Chapter 22: To Nina

The aunt's dining room was smaller than Margot's, and the table was crowded.

There were sixteen of us, with the chairs pushed in tight and the elbows touching.

Nobody had put out white roses.

There was a pot roast, two kinds of potatoes, and a bowl of green beans that an uncle kept guarding.

I wore a green dress I had bought for myself, with my own money, on sale.

Elliot sat on my left with his sleeve against mine.

Across from us a cousin leaned over her plate.

"So you're really in Fishtown," she said. "Elliot says there's a baker."

"There is a baker," I said. "He banged on my door last night to ask whether the building was on fire."

"Was it?"

"A little."

Elliot hid his face in his napkin.

The uncle looked up from the beans.

"And you two are still doing the wings thing? Separate sides?"

It was almost the same question, from almost the same chair.

The table went quiet in a polite, hopeful way.

I felt Elliot's hand move on the cloth, toward mine, and then stop to wait.

"I answer for myself these days," I said.

I smiled at the uncle.

"I have my own apartment. He knocks. I decide whether to open the door. So far I have.

"Ask him how the knocking is going."

"It's going," Elliot said, and the whole table laughed.

He cleared his throat and studied his plate.

The aunt tapped her glass with a spoon.

She got to her feet with her cane in one hand and the glass in the other, and the room settled.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Separated Rooms for Three Years, He Panicked After I Moved Out from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.