Priya kept getting up for things—more bread, the pepper mill, a towel when Dana knocked over her water—and around the fourth time Marcus put a hand on her wrist and said, "Sit. I've got it."

She sat.

Later, after the door closed, they stood together at the sink. He washed. She dried and put away, because she knew where things went.

"That went okay," she said.

"Better than okay."


David tasted the sauce again and made a face. "Too much thyme."

"There's no such thing," Marcus said from the dining room, where he was arguing with a tablecloth that refused to lie flat. "You said that about the soup at Thanksgiving and Erin asked for the recipe."

"Erin asks everyone for recipes. It's how she avoids talking about her divorce."

Marcus laughed and came into the kitchen, sliding past David to get to the drawer with the good silverware. Their house was small enough that cooking for six people meant a certain amount of choreography, learned over eleven years and three apartments before this place.

"Did you text Priya about the nut thing?" David asked.

"I did. She said almonds are fine, it's just walnuts. And Tom's bringing wine, so we don't need to worry about that."

"Tom brings the same wine every time."

"Tom brings the same wine because you told him you liked it once in 2019 and he's been trying to be a good guest ever since." Marcus started laying out forks. "Be nice."

David turned the burner down and wiped his hands on the dish towel hanging from the oven handle. He looked around the kitchen — flour on the counter, a colander in the sink, the roasted vegetables cooling on a sheet pan — and felt the particular pre-party panic that always arrived around forty minutes out.

"Do we have enough chairs?"

"We have exactly enough chairs. I counted twice."

"And you moved the laundry?"

Marcus stopped and put a hand on David's shoulder. "The laundry is folded. The bathroom has a candle in it. The playlist is queued up. You made a beautiful dinner. Sit down for four minutes."

David sat. Marcus poured him half a glass of the wine they'd opened for cooking, and they drank it standing in the doorway together, listening for the first car in the driveway.


Marisol found the good tablecloth folded at the bottom of the linen closet, still creased from Thanksgiving. She shook it out over the dining table and smoothed the wrinkles with her palms while Danny wrestled the leaf into place underneath, muttering when it caught.

"It always sticks," he said.

"It's older than we are."

They'd bought the table at an estate sale in Sacramento the first year they were married, and it had followed them to two apartments and finally this house in the flats east of town, where the freeway noise came through the windows on hot nights. Tonight was cool. October, finally.

Danny went back to the kitchen and turned the chicken thighs in the pan, adjusting the flame. He'd been marinating them since morning, and the smell had settled into the whole house, garlic and lemon and something charred at the edges. Marisol came in behind him, counted glasses out loud, and decided they were two short.

"Use the jelly jars," Danny said.

"For Kate?"

"Especially for Kate."

She laughed and got them down anyway. There was a rhythm to it, the two of them moving around each other in a kitchen too narrow for both, the sidestep at the oven door, the hand on a hip to signal passing behind. Twelve years of that.

At six-fifteen she went to change. Danny heard the closet door, then her asking whether the green shirt looked like she was trying too hard. He said no, then said it looked good, which was the answer she wanted and also true.

He lit the two candles on the table. She came out barefoot, carrying her shoes, and stopped to look at the room — the tablecloth, the jelly jars catching the light, the chairs mismatched and pulled in close.

"It looks nice," she said.

"It looks like us."

Headlights swung across the front window. Danny wiped his hands on a dish towel and went to open the door.


Marisol found the good tablecloth folded at the bottom of the linen closet, still creased from last Thanksgiving. She shook it out over the dining table while Dev stood at the stove, adjusting the flame under a pot of rice.

"Did you salt the water?" she asked.

"I salted the water."

"You said that last time."

"Last time was an anomaly." He tapped the wooden spoon twice on the pot rim, a habit she'd stopped noticing years ago, then noticed again now, fondly, the way you notice a familiar street sign.

The Kaplans were coming at seven, and Renee, and Renee's new boyfriend whose name they'd both practiced in the car that morning — Theo, Theo, Theo — because Renee had been alone for three years and this felt important.

Dev pulled the roasted carrots out of the oven and swore quietly; the edges had gone past caramelized into something darker.

"They're fine," Marisol said, not looking.

"You didn't look."

"I don't have to. Everyone eats carrots out of politeness anyway."

He laughed. She lit the two candles in the middle of the table, blew out the match, and then went around the living room doing the thing she always did, which was to move objects six inches to the left — a coaster, a stack of magazines, the throw blanket that lived in a permanent state of half-folded.

At 6:48 Dev came out of the bedroom in a clean shirt, still buttoning the cuffs. "Do I look like a person who has his life together?"

Marisol considered him. "You look like a person who owns an iron and chooses not to use it."

"That's basically the same thing."

The doorbell rang at 6:53 — the Kaplans, always early. Dev turned down the burner. Marisol wiped her hands on a dish towel, dropped it on the counter, and went to answer.