Steve had said yes at 7:14. At 7:31 he was standing in front of his closet, considering the possibility that all his shirts had become unsuitable overnight. By 7:52 he had changed three times, rejected six shirts, and begun to suspect that continuing without outside review was statistically irresponsible. Four candidates lay across his bed; two more occupied the desk chair, where he had put them after the first round of eliminations. The shirt he was wearing hadn't made him any happier, although he couldn't have explained what was wrong with it. He picked up his phone and called Brittney, which was a measure of how thoroughly he'd lost control of the evening.
Brittney answered on the second ring. “What's wrong?” she asked, before Steve managed to say hello. “Nothing's wrong,” he said, and she immediately wanted to know whether he was hurt. When he denied that, she asked about the car, followed by work. “I'm standing in my bedroom, my car is fine, and I still have a job. Can I just call my sister?” he demanded. “You text your sister,” Brittney said. “You call her when something's on fire.”
“Nothing is on fire,” Steve added, loud enough for Liz to hear. Somewhere in the background Liz asked who it was, and Brittney told her Steve had called without an emergency. Liz wanted to know whether he was actually all right, which prompted Brittney to begin the interrogation again. “I can hear both of you,” Steve complained. “Good. That saves time,” Brittney said.
He looked at the wreckage on his bed and briefly considered hanging up. “I have a question,” he said instead, which caused Brittney to make a noise of theatrical alarm. “Couldn't you Google it?” she asked. “I did Google it,” Steve admitted. That brought a silence considerably more worrying than her questions. “Steven, what question did you ask the entire internet before deciding you needed me?” Brittney asked, very carefully. He stared at the blue shirt draped over his pillow. “What do you wear to coffee?” he asked. Brittney tried to answer and produced a strangled squeak instead. From farther away Liz announced, with unmistakable delight, that Brittney was crying with laughter. “Fuck both of you,” Steve said, and waited while that made everything worse.
Brittney eventually recovered enough to approach the problem as if he were a legitimate client. “All right. What sort of coffee? Work coffee, friend coffee, catching-up coffee, date coffee?” she asked. “It's not a date,” Steve said promptly. “Oh, I see,” Brittney replied. Those three innocent words contained enough bullshit to fertilize several acres. “You said that judgmentally,” he accused, and Brittney informed him she'd merely acknowledged information. She wanted to know whom he was meeting. Steve hesitated just long enough to convict himself, then admitted Tori had invited him to meet all five women on Monday after work. In the background Liz let out an enormous “HA! I knew it!” Steve told her he could hear that too. “I didn't say anything,” Liz protested. “You yelled,” Steve said. “I acknowledged information,” Liz replied, stealing Brittney's defense with such obvious satisfaction that he knew he'd be hearing about it at Christmas.
“All five?” Brittney asked again, and there was something new under her amusement. Steve confirmed it, then tried to explain the practical difficulty: he was going straight from the office, so he needed to look respectable there without arriving at the café dressed like somebody's accountant. The women always seemed effortlessly put together. Chloe looked as though she had been designed by a committee of people who'd never once been disappointed; Nat entered rooms like they owed her money. Tori wore clothes that made him want to check whether he had a meeting scheduled, and Sofia did beautiful things to people for a living and had apparently started with herself. Maddie could wear a paint-spattered sweater with three mismatched earrings and make the sweater look privileged to participate. “Have you actually seen them?” Steve asked his sister. “Yes, honey,” Brittney said. “I've met them. How many shirts have you tried?”
“You can't see my bedroom,” Steve said, looking sharply toward the door. Brittney assured him she didn't need surveillance equipment to recognize a wardrobe crisis and asked for the number again. “Six so far,” he confessed. Liz made a noise like a pressure valve releasing steam. “Walk me through this,” Brittney said. “What are you trying to accomplish?” Steve opened his mouth, then shut it again, because that was the question he'd been avoiding for the better part of an hour.
“I don't want them getting the wrong idea,” Steve said. “I don't want to look like I'm dressing for a date they didn't ask me on.” Brittney waited, and he found himself continuing. “But I don't want them thinking I couldn't be bothered, either. They're making time to see me.” He looked at the mirror, where the fitted dark-blue polo emphasized a waist he wished would stop attracting comment. “And people already get the wrong idea about me.”
Brittney didn't laugh. She also didn't lower her voice into the dreadful softness people used when they wanted him to know they were being understanding. “What would feel right to you?” she asked. Steve examined his reflection as if the answer might be written across the collar. “I just want to look normal,” he admitted. “You do look normal,” Brittney said, and when he muttered that she knew what he meant, she told him she did. He could hear her moving around at home, giving him time to decide whether to say more. He didn't. For all his talent at constructing arguments, he had very little interest in arguing that particular point with his sister tonight.
“What about your green shirt?” Brittney asked instead. Steve looked at it lying near the foot of the bed and rejected the suggestion immediately. The shirt fit extremely well, which was the problem. The last time he'd worn it, a barista had called him ma'am, then sir, then finally friend, which he'd regarded as the most honest thing anyone had said to him all week. “It doesn't look right,” he told her. Brittney accepted that without asking for supporting evidence. “Then wear the good blue button-down,” she said. “It'll work at the office, and you can roll up the sleeves when you leave.” Steve considered this while searching the pile for the shirt in question. “Won't rolling up the sleeves make it look like I'm trying?” he asked. “Steve, honey, you are trying,” Brittney said with enormous patience. He wanted to object, but any objection he could construct would have proved her point.
The phone rustled, and Liz's voice came closer. “Hey, kiddo. Can I ask you something?” she said. Steve had known Liz long enough to understand that her questions were usually already approved for delivery. “Go ahead,” he told her, sitting down on the corner of the bed. “Five women, all together, want to sit down with you for coffee tomorrow,” Liz said. “Do you know what you're walking into?” Steve remembered the previous evening in his kitchen, when he'd been so absorbed in thinking about the women that he'd nearly neglected his risotto. “No, I really don't,” he said. Liz let that answer stand before asking whether the five knew what they were walking into with him. That took longer. “I don't know that either,” he admitted. “That's a better answer than yes,” Liz said. “People who are sure about this sort of thing worry me.”
Steve rubbed the back of his neck. “You do like them, right?” he asked, because Liz could make an ordinary question sound like a background check. “I like them very much,” she replied. “And I'm watching them. Those things aren't mutually exclusive.” He said he understood; he had never doubted that Liz regarded him as her own family. She wasn't asking whether he could handle five women. She was making certain he knew he could call if things got complicated, regardless of whose idea the coffee had been. “All right,” Liz said, satisfied that he'd heard her. “Here's your sister. And eat something before you turn this into a crisis.” Steve told her he'd eaten risotto, which earned a pleased sound from Liz and an indignant complaint from Brittney about being handed the phone in the middle of a conversation.
“Britt, they're lesbians,” Steve said once he had her attention. Brittney said she was aware. “All five of them,” he added, and she assured him she hadn't lost count. “So they're probably just being nice after the girl-in-red thing,” he said. “Maybe they want to make sure I know nobody meant anything by it, and they don't want me to feel awkward on Friday.” He was already assembling the rest of the explanation when Brittney interrupted. “Steven, are you deciding what Chloe wants? Or Tori? Or any of them?” He objected that he was being realistic. “You're being a dumbass,” she said, with the affection available only to an older sister who had earned the right. “Five grown women with jobs and opinions invited you to coffee. Go drink the coffee, listen to what they say, and stop doing their thinking for them.”
Steve shifted on the bed and heard the crumple of a shirt beneath him. He stood up quickly, shook it out, and agreed that this was probably sensible advice. “Good blue button-down,” Brittney reminded him. “Good blue button-down,” Steve repeated, pulling it from the pile. “Sleeves rolled after work,” she said, and he confirmed that part of the plan too, though he reserved the right to evaluate the sleeves on location. Brittney told him to call afterward. Steve proposed texting instead, on the grounds that one man should have limits on the entertainment he provided his family in a single week. “You'll call me,” she said, and hung up before he could negotiate. He placed the chosen shirt on a hanger, returned the rejected candidates to the closet, and tried very hard not to think about how much he'd wanted this invitation.
The Bindery had been Tori's idea. She wanted somewhere Steve wouldn't feel cornered by five women delivering news as a committee, somewhere none of them had romantic history to complicate things. “Bookstores are neutral ground,” she'd declared, and Chloe had been too distracted by the impending conversation to challenge her. Now, standing inside The Bindery the next afternoon, Chloe wondered whether Tori had ever visited a bookstore in St. Claire. A long canyon of shelves led to the café at the back, and the lesbian literature section was so substantial it had practically become architecture. Cardamom and old paper scented the room. A book with violets on its spine appeared to be holding a poetry shelf together through moral support alone. Neutrality, Chloe decided, had suffered its first casualty before Steve even arrived.
Forty minutes before Steve was due, all five women were already there. Nobody had suggested meeting ahead of time, yet each arrival had been greeted with an elaborate show of surprise. Chloe and the others who had been working had arranged to leave early; Sofia, who had Mondays off at the salon, had simply found waiting at home unbearable. Chloe had rearranged the chairs twice before Nat threatened to sit in the next one she touched. “He should be able to see everyone,” Chloe explained, moving a hand toward the chair and catching herself. “If he sits at the end, we're a panel. If he sits in the middle, he's surrounded. I'm trying to make it comfortable.” Sofia tipped her head toward the chairs. “They're doing fine, love. You're managing the furniture because the furniture can't tell you to stop.” Chloe gave her a look, sat down, and straightened the sugar caddy instead. Sofia saw her do it and had the decency not to laugh.
Nat put her phone facedown with a sharp little clack. “For the record, I will not be storming anything tonight. I want that entered into the minutes,” she announced. Tori asked who had suggested she might storm anything. “Preventative clarification,” Nat explained. “Today I am a calm, still lake.” Maddie, who was checking the light through her camera, informed her that the lake appeared to be vibrating. “The lake has had two espressos,” Nat said. “And the lake doesn't appreciate being interrogated.” Tori looked at the empty cup in front of Nat and suggested that a third espresso would constitute an act of aggression against everyone at the table. Nat accused Tori of suppressing natural beauty, making Sofia laugh loud enough to draw a warning glance from Petra behind the counter.
Maddie had meanwhile decided that the best angle on the afternoon light required standing on a chair. Petra, the tall blonde barista overseeing the shift, appeared to be weighing the risks against the paperwork involved in intervening. Gold light came through the front windows, cut across the poetry shelves, and caught the edges of the books in thin strips. “Look at that,” Maddie said, lifting her camera. “It's like the books are leaking.” Tori asked her to get down before she fell into them. “If I fall into the books, I'll die happy,” Maddie replied, taking another photograph. “You'll die in front of Steve,” Tori pointed out. Maddie considered the social disadvantages of that and climbed down, careful to avoid Petra's expression of profound relief. When Maddie turned to show Sofia the photograph, Tori reached over to steady her elbow without looking up from her coffee.
Tori had ordered black coffee and hadn't touched it, a fact Chloe found considerably more alarming than Nat's caffeine consumption. Maddie noticed too. She settled beside Tori, leaned against her shoulder, and asked how many arguments she'd prepared for the conversation. “I haven't prepared arguments,” Tori replied. “I've considered the order in which certain things might need to be said.” Maddie asked how many points that made. After a moment Tori admitted there were seven, then amended the figure to six and a half because one was technically a subpoint. Maddie kissed her cheek. “You can keep your points, darling. Just don't read them to him like a closing argument.” Tori looked ready to defend the usefulness of an orderly agenda, then slipped an arm around Maddie instead. Chloe stopped worrying long enough to smile.
“We're going to tell him what we've decided,” Tori said, looking around the table. “Then we're going to hear what he thinks. If I start arguing a case, somebody please stop me.” Nat raised her hand so fast that Tori told her she regretted making the offer. The others laughed, and for a moment even Chloe forgot to worry about the empty chair. Sofia waited until the laughter settled before bringing up the boundary they'd already agreed upon the day before. “And we take him at his word,” she said. “We aren't inviting him here to tell him who he is. If he ever wants to talk about that, he gets to start the conversation.” Maddie nodded, still holding Tori's hand, and nobody felt the need to turn the agreement into a speech.
Chloe reached for the sugar caddy again and stopped when Nat caught her eye. Her hands were busy with nothing, her heart was unhelpfully busy with everything, and she'd run out of furniture to solve. “I'm scared,” she said. Sofia slipped her hand beneath the table and laced their fingers together. “Of what, love?” she asked. Chloe looked toward the long aisle leading to the café door. “That he'll say no,” she answered. She watched Maddie put her camera away and found she had one more admission to make. “And that he'll say yes, because then we'll have to find out if we're actually any good at this.” Nat's expression lost its theatrical confidence. “Both. I'm scared of both too,” Nat said.
Nobody hurried to reassure her. Maddie reached across for Chloe's free hand, and Tori finally took a sip of her neglected coffee. After a while Nat slid the sugar caddy an inch toward Chloe and sat back to see whether she'd move it. Chloe glared at her, then laughed, and Sofia squeezed her fingers under the table. The bell at the front of the bookstore rang. All five women turned toward the aisle at once, then looked at one another when the arriving customer turned out to be somebody carrying a large parcel. Nat accused Chloe of jumping first, and Chloe informed her she was a terrible liar. Tori put her coffee down, Maddie checked her camera, and the six chairs stayed exactly where Chloe had left them.
Thanks for pulling up a chair with Steve and the girls. There's always room at this table, although getting a word in may require persistence. Steve would like it noted that none of this was his idea.
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