Marcus found the good tablecloth folded in the linen closet behind a stack of beach towels they hadn't used since August. He shook it out over the dining table while Nadia stood at the stove, pressing garlic into a pan of olive oil that had gotten hotter than she wanted.

"It's smoking," he said.

"I see it smoking." She lifted the pan off the burner, tilted it, set it back down. "Did you get the wine glasses from the basement?"

"I got four. We need six?"

"Ellen and Ray, Priya, Tom. Us. Six."

He went back down the stairs. The basement smelled like drying laundry and the cardboard boxes they kept meaning to sort through. He found two more glasses in a box marked KITCHEN — MISC in his own handwriting from a move three years ago, and rinsed the dust off them upstairs while Nadia crowded him at the sink to drain the pasta water.

The doorbell rang at seven-ten, which was Ellen and Ray, and then at seven-twenty-five, which was Tom, apologizing about the parking. Priya texted that she was ten minutes out and arrived forty minutes later with a bakery box and no explanation. Nobody minded. Ray had already opened the second bottle.

They ate in the dining room with the good tablecloth, and Marcus knocked over the pepper grinder reaching for the bread, and Nadia told the story about her sister's wedding again, and Marcus let her, though he caught her eye and mouthed *again* and she kicked him under the table.

By eleven everyone had gone. Nadia scraped plates while Marcus loaded the dishwasher behind her, the two of them turning around each other in the narrow kitchen without needing to speak about it.

"That was nice," she said.

"Priya's always late."

"She is." Nadia handed him the last plate. "Leave the pans. I'll do them tomorrow."


By six, the kitchen smelled like garlic and browning butter. Dev stood at the stove, sleeves pushed to his elbows, nudging chicken thighs with tongs while Marisol wiped down the counter around him, collecting the debris of his cooking—an eggshell, a torn parsley stem, the crumpled paper from a stick of butter.

"You're going to move that pan or I'm going to burn my arm reaching past you," she said.

"Two inches. That's all I need." He shifted it two inches.

They had been married eleven years, long enough that this was affection.

The Reynoldses were bringing wine, which meant it would be too sweet, and Priya was bringing her son, who was eight and would want the television. Marisol had already found the remote and set out a bowl of pretzels on the coffee table as a kind of offering.

"Do we have candles?" Dev asked.

"You mean do I have candles."

She found two tapers in the sideboard drawer, uneven, from someone's birthday. They looked fine once lit.

The guests came at seven, all at once, the way people do. Coats piled on the bed in the guest room. Priya's son found the television within four minutes. Dan Reynolds opened the wine—too sweet, as predicted—and Marisol drank it anyway and said it was nice.

Dinner ran long. The chicken was good; Dev accepted the compliments with an expression of studied indifference that Marisol caught and enjoyed. Somebody spilled a little wine. Somebody told a story about a coworker that went nowhere and was funny anyway.

They left just after ten. Marisol stood in the doorway waving until the last car pulled off, then came back in and started stacking plates.

"Leave it," Dev said. "I'll do it in the morning."

"You won't."

"I might."

She handed him a plate. He took it.


The potatoes were taking longer than the recipe promised, which Dana had expected. She turned the oven light on and squatted to look, her knees complaining, while Marcus wiped down the counter behind her for the third time.

"They're still pale," she said.

"They've got twenty minutes." He checked the clock on the stove. "Sam's always late anyway."

Dana stood and pressed a hand to the small of her back. She'd been on her feet since four, when she got home from the clinic and decided, unwisely, that she wanted to roast a chicken. The bird sat resting under foil on the cutting board, and the kitchen smelled like lemon and thyme and the faint burnt edge of something she'd spilled on the oven floor.

Marcus opened the wine and poured two inches into a glass for her. "Taste this. I don't know if it's any good."

She tasted it. "It's fine. It's twelve dollars."

"That's what I thought."

He set the table while she made the salad — the good plates, which meant washing the dust off first, and cloth napkins that had been folded in the sideboard since Thanksgiving. Dana watched him line up the forks and felt a small, unremarkable fondness that she didn't say anything about.

The Levinsons arrived at seven-ten with a bottle of wine and a story about parking. Sam and Adrienne came at seven-thirty, apologizing. The potatoes were finally golden. Somebody dropped a fork. Adrienne cried a little, briefly, about her mother's diagnosis, and then laughed at herself, and Marcus refilled her glass without making it a thing.

By eleven the guests were gone. Dana loaded the dishwasher; Marcus washed the roasting pan by hand, badly.

"That was nice," he said.

"It was." She turned off the kitchen light. "Leave the pan. I'll do it tomorrow."

He left the pan.


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

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

"Iron it, then." Priya didn't look up from the cutting board, where she was reducing an onion to translucent slivers. Her eyes stung. She'd been at it twenty minutes and the rice still needed starting.

He set up the ironing board in the dining room and worked the wrinkles out in slow passes, listening to her knife against the board. They'd invited the Hallorans and Dev, which meant five people at a table meant for four, which meant dragging the desk chair in from the spare room. Marcus had already decided not to mention that the desk chair had a wobbly caster.

"Did you get wine?" Priya asked.

"Two bottles. The one you like and the one Jim likes."

"Jim likes anything."

"Jim likes the twelve-dollar one, specifically."

By six-thirty the apartment smelled like cumin and browned butter. Priya changed into a sweater and found Marcus arranging forks with unusual precision.

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

They were. Dev arrived first, apologizing for nothing in particular, holding a grocery-store bouquet still in its plastic sleeve. Priya put the flowers in a pitcher because the vase was somewhere in the hall closet behind the winter coats.

The Hallorans came at ten past seven with a story about parking. Everyone stood in the kitchen while Marcus opened the wine, and Priya kept stirring and saying she wasn't ready, though she was.

The chicken was slightly dry. Nobody said so. Jim took thirds anyway, and Dev told a long story about his sister's wedding that made Priya laugh so hard she had to set down her glass.

At eleven they stood in the doorway waving. Marcus started the dishes. Priya dried, and they talked about nothing, and it took a long time.


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

"You turned the oven up," Daniel said, pulling the chicken out with a dish towel wrapped around his hand.

"I turned it up because you turned it down. It was never going to brown at 350."

He set the pan on the stove and looked at it. The skin was, admittedly, perfect. "Fine."

"Say it."

"You were right about the oven."

She kissed the side of his head on her way to the sink, where she began washing the arugula for the third time because Daniel had a thing about grit. Behind her, he opened a bottle of wine and poured a half-inch into a glass, tasted it, made a face, and poured it anyway.

At 7:10 the Kramers arrived with a bakery box and a story about parking. Mark held up the box like evidence. "Lemon tart. Sarah wanted to bring flowers but I said everyone brings flowers."

"We have no flowers," Priya said. "This is a flowerless home."

They ate at the small table with the leaf pulled out, elbows close. Sarah talked about her sister's divorce, then apologized for talking about it, then talked about it more. Daniel refilled glasses. Mark ate three helpings of the potatoes and asked how they were made, and Priya said butter, and Daniel said also cream, and they briefly disagreed about the ratio in front of everyone.

The tart was too sweet. Nobody said so.

By eleven the Kramers were gone, coats and half-hugs at the door, promises to do this again in a month. Daniel started the dishes. Priya dried and put away, and when she couldn't reach the top shelf she handed him the pot without comment and he took it without comment.

"That was nice," she said.

"Mark eats a lot of potatoes."

"He does," she agreed, and turned off the light.


Marisol found the good tablecloth crumpled at the bottom of the linen closet, smelling faintly of cedar and the last time they'd used it, two Thanksgivings ago.

"It's wrinkled," she called.

Danny came out of the kitchen holding a wooden spoon like a scepter. "Iron it."

"You iron it. I'm doing the salad."

He took it from her and set up the board in the living room, watching the news with the sound off while steam hissed out of the iron. Marisol tore romaine into a bowl and thought about how the Petersons always arrived exactly eleven minutes late, and how she'd started planning around it without telling anyone.

The chicken came out at six-forty. Danny had made it with lemon and too much rosemary, the way his mother did, and Marisol tasted it off the spoon and said it was good, which was true, and didn't mention the rosemary.

"Should we light candles?" he asked.

"It's June."

"So?"

"So it'll be bright out until nine. It'll look weird."

He lit them anyway. She let him.

Rachel and Tom arrived at six-fifty-one with a bottle of wine and a story about their car battery. Everyone stood in the kitchen because that's what happens, even when the living room has been vacuumed. Danny opened the wine badly, pushing the cork half in, and Tom laughed and said he'd done the same thing Tuesday.

They ate. Rachel had thirds of the chicken and asked what was in it, and Danny said rosemary and looked at Marisol, and Marisol said, "It's his mother's recipe," and let him have it.

Afterward, there was ice cream from the carton because nobody had made dessert, and Tom fell asleep briefly in the armchair, and Rachel apologized for him.

At eleven, Marisol scraped plates while Danny loaded. The candles had burned down unevenly, one nearly gone, the other barely touched.


Marisol found the good tablecloth folded in the linen closet behind the spare sheets, still creased from the last time they'd used it, which had been Thanksgiving. She shook it out over the dining table while Dev stood at the stove, pressing garlic into a pan of olive oil that had gotten a little too hot.

"It's smoking," she said.

"It's fine." He turned the burner down anyway.

They had invited four people: the Hendersons from two streets over, and Priya, who was bringing her new boyfriend, whose name neither of them could remember. Dev had written it on a sticky note and lost the sticky note.

Marisol set out the mismatched wine glasses, six of them, two survivors from a set they'd bought at Target in 2014. She wiped a water spot off one with the hem of her shirt. In the kitchen, Dev was chopping an onion badly, the way he always did, in uneven half-moons.

"Let me," she said.

"I've got it."

"You're going to lose a finger."

He handed her the knife without arguing and went to change his shirt.

The doorbell rang at 6:40, ten minutes early, and it was Priya, apologizing, holding a bottle of red and a store-bought pie. The boyfriend's name was Aaron. He shook Dev's hand and said the house smelled amazing, which was a kind thing to say, because mostly it smelled like burnt garlic.

The Hendersons came at seven. Everyone ate at the table, elbows close. Dev told the story about the raccoon in the garage and Marisol corrected two details, and he let her.

By eleven, the plates were stacked in the sink and the last of the wine was gone. Marisol turned off the porch light. Dev was already running the water.

"That went well," he said.

"It did," she said, and picked up a towel.


Marguerite had been chopping shallots for twenty minutes when Devin came in from the garage carrying two folding chairs and a stack of mismatched place mats.

"We have six chairs," he said. "Four match. Is that a problem?"

"It's Rosa and Tim. They've seen our bathroom."

He set the chairs at the far end of the table anyway, then stood there considering the arrangement the way he considered most things—slowly, with his hands on his hips. Marguerite scraped the shallots into the pan and the kitchen filled with that smell that meant something was actually happening.

"Did you get bread?"

"I got bread. I also got a lemon tart because I panicked in the bakery."

"You panicked."

"There was a line behind me."

She laughed and told him to open the wine to let it breathe, and he opened it and poured himself a small glass to test it, which was the same thing he did every time, and she said what she always said, which was that he was going to drink the whole bottle before anyone arrived. He filled a pitcher with water and put too much ice in it. She wiped down the counter twice.

At six-forty the doorbell rang and Rosa came in apologizing for being early, holding daffodils, and Tim came in behind her holding nothing and apologizing for that. Devin found a jar for the flowers because the vase had broken in September and never got replaced.

They ate late. The chicken was good; the potatoes were slightly underdone and everyone said they were fine. Tim told a long story about his brother's boat. Rosa asked about the leak in the ceiling, and Marguerite said they'd stopped noticing it.

Afterward, Devin washed and Marguerite dried, and neither of them said much, and it was easy.


The doorbell wasn't going to ring for another forty minutes, but Marcus had already changed his shirt twice.

"The blue one," Renata said, not looking up from the cutting board. She was slicing radishes so thin they were nearly translucent, a trick her mother had taught her and she'd never explained to him.

"You said the blue one made me look washed out."

"I said that about the blue-gray one. That one's fine." She scraped the radishes into a bowl. "Can you check the chicken? I think it's dry."

He opened the oven and a wall of rosemary-scented heat rolled over him. The thighs were browning unevenly, the way they always did because the oven ran hot on the left side. He rotated the pan and shut the door.

"It's fine. It's going to be fine."

"You said that about the lasagna."

"The lasagna was an outlier."

They'd invited the Hallorans and Priya, who was newly divorced and had been declining invitations for months until she suddenly didn't. Renata had spent two days worrying about whether to seat her next to Doug Halloran, who talked, or across from him, which meant she'd have to look at him.

The wine was open. Marcus poured two inches into a glass and handed it to his wife, who took a sip and handed it back.

"Napkins," she said.

"Cloth or paper?"

"It's Priya."

"Cloth, then."

He found them in the drawer beneath the good silverware, six of them, mismatched from two different sets. He folded them into rough triangles and set them out. Renata came behind him and refolded three.

At 6:52 they stood in the kitchen with nothing left to do. She leaned against the counter. He put his hand on the small of her back.

"It smells good," she admitted.

The doorbell rang.


The Vasquez-Chen house smelled like garlic by four o'clock.

Marisol had been marinating the pork since morning, and now she stood at the counter slicing plantains into thin ovals while Danny wrestled the leaf into the dining table. It had warped slightly over the years, and he had to lift and jiggle it before the halves clicked together.

"Did you text Priya about the shellfish?" he asked.

"She said she can have shrimp. It's crab she can't." Marisol wiped her hands on the dish towel hanging from the oven handle. "Can you find the blue tablecloth? I think it's in the hall closet, behind the extra sheets."

He found it wadded up on the shelf, wrinkled beyond hope, and brought it out apologetically. Marisol looked at it, shrugged, and said it would be fine once the plates were on it. Danny put on a record instead of asking again.

The Kowalczyks arrived first, eleven minutes early, with a bottle of wine and their four-year-old, Rosie, who immediately wanted to see the cat. Priya and Tom came twenty minutes late with a lemon cake in a bakery box. Danny took coats to the bedroom and lost track of whose was whose.

Dinner ran long. The pork was good — Marisol accepted the compliments with the small, pleased tilt of her head that Danny had loved for nine years — and someone knocked over a water glass, and Rosie fell asleep on the couch under Danny's jacket. They argued cheerfully about whether the new grocery store downtown was any good. Tom said the produce was overpriced. Priya said he only shopped there for the olive bar.

By eleven the house was quiet. Marisol washed, Danny dried, both of them slower than they'd been at seven.

"That was nice," she said.

"It was." He put the last pot away and turned off the kitchen light.


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

"Just add ten minutes," he said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Tim was okay," she said.

"Tim was fine."

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


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

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

"Change first. You smell like grass."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Too much ricotta," she said.

"Nobody noticed."


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

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

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

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

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

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

"Did you get wine?"

"Two reds. And the seltzer for Priya."

"You're a good man."

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

"Too much cumin?" she asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

"It's a stubborn corner."

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

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

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

"And Priya."

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

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

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

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

"It looked pressed," Marcus said.


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

"You could just say it," she said.

"Say what?"

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

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

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

"Salt?"

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

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

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

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

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

"That was nice," she said.

"You were nervous for nothing."

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

He left the pans.


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

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

"That's the good bread."

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

"I'll call her tomorrow."

"You said that Tuesday."

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

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

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

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

"For an hour."

"At least an hour."

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

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

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

"That was nice," Dana said.

"It was."

She turned off the kitchen light and they went up.


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

"Did you salt this?" he asked.

"I salted the water. Not the rice."

"That's the same thing."

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

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

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

"Barely."

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

"Chicken."

"White, then."

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

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

"You said it had a stain."

"That was Tuesday. Different shirt."

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

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

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

"That went well," she said.

"You were right about the white."

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


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

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

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

"Stop peeking."

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

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

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

The rice, as it turned out, was fine.

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

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

"That went well," Dev said.

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


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

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

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

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

"You'll drink the wine."

"I'll do that too."

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

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

"Blue."

"You didn't look."

He looked. "Blue."

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

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

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

Elena leaned against the counter while Marcus filled the sink.

"That was good," she said.

"You forgot the bread."

"There was bread."

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

"Nobody noticed," she said.

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


The Aftertaste of Cumin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"That went fine," he said.

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


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

"Lift your end," he said.

"I am lifting my end."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

"There's no such thing."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Wicker chair never came up," she said.

"Told you."

"You didn't tell me anything."

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


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

"They're not done," he said.

"They've been in forty minutes."

"The thermometer says a hundred and fifty."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"That went well," he said.

"You used the fork."

"I did use the fork."

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


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

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

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

"Neither. It's the rye."

"Then we're fine."

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

"Priya will notice."

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

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

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

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

"It looks like a target," she said.

"It looks intentional."

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

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

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

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

"That was nice," she said.

"Ben fixed the sink."

"Then it was very nice."


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

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

"Did you press start twice?"

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

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

"Do we have enough wine?"

"There's the bottle from Christmas."

"That's a dessert wine, Danny."

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

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

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

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

"That went well," she said.

"The chicken was dry."

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


The Kitchen at Six

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

"It's fine," Marcus said.

"It's pink at the bone."

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

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

"I texted him."

"Did he answer?"

"He sent a thumbs up."

Priya considered this. "That could mean anything."

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

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

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

"That was good," she said.

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


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

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

"We have one more sprig."

"Then we have exactly enough."

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

"Tom brings the same wine every time."

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

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

"Do we have enough chairs?"

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

"And you moved the laundry?"

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

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


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

"It always sticks," he said.

"It's older than we are."

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

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

"Use the jelly jars," Danny said.

"For Kate?"

"Especially for Kate."

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

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

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

"It looks nice," she said.

"It looks like us."

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


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

"Did you salt the water?" she asked.

"I salted the water."

"You said that last time."

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

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

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

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

"You didn't look."

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

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

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

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

"That's basically the same thing."

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


Marisol found the good tablecloth folded in the linen closet, still creased from Thanksgiving. She shook it out over the dining table while Dev stood at the stove, tasting the sauce off a wooden spoon.

"More salt," he said, then added it before she could answer.

They'd bought the house eleven months ago, a 1962 ranch in a neighborhood full of retirees who waved from their driveways. Tonight was the first time they'd had more than two people over. Marisol had spent Saturday morning bleaching the grout in the guest bathroom, which Dev thought was excessive and did not say so.

"Do we have enough chairs?" she called.

"Five at the table, two folding in the garage. That's seven."

"There's six of us."

"Then we have enough chairs."

She counted anyway. She always counted anyway.

Dev put the bread in to warm and went to change his shirt, and Marisol heard the closet door slide and then the small sound of him swearing at a hanger. She lit the candles on the counter, the ones that smelled like nothing much, and turned the overhead lights down to the setting that made the kitchen look like a magazine.

At 6:40 he came out in the green shirt she liked, hair still damp at the temples.

"You should wear that more," she said.

"You say that and then I wear it and you don't notice."

"I notice."

He kissed the side of her head on his way to the fridge, where he stood with the door open too long, looking for the beer he'd already put in the cooler outside. Marisol didn't tell him. She was straightening the napkins, then unstraightening them, so it wouldn't look like she'd tried.

Headlights swung across the front window at 6:52. Somebody early, which was worse than late.

"They're here," she said.

"Okay," Dev said, and wiped his hands on the dish towel, and went to open the door.


The invitations had said seven, which meant Marisol had been cleaning since four.

"You washed the good glasses," Dana said from the kitchen doorway, still in her work clothes, tie loosened. "I was going to do that."

"You were going to do it at 6:55."

"I was going to do it *efficiently*." Dana kissed the back of her head and went to change, calling over her shoulder, "Did Priya say if she's still off dairy?"

"She said she's off dairy in the way people are off dairy. Which means she'll eat the gratin and complain later."

Marisol wiped down the counter for the third time. The apartment was small — a two-bedroom in a Sacramento fourplex with a radiator that clanked like someone trapped in the walls — but it cleaned up well under warm light. She lit the candle Dana's mother had given them, the one that smelled aggressively of fig.

Dana came back in jeans and bare feet and started slicing bread. "The Hendersons are bringing that wine again."

"The bad wine."

"The bad wine." Dana grinned. "I bought a backup."

They worked around each other without talking much, the way they had for eleven years — Marisol pulling the chicken, Dana finding the trivet, one of them reaching past the other for the salt without needing to ask. At 6:40 Marisol looked at the table and said, "Six chairs. We have five."

"Desk chair."

"It's ugly."

"Put a coat over it."

She laughed. Dana turned on music, something low and jazzy, and poured them each a glass of the good wine — the backup — because the first ten minutes before guests arrived were the best part, and they both knew it.

At 6:58 the buzzer went off. Marisol smoothed her shirt. Dana squeezed her hand.

"Ready?"

"No."

Dana buzzed them up anyway.


Marguerite found the good tablecloth folded at the bottom of the linen closet, smelling faintly of cedar. She shook it out over the dining table while Dev crouched at the oven, peering through the smudged glass at a chicken that had another twenty minutes in it, minimum.

"Did we ever get napkins?" she called.

"We have napkins."

"Cloth napkins."

Dev straightened up. "We have paper napkins with little turkeys on them from Thanksgiving."

"It's April."

"They're seasonally ambiguous."

She laughed and went to look anyway, and found six mismatched cloth ones in a drawer, which was fine, which was more than fine. Six was enough. Their friends were coming — the Ostrowskis, Yasmin, Tomas and his new boyfriend whose name Marguerite had written on a sticky note and stuck inside a cabinet door. Kyle. She checked. Kyle.

Dev put on a record because he believed strongly in music before guests arrived, and then he stood in front of the open refrigerator holding a lemon he didn't have a plan for. There was a green bean situation happening on the stove that he had inherited from Marguerite twenty minutes ago and did not fully understand. He added butter, which was usually correct.

"You should change your shirt," Marguerite said, passing behind him with a stack of plates.

"This is a good shirt."

"You cooked in it."

He looked down. There was a small oil stain over the left ribs, in the shape of Ohio. He went upstairs.

When he came back down, she had lit the candles too early — they'd be stubs by dessert — and she was standing in the middle of the room with her hands on her hips, doing the last survey. He stood beside her and looked at the same things she was looking at.

"It's nice," he said.

"It's okay."

"It's nice."

The doorbell rang. She squeezed his wrist and went to answer it.


The lasagna had twenty minutes left, which meant Dana had twenty minutes to make the living room look like the kind of place adults lived.

"The blanket goes where?" Marcus called from the hallway, holding the ratty green throw at arm's length like evidence.

"Linen closet. Not the couch. Not draped artfully. In the closet."

He put it in the closet, then came back and started collecting the mail that had colonized the coffee table over the past three weeks—catalogs for garden equipment they didn't need, a jury summons he'd already responded to, four separate offers for the same credit card. He shoved it all in a drawer in the kitchen and felt the drawer resist, then relent.

Dana was lighting the candle her sister had given them, the one that smelled vaguely like a cabin neither of them had ever visited. "Did you text Priya about the parking?"

"I told her the street's fine after six."

"It's not fine after six. That's the whole thing about our street."

"Then I'll move the car and she can have the driveway." He was already looking for his keys, patting the pockets of a jacket that wasn't the jacket.

"Hook by the door."

"Right."

While he was outside she wiped down the bathroom sink, put out the good hand towel, and stood for a second in the doorway of the guest room where the folded laundry lived permanently now. She closed that door. Some things you just close the door on.

He came back in with the cold still on his coat and said the salad needed dressing, and she said she knew, and he made it anyway, whisking mustard and vinegar in the chipped white bowl while she pulled the foil off the lasagna to let the top brown.

The doorbell went at seven-oh-four. They looked at each other—that quick, unglamorous check-in of two people who had done this a hundred times—and Marcus went to answer it.


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

"You're going to sand a groove into the granite," Dev said, coming down the stairs in a shirt that was almost but not quite ironed.

"The Hendersons notice things."

"The Hendersons brought a store-bought pie last time and called it homemade. They notice nothing."

She laughed despite herself and handed him the corkscrew. He got to work on the Malbec while she checked the oven. The chicken had another twenty minutes, maybe twenty-five — she'd never trusted their oven, which ran cold in a way that had defeated four different thermometers.

"Did you put the extra chairs out?"

"Doing it now." He carried the folding chairs from the hall closet, then paused. "Do we have six of everything? Plates, I mean. Actual matching ones."

"Five matching, one from the old set. Whoever gets it gets it."

"Give it to Paul. He won't say anything."

"Paul will absolutely say something. Give it to me."

Dev set the table while Marisol shredded cabbage for the slaw, and for a few minutes neither of them talked, which was its own kind of comfortable. Somewhere around six-fifteen he found the playlist he'd made in October and put it on low. She turned it down further. He turned it up a notch, meeting in the middle, and she let it go.

"Your mother called," she said. "She wants to know if we're coming at Christmas."

"I'll call her tomorrow."

"That's what you said Thursday."

"And tomorrow I'll say it again, and then eventually I'll do it."

The doorbell rang at 6:31, which meant it was Paul, who was always early and always apologized for it. Marisol pulled off her apron, checked her reflection in the microwave door, and looked at Dev.

"Ready?"

"No," he said, and opened the door anyway.


The house smelled like garlic and rosemary by five-thirty, which meant Dana had started the chicken too early again.

"It'll be dry," Marcus said, peering into the oven.

"It'll be fine. I'm tenting it with foil." She was already moving past him, a stack of cloth napkins under her arm, the ones her mother had given them and they only used four times a year. "Can you deal with the bathroom? Cynthia notices things."

Marcus took the hint and the sponge. Their house in the older part of Grand Rapids had good bones and bad grout, and he'd learned that the difference between a clean bathroom and an acceptable one was about eleven minutes of scrubbing. He wiped the mirror, hid the prescription bottles in the drawer, put out the folded hand towel nobody would ever actually use.

In the dining room, Dana was arguing with the table. Six chairs into a space meant for five. She dragged the desk chair in from the office, decided it looked wrong, dragged it back out.

"Just use it," Marcus called.

"It's got wheels."

"Nobody's going to roll away."

She used it. He came out and found her standing in the doorway, hands on hips, doing the survey she always did — the one where she saw the house as a stranger would. He put a hand on the small of her back.

"It looks good," he said.

"The rug's crooked."

"Then straighten the rug."

She did. Then she went to change, and he opened a bottle of red so it could breathe, and poured himself a small glass that wasn't for breathing at all. At 6:40 the Hendersons' headlights swung across the front window, ten minutes early, as always.

Dana came down the stairs in the green sweater. "They're here?"

"They're here."

She exhaled. "Okay. Get the door."


Marisol found the good tablecloth crumpled at the bottom of the linen closet, smelling faintly of cedar and the last time they'd used it, two Thanksgivings ago.

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

"Iron's under the sink," Dev called back. "Behind the dish soap. Don't ask why."

She didn't ask. They'd lived in the house on Bellwood for six years now, and the geography of its illogic was familiar as a fingerprint. She set up the ironing board in the dining room and worked the creases out while Dev stood at the stove, tasting the dal, adding salt, tasting again.

"Too much cumin?"

"You always think that. You've never once been right."

He laughed. Outside, a car door slammed—not theirs, the neighbors'—and Marisol glanced at the clock. Forty minutes. She'd promised herself she'd shower.

Dev came out with a stack of plates, counting under his breath. "Seven, right? Priya's bringing that guy?"

"Colin."

"Colin." He said it like a word in a foreign language. "Do we like him?"

"We're neutral on Colin. We're gathering data."

She spread the tablecloth while he set the plates down at each place, and for a minute they moved around each other in the small room without touching or speaking, the way people do after enough years—an old choreography, unremarkable, reliable.

"You should shower," he said.

"I know."

"I'll do the salad."

Upstairs, she heard him drop something—a lid, probably—and swear, and then the radio came on, some classic rock station he only ever put on when he was cooking. She stood under the water a minute longer than she meant to.

When she came down, hair damp, the candles were lit and the dal was off the heat and Dev was standing at the window with a dish towel over his shoulder, watching the street for headlights.


The Renkos' Dinner Party

Marcus wedged the leaf into the dining table while Dana chased down the second set of place mats, the good ones, which had migrated to the linen closet sometime around Thanksgiving.

"Six or seven?" he called.

"Seven. Priya's bringing her sister." Dana came back with the mats and a dish towel over her shoulder. "The one who just moved to Cleveland."

Marcus counted chairs and came up one short. He went to the office and dragged in the desk chair, spinning the height knob until it roughly matched the others. Dana looked at it, shrugged, and set a plate in front of it anyway.

The kitchen smelled like garlic and scorched sugar. Dana had started the braise at two, which had been optimistic, and now the liquid had reduced further than she wanted. She added a splash of stock and tasted it off a wooden spoon.

"Salty?" Marcus asked, coming up behind her.

"Little." She handed him the spoon. He tasted, made a face that meant *not really*, and put it in the sink.

"Wine?"

"There's the Malbec from Jeff. And I got two whites."

He found the corkscrew in the drawer with the batteries and the takeout menus nobody had thrown away since 2019. While the bottles breathed, he went around the living room collecting evidence of ordinary life: a hoodie on the armchair, a half-finished crossword, three separate coffee mugs. He shoved most of it into the bedroom and shut the door.

Dana ran a lint roller over the couch where the cat slept.

At 6:48 she went upstairs and changed out of the shirt with the splash of braising liquid on the cuff. Marcus lit the two candles on the table, blew out the match, and stood there a second listening to the house go quiet.

Headlights swung across the front window.

"They're early," Dana said, coming down the stairs.

"They're always early."

He got the door.


The doorbell would ring at seven, and it was already 6:15.

Marcus stood at the kitchen island with a chef's knife, working through a pile of shallots with more confidence than skill. "How thin is thin?" he called.

Elena came in from the dining room holding two candles, one cream, one burnt orange. "Thinner than that. But it's fine. It's a braise, it'll all fall apart anyway." She set the candles on the counter and studied them. "Which one says 'we're adults who own matching napkins'?"

"We don't own matching napkins."

"We own four that are close enough." She picked the cream ones and went back out.

He heard her moving chairs, then the small clatter of silverware being laid. The apartment smelled like bay leaf and browned meat. Outside, a bus hissed at the corner of Delancey.

"Did you text Priya about the peanut thing?" Elena called.

"I did. She said the sauce is fine as long as it's not in the sauce."

"That's — Marcus, that's the opposite of fine."

"It's not in the sauce." He wiped his hands on the dish towel over his shoulder. "It's a garnish. I'll leave hers plain."

Elena appeared in the doorway with a wine bottle in each hand, holding them up like a question. He pointed at the one on the left. She nodded and set the other back in the rack.

At 6:40 she went to change. He heard the closet door, the hangers, and then her voice, muffled: "Is it a sweater night or a shirt night?"

"Sweater. It's forty-one degrees."

She came out in the green one, sleeves pushed up, and stood behind him at the stove. She tasted the braise off his spoon, thought about it, and reached past him for the salt.

"More?" he said.

"A little more." She kissed his shoulder and went to find the corkscrew.


The oven timer had eleven minutes left when Dana realized she'd forgotten the bread.

"Marcus," she called from the kitchen, "did you pick up a baguette?"

He appeared in the doorway holding two shirts on hangers, one blue, one striped. "I picked up wine, ice, and those little cheese things you like. Bread was not on the list you texted me."

"It was implied."

"Nothing is implied at Kroger." He held up the shirts. "Which one?"

"Blue. The striped one makes you look like a referee."

He disappeared down the hall. Dana wiped the counter for the third time, then stood back and looked at the table—six place settings, the good napkins her mother had given them, a jar of grocery-store tulips because they'd run out of time for anything fancier. It looked fine. It looked like people lived here.

Marcus came back in the blue shirt, still buttoning the cuffs. "I can run out. Nine minutes to the store, nine back."

"Rachel's always late. We'd be fine." She hesitated. "But no. Sit down for a second."

They sat at the table together, which they almost never did before guests arrived. The house smelled like garlic and roasted chicken. Somewhere in the walls the furnace kicked on.

"I hate this part," Marcus said. "The waiting."

"I know."

"Everything's done and there's nothing to do."

"There's the bread."

"You said we were fine."

"We are." She reached over and fixed his collar, which was folded under on one side. "There. Now you look like you tried."

The doorbell rang. Marcus checked his watch—Rachel, eight minutes early, for the first time in the history of their friendship.

"Unbelievable," he said, and went to answer it.

Dana pulled the chicken out and set it on the stove to rest, listening to the voices in the entryway getting louder, the door closing against the cold.


At six-fifteen, Marcus stood in the kitchen with a dish towel over his shoulder, arguing with a chicken. It had been in the oven forty minutes and still refused to brown.

"Give it time," Dana called from the dining room, where she was wrestling with a tablecloth that had come out of the linen closet with a crease down the middle like a scar. "You always panic at the forty-minute mark."

"I don't panic. I assess."

"You assessed the lasagna into the trash last spring."

He let that one go, because she was right, and because the potatoes needed turning. Outside, the November dark had come early, and the kitchen window held their reflection: two people in their forties moving around each other in a space too small for the number of pots they owned.

Dana found the good napkins, counted them, found five, and swore quietly. Six people were coming. She folded a paper towel into a triangle and put it at her own place, figuring she'd sit on it before anyone noticed.

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

"His wife's allergic, not him. And yes. No peanuts. The dressing is oil and vinegar and my own tears."

He laughed. She came into the kitchen and stole a slice of cucumber off the cutting board, and he swatted at her hand without any real conviction.

By six-forty the chicken had finally turned gold. Marcus pulled it out and set it on the stovetop to rest. Dana lit the two candles she'd bought at the grocery store, then blew one out because it smelled like cinnamon and vanilla and clashed with dinner.

"You look nice," he said.

"I look like I've been folding napkins."

"That's what I said."

The doorbell rang at six-fifty-two, which meant somebody had arrived early, which meant it was Ellis. Dana wiped her hands on her jeans. Marcus went to answer it.


Marcus checked the oven timer for the third time in five minutes. The roast had another forty, which meant the potatoes should go in now, or maybe in ten, and this uncertainty was the exact reason he'd wanted to order Thai food.

"You're hovering," Priya said, coming through the kitchen with an armload of folding chairs from the garage. "Sit down and let it cook."

"I'm not hovering. I'm monitoring."

She set the chairs down and counted them against the table. Six, plus the two dining chairs, made eight. Ben was bringing his sister, which they'd learned that morning via text, so eight was right, assuming nobody sat on the piano bench.

"Did you text Dana about the nut thing?" Marcus asked.

"I texted her. It's the dressing that has walnuts, and I made a second bowl without."

"You did?"

"An hour ago. You were showering." Priya wiped down the table, then stood back and frowned at it. The wood had that dull look it got in winter. She decided she didn't care.

Marcus put the potatoes in. In the living room he cleared the mail pile off the coffee table into a canvas bag and stashed the bag in the hall closet, which was where things went to be forgotten until spring. He straightened the throw pillows, then unstraightened one because Priya said it looked staged.

At 6:40 she changed out of her work clothes and put on the green sweater. He found her in the bedroom putting on earrings and stood behind her a second, both of them in the mirror.

"House looks good," he said.

"House looks fine."

The doorbell rang at 6:52 — Ben always came early — and they looked at each other with the same small resigned expression they'd been sharing for eleven years.

"I'll get it," Marcus said. "Bring the wine glasses?"

She was already reaching for them.


The dinner was set for seven, and by five-thirty the kitchen smelled like garlic and browning butter.

Nadia stood at the stove, sleeves pushed to her elbows, coaxing onions toward gold. She'd been planning this menu for a week—braised short ribs, a farro salad, the lemon tart she'd made twice before with mixed results. The tart was cooling on the counter now, its surface slightly cracked, which she'd decided to call rustic.

"Do we own a serving spoon that isn't from IKEA?" Peter called from the dining room. He was setting the table for six, counting out forks, discovering they had five matching ones and a sixth that didn't match at all.

"Bottom drawer, left side. The wooden one."

He found it. He also found a candle stub, two rubber bands, and a receipt from 2019, which he threw away with the small satisfaction of a man accomplishing something adjacent to his task.

They moved around each other in the narrow galley kitchen with the choreography of eleven years. Peter reached past her for the corkscrew; she leaned back without looking. He'd been assigned drinks and music, which he took seriously—two bottles of Côtes du Rhône breathing on the counter, a playlist he'd spent forty minutes assembling and would apologize for later.

"Did you text Marcus about the shellfish thing?" Nadia asked.

"Allergy's his wife. And yes. No shellfish. There's no shellfish anywhere near this meal."

"There's fish sauce in the dressing."

Peter paused. "Is fish sauce shellfish?"

"It's anchovies."

"Then we're fine." He topped off her wine and set it beside the cutting board where she'd find it.

At six-fifty she changed out of the flour-dusted shirt. At six-fifty-five Peter lit the candles. At seven-oh-four the doorbell rang, and they looked at each other for a second—the last quiet second—before he went to answer it.


The Reyes house smelled like garlic and browning butter by five-thirty. Daniel stood at the stove in his socks, one hand on the pan handle, the other holding his phone at arm's length because he refused to admit he needed reading glasses.

"It says twelve minutes," he called toward the hallway.

"It always says twelve minutes." Marisol came out carrying a stack of mismatched plates. She'd changed out of her work clothes into jeans and a sweater with a hole in the cuff she kept meaning to mend. "Twelve minutes is a lie invented by recipe writers."

She set the plates on the table and started counting silverware, then stopped. "Did you tell Ben's wife about the shellfish thing, or did I?"

"You did. In October."

"That was a different dinner."

Daniel wiped his hands on the towel over his shoulder. "There's no shellfish in anything. There's chicken and there's rice and there's a salad I haven't made yet."

"I'll do the salad."

They moved around each other in the kitchen the way people do after eleven years, without touching, without apologizing. Marisol pulled romaine from the crisper and started tearing it. Daniel found the good olive oil behind the vinegar.

"The bathroom," she said suddenly.

"I cleaned it Tuesday."

"There's a plunger sitting out."

He went and put the plunger under the sink. When he came back she had the salad tossed and was lighting the candle on the counter, the one that smelled vaguely like a forest and had been half-burned since Thanksgiving.

Headlights swung across the front window at ten after six. Daniel turned down the music he'd forgotten was playing. Marisol glanced at the table, then at him, then reached over and straightened his collar with two fingers.

"Your sleeve's got butter on it," she said.

"They won't notice."

"I noticed."

He rolled the sleeve up past the stain, and she went to open the door.


The doorbell would ring in forty minutes, and Marisol was still hunting for the good tablecloth.

"Second drawer down," Danny called from the kitchen, where he was standing over a pot of beans that had, against all odds, turned out well. He'd been nervous about them. His mother had made them for thirty years without measuring anything, and he'd spent the afternoon on the phone with her, translating her instructions into cups.

Marisol found the tablecloth exactly where he'd said, which annoyed her slightly. She shook it out over the dining table—a hand-me-down from Danny's grandmother, scarred with water rings they'd stopped apologizing for—and started setting places. Six. Eight, if Renee brought the kids, which she'd said she wouldn't and probably would.

"Did you get wine?" she asked.

"Two reds. And that seltzer stuff Kevin likes."

"He's not drinking anymore."

"That's why I got the seltzer."

She stopped and looked at him through the doorway. He had a dish towel over his shoulder and flour on his forearm somehow, though nothing in the meal involved flour. Eleven years, and he still surprised her by paying attention.

At six-fifteen, she changed her shirt twice and settled on the first one. Danny put on music, something low and instrumental, and lit the candle on the counter that they only used for company. He turned it off after a minute—too much, they agreed without saying so.

"The bathroom," Marisol said suddenly.

"I did it this morning."

"You did?"

"I hid the laundry basket in our closet, too."

She laughed. Outside, a car door slammed, then another. Danny wiped his hands, and Marisol pushed a chair back into place, and they looked at each other for a second in the small warm room before either of them moved toward the door.


Marisol found the good tablecloth crumpled at the bottom of the linen closet, exactly where she'd stuffed it in March.

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

"Iron's on the shelf above the washer," Dev called back. He was standing over a pot of dal, tasting it with a wooden spoon, adding salt in increments the way his mother had taught him — never all at once, because you can't take it out. The rice cooker clicked over to warm. He glanced at the clock: 5:40. Guests at 6:30, which in practice meant 6:50 for the Kaplans and 6:15 for Toby, who was always early and always apologetic about it.

Marisol set up the ironing board in the dining room and worked the wrinkles out in long passes. Her mind was somewhere else — the meeting she'd had that afternoon, the way her boss had said "let's circle back" and then hadn't.

"You're doing the thing," Dev said, coming in with a stack of plates.

"What thing."

"The jaw thing." He set the plates down and kissed the top of her head as he passed.

She exhaled and let it go. There'd be time to talk about it later, after everyone left, when they were doing dishes and the kitchen radio was on low.

They moved around each other easily. He lit the candles; she found the good napkins. He put on a record — something instrumental, nothing anybody would have opinions about. She swept crumbs off the counter into her cupped hand.

At 6:12 the doorbell rang.

"Toby," they said at the same time.

Marisol looked down at her sweater, decided it was fine, and went to answer the door. Behind her, Dev turned the burner down to low and wiped his hands on the dish towel hanging from the oven handle.


Marisol found the good tablecloth in the linen closet, wedged behind the beach towels. She shook it out over the dining table, and the smell of cedar drifted up.

"Six or seven?" Danny called from the kitchen.

"Seven. Priya's bringing her sister."

He swore under his breath, not really upset, and pulled another handful of shrimp from the freezer. The colander clattered in the sink as he ran cold water over them. Outside, a lawnmower droned two houses down, and the September light was doing the thing it did in the late afternoon, coming in low and gold through the window over the sink so he had to squint.

Marisol came in with a stack of plates. "The blue ones or the white?"

"Blue. They hide everything."

"That's not a selling point."

"It absolutely is."

She set them down and reached past him for the corkscrew, and he leaned back so she could get at the drawer. Twelve years of this, of stepping around each other in a kitchen barely wide enough for both of them, had made a kind of choreography neither of them noticed anymore.

"Did you vacuum the living room?"

"I vacuumed the part people see."

"Danny."

"There's a couch in front of the rest of it. Nobody's moving the couch."

She let it go. She lit the two candles on the table, then thought better of it and blew them out to save the wicks. Danny put the shrimp on with butter and garlic and the whole house changed.

At six-fifteen a car door slammed. Marisol looked down at her shirt, saw a spot of olive oil near the hem, and pulled a cardigan off the back of a chair.

"You look fine," Danny said, not turning around.

"You didn't look."

"I know what you look like."

She was still rolling her eyes when the doorbell rang.


Marcus heard the oven timer from the hallway and quickened his pace, a stack of cloth napkins tucked under one arm.

"I've got it," Dana called from the kitchen. She pulled the tray of roasted vegetables out, squinting at the carrots. "Ten more minutes, maybe. The oven runs cold."

"It's run cold for six years. We should probably do something about that."

"Add it to the list." She wiped her hands on a dish towel and glanced at the clock on the microwave. 6:12. The Reyeses were always fifteen minutes early, which meant she had about twenty-three minutes to look like someone who hadn't spent the afternoon assembling a lasagna in a Michigan sweatshirt.

Marcus set the napkins on the table and started folding them into rough triangles. He'd tried the fancy fold once, years ago, watching a video on his phone, and Dana had laughed so hard she'd had to sit down. Triangles now. Triangles forever.

"Did you get wine?" she asked.

"Two reds, one white. And the seltzer for Priya."

"You're a good man."

"I'm an adequate man who remembers things." He straightened a fork. "Where's the serving spoon, the big wooden one?"

"Dishwasher. Might still be wet."

He found it, dried it on his shirt when she wasn't looking, and set it beside the salad bowl. Behind him he heard her go up the stairs, then the sound of the bedroom closet.

At 6:29 she came down in a green sweater, earrings in, hair pulled back. Marcus looked up from lighting the candles.

"You clean up okay," he said.

"You're still wearing the shirt you mowed the lawn in."

He looked down. "Huh."

"Go. I'll get the door."

He was halfway up the stairs when the doorbell rang, and he heard her laugh — that real one, low and surprised — as she opened it.


The Last Twenty Minutes

Dana found the good tablecloth still folded in the linen closet, creased in three places from a year of sitting. She shook it out over the dining table and smoothed the fold lines with her palm, which did nothing, and decided nobody would notice.

In the kitchen, Marcus was arguing with the oven. "It says three-fifty. It's been at three-fifty for forty minutes."

"Did you preheat it?"

"I preheated it."

"You didn't preheat it."

He didn't answer, which meant no. Dana came in and looked at the chicken, which had gone a pale, unpromising color, and turned the dial to four hundred. "It'll be fine. Fern's always late anyway."

Marcus went back to the salad, tearing romaine with more force than the romaine required. He'd gotten home at five-forty, still in his work clothes, and had a smear of olive oil on his shirt cuff already. Dana pointed at it. He looked down, sighed, and kept tearing.

She lit two candles on the table, then blew one out because the smell was too strong together. She moved the mail pile from the counter to the bedroom, closed the bedroom door, and took the dog's toys off the couch. In the bathroom she wiped the sink with a hand towel and hung the towel on the back of the door where nobody would find it.

"Wine's open," Marcus called. "Should I open the second one now or does that look desperate?"

"Open it. It needs to breathe."

"Does it? Or do people just say that?"

"I don't know. Open it anyway."

At six-fifty-eight, headlights swung across the front window. Dana pulled off her apron and stuffed it in a drawer. Marcus turned the oven light on, peered in, and said, "Actually, this looks all right."

She kissed the side of his head on her way to the door.


The doorbell wouldn't ring for another forty minutes, but Dana had already changed shirts twice.

"The blue one," Marcus said, not looking up from the cutting board. "You always end up back in the blue one."

"That's because you never tell me when the other one's wrong."

"The other one isn't wrong. It's just not the blue one." He scraped a pile of shallots into the pan, and the kitchen filled with that smell that made their apartment feel like somebody's actual home instead of two people's storage unit.

Dana came back in the blue one and started on the table. Four plates from the good set, two from the everyday set, because they'd never gotten around to replacing the ones that broke in the move. She arranged it so the mismatched ones went to Petra and Ben, who wouldn't notice or would find it charming.

"Did you text Kyle about the shellfish thing?"

"I texted him. He says it's fine as long as it's not in the same pan."

"It's not in the same pan."

"I know it's not. I'm telling you what he said."

Marcus tasted the sauce, made a face, added salt, made a different face. Dana lit the candles too early, the way she always did, and Marcus didn't say anything about it, the way he always didn't.

At 6:50 they stood in the doorway of the living room together, surveying. The couch had a blanket thrown over the stain. The books were stacked in a way that suggested intention. Somewhere under the coffee table there was a dog toy neither of them saw.

"It looks good," Dana said.

"It looks like people live here."

"That's what I said."

He kissed the side of her head and went to get the wine glasses down, and she followed him to catch the one he always nearly dropped, and then the buzzer went off, twelve minutes early, because Petra was constitutionally incapable of being late.


The doorbell would ring at seven, and it was already six-fifteen.

Maya stood at the kitchen island, sleeves pushed to her elbows, coaxing a stubborn head of garlic apart with the flat of a knife. The chicken had been in the oven twenty minutes and the whole house smelled like lemon and thyme, which was the only reason she wasn't panicking.

"The wine's not cold," Daniel said, coming up from the basement with two bottles under his arm. He set them on the counter and looked at them like they'd betrayed him personally.

"Ice bucket. Under the sink, behind the vase."

He crouched, rummaged, found it. "Why is it behind the vase?"

"Because you put it there in April."

He didn't argue, which she appreciated. He filled the bucket at the sink, dumped in a tray of ice, and wedged the bottles in at an angle. Then he started on the table — the good placemats, the cloth napkins his mother had given them, folded badly but folded. Six settings. Their friends the Ortegas were bringing their daughter, who was eleven and would want to sit near the dog.

"Did you vacuum the hallway?" Maya asked.

"I vacuumed the hallway."

"The whole hallway, or up to the closet?"

A pause. "Up to the closet."

She laughed, and he went to get the vacuum again.

By six-fifty the salad was tossed, the bread was warming, and Daniel had changed into a shirt with a collar. Maya rinsed her hands, dried them on a dish towel, and stood a moment in the doorway looking at the table, the flickering candle, the crooked napkins.

"It looks good," she said.

Daniel came and stood beside her, tucking in his shirt. "It looks like people live here."

"That's the idea."

The doorbell rang at six fifty-eight. The dog started barking. Maya went to answer it, and Daniel went to turn down the oven.


The kitchen smelled like garlic and rosemary by four-thirty, which meant Priya had started early, which meant she was nervous.

"They're friends," Danny said, sliding the last of the recycling into the bin. "Not the Michelin people."

"Mark's mother made a beef bourguignon at that Christmas thing. I still think about it." She adjusted the oven rack for the third time, then wiped her hands on a dish towel already damp from earlier wiping.

Danny took the towel from her, hung it on the stove handle, and handed her a glass of the Rioja they'd opened to breathe. "Sit down for five minutes."

She didn't sit. She started slicing bread instead, and he let it go, because he knew from eleven years of this that Priya calmed down by moving. He went to deal with the bathroom, which was his job by long-standing agreement, along with music, ice, and the removal of the enormous pile of mail from the dining table. He found her reading glasses in that pile, and a parking ticket he'd been avoiding.

At five, the dog got shut in the bedroom with a bone, complaining. At five-fifteen, Priya changed out of the shirt she'd cooked in, and Danny said the green one was better, and she wore the green one.

"Do we have enough chairs?" she called.

"Six, plus the piano bench."

"Nobody wants the piano bench."

"Mark wants the piano bench. Mark loves the piano bench."

She laughed, finally, and he heard it from the other room and felt the whole evening settle into something manageable.

The doorbell rang at 5:52 — early, as always, the Rosens — and Priya swore softly and pulled the tray from the oven, and Danny wiped a smear of something off the counter with his sleeve and went to let them in, calling back over his shoulder, "It smells incredible in here, by the way," which it did, and which she needed to hear.