Marisol found the good tablecloth crumpled at the bottom of the linen closet, exactly where she'd stuffed it after Thanksgiving. She shook it out and held it up to the kitchen light. Two wine stains, faint but present.

"Wrong side down," Dev said, glancing over from the stove. "Nobody's going to lift the plates."

"Priya lifts plates."

"Priya has never lifted a plate in her life."

She spread it over the table anyway, arranging the water glasses to cover the worst of it. The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar—Dev had let the onions go too dark, then started over, and now the second batch was going right while the first cooled in a bowl he refused to throw away.

"We could use those," he said. "In something."

"In what?"

"I'll think of something."

She counted chairs. Five, plus the desk chair from the bedroom, which had a wobble but would hold Ben, who was the lightest. Six people, four dinner plates, two from the set his mother had sent when they moved in together and which neither of them particularly liked. Marisol had suggested once that they register somewhere, as a joke, and Dev had laughed and then not laughed, and they hadn't talked about it since.

He wiped his hands and came over to move the candle three inches left. She moved it back.

"It looks staged," she said.

"It looks nice."

"It looks like a restaurant."

"That's a compliment."

The buzzer went off at 7:04, which meant Ben, who was always first and always apologized for it. Dev pulled off his apron, hung it on the oven handle, and looked around the room once—the crooked tablecloth, the mismatched plates, the bowl of onions he still hadn't found a use for.

"Good enough," he said.

Marisol was already at the door.


Dana found the good tablecloth crumpled at the bottom of the linen drawer, wrinkled in a way that suggested it had been shoved there sometime around last Thanksgiving. She shook it out over the table anyway, smoothing the creases with the flat of her hand while the oven ticked behind her.

"It's fine," Marcus said, coming in from the porch with the folding chairs. "Nobody's inspecting the tablecloth."

"Sarah will notice."

"Sarah has a two-year-old. Sarah will be thrilled to sit anywhere that isn't sticky." He set the chairs down and crossed to the stove, lifting the lid off the pot without asking. Steam rose. He tasted the sauce with a wooden spoon, made a face that Dana had learned to read over three years of shared kitchens, and reached for the salt.

"Don't."

"It needs it."

"It needs to reduce. There's a difference." But she didn't stop him, and he added a pinch, and she tasted it after and admitted nothing.

They moved around each other in the small kitchen with the practiced choreography of people who had negotiated who got which side of the sink. Marcus dumped ice into a bowl for the beer. Dana lit the candles she'd bought that afternoon and then blew them out because it was still too early and they'd burn down to nubs before dessert.

At six-forty the doorbell rang, ten minutes early, which was Kevin, who was always early and always apologetic about it. Marcus went to answer it. Dana caught a glimpse of herself in the dark window over the sink — flour on her sleeve, hair coming loose — and decided it was good enough.

She heard Kevin's laugh in the hallway, and Marcus saying something she couldn't make out, and then more voices, and the house filling up the way it did.


Marisol was rinsing the last of the grit from the potatoes when Dev came in from the garage carrying two folding chairs, one under each arm.

"We're four chairs short," he said, setting them by the wall. "Unless people want to sit on the ottoman."

"Nadia will sit on the floor. She always sits on the floor." Marisol tipped the potatoes into a colander. "Can you check the roast? I think I put it in at three-fifteen."

Dev opened the oven and a wave of rosemary and hot fat rolled into the kitchen. He poked at the meat with a fork the way she'd shown him last winter, which he still wasn't sure he understood. "It looks like a roast," he reported.

"Extremely helpful."

He kissed the side of her head on his way to the sink and started washing the cutting boards stacked there. The apartment was small enough that they'd learned a kind of choreography over three years — he stepped left when she pivoted right, she lifted an elbow so he could reach the dish soap.

"Did you text Owen about the wine?" she asked.

"He's bringing two bottles of something Portuguese. He sent a picture of the label like I'd know what it meant."

Marisol laughed and started slicing bread. At six-forty she went to change out of the shirt she'd sweated through, and Dev put on the playlist they'd argued about, the one that was mostly hers with four of his songs buried in the middle. He lit the candle on the table, then blew it out because it smelled like vanilla and clashed with the food, then lit it again because the room looked better with it.

She came back in a green sweater, wiping her hands on her jeans out of habit. "How do we look?"

He glanced around: the mismatched chairs, the crowded counter, the window fogged from the oven. "Like people are coming over."

The buzzer rang.


Marisol was still elbow-deep in the sink when Dev came in from the garage carrying two folding chairs, one under each arm.

"We're four chairs short," he said.

"We're not. Beth is bringing her own, because she says ours hurt her back." Marisol wiped her hands on a dish towel. "And Andre is standing the whole time anyway. He never sits."

Dev set the chairs by the table anyway and started wiping them down with a paper towel. The garage dust came off gray. Outside, someone's leaf blower was going, which meant the Kowalskis were finally dealing with their maple.

"Did you salt the potatoes?" she asked.

"I salted the water."

"That's not the same."

"It's better," Dev said. "It's how my mother does it."

Marisol let it go. She had her own thing going on the stove, a pot of beans she'd started that morning, and she'd already decided she wasn't going to hover over his half of the meal. Last time she had, they'd both ended up sulking through dessert while their friends pretended not to notice.

At six-fifteen she went upstairs to change. Dev heard the shower for four minutes—she was fast—and then the closet door, and then her calling down about whether the green shirt was too much.

"Too much for Beth and Andre?" he called back.

"That's a yes."

"That's a no. Wear it."

He put on music, something without words, and lowered the blinds on the west side where the sun came in hard this time of year. There were still napkins to find. They had cloth ones somewhere from when Marisol's aunt visited.

She came down in the green shirt, holding two candles she'd dug out of the hall closet.

"They're going to be late," she said.

"They're always late."

"I know. I just like being ready before."

He found the napkins in the bottom drawer. The doorbell rang twenty minutes later.


Marisol found the good tablecloth crumpled at the bottom of the linen closet, right where she'd shoved it after Thanksgiving.

"It's got a wine stain," she called toward the kitchen.

"So put a candle on it," Dev said. He was standing over a pot of rice, phone propped against the backsplash, watching a video of a man in Kerala explaining something in Malayalam that Dev only half understood. His mother had sent it three days ago with the message *this is how*. He'd made the dish twice before and ruined it twice.

Marisol came in with the tablecloth balled under one arm and inspected the counter. Four cutting boards, all dirty. Two colanders. The good knife on the floor, somehow.

"How long have you been cooking?"

"Since two."

"It's six." She said it without judgment, mostly. They'd lived together eleven months, long enough that she'd stopped narrating his messes and started just working around them. She ran the sink hot and started stacking.

"Leave it, I'll get it after."

"Yannick's always early."

"Yannick's never early."

"Yannick is always early and you always forget this about him." She scrubbed a colander. Behind her, Dev turned off the burner and lifted the lid, and the smell that came up was black mustard seed and curry leaf and something faintly burned at the edges, which was, he'd decided, part of it.

He put a spoonful on his palm and held it out to her. She tasted it off his hand, thought about it.

"That's really good."

"You sound surprised."

"I'm surprised every time." She dried her hands on the dish towel hanging off his shoulder. "Go change your shirt. There's rice on it."

He looked down. There was rice on it.

The buzzer went at 6:15. Yannick, early, holding grocery-store flowers still in their plastic sleeve.


Marcus tasted the sauce, made a face, and reached for the salt.

"You already salted it," Delia said from the sink, where she was scrubbing the good roasting pan they used maybe twice a year.

"That was before I added the tomatoes."

"That was also before you added the second can of tomatoes, which nobody asked you to do."

He salted it anyway. She let it go. They'd lived in the duplex on Halsted for two years now, long enough that she knew he'd never admit when she was right about food, and long enough that he knew she'd never stop being right.

The apartment smelled like garlic and the pine cleaner she'd used on the bathroom floor an hour ago. Outside, Chicago was doing its late-October thing—dark by six, wind rattling the storm windows.

"Did you text Priya about the peanut thing?" Marcus asked.

"I texted her. She said Ben's allergy is fine as long as we didn't cook with peanut oil."

"We didn't."

"I know. That's what I told her." Delia dried her hands and started counting out forks. There were only five matching ones, so she put the sixth mismatched one at her own place. "Your brother's bringing wine?"

"He said he was. Which means he'll show up with a six-pack and an apology."

"I bought a backup bottle."

"Of course you did."

She set out the plates, then went to change out of the sweatshirt she'd been wearing since noon. When she came back in a clean sweater, Marcus was moving the couch six inches to the left so there'd be room for the folding chairs.

"That's not going to matter," she said.

"It'll matter when Ben sits down and his knees are in the coffee table."

The buzzer went off. Delia looked at the sauce, then at Marcus.

"It's fine," he said.

"It's a little salty."

"It's fine." He kissed her temple on his way to the door.


Marisol had the oven at 375 and a timer she kept forgetting to look at. Dev came in from the driveway with two bags of ice and the good cheap wine, the kind that photographed well in the bottle and disappeared fast enough that nobody critiqued it.

"Sunlight's brutal in there," he said, nodding toward the dining room. "It's like an interrogation."

"So close the blinds."

"Then it's a séance."

She waved a wooden spoon at him. "Pick a mood, Dev."

He compromised: blinds half-drawn, candles from the drawer where they kept batteries and takeout menus and a single mysterious key. While he arranged them, Marisol tasted the braise and decided it needed twenty more minutes and possibly a miracle. They had lived in the house on Dupree Street for three years, unmarried in a way neither of them found urgent, though her mother brought it up at Thanksgiving with the reliability of a seasonal allergy.

"Table or laps?" he called.

"Table. There are seven of us."

"We own five chairs."

"There's the piano bench."

Dev dragged the bench in and wiped the dust off with his sleeve, which was, she pointed out, why he had to change his shirt. He changed his shirt. She swept the hallway, found a hair tie and four dollars in loose change, and put both on the counter without comment.

At 6:40 the doorbell went early — Priya always came early — and Marisol turned the burner down while Dev answered, and there was that half-second in the kitchen where she heard the door open and the porch noise come in, and she thought, unsentimentally, that this was the part she liked. Not the dinner. The ten minutes before, the two of them moving around each other in a small warm house, arguing about lighting.

"Bring wine!" Priya announced.

"We have wine," Dev said. "We have so much wine."


Dana found the good tablecloth at the bottom of the linen closet, wrinkled into a shape that suggested it had been shoved there in a hurry sometime around Thanksgiving.

"Iron or candles?" she called down the hall.

"Candles," Marcus said from the kitchen. "Nobody looks at the tablecloth after the first glass of wine."

She spread it anyway, smoothing the creases with her palms, and set the two mismatched candlesticks in the center — one brass, one ceramic, both from separate lives before the lease they'd signed together eighteen months ago. The apartment still had that quality, a merger of inventories. His cast iron, her stand mixer. His records, her books.

In the kitchen, Marcus was arguing with a chicken. He'd trussed it badly and now the legs kept splaying open like the bird was giving up.

"Just tie it tighter," Dana said, appearing at his elbow.

"I'm tying it as tight as physics allows."

She took the twine from him, looped it under the drumsticks, pulled, and knotted. The chicken pulled itself together.

"You've been holding out on me," he said.

"My mother made me help every Sunday for eleven years. It's not a talent, it's a hostage situation."

He slid the pan into the oven and checked his phone. "Priya says they're bringing that terrible wine again."

"Be nice."

"I'm being descriptive."

Dana wiped down the counter, then the table, then moved a stack of mail into a drawer, which was, she knew, not really solving anything. Marcus put on a record, something with horns, and turned it down until it was just a suggestion.

At quarter to seven she stood in the doorway and looked at the room — the candles unlit, the chairs pulled from three different rooms, the smell of the chicken beginning to fill everything.

"It looks good," she said.

Marcus handed her the lighter. "It looks like people live here."

Downstairs, the buzzer went off.


Marisol found the good tablecloth folded at the bottom of the linen closet, still creased from the last time they'd used it, which had been Thanksgiving, which had been nine months ago. She shook it out over the table and smoothed the folds with her palm while Dev hollered something from the kitchen about whether five pounds of chicken thighs was too much for six people.

"It's never too much," she called back. "Ana eats like a linebacker."

He came out holding a spatula, apron strings hanging loose behind him because he never bothered tying them. "Ana is five foot one."

"And she'll take home a plate. Trust me."

The apartment was a second-floor walk-up in a part of Providence where the rent had gone up twice since they'd signed the lease, and they'd agreed—separately, at first, then out loud—that they'd stay anyway. There was a wine stain on the living room rug from a party the previous winter that Dev had scrubbed at for an hour and Marisol had eventually covered with a chair.

She lit the candles at six forty. He turned them off—the overhead lights, not the candles—and then turned them back on because it was too dark to see the food.

"You're nervous," she said.

"Beth's husband is a chef."

"Beth's husband works at a hotel restaurant. He makes eggs Benedict for tourists." She reached past him for the corkscrew, hip brushing his. "Also nobody's grading you."

"Everybody's always grading me."

She laughed at that, and he did too, a little, and then the buzzer went off downstairs and they looked at each other with the same flicker of panic—the salad wasn't dressed, the bathroom hand towel was the ugly one—and then Dev pressed the button and said come on up, and Marisol swapped the towel, and it was fine.


Marisol was rinsing the last of the arugula when Dev came through the back door with two bags of ice and the particular expression he got when he'd been thinking too long in the car.

"They only had the cubed kind," he said. "Not the good crushed."

"Nobody's going to notice the ice."

"Priya will notice the ice."

She dried her hands on the dish towel hanging off the oven handle and took the bags from him, and he went to change out of the shirt he'd worn to work, which smelled faintly like the copy room. Their apartment was on the second floor of a house in Somerville, and it had the kind of kitchen where two people couldn't both be productive at once, so they'd developed a rotation over four years: she cooked, he cleaned as she went, then they switched for the last twenty minutes.

He came back in a gray henley and started on the dishes stacked from the roasting pan. "Did you text your brother back?"

"I will."

"You said that Tuesday."

"I know what I said." She was tasting the vinaigrette, adding salt, tasting again. "Can you light the candles? The ones on the shelf, not the fancy ones."

"What makes them fancy."

"They were eighteen dollars."

He found the matches in the drawer with the batteries and the takeout menus nobody had thrown away since 2019. Outside, a car door slammed, and they both looked up, but it wasn't for them.

"Chicken's got fifteen minutes," she said. "Sit down for a second."

They sat at the table with the leaf still folded, in the two chairs that faced each other, and didn't say much. He reached over and straightened the collar of her shirt where it had folded under.

Then the buzzer rang, and she stood, and he got the door.


Marisol found the good tablecloth crumpled at the bottom of the linen closet, exactly where she'd shoved it after Thanksgiving. She held it up to the kitchen light, squinting at a faint ring of red wine near one corner.

"Dev, do we own an iron?"

"We own an iron." He was crouched at the oven, checking the chicken thighs, the skin just starting to blister. "It's behind the vacuum. Under the thing."

"That's not an answer."

"It's a location."

She found it, eventually, and set up the board in the living room while the radiator clanked. Outside, February had turned the street into a gray slush. Their apartment was the top floor of a Brooklyn walkup they'd been sharing for two years, long enough that his mother had stopped asking pointed questions and started asking about their landlord instead.

Dev pulled the pan out, tipped it, spooned schmaltz over the chicken. "Julia's bringing her new boyfriend."

"I know."

"Do we know anything about him?"

"He does something with insurance. Actuarial." Marisol ran the iron over the stain, which did not improve. She flipped the cloth so the corner would sit under the wine bottles. "Or he's an actuary. I wasn't listening carefully."

"So we've got nothing."

"We've got you asking him questions about insurance for forty-five minutes."

"I can do that," Dev said. "I'm genuinely capable of that."

She laughed, and he glanced over at the sound, still holding the spoon. The kitchen smelled like garlic and lemon. Somebody downstairs was playing a bass line through the floor.

At six-forty the buzzer went. Marisol was still barefoot, hunting for the corkscrew in the drawer with the batteries and the takeout menus. Dev wiped his hands on a dish towel, kissed the top of her head as he passed, and hit the button.

"Found it," she said, holding it up.

"Perfect timing." He was already unlocking the door.


Marcus wiped the counter for the third time while Dana stood in the doorway of the pantry, holding two bottles of wine like scales.

"The Malbec or the Rioja?" she asked.

"Both. Ben drinks whatever's open, and Priya always brings something anyway."

Dana set them on the counter and went to check the oven. The chicken had another twenty minutes. She'd found the recipe on a food blog Tuesday night and had been quietly anxious about it ever since, though she'd told Marcus it was easy.

"Did you text Joel about the parking?" she said.

"I told him to use the alley. Whether he reads it is another matter."

The apartment was small enough that they kept bumping into each other, a choreography they'd gotten used to over four years — first in her old studio, then here, in the second-floor unit on Adams with the radiator that clanked. Marcus moved the laundry basket into the bedroom and shut the door. Dana lit the candle her sister had given them at Christmas, decided it smelled too much like a hotel lobby, and blew it out.

"Napkins," Marcus said. "Do we have real ones?"

"In the drawer under the silverware. The blue ones."

He found them, folded them badly, and set them out. Dana came behind him and refolded two before catching herself.

"Sorry."

"No, they were terrible."

She laughed. He put his hand on her back on the way past, briefly, the way he did.

At six-forty the buzzer went. Dana pulled the chicken out — it looked right, better than right — and Marcus went to hit the door release, calling down the stairwell that they were on the second floor, watch the third step.

"Ready?" he said.

Dana pushed her hair back with her wrist. "Ask me in an hour."

Voices came up the stairs, Priya's laugh among them, and Marcus opened the door.


Marisol was pulling the roasting pan out of the oven when Dev came through the back door with two bags of ice and rain on his shoulders.

"They were out of the good limes," he said. "I got the sad ones."

"Sad limes are fine. Nobody's making cocktails but you." She set the chicken on the stove to rest and tented it with foil. The kitchen smelled like garlic and burnt lemon, which was mostly her fault—she'd let the peels sit too long under the broiler.

Dev dumped the ice into the cooler on the porch and came back rubbing his hands on his jeans. "Table or floor?"

"Table. There are only six of us."

"Last time you said floor."

"Last time it was August."

He got the leaf out of the hall closet and wrestled it into the table while she found the cloth napkins, the ones her mother had given them when they moved in, which they used approximately twice a year. One had a stain shaped like Ohio. She folded it so the stain faced down and put it at her own seat.

"Kaycee's bringing her new boyfriend," Dev said. "Do we know anything?"

"He does something with insurance. She said he's quiet."

"That could mean anything."

"It could mean he's quiet."

At six forty Dev put on a clean shirt and a record, something with a lot of horns, and Marisol swept the hallway where the dog had been shedding into the baseboards for a month. She looked at the living room from the doorway the way a stranger would, then moved the laundry basket into their bedroom and shut the door.

"You look nice," Dev said, handing her a glass.

"You're just saying that because I'm the only woman here."

"Kaycee's coming."

"Then I'll enjoy it while it lasts."

Headlights swung across the front window. Dev went to the door.


Marisol found the good tablecloth crumpled at the bottom of the linen closet, exactly where she'd shoved it after Thanksgiving. She held it up to the kitchen light and counted three wine stains.

"Iron won't fix that," Theo said, edging past her with a colander of green beans.

"I'm aware. I'm mourning." She folded it back up. "Placemats it is."

They'd lived in the duplex on Fillmore for two years now, long enough that their systems had merged. Theo cooked, mostly, because he liked the control of it. Marisol handled everything else—the playlist, the lighting, the strategic hiding of the laundry basket in the bedroom closet. She'd learned that people never opened closets.

"Did you text Priya about the shellfish thing?"

"She said allergy, not preference. I'm not making the shrimp." He was blanching the beans now, one hand on the tongs, the other scrolling a recipe he'd already read four times. "Can you do the thing with the candles?"

"The thing with the candles is called lighting candles."

"You do it better."

She did, actually. She arranged three mismatched votives on the windowsill and a taper in an old wine bottle on the table, then dimmed the overhead until the room went soft and forgiving, hiding the scuff marks by the baseboard.

At 6:40 Theo swore quietly at the oven. The chicken needed twenty more minutes, and everyone was due at seven, and Sam was always early.

"Wine first," Marisol said. "Nobody's ever mad if there's wine first."

He looked at her, still holding the tongs, his shirt half-untucked. "You're right."

"I'm frequently right."

She pulled the corkscrew from the drawer that stuck, and he came up behind her and kissed the side of her head, briefly, on his way to the sink. The buzzer rang at 6:52. Sam, of course.


Marisol wiped condensation from the kitchen window and watched the last of the daylight slide off the neighbor's roof. Behind her, Dev was arguing gently with the oven.

"It says preheat to four hundred, but it's been beeping at four-twenty for ten minutes."

"That thing lies," she said. "Trust the thermometer, not the beep."

They'd lived in the rental on Winslow Street for two years, long enough to know which floorboard announced visitors and which burner ran hot. Marisol was chopping cilantro; Dev was assembling something involving chickpeas that he'd found on a food blog at 2 p.m. and had been quietly panicking about since 4.

"Ravi's bringing wine," Dev said. "Which means it'll be that one he likes that tastes like a barn."

"Be nice."

"I'm being descriptive."

She laughed and handed him the lime. Outside, a car door slammed somewhere down the block, and they both looked up — false alarm.

There was a stretch of twenty minutes where things got tense in the way they always did: Dev couldn't find the good serving bowl, Marisol realized she'd forgotten ice, and someone had to run to the corner store. Dev went, jacket half on, and came back with ice, a bag of limes they didn't need, and a bunch of grocery-store tulips that he stuck in a water glass because the vase had broken in August.

"They're a little sad," he said.

"They're fine." She moved them to the middle of the table anyway, adjusting them twice.

At 6:52 they stood in the kitchen doorway, surveying it: mismatched chairs pulled from the bedroom, a playlist Marisol had made that morning, the smell of cumin and garlic thick and good.

"We forgot napkins," Dev said.

"Paper towels. Folded. Nobody will notice."

The doorbell rang. He kissed the side of her head on the way past, and she followed him down the hall.


Marisol pulled the roast from the oven at 6:40, twenty minutes later than she'd planned, and the kitchen filled with the smell of rosemary and burnt garlic from the pan she'd forgotten on the back burner.

"It's fine," Devon said, scraping the pan into the sink. "Nobody's going to know."

"Ellen will know. Ellen notices things."

He ran water over the pan and set it aside to deal with later, which meant tomorrow. Their apartment in Somerville was small enough that the dining table had to be pulled away from the wall, and he did that now, dragging it three feet into the living room and hunting for the folding chairs they kept behind the coat rack. One of them had a wobble. He gave it to himself.

Marisol changed out of the shirt she'd cooked in and came back tying her hair up. "Did you get wine?"

"Two reds. And the seltzer for Priya."

"You remembered."

"I remembered."

She looked at the table. He'd set it with the good plates, the ones her mother had sent when they moved in together two years ago, and he'd folded the napkins into something approximating triangles. There were no candles because they'd used the last ones at Christmas, so he'd put a small lamp in the center instead, which was strange and somehow worked.

"That's nice," she said.

"It's a lamp."

"It's nice."

At 6:55 he vacuumed the rug, quickly, in long ugly strokes, while she carved the roast and arranged the potatoes in a bowl that was slightly too small. The buzzer went off at 7:04. Devon shoved the vacuum into the hall closet and Marisol wiped her hands on a dish towel and threw it into the bedroom, and they looked at each other for a second in the middle of the room.

"Ready?" she said.

"No."

She hit the buzzer anyway, and they heard footsteps starting up the stairs.


Marcus checked the oven timer for the third time in five minutes. The chicken had another twenty, which meant he had another twenty to worry about whether he'd used enough rosemary.

"You're hovering," Priya said from the dining room, where she was wrestling a tablecloth into something resembling flat. "Come help me with this instead."

He came. Together they smoothed the linen, working from the center outward like they'd learned from a video neither of them would admit to watching. The table had been her grandmother's, hauled from Sacramento in a rented van two years ago, back when they'd first signed the lease on the little bungalow in Rosemont.

"Six or seven?" Marcus asked, counting placemats.

"Seven. Danny's bringing whoever he's seeing now."

"Whoever he's seeing now."

"Be nice."

"I'm always nice." He set the seventh placemat down and went back to the kitchen, where the salad still needed dressing and the wine needed opening and somewhere in the back of the fridge there was a container of olives he'd forgotten to put out.

Priya put on music — something instrumental, low, the kind of thing that filled silence without demanding attention. She lit the two candles they'd bought at the farmers market and never used. Then she went to change out of the T-shirt she'd worn all day.

When she came back, Marcus had the wine open and had spilled a little on the counter and was wiping it with a paper towel that was disintegrating in his hand.

"It looks good," she said, meaning the room, the table, all of it.

"It looks like we tried."

"We did try."

The doorbell rang eight minutes early. Marcus swore quietly. Priya laughed, tucked her hair behind her ear, and went to answer it, and behind her he heard the oven timer finally start beeping, right on time for once.


Marisol wiped the counter for the third time, not because it was dirty but because her hands needed something to do. The apartment smelled like garlic and browning butter, and outside the kitchen window the November dark had already settled over Milwaukee.

"They're going to be late," Devon said from the living room. He was crouched by the record player, flipping through sleeves. "Priya's always late."

"Twenty minutes late is on time for Priya. That's just her timezone." Marisol lifted the lid off the pot, tasted, added more salt. She'd been nervous about the braise all week — it was her grandmother's recipe, and she'd never made it for anyone outside her family.

Devon came in and stood behind her, resting his chin on her shoulder for a second before reaching past her for a wine glass. "Smells like your abuela's house."

"Don't jinx it."

He laughed and started uncorking the bottles they'd bought Saturday, lining them up on the counter like soldiers. Then he disappeared into the bedroom and came back holding two shirts on hangers. "Blue or the green one?"

"Green. The blue one has that thing on the collar."

"What thing?"

"The thing. Trust me."

He went to change. Marisol set the table — six places, mismatched plates they'd accumulated over three years of living together, the good napkins her mother had sent as a housewarming gift with a note that said *for when you have people over*. She lit two candles and immediately blew one out, deciding it looked like too much.

Devon returned in the green shirt, sleeves rolled. He surveyed the table, moved a fork a quarter inch, and she rolled her eyes at him.

The buzzer went off at 7:12. Devon looked at her. "Priya time," he said, and went to let them up.


Marisol wiped the counter for the third time, though it was already clean. She kept doing that when she was nervous—finding small tasks to fill her hands.

"They're going to be forty minutes late," Dev said from the living room. "Kenny is always forty minutes late."

"Then the bread will be perfect." She pulled the loaf from the oven anyway, tapping its bottom, listening for the hollow sound her grandmother had taught her to listen for. It was there.

Dev came in carrying a stack of mismatched plates, the ones they'd accumulated over four years of thrift stores and hand-me-downs from his sister. He set them on the table and stood back, frowning.

"Do we care that none of these match?"

"We've never cared."

"I know. I'm asking if tonight we care."

Marisol looked at him over her shoulder. He was wearing the gray shirt she liked, sleeves pushed to his elbows, and he had that particular expression—half-amused, half-genuinely worried—that meant he was thinking about his mother's dinner parties from 1998.

"We don't care," she said.

He nodded and started folding napkins into rough triangles.

The apartment smelled like garlic and rosemary and the beeswax candles she'd bought on a whim at the farmers market. Outside, the December dark had come early, and the window over the sink had fogged at the edges.

"Wine's open," Dev said. "The red one Priya brought last time. I figured we'd return the favor by serving it back to her."

"That's terrible."

"That's economical."

Marisol laughed and handed him the salad tongs. He took them and, in the same motion, kissed the side of her head—quick, unthinking, the way he had a thousand times.

The buzzer rang. Twelve minutes early.

"That'll be Priya," Marisol said.

Dev went to the door. Behind him, she straightened the last crooked fork, and let it be.


Marisol was slicing lemons at the kitchen island when Dev came in from the garage carrying two folding chairs and a bag of ice that was already sweating through the plastic.

"Six people, four chairs," he said. "I did the math around three o'clock and panicked."

"You could have panicked out loud. I would have panicked with you." She wiped her hands on the dish towel hanging from the oven handle and took the ice from him before it soaked his shirt.

Their apartment was a second-floor walkup in a building from the fifties, with radiators that clanked and a window in the living room that faced the parking lot of a Walgreens. They had moved in together fourteen months ago, after a stretch of Marisol keeping half her clothes in Dev's closet anyway. Her mother still asked, gently, about plans. Marisol still said, gently, that they were happy.

Dev set up the chairs, then rearranged the coffee table twice before Marisol told him it was fine. He put on a record because he liked the ceremony of it, though the speaker in the kitchen would have been louder.

"Did you salt the pasta water?" she asked.

"I salted it like the ocean. Like a man who has been told about salt many times."

She laughed and reached past him for the colander, and he caught her by the hip for a second, briefly, the way people do in kitchens.

By six-forty the chicken was resting under foil, the salad was dressed except for the greens, and the good glasses—eight of them, mismatched, collected from estate sales—were out on the counter. Marisol changed her shirt. Dev lit the one candle they owned that wasn't scented like a bakery.

The buzzer rang at seven. Someone downstairs was laughing already.

"Ready?" Dev said.

"No," she said, and went to hit the button.


Marisol dropped the last handful of cilantro into the bowl and glanced at the clock. Six-forty. Danny had said seven, which meant Priya would show up at six-fifty-five and everyone else would drift in by seven-thirty.

"Do we have enough chairs?" she called.

Danny came out of the bedroom pulling a shirt over his head, hair still damp. "Five, plus the two from the desk. That's seven. Who's coming?"

"Priya, Marcus, Deb, and Tom. So six of us."

"Then we're fine." He crossed the kitchen, kissed the top of her head, and opened the fridge. "Where's the beer?"

"Bottom shelf. Behind the milk."

He crouched, moved things, made a sound of triumph, and started lining bottles on the counter. Marisol nudged him aside with her hip to get to the sink.

"Sorry." He stepped back. "Should I light the candles?"

"After they get here. They'll burn down."

They'd lived in the apartment on Belmont for two years now — long enough that the arguments about the dishwasher and whose turn it was to call the landlord had settled into a rhythm neither of them thought about much. Long enough that Danny knew to salt the rice again after she said it was done, and Marisol knew he'd fold the towels wrong no matter how many times she showed him.

He picked up the pile of mail from the table and shoved it in a drawer. She wiped the counter behind him.

"You look nice," she said, not looking up.

"You too." He was already retying his shoe. "Did we get bread?"

"On the top of the fridge. Where you put it."

The buzzer went off. Six fifty-three.

"Priya," they said at the same time, and Danny went to press the button.


Marisol pressed the last dish towel into service, wiping condensation from the wine glasses she'd pulled from the back of the cabinet. The good ones. The ones they only used when someone besides the two of them was eating.

"Do we have enough chairs?" she called toward the living room.

Danny appeared in the doorway, sleeves rolled, holding the folding chair he'd retrieved from the hall closet. "Six, counting the desk chair. Nobody's going to fight about it."

"Rob will comment on it."

"Rob comments on everything." He set the chair against the wall and came into the kitchen, leaning past her to check the oven. The chicken had another twenty minutes, maybe less. He'd started the marinade that morning before work, garlic and lemon and too much oregano, the way his mother made it in Cleveland.

Marisol slid the salad bowl toward him. "Toss this when they get here, not before. It gets soggy."

"I know how salad works."

"You made soup out of it at Thanksgiving."

"That was a mistake I've carried with dignity."

She laughed and reached up to fix his collar, a small automatic gesture, then turned to light the two candles in the middle of the table. They weren't fancy candles. They'd come from the grocery store on Larkin, three dollars for a pair, and they smelled faintly of vanilla, which clashed with the oregano, but the light was good.

Danny put on music, something with horns, low enough to talk over. He poured two fingers of wine and handed her the glass without asking.

"They're going to be late," she said.

"They're always late."

The doorbell rang at 6:52, eight minutes early, and they looked at each other, and Marisol wiped her hands on her jeans and went to answer it while Danny reached, finally, for the salad.


Marisol found the good tablecloth in the linen closet, the one her mother had given them when they moved into the duplex on Fremont Street. It smelled faintly of cedar. She shook it out over the dining table while Danny stood at the stove, stirring a pot of white beans he'd started that morning.

"Did you salt these?" he called.

"You salted them. I watched you salt them."

"I salted them once. That's not the same as salting them."

She came into the kitchen, dipped a spoon in, tasted. "More salt."

"Thank you."

Ruthie and Ben were bringing wine. Marisol's coworker Dev was bringing his new girlfriend, whom nobody had met, which Danny had said three separate times that week like it was a plot development. The apartment was small enough that they'd have to eat with two chairs borrowed from the bedroom, and one of those chairs had a wobble Danny kept meaning to fix.

"The bathroom," she said.

"I did the bathroom."

"You wiped the sink."

"That's the bathroom."

She got the cleaner from under the kitchen sink and went to do the mirror and the tub while he pulled the bread out and set it on the rack. Through the wall she heard him put on the record they always put on, the one Ben had left behind in June and never asked for back.

At six forty she changed her shirt twice. At six fifty Danny came in with his hands still damp and said, "Do I look like a person who cooked?"

"You look like a person who's been standing over beans for eleven hours."

"Good."

She straightened the collar of his shirt and he caught her wrist for a second, not saying anything, and then somebody knocked, and the dog next door started up, and they both went to the door at the same time.


Marisol wiped the counter for the third time, though it hadn't gotten any dirtier since the second.

"They're going to be fifteen minutes late," Dev said from the stove. "Terrence is always fifteen minutes late."

"Which means Priya will be early to compensate." She checked the oven light. The bread was browning unevenly, the way it always did in this apartment's ancient range. Three years in the place and they still hadn't complained to the landlord.

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

"There's no such thing."

"Says the woman who puts lemon in coffee."

"That was once. In Portugal. And it was a mistake I've apologized for repeatedly."

He handed her the spoon anyway. She tasted, considered, shrugged. "More salt."

The apartment smelled like garlic and the eucalyptus candle she'd bought because the label said "calming" and she'd been in a mood at Target. Dev had lit it an hour ago without being asked, which she noticed and didn't mention.

She set the table—six plates, mismatched, two from his mother's set and four from a thrift store on Grand. The wine glasses didn't match either. Nobody had ever commented.

"Napkins," he said.

"Paper towels."

"Marisol."

"They're the nice ones. The ones with the pattern."

He laughed, quiet, still stirring. Outside, someone's car alarm went off and stopped.

She changed her shirt twice, settled on the green one, came back out. Dev had put on music, something with horns, low enough to talk over. He'd wiped the counter again. She let him.

The buzzer went at 7:12. Priya, apologizing for being early.

"You're not," Marisol said, taking the bottle from her hands, and Dev came out of the kitchen still holding the wooden spoon, and the apartment filled up the way it did—loudly, all at once, everyone talking before their coats were off.


Marisol found Dev in the kitchen at ten past six, elbow-deep in a bag of ice, swearing at the cooler that wouldn't close.

"You bought the wrong ice," she said.

"There's a wrong ice?"

"Cubes, not crushed. Crushed melts in twenty minutes." She took the bag from him anyway and dumped half of it in the sink. "It's fine. Just put the beer in the fridge."

Their apartment in Somerville was small enough that they'd been navigating around each other for three years without collision, a kind of choreography. Dev slid past her to the fridge; she pivoted to the stove without looking. The chicken thighs had been braising since four, and the whole place smelled like paprika and onions, which mostly covered the smell of the neighbor's cigarettes drifting through the bathroom vent.

"Did you text Kenny about the parking?" she asked.

"I told him to use the lot behind the CVS."

"He'll get towed."

"He's a grown man."

"He got towed in April."

Dev conceded this by not answering. He went to work on the table instead, unfolding the leaf they only used for company, setting out the mismatched plates—six from her grandmother, two from a yard sale in Vermont. He arranged them so the chipped ones faced away.

Marisol tasted the sauce and added vinegar. Then she stopped, wooden spoon in hand, and looked around at the folded napkins and the lamp Dev had moved to hide the water stain on the wall.

"We're actually adults," she said.

"Don't jinx it."

The buzzer went off at 6:40, twenty minutes early, which meant it was Priya, who was always early and always apologized for it. Dev wiped his hands on his jeans. Marisol pulled the tray from the oven, set it on the stovetop, and said, "Okay. Go let her in."


Marisol wiped the counter for the third time, though it was already clean. Behind her, Devin was arguing with the oven.

"It says two-twenty-five," he said. "But the dial only goes in fifties."

"Just split the difference and check it in twenty minutes."

He set it to two-hundred and slid the tray of chicken thighs in anyway. The apartment smelled like lemon and garlic, which covered the fact that neither of them had vacuumed since Tuesday.

They had lived together fourteen months. Her mother still called it "the arrangement," in a tone that suggested it was temporary weather. Devin's parents had stopped asking. Between them, there had never been a conversation about rings, only a long, unhurried agreement about who bought the coffee and how to load the dishwasher — his way, which was correct, though she wouldn't admit it.

"Kenny's bringing his new girlfriend," Marisol said, folding paper napkins into imperfect triangles. "The one who does the pottery."

"Ceramics."

"That's what I said."

"You said pottery. She corrected me once. It stuck."

The doorbell wasn't until seven-thirty. It was six-fifty. Devin found the good glasses on the top shelf and handed them down one at a time, and she rinsed the dust off them, and neither of them said anything for a while. The radiator ticked. Somebody's dog barked in the courtyard.

"Do we have enough chairs?" he asked.

"If Ellie sits on the ottoman."

"Ellie always sits on the ottoman."

"Then we have enough chairs."

He came up behind her at the sink and rested his chin on her shoulder, just for a second, the way he did maybe twice a week without ever planning to. Then he went to find the corkscrew, and she started the rice, and at seven-twenty-five the first knock came, early, the way Kenny always was.


Marisol found the good tablecloth crumpled at the bottom of the linen closet, exactly where she'd shoved it after Thanksgiving. She held it up to the kitchen light, considering the wine stain near one corner.

"Just put a candle on it," Devon said, edging past her with a colander of rinsed green beans. Their apartment in Somerville had a galley kitchen that made two people feel like four.

"A candle isn't going to cover a stain the size of my hand."

"Then a serving dish. Nobody's inspecting the linens, Mari."

She spread it anyway, positioning the bread board over the offending spot with the precision of a surgeon. Outside, a plow scraped down the street, though the snow had stopped hours ago.

Devon had made his mother's chicken and rice, which meant the whole place smelled like saffron and browned onions, and which also meant he'd been slightly tense since two o'clock. He kept lifting the lid to check.

"You're letting the steam out," Marisol said.

"I know what I'm doing."

"You've said that four times."

He grinned without turning around. "Because it keeps being true."

She found six matching wine glasses by combining two sets — three from his old apartment, three she'd inherited from her grandmother — and lined them up on the counter. Six people, six glasses. Jess and Rob were bringing dessert. Amara was bringing her new boyfriend, whose name neither of them could remember.

"Theo," Devon said, reading her face. "It's Theo."

"Theo. Right." She wiped a water spot from the last glass. "Do we have enough chairs?"

They didn't, quite. Devon carried the desk chair in from the bedroom, and Marisol draped a throw blanket over its cracked vinyl seat, and they stood back and looked at the table together for a second, the way people do.

The buzzer rang at 7:04.


Marisol wiped condensation from the kitchen window and watched the rain slick the driveway. Behind her, Dev was arguing with the speaker in the corner, which kept insisting it couldn't find the playlist he wanted.

"Just put on anything," she said. "They'll be here in forty minutes."

"Anything is how we ended up with smooth jazz at Toby's birthday."

She laughed and went back to the chicken, which had been in the oven since four and smelled the way her mother's kitchen used to smell on Sundays, garlic and lemon and something faintly burnt at the edges. Six people, counting them. She'd counted the forks twice already and still felt like she was forgetting something.

Dev came up behind her, kissed the back of her neck, and took the pepper grinder out of her hand. "You're overseasoning again."

"I'm compensating for the fact that you undersalted the potatoes."

"I salted them exactly right. You have destroyed your palate with hot sauce."

They had lived together three years in the small blue house on Ferndale, long enough that these arguments had grooves worn into them, comfortable as a couch cushion. Marisol's sister still asked when they were going to make it official; Marisol had stopped having an answer beyond a shrug. It didn't feel unfinished to her. It felt like this: rain, chicken, Dev hunting for the good corkscrew in the drawer full of takeout menus and dead batteries.

"Napkins," she said suddenly. "That's what I forgot."

"Paper's fine."

"It is not fine, Toby's bringing his new girlfriend."

Dev found the cloth ones in the linen closet, wrinkled, and ironed them badly on the counter with a dish towel underneath while Marisol lit candles. Headlights swung across the front window. She smoothed her shirt, he wiped his hands, and they went to the door together.


Marisol found the good tablecloth in the linen closet, still creased from the last time they'd used it, back in April for her sister's birthday. She shook it out over the dining table and pressed the folds flat with her palms.

"Do we have enough chairs?" Devon called from the kitchen. He was standing over a pot of chili, tasting from a wooden spoon, adding cumin, tasting again.

"Six, if we bring the desk chair in."

"That thing squeaks."

"Then Kevin can sit in it. He'll think it's funny."

Devon laughed. He wiped his hands on a dish towel and went to get the chair anyway, wheeling it down the hallway while Marisol counted out silverware. They'd lived in the apartment two years now, since the lease on her old place ran out and it had seemed obvious, almost boring in its obviousness, that she should just move in. Her books had taken over his shelves. His records had taken over her record player, which she never used anyway.

"Napkins," she said. "We have those paper ones."

"We have cloth ones. Somewhere."

"Do we?"

He found them in a drawer under the takeout menus, four of them, mismatched. Marisol set them out and decided four was fine, that Kevin and Priya could share.

At six-fifteen Devon went to shower. Marisol lit the two candles they owned and turned on the lamp in the corner instead of the overhead light, which made everything look like a dentist's office. She put on a record — his, an old Bill Withers — and turned it low.

He came out with his hair wet, buttoning a shirt she liked. "It smells good in here," he said.

"That's you. That's the chili."

The buzzer went off at six-forty. Devon looked at her, and she looked back, and then she went to let them in.


Marisol pressed the last dish towel flat over the counter while Dev wrestled the leaf into the dining table. The apartment smelled like garlic and browning butter, and outside, a February dusk was settling over Providence in that particular gray-blue that made the streetlights look premature.

"Did you text Priya about the nuts?" Marisol asked, tasting the sauce.

"I texted her. She says almonds are fine, it's cashews that kill her." Dev locked the table extension and stood back, frowning. "This thing is not level."

"It's never been level. Put a coaster under it."

He went hunting for a coaster and came back with a paperback instead, wedging it under the leg with his heel. They'd lived here fourteen months, since the lease on his place ended and neither of them wanted to admit it was a decision. Her books had migrated to his shelves. His mother sent them a card at Christmas addressed to both names, which had felt like something, though neither of them said so.

Marisol handed him a stack of plates. "Four, five — Ben's bringing someone."

"Since when?"

"Since Tuesday. Try to be normal about it."

"I'm extremely normal." Dev set the plates down, one at each place, and straightened them with more care than he'd admit to. "What's her name?"

"Jenna. She teaches middle school science."

He nodded, filing it away, and went to open the wine so it could breathe. Marisol turned the oven light on and crouched to look at the chicken, her knees popping.

"Twenty minutes," she said.

"Music?"

"Something without lyrics. Otherwise everyone talks over it."

He put on something with a piano. From the kitchen came the sound of a knife against a cutting board, steady, unhurried. Downstairs, the buzzer went off early — Ben always came early — and Dev wiped his hands on his jeans and went to let them in.


Marisol found the good tablecloth at the back of the linen closet, the one her mother had given them when they moved into the duplex on Vine Street. It smelled faintly of cedar. She shook it out over the table and smoothed the creases with her palm while Dev, in the kitchen, swore softly at the oven.

"It's not preheating," he called.

"Did you press start?"

A pause. "I pressed start."

She came to the doorway and watched him crouch in front of the oven door, phone flashlight aimed at the dial. He had flour on his forearm and his reading glasses pushed up into his hair, which was how he lost them roughly twice a week.

"It's on broil," she said.

He looked. "Huh."

They'd been together six years, in this apartment for three, and neither of them had brought up marriage in a way that required an answer. Her sister asked at Thanksgiving. His mother had stopped asking, which felt worse somehow.

Dev fixed the dial and stood, wiping his hands on a dish towel. "Chicken's twenty minutes behind now. Do we have enough wine to stall them?"

"There's the bottle Priya brought last time. And that beer in the crisper drawer that's been there since August."

"That's Owen's beer. He'll be thrilled."

She lit the candles on the table, then blew one out because it was smoking. Outside, a car door slammed, and she looked up, but it was only the neighbor coming home with groceries.

"Napkins," Dev said, handing her the stack. Their hands touched. He kissed the side of her head, absently, the way you'd check a doorknob you'd already locked.

"You have flour on you," she said.

"I know. It's a whole look."

The doorbell rang eleven minutes early. Marisol pulled off her apron, tossed it toward the couch, and missed.


Marisol was slicing lemons at the counter when Dev came in from the garage with two folding chairs under his arm, apologizing for the dust.

"Just wipe them down," she said. "Nobody's going to inspect the chairs."

"Theo will. Theo notices everything."

She let that go and went back to the lemons. The chicken had been in the oven forty minutes and smelled right, which was a relief, because she'd changed the marinade at the last minute and hadn't told anyone. Dev set the chairs by the table and started opening drawers, looking for the tablecloth they'd bought in Santa Fe two summers ago and used maybe twice.

"Bottom left. Under the placemats."

He found it. It had a fold crease down the middle that no amount of smoothing would fix, so he put a bowl of clementines over the worst of it and called it done.

They had forty minutes. Marisol showered while Dev vacuumed the living room rug, which they'd both been ignoring since Tuesday. He moved the laundry basket into their bedroom and shut the door, the oldest trick there was. Then he put on music, something instrumental and low, and turned it down twice because it felt like it was trying too hard.

Marisol came out with her hair still damp, wearing the green shirt. She looked at the table.

"You put out the good glasses."

"We have good glasses. It seemed like the moment."

She kissed his shoulder on her way to check the oven. The chicken was fine. Better than fine. She pulled it out to rest and told him to slice the bread, and he did, badly, in thick uneven wedges that she rearranged in the basket so the ugly ones faced down.

At 6:52 headlights swung across the front window. Dev looked at her.

"Ready?"

"No," she said, smiling, and went to open the door.


Marcus found the good tablecloth in the linen closet behind a stack of beach towels, wrinkled from eight months of neglect. He shook it out over the dining table anyway, smoothing the creases with his palms while the oven ticked toward 375.

"It looks like a topographical map," Priya said, passing through with a bag of ice. She'd gotten home from the pharmacy an hour late and still had her name badge clipped to her shirt.

"They're coming to eat, not to inspect our linens."

"Danielle inspects linens."

He conceded the point and went to find the iron. Priya emptied the ice into a mixing bowl, then reconsidered and hunted for the cooler in the hall closet, which required moving the vacuum and a box of Christmas lights they'd never gotten around to hanging. Their apartment was small enough that seven people would be a negotiation. She'd already moved the armchair into the bedroom.

Marcus checked the chicken. It needed twenty more minutes, which was fine, because the potatoes needed thirty. He texted the group chat: *no rush, running slightly behind.* Three people replied with thumbs up.

"Did you tell Kevin no cilantro or did I?" Priya called.

"I don't think either of us did."

"There's cilantro in the salad."

"He'll survive."

She came into the kitchen and leaned against the counter, watching him. He was doing the thing where he read the recipe on his phone with the screen dimmed almost to black, squinting. She reached over and turned the brightness up.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

She picked a piece of cheese off the board she'd assembled and ate it. He didn't say anything about it. Outside, a car door slammed, and they both looked toward the window, but it wasn't for them—not yet. There was still time. Priya went to change her shirt. Marcus put on music, then changed it to something quieter.


Mara found the good tablecloth wedged behind the winter coats, smelling faintly of cedar. She shook it out over the dining table while Devin worked the counter, halving cherry tomatoes with the small knife he insisted was the only decent one they owned.

"Six or seven?" she asked.

"Seven. Priya's bringing her cousin." He scraped the tomatoes into a bowl. "Which means we need another chair."

The apartment had four dining chairs and a wobbly stool. Mara dragged the desk chair from the bedroom, wheels catching on the rug, and Devin laughed without looking up.

"That's fine. That's very sophisticated."

"It swivels. Someone's going to love it."

She wiped down the bathroom sink, hid the laundry basket in the closet, lit the candle her sister had given her that supposedly smelled like a library and mostly smelled like vanilla. In the kitchen, Devin was arguing quietly with the oven, which ran hot and had ruined two chickens that spring. He'd compensated by starting early and lowering the temperature, and now the whole place smelled like lemon and thyme.

"Music?" he called.

"Something without words. Otherwise people sing."

At six-fifteen they stood in the small clear space between the kitchen and the table, surveying it. The rug was crooked. The wine was open. There were two candles instead of the four Mara had imagined, but the light was good, low and forgiving.

Devin touched the back of her neck. "You changed your shirt."

"Twice."

"I noticed the first one."

Someone buzzed from downstairs, early, the way Priya always was. Mara pressed the button and left the door ajar, and Devin poured the first two glasses before the footsteps reached the landing. Voices came up the stairwell, overlapping, already laughing at something neither of them had heard yet.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar, which Priya insisted was the correct smell for a Tuesday.

"You caramelized those onions into charcoal," Marcus said, peering into the pan.

"They're rustic." She nudged him aside with her hip and scraped the darkest bits onto a paper towel. "Nobody will notice under the cheese."

He'd gotten home from the site at four-thirty, still smelling faintly of sawdust, and had barely showered before she handed him a bag of potatoes and a peeler. Now it was ten after six. Rachel and Dev would arrive at seven, probably seven-fifteen, and Tomás was always early, which meant they had maybe forty minutes of actual peace.

Marcus set the table with the mismatched plates they'd accumulated over three years — some from his mother's basement, some from the estate sale in Hyde Park where Priya had haggled a stranger down eleven dollars. He put out cloth napkins because she'd bought them and never used them.

"Do we have wine glasses for six?" she called.

"We have wine glasses for four and two jars."

"That's very us."

He found the jars, washed them, dried them with the good towel. In the living room, he stacked the mail into a pile and shoved it in a drawer, then straightened the throw pillows in a way that looked, he thought, effortless.

Priya came out with a dish towel over her shoulder, hair pinned up, still in the T-shirt she'd worn all day. "How long do I have?"

"Twenty minutes."

"Perfect." She kissed him on the jaw, quick, and disappeared down the hall.

He turned the music on low, opened a bottle to let it breathe, and stood for a second in the quiet, looking at the table. Then the buzzer rang — Tomás, of course, twenty minutes early — and Priya shouted something from the bedroom that Marcus didn't catch but answered anyway.


Marisol was halfway through chopping cilantro when she heard Dev swear at the oven.

"It's preheating," she said without looking up. "It just takes forever."

"It says three-fifty. It's at two-eighty. Elena's going to be here in forty minutes and the enchiladas need thirty."

"Elena's never on time. She wasn't on time to her own thesis defense."

Dev laughed and wiped his hands on the dish towel slung over his shoulder. Their apartment in Cleveland was too small for eight people, technically. They'd done it before anyway—folding chairs from the basement storage unit, the coffee table pushed against the wall, plates balanced on knees. It always worked out better than a dining room would have.

He came up behind her and looked over her shoulder at the cutting board. "That's a lot of cilantro."

"Ben likes cilantro."

"Ben is one person."

"Ben is one person who drove four hours." She scraped the pile into a bowl. "Can you deal with the ice? The trays are empty again because someone keeps not refilling them."

"That someone works nights."

"That someone still has hands."

He filled the trays and slid them into the freezer, then started stacking bowls on the counter—the mismatched ones from his grandmother, the plain white ones they'd bought together at a restaurant supply store on a Saturday two years ago, back when they were still figuring out whose furniture would survive the move.

At six-fifteen the oven finally hit temperature. Marisol slid the pan in and set a timer on her phone. Dev put on a record, something with horns in it, and turned the volume down when she gave him a look.

"Too loud?"

"Too loud for talking."

He adjusted it. She untied her apron and hung it on the hook by the fridge, and they both looked around the kitchen at the same time, taking inventory, and then the buzzer rang.

"Told you," Dev said. "That's Elena."

It wasn't. It was Ben, early, holding a bottle of wine and apologizing.


Marisol wiped the counter for the third time, though it was already clean. The apartment smelled like garlic and roasting chicken, and outside the window the November dark had come early, streetlights blooming orange over the parking lot.

"They're going to be late," Dev said from the living room. He was on the floor with a screwdriver, tightening the leg of the coffee table, which had wobbled for eleven months. "Ana's always late."

"She has a kid now. Latenessis structural." Marisol tasted the sauce, added salt, tasted again. "Did you find the good napkins?"

"We have good napkins?"

"The cloth ones. My mother gave them to us."

Dev stood, brushed his knees, and went to the hall closet. He came back with a stack of pale green napkins that smelled faintly of cedar. "These?"

"Those."

He folded them badly and she let him. Four years in this apartment and she had learned which corrections mattered. The table was too small for six, so they'd pulled the desk from the bedroom and pushed it flush against the dining table, covered the seam with a tablecloth. It looked almost intentional.

"Wine's in the fridge," Dev said. "The white. Should I open the red now, let it breathe?"

"You just want to drink some."

"That is one of several motivations."

She laughed and handed him the corkscrew. He poured two inches into a glass for each of them, and they stood in the kitchen for a moment, not talking, the oven ticking. Marisol leaned her hip against him. He smelled like the shampoo they shared.

"I like this part," she said. "Before."

"Before's good," he agreed.

The buzzer went off, too loud, the way it always was. Dev set down his glass. Marisol pushed her hair back with her wrist and went to press the button, and then the stairwell filled with voices, and the evening started.


Miriam had been chopping cilantro for six minutes and still wasn't finished, because she kept stopping to check her phone.

"Ana says they're running late," she called toward the bathroom. "Which probably means an hour."

Devin came out, still buttoning his shirt, hair damp. "An hour's fine. The chicken's not going to be ready anyway."

He'd started the marinade at noon, confident, then discovered around four that their oven ran cold — a fact they'd both known for two years and forgotten again. Now the thermometer he'd bought in a panic at the hardware store sat on the middle rack like a small judgment.

"Can you find the good napkins?" Miriam asked.

"We have good napkins?"

"The blue ones. From your mother."

He knelt at the hutch, pulling out placemats they never used, a candle burned to a stub, a deck of cards missing the seven of hearts. The napkins were at the bottom, still creased in their original folds. He shook one out and it smelled faintly like cedar.

Miriam wiped her hands and went to the window. Their street was quiet, a few kids on the sidewalk, the neighbor's dog barking at nothing. She'd lived in three apartments before this one and hadn't hung a single picture in any of them. Here there were four, and a spice rack, and a chair Devin had refinished badly but earnestly.

"Do we have enough chairs?" she said.

"Five, plus the stool."

"That's six for seven."

He thought about it. "I'll sit on the cooler."

"You are not sitting on the cooler."

"I've sat on worse."

She laughed, and he came up behind her and put his chin on her shoulder, and for a moment they both looked out at the street doing nothing in particular. Then the timer went off, and the oven still wasn't hot enough, and they went back to work.


Marisol was slicing lemons at the counter when Dev came in from the garage carrying a folding chair under each arm.

"We're two short," he said. "Unless somebody wants to sit on the cooler."

"Ellie's bringing her camp chair. She offered." Marisol dropped the lemon rounds into a pitcher of water. "Did you text Kwame about the parking? He got a ticket last time."

"Told him to use the lot behind the church. He said, and I quote, 'bet.'"

She laughed. The kitchen smelled like garlic and browning butter. On the stove, a pot of rice had gone quiet, and Dev lifted the lid, poked at it with a fork, and put the lid back on the way he always did — three times before he trusted it.

"Table or floors?" he asked.

"Floors. There's dog hair on the rug and Priya's allergic."

He went for the vacuum. Marisol wiped down the counter, then stood on a chair to get the good bowls from the top shelf, the ones her grandmother had shipped from Albuquerque in a box packed with newspaper. She'd broken one last spring and still thought about it.

Dev shouted over the vacuum. "Did we ever decide about the wine?"

"You said you'd handle the wine."

"I did handle it. I bought four bottles. I'm asking if that's enough."

"It's six people."

"So no."

He went out again, keys jingling. Marisol lit the candles on the windowsill, straightened the stack of mail into a neater stack of mail, and looked at the room — mismatched chairs, the couch they'd hauled up two flights together in July, the crooked print of a lake neither of them had visited.

The door opened. Dev came back with two more bottles and a bag of ice, sweating a little.

"Fifteen minutes," she said.

"We're fine."

They were, mostly. The doorbell rang eight minutes early.


Marisol wiped condensation from the kitchen window with her sleeve and watched the sleet make halos around the streetlights. Six-forty. Danny had said the roast needed to rest twenty minutes, which meant she'd been standing here at least ten too long.

"You're hovering," Danny said, coming up behind her with a stack of mismatched plates. They'd never gotten around to buying a matched set in the four years they'd shared the duplex on Fernwood, and now the chipped blue ones felt like part of the place.

"I'm supervising."

"You're worrying about Kendra." He set the plates down and started counting forks. "She said she's fine with it. People get divorced. She's not going to spontaneously combust over a dinner party."

Marisol turned the oven light on and off. "I put the good candles out."

"So she'll be well lit while she doesn't combust."

She swatted him with a dish towel, then took the towel back and dried the salad bowl properly, since he'd left water pooled in the bottom. In the living room, their dog had claimed the exact center of the couch, the one place four people needed to sit.

"Rufus. Off." Danny clapped once. The dog rolled onto his back instead.

Marisol found the wine opener in the junk drawer, under a phone charger and a takeout menu from a place that had closed in 2019. She opened the red so it could breathe, poured two fingers into a jelly jar, and handed it to Danny without asking.

"To not combusting," he said.

Headlights swung across the front window. Marisol heard car doors, then Kendra's laugh, too loud, cutting through the sleet, and Ben saying something about parking. Danny lit the candles with a grill lighter that took three tries.

"Ready?"

"No," Marisol said, and went to open the door anyway, wiping her hands on her jeans as she went.


Marisol found the wine glasses pushed to the back of the cabinet, three of them dusty from disuse. She ran them under hot water while Danny wrestled the leaf into the dining table, cursing softly when it caught on the track.

"You need help?"

"I need this table to have been designed by someone competent."

She dried her hands and came over, and together they eased it open. The gap closed with a satisfying thunk. Danny went to find the extra chairs from the basement, and she heard him bumping down the stairs, then back up.

The apartment smelled like garlic and browning onions. Marisol had started the sauce at four, which was probably too early — it had been simmering so long the tomatoes had gone dark and sweet. She tasted it, added salt, tasted again.

"Ruth's bringing her boyfriend," Danny said, setting a chair down. "The one who does something with logistics."

"Freight logistics."

"Right. What do we ask him about that?"

"You ask him how it's going and then he talks for eleven minutes and you nod."

Danny laughed. He'd showered but not shaved, and he was still wearing the shirt he'd had on all day, which she decided not to mention. He put on a record instead of the speaker, which she liked, and started folding napkins into rough triangles.

At six-forty she remembered the bread and swore. Danny grabbed his keys and was out the door before she finished explaining, back eleven minutes later with two baguettes and a bag of ice nobody had asked for.

"In case," he said.

The buzzer went off at seven-oh-five. Marisol looked at him — flour on her wrist, the sauce covered, the table long and set and a little crooked in the small room.

"Okay," she said.

He hit the button to let them in.


Marisol found the good tablecloth in the linen closet, wedged behind a stack of towels she'd been meaning to fold since Tuesday. She shook it out on the dining table, and a moth of dust caught the late afternoon light coming through the west window.

"Do we own napkins?" she called.

"Paper towels," Dev said from the kitchen. "Folded into triangles. Nobody's ever noticed."

"Priya notices."

"Priya notices because you tell her."

He was standing over the stove in the apron his sister had given him as a joke — KISS THE COOK, the letters cracked from the dryer — stirring a pot of dal that had been simmering since two. The rice cooker clicked over to warm. He tasted from the spoon, made a face, added salt, tasted again, and made a different face.

Marisol came in and reached past him for the wine opener, her hip against his. "Smells right."

"It's fine. It's not my mother's."

"Nothing's your mother's."

They'd lived in the duplex on Fourth Street for two years now, long enough that the landlord had stopped asking when they were going to make it official and long enough that they had a system: he cooked, she cleaned, and both of them pretended the bathroom was a shared responsibility. She'd scrubbed the sink at four. He'd hidden the mail pile in a drawer.

At six-fifteen the doorbell rang, twenty minutes early, and they looked at each other in the particular way of people who have just realized the candles are still in the grocery bag.

"Go," Dev said. "I'll do the candles."

Marisol wiped her hands on her jeans, checked her reflection in the microwave door, and went to open it. Behind her, a match struck. Voices came in on a wave of cold air, and the evening opened up like a door left ajar.


Marcus found the good tablecloth wadded in the back of the linen closet, wrinkled beyond salvation. He held it up to the kitchen light.

"Iron it," Dana said, not looking up from the cutting board. She was working through a pile of shallots, her eyes streaming.

"We have people coming in forty minutes."

"So iron fast."

He set up the board in the living room and worked at the creases while the apartment filled with the smell of butter and thyme. From the kitchen came the rhythmic knock of the knife, then a pause, then Dana swearing softly.

"You okay?"

"Nicked my thumb. It's fine." A beat. "It's mostly fine."

He abandoned the iron and found her running her hand under the tap. The cut was shallow but bleeding steadily. He got the bandages from the bathroom drawer, the good ones they'd bought after the last time.

"You always do this when we host," he said, wrapping her thumb.

"You always say that."

"Because it's always true."

She flexed her hand and went back to the shallots, one-handed and slower now. Marcus took over the wine situation — three bottles chilling, a fourth on the counter breathing, though he wasn't sure that was a real thing or just something people said. He put on a record, something instrumental, low.

At 6:40 Dana came out of the bedroom in the green sweater, hair still damp, and surveyed the table. Candles, the ironed cloth, mismatched chairs from three different apartments they'd lived in.

"It looks like adults live here," she said.

"Barely."

"I'll take barely."

The buzzer went off. Jonah and Priya, twenty minutes early as always, apologizing on the stairs. Dana handed Marcus the corkscrew and went to the door, wiping her palms on her jeans, and the noise of the evening came in with the cold air from the hallway.


Marcus wiped the counter for the third time while Dana stood at the stove, tasting the sauce off a wooden spoon.

"More salt?" she asked, holding it out.

He blew on it, tasted. "More something. Acid, maybe."

She squeezed half a lemon in and tried again. Better. Behind her, Marcus was pulling wine glasses down from the cabinet above the fridge, the ones they only used when people came over, which lately felt like never. Dust had settled in the bowls. He rinsed them one at a time in the sink.

"Did Priya say seven or seven-thirty?" he called.

"Seven. But she's always late, so."

"So we have until seven-forty."

Their apartment was on the second floor of a converted house in Somerville, all sloped ceilings and radiators that clanked. They'd been there two years, since Dana's lease ended and it made more sense, financially, to combine. Neither of them had made much of the decision at the time. It just happened, the way most things did.

Marcus set the table with mismatched plates. He folded paper napkins into triangles, then unfolded them, then decided the triangles were fine.

"You're doing that thing," Dana said without turning around.

"What thing?"

"Where you fuss."

"I'm setting a table."

"You've set it twice."

He laughed. She was right. He put the napkins down and went to change out of his work shirt, and when he came back she had lit the two candles they'd gotten as a housewarming gift from his sister and never used. The kitchen smelled like garlic and browning butter. Somewhere below, the front door of the building opened and closed.

"That's not them," Dana said. "Too early."

"Probably Steve from downstairs."

They stood there a second, listening. Then she handed him the spoon again, and he tasted, and this time he said it was perfect.


Marisol found the good tablecloth in the linen closet, wedged behind a stack of towels she kept meaning to donate. It smelled faintly of cedar. She shook it out over the dining table while Dev, in the kitchen, argued with a jar of capers.

"Did you buy the small ones or the big ones?" he called.

"The ones on the list."

"There were two kinds on the shelf."

"Then whichever one my hand touched first."

He held the jar up to the window light, decided it didn't matter, and dumped half of it into the puttanesca. The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt olive oil, which was how it always smelled when he cooked, and which she'd stopped minding sometime during the second year.

They'd been in the place on Fillmore for four years now. Her mother still asked, at Christmas, whether there was news. There wasn't. Marisol had a filing cabinet in the second bedroom and a name on the lease, and that had turned out to be enough.

"Vinnie's bringing his new girlfriend," Dev said.

"I know. Priya texted me. Apparently she's a vegetarian."

Dev stopped stirring. Marisol watched him do the math on the anchovies.

"There's the bread," she offered. "And I'll make a salad."

"You'll make a salad."

"I make an excellent salad."

"You put lettuce in a bowl."

She flicked a napkin at him and went to light the candles, which were mismatched and half-melted from Thanksgiving. Outside, someone's car alarm went off and stopped.

At six-fifty, Dev came out of the bathroom in the blue shirt she liked, still damp at the collar. Marisol was straightening the chairs, six of them, two borrowed from the neighbors.

"It looks nice," he said.

"It looks like our apartment."

"That's what I said."

The buzzer rang. She got the door. He turned down the burner and followed her.


Marisol wiped the counter for the third time, though it was already clean. Outside, October wind pushed leaves against the kitchen window of the little rental house in Sacramento she and Devon had signed for eighteen months ago, both of them nervous about the lease, both of them pretending not to be.

"They're going to be late," Devon said from the living room. He was on his knees, wrestling the leaf into the dining table, the one they'd bought secondhand and refinished badly. "Ravi is always late."

"Then we'll have wine before they get here."

"That's not a punishment for him. That's a reward for us."

She laughed and dumped the chopped cilantro into the pot of pozole she'd started that morning, using her aunt's recipe with the hominy and the dried guajillos she'd toasted until the whole house smelled like something worth staying home for. Devon came in behind her, smelling like the cedar of the table wax, and reached past her for a spoon.

"Don't," she said, and he did anyway, blowing on it.

"More salt."

"There is no more salt."

"There's always more salt."

He got the salt. She let him. That was how most things went between them: a negotiation that neither of them cared to win.

By six-fifteen the mismatched chairs were arranged, the good napkins found in a box in the closet, the playlist decided after four vetoes. Devon lit the candles too early and they'd be stubs by dessert. Marisol changed out of her flour-dusted shirt into a green sweater he liked, and he told her so, and she said nothing but touched his wrist on her way past.

The doorbell rang at six-forty. Ravi, holding a bottle and apologizing before the door was fully open.

"Told you," Devon said.

Marisol was already reaching for glasses.


Marisol wiped the counter for the third time, though it was already clean. Outside, October light slanted through the kitchen window of the rented duplex, catching the steam off a pot of beans.

"Did you salt these?" she called.

Dev appeared in the doorway with a stack of mismatched plates, one of them still bearing a faded cartoon rabbit from his childhood. "Twice. You told me twice."

"I said once. You said you'd forget."

"And I didn't." He set the plates down and nudged her hip with his own to reach the drawer for forks. They had lived together for two years in this narrow house on the east side of Columbus, long enough that their movements around each other had become a kind of choreography — she stepped left, he pivoted right, neither looking up.

The doorbell was broken, so their friends would knock. Dev had promised to fix it in April. Marisol had stopped mentioning it, which he found more damning than nagging.

"Six people," she said. "Is six too many chairs for that table?"

"We'll put Andre on the piano bench. He likes it."

"Nobody likes the piano bench."

Dev poured a bag of ice into a cooler on the back porch, wedging in beer cans and a bottle of orange soda for Kelly, who didn't drink anymore. When he came back in, Marisol had changed into the green shirt he liked and was frowning at her reflection in the dark microwave door.

"You look good," he said.

"I look tired."

"You look good and tired."

She laughed, and then there was a knock — early, of course, because Andre was always early. Marisol pulled the beans off the burner. Dev went to the door, wiping his hands on his jeans, and the house filled up with voices before either of them had finished getting ready at all.


Marisol was rinsing romaine in the sink when Devon came through the back door with a paper bag of ice, his shoulders damp from the drizzle.

"They were out of the good kind," he said. "This is the crushed stuff."

"It'll melt faster." She shook water off the lettuce. "Which means people will drink faster, which means Trevor will tell the story about his cousin's boat."

"We've heard it four times."

"Five. You fell asleep during one."

He dumped the ice into the cooler on the porch, then came back and washed his hands, bumping her hip aside at the faucet. The kitchen of the rental was too narrow for two people, which they'd known when they signed the lease eighteen months ago and had chosen to ignore. Now it was a running joke, the way they had to announce themselves—*behind you, hot pan*—like line cooks.

"Did you move the mail off the table?" she asked.

"It's in the bedroom. Along with the laundry, the shoes, and that box of your mom's dishes we still haven't opened."

"So the bedroom is a disaster."

"The bedroom is a strategic containment zone. Nobody's going in there."

Marisol laughed and started slicing a baguette. Devon put on a record, something with horns, and turned it down when she gave him a look, then turned it up two clicks when she turned back to the cutting board.

At 6:40 he set the table, counting out mismatched forks. At 6:50 she changed her shirt because the first one smelled like garlic. At 6:55 they stood together in the doorway and looked at the living room—the couch cushions squared up, the candle lit, the rain ticking against the window.

"It looks like adults live here," he said.

"Don't jinx it."

Headlights swung across the wall. Devon went to get the door, and Marisol followed him, wiping her hands on her jeans.


Marisol wiped the counter for the third time, though it was already clean. Outside the kitchen window, the Ohio dusk had turned the neighbor's maple into a silhouette. She could hear Dev in the back bedroom, swearing softly at a hanger.

"Blue shirt or the gray one?" he called.

"Blue. The gray makes you look like you're about to sell someone insurance."

He appeared in the doorway a minute later, buttoning the blue one, sleeves already pushed to his elbows. "I sold insurance for two years."

"And you looked terrible." She handed him a bag of shallots. "Small dice. Not the aggressive chunks you did at Thanksgiving."

He took the cutting board to the island and started in, slower than necessary, the way he did when he wanted her to notice he was being careful. They had lived in the house eleven months. It still smelled faintly of the previous owner's cats when it rained, and the second bathroom faucet ran hot for no reason, and neither of them had gotten around to hanging the framed print leaning against the hallway wall.

"Priya's bringing that guy," Marisol said, sliding a pan of potatoes into the oven.

"The one with the boat?"

"He doesn't have a boat. He works at a marina."

"Same energy." Dev scraped the shallots into a bowl. "Do we have a corkscrew that isn't broken?"

She dug through the drawer and found one, then leaned against him for a second, her forehead on his shoulder blade, just long enough to feel him stop moving. Then the timer went off and she straightened up.

He put on a record, something with horns, and turned it down when she gave him a look. At 6:52 headlights swept the front window. Marisol untied her apron and threw it into the pantry. Dev opened the door before anyone could knock, and cold air came in with the sound of four people talking at once.


Marisol found the good tablecloth crumpled at the bottom of the linen closet, exactly where she'd shoved it after Thanksgiving. She shook it out and held it up to the window light.

"There's a wine stain," she called.

Daniel came out of the kitchen wiping his hands on his jeans. He squinted at the fabric. "Put a candle there. Nobody's inspecting."

"Elena inspects."

"Elena's your sister. She's supposed to."

He went back to the stove, where the shallots had gone from translucent to a shade past golden. He turned the heat down and added the rice, stirring, while Marisol dragged the leaf out of the closet and wrestled it into the table. It stuck halfway, as it always did. She kicked the pedestal until it gave.

By six the apartment smelled like garlic and butter. Daniel had rolled up his sleeves; there was a splash of white wine down the front of his shirt that he hadn't noticed. Marisol lit the candles and set out the mismatched water glasses—four from his old place, three from hers, one from a gas station in Barstow neither of them could account for.

"Do we have enough chairs?" he asked.

"If we use the desk chair."

"That's fine. Rob likes the desk chair. He spins."

She laughed and then stopped, listening. "Did we make a salad?"

They looked at each other. Daniel opened the fridge, considered the half bag of arugula and one bruised pear, and started slicing.

At six-forty the buzzer went. Marisol pressed the button, then turned and licked her thumb and rubbed at the wine stain on his shirt. He stood still and let her, watching her face.

"It's not coming out," she said.

"Put a candle on it," he said, and she was still laughing when the first knock came at the door.


Marisol wiped down the counter for the third time, though it was already clean. Outside, the November dark had come early, and the kitchen windows had gone black and reflective, showing her own face back at her.

"They're going to be late," Devon said from the dining room. He was wrestling with the leaf of the table, an old thing from his grandmother that never quite wanted to open. "Ellis is always late. He texted that he was leaving twenty minutes ago, which means he hadn't showered yet."

"Then we have time." She checked the oven. The chicken had another half hour, at least, and the potatoes were still pale. "Can you find the other candlesticks? The brass ones."

"The ones in the hall closet?"

"The ones you put in the hall closet."

She heard him laugh, then the closet door, then the shuffle of coats. They'd lived in the house on Crandall Street for two years now — a rental with a landlord who never fixed the porch light — and there was still a box in the basement neither of them had opened. Devon's mother asked about marriage every Thanksgiving. Marisol's father had stopped asking, which was somehow worse.

He came back with the candlesticks and a small cobweb on his shoulder. She reached up and brushed it off without saying anything, and he leaned into her hand for a second before moving past.

"Napkins?" he said.

"Paper's fine."

"It's Ellis and Priya. Paper's fine."

They worked in the loose, wordless rhythm of people who had done this before. She sliced bread. He opened wine to breathe, then poured himself half a glass, then poured her one too and set it by the stove where she'd find it.

Headlights swung across the front window. Devon straightened his shirt.

"Ready?" he said.

Marisol tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Get the door."


Marisol tasted the sauce and grimaced. Too much salt, or maybe not enough of everything else. She added a splash of red wine and stirred, watching steam fog the kitchen window that looked out on their narrow Cleveland backyard, where the grass had gone brittle and gold with October.

"They'll be here in forty minutes," Danny called from the dining room. He was wrestling with the leaf that extended their table, an old thing they'd bought at an estate sale in Lakewood, its hinges stiff with a hundred years of other people's dinners.

"Then you should probably not be wearing that shirt."

He looked down at the paint-flecked flannel. He'd spent the morning touching up the porch railing. "Nobody's going to notice."

"Priya notices everything."

He conceded the point and went upstairs. Marisol heard the shower start, then stop almost immediately — Danny took showers the way other people checked the mail. She pulled the bread from the oven, burned slightly on one corner, and decided to serve it with the burned side facing down.

He came back in a gray sweater, hair still damp, and started setting out plates. They had eight but only six matched; they'd been meaning to fix that for two years, ever since they'd combined their apartments into this rented half-double. Somehow it never made it onto a list.

"Do we have candles?" he asked.

"Junk drawer. Behind the batteries."

He found two stubs of them and jammed them into wine bottles, which felt collegiate but also, he thought, sort of charming. Marisol came in carrying the salad and stopped, taking in the table, the low light, the whole arrangement.

"It looks nice," she said.

"It looks like we tried."

"That's what nice is."

The doorbell rang early, because Priya was always early. Danny wiped his hands on his jeans and went to answer it, and Marisol pushed the burned bread another inch away from the edge.


Marisol was still in the kitchen when Dev came through the back door with two bags of ice, his shoulders damp from the drizzle.

"They're going to be late," he said, setting the bags in the sink. "Priya texted. Traffic on the Beltway."

"Good. The bread needs another ten minutes anyway." Marisol wiped her hands on a dish towel that had been white sometime in 2019. She'd been cooking since three, and the kitchen smelled like garlic and smoked paprika, the good kind Dev's mother sent from a shop in Queens.

He started clearing the dining table, which had been serving as his desk for most of the winter—a laptop, a coil of USB cables, four coffee mugs in various stages of neglect. He carried the mugs to the sink two at a time.

"Do we own napkins?" he asked.

"Bottom drawer of the hutch. The cloth ones from your aunt."

"Those are for special occasions."

"Six people eating stew on a Tuesday is a special occasion."

He found them, unfolded one, held it up to the light. Wrinkled but acceptable. He set them out anyway.

Marisol tasted the stew, added salt, tasted it again, and made a face she couldn't quite interpret herself. "Try this."

Dev came over and took the spoon. He blew on it, which she always found unnecessary and endearing.

"More lemon," he said.

"That's what I thought."

"Then why'd you ask me?"

"Because I wanted to be right."

He kissed the side of her head and went to find the lemons. Outside, a car door slammed, then another—too early, someone always came early. Marisol pulled the bread out. Dev shoved the last of the cables into a drawer and hip-checked it shut.

"Ready?" he said.

"No."

"Me neither." He went to get the door.


Dana found the good tablecloth crumpled at the bottom of the linen closet, which meant it needed ironing, which meant the ironing board had to come out of the coat closet where they'd wedged it in March and never touched again.

"We have forty minutes," she called.

"I know what time it is." Marcus was in the kitchen, sleeves pushed to his elbows, scraping garlic off the cutting board into a pan that had gotten too hot. The smell that came up wasn't the smell he wanted. He swore quietly, dumped the pan into the sink, and started over, because Priya would notice. Priya always noticed.

They'd lived in the duplex for two years. It still had the previous tenant's curtain rods and a doorbell that didn't work, so guests texted from the porch. Dana ran the iron over the tablecloth twice and decided the wrinkle near the corner could face the wall.

"Do we have enough chairs?" Marcus asked.

"Five, plus the desk chair. It rolls but nobody's going to complain."

"Ben will complain."

"Ben can sit on the floor."

She set the table with the mismatched plates — four white, two blue — and put the candles in the middle, then moved them because they blocked the sightline across the table and nobody could talk. Marcus came out with the salad bowl and stopped, looking at the room.

"It looks nice," he said.

"It looks like we tried."

"That's the same thing."

He kissed the top of her head on his way past, which she noted with some satisfaction, and went to change out of the shirt with the oil spot on it. Dana lit the candles early, knowing they'd burn down unevenly, not caring. At 6:52 a text arrived: *Here! Which door?*

"Left!" Marcus shouted from the bedroom, as if they could hear him.


Marisol found the good tablecloth crumpled in the linen closet, exactly where she'd shoved it after Thanksgiving. She shook it out, held it up to the kitchen light, and made a face at the wine stain near one corner.

"Just put the bread basket over it," Dev called from the stove. He was standing over a pot of white beans he'd started that morning, tasting from a wooden spoon, adding salt he insisted was the last addition and then adding more.

"That's your solution to everything. Cover it with bread."

"It's worked so far."

She laid the cloth over the table anyway and rotated it until the stain sat where Priya always ended up sitting, because Priya wouldn't notice and wouldn't care. Then she went around the apartment doing what Dev called her lap—collecting his running shoes from under the coffee table, his mail from the counter, the mug he'd left on the windowsill three days ago that now had a ring in the bottom like a tree.

"Nate's bringing someone," Dev said.

"Since when?"

"Since he texted eleven minutes ago. Her name's Kelsey and she doesn't eat pork."

"There's no pork in anything."

"I know. I told him that. He seemed relieved, like he'd solved it."

Marisol laughed and went to find a sixth chair, which meant the desk chair from the bedroom, which meant explaining to whoever got it that it was that or the floor. She wheeled it down the hall and Dev caught her elbow as she passed, held out the spoon.

She tasted. "More lemon."

"You always say more lemon."

"And I'm always right."

He squeezed half a lemon in without arguing. Outside, a car door slammed, and they both looked up—too early, probably someone else's guests—and then went back to it, moving around each other in the small kitchen the way they had for four years.


Marcus found her in the kitchen at six-fifteen, elbow-deep in a bowl of ground lamb, radio tuned to the classical station she claimed helped her think.

"They're going to be late," he said. "Denise texted. Traffic on 35."

"Good. The meatballs need another twenty minutes anyway." Priya blew a strand of hair off her forehead. "Can you do the thing with the napkins?"

"The fan thing?"

"The fan thing."

He set down the bag of ice and washed his hands, then started folding cloth napkins at the counter, the way his aunt had taught him one Thanksgiving in Fort Worth. Six of them, fanned and standing in the water glasses. Priya glanced over.

"Those look ridiculous."

"They look formal."

"They look like a hotel in 1994."

"Denise will love them."

She conceded that with a shrug and slid the tray into the oven. Marcus moved through the small dining room, straightening chairs they'd bought secondhand two summers ago, when they'd first signed the lease together and both their mothers had asked, separately and pointedly, what the plan was. The plan, apparently, was this: a rented duplex, a dog named Otis shedding on the couch, a decent stereo.

"Wine's in the fridge," Priya called. "Did you get the good glasses down?"

"They're in the box in the closet."

"Marcus."

"I'm getting them, I'm getting them."

He hauled the box down and unwrapped six wine glasses from newspaper, rinsing each one and drying it with a dish towel. Priya came up behind him, put her chin on his shoulder for a second, and stole a piece of cucumber off the cutting board.

"You smell like garlic," he said.

"You're welcome."

Otis barked. Headlights swung across the front window. Priya untied her apron, tossed it over a chair, and went to open the door.