The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt rosemary.

"I said medium-low," Priya called from the bathroom, where she was pinning up her hair with a clip that had lost one of its teeth.

"You said low-medium," Danny said. He scraped the blackened sprigs off the chicken thighs and considered whether anyone would notice. "It's fine. It's rustic."

"It's carbon."

She came out barefoot, dress unzipped down the back, and turned so he could get it. His hands were greasy so he used his knuckles, which made her laugh and complain at the same time. They had lived together fourteen months, long enough that the lease renewal had come up and they'd signed it without discussing anything larger.

Marcus and Elena arrived at seven with a bottle of wine and the wrong address for the building's back entrance, so Danny went down in his socks to let them in. Priya's coworker Tess came at seven-twenty, apologetic, holding a grocery-store cake still in its plastic dome.

They ate at the table they'd bought used off a listing, the one with the wobble Danny kept meaning to shim. Elena mentioned she was pregnant, and there was the small explosion of noise that follows such an announcement, and Priya got up to find something to toast with besides wine. She came back with orange juice in a jam jar and everyone clinked.

Marcus asked when they were going to make it official and Danny said, "Make what official," in a tone that let it drop.

Later, after everyone left, Priya sat on the counter eating cold potatoes with her fingers while Danny loaded the dishwasher badly, plates facing the wrong way.

"The chicken was good," she said.

"It was burnt."

"It was good burnt."

He shut the dishwasher with his hip. She handed him a potato. Outside, a car alarm went off and then, after a while, stopped.


Maya found the good tablecloth crumpled at the bottom of the linen drawer, which meant ironing, which meant she was going to be late getting the potatoes in.

"Dev," she called. "Can you start the potatoes? Just quarter them, don't peel."

"Skins on? Really?"

"It's rustic."

"It's lazy," he said, but she heard the cabinet open and the colander come out.

They'd lived in the apartment two years now, long enough that his family had stopped asking when and hers had started asking instead. The kitchen was too small for both of them at once, so they'd worked out a rhythm—she took the stove, he took the counter, and whoever needed the sink said so out loud.

Ben and Priya arrived at seven with a bottle of wine and a story about the parking situation on Elm. Twenty minutes later Cole came alone, apologetic, because Rina's flight got delayed in Denver.

Dev overcooked the chicken slightly. Nobody said anything, but he kept mentioning it, and finally Maya put her hand on his forearm under the table and he stopped.

The conversation went the way it went: someone's job, someone's landlord, a long detour into whether it was worth driving to the good grocery store forty minutes away. Priya asked about the framed print in the hallway and Maya said it had been her grandmother's, which was mostly true.

At eleven Ben started stacking plates and Maya told him to leave it, and he did it anyway.

After, Dev washed and Maya dried, and they didn't talk much. She found a fork in the sink he'd missed and handed it back without comment. He rinsed it, handed it over.

"That was good," she said.

"The chicken was dry."

"Nobody cared about the chicken."

He pulled the plug and the water went down, loud in the quiet apartment.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt rosemary. Dana had left the sprigs in the pan too long while answering the door for a package, and now she was scraping them out with a wooden spoon, muttering.

"It's fine," Theo said from the sink, where he was washing wine glasses they used maybe four times a year. "Nobody's going to notice."

"Marcus notices everything. He once told me my coffee tasted like it had been filtered through a sock."

"Marcus is a snob." Theo held a glass up to the light, frowned at a water spot, and wiped it again with a dish towel. "Did you text him about the parking?"

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

They had thirty minutes. Dana put the chicken back in the oven and started on the salad while Theo pushed the coffee table against the wall and dragged in the two folding chairs from the closet. The dining table only seated four comfortably; there would be six.

"We should have done this in the summer," he said. "We could've used the balcony."

"The balcony holds one person and a dying basil plant."

Sasha and Ben arrived first, early, apologizing, holding a bottle of something orange and cloudy. Marcus and his girlfriend Priya came twenty minutes late, and by then the chicken had rested too long and gone slightly tepid, and nobody said anything about it.

The evening loosened. Ben told a long story about his sister's wedding that Dana had heard before but laughed at anyway. Theo kept getting up to refill things. At some point Priya found the record player and put on something Theo hadn't listened to since college.

They left a little after eleven. Dana stood in the kitchen with her shoes off, looking at the dishes.

"Tomorrow," Theo said.

"Tomorrow," she agreed, and turned off the light.


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

"It's supposed to smell like that," she said, sliding the chicken back into the oven. "That's flavor."

Marcus was on the floor by the couch, wrestling with the leaf of the dining table they'd bought used in March. It had never quite fit right. He gave it a shove with the heel of his hand and it locked in with a sound like a knuckle cracking.

"Got it," he said.

"Don't say it like that. Now it'll fall apart during dinner."

They had forty minutes. Dana went to change, and Marcus set out the mismatched plates—four white, two blue, one with a chip they agreed to give to Theo, who wouldn't notice. He put a bottle of wine on the counter and then moved it, then moved it back.

Dana came out in the green sweater. "Too much?"

"For Theo and Priya? They came over last time in gym clothes."

"That's a no, then."

"It's a yes. You look good."

The doorbell rang eight minutes early. Priya had brought a store-bought pie and an apology for the store-bought pie. Theo took off his shoes without being asked, which Marcus always appreciated and never mentioned.

The chicken was slightly dry. Nobody said so, though Dana said it three times herself, and Priya kept insisting it wasn't, which meant it was. They talked about Theo's brother's wedding, about a coworker of Marcus's who had quit by email, about whether the building was actually going to fix the laundry room.

At eleven, standing in the doorway, Priya hugged Dana too long and said, "This was nice. We should do this more."

Afterward, Marcus washed and Dana dried, and neither of them said much. The table held.


Marguerite discovered the sink was full at four-thirty, which meant Dev had made a smoothie and left the blender jar soaking, as he did most mornings. She washed it without comment and set it on the rack, then started on the onions.

"I got the wrong bread," Dev announced from the doorway, holding up a bag. "They were out of the seeded rye. This is sourdough."

"That's fine."

"Is it fine or is it fine?"

"It's actually fine. Can you do the salad?"

He rinsed the lettuce in the colander while she browned the onions for the soup. The apartment was small enough that they had to narrate their movements—behind you, coming through—and by five-fifteen the windows had fogged. Dev put on a record and then took it off because he decided it was too much, then put on a different one.

Priya and Marcus arrived twenty minutes early, which Marguerite had predicted. Marcus brought a bottle of wine that Dev opened immediately, and Priya stood in the kitchen and peeled carrots she hadn't been asked to peel, talking about her sister's move to Denver. Then Jonah came, alone, because Alice was sick, and he ate three pieces of the sourdough standing up before anyone sat down.

The soup was slightly under-salted. Dev noticed and passed the shaker around without saying why, and Marguerite caught it and pressed her foot against his under the table, briefly.

They talked about a movie none of them had liked, and about Marcus's landlord, and about whether it was worth driving to the coast in October. Jonah left at ten to walk his dog. Priya and Marcus stayed until eleven-thirty, and Dev walked them down to the street door because the buzzer was broken.

Afterward, Marguerite stacked plates. Dev came back up and stood in the kitchen with her, drying.

"That was good," he said.

"It was good."


Marguerite found the good tablecloth in the wrong drawer, folded badly, and shook it out over the table while Danny hauled the extra chairs up from the basement. The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt rosemary from the first batch of potatoes, which he had left in too long and then defended as "rustic."

"They're charcoal," she said.

"They're caramelized."

She scraped them into the trash and started over, tossing new ones with oil while he wiped down the bathroom sink and hid the laundry basket in the closet. It was six-fifteen. Ruth and Amit were coming at seven, and Kyle was coming at seven-thirty because Kyle always came at seven-thirty.

Danny opened the wine to let it breathe, then poured a little for each of them because it seemed a shame to make the bottle breathe alone. Marguerite drank hers standing at the stove, stirring, checking the chicken thighs, deciding they needed another ten minutes. He came up behind her and looked over her shoulder and she elbowed him gently away from the pan.

Ruth and Amit arrived with a grocery-store pie and a story about parking. Kyle arrived at seven-forty with nothing and apologized for it twice. They ate at the table with the mismatched chairs, and the potatoes were good, and Amit asked for the recipe for the pan sauce, which Danny made up on the spot and Marguerite corrected in real time.

The conversation went where it always went: work complaints, a movie nobody had finished, Ruth's sister's wedding. Somebody knocked over a water glass. Danny got a dish towel. Marguerite told the story about the burnt potatoes and Danny let her.

They left a little after eleven. Marguerite washed, Danny dried, and they got through most of it before agreeing to leave the roasting pan to soak until morning.


Marisol found the good tablecloth crumpled at the bottom of the linen closet, smelling faintly of the cedar block she'd bought two Christmases ago and forgotten about.

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

"So iron it." Dev was elbow-deep in a colander of romaine, rinsing grit from the leaves one at a time the way his mother had taught him. "Or don't. Ben won't notice. Ben eats standing over the sink."

"Priya will notice."

"Priya will be polite about noticing."

She ironed it anyway, on the floor of the living room because the ironing board had gone missing in the move and neither of them had gotten around to replacing it. The apartment was small enough that they'd learned to move around each other without speaking, a choreography built over three years of shared bathrooms and one shared bank account for groceries only.

At six-fifteen Dev discovered they had no wine.

"You said you'd get it."

"I said I'd get bread."

"You got bread and no wine."

He put on his shoes and went, and returned eleven minutes later with two bottles of something under fifteen dollars, and by then Marisol had lit the candles and put on the record that always made him roll his eyes, and she caught him rolling them, and he caught her catching him.

Ben and Priya arrived at seven with a bakery box and a story about parking. The chicken was slightly dry; the salad was good. Priya asked when they were going to get a bigger place, and Marisol said when the lease was up, maybe, and Dev said nothing and refilled everyone's glass.

They stayed until almost midnight. Afterward Marisol washed and Dev dried, the record long finished, the candles down to stubs, both of them too tired to talk and neither minding.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt rosemary. Dani had gotten distracted by a text and let the first batch of potatoes go too long, so now she was scraping the black ones into the trash while Marcus reorganized the fridge to make room for the wine Priya always brought.

"We have four wine glasses," he said. "There are six of us."

"Rob and Nina can use the mason jars. They'll think it's a choice."

He laughed and moved on to the folding chairs, wedged behind the coat rack since they'd moved in eighteen months ago. One had a wobbly leg. He put that one at his own spot and stacked a coaster under it.

Dani salvaged the second batch, tossed them with parmesan, and set the pan on the stovetop next to the chicken she'd been marinating since morning. She had a theory that people didn't care what you fed them as long as you fed them enough.

Marcus put on a playlist and then took it off because she said it sounded like a hotel lobby. They compromised on something quieter. He set out the plates, two of which didn't match, and she straightened them because he never squared anything to the table edge.

"You changed your shirt," she said.

"You said the other one had a stain."

"It did. Thank you for listening."

Priya arrived first, ten minutes early, holding a bottle of red and apologizing for it. Rob and Nina came twenty minutes late with a store-bought cheesecake and a story about parking. The chicken was slightly dry. Nobody mentioned it. Marcus refilled the mason jars and Dani got up three times for things she'd forgotten — napkins, pepper, the good olive oil.

By eleven the table was a ruin of crumbs and empty glasses. After everyone left, they stood at the sink, Dani washing, Marcus drying, arguing pleasantly about whether Rob had actually been fired or had quit.


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

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

Dev looked over from the stove, where he was pushing garlic around a pan. "Steam it in the bathroom. Or we could just use placemats."

"We have four placemats and six people."

"Placemats and two brave souls eating off the wood, then."

She shook it out over the table anyway, smoothing the creases with her palms while he tasted the sauce and added too much pepper, then a splash of cream to fix it. Their apartment was small enough that they had to move around each other constantly—she reached past him for the corkscrew, he stepped aside without looking, the choreography of three years.

The Hendersons arrived first, fifteen minutes early, with a bottle of wine and apologies. Dev put them on the couch with olives while Marisol changed out of the shirt she'd spilled vinaigrette on. Priya and her new boyfriend came next, and then Owen, alone, saying Kate had a migraine.

Dinner ran late because the chicken took longer than the recipe promised. They ate the bread and drank most of the wine waiting, which turned out fine—by the time the food came out, everyone was loose and loud, and no one noticed that the potatoes were slightly underdone.

Owen told a long story about his sister's wedding that made Priya laugh until she had to put her fork down. Marisol caught Dev's eye across the table and he raised his eyebrows slightly, a private comment on nothing in particular.

Afterward, people lingered at the door the way people do. When the last of them left, it was nearly midnight. Marisol started stacking plates and Dev turned on the faucet.

"That was good," he said.

"It was." She handed him a plate. "We should do it more."


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Dana had scorched the first batch of caramelized onions while answering a text from her mother, and Ben had scraped the pan out over the sink without saying anything, which she appreciated more than if he'd been gracious about it.

"Do we have enough chairs?" he called from the bedroom.

"Four plus the desk chair. Marisol can have the good one."

He came out carrying the desk chair, its wheels catching on the rug. He'd changed his shirt but not his sweatpants, and Dana decided not to mention it. He set the chair at the head of the table, then moved it, then moved it back.

The guests were an hour out. Dana had made a braised chicken thing from a magazine, which was in the oven and probably fine. Ben was in charge of drinks, which meant he'd bought two bottles of wine and a six-pack and was now arranging them on the counter like a display.

"Should I light the candle?"

"Wait till they get here or it'll be half gone."

Marisol and Tev arrived twelve minutes late with a bag of clementines, which nobody had asked for but everyone found charming. Tev took off his shoes without being asked. Marisol went straight to the stove and lifted the lid on the pot, and Dana let her.

They ate at the table with the wobbly leg, propped that afternoon with a folded receipt. The chicken was good. The conversation went from Tev's job to a documentary about a cult to whether anybody actually liked their landlord. Ben told a story about a raccoon and Dana corrected two details.

Around eleven, Marisol yawned into her wine, and that was that. Dana walked them to the door. Ben started the dishes. She came back and took the towel from his shoulder.


Marguerite found the good tablecloth at the bottom of the linen drawer, creased into a grid from eight months of neglect. She shook it out over the table while Dev stood at the stove, tasting the sauce off a wooden spoon.

"More salt," he said, to himself mostly.

"You always say that."

"I'm always right." He reached past her for the box of kosher salt and their hips knocked together in the narrow galley of the kitchen. Their apartment in Somerville had exactly enough room for two people who liked each other.

She set out four plates, then a fifth in case Priya brought the new boyfriend, then took the fifth away again because it seemed presumptuous. Dev had made too much pasta, which was his way. He'd also bought a bunch of grocery-store tulips that were already drooping in a water glass because they didn't own a vase.

Priya came alone, twenty minutes late, apologizing about the Red Line. Tom and Kai arrived with a bottle of wine and a container of olives that nobody asked for and everybody ate. The five of them sat with their elbows on the table and the windows fogging from the pot of water Dev had forgotten to turn off.

The conversation went the way it always did: work complaints, then a long detour into whether Tom should get a dog, then Kai telling a story about his mother that he'd told before but told well. Marguerite laughed and refilled glasses. Dev cleared plates and refused help twice before accepting it from Priya.

Around eleven the guests found their coats. Dev walked them down to the street door because the buzzer was broken. When he came back up, Marguerite was already elbow-deep in the sink, humming something.

"Leave it," he said.

"Half of it."

They did half of it, and left the rest for morning.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Dana had scorched the first batch of carrots, and now the second batch sat glistening in the pan while Marcus scraped the ruined ones into the trash, holding the bag open with two fingers.

"We could just say it's a smoky flavor," he offered.

"Nobody says that about carrots."

He kissed the back of her neck and went to deal with the folding chairs, which lived behind the coat closet and always came out with a metallic groan. Their table seated four comfortably, six if everyone agreed not to move much. Tonight it would be five: Priya and Theo, and Marcus's coworker Russell, who had recently gotten divorced and had a way of talking about it that made people study their plates.

Dana set out the good napkins, the cloth ones her mother had given them, still creased from the package. She had wanted to iron them and had not.

Priya and Theo arrived first, with a bottle of wine and a bakery box. Russell came twenty minutes later, apologizing about parking, holding a six-pack of something he'd clearly bought at the gas station on the corner.

Dinner went better than the carrots deserved. Theo told a long story about his landlord's cat. Marcus refilled glasses without being asked, and Dana noticed and felt a small, specific fondness for him, the kind that doesn't announce itself.

Russell mentioned the divorce once, briefly, and Priya said something kind, and the conversation moved on without stumbling. Around ten the candles guttered and someone suggested coffee, but nobody really wanted it.

After they left, Dana and Marcus stood in the kitchen with the water running.

"That was good," he said.

"It was."

He washed. She dried. The carrots, they agreed, had been fine.


Marisol found the good tablecloth folded in the linen closet, still creased from the last time they'd used it, at Thanksgiving. She shook it out over the table while Danny stood at the stove, tasting the sauce off a wooden spoon and making a face.

"Too much oregano?"

"There's no such thing," she said.

"There's absolutely such a thing."

He added a splash of the wine they'd been drinking, which was probably a mistake, but it was six-fifteen and Priya and Tom were coming at seven and Kevin was always early. Marisol counted out five forks, discovered they only had four matching ones, and decided nobody would care. She lit the candle her mother had given her and then blew it out because the smell fought with the garlic.

Kevin arrived at six-fifty with a six-pack and an apology for a plus-one who hadn't worked out. Danny took the beer and put it in the fridge, moving the salad bowl to the second shelf, where it immediately tipped and spilled a small amount of vinaigrette on a package of deli turkey. Marisol saw and said nothing.

Priya and Tom brought a bakery pie and stories about the traffic on 35. Everyone stood in the kitchen, which was too small for five people, and then moved to the table, which was also too small, and Tom ended up at the corner with a chair leg between his feet.

The pasta was good. The bread was a little burnt on the bottom, which Danny apologized for twice until Marisol put her hand on his arm.

They talked about Kevin's job, about a movie none of them had seen, about whether the upstairs neighbors were fighting or just loud. Around ten, Priya started yawning.

Afterward, Marisol washed and Danny dried, and neither of them said much, and it was fine.


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

"Get it, get it," Theo said, elbowing past her with the colander.

"I'm getting it." She lifted the skillet off the heat and scraped the browned bits with a wooden spoon. "It's fine. It's fond. That's flavor."

"That's carbon."

They had forty minutes. The chicken was resting under foil, the salad was assembled except for the dressing, and the table—actually a card table pushed against their real table to seat six—was covered with two mismatched cloths that Nadia insisted looked intentional. Theo had spent twenty minutes trying to make the folding chairs match by draping them with throw blankets, then given up.

"Did you text Marcus about the wine?"

"He's bringing red. Priya's bringing dessert but she said it's store-bought, so don't make a face."

"I don't make a face."

"You make a face."

At 7:10 the buzzer went. Marcus and Elise came up first, then Priya alone because Dev's flight got delayed, and finally the Andersons from downstairs, who brought their toddler even though they'd said they wouldn't. Nadia found crayons in a drawer.

The chicken was slightly dry. Nobody said so. Theo kept refilling glasses and Nadia kept getting up to check on things that didn't need checking, and at some point she sat down and stayed sat down and the conversation turned to a coworker of Elise's who'd quit dramatically by email.

Around ten the toddler fell asleep on the couch and the Andersons carried her down. Priya's bakery cake was, in fact, very good.

When everyone had gone, Theo washed and Nadia dried, working through the stack in silence, the radiator ticking. She hung the towel on the oven handle.

"That was good," she said.

"Yeah." He wiped the counter. "We should do it again."


Nadia found the good tablecloth in the linen closet, under a stack of towels neither of them had folded properly since March.

"It's wrinkled," she said, holding it up in the doorway of the kitchen.

Elias was scrubbing a pot he'd burned rice in two nights ago. "Nobody's going to inspect it."

"Marisol will notice."

"Marisol notices everything and says nothing. That's her whole personality." But he dried his hands and went to find the iron, which was in the hall closet behind the vacuum, and he ironed the tablecloth badly on the kitchen counter while Nadia cut lemons.

They had lived in the apartment for two years. The lease was in her name because his credit was bad in 2021, and they had never bothered to change it. His mother still asked, at Christmas, whether they were saving for something.

At six-forty Nadia realized she'd forgotten bread. Elias walked to the corner store in his socks and shoes and came back with a baguette and a bag of ice they didn't need. By then the chicken was resting and the apartment smelled like garlic and burnt lemon rind, and Nadia had changed her shirt twice.

Marisol and Devon arrived at seven-ten with wine. Nadia's coworker Priya came at seven-twenty with her boyfriend, whose name Elias immediately forgot and had to ask about in the kitchen, whispering, while Nadia mouthed *Ben.*

Dinner went long. Devon told a story about a client who'd tried to expense a jet ski. The chicken was slightly dry and everyone said it was perfect. Elias knocked over a water glass reaching for the salt, and Nadia got a towel without commenting, and he touched her wrist as she passed.

They loaded the dishwasher together at eleven. She washed, he dried, the radiator clanking.

"That was good," she said.

"It was fine," he said, which meant the same thing.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar, which Dana insisted was normal for the second hour of cooking.

"It's not normal," Marcus said, fanning a dish towel at the smoke detector. "Normal is when the alarm doesn't go off."

"That's the oven cleaning itself. It does that." She had a wooden spoon in one hand and her phone in the other, propped against the flour canister, playing a video about how to keep risotto from seizing. "Can you set the table? Actual table, not the coffee table."

He moved the stack of unopened mail to the bedroom, then came back for the laptop and the shoebox of tax receipts they had been meaning to deal with since February. The dining table, uncovered, turned out to have a ring on it from something.

"There's a stain."

"Put a plate on it."

They had four chairs, which was the number of people expected, plus themselves, so Marcus carried in the desk chair from the bedroom and gave it to himself, since it squeaked. Dana came out to look at the arrangement, still holding the spoon, and dripped a little on the floor.

Priya and Wes arrived first with a bottle of wine and a story about the parking. Then Kofi, alone, because Sam had a fever. Everyone said the apartment looked great. Everyone stood in the kitchen anyway, in the way, the way people do.

The risotto was slightly underdone. Nobody mentioned it. Wes told a long story about his brother's boat that Dana had heard twice before and laughed at anyway. Marcus refilled glasses and got the good ice cream out of the back of the freezer.

By eleven the guests were gone. Dana washed, Marcus dried, and they left the pot to soak.

"That was nice," she said.

"You burned the sugar."

"I know," she said. "On purpose."


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar, which Nadia insisted was fine. "It's caramelized," she said, scraping at the pan. "That's a technique."

Wes was on his knees under the dining table, fishing out the extension cord for the string lights they'd never gotten around to hanging properly. "The Hendersons are bringing wine, right?"

"Priya and Marcus. Nobody's named Henderson."

"I know their names. I'm being funny."

"You're being something."

He plugged in the lights, and half of them came on. He unplugged them and shoved the tangle back under the table. They'd eat by the overhead fixture, which had a dead bulb in it, which was fine.

Nadia had made too much food, as always. Two roasted chickens for five people. She'd bought a bag of clementines because they looked nice in the wooden bowl. Wes set the table with the mismatched plates—four from his grandmother, two from a thrift store on Larkin—and folded paper towels into triangles beside each one because they were out of napkins.

Priya and Marcus arrived at seven-fifteen with a bottle of Malbec and a story about parking. Tomás came at seven-forty, apologizing, still in his work shirt. They ate in the kitchen because the dining table was under the window and the radiator there clanked.

Marcus asked when they were going to buy a house. Nadia said when the ocean froze. Wes said something about interest rates that he'd read half of.

Later, Tomás helped clear plates and asked, quietly, whether Nadia and Wes had ever thought about getting married. Wes shrugged. "We talk about it. Then we talk about the dishwasher instead."

At eleven they were alone with the wreckage. Nadia washed; Wes dried. The clementines sat untouched in the bowl. He ate one, standing at the counter, and handed her a section without being asked.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Nadia had scorched the first batch of glazed carrots and thrown them out, and Owen had said nothing about it, which she appreciated more than sympathy.

"Do we have enough chairs?" he called from the bedroom.

"Four plus the piano bench."

"Nobody wants the piano bench."

"Then you sit on it. It's your piano."

He came out holding two shirts, one blue, one darker blue. She pointed at the left one without looking up from the cutting board. He put it on and started setting the table, laying out the mismatched forks they'd accumulated—some from his college apartment, some from her grandmother, one inexplicably heavy one neither of them could account for.

Marcus and Priya arrived first, with a bottle of wine and a story about parking. Then Dev, alone, apologizing for Kim, who had a cold. Owen took coats. Nadia hugged people with her wrists, hands still wet.

Dinner was chicken thighs with lemon, the redeemed carrots, and bread Owen had bought and pretended for about four seconds to have baked. Priya asked about the leak in the ceiling, which had been an ongoing saga, and Nadia did an impression of the landlord that made Marcus laugh so hard he had to put his glass down.

Around ten, the conversation went where it always went lately—someone's engagement, someone's mortgage. Priya asked, gently, whether they'd thought about it. Owen said they were happy. Nadia said the same thing at the same moment, and they glanced at each other, and it was fine, it was true.

People left by eleven-thirty. Nadia washed, Owen dried. He kept putting the pans in the wrong cabinet and she kept moving them, and neither of them mentioned it. Later, in bed, he said the carrots had been good the second time. She said she knew.


The apartment smelled like burnt garlic by five-thirty, which Dana insisted was fine.

"It's supposed to be dark," she said, scraping the pan into the trash. "Toasted."

Marcus looked up from the cutting board, where he'd been working through a bag of shallots with the slow precision of someone who had never once been rushed by anything. "That's black, though. That's not toasted, that's a crime scene."

"Start over, then. I'm doing the salad."

They had lived together three years in a one-bedroom above a laundromat, which meant the floor was always slightly warm and the whole place smelled faintly of dryer sheets. Dana set out the mismatched plates — two from his mother, four from a thrift store on Ashland — while Marcus started the garlic again, lower heat this time.

Priya and Owen arrived at seven with a bottle of wine and a folding chair, because they knew there weren't enough seats. Jenna came twenty minutes later, apologizing about the train, holding a grocery-store cake still in its plastic dome.

Dinner was pasta and too much bread. Owen talked about his sister's wedding, the seating chart drama, and Priya corrected three of his details. Marcus refilled glasses without being asked. Dana kicked him under the table when he started to tell the story about the raccoon, and he told it anyway, and everyone laughed at the part where he'd stood on the toilet.

Around ten, Jenna asked when they were going to make it official, and Dana said, "When one of us needs the other's health insurance," and Marcus said, "Or when her mom stops asking," and the subject moved on to a show nobody had finished.

They did the dishes together after, Marcus washing, Dana drying, the radiator ticking. She found a shallot skin stuck to the counter and flicked it at him.

"Toasted," she said.

"Shut up," he said, smiling.


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

"It's a glaze," she said, angling the pan away from Marcus's inspection. "It's supposed to look like that."

"It looks like a hockey puck."

"Then set the table before I make you eat it."

He found the good plates in the cabinet above the fridge, the ones her mother had sent when they moved in together two years ago, still in the original box because they'd never had more than two people over at once. Four plates. Four glasses, mismatched—two wine, one jam jar, one that had come free with a bottle of mustard.

"Should we care about the jam jar?" he called.

"Dana won't care. Ben might."

"Ben brought us a six-pack of White Claw last time. Ben doesn't get to care."

Dana and Ben arrived twenty minutes late with a bottle of red and a story about parking that took longer to tell than the actual search had taken. Priya took the wine and kissed Dana on the cheek and told Ben the bathroom door stuck, you had to lift the handle.

The chicken was fine. Better than fine. Marcus said so twice, loudly, and Priya kicked him under the table.

They talked about Dana's sister's wedding, about whether the new place on Fifth was any good, about a coworker of Ben's who'd quit by email. At some point the conversation turned to a documentary none of them had finished. Marcus refilled glasses. Priya put her feet in his lap under the table and left them there.

By eleven the candles had burned down unevenly and Ben was yawning into his fist. Hugs at the door, promises to do this again sooner.

Afterward Priya washed and Marcus dried, the water running loud, both of them quiet in the good way.

"Hockey puck," she said.

"Delicious hockey puck."


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Priya had scorched the first batch of caramelized onions while answering a work email, and Danny had scraped the pan into the trash without saying anything, which she appreciated more than sympathy.

"They're going to be late," he said, slicing baguette on the cutting board that had a crack running through it. They'd been meaning to replace it for two years. "Marcus is always late."

"Twenty minutes late is fine. We're not ready anyway."

He looked around the living room. The coffee table had been cleared of its usual archaeology — mail, chargers, a library book about the Dust Bowl he was three weeks overdue on. He'd stacked everything on the bedroom dresser. "We're basically ready."

"There's a sock under the couch."

"How do you see that from the kitchen?"

She didn't answer. She was tasting the soup, adding salt, tasting again. Danny retrieved the sock, then went to change his shirt, and came back wearing the same kind of shirt in a different color.

The buzzer went at seven forty. Marcus and Jen came up with a bottle of wine and a store-bought pie they were honest about being store-bought, and Priya's coworker Ellen arrived ten minutes later with her new boyfriend, whose name nobody quite caught the first time.

They ate at the table with the leaf put in, which meant nobody could open the closet. The soup was good. Danny told the story about the neighbor's parrot and got the timing wrong, and Priya finished it for him, and Marcus laughed the way he did, which was too loud and made everyone else laugh.

Afterward there were dishes, and Ellen tried to help, and Priya said no, honestly, sit. At eleven the door closed and the apartment went quiet.

"That was nice," Danny said, running the water hot.

Priya kicked off her shoes. "Yeah. It was."


Priya found the good tablecloth wadded in the linen closet behind the extra towels, and she shook it out over the table while Devon argued with the oven.

"It says preheated," he said. "It's lying."

"Just give it another ten minutes."

They had four people coming at seven: Marcus and Jen from Devon's old job, and Priya's friend Simone, who was bringing someone named Alex that nobody had met yet. Priya had made a chicken thing with olives and lemon that she'd done twice before, both times successfully, which felt like the safest bet. Devon was in charge of everything else, which meant he had bought a wedge of cheese, three kinds of crackers, and far too much wine.

"Do we have candles?" she asked.

"We have birthday candles."

"That's not the same."

At six-forty, Devon vacuumed the living room rug while Priya changed her shirt twice and settled on the first one. He came in and stood behind her at the mirror, chin on her shoulder, and said she looked nice, and she said his collar was doing something weird, and fixed it.

Simone arrived first, twenty minutes early, with Alex trailing behind holding a bottle of something. Marcus and Jen came right at seven and Jen immediately took off her shoes, which relieved everyone. The chicken was good. Alex turned out to be quiet but funny once he'd had a drink, and told a long story about a raccoon in his apartment building that made Devon laugh so hard he had to put his glass down.

At eleven, after everyone left, Priya stood at the sink and Devon dried. They talked about Alex, and whether Marcus seemed unhappy, and whether they should have made a dessert.

"Next time," Devon said.

She handed him the last plate. The kitchen light hummed. Outside a car door shut, and then it was quiet.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Marisol had caramelized the onions too long, and Deon was scraping the pan with a wooden spoon, insisting it was salvageable.

"It's fine," he said. "It's rustic."

"It's carbon."

They had been together four years and in this apartment for two, long enough that the arguments had worn smooth, like river stones. Marisol wiped down the table they'd bought secondhand and never refinished. Deon put on a playlist he'd made specifically for the evening, then skipped the first three songs because they felt wrong now that people were actually coming.

Priya and Tom arrived first, with a bottle of wine and a bag of clementines, apologizing for the clementines. "They were on sale," Priya said. "I panicked." Andre came twenty minutes late, still in his work clothes, and immediately took off his shoes without being asked, which Marisol appreciated.

The chicken was dry. Everyone said it wasn't. Deon told the story about the guy at the hardware store who tried to sell him a specialty grout he definitely didn't need, and Marisol interrupted twice to correct details, and Deon let her, because her version was funnier.

Around ten, Tom found the deck of cards in the drawer with the batteries and the takeout menus, and they played a game whose rules nobody fully remembered. Andre kept score on the back of an envelope. Priya fell asleep sitting up for a moment and denied it.

By eleven-thirty everyone was gone. The clementines sat in their bag on the counter.

Marisol washed; Deon dried. He mentioned that Andre had seemed quieter than usual, and she said she'd noticed too, and they agreed one of them should text him tomorrow.

"You burned the onions," Deon said.

"You said it was rustic."

He hung the towel on the oven handle, crooked, the way he always did, and she straightened it, the way she always did.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Dana had caramelized the onions too long, and Marcus, coming out of the shower with a towel around his neck, said so without saying so—he opened the window over the sink and stood there a second, letting the cold February air push in.

"They're fine," Dana said.

"I didn't say anything."

"You opened a window."

He kissed the side of her head and went to find a shirt. She heard him rummaging, heard the closet door stick the way it had since October. He'd said he would plane it down. He'd bought the plane.

By seven the table was set with four plates that didn't match, which Dana had decided years ago was charming rather than a failure to buy a set. Marcus had made a playlist that was mostly songs from his sophomore year of college. He kept lowering the volume, then raising it.

Priya and Tom arrived at 7:20 with a bottle of wine and a container of olives nobody would eat. Priya took off her shoes without being asked; Tom didn't, and Dana decided not to care. They stood in the kitchen for the first forty minutes because that's where everyone always stood, drinking, while the pasta water refused to boil.

Over dinner Tom told a long story about his boss and a rental car in Tulsa. Marcus laughed in the right places. Priya asked about the apartment's radiator, which knocked, and Dana said they'd stopped hearing it.

Around ten Marcus started stacking plates and Dana said leave it, and he left it, and then twenty minutes later she got up and did it herself while he walked them down to the street.

When he came back she was elbow-deep in the sink. He picked up a towel.

"That was nice," he said.

"Tom didn't take his shoes off."

"I know," Marcus said. "I noticed."


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Nadia had scorched the first batch of caramelized onions and started over, and Theo had taken the ruined pan out to the balcony to cool so the smoke alarm would stop threatening them.

"They're going to be late anyway," he said, coming back in. "Marcus is always late."

"That's not a reason to serve them something that tastes like an ashtray." Nadia was slicing the second onion, blinking hard. "Can you do the table? The good napkins are in the bottom drawer, under the takeout menus."

Theo found four cloth napkins, two navy and two a faded green, and decided nobody would notice. He set out the mismatched wine glasses, the ones from her old apartment and the ones his sister had given them, and put the bottle of red on the counter to breathe because Nadia had told him once that you were supposed to.

Marcus and Priya arrived at 7:20 with a bakery box and apologies about parking. Priya immediately went to the stove to look at what was happening. Marcus took off his shoes without being asked, which Theo appreciated.

They ate the pasta at the small table with two chairs pulled in from the bedroom desk. Priya told a long story about her landlord and a raccoon. Nadia laughed so hard she had to put her fork down. Theo refilled glasses and got up twice, once for the parmesan he'd forgotten and once for water.

Around ten, Marcus checked his phone and said something about an early meeting. There was the slow business of coats and leftovers in a container Priya promised to return.

Afterward, Nadia washed and Theo dried, and she said the onions had been fine in the end, and he said he'd told her so, and she flicked water at him.


Nadia found the good tablecloth wadded in the bottom drawer, creased into a grid. She shook it out and considered it. "Iron or lie?"

"Lie," Marcus said from the kitchen. "Say it's textured."

He was standing over a pot of curry, tasting it with the wooden spoon he refused to replace even though the handle had split. Nadia came in and dipped her finger in.

"Needs salt."

"It doesn't need salt."

"It needs salt."

He added salt.

They had forty minutes. Nadia collected the mail and a pair of his running shoes from the couch and dumped both in the bedroom, then closed the door on it. Marcus put on the album Nadia liked and turned it down until it was barely there, which was how she preferred it. The apartment smelled like cumin and the cheap candle from the bathroom.

The Okonkwos arrived first, ten minutes early, with a bottle of wine and their four-year-old, who had a cold and was asleep against Dele's shoulder. Nadia found blankets. Priya came at seven-thirty, apologizing about the train, and then everyone was standing in the kitchen, which held six people badly, drinking wine out of a mismatched assortment of glasses.

"You've painted," Priya said.

"Two years ago," Marcus said.

Dinner ran long. Someone spilled rice. Dele told a story about his boss that he had told before, and Marcus laughed at it again, honestly. Nadia refilled water without being asked. At some point the four-year-old woke and ate three bites of naan and fell asleep again on the couch, and everyone lowered their voices without discussing it.

They left just after eleven. Marcus started the dishes; Nadia dried, standing close enough that their elbows kept bumping.

"That was good," she said.

"Yeah."

"We should do it more."

"We say that."

"I know," she said, and handed him a plate to put away.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt rosemary. Dana had turned the oven down twice already, but the chicken kept insisting on browning faster than the potatoes cooked.

"Do we have another lemon?" she called.

Marcus was in the living room, moving the laundry basket from the couch to the bedroom, which he had promised to do an hour ago. "There's half of one in the door of the fridge. It might be from last week."

"Last week's fine."

He came into the kitchen and looked at the counter, at the cutting board crowded with parsley stems and the bowl of salad greens still unwashed. He picked up the bowl without being asked and carried it to the sink. They had lived together for two years, and the choreography of a small kitchen was one of the things they'd gotten good at, along with knowing when not to talk during a bad week at work.

"Is Priya bringing wine or should I run out?"

"She said she was. But she also said that last time."

Marcus grabbed his keys. He came back with two bottles of red and a bag of ice, and by then the table was set with the mismatched plates and the cloth napkins Dana's mother had given them at Christmas, still creased from the package.

Priya and Ben arrived at seven-fifteen, apologizing for parking. Ben handed over a loaf of bread from the good bakery, and Priya, who had in fact brought wine, put it in the freezer to chill and forgot about it entirely.

They ate around the little table with their elbows nearly touching. Ben told a long story about his landlord that got funnier as it went. The chicken was slightly dry; nobody mentioned it. At eleven, after the guests left, Dana and Marcus stood at the sink washing dishes, tired and pleased, arguing gently about who had actually invited whom.


Nadia found the good tablecloth folded at the bottom of the linen closet, smelling faintly of cedar and last Thanksgiving. She shook it out over the table while Theo argued with a jar of olives at the counter.

"There's a trick," he said. "You hit the lid on the edge of the counter."

"You'll chip the counter."

He hit it on the edge of the counter. The lid gave with a pop, and he looked at her with the smug expression she'd been putting up with for four years.

They had forty minutes. Nadia had made a mushroom thing from a magazine, which had involved more thyme than she'd expected and a trip to the store at four o'clock. Theo was in charge of everything else, which meant bread, salad, and the playlist, which he'd been curating since Wednesday with unnecessary seriousness.

"Do we have enough chairs?" she asked.

"Five. Someone can take the desk chair."

"Not Priya. Her back."

"Then I'll take the desk chair."

The Bhatts arrived first, eleven minutes early, with a bottle of wine and a story about parking. Marcus came at seven-thirty with nothing, as usual, and apologized about it, as usual, and everyone said it was fine, which it was. The mushroom thing came out slightly underseasoned; Theo passed the salt without being asked and without saying anything about it, which Nadia noticed.

They talked about a coworker's divorce, then about whether anyone still used their gym membership. Priya spilled a little wine and blotted it with her napkin, insisting it was nothing. It was, in fact, nothing.

By eleven the guests were gone and the apartment had that flattened, warm quality of a room that's just emptied. Theo ran the water. Nadia dried. They left the good tablecloth soaking in the sink overnight and went to bed still talking about the divorce.


Marisol found the good tablecloth crumpled at the bottom of the linen closet, smelling faintly of the cedar block Devon's mother had given them two Christmases ago.

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

Devon looked over from the stove, where he was stirring a pot of white beans with too much rosemary in them, probably. "Nobody's going to inspect the tablecloth."

"Renata will."

"Renata will be three drinks in by the time she sits down."

Marisol ironed it anyway, on the floor of the living room because the ironing board had a broken leg they kept meaning to fix. Devon put on a record and then took it off because it was too loud for talking, and put on a different one. He tasted the beans and added vinegar, and then more salt, and then worried he'd overdone it.

The guests came at seven-fifteen, which meant seven-forty. Renata brought a bottle of orange wine and a story about her landlord. Theo and Priya brought a pie from the Vietnamese bakery on Callowhill, still slightly frozen in the middle, and everybody agreed that was fine.

They ate in the kitchen because the table there was bigger. Devon apologized for the beans twice before Priya told him to stop. The conversation went from rent to a documentary nobody had actually finished to whether Theo should quit his job, which he'd been considering out loud for a year and a half. Marisol refilled glasses. Devon got up to find the good olive oil and couldn't, and used the regular kind.

Around eleven the pie thawed enough to cut. Renata fell asleep briefly on the couch and woke up embarrassed. Everyone left by midnight.

Devon washed; Marisol dried. She said the beans had been good, and he said he knew, he just liked hearing it.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt rosemary, which Dana insisted was normal.

"It's supposed to smell like that," she said, prodding the chicken with a fork. "That's the crust forming."

Marcus looked skeptical but didn't argue. He was setting the table, counting out four forks, then five, then remembering that Priya's boyfriend had bailed. He put one fork back in the drawer and rearranged the placemats so the burn mark from last Thanksgiving faced the wall.

"Do we have enough chairs?"

"We have the folding one in the closet."

"That thing pinches."

"Then you sit in it," Dana said. "You're the host."

"We're both the host."

She laughed and handed him a spoon with sauce on it. He tasted it, said it needed salt, and she said it didn't, and he added salt anyway when she turned around to check the oven timer.

They'd lived together two years in the second-floor unit on Kellogg Street, long enough that Marcus knew to run the dishwasher before guests came so the sink would be empty, and Dana knew he'd forget the ice. She'd bought a bag that afternoon.

Priya arrived first with a bottle of wine and wet shoes. Tom and Bex came twenty minutes later, apologizing about parking. Everyone stood in the kitchen because that's where people stand, even when there's a living room with a perfectly good couch.

The chicken was slightly dry. Nobody said so. Tom had thirds anyway.

Around ten, Bex told a long story about her sister's wedding that made Dana laugh so hard she had to set down her glass. Marcus watched her, then got up quietly to start the coffee.

After everyone left, they stood in the kitchen surveying the wreckage.

"That was good," Dana said.

"Yeah." Marcus turned on the faucet. "You wash, I'll dry."

"You always say that and then it's the opposite."

It was the opposite.


Marisol found the good tablecloth crumpled at the bottom of the linen closet, smelling faintly of cedar and last Thanksgiving. She shook it out over the table while Dev argued with the oven, which had been running forty degrees cold since March.

"I could put the chicken on the grill," he said.

"It's twenty-eight degrees out."

"I have a coat."

She let him go. Through the kitchen window she watched him standing on the little concrete slab behind their duplex, hunched in his puffer, poking at the coals with a pair of tongs while his breath fogged. She lit the two candles they'd bought at the drugstore and set them too close together, then moved one.

The Ohlssons arrived first with a bottle of wine and their eight-month-old, who fell asleep in the car seat and stayed asleep in the corner of the living room like a rumor. Then Ben, alone, which everyone had expected but nobody mentioned. Marisol took his coat and asked about his sister. He said she was doing better, which was what he'd said in October.

Dev came in with the chicken, triumphant, one sleeve smudged with ash. It was good — a little charred at the wing — and the potatoes were undercooked, and nobody cared. Kara Ohlsson told a long story about a coworker who kept stealing yogurt. Ben laughed harder than the story deserved and then apologized for laughing so hard.

At ten the baby woke and that was the end of it. Coats, leftovers pressed into hands, the front door letting in a cold slice of the street.

Marisol ran the water hot. Dev dried, badly, stacking plates while still damp.

"That went okay," he said.

"It went fine." She handed him the roasting pan. "You had ash on your face the whole time."

"Nobody said anything."

"I know," she said. "I was going to."


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt rosemary. Nadia scraped the blackened sprigs off the chicken skin with a butter knife while Dev hauled the folding table in from the closet, banging his shoulder on the doorframe.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine. This table's a war crime."

They had four people coming at seven, which meant six-thirty in practice, because Marcus was chronically twenty minutes late and had trained everyone else to compensate. Nadia had made the roast chicken twice before and both times it had been fine, which she considered a good ratio.

Dev wiped down the table with a paper towel, then found the mismatched chairs — two from the kitchen, one from his desk, the wobbly one nobody wanted. He put the wobbly one at his own place.

"Do we have candles?"

"Under the sink. But they smell like vanilla."

"Everything's going to smell like chicken anyway."

She let him have that. He was good at the small staging things, the way he tucked the cords behind the couch and turned the lamps low so the living room looked deliberate instead of tired. She was better at the food, and at remembering that Priya didn't eat pork.

Marcus arrived at 7:22 with a bottle of wine and an apology that was mostly a story about parking. Priya and Sam came ten minutes later with a store-bought pie still in its plastic dome. Everyone stood in the kitchen for the first half hour, the way people do, until Nadia physically pushed them toward the table.

The chicken was dry at the breast and good at the thighs. Nobody minded. Sam told a long story about a coworker's resignation email. Dev refilled glasses without being asked. Around ten, Nadia caught him yawning behind his hand and kicked him gently under the table, and he grinned and stopped.

They did the dishes together after, radio on, not talking much.


Marisol found the good tablecloth at the bottom of the linen closet, still creased from the last time they'd used it, which had been Thanksgiving, which had been at Dev's mother's house, which meant the creases were nine months old.

"It's fine," Dev said, when she held it up. "Nobody looks at the tablecloth."

"I look at the tablecloth."

He was cubing chicken for the curry, working slower than he thought he was. The rice cooker had already clicked over to warm. Marisol ran an iron over the cloth on the kitchen counter, which she knew was a bad idea, and got a faint scorch mark near one corner that she rotated toward the wall.

Priya and Tom arrived twenty minutes early with a bottle of wine and a bag of clementines, apologizing for both. Rob came late and alone; he and Jen had split in May and nobody brought it up. There were only four chairs that matched, so Dev dragged in the desk chair from the second bedroom and sat in it himself, rolling backward every time he leaned.

The curry was too hot. Everyone said it was perfect and drank a lot of water. Tom talked about his commute. Priya said she'd started running again, then admitted she'd gone twice. Rob, three beers in, described a coworker's wedding in exhaustive detail, and Marisol laughed at the right places while Dev cleared the plates.

At the sink, Dev bumped her hip with his and handed her a dish towel without saying anything. From the other room came Tom's laugh, then Priya's.

They left a little after eleven. Marisol found a clementine peel on the arm of the couch and Dev found a fork under the table. They loaded the dishwasher badly, ran it anyway, and left the tablecloth for morning.


Miriam found the good tablecloth at the bottom of the linen closet, folded around a smell of cedar and dust. She shook it out over the kitchen table while Daniel scraped the last of the carrot peels into the compost bin under the sink.

"Six or seven?" he asked.

"Six. Priya's bringing her sister, but Tom bailed. His kid has strep."

Daniel nodded and went back to the chicken, which he was browning in the Dutch oven because he'd read somewhere that you had to brown things properly or the whole dish tasted flat. The kitchen filled with smoke. Miriam opened the window over the sink without saying anything about it, which he appreciated.

They had lived in the apartment three years. The radiators knocked. There was a water stain on the ceiling shaped vaguely like Florida, and Miriam had stopped noticing it sometime last winter.

"Do we own six matching forks?" she called from the drawer.

"We own four."

"Then people will use whatever."

The first knock came at seven-ten. Priya and her sister Anjali brought a bottle of wine and a bakery box of something with pistachios. Then the Nakamuras, then Beth, who came alone and immediately took off her shoes and sat cross-legged on the couch like she lived there.

The chicken was fine. Slightly dry, everyone said it was good. Daniel drank two beers and told the story about the parking garage, which Miriam had heard forty times and still laughed at, mostly at the part where he did the voice.

Around eleven Beth fell asleep sitting up. Anjali took a picture of her. People left in a slow, staggered way, one coat at a time, promising things.

Afterward Miriam ran the water hot and Daniel dried. Neither of them mentioned the dishes taking forty minutes. Outside, someone's car alarm went off and then stopped.


Marisol found the good tablecloth folded in the linen closet behind a stack of towels, still creased from the last time they'd used it, sometime around Thanksgiving. She shook it out over the table while Dev argued with the oven.

"It says preheated," he said, "but it's lying to me."

"It always lies. Give it ten more minutes."

He'd been working on the chicken since four, a recipe his mother had emailed him with no measurements, just phrases like *enough garlic* and *until it smells right*. The kitchen smelled right. It smelled like lemon and oregano and the faint scorch of something dripping onto the oven floor.

Marisol counted out four plates, then five, because Priya was bringing someone new. She set out the mismatched wine glasses and decided not to apologize for them. In the living room she moved the laundry basket into the bedroom and closed the door, which was, she thought, the entire art of hosting.

Dev came out wiping his hands on a dish towel. "Do we have enough chairs?"

"We have the desk chair."

"Someone always gets the desk chair."

"It'll be you," she said, and he laughed, because it would be.

The guests came at seven-thirty, ten minutes apart, so the door kept opening. Priya's friend Theo brought a bottle of something orange and unpronounceable and admitted he'd bought it because of the label. Sam took off his shoes without being asked and then apologized for his socks.

The chicken was slightly dry. Nobody said so. Dev noticed and kept refilling glasses to compensate, and by nine the table was loud with an argument about whether a hot dog was a sandwich, which Marisol lost on a technicality.

Later, elbow-deep in the sink, she heard Dev in the other room describing the oven's lies to Theo, who found it hilarious. She let the water run a while longer.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt rosemary. Dana had set the oven too high, and now she stood fanning smoke away from the detector with a dish towel while Marcus pulled the chicken out and inspected the skin.

"It's fine," he said. "It's better than fine. It's rustic."

"It's charred."

"Rustic." He set the pan on the stovetop and went back to slicing bread, the good kind from the bakery on Delaney, which had cost eight dollars and which Dana had insisted on because Priya always brought something nice.

They had lived together two years in a one-bedroom with a radiator that clanked at three a.m. Dana had claimed the closet; Marcus kept his shirts on a rolling rack by the window. Tonight they had moved the rack into the bathroom, which felt absurd, and then they had argued briefly about whether to use the cloth napkins or the paper ones, and then they had used the cloth ones.

Priya and Sam arrived at seven with a bottle of red and a bag of clementines. Tom came at seven-twenty, apologizing, still in his work badge. There were five of them around a table meant for four, elbows negotiating space, the chicken passed hand to hand.

Sam told a long story about a coworker who'd quit by fax machine. Priya peeled clementines and handed the segments around without asking. Marcus refilled glasses. Dana got up twice—once for more bread, once because the smoke detector chirped again, low battery, and she stood on a chair while Marcus held her ankle and everyone offered contradictory advice.

By eleven the plates were stacked in the sink and the clementine peels made a small orange pile on the table. Tom left first. Priya hugged them both at the door.

Afterward Dana washed and Marcus dried, and neither of them said much, and the radiator started up.


The Table by Six

Nadia was still peeling potatoes when Theo came in from the garage carrying two folding chairs and a spider web across his forehead.

"We're one chair short," he said, wiping his face with his forearm. "Unless someone wants the piano bench."

"Rachel's short. Give her the bench." Nadia dropped a peel into the compost bin and glanced at the clock on the stove. Ten past five. "Did you text Marcus about the wine?"

"He said he's bringing something red. Which, knowing Marcus, means whatever was on the endcap."

Theo set up the chairs, then took over at the sink so she could start the chicken. They moved around each other in the narrow kitchen the way they had for four years, a hand on a hip to signal *behind you*, a shoulder tilt to mean *hand me that*. He put on a playlist she'd complained about last time and she didn't complain.

At 5:40 she noticed the tablecloth had a stain shaped vaguely like Florida.

"Just turn it," Theo said.

"Then the good end faces the wall."

"Nobody looks at the wall end."

She turned it. He was right, and she told him so, and he said he'd get that in writing.

Rachel and her boyfriend arrived first with a bag of clementines, apologizing for the clementines. Marcus came at 6:20 with a bottle of Malbec and a story about the parking. The kitchen got loud. Someone knocked over a water glass and someone else caught most of it with a dish towel.

The chicken was slightly dry. Nobody said so. Theo said it twice.

By ten they were all still at the table, plates pushed back, Rachel's boyfriend explaining something about his job that nobody quite followed. Nadia caught Theo's eye across the candles. He raised his eyebrows a fraction, meaning *good night*, and she nodded, meaning *yes*.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Dana had scorched the first batch of caramelized onions while answering a work email, and Miguel had scraped them into the trash without commentary, which she appreciated more than sympathy.

"Do we own six chairs?" he called from the living room.

"We own four chairs and that stool from your sister."

"So five." He dragged the desk chair in from the bedroom, wheels catching on the rug. "Five and a half."

They had lived together two years in a one-bedroom on the second floor of a building with a laundry room that flooded every spring. Tonight was Priya and Josh, plus Josh's cousin who was visiting from Tucson and had, according to Josh, "no dietary restrictions but strong feelings about cilantro."

Dana pulled the chicken from the oven and poked it with a thermometer. One-sixty-two. She put it back in.

"Wine's cold," Miguel said. "Do we have a corkscrew or did we lose that too?"

"Junk drawer. Under the batteries."

He found it. He also found a hair tie, a rubber spatula they'd been missing, and a coupon for oil changes that had expired in March.

The buzzer rang at seven-forty. Priya came up first with a bottle and a bag of ice nobody had asked for but everybody needed. Josh's cousin turned out to be named Teddy, and he stood in the kitchen doorway with his hands in his pockets until Miguel handed him a beer and asked him about the drive.

They ate at the table with the desk chair squeaking. The chicken was fine. The onions, the second batch, were good. Priya told a story about her landlord that made Dana laugh so hard she had to set down her fork.

At eleven-thirty, after everyone left, Miguel washed and Dana dried. Neither of them said much. The dishwasher had been broken since February.


Marisol found the good tablecloth crumpled at the bottom of the linen closet, and she shook it out over the table while Devon stood at the stove, tasting the sauce off a wooden spoon.

"More salt," he said.

"You always say more salt."

"Because it's always the answer." He held out the spoon anyway, and she leaned over and tasted it, and admitted, grudgingly, that he was right.

They had four people coming at seven, which was really five, because Priya had mentioned she might bring the guy she'd been seeing. Marisol counted out plates. Two of the wine glasses had gone missing sometime last summer, so they set out a jelly jar for whoever came last and hoped it would read as charming.

Devon vacuumed the living room rug while Marisol cut the ends off the flowers she'd bought at the grocery store, arranging them in a pitcher because they didn't own a vase. At six-forty she went to change, and came back in the green sweater, and he told her it looked good without looking up from the oven.

"You could put on a different shirt," she said.

"This is a different shirt."

Priya came alone, in the end. Tomás and Beth brought a bottle of something expensive and a bag of clementines, which nobody could explain. They ate at the table with their elbows touching, passing bowls, and Devon told the story about the neighbor's dog getting into the recycling, and Marisol corrected him twice on the details until he let her tell it instead.

The night ran long. Someone found the box of dominoes in the hall closet. By the time everyone left it was almost one, and the kitchen looked worse than they remembered leaving it.

Marisol started filling the sink. Devon picked up a dish towel.

"That went well," he said.

"It did." She handed him a plate, still warm.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt rosemary. Dana pulled the chicken out early, poked it with a fork, and put it back in.

"It's fine," Marcus said from the sink, where he was scrubbing a colander that had been in the drying rack for three days. "You said forty minutes."

"I said forty minutes at four-twenty-five. The oven runs cold."

"The oven runs cold," he repeated, in the voice he used when he was agreeing and mocking her at the same time. She flicked water at him.

They had lived together fourteen months in a second-floor walk-up with a radiator that clanked all winter. Tonight it was four people: Priya and Owen, who were married, and Jess, who had just left her job at the hospital and wanted to talk about it. Dana had bought a bottle of wine she couldn't pronounce. Marcus had made a playlist, then panicked about it and made a second one.

Priya and Owen arrived first, with a store-bought pie and apologies for the store-bought pie. Jess came twenty minutes late, hair wet, saying the trains were a nightmare. Marcus took her coat and hung it on the back of a chair because the closet was full of Dana's winter things.

They ate on the couch and the floor because the table sat four. The chicken was slightly dry. Nobody said so, and Owen took thirds. Jess talked about the hospital for a while, and then stopped and asked Priya about her mother, and Priya said, "She's okay, actually," and seemed surprised by it.

At eleven, Dana walked everyone down to the street door. Marcus was already stacking plates when she came back up. She took the towel from his shoulder and started drying.

"That went well," he said.

"You didn't play your playlist."

"I forgot," he said. "Next time."


The rice cooker clicked over to warm just as Priya realized she'd forgotten the wine.

"I'll go," Danny said, already reaching for his keys on the hook by the door, the one he'd installed crooked eight months ago and neither of them had bothered to fix. "Red or white?"

"Both. And limes if they have them."

He was gone eleven minutes. In that time Priya wiped down the counters twice, moved the stack of mail from the table to the bedroom, and stood staring at the four place settings, trying to remember whether Marcus's girlfriend ate dairy. She texted him. No answer. She got out the coconut milk anyway.

Danny came back with two bottles, no limes, and a bag of tortilla chips he'd bought on impulse. "For the salsa," he said, which was a joke, because there was no salsa. Priya took the chips and poured them into a bowl and put them on the coffee table, because it was better than nothing.

Marcus and Elena arrived at seven-fifteen, apologetic about traffic. Elena brought a small pot of basil that she said might not survive the week. Priya put it on the windowsill above the sink where the light was decent.

The chicken was slightly dry. Nobody said so. Danny kept refilling glasses and asking Elena about her sister's wedding, which Priya could tell he was doing partly out of interest and partly to give her time to eat, since she'd been talking and serving and hadn't touched her plate. She caught his eye across the table and he raised his eyebrows a quarter-inch, the way he did.

They stayed until eleven. After, Priya washed and Danny dried, and he told her the story Marcus had told him in the kitchen about the guy at his office. She laughed harder than the story warranted.

"That was good," he said.

"It was okay," she said, and meant it was good.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Dana had let the onions go too dark in the pan, and Marcus, coming in from the hallway with two bags of ice, said, "Are we doing blackened tonight? Cajun surprise?"

"It's fine. It's caramelized." She scraped the pan with a wooden spoon. "Did you get the lime seltzer or the lemon?"

"They only had grapefruit."

"Nobody drinks grapefruit."

"Priya drinks grapefruit."

Dana couldn't argue with that. She wiped her hands on the dish towel hanging from the oven handle and looked around the kitchen, taking inventory: braised chicken thighs, rice, a salad she hadn't dressed yet, the bread Marcus had picked up from the place on Fulton that only sold sourdough and was always closed by four.

He put the ice in the freezer, which meant taking out the bag of frozen peas and the two ice cube trays and setting them on the counter, where they would stay until Sunday. Then he went around the living room collecting things that didn't belong there: his running shoes, a phone charger, a screwdriver from when he'd tightened the bathroom doorknob three weeks ago.

"Do we have enough chairs?" he asked.

"Five, if you count the desk chair."

"I'll get the desk chair."

Priya and Tom arrived first, then Marcus's coworker Devon, who brought a bottle of wine and a story about a client that took eleven minutes to tell. They ate at the table with the leaf pulled out, elbows close. The chicken was good. The bread was better. Tom asked when they were going to buy a place and Dana said when the market crashed, and Marcus said when Tom loaned them the down payment, and everyone laughed and moved on.

After, Dana washed and Marcus dried, standing too close in the narrow galley, bumping hips.

"Grapefruit went fast," he said.

"Shut up," she said, and handed him a plate.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Devon had scorched the first batch of glazed carrots and was now scraping the pan over the trash while Priya moved behind him, unloading the dishwasher to make room for the mess they hadn't made yet.

"You could just serve them the burnt ones," she said. "Tell everyone it's char. People pay for char."

"I paid for these carrots."

"Two dollars."

He flicked water at her. She ducked and kept stacking plates, four dinner plates, one chipped, which she set at the bottom so it would end up in front of her.

They'd lived together two years in a one-bedroom off Ridge Avenue, long enough that the couch had a permanent dent on the left side and they had stopped narrating who was going to the grocery store. Tonight was Marcus and Elena, who had just moved back from Denver, plus Priya's coworker Jenna, who they'd invited partly out of guilt and partly because she made good conversation.

Devon set the table wrong—forks on the right—and Priya fixed it without mentioning it. He noticed and said nothing either.

Marcus and Elena arrived twenty minutes late with a bottle of wine and a story about parking. Jenna came at 7:40 with a bakery pie, apologizing. The chicken was slightly dry. Nobody said so. Elena had three helpings of the carrots.

They ate at the table for an hour, then drifted to the living room, where Marcus took the dented spot on the couch and Devon, standing, refilled glasses. Priya sat on the floor with her back against Devon's shins. Someone brought up the wedding they'd all attended in August, and Elena asked, lightly, whether they'd ever do it.

"Eventually," Priya said.

"Probably," Devon said.

The conversation moved on to a show Jenna was watching. Devon went to cut the pie, and Priya followed to find plates.


Nora had already burned the first batch of garlic bread when Danny got home from the hardware store, holding a paper bag with two extension cords and a bag of ice.

"Smells committed," he said.

"It's fine. The second tray's fine." She waved a dish towel at the smoke detector, which had gone off twice already and now hung by its wires above the fridge, silenced.

They'd lived in the apartment three years, long enough that the layout of the kitchen felt like a shared body part. Danny knew to keep to the left of the stove. Nora knew he'd forget the ice until she reminded him, which is why she'd texted at 4:40.

"Did you get the beer?"

"Beer, ice, cords. Not the lemons."

"Danny."

"There were no lemons. There was a crate where lemons should be."

They set the table with the four matching plates and two that didn't match, and Nora put the mismatched ones at their own seats. Danny plugged a lamp into one of the new cords so the corner of the living room wouldn't be so dim, then spent ten minutes wrestling the cord under the rug so nobody would trip.

Ellis and Priya arrived first with a bottle of wine and a story about the parking situation. Then Marcus, alone, because Steph had a work thing. Six people in a room that comfortably held four, everyone standing until Nora told them to sit.

The chicken was good. The salad had no lemon in the dressing and nobody noticed. Marcus talked about his sister's divorce for longer than the table wanted, and Priya asked Danny about his job in a way that let him complain, which he enjoyed.

At eleven, Nora walked everyone to the door. Danny had already started the dishes. She came back, picked up a towel, and stood beside him drying, neither of them saying much.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt rosemary. Dana pulled the roasting pan out and frowned at the potatoes, which had gone black on one side.

"They're fine," Michael said, not looking up from the cutting board. He was slicing a baguette at a diagonal because he'd once read that made it look nicer.

"They're not fine. They're carbon."

"So we'll eat the other side." He carried the bread basket to the table, then came back and put his hand flat on her back for a second, the way he did.

They'd lived in the one-bedroom on Calvert Street for three years. Dana's grandmother still sent Christmas cards addressed only to Dana, which had stopped bothering her sometime in year two.

At 7:15 the buzzer went. Priya and Alan brought a bottle of wine and a container of homemade hummus, and Priya immediately took off her shoes without being asked, which Dana appreciated. Ten minutes later Sam arrived alone; his girlfriend was working a night shift.

They ate the chicken, which was good, and the potatoes, which everyone politely ate around. Alan told a long story about his landlord's dog. Michael refilled glasses without being asked, and at one point Dana caught him mouthing along to the song playing—some old Fleetwood Mac—and kicked him lightly under the table.

Around nine Priya asked how the apartment hunt was going, and Dana said they'd looked at a place in Mount Rainier with a yard, and Michael said the commute would kill them, and they went back and forth about it in front of everybody, not really arguing, just laying it out. Sam said he'd take the yard. Alan said he'd take the commute.

Everyone left by eleven. Dana washed, Michael dried. He asked if she was mad about the potatoes and she said no, and then, after a minute, that she'd wanted them to be good.


Maya was scrubbing the roasting pan when Daniel came in with the wine, one bottle in each hand like he was weighing them.

"The guy said the Rioja is better with lamb, but it's nine dollars more."

"We're not having lamb. We're having chicken thighs."

"Right." He set both on the counter anyway and started opening drawers, looking for the corkscrew he had put somewhere in June and never found again. Maya pointed with a wet elbow toward the mug on the windowsill where they kept batteries and twist ties. He fished it out, made a small triumphant noise, and she didn't look up.

The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt lemon. Daniel took over the salad because he had opinions about how thin the radishes should be, and Maya went to change out of the shirt she'd sweated through. When she came back he had put on a record and pushed the couch eighteen inches to the left, which she noticed and decided not to mention.

Priya and Owen arrived at seven-ten with a cake in a bakery box, and Owen immediately asked where the bathroom was, though he'd been there dozens of times. Ellis came at seven-thirty apologizing about the trains. They ate at the table with the wobbly leg, which Daniel had shimmed that afternoon with a folded index card and which held.

The chicken was slightly dry. Nobody said so. Priya asked whether they'd talked more about the lease, and Maya said the landlord wanted a decision by the fifteenth, and Daniel said, at almost the same time, that they were figuring it out. There was a half-second gap, then Ellis asked about the record, and it passed.

They finished the second bottle. Owen did a bad impression of his manager. Around eleven the guests found their coats and made the long slow goodbye of people who don't want to be the last to leave.

Maya washed. Daniel dried. They left the pan to soak.


Dana got home first, which meant she got to choose the music. She put on something with horns in it and started pulling things out of the fridge: the chicken thighs she'd marinated that morning, two heads of romaine, a wedge of parmesan that had gotten a little hard at the edges.

Miguel came in at six with a bag of ice and the wrong kind of bread.

"They didn't have the ciabatta," he said. "This was the only thing that looked good."

"It's fine. We'll cut it thin." She kissed him on the jaw, near his ear, then handed him the parmesan and the grater. "Do this. Small holes."

He grated. She got the chicken into the oven and set a timer on her phone, then a second timer because she didn't trust the first one. The apartment was small enough that they kept bumping each other at the counter, and after the third time Miguel said, "You want me somewhere else?"

"No," she said. "Stay."

Priya and Tom arrived at seven-fifteen with a bottle of red and an apology about parking. Steve came at seven-forty, alone, which nobody asked about. They ate at the table Dana's mother had given them, the leaf pulled out, one chair borrowed from the bedroom desk.

The chicken was slightly overdone. Tom said it was perfect twice, which meant he'd noticed. Priya told a long story about her landlord and the smoke detectors, and Miguel laughed so hard he had to put his glass down.

By eleven everyone was gone. Dana ran water over the plates while Miguel wrapped the leftover salad in foil, badly.

"That was good," he said.

"Steve seemed okay."

"He seemed okay."

She turned off the tap. There were still glasses on the coffee table, and they left them there and went to bed.


Maya found the good tablecloth folded in the linen closet behind the beach towels, still creased from Thanksgiving. She shook it out over the table while Daniel stood at the stove, tasting the sauce off a wooden spoon and adding pepper he probably didn't need.

"Do we have enough chairs?" she asked.

"Four plus the one from the bedroom."

"The one with the wobbly leg."

"I'll take that one," he said.

They'd moved into the apartment fourteen months ago, into the second-floor unit with the radiator that clanked and the view of the neighbor's magnolia. Maya's mother still addressed cards to Daniel care of Maya, which annoyed them both in different ways.

She cut lemons for the water pitcher. He put the bread in the oven, then took it out because it wasn't time yet. At six-fifteen they had a brief disagreement about whether to light candles — she thought it looked like a date, he thought it looked nice — and compromised on one candle, unlit, in the middle of the table.

Priya and Wes arrived first with a bottle of wine and a story about parking. Then Owen, alone, because Kat had a cold. Daniel took coats. Maya poured drinks and found the corkscrew in the drawer with the batteries.

The chicken was slightly dry. Nobody mentioned it, and Priya asked for the recipe anyway. They talked about a coworker's divorce, a documentary about caves, whether the corner store had always been a corner store. Owen dropped a fork and Daniel got him another without being asked.

At eleven the guests left in a cluster of hugs and half-finished sentences on the landing. Maya started the dishes. Daniel dried, stacking plates crooked the way he always did.

"That was good," she said.

"Yeah." He set down the towel. "We should do that more."

They left the last pot to soak and turned off the light.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar, which Dana insisted was normal for a caramelized onion tart.

"It's not burnt," she said, holding the pan up to the window light. "It's dark. There's a difference."

Eli was on his knees in the living room, trying to level the coffee table with a folded matchbook. He'd been at it for ten minutes. "Marcus is going to put his drink on this and it's going to slide right off."

"Then he'll learn something about physics."

He stood up, wiped his hands on his jeans, and came into the kitchen to look over her shoulder. The tart was fine. Maybe a little dark at the edges. He kissed the back of her neck, which she allowed for exactly two seconds before elbowing him toward the sink.

"Wine glasses. We only have four that match."

"Nobody counts wine glasses."

"Priya counts wine glasses."

They ended up with three matching and one mason jar, which Eli claimed for himself. He put on the record his brother had given him for Christmas and turned it down when Dana said it was too loud for people who hadn't arrived yet.

Marcus and Priya came at seven-fifteen with a bottle of Malbec and a paper bag of clementines nobody asked for. Ben came at seven-forty, apologizing about the bridge. The tart got eaten. The coffee table held, mostly. Marcus's beer left a ring that Dana noticed and decided to ignore.

They talked about a coworker's divorce, and a documentary about caves, and whether the diner on Fifth had changed hands. Priya used the mason jar without comment.

By eleven the dishes were stacked and everyone was gone. Dana sat on the floor with her back against the couch, shoes off, eating a clementine.

"That went well," Eli said.

"You never fixed the table."

"I'll fix it tomorrow."

He didn't, and neither of them minded much.


At four o'clock, Diane started the sauce, and Marcus started rearranging the living room.

"You don't have to move the couch," she called from the kitchen.

"I'm not moving it. I'm angling it." He stood back to assess. The apartment was small enough that four people plus a coffee table required geometry.

She'd bought San Marzano tomatoes, which felt extravagant, and a bottle of wine that cost eighteen dollars instead of the usual eleven. Marcus came in and lifted the lid off the pot without asking, which she'd stopped minding around year three.

"Needs salt."

"It needs to reduce."

"It needs salt while it reduces."

He salted it. She let him.

By six-thirty the table was set with the plates his mother had sent them, the ones neither of them liked but felt obligated to use. Diane changed her shirt twice. Marcus put on music, then turned it down, then turned it down again.

Jen and Paul arrived at seven with a loaf of bread and an apology about traffic on the parkway. Paul immediately noticed the couch.

"Did you guys move furniture?"

"He angled it," Diane said.

They ate at seven-forty. The pasta was slightly overdone; nobody mentioned it. Jen talked about her sister's divorce, and Paul talked about a coworker who kept microwaving fish, and at some point the conversation turned to a mutual friend's wedding in October, and Jen said, not unkindly, "You two ever think about it?"

Marcus reached for the bread. Diane refilled her glass.

"We think about it," she said, which was true, and true in a way that satisfied everyone at the table, including her.

Later, after the guests left, Marcus washed and Diane dried. He handed her a plate and she set it in the rack.

"Sauce was good," he said.

"It needed salt," she said.

He didn't say anything, but she saw him smiling into the sink.


Dana got home first and started the sauce, because Marcus had texted that the bus was crawling. By the time he came through the door with the bread and a bottle of red, she had onions going and had already spilled tomato puree on the counter.

"Smells like your mom's," he said, kissing the side of her head, and she said, "It is her recipe, so."

They divided the work without discussing it. He wiped the bathroom sink and hid the laundry basket in the closet. She hunted for the fourth wine glass and gave up, setting out a jelly jar for herself. The apartment was small enough that they kept bumping into each other in the kitchen, and the third time, Marcus put his hands on her hips and moved her sideways like furniture, which made her laugh.

Priya and Theo arrived at seven-fifteen with a bag of clementines, apologizing for the parking. Rick came at seven-forty, alone, and nobody asked about Steph until later. They ate at the table with the leaf pulled out, elbows close, passing the salad bowl twice around. Marcus told the story about the guy at work who microwaved fish, and Dana let him tell it wrong because he told it better that way.

Rick had two helpings. Priya asked about the framed print above the couch, and Dana said they'd found it at a stoop sale in July, twelve dollars, and Marcus said eight, and she said twelve, and he conceded.

Around ten, the clementines came out. Theo fell asleep sitting up for about a minute and woke insisting he hadn't. People left in a slow cluster of coats and half-finished sentences.

Afterward Marcus washed and Dana dried, the window over the sink fogged with steam. She said it went well. He said Rick seemed okay, considering. Then they left the pot to soak and went to bed.


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

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

"Nobody looks at the tablecloth," Dev said. He was standing over a pot of curry, tasting from a wooden spoon, adding salt without measuring. "Ask them. Ask them tomorrow what the tablecloth looked like."

"It's a matter of principle." She set up the ironing board anyway, in the living room, so she could keep an eye on him. Their apartment was small enough that everything happened in view of everything else. Six years of that, and they'd worked out the choreography: she wiped counters while he chopped, he moved out of the way of the refrigerator door without being asked.

The Vasquezes arrived first with a bottle of wine and an apology for the wine, which they said was cheap. Then Ellie came alone, because Tom had a work thing, and everyone pretended not to think about what that meant.

Dev put too much rice on everyone's plate. Maya lit the candles she'd bought a year ago and never used, and one of them turned out to be a hurricane candle that wouldn't fit the holder, so it sat on a saucer in the middle of the table, listing.

They talked about a neighbor's new dog, and about whether the coffee place on Ash Street had changed its beans, and Marco told a long story about his mother's driving that made Ellie laugh so hard she had to set down her fork.

At eleven, Maya walked the last of them to the door in her socks.

Dev was already running water in the sink. She picked up a dish towel.

"The tablecloth looked nice," he said.

"You didn't notice."

"I noticed." He handed her a wet plate. "I just knew you'd iron it."


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Dana had scorched the first batch of glazed carrots and dumped them in the sink, where they sat accusingly while she started over.

"You could just serve them dark," Marcus said. He was on the floor by the couch, trying to coax the wobble out of the coffee table with a folded matchbook.

"Dark is one thing. These were carbon."

He crawled out and looked at the sink. "Okay. Those were carbon."

They had four people coming at seven: Priya and her boyfriend Sam, and the Hendersons from downstairs, who had invited them up in September and had to be reciprocated. Dana had made a list on the back of a utility bill. Marcus had crossed off "cloth napkins" and written "paper towels, folded fancy."

At six-forty he took a shower and came out in a shirt she'd bought him two Christmases ago. She was still barefoot, hair up with a pen through it, and he handed her a glass of the wine they'd opened to cook with.

"It's fine," she said, meaning the apartment, the roast, everything.

"It's more than fine."

The Hendersons arrived first, six minutes early, with a bottle of something and a jar of pickled beans from Linda's sister. Priya and Sam came twenty minutes late, apologetic about parking. The chairs didn't match. Marcus dragged in the desk chair and sat in it himself, rolling slightly whenever he laughed.

The roast was good. The carrots were fine. Sam asked how long they'd been together and Dana said seven years, and Bill Henderson said, "And no ring?" in the way men his age said things, and Marcus said, "We're saving for a couch," which got a laugh and let it go.

They did the dishes at eleven, hip to hip, radio low.

"That went well," she said.

"You scorched a lot of carrots for it."

She flicked water at him.


Marcus found the good tablecloth crumpled at the bottom of the linen closet, smelling faintly of the cedar block Priya had put there in March.

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

"Iron it, then." She was at the counter, sliding the tip of a knife under the skin of a garlic clove. "Or don't. Sam won't notice. Sam eats standing over the sink."

He ironed it anyway, badly, on the corner of the kitchen table because he couldn't find the ironing board. Priya reached past him twice for the colander, once for the salt, and the third time she just moved his elbow with the back of her wrist.

The chicken went in at six. At six-fifteen they realized they had no wine, and Marcus walked the four blocks to the market on Delancey while Priya vacuumed the rug where the cat had been shedding. She put on a record, then took it off, because it was the kind of thing you had to explain, and put on something instrumental instead.

Sam and Elena arrived at seven with a paper bag of tangerines and a bottle of wine that turned out to be better than either of the two Marcus had bought. Everyone stood in the kitchen, which was too small for four people, and did anyway.

The chicken was slightly underdone at the thigh. Marcus noticed and said nothing. Priya noticed and cut hers into smaller pieces and cooked them longer in the pan while Elena talked about her sister's divorce, and no one commented on this, and the conversation went on.

They played a card game nobody remembered the rules to. Sam laughed hard enough to spill. At eleven the guests found their coats, and there were the usual promises about doing this again sooner.

Afterward Marcus washed and Priya dried. The tablecloth had a ring of red wine on it that would probably come out, if she remembered to soak it.


Maya heard the oven timer and swore under her breath, wiping her hands on a dish towel as she crossed the kitchen. The chicken had gone a shade darker than she'd planned, but not burnt—just what her mother would call "well-caramelized," which was a generous way to put it.

"Do you want me to do the potatoes now or after?" Ben called from the dining room, where he was doing something aggressive with a tablecloth.

"Now. And don't put them in the blue bowl, it's cracked."

He appeared in the doorway holding the blue bowl. "This one?"

"Ben."

"I'm putting it back." He did, and grabbed the white one instead, and started spooning potatoes into it with the concentration of someone defusing a bomb. They'd lived together in the Somerville apartment for two years now, long enough that the choreography of a dinner party had become something like muscle memory: she cooked, he cleaned and poured, they both pretended the bathroom had been that clean all week.

"Nadia's bringing her new boyfriend," Maya said.

"The one who does crossfit?"

"The one who *teaches* crossfit."

"So we should hide the bread."

She laughed and threw the towel at him. He caught it, folded it, and set it on the counter with exaggerated care, which was his way of being funny about being tidy.

At six-fifteen she changed out of the sweatshirt she'd been wearing since Thursday. Ben lit the two candles they owned that matched and turned on the record player, then turned it down, then turned it up a little.

"It looks nice," she said from the hallway.

"It looks like we tried."

"That's the same thing."

The buzzer went off at six-thirty-two. Ben looked at her; she looked at the table one last time, moved a fork half an inch, and went to press the button.


Marisol wiped the counter for the third time, which Danny recognized as her tell.

"They're going to love it," he said, sliding the roasting pan into the oven. Chicken thighs, lemon, too much garlic. His grandmother's recipe, more or less, though he'd never measured anything in his life.

"Kayla's sister is a chef."

"Kayla's sister works at a chain restaurant in Peoria." He bumped her hip with his as he reached for the tongs. "And she's bringing her boyfriend, which means she'll be busy pretending he's interesting."

Marisol laughed despite herself. She'd been in a mood since Tuesday, when her manager had reorganized her territory again, and she knew the mood was leaking into everything, including the way she'd rearranged the throw pillows twice.

Danny had noticed. He'd bought flowers on the way home from the site — carnations from the grocery store, dyed an unnatural blue, because they were the only ones left and he thought she'd think they were funny. She had. They sat in a mason jar on the table now, next to mismatched plates they'd accumulated over four years in the apartment, some from his old place, some from hers, two from a yard sale in Bloomington.

"Wine's in the fridge," she said. "Do we have enough glasses?"

"We have six glasses and one is a jelly jar."

"That's fine. Give the jelly jar to Pete. He won't notice."

Danny turned on the speaker and put on the playlist she'd made, the one she pretended was for cooking but was really just songs from 2009. Marisol lit the candle that smelled like cedar. Outside, someone's car door slammed, and they both looked at the clock — twenty minutes early, or a neighbor.

"Neighbor," Danny said.

She kissed him, quick, tasting garlic on his thumb, and went to change out of the shirt she'd worn all day.