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

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

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

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

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

"More salt," he said.

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

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

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

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


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

"Do we have enough chairs?" she asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The rice was bad."

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


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

"My mother looks at the tablecloth."

"Your mother isn't coming."

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

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

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

"You don't know that."

"I'm ninety percent."

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

"Do we have enough chairs?" she asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"That's still in there?"

"It's behind the pickles."

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

"It's a real chicken, yes."

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

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

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

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


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

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

"It's black."

"It's *deeply* caramelized."

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

"They're always late."

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

"Devious."

"Practical."

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

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

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

"That was nice," she said.

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"That went well," she said.

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

They split it.


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

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

"We have that pitcher."

"That's for water."

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

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

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

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

"You're sure?"

"Eighty percent."

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

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


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

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

"Just leave the chicken in longer."

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

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

"That's what I'm removing."

"Then it's removed."

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

"We own two matching chairs and two chairs."

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

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

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

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

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


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

"It's wrinkled," she said.

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

"Sonia will look at the tablecloth."

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

Nadia stopped in the doorway. "Since when?"

"She texted me Tuesday. I told you."

"You did not tell me."

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

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

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

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

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

"That was good," he said.

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

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


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

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

"I know where the onions are."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"That was good," she said.

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

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


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

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

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

"It squeaks."

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

"Put a candle over it."

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

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

"There's no such thing."

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

"More salt."

"That's what I said."

"You said cardamom."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"That went well," Dev said.

"The cardamom was fine."


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

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

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

"Jenna looks at the tablecloth."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

"It's carbon."

"Same family."

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

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

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

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

"That's not how chairs work."

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

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

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

"That was good," she said.

"It was okay."

"That's what I said."


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"That went fine," he said.

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


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

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

"You're going to cut yourself."

"I'm going to cut the chicken."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

"I didn't say anything."

"You wiped aggressively."

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

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

"Do we have enough wine?" Maya asked.

"We have four bottles."

"For four people."

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

"You'll forget."

"I'll set a timer."

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

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

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

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

"The chicken."

"Nobody cares about the chicken."

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


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

"There are only five," he said.

"There were six."

"There are five."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

"Brown is a flavor."

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

"Do we own matches?"

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

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

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

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

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

"That went okay," she said.

"It went good."

"It went okay."

He flicked water at her. She let him.


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

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

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

"Medium. Priya only drinks red anyway."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"That went okay," he said.

"He seemed all right."

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

"Then it's fine."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"That went well," she said.

"It did."


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

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

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

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

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

"Do we have enough wine?"

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Priya seemed okay," she said.

"She seemed tired."

"Everyone's tired."

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


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

"You said that already," he said.

"Because you did it again."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"That was good," he said.

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


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

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

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

"The ones that smell like a bathroom?"

"They smell like linen."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They went back in.


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

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

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

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

"Use the cheese grater," Marcus said.

"That's not the same."

"It's the same enough."

She grated the lemon. It was close enough.

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

"So we own six plates."

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

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

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

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

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

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


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.