The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Marisol had scorched the first batch of caramelized onions and started over, and now the pan hissed under her wooden spoon while Dev stood at the sink washing wine glasses they'd inherited from his aunt.

"They're spotty," he said, holding one up to the window light.

"Nobody's inspecting the glasses."

"Priya will."

Marisol conceded this. Priya had once rearranged their spice rack while waiting for coffee to brew.

They had lived together in the one-bedroom on Kensington for two years, long enough that Dev knew to take over the rice when Marisol got frustrated, and long enough that she knew to hide his good chef's knife when guests came, because he'd let anyone use it and then sulk about the edge afterward.

By seven the table was set with mismatched plates. Priya and Amos arrived first, with a bottle of Malbec and a story about the parking situation, then Kenny came alone because Sarah had a cold. Five people in a room built for two. Dev pulled the desk chair in from the bedroom.

Dinner was chicken with the onions, rice, a salad Marisol had assembled in four minutes and apologized for twice. It was fine. Everyone said it was more than fine. Amos went back for seconds and then, sheepishly, thirds.

The conversation moved from a coworker's divorce to whether anyone actually liked jazz to Kenny's plan to buy a boat, which everyone agreed was a bad idea and which he defended for twenty minutes.

Near eleven, Marisol caught Dev's eye across the table and he stood to start clearing, which was the signal. People found their coats. Priya hugged them both and told Marisol she should teach a class.

Afterward they stood in the kitchen among the dishes. Dev started the water running. Marisol leaned against the counter, holding the last inch of her wine.

"That went well," she said.

"Kenny's not buying a boat."

"He might."

They washed everything before bed.


Marisol found the good tablecloth crumpled at the back of the linen closet, smelling faintly of cedar and the last time they'd used it, Thanksgiving.

"It's wrinkled," she called.

"It'll relax," Devon said from the kitchen. He was cubing potatoes badly, chunks of wildly different sizes, and she decided not to mention it. She'd learned which corrections were worth the twenty minutes of sulking.

They'd been in the apartment two years. The lease was in her name because his credit was bad in 2019, and neither of them had ever gotten around to changing it. His mother still asked, gently, at Christmas.

"Did you get wine?"

"I got two reds and a white nobody will drink."

"Priya drinks white."

"Priya drinks whatever's open."

At six-forty he burned the garlic and the smoke alarm went off, and Marisol stood on a kitchen chair fanning it with a dish towel while he swore and scraped the pan into the sink. They opened the windows. The apartment got cold fast, February cold, and the radiator started its knocking.

The Kims arrived first with a store-bought pie and apologies for the store-bought pie. Priya came twenty minutes late with someone named Alec, which Marisol had not been warned about, and she caught Devon's eye across the room and he mouthed *sorry* and went to get another chair from the bedroom.

The chicken was fine. The potatoes were uneven but nobody said so. Somebody brought up the Kims' kitchen renovation and it consumed forty minutes. Alec turned out to be a hospice nurse and told a story about a patient who'd sung the whole time, which quieted everyone briefly, and then Devon refilled glasses.

At eleven they were alone with the dishes. Marisol washed. Devon dried and put things in wrong cabinets.

"That went well," he said.

"It did," she said, and meant it.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt rosemary. Dev had opened the window over the sink even though it was February, and Nora complained about the cold while she wiped down the counter with a dish towel that had seen better years.

"You put the oven on broil," she said.

"I know. That was the point." He pulled the tray of potatoes out, and half of them were blackened on top. He picked one up, dropped it, blew on his fingers.

Nora came over and looked. "They're fine. Scrape the tops."

They had forty minutes. Dev set the table, which meant finding four matching plates, which meant washing two of them. Nora put the chicken in and then stood in front of the closet in her sweatpants, holding two shirts up in the mirror, and Dev, passing by with a corkscrew, said, "The green one," without stopping.

Priya and Marcus arrived twelve minutes late with a bottle of wine and a store-bought pie, apologizing about parking. Everyone said the apartment looked great. Marcus took off his shoes without being asked, which Nora appreciated.

Dinner ran long because Priya kept talking about her sister's wedding, and Dev opened the second bottle. The chicken was slightly dry. Nobody mentioned it. Nora told the story about the neighbor's dog getting into their recycling, and she told it well, and Dev laughed even though he'd been there and knew the ending.

By eleven they were all still at the table with the candles burned down uneven. Marcus stacked plates before he left. At the door there were the usual promises to do this again sooner.

Afterward, Nora ran the water hot and Dev dried. Neither of them said much. She handed him the last glass, and he set it upside down on the towel, and they went to bed.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burned rosemary. Dev had gotten distracted texting his sister about their mother's knee surgery, and by the time he looked back at the pan, the herbs had gone black at the edges.

"It's fine," Priya said, leaning over his shoulder. "Pick them out."

"They'll taste like ash."

"Then we'll say it's smoked." She was already moving past him with a stack of mismatched plates, the good ones from her grandmother mixed with the IKEA set they'd bought when they moved in together two years ago. Four settings. Marcus and Jean were coming, and Marcus always brought too much wine.

Dev salvaged what he could of the chicken. Priya found the corkscrew in the drawer with the batteries and the takeout menus they never used. She'd changed out of her work clothes but not into anything special—jeans, the sweater with the hole in the cuff.

"Should I light the candles?"

"They'll be here in twenty minutes."

"So no."

"So light them in fifteen."

Marcus and Jean arrived at seven-forty, apologizing about the parking, carrying two bottles and a bakery box. Jean hugged Priya at the door and immediately started talking about a coworker who'd quit dramatically that morning. Marcus went straight to the kitchen and asked what he could do, then did nothing except lean against the counter and steal a piece of chicken skin.

They ate at the small table, elbows close. The rosemary situation went unmentioned. Somebody knocked over water and Dev threw a dish towel on it without getting up. Jean told a story about her father's dog. Priya laughed hard enough to cover her mouth.

At eleven, Marcus started yawning mid-sentence. Coats came off the hooks by the door. Dev stood in the hallway waving until the elevator closed.

Back inside, Priya was already running the sink.

"Leave it," he said.

She left it.


Dana was rinsing romaine when Theo came in with the good knife and the wrong intention.

"Not the bread yet," she said. "It'll go stale."

"It's a baguette. It's already stale. That's its personality."

He cut it anyway, angling the slices the way his mother did, and arranged them on the cutting board they'd gotten from her aunt as a not-quite-wedding present. Four years in the apartment on Delaware Street and people still gave them things in pairs.

The Kowalczyks were bringing wine, Priya was bringing her boyfriend, whose name they had both privately agreed to relearn tonight. Dana had made a lasagna that morning and had been checking on it in the oven at intervals that Theo found excessive and did not comment on.

"Napkins or paper towels," he said.

"Napkins. It's five people."

"Six."

"Six. Then definitely napkins."

He found them in the drawer with the batteries and the takeout menus and the extra key to his brother's place. While he set the table she took the lasagna out, and the kitchen filled with that smell, and she stood there a second with her hip against the counter, oven mitt still on, looking at the salad she'd forgotten to dress.

The buzzer went at 7:10. Priya's boyfriend was Matt, which Theo remembered on the stairs and mouthed to Dana over Priya's shoulder as they hugged. Nobody sat where Dana had planned. The Kowalczyks' wine turned out to be a red they'd brought once before and everyone said so.

Around nine the conversation broke into two, and Dana was laughing at something Sasha Kowalczyk said, and Theo, refilling glasses, put his hand flat on her back as he passed behind her chair, and she leaned into it without turning around, and that was the whole of it.

They did the dishes together at eleven, badly, and went to bed.


Maya was slicing cucumbers when Devon came in from the balcony with the folding chairs, one under each arm, and announced that the grill was still greasy from last weekend.

"So clean it," she said.

"I'm going to. I'm saying it as information."

They had lived in the apartment for two years, long enough that the arguments had softened into a kind of shorthand. He set the chairs by the table and went to find the wire brush. Maya moved the cucumbers into a bowl, added the tomatoes, and stood a moment considering whether four people needed two salads. She decided they didn't and put the second bowl back in the cabinet.

Priya and Tom arrived at seven with a bottle of wine and a paper bag of peaches from the farmers market that nobody would eat. Tom immediately went out to the balcony to supervise the grilling, which Devon accepted with good humor, and Priya sat on a stool at the counter while Maya finished the dressing.

"The peaches are for later," Priya said. "Or tomorrow. Or whenever."

"They're beautiful."

"They're a little hard. Tom got excited."

The chicken took longer than Devon promised. They ate at eight fifteen, all four crowded around a table meant for two, elbows negotiating. The conversation went from Tom's coworker who kept microwaving fish, to whether the new building on Ninth would block the light, to Priya's sister's wedding in October. Devon refilled glasses without being asked. At some point Maya put her hand on his knee under the table, absently, and left it there while she was talking.

They cut the peaches for dessert. They were, in fact, too hard, and everyone agreed on this cheerfully.

Priya and Tom left at eleven. Devon washed, Maya dried. Neither of them mentioned that it had gone well, because it obviously had.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Dani had scorched the onions twice and started over, which meant the ragù wouldn't be ready until eight, which meant the wine would have to carry the first half hour.

"They're not going to care," Marcus said. He was on the floor, wedged behind the couch, trying to reach the extension cord for the lamp that had never worked right. "Priya once served us cereal."

"That was a breakup dinner. Different rules."

He grunted, came up with the cord, dust in his hair. Dani reached over and brushed it off without looking away from the pot, and he leaned into her hand for half a second before going to plug the lamp in.

They'd lived together four years in this place, long enough that the arguments had worn grooves. He set the table wrong — forks on the right — and she moved them, and he said nothing because saying something had never once worked. She'd bought a cheese she didn't like because he did. This was the arithmetic.

Priya and Ben came at seven with a bottle of something orange and a story about their landlord. Marcus took coats. Dani poured. The lamp held, which felt like a small triumph neither of them mentioned.

Over dinner Ben asked, the way people did, whether they'd thought about it — the ring thing, the paperwork thing — and Dani said "not really" at the same moment Marcus said "eventually," and everyone laughed, including them, and Priya changed the subject to a movie.

Later, after, Marcus washed and Dani dried. The window over the sink had gone black and reflected the two of them, slightly warped.

"Eventually," she said.

"I panicked."

"I know." She put the pot away in the cabinet where it belonged, where it had always belonged, and turned off the light.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burning butter, which meant Nadia had turned the heat up too high again.

"It's fine," she said, scraping the pan into the sink. "We have more."

Theo was on the floor with a dust rag, chasing crumbs out from under the radiator. He'd been at it twenty minutes and had produced one bottle cap, a AAA battery, and a receipt from a hardware store in another state. "Do we own a mop?"

"We own a Swiffer with no pads."

"So we own a stick."

She handed him the second head of garlic and he peeled it standing up, leaning against the counter while she talked through the seating. Six people, four matching chairs, the desk chair, and the folding one from the closet that pinched. Marcus would take the pinching one because Marcus always claimed the worst seat and then mentioned it twice.

They ran out of ice at six forty. Theo walked to the corner store and came back with a bag and a bunch of sad carnations because the good flowers were gone, and Nadia put them in a pint glass without comment and set them on the table anyway.

The friends came in loudly, wet from a light rain nobody had predicted. Someone's boots left prints on the floor Theo had just done. The chicken was a little dry; the potatoes were better than they had any right to be. Marcus mentioned the chair at eight fifteen and again at nine.

Around ten, the conversation drifted into people talking over each other about a movie, and Nadia caught Theo's eye across the table, and he raised his eyebrows a quarter inch, and that was the whole exchange.

Afterward they stacked plates in silence, tired in the good way. Nadia found a carnation petal in the sink and left it there.

"Same time next month?" Theo said.

"God, no. Two months."


Nadia had been chopping shallots for ten minutes, and Theo could hear her sniffling from the living room.

"Do you want me to do that?" he called.

"You're supposed to be moving the laundry."

He was, in fact, standing in front of the couch holding an armful of clean towels he had no idea where to put. The basket was in the bedroom. The bedroom was where they'd stashed everything they didn't want people to see: the space heater, the shoes, the mail that had accumulated on the counter since Tuesday. Theo dumped the towels on the bed and closed the door.

In the kitchen, Nadia had moved on to the chicken. She'd found the recipe on a blog and had been talking about it for three days, which meant she was nervous. Theo came up behind her and looked over her shoulder at the pan.

"It's browning," she said, defensive.

"It looks good."

"It's supposed to be darker."

He got out the wine glasses and held them up to the light one by one, wiping the water spots with a dish towel. They only had four matching ones, so he pulled down two others from the back of the cabinet and decided nobody would notice.

Renu and Kwame arrived at seven-fifteen with a bottle of something red and an apology about parking. Alex came at seven-forty with nothing but a story about his sister. They ate at the table, which Theo had cleared of his laptop and a phone charger and a dead succulent. The chicken was fine. Better than fine — Renu asked for the recipe, and Nadia caught Theo's eye across the table and made a small face that meant *told you*.

Afterward there was ice cream from the carton and an argument about a movie nobody had actually seen. At eleven, the door closed and the apartment went quiet.

"That was good," Nadia said, kicking off her shoes.

Theo started the water for the dishes.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar, which was Dana's fault. She'd tried caramelizing onions while also answering an email from her boss, and now the pan sat soaking in the sink, its bottom lacquered black.

"We can say it's a rustic char," Marcus said, scraping at it with a wooden spoon.

"Nobody says that."

"Chefs say that."

"Chefs don't say that." She was setting the table, which meant hunting for four matching forks. They had six of one kind and two of another, remnants of separate lives merged three years ago in a U-Haul. She gave herself the mismatched one.

Marcus had made the chicken, a recipe from his mother that involved more butter than either of them admitted to anyone. He tasted the sauce, added salt, tasted it again, added lemon. Dana came up behind him and took the spoon out of his hand.

"Needs pepper," she said.

"It does not need pepper."

"It needs a little pepper."

He ground pepper into it while she watched, and they both tasted it again and agreed it was better, though neither said so out loud.

Priya and Tom arrived at 7:15 with a bottle of wine and an apology for being late, though they weren't. Tom immediately noticed the burnt pan in the sink. Dana said it was a technique. Marcus, pouring wine, said nothing, which Dana appreciated.

They ate. Priya talked about her sister's wedding, the seating chart drama, the aunt who wouldn't sit near the other aunt. Tom mentioned that his lease was up in April. Marcus refilled glasses. Dana got up twice—once for more bread, once for the pepper grinder, which Tom had asked for, and which she set down in front of Marcus with a look he pretended not to see.

Around ten, they moved to the couch. Somebody found the good chocolate in the back of the freezer.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar, which was Dana's fault and also, she insisted, Marcus's, because he'd been the one to say "just leave the onions, they'll be fine" while she went to answer the door for a package that turned out to be a neighbor's.

"They're fine," Marcus said, scraping the pan. "They're caramelized."

"They're carbonized."

"Same root word." He dumped them into the strainer anyway and started over, and Dana laughed and went to deal with the table, which was really a card table pushed against their actual table because four people would not fit at the actual table. She threw a tablecloth over the seam and it looked almost intentional.

Priya and Wes arrived at 7:10 with a bottle of wine and a story about parking. Wes had shaved, which Dana noticed and Marcus didn't. They ate the pasta, which was good despite everything, and a salad Priya had brought because she always brought something, and there was bread that nobody could remember buying.

Around nine, Wes knocked over his water glass reaching for the salt, and the tablecloth wicked it toward Priya's lap, and everyone stood up at once in that ridiculous coordinated way people do. Marcus got a dish towel. Dana got a real towel. Priya said it was fine three times.

They ended up on the couch with the last of the wine and a bag of chocolates Marcus had been hiding in the cabinet above the fridge, which Dana pretended not to have known about. Priya fell asleep briefly during a disagreement about a movie none of them had actually finished.

After they left, Dana washed and Marcus dried, both of them slower than necessary. The pan with the burnt onions was still soaking.

"Next time," Marcus said, "we order something."

"You say that every time."

"I mean it every time."


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Nadia had scorched the first batch of onions and started over, and now Theo was scraping the pan in the sink while she stood at the counter slicing a baguette at a diagonal, the way her mother did.

"Do we have enough chairs?" she asked.

"Four kitchen, two from the desk. That's six."

"There's seven of us."

Theo dried his hands. "I'll sit on the ottoman."

"You'll be a foot lower than everyone."

"I'll be a charming gnome."

They had lived together three years in a second-floor unit with a radiator that knocked, and the arguments they had now were mostly about logistics. Nadia wiped the table twice. Theo put on a record and then took it off because it felt like trying too hard, then put it back on because silence felt worse.

Marisol and Dev came first, with a bottle of wine and a story about parking. Then Kwame, then Priya and her new boyfriend, Alec, who was tall and shook hands too firmly. Nadia handed out plates. The chicken was a little dry and nobody said so; everyone said the potatoes were incredible, which they were, because Theo had used far too much butter.

Around nine, Dev knocked over a glass of red and everyone jumped up at once, and Theo came back with paper towels and salt, and Nadia said it was fine, really, the table was already ruined. Alec turned out to be funny once he relaxed. Priya laughed with her whole body. Kwame stayed latest, sitting on the floor with his back against the couch, talking about his sister's divorce.

At midnight Nadia washed and Theo dried. The ottoman was still pulled up to the table.

"That was good," she said.

"Yeah." He hung the towel on the oven handle. "We should do it more."

They didn't, usually. But they meant it.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Dana had scorched the first batch of glazed carrots and dumped them in the trash while Marcus was in the shower, hoping he wouldn't notice.

"You noticed," she said, when he came out toweling his hair.

"The trash can told on you." He kissed the top of her head and started peeling more carrots without being asked, which was one of the reasons she'd let him move in two years ago.

They had forty minutes. Marcus wiped down the coffee table and moved the laundry basket into the bedroom, then moved it into the closet when Dana pointed out that people would put their coats on the bed. She lit a candle, then blew it out because it clashed with the chicken.

Priya and Tom arrived first, eight minutes early, with a bottle of wine and an apology for being early. Then Kev, alone, because he and Sarah had split up in March and nobody had quite figured out how to mention it. Dana handed him a beer and asked about his mother's hip, which turned out to be the right thing.

Dinner was fine. The chicken was a little dry; Marcus said so before anyone else could, and Priya insisted it wasn't, and Tom took thirds, which settled the argument. They talked about a neighbor's dog, about Tom's commute, about whether the bakery on Ninth had actually gotten worse or whether they'd all just gotten older. Kev told a long story about a coworker that didn't have a punchline, and everyone laughed anyway.

At eleven, coats came out of the closet. Dana stood in the doorway waving until the elevator closed.

Marcus was already at the sink, sleeves pushed up.

"That was good," she said, picking up a stack of plates.

"The carrots were good."

"The second carrots."

"The second carrots," he agreed.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Nadia had scorched the first batch of caramelized onions while arguing on the phone with her mother about Thanksgiving, and now she was starting over, standing at the stove in her socks, stirring with a wooden spoon that had belonged to Theo's grandmother.

"They're going to be late," Theo said, coming out of the bedroom with a shirt half-buttoned. "Marcus is always late."

"Then we'll eat late."

He came up behind her and looked into the pan. "That's better. That's actually good."

"Don't sound so surprised." She elbowed him gently. "Can you do the table? And find the other wine glass, the one that isn't chipped."

Theo counted out forks. They only had five matching ones, so he put the odd fork at his own place. He folded paper napkins into rough triangles and lit the candle Nadia's sister had given them two Christmases ago, which smelled faintly of cranberry and was, he thought, probably a mistake next to the food.

Marcus and Priya arrived at 7:20 with a bottle of red and a container of cookies from the Vietnamese bakery on Chestnut. Dana came fifteen minutes after that, straight from a shift, still wearing her badge. Everyone stood in the kitchen because there was nowhere else to stand.

The chicken was slightly dry. Nobody said so. Priya talked about her landlord, who had installed cameras in the hallway without telling anyone, and Marcus told the story about the raccoon again, and Dana laughed so hard she had to put her glass down.

Around eleven, Theo started clearing plates and Nadia followed with the glasses. In the kitchen, standing at the sink with the water running, she said, "That went okay."

"It went well," he said, and handed her a plate.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt paper towel. Nina had scorched one on the burner reaching for the tongs, and Dev had waved it out the window while she laughed at him from the sink.

"Six-thirty," he said. "It's six-twenty."

"They're never on time." She was scrubbing potatoes, sleeves pushed up, water spotting her shirt. "Marisol texted. She's bringing that wine we don't like."

"We'll drink it anyway."

He set the table, four plates, a fifth pushed against the wall because they only had four chairs and Kevin always sat on the arm of the couch. Their apartment was small enough that the table touched the bookshelf. Dev moved a stack of Nina's library books to the floor and she said, "Don't lose my place," without turning around.

They had lived together two years. Her mother still addressed cards to Ms. Nina Alvarez and Mr. Devraj Iyer on separate lines, as if the post office might otherwise be confused.

Marisol and Anna came first, with the wine, and Kevin came twenty minutes later with nothing, apologizing, holding up his hands. He sat on the couch arm. The chicken was slightly dry and everyone said it wasn't. Nina caught Dev's eye across the table when he served himself a second helping to prove the point, and she pressed her foot against his under the table.

They talked about Anna's job, about a movie nobody had finished, about Kevin's landlord. Marisol asked, casually, if they were going to Ravi's wedding, and Dev said yes, and Nina said her dress didn't fit anymore, and that was all.

At eleven the plates were stacked and the guests were on the landing, doing the long goodbye. Afterward Nina washed and Dev dried, and they left the pans to soak, and the kitchen light stayed on a while after they'd gone to bed.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Dana had scorched the first batch of glazed carrots and was scraping the pan over the trash while Marcus wiped down the counter behind her, moving in the practiced way of someone who had learned exactly how much space she needed when she was frustrated.

"They're going to be late," he said. "Priya's always late."

"Which is why I said seven-thirty and not seven." Dana set the pan in the sink to soak. "Did you get ice?"

He hadn't. He grabbed his keys and was out the door before she could say anything, and by the time he came back with two bags and a bottle of the pinot noir Theo liked, she had changed into the green sweater and put on the earrings her sister had given her. The table was set with the mismatched plates they'd accumulated over four years of living together, the good ones from his grandmother mixed with the cheap white ones from Target.

Priya and Theo arrived at 7:50 with a loaf of bread and apologies about parking. Marcus poured wine. Dana pulled the chicken from the oven and it was, by consensus, slightly dry, though everyone ate two helpings anyway.

They talked about Theo's job, about a movie none of them had liked, about whether the building across the street was going to be condos. At some point Priya asked, half-joking, whether they were ever going to make it official, and Dana said, "We have a lease," and Marcus laughed harder than the joke deserved and squeezed her knee under the table.

After the guests left, they did the dishes together, him washing, her drying. He told her the carrots had been fine. She said they'd been terrible. Neither of them stopped smiling.


The chicken was already in the oven when Nadia realized they'd forgotten wine.

"I can go," Theo said, wiping his hands on a dish towel that had once been white. "Red or white?"

"Both. Marisol drinks whatever's open, but Kev will make a whole thing about it if there's no red."

He grabbed his keys and the reusable bag they always forgot to bring. While he was gone, Nadia moved the pile of unopened mail from the table to the top of the refrigerator, where it joined an older pile. She lit the candle they'd gotten for Christmas two years ago, decided it smelled too much like a hotel lobby, and blew it out.

Theo came back with two bottles and a bag of ice, which nobody had asked for but which turned out to be necessary.

"You bought the ten-dollar one," she said.

"I bought the twelve-dollar one. There's a difference."

They set the table with the good plates, which were just the plates that matched. Nadia burned her wrist on the oven rack and swore, and Theo found the aloe in the bathroom cabinet behind the expired allergy medicine.

Marisol arrived first, twenty minutes early, with a salad in a bowl she'd want back. Kev and his girlfriend Dana came late, apologizing about parking. The chicken was fine. Slightly dry, Nadia thought, but nobody said anything, and Kev had thirds.

They talked about a coworker's divorce, about whether anyone had actually watched the show everyone was recommending, about Dana's landlord. At some point Theo put on music too quietly for anyone to identify.

The last of them left a little after eleven. Nadia stood at the sink rinsing plates while Theo wrapped the leftover chicken in foil.

"That went okay," he said.

"Marisol's bowl."

"I put it by her shoes." He turned off the kitchen light. "She took it."


Nadia found the good tablecloth in the linen closet, folded beneath a beach towel neither of them remembered buying. She shook it out over the table while Theo argued with the oven, which had a habit of running forty degrees hot.

"Do we own six matching plates?" she asked.

"We own five, plus that one your mother gave us."

"That's the good one. I'll take that one."

They had been in the apartment two years, long enough that the pantry had a system and the neighbors' dog barked at Theo but not at her. He was making a chicken thing from a magazine, and it required more butter than he'd expected, so Nadia went down to the corner store in her slippers and came back with butter, a lemon, and a bag of ice they didn't need.

The Kavanaghs arrived first, ten minutes early, holding wine. Then Priya, who took off her shoes without being asked and immediately started helping with the salad even though Nadia told her not to. By seven-thirty the kitchen was crowded and warm and someone had put on a record.

The chicken was fine. The potatoes were better. Theo told the story about the flat tire in Bakersfield and got the year wrong, and Nadia corrected him from across the table, and he said, "She's the historian," and refilled Priya's glass.

They talked about a hurricane, a cousin's divorce, whether anyone had actually read the book everyone was pretending to have read. Ben Kavanagh spilled a little wine, and Nadia said it didn't matter, and it didn't.

People left around eleven. Theo washed; Nadia dried and put away, because she knew where things went. The kitchen light hummed. Outside, a car alarm started and stopped.

"That was good," she said.

"Yeah," he said, handing her the last plate. "We should do that more."


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Nora had scorched the first batch of caramelized onions and thrown them out, and Danny had said nothing about it, just opened the window over the sink and let the November air in.

"They're going to be late," he said. "Priya's always late."

"That's why I told her seven-thirty when everyone else got eight."

He laughed and went back to the salad, tearing romaine with his hands because Nora had once told him a knife bruises the leaves. He wasn't sure that was true, but he'd never checked.

She was on her knees at the low cabinet, looking for the good serving bowl, the blue one from her grandmother. It was behind the waffle iron they'd used twice in three years.

"We should get rid of this thing."

"We're not getting rid of the waffle iron."

By the time the buzzer went off, the table was set with four plates that matched and two that didn't. Priya came first, twenty minutes late, holding a bottle of wine and apologizing about the trains. Then Marcus and his new girlfriend, Alexis, who took her shoes off at the door without being asked, which Nora noticed and liked.

The chicken was slightly dry. Nobody mentioned it. Marcus mentioned everything else — his upstairs neighbor, his knee, a podcast about a cult in Oregon. Alexis asked Danny how he and Nora met, and Danny told the version where he was funnier than he'd actually been.

Around eleven, Priya fell asleep sitting up on the couch for four minutes and woke insisting she hadn't.

After they left, Nora ran the water hot and Danny dried. He kept putting things in the wrong cabinets, and she kept moving them back, and neither of them said anything about it, and the dishwasher hummed, and it was fine.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt rosemary. Dana pulled the chicken out of the oven and swore softly at the blackened sprigs on top.

"It's fine," Marcus said, not looking up from the salad he was tearing. "Nobody eats the herbs."

"You always say that."

"Because it's always true."

She scraped the worst of it off with a fork while he moved around her to get the tongs from the drawer, one hand briefly on her hip so she'd know he was passing behind. They'd lived together for three years in this place, long enough that the choreography of the kitchen had become automatic.

The doorbell rang at 7:10. Priya and Ben came in with a bottle of wine and a story about parking, and then Kel arrived twenty minutes later with a store-bought pie and no apology, which was expected.

They ate at the table Marcus's mother had given them, one leg still shimmed with a folded coaster. The chicken was better than Dana had feared. Ben asked about the trip to Colorado, and Marcus told the version where he got altitude sick, and Dana corrected two details, and he let her.

"You two ever going to get married?" Kel asked, around the second bottle.

"Ask us when the rent stops going up," Dana said, and everyone laughed, and Marcus refilled her glass without being asked.

After, they played a card game nobody remembered the rules to. Priya fell asleep briefly on the couch. Around eleven, coats came off the hooks by the door, and there was the long slow goodbye in the hallway.

Marcus started the dishes. Dana came up beside him with a towel.

"That went okay," she said.

"The rosemary thing was your only crime."

"I'll live with it."

He handed her a wet plate. Outside, a car door shut, and then the street was quiet.


Nadia found the good tablecloth folded at the bottom 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 scraped the char off the bottom of a roasting pan in the sink.

"They're coming at seven, right?" he called.

"Six-thirty. Priya texted." She smoothed a wrinkle with her palm. "You said you'd start the chicken by five."

"It's four-fifty."

"It's five-oh-eight."

He looked at the microwave clock, made a small noise of concession, and dried his hands on a dish towel that had seen better decades. The chicken came out of the fridge, pale and cold. Nadia handed him the lemon without being asked, and he cut it in half against the cutting board that wobbled on the uneven counter.

They worked around each other in the narrow kitchen, a choreography built over four years and two apartments. She washed the arugula. He crushed garlic under the flat of a knife. At one point she reached past him for the olive oil and he leaned back without looking up.

"Do we have candles?" she asked.

"The birthday ones."

"That's not — never mind."

Priya and Dev arrived at six-forty with a bottle of wine and a bakery box, apologizing for being late, and then Tom came alone at seven, apologizing for Erin, who had a cold. The chicken was slightly overdone at the edges. Nobody said anything about it. Dev talked about his commute. Tom told a long story about his landlord that got funnier the further it went from the point.

At eleven Nadia stood at the sink with a wineglass in her hand and Marcus came up behind her with the last of the plates.

"That was nice," he said.

"It was." She handed him the towel. "Your turn to dry."


The rice was overcooked, which Nadia announced from the kitchen doorway with the resignation of someone reporting weather.

"It's fine," Eli said. He was wrestling the leaf into the dining table, the one they'd bought off a neighbor for forty dollars when they moved in together eighteen months ago. The leaf had never fit right. He gave it a final shove and it seated with a wooden clunk. "People eat mushy rice. It's a texture."

"It's a mistake."

"It's a texture mistake."

She threw a dish towel at him and went back to the stove, where the chicken thighs were doing something promising under the broiler. Eli found the good tablecloth in the linen closet behind the extra pillows, shook it out, and discovered a wine stain near one corner from Thanksgiving. He turned the cloth so the stain faced the wall.

Priya and Dev arrived first, ten minutes early, holding a bottle of red and a bakery box. Marcus came twenty minutes late with an apology about the bridge. Everybody stood in the kitchen anyway, the way people always did, drinking out of the mismatched glasses while Nadia moved around them with the confidence of someone who had drawn a map of her own kitchen in her head.

Dinner ran long. Dev told a story about his sister's wedding that required three separate detours. Marcus argued with Eli about a movie neither of them had actually finished. Nadia refilled water glasses without being asked and kicked Eli under the table when he started to say something about Priya's job that she knew Priya didn't want to discuss.

At eleven they stood at the door doing the long goodbye, the one that takes fifteen minutes. Then the apartment was quiet.

Eli started the dishes. Nadia dried, leaning against him a little.

"Rice was fine," he said.

"Rice was terrible."

"Rice was fine," he said again, and she let him have it.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Maya had scorched the first batch of caramelized onions while answering a text, and Danny had scraped the pan clean without saying anything about it, which she appreciated more than she let on.

"Do we have enough chairs?" he asked, counting under his breath. Four kitchen chairs, the desk chair from the bedroom, and the stool from the closet that wobbled.

"Rachel can have the good chair. She has that back thing."

Danny wiped down the coffee table with a paper towel and a spray bottle. There was a ring on it from a mug, months old, that had stopped registering as dirt and started registering as furniture. He tried it anyway. It stayed.

Maya changed her shirt twice and settled on the one she'd started in. In the kitchen she tasted the soup, added salt, tasted it again, and handed the spoon to Danny.

"More salt," he said.

"That's what I thought." She added a pinch, which was less than he meant, and he let it go.

The guests came in a clump at 7:15, all four at once in the hallway, taking off shoes, holding bottles of wine they'd bought at the same store on the corner. Rachel got the good chair without being told. Somebody put on a playlist that nobody chose.

They ate with bowls in their laps because the table only seated four. Danny told the story about his boss and the fire drill, and Maya corrected two details, and he let her because she was right. Someone spilled a little wine on the rug, and Maya said don't worry about it, and meant it.

By eleven the guests were gone. Danny washed, Maya dried. The kitchen light was too bright and neither of them mentioned it. She bumped his hip with hers on the way to the cabinet, and he moved over to make room.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Devon had gotten distracted by a work email and let the onions go too dark, so now he was starting the sofrito again while Marisol wiped down the table they'd bought secondhand in September, the one with the water ring nobody could sand out.

"Do we have enough chairs?" she asked.

"Four plus the desk chair. Rachel can sit in the good one."

"Rachel is the one who complains about her back."

"That's why she gets the good one."

Marisol found a candle in the junk drawer, half-burned, from someone's birthday, and set it in a juice glass. It looked deliberate enough. Devon put on a record because he thought it made the place feel finished, then turned it down when it drowned out the sound of the buzzer.

Rachel and Peter arrived first with a bottle of wine and a story about parking. Then Ana, alone, because Ben had a fever. They stood in the kitchen the way people do, holding drinks, leaning against counters, while Devon stirred and pretended he wasn't checking the rice.

Dinner was late and fine. The chicken was good; the rice was slightly undercooked in the middle, which Marisol pointed out first so nobody else had to. Peter told a long story about his boss that everyone knew the ending of. Ana looked at her phone twice and apologized both times.

Afterward there was ice cream from the carton and a conversation about whether the neighborhood was getting better or worse. Rachel left her scarf. Devon washed and Marisol dried, and neither of them said much, which was its own kind of comfort.

"That was nice," she said, hanging the towel on the oven handle.

"The rice was bad."

"The rice was bad," she agreed, and turned off the light.


Nadia found the good tablecloth wadded in the bottom drawer, creased into a grid. "It's fine," Theo said from the stove. "Nobody looks at the tablecloth."

"My mother looks at the tablecloth."

"Your mother isn't coming."

She ironed it anyway, on the carpet, with a towel underneath, while he tasted the sauce and added more salt than she would have. Their apartment was on the third floor of a building in Somerville and smelled, at six-fifteen, like garlic and the neighbor's cigarette drifting through the bathroom vent.

Theo had bought two bottles of wine and a third that he hid behind the cereal because Marcus always drank fast. Nadia set out four plates, then five, remembering that Jess was bringing the new boyfriend whose name they'd both forgotten.

"Eli," Theo said. "It's Eli."

"You don't know that."

"I'm ninety percent."

The buzzer went off at seven-ten. Marcus came up first with a bag of clementines, which nobody had asked for, and made a joke about the stairs. Jess arrived twenty minutes later with a man who was, in fact, named Eli, and who took off his shoes without being asked, which Nadia appreciated.

They ate at the table with the ironed cloth. The chicken was good. Theo told the story about the car battery and Nadia corrected the part about the tow truck, and he let her, mostly. Eli turned out to work in HVAC and explained why the back bedroom was always cold, drawing on a napkin. Marcus opened the third bottle without knowing it was the hidden one.

By eleven everyone was gone. Nadia scraped plates; Theo washed. She dried and put away wrong, as always, the bowls stacked in the cabinet meant for glasses.

"He was fine," she said. "Eli."

"He was fine." Theo wrung out the sponge. "Leave the pan. I'll get it tomorrow."

He didn't, and neither did she, until Sunday.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Danielle scraped the ruined caramel into the trash while Marcus stood on a kitchen chair, trying to change the bulb over the sink that had been out since March.

"We could just say we planned it dim," he said. "Romantic."

"It's Thursday. Nobody's romantic on a Thursday."

The bulb went in. The kitchen turned bright and unflattering, revealing every crumb on the counter, and they both laughed at how bad it looked. Danielle started another batch of caramel and this time watched it, arms crossed, while Marcus wiped the table and set out the mismatched plates—two from his mother, four from a thrift store on Cedar.

Erin and Paul arrived at seven with a bottle of wine and their dog, who they'd forgotten to mention they were bringing. Marcus took the leash without complaint and tied it to the radiator. Jenna came twenty minutes late from her shift, still in scrubs, apologizing.

They ate at the table, elbows close, passing the roasted chicken and the potatoes that were slightly underdone in the middle. Nobody said anything about the potatoes. Paul talked about his brother's divorce. Erin asked when Danielle's lease was up, and Danielle said June, and Marcus said, without looking up, that they were probably staying, and Danielle felt something warm and uncomplicated settle in her chest.

The caramel worked the second time. They ate it over ice cream, standing, because the dog had gotten under the table and nobody wanted to sit anymore.

By eleven everyone was gone. Marcus washed, Danielle dried. The radio played low. She told him the potatoes were his fault and he said he knew, and she flicked water at him, and he let it happen.

They left the good pan soaking and went to bed with the kitchen light still on, neither of them willing to get up and turn it off.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Nora had scorched the first batch of glazed carrots, and Danny had scraped them into the trash while she started over, neither of them saying anything about it beyond his hand on her back as he passed.

"Do we have enough chairs?" she asked.

"Four kitchen, two folding, and the ottoman."

"Nobody's sitting on the ottoman, Danny."

He counted again out loud, mostly to annoy her, then went to the closet for the folding chairs. One had a wobbly leg. He wedged a matchbook under it and set it at the spot where Marcus would sit, because Marcus was the kind of person who wouldn't mention it.

Nora changed her shirt twice. The second one had a small stain near the hem, so she went back to the first.

Their friends arrived within ten minutes of each other, all four of them, carrying wine and a store-bought pie that Priya apologized for twice. The apartment filled fast. Danny took coats and piled them on the bed. Somebody put on music and then somebody else turned it down so they could hear each other.

The chicken was good. The carrots were fine. Marcus asked about the wobbly chair, actually, and everyone laughed while Danny defended his matchbook engineering. Priya told a long story about her landlord that ended without a real ending. Nora refilled glasses and forgot to eat much of her own plate.

Around eleven, the conversation thinned. People started checking their phones. Coats came off the bed. There were hugs at the door, promises to do this again sooner.

Then it was just the two of them and the dishes. Danny washed, Nora dried and put away, and they went over the whole evening the way they always did, sorting through who said what, deciding together what it had all meant.


The oven had been running for an hour, and the apartment was too warm. Dana propped open the kitchen window with a paperback she'd been meaning to return to the library.

"Do we own a serving spoon?" Miles called from the other room. He was setting the table with the mismatched plates they'd accumulated over four years — two from his mother, three from a yard sale in Bloomington.

"The wooden one. It's in the drawer with the batteries."

He found it. He also found three take-out menus, a screwdriver, and a birthday candle. He left all of it where it was.

Dana pulled the chicken out and stood back from the steam. She'd followed a recipe her coworker had sworn was foolproof, and the skin had come out the color she'd hoped for, which felt like winning something small.

"Twenty minutes," Miles said, checking his phone. "Priya texted. They're bringing wine."

"Good, because we have a bottle of something Tom left in November."

"That's still in there?"

"It's behind the pickles."

He came into the kitchen and stood behind her, looking at the chicken over her shoulder. "That looks real."

"It's a real chicken, yes."

"You know what I mean." He kissed the top of her head and reached past her for the salad tongs.

By seven-fifteen there were five people in a living room meant for three. Priya sat on the floor by choice. Someone spilled a little wine on the rug and everyone agreed it was fine, it was an old rug.

The chicken went fast. Miles told the story about the flat tire in Ohio, and Dana corrected two details, and he let her.

At eleven they carried plates to the sink together, not talking much, the dishwasher already full from earlier in the week.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar, which Priya insisted was intentional.

"It's caramelized," she said, tilting the pan toward Marcus. "That's different from burnt."

"It's black."

"It's *deeply* caramelized."

He took the pan from her, scraped the onions onto a plate, and started over with the second pound. Priya went back to the salad, tearing romaine with her hands because the good knife was somewhere in the sink under a colander. Their apartment was small enough that they'd worked out an unspoken choreography over four years—she moved left when he moved right, they passed each other with a hand on a hip or a shoulder, half affection and half traffic management.

At six thirty she went to change and came back in the green sweater. Marcus told her it looked good. She said he had onion on his forehead and licked her thumb to get it, which he protested and then submitted to.

Dev and Karen arrived first with a bottle of wine and a story about the parking situation on Warren Street. Then Sam, alone, because his girlfriend had a shift. They ate at the table Marcus had refinished last spring, which still wobbled slightly on the left. Priya put a folded coaster under the leg midway through the meal, without comment, the way she always did.

Conversation went to Karen's job, then to a documentary nobody had finished, then to whether Sam should get a dog. Marcus argued yes. Priya argued that Sam couldn't keep a plant alive. Sam said the plant had a fungus.

By eleven everyone was gone. Priya washed, Marcus dried. She told him the onions had been fine, actually. He said he knew.

They left the last pan to soak and went to bed, the dishwasher running its cycle in the dark kitchen behind them.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Nora had scorched the first batch of caramelized onions while answering a text from her sister, so Daniel had scraped the pan clean and started over, standing at the stove in the T-shirt he'd worn to bed.

"They're coming at seven," she said, wiping down the counter for the third time.

"They're always late."

"Marcus isn't late. Marcus is the one who texts when he's parking."

Daniel conceded this. He moved the onions off the heat and went to find a shirt with buttons. Nora set the table with the four matching plates and two that didn't match, arranging them so the mismatched ones went to the seats she and Daniel would take. She lit a candle, decided it smelled too much like vanilla against the food, and blew it out.

At 6:52, Marcus texted that he was parking.

The evening unfolded the way these evenings did. Jess brought a bottle of wine and a bag of clementines, which nobody could explain. Marcus took off his shoes without being asked, which Daniel noticed and appreciated. They ate the chicken, which was slightly overdone at the ends, and the onions, which were perfect, and everyone said so, and Nora said "Daniel made those," and Daniel said "Nora prepped them," which was mostly true.

Someone knocked over a water glass. Jess told a long story about her landlord that ended with everyone agreeing the landlord was terrible. The clementines got eaten after all, peeled over the tablecloth, the rinds piling into a small orange heap that Marcus kept adding to.

At eleven they were gone. Nora ran the water hot and Daniel dried, and neither of them said much, and the pile of peels sat on the table until morning, when Daniel finally threw them out.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Nadia had scorched the first batch of caramelized onions and started over, and now the second batch sat glossy and dark in the skillet while she scrolled through the recipe on her phone with a knuckle, hands too greasy to swipe.

"Do we own a trivet?" Theo called from the living room.

"We own two. They're under the sink for some reason."

He found them behind a bottle of vinegar, wiped the dust off with his sleeve, and set them on the table. Then he moved the stack of mail to the bedroom, straightened the rug with his foot, and lit the candle Nadia's sister had given them at Christmas, the one that smelled vaguely like a hotel lobby.

"They're going to be late," he said. "Priya's always late."

"That's why I said six-thirty when I meant seven."

"Devious."

"Practical."

Priya and Marcus arrived at 7:05 with a bottle of wine and a container of cut fruit that nobody had asked for. Marcus took off his shoes without being asked, which Theo appreciated. There was the usual crowding in the small kitchen, everyone reaching around each other for glasses, Nadia telling people to sit down and nobody sitting down.

Dinner was the onion tart, a salad with too much dressing, and bread Theo had bought that afternoon and warmed in the oven. They talked about Priya's commute, about a coworker of Marcus's who had quit dramatically, about whether the building's laundry room had always been that bad. Nadia knocked over her water and Theo caught the glass before it rolled off the table.

They stayed until almost eleven. Afterward, Theo washed and Nadia dried, both of them a little drunk and quiet, the dishwasher not worth running for so few plates.

"That was nice," she said.

"It was," he said, handing her the skillet.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Dana had scorched the first batch of caramelized onions while arguing on the phone with her sister, so she'd started over, and now there were two pans going and not enough burners.

"Do we own a trivet?" Marcus called from the dining nook, where he was wiping down the table with a paper towel that was disintegrating in his hand.

"We own three. They're all under the sink for some reason."

He found them behind a bottle of vinegar. The table was too small for six, but they'd decided six was fine—people could hold plates in their laps if it came to that. Marcus set out mismatched forks. Dana had inherited her grandmother's silver, but it lived in a box in the closet and nobody wanted to polish it.

The Ruiz-Kaplans arrived first, eleven minutes early, with a bottle of wine and their coats still on because the hallway heater was broken. Priya came later, apologizing, having taken the bus. Marcus took jackets and piled them on the bed. Dana got the onions onto the tart just as the oven timer went.

Dinner was good. The tart held together. Someone knocked over a water glass and everyone laughed and Marcus got a dish towel without making a thing of it. They talked about a coworker's wedding, about whether the new grocery store was actually cheaper, about a documentary two of them had seen and the rest hadn't. Priya asked when Dana and Marcus were going to get a bigger place, and Dana said when the rent made sense, which was to say never.

By eleven everyone had gone. Marcus washed, Dana dried, both of them quiet in the way of people who had been performing for hours.

"That went well," she said.

"Yeah." He handed her the tart pan. "You want the last of the wine?"

They split it.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Nadia had scorched the first batch of glazed carrots and thrown them out, and Theo had been dispatched to the corner market for more, returning with carrots, a bag of ice, and, inexplicably, a bouquet of grocery-store tulips.

"We don't have a vase," she said, not looking up from the cutting board.

"We have that pitcher."

"That's for water."

"Then people will have flowers in their water." He filled the pitcher anyway and set it in the middle of the table, where it blocked the view across but nobody would mention it.

They had lived together for three years in this second-floor unit with the radiator that clanged. The dinner was for four: Priya and Marcus, who had just bought a house forty minutes north and wanted to talk about grout, and Kev, who was between apartments and would bring beer, and Kev's new girlfriend, whose name Theo had written on his hand and then washed off.

At six-forty Nadia changed her shirt twice. Theo vacuumed the rug in three passes and stopped when the cord unplugged itself.

"Sonia," he said, standing in the bedroom doorway. "That's her name. I remembered."

"You're sure?"

"Eighty percent."

They came all at once, the way guests do, crowding the small entryway with coats. Marcus admired the tulips. Kev's girlfriend was named Sonia. The chicken was slightly dry, and Nadia apologized for it twice until Priya told her to stop. Somebody knocked over a beer and Theo got the roll of paper towels and everyone lifted their plates in unison, laughing.

Later, after the last coat left, Nadia stood at the sink with her sleeves pushed up and Theo dried, and they went over it all—who said what, who seemed happy, whether the carrots had been worth it.


Naomi found the good tablecloth wadded in the bottom of the linen closet, creased into a grid. She shook it out over the table and pressed the folds with her palms while Theo argued with the oven, which had been running forty degrees cold since March.

"It says three-fifty. It's lying."

"Just leave the chicken in longer."

"That's not how physics works," he said, but he left it in longer.

They'd invited four people: Priya and her boyfriend Marcus, and Theo's coworker Dev, who was bringing someone named Colleen nobody had met. Naomi had made a salad with too much red onion and was now trying to pick some out. Theo came up behind her, took a slice, ate it.

"That's what I'm removing."

"Then it's removed."

The apartment smelled like garlic and the candle Naomi's sister had given them, something called Cedar Morning. At six-forty she changed her shirt twice. Theo swept the living room rug with a broom because the vacuum had a broken belt neither of them had ordered a replacement for.

Priya and Marcus arrived first with a bottle of wine and a paper bag of clementines, which seemed random until Priya explained they'd been on sale, an incredible price. Dev came twenty minutes later. Colleen turned out to be tall and quiet and a veterinary technician, and she and Naomi talked for a long time about a dog Naomi had as a kid.

The chicken took an extra thirty-five minutes. They ate the bread and most of the cheese waiting for it. Marcus told a story about getting locked out of a rental car in Reno. Theo refilled glasses. Under the table Naomi's foot found his ankle and stayed there.

Everyone left by eleven. Theo washed, Naomi dried, and they argued mildly about whether the oven was worth fixing or just worth working around.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar, which Renée insisted was intentional. She'd caramelized onions too long, and now she was scraping the pan while Daniel wiped down the coffee table with a paper towel, chasing a ring left by his own water glass three days earlier.

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

"Then we'll have time to hide the laundry." She nodded toward the armchair, where a mountain of unfolded towels had lived since Sunday.

Daniel gathered them into a hamper and carried it to the bedroom, kicking the door shut with his heel. When he came back, Renée had already opened the wine to breathe and was arranging cheese on the good cutting board, the one with the crack she'd sealed with mineral oil.

"Do we own four matching chairs?" she asked.

"We own two matching chairs and two chairs."

"That's fine. That's charming."

The buzzer rang at seven-forty. Marcus and Priya came up carrying a bakery box and apologizing for parking. Priya hugged Renée and immediately noticed the pothos over the sink, said it was thriving, and Renée admitted Daniel was the one who watered it.

They ate at the table with the mismatched chairs. The chicken was slightly dry; Renée said so before anyone else could, and Daniel said it was good, which was true enough. Marcus talked about his brother's move to Denver. Priya asked about their lease, whether they'd renew, and there was a small pause while Renée and Daniel looked at each other and Daniel said probably, they liked the neighborhood.

Dessert was the bakery box: four éclairs, slightly squashed. Nobody minded.

Afterward Priya helped stack plates despite protest. The door closed at eleven-fifteen. Renée leaned against it, shoes off, and said that went well. Daniel was already running the water, sleeves pushed up, and told her to leave the pans, he'd get them.


Nadia found the good tablecloth at the bottom of the linen closet, still creased from the last time they'd used it, which had been Thanksgiving, which had been eleven months ago.

"It's wrinkled," she said.

Devon looked up from the stove, where he was pushing chicken thighs around a pan with tongs. "Nobody's going to look at the tablecloth."

"Sonia will look at the tablecloth."

"Sonia's not coming. She has that thing with her sister."

Nadia stopped in the doorway. "Since when?"

"She texted me Tuesday. I told you."

"You did not tell me."

He shrugged, which was his way of ending arguments he suspected he'd lose. She spread the cloth over the table anyway and pressed the creases flat with her palms, then went to find candles, because candlelight hid a lot.

The chicken came out better than either of them expected. Devon had followed a recipe for once instead of improvising, and the skin crackled when he pressed it. Nadia made a salad with the good vinegar and stole two croutons before it reached the table.

Marcus and Alina arrived first, with wine and a paper bag of clementines from the Korean market on Ninth. Then Theo, alone, apologizing for the traffic, apologizing for being empty-handed, apologizing until Nadia handed him a beer and told him to stop.

They ate. Marcus told the story about his boss and the fire alarm, and Alina corrected two details, and Devon laughed so hard he had to set down his fork. Nadia noticed the candle wax pooling onto the tablecloth and decided not to care.

Later, after everyone left, they stood in the kitchen with the dishes stacked and the counters wiped. Devon leaned against the refrigerator, still holding a dish towel.

"That was good," he said.

"It was." She turned off the overhead light. "You really didn't tell me about Sonia."

"I know," he said. "Sorry."


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Maya had let the onions go too dark while she was texting her sister, and now she was scraping the pan into the trash, swearing under her breath.

"There's another onion," Danny said from the living room, where he was shoving a laundry basket into the coat closet. "Bottom drawer, I think."

"I know where the onions are."

He came into the kitchen anyway and found it for her, half-sprouted, and set it on the cutting board without comment. She bumped him with her hip, which was as close to an apology as either of them needed.

They'd been in the place fourteen months. The dining table was the one thing they'd bought new, and it still felt slightly formal, like a guest that hadn't left. Danny put out four plates, then went back for the mismatched wine glasses, then wiped a ring off the table with his sleeve.

Priya and Marcus arrived at seven-twenty with a bottle of red and a story about parking. Maya hugged them at the door with wet hands. Danny took coats and forgot to hang them, so they sat in a heap on the armchair all night.

Dinner was chicken thighs and rice and a salad that Marcus dressed himself at the table because he had opinions. The conversation went from Priya's boss to a documentary about caves to whether anyone had ever actually finished a jar of capers. Danny told a story wrong and Maya corrected two details and he let her.

Around ten Priya took her shoes off. Around eleven Marcus said they should go, and then didn't for twenty minutes.

After the door closed, Maya leaned against it. Danny started stacking plates.

"That was good," she said.

"Yeah." He handed her the wine bottle, an inch left in it. "You want this or should I?"

She drank it standing up, watching him run the water.


By six-thirty the kitchen smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Dana had scorched the first batch of caramelized onions and started over without saying anything, but Marcus noticed the pan soaking in the sink and didn't comment either. That was how they worked.

"Do we have enough chairs?" he asked, wiping down the table with a dish towel that had seen better decades.

"Four plus us. The desk chair, if we take the cushion off."

"It squeaks."

"Then someone will sit on it and we'll all know when they shift."

Marcus laughed and went to get the desk chair. Their apartment was small — a one-bedroom in a building where the radiators clanked all winter — and hosting meant rearranging the living room, pushing the coffee table against the wall, stacking magazines that had been accumulating since October.

Dana pulled the chicken out at six-fifty. It looked right, browned and glossy, and she felt the small private relief of something going according to plan. Marcus opened the wine to let it breathe, then admitted he wasn't sure that mattered for a twelve-dollar bottle.

Priya and Tom arrived first, apologizing for being early, holding a bakery box. Then Wes, alone, because Callie had a work thing. Six people in a room built for three, which turned out to be fine. The chicken was good. The onions, second batch, were very good. Wes sat on the desk chair and it squeaked and everyone knew when he shifted.

They talked about a movie none of them had liked, then about Tom's mother, who had fallen but was recovering. At some point Dana got up to make coffee and Marcus followed her into the kitchen, and while the water heated he leaned against the counter and said, "This is going well." She said, "It is," and handed him the mugs.


Marisol found the good tablecloth in the linen closet, folded beneath a stack of towels, still creased from the last time they'd used it. She shook it out over the table while Dev stood at the stove, stirring a pot of curry he'd started at four.

"It's got a wine stain," she said.

"Put a candle over it."

She did. Then she moved the candle twice more, deciding it looked staged, and finally left it slightly off-center, which felt honest.

Dev tasted the sauce and made a face. "Too much cardamom."

"There's no such thing."

"There's absolutely such a thing." He added a spoonful of yogurt and tasted again, then held the spoon out to her. She blew on it and tried it.

"More salt."

"That's what I said."

"You said cardamom."

The Ramirezes arrived first, ten minutes early, with a bottle of Riesling and their four-year-old, who had been promised a sleepover with a cousin that fell through. Anna Ramirez apologized twice. Marisol found the tablet and a pair of headphones and set the boy up on the couch, and after that nobody thought about it again.

Kevin came at seven thirty, alone, which everyone had expected but nobody mentioned. He brought a loaf of bread from the bakery on Ninth and immediately started slicing it without being asked, which Dev appreciated.

They ate. The curry was good. Anna told a long story about her boss that made Dev laugh so hard he had to put down his fork. Marisol refilled glasses. At some point the conversation turned to a mutual friend's engagement, and Anna asked, lightly, whether they were thinking about it.

"We're thinking about a dishwasher," Marisol said.

"Ours makes a noise," Dev said. "Like a wounded animal."

Kevin left last, at eleven. Dev washed; Marisol dried. The boy had fallen asleep on the couch and someone had carried him out.

"That went well," Dev said.

"The cardamom was fine."


Marisol found the good tablecloth crumpled at the bottom of the linen closet, smelling faintly of the cedar block she'd bought two winters ago and never replaced.

"It's wrinkled," she said, holding it up.

Dev looked over from the stove, where he was reducing a pan sauce that had already broken once. "Nobody looks at the tablecloth."

"Jenna looks at the tablecloth."

"Jenna looks at everything." He tasted the sauce, made a face, added a knob of butter. "There's a steamer in the hall closet. Behind the vacuum."

She found it, filled it at the kitchen sink while he moved his elbow out of her way, and steamed the cloth right on the table, which he told her would leave water rings and which, in fact, did not.

They had four people coming at seven. At six-forty Dev was still in his work shirt, and Marisol was arranging cheese on a board with the specific intensity she brought to tasks she considered beneath her.

"That's a lot of cheese for four people," he said, buttoning a clean shirt.

"There will be five people. Jenna's bringing the guy."

"The guy is real? I thought the guy was theoretical."

The guy turned out to be named Peter, who worked in insurance and brought a bottle of wine that Dev privately assessed as thoughtful. Marisol took coats. Someone put on music. The chicken was slightly overdone but the sauce, in the end, had held together, and Kwame said so twice, which Dev pretended not to notice and did notice.

Around ten they moved to the living room and talked about nothing—a neighbor's renovation, a movie nobody had liked. Marisol sat on the floor against Dev's shins. He put his hand on her shoulder without looking at her, absently, the way you touch a doorframe in your own house.

The last of them left at eleven-thirty. There were dishes. They left them.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar, which was Nadia's fault. She'd left the onions too long while she was texting her sister about their mother's knee surgery, and now the bottom of the pan had gone dark.

"It's fine," Theo said, scraping at it with the wooden spoon. "It's caramelized."

"It's carbon."

"Same family."

He'd gotten home at five thirty with the wine and the wrong kind of bread — a baguette instead of the seeded loaf she'd written down — and she'd decided not to mention it. He was still wearing his work pants, the gray ones with the fraying cuff he refused to throw out. She had changed into a sweater with a hole under the arm, which she figured no one would see if she kept her elbows down.

They'd lived together fourteen months. Her books were on his shelves now, mixed in badly, the paperbacks lying sideways on top of the hardcovers.

"Where do people sit?" he asked. There were five chairs for six people, counting the desk chair he'd rolled in from the bedroom.

"You take that one. You're the tallest."

"That's not how chairs work."

Marisol and Ben came first, with a bag of clementines, apologizing for the clementines. Then Dev, alone, because Priya's flight got delayed in Charlotte. He sat in the desk chair without being asked and spun once, slowly, and everyone laughed harder than the joke deserved.

The chicken was dry. Nobody said so. Ben talked for a long time about his commute, and Marisol put her hand on his arm in a way that meant *stop*, and he stopped.

At eleven the door closed and the room went quiet in that specific way. Theo started stacking plates. Nadia opened the window and stood in the cold air.

"That was good," she said.

"It was okay."

"That's what I said."


Nora chopped the last of the shallots while Dev knelt in front of the oven with a flashlight, trying to determine whether the pilot light had gone out again.

"It's lit," he said. "It's just slow."

"Everything in this apartment is slow." She scraped the shallots into a bowl. "Did you get bread?"

"Two baguettes. One's already a little stale, so we'll toast that one."

They had lived together four years in the second-floor unit on Ashland, long enough that the arguments about dish placement had settled into a treaty neither of them remembered negotiating. Dev set the table with the mismatched plates — four of the blue ones, two white — and folded paper napkins into rectangles because Nora had once said triangles looked like they were trying too hard.

Priya and Matt arrived at seven with a bottle of wine and their six-month-old, who was asleep in a car seat and stayed that way through the salad. Cole came twenty minutes later, apologizing about the train, carrying a grocery-store cheesecake still in its plastic dome.

The chicken took longer than the recipe promised. Nora refilled glasses to cover the gap. Dev told the story about his coworker who'd tried to microwave a hard-boiled egg, and Priya laughed hard enough that Matt put a hand on the car seat.

They ate at eight-fifteen. Someone knocked a fork onto the floor. The baby woke and was passed around, ending up on Nora's shoulder while she ate one-handed and Dev cut her chicken without being asked.

By ten they were talking about nothing — a neighbor's leaf blower, whether Cole should get a dog. The cheesecake was fine.

After everyone left, Dev washed and Nora dried, both of them quiet in the good way, and she said the chicken had been undercooked in one spot, and he said he knew, and they left the pans to soak.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Marisol had scorched the first batch of caramelized onions while trying to answer a work email, and Dev had insisted on starting over rather than "serving people something that tastes like regret."

"You're being dramatic," she said, wiping down the counter where a ring of olive oil had spread.

"I'm being accurate." He stood at the stove with a wooden spoon, sleeves pushed to his elbows, watching the second batch go slowly translucent. "Did you text Priya about the parking?"

"Twice. She's going to circle the block for twenty minutes anyway."

They had lived together for three years, which meant they had developed a shorthand for hosting: Dev cooked, Marisol handled everything else, and both of them pretended this division had been negotiated rather than simply settled into. She pulled the folding chairs from the hall closet, found the tablecloth with the wine stain, folded it so the stain sat under the bread basket.

Priya and Tom arrived first, then Kwame, who brought a bottle of something expensive and apologized for it. The table sat five uncomfortably. Someone's knee kept knocking the leg.

Dev's braised chicken was good, and he accepted the compliments too eagerly, the way he always did. Marisol caught his eye across the table and he grinned, a little sheepish. Under the table she pressed her foot against his.

Tom told a long story about his sister's wedding. Priya interrupted him three times. Kwame asked whether they'd ever thought about buying a place, and Marisol said the market was insane, and Dev said nothing at all, and the conversation moved on before anyone noticed.

They did the dishes at midnight, radio low. Dev washed. Marisol dried and put away, since he never remembered where anything went.

"That went fine," he said.

"It went fine," she agreed, and turned off the kitchen light.


Nadia found the good tablecloth at the bottom of the linen closet, creased into permanent squares. She held it up. "Iron, or pretend it's rustic?"

"Rustic," Theo said from the kitchen, where he was arguing with a chicken. The recipe said to butterfly it. He had kitchen shears in one hand and his phone propped against the sugar canister, playing a video by a man with enormous forearms.

"You're going to cut yourself."

"I'm going to cut the chicken."

She spread the cloth anyway and set out five plates, two of which didn't match. Their apartment had a dining table only because Theo's aunt had died and left them one, too big for the room, so guests had to shuffle sideways past it to reach the bathroom. Nadia lit a candle, decided it was too much, blew it out, then lit it again.

At six-forty the smoke detector went off. Theo waved a dish towel at it while Nadia opened the window over the sink, and cold air came in smelling like wet pavement and somebody else's laundry.

"It's fine," he said. "It's supposed to char a little."

"It's supposed to char a little," she repeated, in a voice.

Priya and Marcus arrived first, with a bottle of wine and a bag of clementines, which nobody had asked for and everyone ate. Dev came late from work, still in his badge lanyard. The chicken was, in fact, fine. Somebody knocked over a water glass and Theo said don't worry about it three times before he got the towel.

They talked about a coworker's divorce, a movie two of them hated, whether the building across the street had always been that color. Around eleven the guests left in a slow wave of half-finished goodbyes at the door.

Nadia started the water. Theo dried. Neither of them said the dinner had gone well, but it had.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Maya had caramelized the onions too long, and Dev was pretending not to notice while he wiped down the counter for the third time.

"They're fine," she said. "They're rustic."

"I didn't say anything."

"You wiped aggressively."

He held up the sponge in surrender. Outside, a car alarm went off and stopped. It was six forty, and Priya and Tom were due at seven, which in practice meant seven twenty. Dev pulled the folding chairs from behind the coat rack, and Maya slid the table two feet toward the window so four people could sit without one of them straddling the radiator.

They had lived here two years. The lease was in both names, which their mothers each considered either a triumph or a stalling tactic, depending on the mother.

"Do we have enough wine?" Maya asked.

"We have four bottles."

"For four people."

"That's a bottle each, which is either exactly right or a warning sign."

She laughed and handed him the salad bowl, and he set it down and kissed the side of her head, briefly, the way you do when your hands are full.

Priya and Tom arrived at seven fifteen with a store-bought pie and an apology about traffic. Tom immediately noticed the new bookshelf and said it looked crooked, which it was. Priya took her shoes off without being asked, which Dev appreciated more than he could say.

They ate the onions. Nobody said anything about them being dark. Tom told a long story about his sister's wedding that Maya had already heard twice, and she let him tell it anyway, catching Dev's eye across the table once.

At eleven, the guests left. Maya rinsed plates while Dev dried, and neither of them suggested waiting until morning, though they both thought about it.


Nadia found the good tablecloth folded at the bottom of the linen closet, smelling faintly of cedar. She shook it out over the table while Theo argued with the oven, which had a habit of running forty degrees hot.

"It's fine," he said. "I'll just check it every ten minutes."

"You'll forget."

"I'll set a timer."

He set three timers, staggered, which meant the kitchen chirped every few minutes for the next hour. Nadia cut the ends off the flowers she'd bought at the grocery store—orange gerbera daisies, a little bruised—and stuck them in a mason jar because they'd never gotten around to buying a vase.

The Kowalskis arrived first, eleven minutes early, with a bottle of wine and apologies. Dev came late, alone, explaining that Priya had a cold and sent her regrets and a container of lemon bars. Theo took coats and stacked them on the bed. Someone put on music, then someone else turned it down.

The chicken was slightly dry. Nadia noticed; she wasn't sure anyone else did. Theo kept refilling glasses without asking, which Nadia had told him not to do, but nobody seemed to mind. Marisa Kowalski described a coworker's slow-motion feud with the office refrigerator, and Dev laughed so hard he had to set down his fork.

Around ten, Nadia carried plates to the sink and Theo followed with the serving dishes. In the narrow kitchen he touched her back to move past her and said, quietly, "That went well."

"The chicken."

"Nobody cares about the chicken."

Later, after the goodbyes on the porch and the sound of car doors, they stood in the kitchen with the dishwasher running. Theo ate a lemon bar standing up. Nadia took half of it out of his hand, and neither of them said anything, and the timer went off one last time, for nothing.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Nadia scraped the blackened edge off the tart shell with the back of a spoon while Theo stood on a kitchen chair, fishing the good wineglasses down from the cabinet above the fridge.

"There are only five," he said.

"There were six."

"There are five."

She didn't look up. "Then someone drinks out of a jar. It'll be charming."

He got down, wiped the dust from the rims with a dish towel, and lined them up on the counter. Outside, a car alarm went off and cut out again. It was six-forty. The Reyeses were coming at seven, which meant seven-twenty, and Priya was coming at seven, which meant six-fifty.

Theo put on a record because Nadia said the silence made the apartment feel like a waiting room. He moved the pile of mail off the table and shoved it in a drawer that no longer closed all the way. Then he set the table, forgetting the napkins, and Nadia handed him the napkins without a word.

Priya arrived at six-fifty with a bottle of red and wet shoes. The Reyeses came at seven-twenty-five with their four-year-old, who had refused a babysitter and fell asleep on the couch before the salad. Theo carved the chicken badly. Nadia said it tasted better in pieces anyway.

They talked about Marcus's new job, about a neighbor's dog, about whether anyone had actually read the book they'd all bought. Nadia told the story about the airport in Denver and Theo corrected two details and she let him.

By eleven the tart was gone, the jar had been used, and Marcus was carrying his daughter down the stairs like a rolled rug.

Nadia washed; Theo dried. The record had ended a long time ago and neither of them had gotten up to turn it over.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burning butter, which meant Dana had walked away from the stove again.

"It's fine," she called from the bedroom. "Just stir it."

Marcus lifted the pan off the heat and scraped the browned bits into the pasta water. "It's not fine. It's brown."

"Brown is a flavor."

She came out in the green sweater, still barefoot, carrying two candlesticks she'd found at an estate sale in October and hadn't used since. She set them on the table, considered, moved them three inches to the left.

"Do we own matches?"

"There's a lighter in the junk drawer. Under the batteries."

They had lived together for four years in a one-bedroom above a dry cleaner, long enough that the negotiations were mostly wordless now. Marcus tore lettuce. Dana wiped the water spots off four wine glasses with a dish towel, held each one up to the light, put two back and got different ones.

Priya and Sam arrived at seven-twenty with a bottle of red and a story about parking. Marcus took their coats and piled them on the bed. Dana poured wine into the good glasses and one jam jar, because there were five people and four glasses, and she gave the jam jar to herself.

The pasta was slightly overcooked. Nobody said so. Sam had brought a loaf of bread from the place on Fulton and they tore it apart with their hands. Priya told a long story about her sister's wedding that Dana had heard twice already and laughed at anyway.

At eleven, Marcus started the dishwasher. Dana blew out the candles and stood in the kitchen doorway with her arms crossed, watching him rinse the pan.

"That went okay," she said.

"It went good."

"It went okay."

He flicked water at her. She let him.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt rosemary. Dana had left the sprigs in the pan too long while she was texting Marcus about the wine, and now a thin gray thread of smoke drifted toward the smoke detector she'd disabled three months ago.

"You disabled it," Marcus said, coming in with two bags. "Remember? We agreed that was temporary."

"It's still temporary." She took the wine from him. "Did you get the cheap stuff or the medium stuff?"

"Medium. Priya only drinks red anyway."

He started on the salad while she pulled the chicken out. They moved around each other in the galley kitchen with the practiced choreography of four years — he stepped left when she opened the oven, she leaned back when he reached for the colander. Neither of them noticed doing it.

"Should we say anything about Tom?" Dana asked.

"About the divorce? God, no. Let him bring it up."

"He might not bring it up and then we'll just be sitting there."

"Then we'll talk about the sinkhole on Elmwood."

The guests came at seven-fifteen, which was practically on time. Priya brought a lemon tart from the bakery on Ashland, still in its box with the tape on. Tom brought nothing and apologized twice for it. They ate at the folding table Marcus had bought for a different apartment, the one where the leg wobbled unless you shimmed it with a coaster.

Tom did bring it up, around nine, in a flat voice, and everyone let him talk. Then Priya told a story about her landlord and everyone laughed too hard, grateful.

At eleven they were alone with the plates. Dana washed, Marcus dried.

"That went okay," he said.

"He seemed all right."

"He seemed like he's pretending to be all right."

She handed him a wet bowl. "Same thing, sometimes."

Marcus put it in the cupboard, wrong shelf, and she didn't correct him.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt rosemary, which Priya insisted was fine.

"It's not burnt, it's caramelized," she said, scraping the sprigs off the chicken thighs and hiding them under a paper towel in the trash.

Daniel was at the table, trying to make five chairs fit around a surface built for four. He'd dragged the desk chair in from the bedroom, and it sat noticeably higher than the others, like a throne. "Whoever gets here last sits in this," he said.

"That's Marcus. He's always last."

"Then it's fine."

They'd cleaned for two hours that afternoon, mostly by relocating things. A laundry basket went into the closet. The mail pile went into a drawer. Daniel had wiped down the bathroom sink with a wad of toilet paper and considered it done.

Nadia and Josh arrived first with a bottle of wine and a store-bought pie, apologizing for the pie. Priya said she loved that pie. Marcus came twenty minutes later, took the tall chair without comment, and spent the first ten minutes describing a parking situation on Fulton Street in exhausting detail.

The chicken was good. The rice was a little wet. Daniel opened the second bottle of wine and knocked over the corkscrew, and Nadia caught it before it hit the floor, which everyone treated as an impressive athletic feat for longer than it warranted.

They talked about a coworker of Josh's who had quit dramatically, and about whether anyone still used a certain app, and about Marcus's sister's wedding in October. Priya's foot found Daniel's under the table during a lull, resting there.

At eleven, people started checking their phones. There were hugs at the door, promises to do this more often.

Daniel ran water over the pan. Priya leaned against the counter, holding the last inch of her wine, not drinking it.

"That went well," she said.

"It did."


The kitchen smelled like garlic and burnt rosemary, which Dana insisted was the good kind of burnt.

"It's not," Marcus said, scraping the sheet pan into the trash. "It's the kind where the smoke alarm gets involved."

He'd been home since four, which meant he'd had time to vacuum the living room and hide the laundry basket in the bedroom closet. Dana had come in at five-thirty still wearing her work badge, kicked off her shoes by the door, and immediately started opening cabinets, looking for the big serving bowl.

"Middle shelf," Marcus said without turning around. "Behind the crockpot."

They had four people coming: Nadia and her boyfriend Sam, and two guys from Dana's climbing gym whose names Marcus kept mixing up. Six chairs for a table meant for four, one of them dragged in from the desk in the second bedroom.

"Do we have enough wine?"

"We have too much wine. That's a different problem."

Dana laughed and started tearing lettuce with her hands because she couldn't find the good knife, which was in the dishwasher, which Marcus hadn't run. He ran it. The machine hummed and everything felt slightly more under control.

Nadia arrived twelve minutes early with a bakery box and an apology. Sam came ten minutes after, straight from work. The climbers—Eli and Trey, Marcus finally got it—brought a six-pack and immediately asked about the framed photo in the hallway, which was Dana's grandmother in Michigan in 1974.

Dinner was chicken thighs and the salad and rice that came out sticky. Nobody minded. Sam told a long story about a customer at his shop that made Dana laugh so hard she had to put her fork down.

At eleven, after everyone left, Marcus started the dishes and Dana dried, and neither of them said much, and it was fine.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar, which Nadia insisted was fine. She was scraping the blackened crust off the top of a tarte tatin while Dev, still in his work shirt, wedged a fourth chair between the table and the radiator.

"It's going to be tight," he said.

"They'll be drunk by then. Nobody measures elbow room after wine."

He laughed and went to find the good glasses, which lived in the back of the closet inside a box labeled WEDDING—not theirs; his sister's, from three years ago, when they'd been on cleanup duty and nobody ever asked for the glasses back. Six of them, only one chipped.

Nadia had made too much food, as always. Braised chicken, a lentil salad she'd found online at eleven the night before, bread from the place on Ninth that Dev had walked to in the cold because she asked him twice. He set the table while she showered, and when she came out with wet hair he told her the chicken looked incredible and she said it looked like something out of a hospital cafeteria.

Marisol and Tom came first, then Priya alone, because Ken had a fever. They ate crowded and knee to knee. Tom told the story about his boss and the fire alarm, and Marisol corrected him twice. Priya kept refilling Nadia's glass without being asked.

Later, when everyone had gone and the radiator clanked, Dev stood at the sink with his sleeves rolled up. Nadia dried, stacking plates badly.

"Priya seemed okay," she said.

"She seemed tired."

"Everyone's tired."

He handed her the last pan. Outside a car alarm started and stopped. She leaned against him for a second, briefly, then turned off the tap and went to find where she'd left the tart, still mostly whole, on the windowsill.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Dana had let the onions go too dark, and Micah kept opening the oven to check the chicken, which she told him twice was letting all the heat out.

"You said that already," he said.

"Because you did it again."

He shut the oven and went back to slicing bread, holding the knife the way his father had taught him, sawing instead of pressing. Dana wiped the counter with a paper towel and found a dried lentil from last Tuesday's soup, welded to the tile. She scraped it with her thumbnail.

The Andersons arrived first, fifteen minutes early, which Dana had predicted. Rebecca handed over a bottle of red and apologized for the wet label; it had been in the fridge. Tom took off his shoes without being asked, then looked at Micah's sneakers by the door and put them back on, embarrassed.

They ate at the small table with a folding chair pulled up on one end. Micah's chicken was fine. Dana said it was dry and he said it wasn't, and Rebecca said it wasn't, and the conversation moved on to Tom's coworker who had quit by email at two in the morning.

Later, Julia came by after her shift, still in scrubs, and ate standing up at the counter because the table was full. She talked about a patient's daughter who had brought a birthday cake to the ICU. Nobody knew what to say to that, so Micah refilled her glass.

Around eleven, people started checking their phones. Dana walked everyone to the door and hugged each of them, even Tom, who was stiff about it.

When they were gone, Micah stood in the kitchen holding a stack of plates.

"That was good," he said.

"It was fine," Dana said, and turned on the water.


The rice cooker clicked over to warm at six-fifteen, which meant Nadia had about forty minutes before people arrived and the kitchen still smelled like the garlic she'd burned on her first attempt.

"I'm calling it," she said, scraping the blackened cloves into the trash. "The second batch is fine. Nobody's going to know."

Theo was in the living room, moving the coffee table three inches to the left and then three inches back. "Should we do candles? We have those candles from your mom."

"The ones that smell like a bathroom?"

"They smell like linen."

"They smell like a hotel bathroom." She came out drying her hands on a dish towel that had been white once. "Put out the beeswax ones. And can you deal with the record player? It's been making that sound."

He crouched by the turntable and blew dust off the needle, which was the extent of his technical ability, and it worked, which was annoying to both of them in different ways.

Priya and Owen came first, with a bottle of wine and a bag of clementines nobody had asked for. Then Dev, alone, because Sam had a work thing. They ate the chicken and the rice and a salad Theo had made with too much red onion, and Owen told a long story about his landlord that got funnier the more people interrupted it.

Around ten, Nadia found Theo in the kitchen scraping plates into the compost bin.

"You don't have to do that now."

"I know." He handed her a clementine. "It went okay?"

"It went fine." She peeled it, standing hip to hip with him at the sink, listening to Priya laugh at something in the other room. The garlic smell had faded. Someone had put on a different record.

They went back in.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar, which Dana insisted was intentional.

"It's caramelized," she said, tilting the roasting pan toward Marcus. "Onions do that."

"They do that when you forget them," he said, but he took the pan and set it on the trivet anyway, then went back to arranging chairs. They only had four matching ones. The fifth was the wooden stool from the bedroom, wobbly on the left leg, and he'd already decided he'd take it himself.

Dana had made a list on the back of an envelope: chicken, salad, bread, the lemon thing her mother used to make. She'd crossed off everything but the lemon thing, which sat half-finished on the counter, waiting for a zester neither of them could find.

"Use the cheese grater," Marcus said.

"That's not the same."

"It's the same enough."

She grated the lemon. It was close enough.

Priya and Tom arrived at seven with a bottle of wine and their four-year-old, who had refused to be left with a sitter and who immediately found the cat under the couch. Jenna came twenty minutes later, apologizing about the train, still in her work clothes. Marcus took her coat and couldn't find a hanger, so he laid it over the bed with the others.

Dinner ran long. The chicken was good. Someone spilled wine on the tablecloth Dana's aunt had given them, and Dana said it was fine, that's what tablecloths are for, and it mostly was fine.

They talked about Tom's job, about a movie none of them had actually seen, about whether the building next door was going condo. The four-year-old fell asleep on the couch at nine-thirty and Priya carried him out at ten, shoes in her free hand.

After, Marcus washed and Dana dried, and neither of them said much, and it was easy.


By six, the apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Nadia had scorched the first batch of caramelized onions while answering a work email, and Theo had scraped the pan into the trash without comment, which she appreciated more than sympathy.

"Do we own six matching plates?" he called from the cabinet.

"We own four. And two from your mother."

"So we own six plates."

He set the table anyway, alternating the mismatched ones so it looked deliberate. Nadia wiped down the counter twice, moved the mail pile into the bedroom, and then moved it under the bed when she realized the bedroom door would be open for coats.

Priya and Marcus arrived first, with a bottle of wine and a story about parking. Then Dev, alone, apologizing that Sam had a fever. Six plates became five. Theo poured wine into the two wine glasses, a jam jar, and three mugs.

Dinner was chicken thighs and rice, which Nadia had made a hundred times and which turned out fine. Marcus asked for the recipe and she said honestly that she didn't have one. The conversation went where it always went: rent, someone's brother's wedding, whether Dev should take the job in Denver. Theo argued he should. Nadia argued he shouldn't, then admitted she just didn't want him to leave.

At some point Priya knocked over her mug of wine and Theo was up with a dish towel before anyone else moved, saying it was fine, the table was already ruined, look at this gouge here, that was from a bike repair.

They ate the store-bought pie standing up, because it was easier.

After everyone left, Nadia washed and Theo dried, and neither of them talked much. He put the mugs away in the wrong cabinet. She moved them, later, without saying anything about it.