The table had four chairs and five packets of peanuts, which suggested either generosity or a problem with arithmetic.
Malcolm stood when Annelise approached. He was wearing a dark green shirt she had not seen before, and she lost a perfectly serviceable greeting to the sight of him in it.
“You found us.”
“The correct building on the first attempt.”
“Excellent.”
The woman beside him looked up from a menu. Her dress was bright yellow, her earrings small gold hoops. She had Malcolm’s direct gaze, though her mouth seemed more inclined to enjoy what it found.
“I’m Imani.”
“Annelise.”
“I know. Sit down before he puts the answer sheets on your chair.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You were moving toward it.”
Annelise sat. The pub was busy but not crowded, its tables arranged in uneven clusters beneath framed photographs of the city. A speaker near the bar emitted a low hum. At the far end, someone tested a microphone and apologized for the result.
“Would you like a drink?” Malcolm asked.
“I’ll get it. What are you having?”
He lifted a glass of beer; Imani pointed to sparkling water with lime.
“I’m driving, and I have work in the morning,” she said. “People insist on needing prescriptions on Saturdays.”
“You’re a pharmacist?”
“Yes. Community pharmacy. My main skill is locating things directly in front of people.”
“She’s very good,” Malcolm said. “I have personally benefited.”
“Repeatedly.”
Annelise went to the bar, ordered a small beer, and returned to find the fourth chair occupied by a broad-faced man removing his jacket with the tired satisfaction of someone who had finished several separate days already.
“Tobin,” he said, offering a hand. “Sorry I’m late.”
“The quiz hasn’t started,” Annelise said.
“My children disagree with clocks. It’s contagious.”
Malcolm pushed a packet of peanuts toward him.
“Dinner?”
“I ate. Twice, technically. The second time was half a cheese sandwich somebody stopped wanting.”
“Luxury.”
“Don’t start.”
Their ease was immediately attractive to Annelise. They did not perform it for her. Tobin asked where she worked, listened to the answer, and said their payroll service had once paid him twice in a month, which had been enjoyable until it became paperwork. Imani asked how long she had been back in Ashcombe. Malcolm let her answer her own questions.
There was no moment in which anyone assessed her history aloud. She had prepared, unnecessarily, for one.
The host announced the team-name deadline. Malcolm pulled the answer sheet toward him.
“Same as last time?” he asked.
“No,” Imani said.
“You liked it.”
“I tolerated it because we were late.”
“What was it?” Annelise asked.
“Continental Drift,” Tobin said.
“That’s not bad.”
“It encourages him,” Imani said. “Last month we lost eleven points in geography.”
“Eight,” Malcolm corrected.
“Three bonus points.”
He looked offended by the completeness of her memory.
Annelise took a sip of beer. “What about Mildly Certain?”
Tobin nodded. “Accurate.”
“Too modest,” Malcolm said.
“Then you can write it very confidently.”
He looked at her, and a slow smile changed his face. He wrote the name.
The first round was general knowledge. Annelise knew the answer to a question about a common office abbreviation and felt absurdly pleased when Tobin slid the sheet toward her. She did not know the next three. Imani identified a botanical term, then admitted she had only learned it because she kept killing a particular houseplant and had become indignant enough to read about it.
“Malcolm also gardens,” Annelise said.
Imani looked at him. “Is that what you’re calling it now?”
“I have plants.”
“You have evidence.”
Tobin laughed into his drink.
Malcolm looked at Annelise. “I see how this is going.”
“You invited me.”
“So I did.”
The look he gave her lingered long enough that she missed the beginning of the next question. Imani repeated it without comment. Annelise concentrated on the answer sheet, feeling the warmth of his attention along the side of her face.
During the music round, the host played fragments too short to be fair. Tobin recognized one instantly and then refused to say why he knew it so well.
“My wife has opinions about cleaning music,” he said at last.
“That explains knowledge, not the little shoulder movement,” Imani said.
“There was no movement.”
Annelise had seen it. She pressed her lips together and looked down.
“Witness intimidation,” Malcolm said.
“Write the answer.”
They did better than expected, partly because Imani knew a recent song none of the others recognized and partly because Annelise identified a ballad she had once listened to obsessively during her marriage. The memory surprised her by being pleasant. There had been a kitchen in another city, a radio on the windowsill, an ordinary evening when she and her husband had been happy enough to sing badly together. She wrote the title without needing to explain any of it.
Malcolm tapped the table when the answer was confirmed. “Good one.”
She smiled at him. Her life had not been empty while he was elsewhere. Neither had his. Sitting here did not require pretending it had.
At the break, Imani went to the bar with her. The line was slow, and they stood beneath a photograph of a street neither of them could identify.
“Do you know where that is?” Annelise asked.
“According to Malcolm, every photograph in here is mislabeled or badly cropped. I’ve stopped asking.”
“He showed me some of his pictures.”
“The parking chairs?”
“Yes.”
“I like those.”
“Me too.”
Imani glanced at her, then smiled. “He pretends he doesn’t care whether anyone looks. He cares.”
Annelise took that in without turning it into confidential guidance. “They’re good.”
“They are.”
A message lit Imani’s phone. She read it, made a face, and put it away.
“Everything all right?”
“Yes. Somebody I’m seeing wants to know if I’ll go hiking on Sunday.”
“Do you hike?”
“I have walked outdoors. Apparently this requires special socks.”
Annelise laughed.
“Will you go?”
“Probably. I like him enough to investigate the socks.”
There was something cheering about the answer, the unembarrassed mixture of attraction and mild inconvenience. Imani asked whether Annelise had plans on Sunday. She said she did not know yet, and heard the possibility inside it before she meant to.
Back at the table, Malcolm and Tobin were debating a picture-round answer. Tobin wanted to leave it blank. Malcolm considered leaving blanks a moral failure.
“Put something,” he said.
“Something wrong doesn’t become useful because it’s written down.”
“It might be right.”
“It won’t.”
Annelise leaned over the sheet. The photograph showed a close-up of a kitchen tool.
“Isn’t that a cherry pitter?”
Both men looked at her.
“Is it?” Malcolm asked.
“I think so.”
Tobin handed her the pencil. “Mildly certain is our stated position.”
She wrote it down. Her hand brushed Malcolm’s wrist when she returned the pencil, and neither of them moved quite as quickly as the task required.
The geography round began with a warning from Imani.
“No speeches.”
“I don’t make speeches,” Malcolm said.
Tobin opened another packet of peanuts.
The first question was easy enough that everyone agreed. The second divided the table. The third asked which of four cities lay farthest west. Malcolm sat up.
“Reno.”
Annelise looked at the options. “Farther west than Los Angeles?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not arguing. I’m asking.”
“Reno,” he repeated.
Imani shrugged. “That’s one of his stored facts. Use it.”
They did, and it was right.
Success made him dangerous.
The next question asked for Turkey’s capital. Malcolm said “Istanbul” before the host had finished reading. Tobin looked up sharply.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“That isn’t the capital.”
“It is.”
“It’s the largest city.”
Malcolm reached for the sheet. “You’re confusing it with—”
“No speeches,” Imani reminded him.
Annelise read the question again. She had a faint memory of the correct answer, but it sat just beyond reach, attached to a school map and the smell of pencil shavings.
“Could it be the other one?” she asked.
“Which other one?” Malcolm said.
“Ankara,” she said.
He shook his head with such conviction that she almost surrendered immediately.
“That’s what I think too,” Tobin said.
Imani looked from one to the other. “We have two votes for one and one very large vote for the other.”
“We can use the double-points option here,” Malcolm said.
“No,” all three of them said together.
He leaned back, affronted. Annelise began to laugh. Not politely, not because anyone needed reassurance, but because he looked so thoroughly offended by democracy.
“All right,” he said. “Majority rules.”
Tobin wrote their answer.
When the host confirmed Ankara, Malcolm closed his eyes briefly.
Imani tapped the table. “We accept your apology.”
“I haven’t made one.”
“We’re allowing for processing time.”
Annelise laughed harder. Malcolm looked at her, and for a moment she wondered whether he was truly annoyed. Then his mouth gave way.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“A little.”
“A lot.”
“A lot,” she admitted.
He pointed at the answer sheet. “I did get Reno.”
“Write it on your shirt,” Tobin said.
While they waited for the next round, Imani opened a photograph on her phone and pushed it toward Malcolm.
“Your mother sent this to me. Apparently you aren’t answering the question.”
He looked. “I answered.”
“You said you’d think about it.”
“That is an answer.”
“It is a delay wearing an answer’s coat.”
Annelise glanced at the screen only when Imani turned it toward her. The old photograph showed a group gathered on a porch, several generations of Malcolm’s family pressed close enough that someone at the edge had been reduced to a shoulder. Most had deep brown skin like his; one older man wore reading glasses low on his nose, a resemblance she noticed before Malcolm reached for his own.
“Which one is you?” she asked.
He pointed to a young man near the back, half hidden behind a taller cousin.
“Bad strategic position,” she said.
“He chose it,” Imani said. “He was avoiding being asked to carry chairs.”
“I had already carried the chairs.”
“Then you were avoiding compliments about the chairs.”
Annelise smiled. “What is the question?”
“Whether he wants a copy printed,” Imani said. “A very demanding decision.”
Malcolm looked at the photograph again. His expression changed slightly, becoming quieter.
“Yes,” he said. “Tell her yes.”
“Tell her yourself.”
He took out his phone. Imani reclaimed hers and began explaining to Tobin that the woman at the front had insisted everyone move because the first photograph showed too much of the gutter.
Annelise watched Malcolm type. She knew so little of this part of his life now, the people who sent photographs and expected replies, the family arguments whose stakes were low because the connection beneath them was not in question. She did not ask Imani to introduce every face. There would be other evenings, perhaps, when a name could attach itself to a story because someone wanted to tell it.
Malcolm put away his phone and caught her looking.
“What?”
“Nothing. You look like the man with the glasses.”
“My uncle. He’ll be delighted. He thinks he’s the handsome one.”
“Is he?”
Malcolm considered the question with exaggerated seriousness. “In that photograph.”
Imani laughed. “A generous concession.”
The final round required them to arrange five inventions in chronological order. Annelise suggested drawing a timeline. Imani suggested intuition. Tobin wanted the pencil back. They compromised badly and lost four points.
Annelise found she did not mind. She had spent years making small systems work, keeping the correct version, catching the missed line. Here, losing a point meant someone groaned and reached for another peanut. Nobody’s salary depended on her remembering when a household appliance had been invented.
When the scores were announced, they came fifth.
“Out of?” Malcolm asked.
“Eight,” Imani said.
“Top half if you round generously.”
“You can’t round position,” Annelise said.
“I thought you were on my side.”
“I am. That’s why I’m telling you.”
He looked at her then, the teasing expression softening into something that made her aware of how close their knees had become under the table.
Imani began gathering her things. She had an early start. Tobin checked his phone and announced that one child had apparently remembered a promise about pancakes, which meant he needed to stop for milk on the way home.
“Tell them you’re mildly certain,” Annelise said.
“They don’t accept uncertainty from management.”
Malcolm stood to let Imani out. She touched his shoulder, then turned to Annelise.
“Come again. We need someone who knows kitchen equipment.”
“I only knew one.”
“That puts you ahead of the cabinetmakers.”
“Furniture,” Tobin said. “We build around the mysteries.”
They left together, arguing about which route avoided the roadwork. Annelise watched them go with a small, unexpected sense of having had a good evening that would remain good even if Malcolm did nothing next.
He picked up the answer sheet.
“Keeping that?” she asked.
“Evidence of Reno.”
“You’ll need a larger shirt.”
He folded it once and left it on the table.
Outside, the air had cooled enough that she pulled her jacket closed. The pub’s light fell across the sidewalk behind them. Cars moved past in a steady stream, their tires making a soft sound on the road.
“Where are you parked?” he asked.
“Around the corner.”
“Mine too.”
They walked slowly. She could feel the evening changing shape now that the others were gone. He had been attractive across a quiz table, arguing over maps, laughing with his cousin. Beside her in the dark, he was attractive in a way that made thinking less useful.
“I had a good time,” she said.
“Even though we lost?”
“Because we lost in such distinguished company.”
“Next time we’ll win.”
“Will we?”
“No idea.”
She smiled. At her car, she stopped and turned toward him. He stood close enough that she could see the texture of his shirt beneath the streetlight.
There was no excuse in the space between them now. No family, no question sheet, no cup to hold.
His gaze moved to her mouth.
She took a breath. “I keep thinking about kissing you.”
He was very still for a second.
“Good,” he said.
“Good?”
“I’d hate to be doing all of it.”
She laughed softly, then stopped when he moved a little nearer. The possibility was immediate and warm. She wanted it so much that she became aware of the other thing she wanted: time enough to know she was not using this to get past everything they had not yet learned about each other.
“I don’t want to hurry because we already know how,” she said.
He looked at her. “Neither do I.”
“I also don’t want you to think I don’t want to.”
“I don’t think that.”
His voice had changed. She liked the change. It was almost enough to make her abandon the entire sensible sentence she had just spoken.
“Dinner Sunday?” he asked.
She blinked. “A proper date?”
“A proper dinner date. Yes.”
“Where?”
“I know a place that’s good without being interested in impressing us.”
“That sounds ideal.”
“Seven?”
“Yes.”
He smiled, and she had the sudden absurd thought that agreeing to dinner could be nearly as intimate as touching him, if she looked directly at him while she did it.
“Yes,” she said again, more quietly. “I’d like that.”
He waited while she unlocked her car, then stepped back. She got in before she could turn waiting into another invitation. Through the window she saw him lift a hand and walk toward his truck.
She sat for a moment without starting the engine. Her mouth felt as though something had almost happened to it. Sunday was two days away, and for once she did not want to make the time pass faster by filling it with tasks.