Soren arrived with a bag over his shoulder and a pale streak of paint on his wrist.
“You look surprised,” he said.
Delia had opened the door too quickly to pretend she had been doing something else. “I wasn’t expecting you for another twenty minutes.”
“I got out on time.”
He set the bag down inside and kissed her. She meant to kiss him lightly, as a person might greet someone who had driven a long way and probably wanted a drink. Instead her hand closed around the front of his shirt. His bag tipped against the wall. He made a quiet sound into her mouth that made her glad there was no one in the hallway.
When she let him go, he looked at her with an expression she wanted to keep.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi.”
She took his hand and turned it over. “What’s this?”
“The foyer. Just the bit by the door.”
“You painted today?”
“This morning. My assistant finished the second coat. Don’t inspect it when you’re next there.”
He followed her into the kitchen, where the counter held a bowl of salad and a dish covered in foil. The salad was hers. The dish had come from a shop whose food she trusted more than her own. Odette had been invited for a late lunch, which had seemed preferable to making the first meeting happen over an elaborate dinner Delia could not cook.
Now she wondered why she had invited anyone at all.
Soren leaned against the counter and watched her fill a glass. His hair was flattened on one side from the car. She wanted to put both hands into it.
“Your mother still coming?” he asked.
“In half an hour.”
“Right.” He accepted the water. “Any advice?”
“Don’t tell her I bought the food.”
He looked at the foil dish, then at her. “Will she believe you made it?”
“No. But I enjoy watching her find a polite way to ask.”
He smiled, and the smile eased something in her chest. Yesterday Devon had approved the pilot with a few changes to the budget and a request for an evaluation form she could keep mercifully short. Delia had called Soren from the museum courtyard. He had been pleased, then briefly distracted by something at the cinema, and had called back ten minutes later to hear the rest. Today he was in her kitchen. The work and the travel had happened around his arrival, out of her sight; she had not needed to arrange either.
“Show me the email,” he said.
She handed him her phone. He read slowly, one thumb resting along the edge of the case.
“July fourteenth,” he said.
“At six. Sixteen places. Small stipend, which I intend to spend irresponsibly on an overdue dental appointment.”
“Wild.”
“I may also buy good shampoo.”
He handed the phone back. “I’m pleased for you.”
She believed him. It made the words land harder than she expected.
Odette arrived carrying a bag of peaches and wearing the expression she used when determined not to express an opinion too early. Soren stood as Delia introduced them, which caused Odette to wave him down before he had finished.
“Don’t get up. I’ve just climbed the stairs. Sit down and make me feel better.”
He sat. Delia took the peaches, and her mother held out a hand to him.
“So you’re Soren.”
“Yes.”
“Delia says you have a cinema.”
“A small one.”
“Does it make any money?”
“Mom.”
Odette looked at her. “What? It’s a business. I’m interested.”
“Enough,” Soren said. “More some months than others.”
“That sounds about right.”
She accepted the glass Delia handed her and looked around the kitchen. Her gaze paused on the foil dish.
“This smells good.”
“Thank you,” Delia said.
“Did you have time to make it?”
Soren looked down into his water. Delia could see him struggling not to smile.
“Remarkably, no.”
“I thought not.” Odette sounded relieved. “You remember that chicken.”
“Everyone remembers that chicken.”
They ate at Delia’s small table, with Soren sitting nearest the window because his legs fit better there. Odette asked about Gullhaven, which she had visited once many years earlier, and remembered a road that no longer went where she thought it did. Soren tried to explain the change. Odette argued for her old route with the conviction of a retired bus driver who had spent much of her working life being told the wrong way to reach places.
“There was a service station on the corner,” she said.
“There still is. The road bends before it now.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Someone must.”
Delia laughed. Her mother looked offended for a second, then laughed too.
For most of lunch, the conversation was ordinary enough to make Delia’s preparations feel excessive. Soren disliked a film Odette loved. Odette was not shy about telling him he was wrong. He asked what she liked about it, and then listened while she described a scene he thought he remembered differently. Delia watched his hands as he broke a piece of bread, the paint mark still on his wrist. She had expected to spend the meal helping them find subjects. Instead they appeared able to disagree without her assistance.
Then Odette asked, “How often can you get away?”
Soren put down the bread. “It varies. I’m working out the next couple of months.”
“Three hours is a long drive.”
“It is.”
“Especially after work.”
Delia felt herself sit straighter. “We’re aware of the distance.”
Odette looked at her. “I didn’t say you weren’t.”
The little table seemed suddenly crowded. Soren took a drink of water, giving neither woman an escape by answering for them.
Delia pushed her plate an inch away. “Sorry. I know.”
Her mother’s face softened, though she did not surrender the concern. “I want you to have a nice time. I also want you to sleep.”
“Both are on the list.”
“Good.”
Odette reached for the salad. The conversation moved on to the museum, and Delia described the pilot without apologizing for how small it was. Her mother asked whether people would bring valuable things. Delia said she hoped they would bring ordinary things. Odette considered that.
“I’ve still got my first work badge,” she said. “Hideous picture.”
“That would be perfect.”
“You’re not displaying the picture.”
“Then perhaps bring something else.”
After lunch, Odette insisted on helping clear the table. Soren carried the plates to the sink, and Delia caught her mother’s eye over his shoulder. Odette gave the smallest shrug, an expression too slight to be an endorsement and too warm to be a warning. Delia let it remain that size.
“Do you still have that card game?” her mother asked.
Delia looked at the clock. “We have time for one.”
“That’s what I meant.”
It was never what Odette meant. Delia fetched the box from a cupboard while Soren wiped the table. She explained the rules to him, trying to remember which ones belonged to the actual game and which her mother had added over the years. Odette corrected her twice.
“Is any of this written down?” Soren asked.
“Not the important part,” Delia said.
Her mother dealt. For the first few minutes, Soren seemed to have no idea what he was doing. He held his cards too low, then too close to his face, and asked whether he was allowed to play something he had already played. Odette answered with patient precision. Delia felt almost sorry for him until he put down a sequence that removed most of the cards from his hand.
Odette stopped smiling.
“You said you hadn’t played.”
“I haven’t.”
“Something similar?”
“Possibly.”
Delia laughed so hard she had to put her own cards facedown. Her mother inspected Soren with renewed interest, then dealt the next round without asking whether there would be one.
This time he lost badly. Odette took no visible pleasure in it, which Delia considered a performance of extraordinary restraint. Soren accepted defeat with a small bow of his head. Beneath the table, his knee touched Delia’s. He left it there while her mother collected the cards.
“You can come again,” Odette said.
“To lose?”
“To practice.”
He smiled. Delia saw the smile reach her mother and felt a sharp, unexpected tenderness for both of them. She put the cards back in their worn box before Odette could suggest another game.
At the door, her mother remembered the peaches. “Don’t leave them in the bag. They’ll bruise.”
“I’ve taken them out.”
“Good. Eat the soft ones first.”
She touched Delia’s cheek, a quick brush of her fingers, and turned to tell Soren which road would be least busy when he left the next day. He listened without arguing. Delia waited beside him, holding the door open while her mother gave directions through a town she knew by the turns rather than the street names.
Her mother left with the empty peach bag folded in her purse. Once the door closed, Soren put his arms around Delia from behind.
“Did I pass?” he asked into her hair.
“She asked you to settle the argument about the road. That’s usually permanent employment.”
“I should have negotiated pay.”
Delia turned in his arms. “I’m sorry about the distance thing.”
“She wasn’t wrong.”
“No.”
“She also thinks that film is good, so her judgment isn’t perfect.”
Delia kissed him before he could say anything else about her mother’s taste.
They had intended to go for a walk before the concert. Instead they lay down for ten minutes, which became forty, with the window open and the afternoon traffic rising from the street. Soren fell asleep first. Delia watched the change in his face as he drifted off, the faint crease between his brows loosening. She moved her arm because it had gone numb beneath him and he woke just enough to draw her closer.
By the time they reached the park, the best patches of grass were full. Delia had brought a blanket that turned out to be smaller than she remembered. Soren put half of it beneath her and sat with one leg on the grass.
“We’re going to slide,” she said.
“Only if the music’s very loud.”
The ground sloped toward the bandstand. A child nearby was testing the incline by rolling down it while his father pretended not to be impressed. Delia took off her sandals and pressed her toes into the grass. The air was still warm, and Soren’s shoulder fitted against hers.
The band began with something she recognized from her mother’s kitchen radio. The singer’s voice was better than last year; the bass was too loud. Soren leaned toward her to say something, and she could not hear him. He tried again, laughing, then shook his head and rested his hand on her knee.
She left it there.
Halfway through the second song, a woman stood directly in front of them to take a video. Delia looked at the available space on either side of her and felt irritation gather. Soren caught her expression. He moved his head a little, trying to see around the woman’s arm, then gave up and leaned back on his elbows.
“We can move,” he said when the song ended.
“We’ve got a good spot.”
“Excellent view of her phone.”
Delia laughed despite herself. They shifted the blanket a few feet sideways. It was a worse patch of grass and a better view. During the next song, Soren’s fingers found hers.
At the high note, which arrived exactly where Delia remembered it, the singer surprised her by making it. She cheered with the people around her. Soren looked over, amused by her delight.
“You underestimated him.”
“I did.”
“Should we tell your mother?”
She nudged him with her shoulder and he kissed the side of her face, quickly, before she could turn. She sat through the next song with the place where his mouth had been seeming warmer than the rest of her skin.
They stayed until the last encore, then walked home slowly among people carrying folded chairs. Delia’s feet were dusty. Soren carried the blanket. At a crossing, his hand settled at the back of her waist while they waited for the light, and she leaned against him without looking around to see who noticed.
Inside her apartment, she switched on the lamp beside the sofa. The room held the pleasant disorder they had left: two glasses, a book facedown, his bag against the bedroom door. On the dining table lay a stack of cards for the pilot.
Soren picked one up. “Is this yours?”
“Unfortunately.”
He read the top line. “Choose an object that—”
“Don’t. It’s terrible.”
He stopped. She could have taken the card from him and put the whole stack away. She had spent enough hours imagining the event going beautifully; she disliked letting someone she wanted see the awkward version.
“Actually,” she said. “Would you try it?”
He looked at her. “Now?”
“Just the first exercise. Five minutes.”
“All right.”
She pulled out a chair for him, then sat opposite instead of standing. Among the objects she had gathered was an old metal measuring spoon bought cheaply at a secondhand shop. She put it on the table between them.
“Tell me what this makes you think of.”
Soren examined it.
“Measuring something.”
“Apart from that.”
“You’ve only just started and I’m already wrong.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it. He was smiling, but not entirely joking.
“You’re right,” she said. “Let me try that again.”
She turned the card over and reached for a pen.