Chapter 9: Sauce With Anchovies

Gina knocked on my door on Wednesday night with a jar of tomato sauce in one hand and a loaf of bread in the other.

"My father's recipe," she said. "Don't tell anyone it has anchovies."

She was in a clean white shirt and dark jeans, and her hair was combed.

She looked like she'd put on armor.

"You're nervous," I said.

"Your building has a doorman."

"He's seventy and he watches game shows."

"He looked at me like I was going to rob the place."

"He looks at everybody like that." I pulled her inside by her shirt. "Come in."

My apartment was one bedroom on the fourth floor, with a view of the Capitol dome and a kitchen I had never cooked in properly.

Gina set the jar on the counter and looked around at the bare white walls, the neat bookshelf and the expensive gray couch.

"It's very clean," she said.

"It's very empty."

"It's you before the gym." She smiled. "I like it. It needs a rug."

Cosima arrived ten minutes later with a bottle of wine, took one look at Gina, and gave me an extremely obvious thumbs-up behind her back.

We ate at my tiny table.

Cosima asked Gina forty questions, and Gina answered all of them with her chin up.

By the end of the pasta they were arguing about a boxer I'd never heard of.

At nine, Cosima put on her coat.

"I'm in love with her," she whispered at the door. "Don't mess it up."

"I won't."

"You will. But in a cute way."

She left.

I closed the door and leaned my back against it.

Gina stood at the sink with the water running, rinsing plates with her sleeves pushed up.

I watched the line of her arms, and her head tilted when she was thinking.

I crossed the kitchen and put my hands on her waist from behind.

"Leave the dishes," I said.

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