“Don’t let me interrupt,” Norman said. “I’m going to go ahead and start dinner. Will you be eating with us, Liam?”

Liam said, “No, I-” at the same time that Eunice said, “No, he’s-”

“I should be getting along. Thanks anyway,” Liam said.

“Too bad,” Norman said. “It’s tagine tonight!” and he held up his grocery bag.

“Norman’s going through a Middle East phase right now,” Eunice told Liam. Her cheeks were flushed, and she didn’t quite meet either man’s eyes.

“You do the cooking?” Liam asked Norman.

“Yes, well, Eunice is not much of a hand in the kitchen. How about you, Liam? Do you cook?”

“Not really,” Liam said. The way Norman kept using his first name made him feel he was being interviewed. He said, “I take more of a canned-soup approach.”

“Well, I can understand that. I used to be the same way. Progresso lentil; that was our major food group, once! Just ask Eunice. But some of the people in my lab, they’re from these different countries and they’re always bringing in their native dishes. I started asking for their recipes. I do like Middle Eastern the best. It’s not just a phase,” he said with an oddly boyish glance of defiance in Eunice’s direction. “Middle Eastern really is a very sophisticated cuisine.”

Demonstrating, he opened the grocery bag and stuck his head inside and drew a deep breath. “Saffron!” he said, reemerging. “Sumac! I tried to find pomegranates, but it must not be the season. I’m thinking I might use dried cranberries instead.”

“That’s an idea,” Liam said.

He was edging toward the front hall now. This meant getting past Norman, who stood obliviously in his path and asked, “Do you know when pomegranate season is, Liam?”

“Um, not offhand…”

“Pomegranates fascinate me,” Norman said. (Eunice raised her eyes to the ceiling.) “When you think about it, they’re kind of an odd choice for people to eat. They’re really nothing but seeds! Some of the Middle Easterners I know, they chew the seeds right up. You can hear the crunch. But me, I like to bite down on them just partway so I can get the juicy part off without breaking into the hulls. I don’t like that bitter taste, you know? And those rough little bitter bits that stick in your teeth. Then I spit the seeds out when no one is looking.”

“Norman, for heaven’s sake, let him get home to his supper,” Eunice said.

“Oh,” Norman said. “Sorry.” He switched the grocery bag to his left hand so he could shake hands again with Liam. “It was good to meet you, Liam,” he said.

“Good to meet you,” Liam told him.

He was conscious, as he started toward the hall, of Eunice following close behind, but he didn’t look in her direction even when they were out of Norman’s sight. At the door he said, in a loud, carrying voice, “Well, thanks for your help!”

“Liam,” she whispered.

He reached for the doorknob.

“Liam, did you mean what you said?”

“We’ll have to talk!” he told her enthusiastically.

From the rear of the apartment he could hear the clanging of pots now, and Norman’s tuneless whistling.

“See you soon!” he said.

And he stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind him.

Heading up North Charles, he drove so badly that it was a wonder he didn’t have an accident. Cars seemed to come out of nowhere; he failed to start moving again whole moments after lights turned green; his acceleration was jerky and erratic. But it wasn’t because he had anything particular on his mind. He had nothing on his mind. He was trying to keep his mind empty.

His plan was to get to his apartment and just, oh, collapse. Stare into space a long while. He envisioned his apartment as a haven of solitude. But when he walked into his living room, he found Kitty kneeling on the carpet. She was unpacking the blue vinyl suitcase, setting stacks of clothing in a half circle around her. “I know I had more swimsuits than these,” she said, not looking up.

He crossed the room without answering.

“Hello?” she said.

“How many could you possibly need?” he asked. The question was automatic, like a line assigned to him in a play-the uncomprehending-male question he knew she expected of him.

“Well,” she said. She sat back on her heels and started ticking off her fingers. “There’s my sunbathing suit, for starters. That’s a minimum-coverage bikini with no straps to leave a tan line. And then my backup sunbathing suit, the exact same cut, to wear if the first one gets wet. Then my old-lady suit; ha! For when Damian’s aunt and uncle are with us…”

He sank into an armchair and let her babble on until she said, again, “Hello?”

He looked at her.

“Did you hear what I just told you? I won’t be staying for supper.”

“Okay.”

He wasn’t hungry for supper himself, but when he checked his watch he found it was after six. He rose heavily and went to the kitchen alcove to fix himself whatever was easiest. In the refrigerator he found half an onion, a nearly empty carton of milk, and a saucepan containing the dregs of the tomato soup he’d heated for lunch. (“Progresso lentil; that was our major food group once,” he heard Norman say.) He definitely didn’t want soup. In the cupboard he found a box of Cheerios, already opened. He shook a cupful or so into a bowl. Then he added milk, got himself a spoon, and sat down at the table.

Kitty was trying on a beach robe striped in hot pink and lime green. “Does this make me look like a watermelon?” she asked him.

He forgot to answer.

“Poppy?”

“Not at all,” he said.

He took a spoonful of Cheerios and chewed dutifully. If Kitty said anything further, he couldn’t hear it over the crunching sound.

He’d forgotten how he disliked cold cereal. It had something to do with the disjunction between the crispy dry bits and the cold wet milk. They didn’t meld, or something. They stayed too separate in his mouth. He took another spoonful, and he started considering pomegranates. He knew what Norman had meant about trying to eat the juicy part without biting into the seeds. The few times he’d eaten pomegranates himself, he had done the same thing, and Norman’s description brought back vividly the tart taste behind the sweetness, and the sensation of little hard pieces of seed lodging in his molars. Yes, exactly; he knew exactly.

He could almost be Norman; he knew so exactly how Norman felt.

Kitty said, “Is this one better?”

She was modeling another beach robe, a short blue terrycloth affair that wouldn’t protect her nearly as well from the sun. Before he could tell her so, though, there was a knock on the door.

Kitty called, “Come in?”

Instead of coming in, whoever it was knocked again.

Kitty heaved a put-upon sigh and went over to open the door. Liam took another spoonful of cereal. “Oh,” he heard her say. “Hi.” He twisted in his chair to see Eunice walk in, hugging a gray nylon duffel bag. It was a large bag but it couldn’t have been very full, because it flopped loosely over her arms, empty in the middle and bulging only slightly at either end.

He set his spoon down and stood up. He said, “Eunice?”

“Barbara be damned,” she told him in a hard bright voice. “Norman be damned. Everyone be damned.”

“Eunice, no.”

“What?”

“No,” he said. “We can’t do it. Go away.”

“What?”

Kitty was staring from one of them to the other.

“I’m sorry, but I mean it,” he told Eunice.

He could see her start to believe him. The animation drained gradually from her face until all her features sagged. She stood motionless, flat-footed, her clunky sandals turned outward in a ducklike fashion, her arms full of withered gray nylon.

Then she turned and left.

Liam sat back down on his chair.

Kitty seemed about to say something, but in the end she just gave a little shake of her shoulders, like a shiver, and tightened the sash of her beach robe.