At five forty, Annelise closed her laptop and put it in the drawer beneath the table. She was working from home that day, and the temptation to leave it open had followed her through the last hour. There was always one more message she could answer. There would be one tomorrow, too.
She changed out of the soft pants she’d worn all day and put on jeans. Then she changed her mind about the blouse she’d laid out and chose a sweater. Wednesday at seven did not require a costume. She still wanted him to like looking at her.
In the kitchen, she set a pan on the stove and took vegetables from the refrigerator. The meal was simple enough that she could prepare most of it in advance: chicken, rice, a warm salad with enough lemon to make her mouth water when she tested it. She had bought a small cake from the bakery near work the day before. It sat in its box on top of the refrigerator, where she wouldn’t keep cutting slivers off it.
At six, she sent him a message.
Everything on track here. Come hungry, as promised.
She put the phone down and opened the music folder she’d brought home from choir. Last night’s rehearsal had left a penciled question beside one entrance. She could practice it now, but she would rather have the food ready and herself unhurried when he came. The folder went onto the shelf. Tomorrow would do.
She cooked with the window cracked open. The apartment filled with the smell of lemon and warm rice. A passing truck rattled the glass, and she moved a spoon away from the edge of the counter before it fell. She was not imagining a future kitchen or rehearsing a life. She was making dinner for a man she wanted to see after work.
At six forty-five, she tasted the sauce. It needed salt. She added some, tasted again, and was pleased.
At six fifty-eight, she put two glasses on the table.
At seven, she heard a car stop outside and looked toward the window before she could stop herself. It was a small white car, nothing like Malcolm’s truck. She returned to the stove and turned the heat down.
Ten minutes was traffic. Ten minutes was finding keys, getting caught by a customer at the door, realizing he needed fuel. She poured herself water and drank it standing at the counter.
At seven twelve, she checked her phone. No answer to the message she’d sent at six.
She did not like the way the room had begun to arrange itself around the screen. She put it facedown and took the chicken off the heat. The rice would keep. The salad was less forgiving. She stirred it anyway, as if movement might preserve the evening.
The phone vibrated at seven twenty-one.
I’m sorry. Still at the shop. Can’t get away tonight. I got the bookings wrong and have to finish this for morning.
For a moment she read only the first sentence. Then the rest settled into place.
She sat down in the chair she had meant him to use.
It was not fear that came first. It was irritation, clean and hot. He had known before seven twenty-one that he was still at work. He had known at seven. Probably before then. She looked at the food and resented having arranged so much of the last hour around protecting it from time.
She typed Okay, stared at it, and deleted it.
Then she called him.
He answered after several rings. “Annelise.”
“Hi.”
“I’m sorry. I should have called.”
“Yes.”
There was noise behind him: something being moved, a low mechanical hum. She could picture the workshop, but the picture did not soften her as she might once have expected it to.
“What happened?”
“I put two things in the same window. Thought I could get this one done before the other. I was wrong.”
“Did you only find that out now?”
He was quiet for a beat. “No.”
“When?”
“This afternoon.”
She shut her eyes.
“I kept thinking I’d catch up,” he said.
“I sent you a message at six.”
“I know. I saw it late.”
“How late?”
“Annelise, I don’t know the exact time.”
The impatience in his voice made her sit straighter.
“I’m not asking for a time sheet. I’m asking why you let me keep expecting you.”
“I thought I could make it.”
“Until twenty minutes after you were supposed to be here?”
He exhaled hard. “I’m trying to get this finished. I can’t leave it like this.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“It sounds as though you want me to.”
“No. I want you to have told me.”
She could hear her own voice getting sharper. There was a part of her that wanted to explain the entire evening, the laptop put away, the cake, the food she’d tried to keep warm. Another part refused to present those things like exhibits in a case she ought not to have to make.
“I had dinner ready,” she said.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“You keep saying that as if it ends the conversation.”
“What do you want me to say?”
She looked toward the window. The glass held a dim reflection of her own face, hair slipping from its tie, mouth pressed tight.
“That you understand why I’m upset.”
“I understand. But some of us have to finish what we start.”
The room went very still around her.
She heard him breathe. She waited for him to take it back before she had to tell him what he’d done.
He didn’t.
“Don’t do that,” she said.
“Do what?”
“Use what happened seventeen years ago because you don’t like being wrong tonight.”
“I didn’t—”
“Yes. You did.”
Silence. The hum at his end continued, indifferent.
Annelise put her free hand flat on the table. The surface was cool under her palm. She was angry enough now that the words came slowly.
“I left badly. I’ve said that to you. I know it. But I didn’t do this. I didn’t book your work. I didn’t make you wait until after seven to tell me. You don’t get to put all of that on me because there’s something worse you can remember.”
“That’s not what I’m trying to do.”
“Then stop doing it.”
He said her name. She disliked how familiar it sounded while she felt so far from him.
“I can’t have this conversation while you’re half working and we’re both angry,” she said. “But I’m not leaving it here.”
“I don’t want to leave it here either.”
“Friday. Can we talk Friday?”
“Yes.”
“The park after work? Six?”
“By the north entrance.”
“All right.”
“Annelise—”
“I need to stop now.”
A pause. “Okay. Friday at six.”
“Friday.”
She ended the call before either of them could find another hurtful thing to say. Then she sat with the phone in her hand, listening to the refrigerator start up.
The anger did not resolve itself into tears. It stayed in her body, a tightness in her jaw and a restless pressure in her legs. She wanted to walk, but the food was there. She wanted not to care about the food, and resented that, too.
She stood and took two bowls from the cupboard. Then she put one back.
It was such a small movement that it made her throat ache.
She served herself dinner. The chicken had dried a little at the edges, but the sauce was good. The rice was still warm. She ate at the table rather than over the sink, because she was hungry and because abandoning the meal would not tell Malcolm anything he needed to know.
Halfway through, her phone lit up.
Friday at six. I’m sorry for what I said.
She read it twice. The message helped. It did not help enough to make her want to answer immediately.
She finished eating, put the remaining food into a container, and washed the serving spoon. The second glass had never been used. She tipped its water into the sink and left it on the rack beside her own.
There was cake.
She took the box down and opened it. A neat ring of icing framed the top. For one furious second she wanted to throw it away, which would punish only the cake and her budget. She cut a slice larger than the one she’d intended to have with him and put it on a plate.
It tasted good. That was almost offensive.
She carried it into the sitting room and ate it with the window open. Cool air touched her face. A couple passed below, talking about parking. Somewhere farther along the street, somebody laughed. Her evening had failed without becoming a public event.
When she had finished the cake, she put on her jacket and went outside. She didn’t want another hour to pass with her body held in the shape of waiting.
The street was cool, the sidewalk still holding a little warmth beneath the soles of her shoes. She walked toward the shops, passing a closed bakery. Its lights were off now. In the window, a display of empty cake stands looked oddly formal.
She kept walking.
At the corner, she reached for her phone to check the time, then stopped. There was nowhere she needed to be in the next twenty minutes. The thought ought to have been freeing. Mostly it annoyed her. She had wanted somewhere to be, someone beside her at the table. She didn’t have to turn the disappointment into a fortunate opportunity.
She bought milk at the corner store and took the longer way home, carrying the cold carton against her palm. In a lit kitchen across the street, a man stood alone eating from a bowl. She looked away.
The apartment still smelled of dinner. The second glass was on the drying rack, and the cake box stood open. She put the milk away, closed the box, and took off her jacket. The walk had not made her cheerful. It had made her less fixed to the table, less likely to pick up the phone simply because it was there.
She thought about calling Cecily. Her sister would answer if she could. Annelise could tell her what had happened without polishing it first; Thursday’s conversation had made that possible, or at least less impossible. But she wasn’t ready for anyone else’s interpretation. She wanted to know what she thought before hearing that Malcolm was probably tired, or that he shouldn’t have said it, or that all couples had arguments. Any of those could be true. None would remove the remark from her ear.
She had been afraid of hurting him again. She had not spent much time imagining him hurting her.
The thought made her sit back. Not because it was profound, but because it was embarrassing in its simplicity. She had allowed his old pain to make him seem more careful than a person could always be. Tonight he had been tired and defensive and unfair. She still wanted him. Those facts sat badly together, but neither disappeared.
At eight forty, she answered the message.
I received this. We’ll talk Friday.
Then she put the phone on charge in the bedroom and went back to the sitting room without it.
The music folder was on the shelf. She took it down, found the penciled entrance, and tried the line quietly. She missed it on the first attempt because her throat was tight and her attention kept drifting. On the second she got the notes but lost the rhythm. She stopped before frustration turned the music into another person she could blame.
Instead she opened the book she’d been reading and made it through six pages without taking in a paragraph. She turned back, read them again, and finally found herself interested in what happened next.
At ten, she checked the front door, turned off the kitchen light, and saw the container in the refrigerator when she went for water. Tomorrow’s lunch. She would not have to make anything before work.
The practical benefit was so small she almost laughed.
She closed the refrigerator. In the bedroom, her phone remained quiet. Friday at six was still there, agreed between them. Tonight she took off the sweater she’d chosen for him and hung it over the chair.