The Errand Loop

Marcus was already in the car when Dana came out, holding the reusable bags they always forgot until they were halfway to the store.

"Got the list?" she asked, climbing in.

He tapped his phone. "Notes app. You added ricotta at two in the morning."

"I was thinking about lasagna."

The first stop was the credit union, where they deposited a check from Dana's aunt and stood in line behind a man arguing gently with a teller about overdraft fees. Marcus read the interest rate posters. Dana read the man's body language and decided he was going to lose.

At the dry cleaner they picked up his gray suit, which he needed Thursday for a funeral neither of them wanted to discuss yet, and dropped off a tablecloth that had suffered during a dinner party in March.

The grocery store was crowded for a Saturday. They split up the way they always did—Dana took produce and dairy, Marcus took the aisles, and they met near the bread. She critiqued his selection of tomatoes. He pointed out she'd grabbed the wrong ricotta, the whole-milk one she'd complained about last time.

"That was a different brand."

"It was this brand."

She put it back. They bought the other one.

At checkout, the total came to more than either expected, and they had the brief, familiar conversation about how it used to be ninety dollars for a full cart.

The last stop was the hardware store for furnace filters. Marcus held one up against the old one he'd brought as reference, squinting at the dimensions printed on the cardboard frame.

"Twenty by twenty-five," Dana said, reading over his shoulder.

"I know what it says."

"Then why are you squinting?"

They got home at four. He carried the heavy bags. She put away the cold things first, and then they sat down.


The car needed gas, so they took Maya's Corolla instead of the truck, which had been leaking something onto the driveway for three weeks now.

"We should look at that," Deven said, buckling in.

"We should look at a lot of things." Maya backed out carefully; the Hendersons' cat had a habit of sleeping in the shade of their mailbox.

First the bank, where Deven went inside to deposit a check his mother had mailed him for his birthday, six weeks late, the way she always did. Maya waited in the car with the AC on and answered two work emails she'd been ignoring since Thursday. When he came back he handed her a lollipop from the teller's basket, green apple, her favorite, and she said nothing but put it in the cupholder.

The pharmacy took longer than it should have. Deven's prescription wasn't ready, and the woman behind the counter told them fifteen minutes in a tone that suggested it might be forty. They wandered the aisles. Maya found a heating pad on clearance and held it up.

"For your back," she said.

"My back's fine."

"Your back is not fine. You groaned getting out of the car."

He put it in the basket.

At the grocery store they split the list, an old system: he took produce and dairy, she took everything else, and they met near the bread. He'd gotten the wrong yogurt, plain instead of vanilla, and she sent him back without a word, and he went without complaining, which was its own kind of apology for something neither of them mentioned.

In the parking lot the heat came off the asphalt in waves. Deven loaded the bags into the trunk while Maya returned the cart, all the way to the corral, because he'd once told her leaving it out was the sort of thing that revealed a person's character, and she'd never forgotten it.


The alarm on Marcus's phone went off at seven-fifteen, which was a compromise. He wanted to leave by eight; Dara wanted to sleep until nine. They met in the middle, the way they had for eleven years.

She was already in the kitchen when he came down, writing on the back of an envelope because they'd run out of sticky notes and neither of them had remembered to buy more.

"Bank first," she said. "Then the pharmacy, then Kroger. That way the cold stuff comes home last."

"The pharmacy closes at noon on Saturdays now."

Dara looked up. "Since when?"

"Since October. I told you."

"You told the dog."

They took her car because his needed an oil change, another item that had been living on the envelope for three weeks. The bank took nine minutes. At the pharmacy, Marcus stood in line for her mother's prescription while Dara wandered the seasonal aisle and came back with a bag of discounted Halloween candy in mid-November.

"That's not on the list."

"It's eighty percent off. It's practically a civic duty."

At Kroger, they split up the way they always did — she took produce and dairy, he took the interior aisles — and reconvened near the frozen foods, comparing carts like generals over a map. He'd forgotten the coffee. She'd gotten two loaves of bread because she couldn't remember whether they had any.

"We have one and a half," Marcus said.

"Then we have three and a half now. Bread freezes."

In the parking lot, the wind had picked up and the cart tried to get away from him. Dara held the trunk open with her hip and they loaded the bags together, quickly, not talking, hands finding the heavy things at the same time.

"Car wash?" she asked, getting in.

He checked his watch. "Next week."

She wrote it on the envelope.


The rain had let up by the time Marcus and Devin backed out of the driveway, leaving the pavement dark and glossy under a sky that couldn't commit to clearing.

"List," Marcus said, holding out his hand at the stop sign.

Devin patted his jacket pockets, then the console, then finally found the folded receipt on which he'd written everything that morning. "Bank first. Then the pharmacy, then Kroger, then that thing with the smoke detector batteries."

"That thing is called buying batteries."

"It's a whole thing. Ours are the weird size."

The bank took four minutes. The pharmacy took twenty, because the automated system had lied about Devin's prescription being ready, and Marcus spent the wait wandering the seasonal aisle, returning with a clearance garden gnome he insisted was "structurally similar" to Devin's late grandmother. Devin refused to laugh, then laughed in the parking lot.

At Kroger they split the list the way they always did — Devin took produce and dry goods, Marcus took dairy, meat, and whatever detours interested him. They found each other again near the bread, Marcus's cart containing three items not on the list and one item that was, technically, a small potted basil plant.

"We killed the last one," Devin said.

"We under-loved the last one."

They compromised. The basil came home.

The batteries turned out to be at the hardware store two doors down, and the teenager working the register found the right size in about eleven seconds, which Devin took personally.

By the time they pulled back into the driveway, the sun had finally decided on itself, throwing long light across the wet lawn. Marcus carried the heavy bags. Devin carried the eggs and the basil, holding both like they might be equally fragile.

Inside, the milk went in the fridge, the gnome went on the windowsill, and neither of them mentioned that they'd forgotten the paper towels.


The list was on the refrigerator, held by a magnet shaped like Ohio, though neither of them had ever been to Ohio.

"Do we still need coffee?" Daniel asked, pulling on his jacket.

Marcus checked the cupboard. "We need coffee like we need air. Grab the good stuff this time, not the bulk bin."

They took Marcus's car because Daniel's had been making a noise since October that both of them had agreed to ignore. The first stop was the bank, where Daniel waited in the car with the heater running while Marcus deposited a check from his sister — a birthday gift she insisted on mailing every year despite him being forty-three.

At the pharmacy, they split up. Marcus went for the prescription; Daniel wandered to the seasonal aisle and returned holding a bag of chocolate hearts, already discounted.

"It's February ninth," Marcus said.

"It's fifty percent off is what it is."

The grocery store was crowded, a Saturday crowd, carts nosing past each other in the produce section. Daniel pushed while Marcus read from his phone. They had a system, worn smooth by fifteen years: Marcus navigated, Daniel selected. Marcus would say "tomatoes" and Daniel would hold two up for approval, and Marcus would nod or shake his head, and that was the whole conversation.

They disagreed about the bread. They always disagreed about the bread. Marcus wanted sourdough; Daniel said sourdough went stale in three days and they always threw half of it out. They bought the sourdough.

In the parking lot, loading bags into the trunk, it began to drizzle. Marcus took the cart back to the corral because Daniel had a thing about people who didn't, and he liked being the person who did it.

At home, unloading in the kitchen, Daniel found the chocolate hearts at the bottom of a bag and set them on the counter without comment. Marcus put the coffee away. Good stuff, this time.


The rain had stopped by the time Marcus and Dev backed the Corolla out of the driveway, leaving the pavement dark and steaming in the late morning sun. Dev had the list on his phone, a running document he'd been adding to all week: milk, coffee filters, the good bread from the bakery counter, something for Marcus's mother's birthday.

"Bank first," Marcus said. "Otherwise we'll be carrying frozen stuff around."

The line at the credit union was four people deep. Dev leaned against the counter while Marcus deposited a check from a freelance job, and they debated whether the neighbors' new fence had actually crossed the property line. Neither of them wanted to be the one to bring it up.

At the hardware store they bought furnace filters and a replacement washer for the kitchen faucet, which had been dripping since February. Marcus held the tiny package up. "Six dollars. Six dollars for what should have been fixed in March."

"You said you'd do it in March."

"I did say that."

The grocery store was crowded with Saturday people. Dev pushed the cart while Marcus went ahead to the produce section, weighing tomatoes with the seriousness of a man defusing something. They split up in the middle aisles and reconvened near the dairy case, comparing yogurt containers. Dev put back the almond milk when Marcus reminded him they still had most of a carton.

At checkout, the total came out higher than either of them expected, which it always did.

They stopped for gas on the way home, Marcus pumping while Dev cleaned the windshield with the squeegee, doing a mediocre job of it. Back in the car, the bags shifted and settled in the trunk.

"Faucet today?" Dev asked.

"Faucet today," Marcus said, and turned onto their street, where the fence was still there, still ambiguous, waiting for another Saturday.


The list had been on the refrigerator since Tuesday, held up by a magnet shaped like a lobster from a trip to Maine neither of them talked about much anymore, mostly because there was nothing to say beyond that it had been nice.

"Do we need coffee?" Priya asked, pulling the door open again.

"We always need coffee," Daniel said. He was looking for the car keys, which were in his jacket pocket, which he discovered thirty seconds later without comment.

They drove to the credit union first because it closed at noon on Saturdays. Priya waited in the car while Daniel deposited a check from his mother, who still refused to use direct transfers. When he came back out, Priya had moved the seat forward and adjusted the mirrors.

"I was cold," she said. "The vent points different from over here."

The pharmacy took longer than it should have. Daniel's prescription wasn't ready, then it was ready but under an old insurance plan, then it was sorted out by a woman named Charlene who apologized four times. Priya wandered the seasonal aisle and came back with a bag of chocolate eggs that were already discounted.

At the grocery store they split the list the way they always did, Daniel taking produce and dairy, Priya taking everything in the middle aisles. They met near the frozen section. He had bought three avocados; she pointed out that two of them were hard as stones.

"They'll ripen."

"They'll ripen at exactly the same hour and then rot together."

He put one back.

In the parking lot, loading bags into the trunk, Priya noticed the rear tire looked low. Daniel crouched, pressed his thumb against it, and agreed it did.

"Air pump at the gas station on Fulton," he said.

"After lunch," she said, and he didn't argue, because he was hungry too.


The rain had stopped by the time Marcus and Dev backed out of the driveway, leaving the pavement slick and steaming faintly in the late morning sun. Dev drove. Marcus held the list on his phone, scrolling through it with his thumb.

"Bank first," he said. "Then the hardware store, then Kroger."

"Hardware store's on the other side of the highway."

"So we loop." Marcus turned the phone toward him, as if the order of a bulleted list were an argument.

Dev laughed and merged into traffic.

At the credit union, Marcus deposited a check from his mother, who still refused to use any app made after 1997. Dev waited in the car with the windows down, listening to a podcast about volcanoes and watching a man in the next spot try to fold a stroller with one hand.

The hardware store took longer than it should have. They needed a replacement flapper for the upstairs toilet, which had been running intermittently for three weeks, and neither of them could remember the brand. Dev held up two nearly identical rubber discs.

"This one," Marcus said.

"You don't know that."

"I don't. But it's four dollars, and I'm tired of the sound."

They bought both.

Kroger was crowded. Dev pushed the cart while Marcus went ahead, gathering things in his arms and depositing them like offerings—yogurt, a bag of oranges, the good coffee, tortillas. They argued briefly about whether they already had garlic at home. Neither could picture the counter clearly. They bought garlic.

In the checkout line, Dev remembered they needed stamps and went to the kiosk while Marcus bagged. Outside, the parking lot had dried in patches, and a woman with a cart of flowers passed them, leaving a smell of wet soil.

They loaded the trunk together, wordlessly, in the practiced rhythm of nine years. Dev drove home. Marcus fell asleep at the second stoplight.


The rain had stopped by the time Marcus backed the Corolla out of the driveway, leaving the pavement dark and steaming in the late morning sun. Priya sat in the passenger seat with a receipt from last week on her knee, using it as a surface to write their list.

"Did we need milk, or did you get milk?" she asked.

"I got the small one. The one you said tastes like cardboard."

"It does taste like cardboard." She wrote *milk* anyway.

They stopped at the credit union first, where the drive-through tube swallowed Marcus's paycheck and returned it as a slip of paper. Then the dry cleaner, where Priya went in alone because the woman behind the counter always wanted to talk to Marcus about his father, and Marcus never knew what to say.

At the grocery store, they split up out of habit and inefficiency. Marcus took the perimeter—produce, dairy, the butcher counter where he stood too long deciding between chicken thighs and a pork shoulder. Priya took the aisles, and by the time they found each other near the frozen foods, her half of the cart had accumulated three things that weren't on the list, including a bag of chile-lime peanuts.

"Those aren't for you," she said. "Those are for the drive home."

"I didn't say anything."

"You made a face."

They argued mildly about whether they needed a second bag of rice, decided they did, and stood in the self-checkout line behind a man buying nothing but limes. Outside, the parking lot had dried in uneven patches. Marcus loaded the trunk while Priya returned the cart, and on the way home she opened the peanuts and held one out to him at a red light.

He took it. It was too spicy. He asked for another one.


The rain had stopped by the time Marcus backed the Corolla out of the driveway, leaving the street slick and shining under a gray Saturday sky. Denise sat in the passenger seat with the grocery list on her phone, adding items as she remembered them.

"Did you grab the returns?" she asked.

"Trunk," Marcus said. "Both boxes. Though I still think you should keep the blue sweater."

"It made me look like a bruise."

Their first stop was the post office, where the line stretched nearly to the door. Denise held their place while Marcus filled out the customs form for his mother's birthday package, printing carefully in the small boxes. When they finally reached the counter, the clerk asked if anything was fragile, and they answered "no" at the same time, which made the clerk smile.

At the hardware store they split up—Denise for furnace filters, Marcus for the specific size of hex bolt he'd been meaning to buy for three weeks. They found each other in the paint aisle, where Denise was holding two nearly identical swatches of off-white.

"That one," Marcus said, pointing.

"You didn't even look."

"I looked. Get a sample can if you're serious."

She got a sample can.

The grocery store was crowded with people who'd had the same idea about getting errands done before the afternoon. Marcus pushed the cart while Denise read off the list, and they moved through the aisles in the pattern they'd fallen into over eleven years: produce, then the perimeter, then the middle aisles for the things they'd forgotten. He put a bag of the cheddar-flavored crackers in the cart when he thought she wasn't looking. She didn't say anything about it.

In the parking lot, loading bags into the trunk, Denise realized they'd forgotten coffee.

Marcus closed the trunk. "I'll go back in," he said. "Stay warm."


Marcus found the grocery list stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet shaped like Ohio, though neither of them had ever been to Ohio. Beneath the milk and eggs, Diane had added *dry cleaning* and *stamps??* in her looping handwriting.

"Stamps with two question marks," he said, holding it up as she came into the kitchen pulling on her jacket.

"I couldn't remember if we still had any." She checked her purse, found none, and shrugged. "Two question marks stands."

The morning was gray and mild, the kind of late October Saturday where the trees on their street had gone half-bare overnight. Diane drove because Marcus had driven last time and they'd fallen years ago into a silent alternation neither of them could remember agreeing to.

At the dry cleaner's, Marcus went in alone while she idled at the curb. He came out with three shirts and a receipt he couldn't fold into his wallet properly. Then the post office, where the line moved slower than either of them expected, and they stood together reading the wanted posters and speculating quietly about the man in the third photograph.

The grocery store was the long part. Diane took the left side of the aisles, Marcus the right, and they met at the ends like a well-worn machine. He put a bag of caramels in the cart. She took them out. He put them back, and she let it go.

"Did we need cilantro or parsley?" she called from produce.

"You wrote cilantro."

"I know what I wrote. I'm asking what I meant."

They settled on both.

Loading the car, Marcus dropped a bag of oranges and chased two of them across the asphalt while Diane laughed at him openly, one hand on the trunk. On the way home they stopped for coffee neither of them had put on the list.


The morning had that particular gray softness of early spring, when the light comes through the kitchen window without much conviction. Daniel was already awake, standing at the counter in his socks, writing on the back of an envelope.

"Milk," he said, when Marcus came in. "And you wanted that bread from the place on Fifth."

"The seeded one." Marcus poured coffee into the travel mug that had been in the cabinet since Christmas. "And we're out of laundry detergent. The good kind, not the one you bought last time."

"That one was fine."

"That one smelled like a hospital."

They took Marcus's car because Daniel's needed an oil change, which was itself on the list, though probably not for today. At the pharmacy they waited eleven minutes behind a woman disputing a copay, and Daniel read the ingredients on a box of allergy medicine while Marcus checked his phone and made a small sound of irritation at something in his email.

The grocery store was busy in the way Saturday mornings always are. They split up near the produce, which was their system: Marcus took the perimeter, Daniel took the middle aisles. They found each other again by the eggs. Marcus had gotten the wrong kind of yogurt, and Daniel put it back without saying anything, which Marcus noticed and let pass.

At the register, Marcus paid. Daniel bagged. Outside, the sun had come through, and the parking lot was bright and wet-looking from the morning.

"Hardware store?" Marcus asked.

"We need the thing for the drain."

"The snake."

"Whatever it's called."

They loaded the trunk. Daniel found a shopping cart abandoned in a parking space and pushed it back to the corral, and Marcus waited with the engine running, adjusting the radio down to something quieter, until he came back.


Marcus found the grocery list on the refrigerator, held there by a magnet shaped like a lobster from a trip to Maine four years ago. He read it twice, added *coffee filters* at the bottom, and called down the hall that they should leave before the Saturday crowd.

Priya came out pulling on her cardigan, car keys already looped around one finger. "Bank first," she said. "The deposit slip's been in my purse since Wednesday."

They took her car because his needed an oil change, which was also on the list, in a way. The bank drive-through had two cars ahead of them. Marcus drummed the dashboard while Priya filled out the slip against the steering wheel, complaining that the pen had gone cheap on her.

At the pharmacy she waited in line for her mother's prescription while he wandered the seasonal aisle and came back with a bag of candy corn she hadn't asked for and didn't want, though she ate three pieces in the parking lot.

The grocery store was already loud. They split up out of long habit—she took produce and dairy, he took the middle aisles—and met near the bakery, where he was holding two loaves of bread and looking uncertain.

"Sourdough," she said. "The other one goes stale in a day."

"The other one's cheaper."

"Then buy the other one."

He put back the sourdough, then took it again when she wasn't looking. At checkout she noticed and said nothing.

The last stop was the hardware store for a furnace filter, which took eleven minutes and involved a brief disagreement about sizes that Marcus won by photographing the old filter before they left. Priya conceded gracefully.

Home by noon. He carried the heavy bags; she got the door and the eggs. The candy corn went into a bowl on the counter, where it sat, untouched, for eleven days.


Marcus found the grocery list on the refrigerator, held there by a magnet shaped like Wisconsin, though neither of them had ever been to Wisconsin. He read it twice. Denise's handwriting slanted hard to the right, as if the words were trying to get away from her.

"You added shaving cream," he said.

"You've been using mine for three weeks." She was pulling on her sneakers by the door, one hand braced against the wall. "I can smell it. You smell like a coconut."

They took her car because his needed an oil change, which was also on the list, in a way—*call Ferrell's*—though Marcus suspected that item would migrate to next week's list, and the one after that.

The bank came first. Denise had a check from her sister that had been sitting in her purse since Easter, soft as cloth from being carried around. Marcus waited in the car with the windows down, listening to a man in the next space argue with someone on speakerphone about a fence line.

At Kroger she pushed the cart and he walked ahead, doubling back with things. He held up two brands of tortillas and she pointed at the left one without breaking stride. In the cereal aisle he put a box of Frosted Flakes in the cart and she took it out and put it back on the shelf and neither of them said anything about it.

The pharmacy line was long. They stood there under the fluorescent lights and Denise told him about a woman at work who had adopted a greyhound, and Marcus said greyhounds sleep twenty hours a day, and Denise said that sounded about right for her, and he laughed.

Loading the trunk in the parking lot, he noticed she'd bought the Frosted Flakes after all. It was down at the bottom of a bag, under the bread.

He didn't mention it. He just put the cart away.


The Saturday list stuck to the refrigerator in Priya's handwriting: groceries, dry cleaning, return the space heater, bank.

Marcus warmed up the car while Priya hunted for the receipt. She found it folded in the junk drawer beneath a tangle of phone chargers, triumphant, and slid into the passenger seat with the space heater box balanced on her knees.

"Hardware store first," she said. "It closes at four for some reason."

"It's a small town thing."

"We live in Columbus."

The return took eleven minutes. The clerk asked what was wrong with it and Marcus said it made a clicking sound, and Priya added that the clicking sounded expensive, which made the clerk laugh and process the refund without further questions.

At the grocery store they split the list the way they always did. Marcus took produce and the middle aisles; Priya took dairy, bread, and the deli counter, where she waited behind a man ordering a quarter pound of six different things. They met near the frozen foods and compared carts.

"You got the cilantro?"

"They only had the wilted stuff." He held up a bunch. "This is the least wilted."

"That's not a ringing endorsement."

They debated ice cream for longer than necessary and settled on two pints, which was the outcome they both wanted and had been circling politely. At checkout Priya bagged while Marcus paid, and they loaded the trunk in the cold, breath fogging.

The dry cleaner had lost the ticket for Marcus's gray suit but found the suit anyway, hanging in the back with someone else's name pinned to it. The bank they did at the drive-through, which took nine minutes because the woman ahead of them was depositing a stack of checks.

By one o'clock they were home. Marcus carried the heavy bags. Priya put away the cold things first, and they ate leftover soup standing at the counter, the list finally crossed through.


Marcus found the grocery list on the kitchen counter, held down by the sugar bowl, in Delia's cramped handwriting. He added *coffee filters* at the bottom and called out that he was ready whenever she was.

She came down in her gardening jacket, the one with the torn pocket she kept meaning to sew. "The bank first," she said. "Before the line gets ridiculous."

They took her car because his still had a check-engine light he'd been ignoring since March. Delia drove. Marcus rode with the list on his knee, reading it aloud in a newscaster voice until she told him to stop, which he did, mostly.

At the credit union she deposited a check from her sister and signed something about the certificate of deposit while Marcus stood by the pens on chains, watching a toddler try to climb the velvet rope. Then the hardware store, where they disagreed pleasantly about washers—he thought the sink needed a new one, she thought it needed a whole new faucet—and bought both the washer and a bag of birdseed.

The grocery store was busy for a Saturday. Marcus pushed the cart. Delia went ahead, picking through the apples with the seriousness of a jeweler. They divided the list without discussing it, the way they had for eleven years: she took produce and dairy, he took canned goods and the coffee filters. They met up again by the freezer cases and argued about whether they already had frozen peas at home. They bought peas.

At the register, Delia realized she'd forgotten bread. Marcus jogged back for it, and she watched him go, thinking he still moved like a younger man when he wasn't thinking about it.

In the parking lot they loaded the trunk together, and he returned the cart while she started the engine.

"Car wash?" he asked, getting in.

"Next week," she said, and pulled out.


The list was stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet shaped like a lobster, a souvenir from a trip to Maine neither of them could quite afford at the time. Daniel pulled it down and read it aloud in the car while Marcus backed out of the driveway.

"Milk, eggs, coffee—the good coffee, you underlined it twice—bread, and something for Thursday when your sister comes."

"She doesn't eat pork anymore," Marcus said.

"Since when?"

"Since March. She told us at Easter."

Daniel added a note in the margin. The morning was gray and mild, the kind of Saturday that made errands feel almost pleasant. They stopped first at the pharmacy, where Marcus waited in line for his blood pressure prescription and Daniel wandered the seasonal aisle, coming back with a bag of discounted Halloween candy in November.

"We don't need that."

"We don't need most things."

At the grocery store they split up out of long habit—Marcus took produce and dairy, Daniel took the interior aisles—and reconvened near the bakery, comparing carts like generals reviewing troops. Marcus had found a chicken on sale. Daniel had found four kinds of cheese and no bread.

"How do you forget bread? It's the fourth item."

"I was distracted by the cheese."

Afterward, they dropped a box at the post office, a birthday gift for Marcus's nephew that had been sitting in the hallway for eleven days, tripping both of them. The clerk asked if it contained anything liquid, fragile, or perishable, and Daniel said "Legos," which she seemed to accept.

The last stop was the dry cleaner, then home. They carried the bags in together, three trips, and put things away in the wordless choreography of eighteen years—Marcus to the pantry, Daniel to the fridge.

"We forgot bread again," Marcus said.

Daniel laughed, already reaching for his keys.


The rain had stopped by nine, so Danielle and Marcus decided to knock everything out in one trip.

"List?" Marcus asked, patting his jacket pockets.

Danielle held up her phone. "Right here. And before you ask, yes, I added the coffee filters this time."

The car smelled faintly of the pine air freshener she'd hung last winter, which had long since given up on pine. Marcus drove. Danielle read the list aloud in the parking lot of the pharmacy, where they picked up her mother's blood pressure prescription and, on impulse, a birthday card with a cartoon dog on it.

"Who's this for?" Marcus asked.

"Nobody yet. Someone will have a birthday."

At the hardware store, they spent eleven minutes debating furnace filter sizes before Marcus went out to the car to check the old one he'd stuffed in the trunk. Sixteen by twenty-five. Danielle was already holding the right one when he came back.

The grocery store was the long stop. Marcus pushed the cart and Danielle navigated, doubling back twice for things she'd missed. He put a bag of gummy worms in the cart when she wasn't looking; she found them at checkout and left them there without comment. They argued mildly about whether they still had chicken stock at home—they did not, as it turned out—and agreed on a rotisserie chicken for dinner because neither of them wanted to cook.

The last errand was the post office, where Danielle mailed a package to her sister in Ohio while Marcus waited in the car with the windows down, listening to a baseball game and eating a gummy worm.

Unloading took two trips each. Danielle put away the cold things while Marcus carried the furnace filter down to the basement and changed it, which took less time than the debate had.

By noon, the kitchen smelled like rotisserie chicken, and the list on the counter had every line crossed out.


The Saturday list was short: groceries, the dry cleaner, a stop at the hardware store for furnace filters. Marcus had written it on the back of an envelope, which Deborah pointed out was the same envelope he'd used last week.

"It's efficient," he said, backing the car out of the driveway. "The old items are already crossed off."

The dry cleaner came first, because it closed at noon. Deborah went in with the ticket while Marcus waited in the car with the engine running, listening to a caller on the radio explain why the local school bond was a bad idea. Deborah came out with two shirts and a blazer on hangers, laid them across the back seat, and said, "He asked about your knee."

"What did you tell him?"

"That you're stubborn about the physical therapy."

At the hardware store they disagreed pleasantly about filter thickness. Marcus wanted the cheap ones, four to a pack. Deborah held up the pleated kind and read the box aloud, the part about allergens, and Marcus said fine, but he wanted it noted that the furnace had run twenty-two years on the cheap ones. She said it was noted.

The grocery store was crowded. They split the list without discussing it, the way they had for years — Marcus took produce and the meat counter, Deborah took the interior aisles and anything requiring comparison of unit prices. They met by the dairy case. He had picked up strawberries that weren't on the list, and she didn't say anything about it, just put them in the cart.

In the parking lot, loading bags into the trunk, Deborah remembered they were out of coffee filters.

Marcus looked at the store, then at his wife, then at the envelope in his shirt pocket.

"Next week," he said.

"Next week," she agreed, and got in the car.


The list was on the refrigerator, held by a magnet shaped like a lobster, and Denise pulled it down without reading it. She already knew what it said.

"Bank first," Marcus called from the driveway, "before the line gets stupid."

The car smelled faintly of the coffee he'd spilled on Tuesday. Denise cracked her window an inch and they backed out past the recycling bin, which she noted, aloud, still needed to go to the curb Thursday.

At the credit union Marcus deposited a check from his brother-in-law, a repayment eleven months in coming, and Denise waited in the car with the radio on a station neither of them had chosen. When he came back he said, "He wrote 'sorry' in the memo line," and she laughed harder than the joke deserved.

The dry cleaner had lost the ticket but found the blazer anyway. The hardware store took nine minutes: two furnace filters, a package of picture hangers, and a brief argument about whether they already owned picture hangers. They did. They bought them anyway.

The grocery store was the long stop. Marcus pushed the cart and Denise walked ahead, doubling back with things—a bag of clementines, a rotisserie chicken because neither of them wanted to cook. In the cereal aisle he added a box of something sugary and she looked at it, and he looked at her, and it stayed.

At the register the total came to more than they expected, as it always did now. Marcus tapped his card. Denise bagged, arranging the cold things together out of habit.

Loading the trunk, she handed him the clementines to hold on his lap so they wouldn't roll. He held them the whole way home, one hand on the netting, the other resting on the console between them, and neither of them said much, because there wasn't anything that needed saying.


Marcus checked the list on his phone while Danielle backed the car out of the driveway. October had turned the maples on their street to rust, and a few leaves skittered across the windshield.

"Bank first?" she asked.

"Bank first. Then the hardware store, then Kroger." He paused. "Did you bring the return?"

Danielle tipped her head toward the back seat, where a shoebox sat wedged between a reusable tote and an umbrella. "Got it. Though I still think you could have made those boots work."

"They pinched. Life's too short for pinching."

At the bank, Danielle handled the deposit while Marcus waited in the car, answering a text from his sister about Thanksgiving. When Danielle came back she was holding two lollipops.

"The teller offered. I said no, and then I said yes."

The hardware store took longer than planned, mostly because Marcus wanted to compare furnace filters and Danielle wanted to look at the shelf brackets she'd been thinking about for the hallway. They ended up buying both, plus a package of picture hooks neither of them could remember needing.

Kroger was crowded. They split the list the way they always did — Danielle took produce and dairy, Marcus took the interior aisles and whatever bread looked freshest. They met up near the frozen section, comparing carts like generals reviewing troops.

"You got the wrong yogurt," Danielle said.

"They were out of the other kind."

"They're never out of the other kind."

"Well, today they were."

She accepted this. In the checkout line, Marcus bagged while Danielle paid, and afterward they loaded the trunk in the flat gray afternoon light, the cold coming up off the asphalt.

Driving home, Danielle mentioned the shoebox, still sitting untouched in the back seat.

Marcus laughed. "Next Saturday."

"Next Saturday," she agreed, and turned onto their street.


The list was on the refrigerator, held by a magnet shaped like a lobster from a trip to Maine eleven years ago. Daniel pulled it down and read it aloud while Priya laced her shoes in the entryway.

"Milk, coffee, the good bread, chicken, whatever vegetables look decent. And you wrote 'stamps?' with a question mark."

"Because I think we have stamps," Priya said. "But I couldn't find them, so we might not."

They took her car because his was making a sound neither of them wanted to investigate on a Saturday. The pharmacy came first, a refill she'd been putting off for two weeks, and Daniel waited in the car with the windows down, half-listening to a baseball game and watching a kid across the parking lot try to ride a scooter up a curb.

At the grocery store they split the list the way they always did, without discussing it. She took produce and dairy; he took the aisles. They met near the deli counter, and she inspected his cart.

"That's not the good bread."

"They were out of the good bread."

"They're never out."

"Go look."

She went and looked. They were out. She came back with a baguette instead and said nothing about it, which he understood to be an apology.

The post office had a line that moved slower than seemed possible for four people. Priya bought a book of stamps. Daniel mailed a birthday card to his sister, three days late, and wrote *sorry, we're old now* under his signature while standing at the counter.

They stopped for gas on the way home, and Daniel washed the windshield while the tank filled. Priya carried the milk and eggs in from the driveway; he took the rest in two trips. When they unloaded everything, they found the stamps in the drawer with the takeout menus.


Saturday morning arrived gray and cool, the kind of weather that made Marcus want to stay in bed. But Dana was already up, standing in the kitchen with a pen, adding items to the list stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet shaped like Ohio.

"We need dish soap," she said. "And you said you'd get more of that coffee you like, the dark roast."

Marcus poured the last of the old coffee into a travel mug. "Bank first, or store first?"

"Bank first. The line gets long after eleven."

They took her car because his needed an oil change—another errand, one they'd both been avoiding for three weeks. At the credit union, Marcus deposited a check from a side job while Dana waited in the car, answering an email from her sister about Thanksgiving plans.

The grocery store smelled like rotisserie chicken and floor wax. They split the list without discussing it, the way they had for eleven years: Dana took produce and dairy, Marcus took the middle aisles. She found him standing in front of the pasta sauces, comparing two jars.

"That one's cheaper," she said.

"But this one doesn't have the sugar."

"Then get that one."

He put it in the cart. At the register, Dana bagged while Marcus paid, and they loaded the trunk together, arguing mildly about whether the eggs should ride in the front seat.

Afterward they stopped at the dry cleaner for his suit, then the hardware store, where Dana spent ten minutes finding the right size furnace filter while Marcus looked at power tools he had no intention of buying.

By noon they were home. Marcus carried in the heavy bags; Dana put the cold things away first. There were still leaves to rake, and the oil change to schedule, but they sat down at the kitchen table instead and split a sandwich.


Saturday morning arrived gray and damp, the kind of weather that made the kitchen feel smaller than usual. Marcus poured the last of the coffee into a travel mug while Diane checked the list she'd taped to the refrigerator door.

"Did you add the dish soap?" she asked.

"Third line down."

She squinted. "That says 'dog food.'"

"We need that too." He handed her the mug, keeping the chipped one for himself, and they went out through the garage.

The bank came first because the drive-through line grew impossible after ten. Diane deposited two checks while Marcus rooted through the glove compartment for the dry cleaning ticket, which he found folded inside the owner's manual, where he'd put it for safekeeping and then forgotten.

At the cleaners, the woman behind the counter recognized them and asked about their daughter's wedding, which had been in June. Diane pulled out her phone and showed a photo. Marcus stood holding his slacks on their wire hangers and said nothing, but he smiled at the picture over her shoulder.

The grocery store was crowded. They split up—Marcus took produce and the meat counter, Diane handled the aisles—then met near the bakery to compare carts. He'd bought a pineapple.

"We don't need a pineapple."

"It smelled right."

She let it stay. At checkout, she caught the mistake on the ground beef, and the cashier fixed it without much fuss.

In the parking lot, the rain finally started. Marcus loaded bags into the trunk while Diane held the umbrella over both of them, badly, so that his left shoulder went dark with water. He didn't mention it until they were in the car.

"You had the umbrella pointed at the sky."

"I was multitasking."

He backed out slowly, wipers going. She reached over and turned the radio down, and neither of them said much on the way home, which was fine.


The Fischers left the house at nine, later than they'd planned, because Marcus couldn't find his wallet and Deb had insisted on rinsing the breakfast dishes first.

"Bank, then Kroger, then the hardware store," Deb said, reading off the back of an envelope as Marcus backed the Corolla out of the driveway. "And you promised you'd ask about the shelf brackets."

"I'll ask."

The bank line was four cars deep. Marcus drummed the steering wheel while Deb watched a woman in the next lane apply lipstick in her side mirror. They deposited a check from Marcus's sister — a birthday gift, three months old — and Deb tucked the receipt into the glove compartment with all the others.

At Kroger they split the list. Marcus took produce and the middle aisles; Deb took dairy and the pharmacy counter, where she picked up her blood pressure prescription and waited while the technician looked up a coupon that had expired in April. They met near the frozen foods. Marcus had bought two cantaloupes.

"We never finish one."

"They were two for four dollars."

"That's not an argument. That's a price."

He put one back. In the checkout lane, Deb noticed the cashier's name tag said TRAINEE and made a point of being patient, unloading the cart slowly, saying thank you twice.

The hardware store smelled like sawdust and rubber. Marcus described the sagging shelf in the garage to a man named Ron, who recommended heavier L-brackets and longer screws. Deb wandered off and came back with a packet of tomato seeds.

"It's October," Marcus said.

"For spring."

They loaded the trunk together, Deb holding the bags upright while Marcus wedged the paint tray in beside them. On the drive home he mentioned that the cantaloupe would probably go bad anyway, and Deb said nothing, which he understood to mean she agreed.


The grocery list was stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet shaped like Wisconsin, though neither of them had ever been there. Daniel pulled it free and read it aloud in the car while Rebecca backed out of the driveway.

"Milk, coffee, that bread you like, chicken, something for Thursday when your sister comes."

"Put lemons on there," Rebecca said. "I'll do the salmon thing."

At the store, they split up the way they always did—Daniel took the produce and the aisles on the left, Rebecca handled dairy and meat—and met in the middle by the cereal, comparing carts like generals reviewing troops. He had bought a pineapple, which was not on the list.

"It looked good," he said.

"It's February."

"It looked good in February."

She let it stay. In the checkout line he read the tabloid headlines to her under his breath, doing the voices, and she told him to stop, and he didn't, and she laughed anyway.

The pharmacy was next, where Rebecca picked up her father's prescription because he refused to drive after dark and it was always nearly dark by the time he thought of it. Then the hardware store, for a furnace filter and two hinges to fix the cabinet door that had been hanging crooked since October. Daniel held the hinges up to the light, comparing sizes, and Rebecca leaned against the endcap and answered an email on her phone.

The last stop was the dry cleaner, closing in eleven minutes. Rebecca ran in with the ticket while Daniel double-parked and watched the meter maid at the end of the block.

Driving home, the bags shifting in the back, she asked if he wanted to just order pizza instead of cooking.

"We have chicken," he said.

"We'll have it tomorrow."

He turned toward the pizza place without answering, which was answer enough.


The list was on the refrigerator, held by a magnet shaped like Illinois, and Devon pulled it down on his way out the door.

"Did you add the coffee filters?" Marcus asked, already checking the truck's tire pressure with his boot, which was not a real method but a habit he'd never abandoned.

"Filters, oat milk, and the good bread if they have it."

They took the truck because the recycling was piled in the bed, and the drop-off center closed at three on Saturdays. Marcus drove. Devon controlled the radio, which was their arrangement, and settled on a station playing the kind of country music Marcus pretended not to like.

At the recycling center they worked in silence, tossing cardboard into one bin and glass into another. A man in a reflective vest waved them through. Devon found a paperback wedged under the flattened boxes—something they'd meant to donate months ago—and set it on the dashboard.

The bank came next, then the hardware store for a replacement filter for the furnace. Marcus stood in the aisle comparing two nearly identical boxes while Devon wandered off and returned with a bag of birdseed nobody had put on the list.

"The cardinals," he said, by way of explanation.

"You spoil them."

The grocery store was crowded. They split the list without discussing it; Devon took produce and dairy, Marcus took the center aisles, and they met near the deli counter where Marcus had already gotten a number. They argued mildly about whether the tomatoes were worth it in February and bought them anyway.

At the register Devon bagged while Marcus paid, and the cashier asked if they wanted the receipt in the bag or the hand.

Driving home, Marcus mentioned the gutters needed doing before it rained again. Devon said he'd hold the ladder, which was his usual contribution, and Marcus said that was fine, that holding the ladder was the important part.


The car smelled like the coffee Marcus had spilled two days earlier, and Priya still hadn't let him forget it.

"You promised you'd get the upholstery cleaner," she said, buckling in.

"It's on the list." He backed out of the driveway, pausing to let their neighbor's dog waddle past. "Right under 'oat milk' and 'stop mentioning the coffee.'"

The bank came first. Priya went in to deposit a check from her mother while Marcus waited, scrolling through his work email and grimacing at something about quarterly projections. When she came back, she handed him a lollipop from the teller's bowl.

"Butterscotch. The good one."

"You're a saint."

The dry cleaner had lost his gray suit, then found it, then discovered it belonged to someone named Marcus Ellison instead of Marcus Elliott. It took eleven minutes to sort out. Priya read the community bulletin board the whole time and reported back on a guitar for sale and a lost cat named Wilbur.

At the grocery store they split up, as they always did. Marcus took produce and the dairy aisle; Priya took everything requiring a decision. They reconvened near the frozen section, comparing carts.

"You got the wrong tortillas."

"They were on sale."

"They're the flour ones. For the enchiladas I need corn." She swapped them out, and he didn't argue, because she was right and because arguing in aisle nine had never once gone well for him.

At checkout she remembered the upholstery cleaner. Marcus jogged back for it, returning slightly out of breath, and she bagged the groceries while he paid.

In the parking lot he loaded the trunk while she pushed the cart back to the corral, which was farther than either of them liked. Then they drove home, windows down, arguing pleasantly about whether the enchiladas needed to happen tonight or could wait until Sunday.


The list was written on the back of an envelope, which Denise found in the junk drawer beneath a coil of twine and three dead batteries.

"Post office first," Marcus said, backing the Corolla out of the driveway. "The line's shorter before eleven."

It wasn't. Six people stood ahead of them, one holding a package the size of a mini fridge. Denise mailed the birthday card to her nephew in Tacoma while Marcus bought stamps he didn't strictly need, because he liked having them.

At the pharmacy, the automated system had failed to refill Marcus's blood pressure prescription, and the technician explained this twice before Denise leaned in and asked to speak with the pharmacist. Ten minutes later they walked out with the white paper bag stapled shut.

"You're better at that than I am," Marcus said.

"You're too polite."

The grocery store was the last stop and the longest. They separated at the produce section by unspoken agreement—Denise took the perimeter, Marcus took the aisles. She weighed apples and considered the price of asparagus. He returned with two boxes of the cereal she'd told him not to buy and a bag of frozen peas.

"We have peas."

"We had peas. I finished them Tuesday."

At the deli counter they waited together while a teenager sliced turkey too thick, then too thin, then correctly. Marcus mentioned that his brother had called about Thanksgiving. Denise said they should decide by next week, and he agreed, which meant they would decide in three weeks.

Checkout took eleven minutes. The bagger was new and put the eggs on the bottom, and Denise moved them without comment.

In the parking lot, Marcus loaded the trunk while she checked the receipt against the list. One thing missing: dish soap.

"Next time," she said.

He closed the trunk. "Next time."


The Saturday list was short, which meant it would take longer than planned.

Marcus started the car while Dana locked the front door, checking the knob twice the way she always did. She slid into the passenger seat with a canvas bag on her lap and the list on her phone.

"Bank first," she said. "Before the line gets stupid."

"Bank first," he agreed, and backed out of the driveway.

At the credit union, Dana deposited a check from her aunt while Marcus stood near the counter reading a flyer about auto loans he had no intention of taking. The teller asked about their dog. Dana said the dog was old but still ruled the house, which was true.

The hardware store took eleven minutes. Marcus needed a furnace filter and a specific size of hex bolt, and he found both quickly, which surprised him. Dana wandered the paint chips and brought back three grays.

"They're all the same gray," he said.

"They're absolutely not," she said, and put two back.

Groceries took the longest. Marcus pushed the cart, Dana navigated. They split up briefly—she went for produce, he went for coffee and the cereal his kid brother liked—and reconvened near the dairy case. She'd forgotten what brand of yogurt he'd asked for and bought two kinds to be safe. He didn't mind.

At checkout, they bagged their own groceries out of habit, an assembly line they'd perfected over eight years: he loaded the belt, she packed cold things together.

The last stop was the dry cleaner, closed for lunch. Dana sighed and made a note to come back Monday.

In the car, Marcus turned the AC up. Dana pulled a bag of pretzels from the grocery bag at her feet and opened it.

"Those are for the house," he said.

She held one out to him. He took it, and they drove home.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt sugar. Dev had scorched the first batch of caramelized onions and started over without telling Marisol, who found the blackened pan soaking in the sink and said nothing, only raised an eyebrow.

"It's fine," he said. "Second batch is better."

"I didn't say anything."

"You looked."

She laughed and went back to setting the table, four mismatched plates because they'd broken one in the move and never replaced it. The candles were from a drawer, stubby and unmatched. She lit them anyway, then blew them out when she remembered guests weren't due for forty minutes and candles didn't grow back.

Dev put on a record, then changed it, then turned it off entirely and put on a playlist from his phone because the record player made a hum they'd never fixed. Marisol swept crumbs off the counter into her palm. They moved around each other in the galley kitchen with the practiced choreography of three years of shared square footage — she ducked, he stepped, neither commented.

Ana and Peter arrived seven minutes early with a bottle of wine and a bag of oranges, which nobody explained. Nadia came late, apologizing about the train, already talking about her sister's dog.

They ate the pasta, which was good, and the salad, which was too vinegary, and Marisol said so before anyone else could. Peter had thirds anyway. Dev told the story about the pan, exaggerating slightly, and Marisol corrected two details, and everyone laughed at the corrections more than the story.

Around eleven, Ana yawned into her wrist, and that was that. There was the shuffle at the door, the finding of coats, the promises to do this again sooner.

Afterward, Marisol washed and Dev dried, badly, stacking things damp. He kissed the back of her neck. She said, "You're getting water everywhere," and leaned back into him anyway.


The kitchen smelled like garlic and burnt butter, which Dana insisted was intentional.

"Browned," she said. "That's the whole point of brown butter."

Marcus leaned over the pan, skeptical. "It's got black flecks."

"Those are the good flecks." She nudged him aside with her hip and reached for the lemon. "Did you text Priya about the wine?"

"She's bringing two bottles. Also she's bringing Owen."

Dana paused mid-squeeze. "Since when?"

"Since Tuesday, apparently. I told you."

"You did not tell me." She looked around the apartment — the mismatched chairs, the four place settings on the table they'd bought secondhand in Milwaukee. "We need another chair."

Marcus was already dragging the desk chair from the bedroom, its casters catching on the rug. He wiped the seat with his sleeve, then went to the closet for the extra napkins, which were not extra napkins but dish towels that looked enough like napkins under low light.

They ate at seven-thirty, which was late for a Wednesday. Priya's boyfriend Owen turned out to be quiet and enormous and worked, improbably, in insurance for horses. Everyone had questions about that. Dana's pasta was good. The brown butter was, Marcus admitted out loud, correct.

Somebody spilled red wine on the tablecloth, and Dana said don't worry about it, and Marcus went for the salt anyway because his mother had always gone for the salt.

Afterward there was ice cream from the carton and a long argument about whether the new bridge downtown was ugly. Priya left her scarf. Owen shook Marcus's hand at the door like they had concluded a transaction.

At eleven Dana stood at the sink in her socks, scrubbing the pan. Marcus dried and stacked and put things in the wrong cabinets.

"That was nice," she said.

"You were nervous."

"I was not nervous." She handed him the pan. "Third shelf. Not that one."


Marisol found the good tablecloth folded at the bottom of the linen closet, still creased from the last time they'd used it, which had been Thanksgiving, which had been eleven months ago. She shook it out over the table while Dev stood at the stove, poking at the chicken thighs with a wooden spoon like he wasn't sure they were done.

"Cut one open," she said.

"That ruins the presentation."

"Nobody's presenting anything. It's Kayla and Rob."

He cut one open. It was fine. He put the lid back on and started grating parmesan into a bowl, and Marisol went around the living room collecting the mail she'd been stacking on the coffee table since Tuesday, plus a pair of his socks, plus the extension cord they'd been meaning to put away since they hung the shelf.

"Do we have candles?"

"The ones from your mom. Under the sink, I think."

They were under the sink, smelling faintly of dish soap. She lit them anyway.

Kayla and Rob came at seven-fifteen with a bottle of wine and a bag of ice nobody had asked for but everyone was glad about. Rob wanted to see the shelf. Dev showed him the shelf. Kayla stood in the kitchen with Marisol and talked about her sister's wedding and whether she was obligated to go to the shower in Cincinnati.

Dinner was good. The chicken was a little dry at the edges but the sauce covered it. Rob told a long story about a coworker who kept microwaving fish. Marisol laughed too hard and had to put her glass down.

They left a little after ten. Dev started the dishes and Marisol dried, and neither of them said much, and at some point he flicked water at her and she let it go.


The apartment smelled like garlic and burnt rosemary. Dana had let the first sprig catch on the burner, and Marcus had opened the window over the sink, which meant the kitchen was now cold and smoky both.

"Six-thirty," he said, checking his phone. "Which means seven, because Priya."

"Don't start." Dana was slicing a baguette at a diagonal, the way her mother did. "She's coming from Fremont."

Marcus set the table, four plates from the good set and one from the everyday, because they'd broken a good one in August moving it from the old place. He put the mismatched plate at his own seat. Then he moved the candle twice and decided it looked better in the middle, which was where it had started.

"Do we have enough wine?"

"Josh is bringing wine."

"Josh brings one bottle and drinks two."

Dana laughed. She wiped her hands on the dish towel hanging from the oven handle and came over to look at the table. She straightened one fork. "It looks nice."

They ate at seven-fifteen, once Priya arrived apologizing about the bridge. The chicken was a little dry and nobody said so, though Dana said it herself twice. Josh had brought a Syrah and a bag of clementines, which nobody had asked for and which sat in the middle of the table all night like a centerpiece. Priya told a long story about her landlord. Marcus refilled glasses without being asked. At some point the conversation turned to whether anyone still watched network television, and then to Josh's brother's divorce, and then quieter.

They left a little after eleven. Dana stacked plates while Marcus ran the water hot. She handed them to him one at a time.

"That was good," she said.

"You didn't eat anything."

"I ate."

He scrubbed the roasting pan. She leaned against the counter beside him, holding a clementine she wasn't going to peel.


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

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

"Nobody's inspecting the glasses."

"Priya will."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"That went well," she said.

"Kenny's not buying a boat."

"He might."

They washed everything before bed.


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

"It's wrinkled," she called.

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

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

"Did you get wine?"

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

"Priya drinks white."

"Priya drinks whatever's open."

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

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

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

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

"That went well," he said.

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

"They'll taste like ash."

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

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

"Should I light the candles?"

"They'll be here in twenty minutes."

"So no."

"So light them in fifteen."

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

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

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

Back inside, Priya was already running the sink.

"Leave it," he said.

She left it.


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

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

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

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

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

"Napkins or paper towels," he said.

"Napkins. It's five people."

"Six."

"Six. Then definitely napkins."

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

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

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

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


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

"So clean it," she said.

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

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

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

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

"They're beautiful."

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

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

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

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


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

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

"That was a breakup dinner. Different rules."

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

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

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

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

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

"Eventually," she said.

"I panicked."

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


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

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

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

"We own a Swiffer with no pads."

"So we own a stick."

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

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

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

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

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

"Same time next month?" Theo said.

"God, no. Two months."


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

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

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

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

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

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

"It looks good."

"It's supposed to be darker."

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

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

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

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

Theo started the water for the dishes.


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

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

"Nobody says that."

"Chefs say that."

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

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

"Needs pepper," she said.

"It does not need pepper."

"It needs a little pepper."

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

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

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

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


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

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

"They're carbonized."

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You say that every time."

"I mean it every time."


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

"Do we have enough chairs?" she asked.

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

"There's seven of us."

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

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

"I'll be a charming gnome."

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

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

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

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

"That was good," she said.

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marcus was already at the sink, sleeves pushed up.

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

"The carrots were good."

"The second carrots."

"The second carrots," he agreed.


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

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

"Then we'll eat late."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

"We'll drink it anyway."

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"That went okay," he said.

"Marisol's bowl."

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"That was good," she said.

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


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

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

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

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

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

"We should get rid of this thing."

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

"You always say that."

"Because it's always true."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"That went okay," she said.

"The rosemary thing was your only crime."

"I'll live with it."

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


Nadia found the good tablecloth folded at the bottom of the linen closet, still creased from the last time they'd used it, sometime around Thanksgiving. She shook it out over the dining table while Marcus scraped the char off the bottom of a roasting pan in the sink.

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

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

"It's four-fifty."

"It's five-oh-eight."

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

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

"Do we have candles?" she asked.

"The birthday ones."

"That's not — never mind."

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

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

"That was nice," he said.

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


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

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

"It's a mistake."

"It's a texture mistake."

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

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

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

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

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

"Rice was fine," he said.

"Rice was terrible."

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