The workshop looked smaller with the machines quiet.
Annelise had imagined noise, movement, a place she would have to enter carefully enough not to interrupt anything important. By the time she arrived, the floor had been swept and the last customer had gone. Tobin was sitting on a stool eating from a paper carton. Imani stood beside him in a bright blue dress, holding a fork as if she might use it to settle the argument they were having.
“It is not the same photograph,” she said.
“It is the same building.”
“From a different angle.”
“An extremely inconvenient angle.”
Malcolm came toward Annelise from the back of the room. “You’re just in time to adjudicate.”
“I’m not qualified.”
“Neither are they.”
He kissed her before taking her jacket. Imani raised her fork in greeting, and Tobin moved a carton to make space on the clear table beside him.
“Food’s there,” he said. “Help yourself. Avoid anything with a label on it. That’s tomorrow’s problem.”
Annelise looked at a sheet of paper attached to a partly assembled cabinet. “The food or the furniture?”
“Both, where applicable.”
She took a carton and sat on the chair Malcolm pulled toward the table. He had invited her for the end of the week, saying Imani was dropping by before meeting somebody and Tobin had ordered too much food. She knew enough now to hear an invitation without searching it for a test.
Imani pushed her phone across the table. On its screen was a photograph of a low brick building taken from so close beneath a sign that the roof seemed to be falling backward.
“Interesting or ridiculous?” she asked.
“Those aren’t opposites.”
“Thank you.”
“I didn’t say it was interesting.”
Tobin laughed into his carton. Malcolm leaned over her shoulder to look at the screen, warm and solid beside her.
“I said it needed more distance,” he said.
“You said I should stand somewhere else,” Imani replied. “That is a different criticism.”
“Distance generally requires that.”
Annelise looked again. “I like the sign. I can’t tell what the building’s doing.”
“Exactly,” Tobin said.
Imani reclaimed the phone. “All of you lack vision.”
She sat down and began eating, apparently satisfied to have lost without conceding. Annelise liked her for it. The conversation moved to a street closure, then to a quiz question Imani thought had been badly written. Malcolm took the bait so promptly that Annelise had to hide a smile behind her drink.
“You weren’t even there,” Imani told him.
“I can still object.”
“You object as a hobby.”
“I have several.”
Tobin set down his empty carton. “Could one of them be answering the supplier’s email before Monday?”
Malcolm looked toward the office door. “I answered it.”
“The second one.”
“There was a second one?”
“About the hinges.”
Malcolm sighed. “I’ll do it before I leave.”
“No,” Tobin said. “Monday is fine. I’m just making sure it doesn’t become my email by accident.”
“Understood.”
There was no hostility in the exchange, but Annelise heard a practiced boundary in Tobin’s voice. She filed away the fact that the two men could disagree plainly without an audience being asked to choose a side.
Imani reached for the last carton, opened it, and frowned.
“Who ordered this?”
“Tobin,” Malcolm said at once.
“I ordered what everybody told me to order,” Tobin said. “Check the receipt. It’s in the bag.”
Imani turned the carton toward Annelise. It contained noodles almost entirely concealed beneath red peppers.
“That was mine,” Annelise said.
Malcolm looked at her. “You like those?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Especially these ones.”
“Evidence of good judgment,” Imani said, sliding the carton over. “I thought somebody had ordered vegetables by accident.”
Annelise took a mouthful. The peppers were hotter than she expected. She kept her expression steady until Malcolm passed her the water without comment.
“Too much wisdom?” he asked.
“Possibly concentrated.”
He was smiling, but he didn’t take the carton away or tell her what she ought to eat instead. She had another bite, slower this time, and decided she liked it.
Tobin lifted the paper bag and found a smaller parcel underneath. “Also this. Nobody asked for this.”
Inside were four pieces of a fried appetizer none of them could identify with confidence. Imani proposed calling the restaurant. Malcolm proposed eating one. Tobin said both were disproportionate responses to free food and broke a piece in half to inspect it.
“Potato,” he announced.
“Scientifically established,” Malcolm said.
They divided the pieces. Annelise found hers pleasantly salty, the outside crisp and the middle soft. Imani ate two bites, decided she didn’t like it, and set the rest down.
“You’re allowed to leave things,” she told Malcolm when he looked at it.
“I wasn’t judging.”
“You were considering finishing it.”
“I was.”
“Then have it. You don’t need to pretend you’re preventing waste.”
Annelise laughed. Malcolm accepted the remaining piece with an expression that suggested he had endured this sort of exposure for years.
“What was he like as a child?” Annelise asked before thinking better of it.
Imani looked delighted. Malcolm groaned.
“Older than me,” Imani said. “And very clear on the advantages.”
“Five years,” he protested.
“A whole civilization to a seven-year-old. He made up rules for games while we were playing them.”
“Those games needed structure.”
“They needed you to win.”
Annelise looked at him. “A startling allegation.”
“Unsupported.”
Imani tapped the table with her fork. “I was there.”
The exchange gave Annelise a glimpse of him she couldn’t have obtained by asking him directly. She enjoyed it without trying to collect more. Imani moved on to her own grievance about a missed delivery, and Malcolm listened with the exasperated affection of someone who knew which details mattered to his cousin.
For a while Annelise listened as they talked about a job she’d never seen. The details were specific enough to interest her and unfamiliar enough that she didn’t try to contribute. Malcolm noticed after a few minutes and asked about her day. She told him she’d spent an hour reconciling a mistake caused by somebody using the wrong employee number.
“Was it a dramatic mistake?” Imani asked.
“Only to me.”
“Those are the worst. Nobody appreciates the ending.”
Annelise grinned. “Exactly.”
Tobin stood and put his carton in the trash. “I have to go. My children have apparently promised the school a cardboard castle, and my wife has suggested I become involved before they annex the dining room.”
“Structural advice?” Malcolm asked.
“Transportation. I have been asked not to improve the design.”
“A difficult brief.”
“I’m hoping to survive it.”
He collected his keys and jacket. At the door he checked the time, then looked back at Malcolm. “Alarm when you go. And leave the supplier until Monday.”
“Yes.”
“I heard that yes.”
Malcolm waved him out. Imani finished her drink and began searching for her own keys.
“Are you going somewhere nice?” Annelise asked.
“Dinner.”
Malcolm looked at the carton in front of her. “Again?”
“This was a precaution.”
“A sensible one.”
Imani smiled at her phone, a brief unguarded smile that made Annelise curious. She did not ask for details. Imani put the phone away before Malcolm could say anything and pointed at him.
“No.”
“I hadn’t spoken.”
“You were preparing.”
She hugged him, squeezed Annelise’s shoulder, and left in a flash of blue at the door. The room grew quiet after her footsteps faded.
Malcolm gathered the remaining cartons. “Tea?”
“Yes, please.”
He put the food in the small office refrigerator and filled the kettle. Annelise followed him to the doorway. The office held two desks, a filing cabinet, and a calendar with several entries crossed out. A pair of safety glasses lay beside a stack of invoices. It was more cramped than the workshop, and she could see where each man had made a small territory: Tobin’s desk nearly clear, Malcolm’s occupied by papers held down with a tape measure.
“You’ve seen the glamorous part,” he said.
“I wasn’t expecting a chandelier.”
“We rejected it. Dust problem.”
He made tea in mismatched mugs and brought them back to the clear table. She sat sideways in the chair, one knee bent, watching him move through the space. There was a competence to him here that she found attractive, but it wasn’t the effortless kind. He checked the plug on the kettle twice, forgot where he’d put his mug, then found it precisely where she’d watched him set it.
“You’re tired,” she said.
“A little.”
“Long week?”
“Yes.” He sat opposite her. “Good to see you at the end of it.”
“Good to be here.”
She told him Cecily had asked her to say a few words at the reception, and that yesterday she had tried reading her draft aloud.
He turned the mug between his palms. “How did that go?”
“The speech got shorter.”
“Progress?”
“Possibly. Cecily came over yesterday. I discovered I’d written about a sisterhood neither of us recognized.”
His eyes lifted to hers.
“I told her how I left,” she said. “The phone call. The other call.”
“Right.”
“She didn’t know.”
“I assumed she didn’t.”
Annelise nodded. She didn’t tell him every word of Cecily’s hurt.
“We’re walking on Sunday,” she said. “Just us.”
“That sounds good.”
“I hope so. I don’t intend to bring a clipboard.”
“Strong start.”
He smiled, then looked away toward the dark front windows. For a moment she thought he might be ready to leave. Instead he said, “What do you think happens after the wedding?”
She set her tea down.
“With us?”
“Yes.”
The question was quiet enough that she wanted to answer quickly, to keep it from becoming frightening. But the quick answers were either too small or much too large.
“I’d like to keep seeing you.”
“I’d like that, too.”
“You sound as though there’s another question.”
“There might be.”
She waited. He leaned back, the chair creaking beneath him.
“This all started because you needed a date.”
“I wanted a date. You quite reasonably objected to the job description.”
“I remember.”
“And I haven’t asked you again.”
“No.” He looked at her directly now. “I’m not asking for a wedding invitation. I’m asking whether you can see us when there’s nothing coming up.”
She felt an unreasonable irritation, followed by recognition. He had a right to ask. She also wanted him to see the evenings they had already chosen, the nights that had nothing to do with Cecily’s wedding.
“I can,” she said. “Can you?”
“Yes.”
“But?”
He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. “Sometimes I catch myself keeping part of it temporary. Like if I don’t get used to you, it won’t be such a shock.”
She looked at him across the table. The admission hurt, though it was hardly unexpected. She had been making room for him with an eagerness she’d barely allowed herself to notice. He had been making room and guarding the doorway at the same time.
“What would getting used to me look like?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Assuming you’ll be there next week without making myself ask as if it’s the first time.”
“You can ask.”
“I know.”
“And I can say yes without promising the rest of my life tonight.”
His expression altered, a small easing around his mouth. “I’m not asking for that.”
“I know. I think I was answering the version in my own head.”
She took a drink of tea. It had cooled. The workshop smelled faintly of dust despite the swept floor, and somewhere a pipe clicked in the wall.
“I want a relationship with you,” she said. “I don’t have a complete plan for it. I haven’t worked out where Christmas happens or what we do when one of us is impossible. But I want you in an ordinary week.”
He was still now, listening.
“Wednesday,” she said.
“What about it?”
“Would Wednesday evenings work? Most weeks. We can change it if something comes up. Tuesday is choir.”
“Wednesday would be better than Thursday for me,” he said. “Deliveries can make Thursdays difficult.”
“Dinner at mine next Wednesday? Seven?”
He looked down at his mug, then back at her. “October tenth.”
“Yes.”
“I can do that.”
“Good.”
“And the Wednesday after.”
She smiled. “Let’s start with the one where I know what I’m cooking.”
He reached across the table. She put her hand in his, feeling the dry warmth of his palm. There was no spectacular relief. She still disliked knowing that part of him expected her to leave. But his fingers closed around hers, and the next Wednesday had become something they had both chosen aloud.
After a while he stood and drew her up with him. She moved into his arms, resting her cheek against his shirt. He held her without speaking until she tipped her face up.
“Are we allowed to kiss in the workplace?”
“After hours.”
“Is that in writing?”
“I can ask Tobin.”
“Please don’t.”
He kissed her, smiling, then more seriously. She felt the table edge behind her and the solid pressure of his body in front of her. Wanting him here was different from wanting him in his bedroom. It belonged partly to seeing the place he returned to every day, the mug and the tape measure and the unfinished things that would still be waiting when she left.
He drew away first, breathing a little unevenly.
“We should go.”
“Yes,” she said, without moving.
“Annelise.”
“I agreed.”
He laughed and kissed her forehead.
They washed the mugs, gathered the trash, and checked the back door. At the front he set the alarm while she waited outside with her jacket on. He locked up and tested the handle once. The street was quiet, the sky almost black.
“Seven on Wednesday,” he said.
“I’ll feed you.”
“I’ll come hungry.”
She walked backward one step toward her car. “Not so hungry you become difficult.”
“No guarantees.”
She was still smiling when she got into the driver’s seat.