CHAPTER FOUR #2
“We married in seventy-nine.”
“We married in eighty.”
“I remember paying for it.”
“My father paid for it.”
“Then I remember being grateful.”
Eleanor kissed his cheek. “You remember whatever best supports your argument.”
Mrs. Gable seated Nat and Michael beside each other at a long oak table.
The meal was roast chicken with rosemary potatoes, green beans, and warm rolls served from a basket lined with white cloth.
It was simple food, carefully prepared. Nat tasted the gravy and detected white wine, thyme, and a small amount of mustard.
“You cook beautifully,” she told Mrs. Gable.
“I’ve had practice.”
“Forty-nine years,” Walter said. “She used to feed the entire block.”
“Before everyone began ordering food on telephones,” Mrs. Gable added.
“I write about cooking,” Nat said. “My goal is usually to persuade people to use their kitchens.”
Mrs. Gable’s expression warmed slightly. “Your application said culinary writer.”
“I develop recipes, photograph them, and write articles. Sometimes I review restaurants, but most of the work is teaching people that dinner doesn’t have to come in a cardboard container.”
Michael placed a roll on her bread plate without asking. The gesture was small enough to look habitual.
Nat glanced at him. He had remembered from the coffee shop that she ate when nervous.
“What does a financial analyst do?” Walter asked Michael.
Michael explained his work in terms simple enough to be understood without making it sound unimportant. Nat listened as he described reviewing company performance, identifying risks, and helping clients make decisions based on evidence rather than expectation.
“So you tell people when they’re being foolish with money,” Eleanor said.
“I provide information. What they do with it remains their decision.”
“You must find people exhausting.”
Nat lowered her glass to hide her smile.
“Occasionally,” Michael admitted.
Mrs. Gable served more potatoes. “How did the two of you meet?”
They had prepared for this. Michael began with the restaurant opening, and Nat supplied details about the tasting menu. Their answers aligned until Mrs. Gable asked what had been on the tray Nat knocked into him.
“Champagne,” Michael said.
“Red wine,” Nat said.
Michael turned toward her.
“Champagne came later,” she said smoothly. “After you helped with the glasses.”
“You spilled beverages on him twice?” Eleanor asked.
“It was a difficult evening.”
“I was standing in an inconvenient location,” Michael said.
Nat looked at him. “You said I backed into you.”
“You did.”
“Then you were behind me.”
“That does not mean I was inconveniently located.”
“It does from my perspective.”
Walter pointed his fork at them. “I believe this part.”
Mrs. Gable’s eyes held amusement, but she continued asking questions.
Their first date unfolded with reasonable accuracy.
The awning, the rain, and the first kiss survived without contradiction.
Michael remembered their invented anniversary.
Nat remembered the restaurant but forgot the imaginary bottle of wine they had shared.
When asked who had first said I love you, they both paused.
“You did,” Nat said.
“I did?”
“In the car after my parents’ anniversary party.”
“We did not include an anniversary party.”
“We didn’t include who said it either.”
Michael set down his fork. “Then we should not invent additional—”
Nat placed her hand over his.
The sentence stopped.
His gaze dropped to her fingers resting across his.
The ring he had purchased caught the candlelight.
Nat had intended only to interrupt him before he turned their relationship into a documented negotiation in front of Mrs. Gable.
Instead, she became intensely aware of the shape of his hand beneath hers and the quiet strength in his fingers.
“You said it first,” she told him. “But I had known for weeks.”
Something in Michael’s face softened. “That sounds like me.”
It did not. Neither of them knew what Michael sounded like in love. Yet the words settled between them with enough tenderness that Mrs. Gable looked away first.
Walter passed the green beans. “Eleanor said it first.”
“I did not.”
“You said, ‘I suppose I’ve become fond of you.’”
“That was not a declaration of love.”
“It was from you.”
Eleanor considered this. “Perhaps.”
The lemon tart was served with coffee in the parlor.
Mrs. Gable asked Nat about the condemned building and Michael about his former roommate.
Her questions gradually stopped feeling like an examination and began to sound like concern.
When Nat described the city inspector returning for her saucepan, Mrs. Gable looked at Michael.
“You went back for it?”
“It was important to her.”
“It’s a very good saucepan,” Nat said.
“No one went back into a condemned building for the saucepan,” Eleanor observed.
Michael’s expression became guarded. “The inspector had not yet sealed the entrance.”
“That is not what she meant,” Walter said.
Nat rescued him by asking how the Bells had met.
Eleanor told the story of a broken elevator, a missed job interview, and the cup of coffee Walter bought because he felt responsible for pressing the emergency button too many times.
Walter corrected every minor detail while confirming all the important ones.
By the time the story ended, Nat understood why Mrs. Gable wanted couples in the building.
The dining room held decades of shared memory: meals, celebrations, arguments, births, and departures.
She was not collecting tenants. She was trying to preserve a version of home that had become increasingly difficult to find.
That did not make their deception right.
The realization dulled Nat’s satisfaction in every question they had answered successfully.
After the Bells went upstairs, Mrs. Gable asked Nat and Michael to remain. She returned from a desk in the parlor carrying a folder.
“I spoke to your references this afternoon,” she said. “Your financial records are excellent. Miss Tremaine’s editor described her as talented, dependable under pressure, and occasionally optimistic about deadlines.”
“That is accurate,” Nat said.
“Mr. Conroy’s supervisor described him as the most reliable person in the department.”
Michael inclined his head as though reliability were an audited result.
Mrs. Gable rested the folder on the table. “I also checked the ownership record for Miss Tremaine’s building and confirmed the condemnation order.”
“You thought I invented it?” Nat asked.
“I thought both of you were willing to invent a great deal.”
Neither of them answered.
Mrs. Gable studied them for a moment. “You are an unusual couple. Your stories do not always agree. You irritate each other constantly, and Mr. Conroy looks startled whenever Miss Tremaine touches him.”
Michael’s face became unreadable.
“However,” she continued, “Eleanor and Walter have told the story of their first meeting differently for thirty years. They disagree about the year they married and have never once agreed on who initiated their first kiss. Facts are not always the most reliable evidence of affection.”
Nat felt Michael’s hand shift beside hers.
Mrs. Gable opened the folder and removed two copies of a lease. “The apartment is yours if you still want it.”
Relief hit Nat so sharply that she forgot to perform. “Really?”
“The lease begins tomorrow. The rent is due on the first of each month. You will respect the floors, the kitchen, and the quiet of the building.”
“We will,” Michael said.
“And if you intend to conduct another engagement-ending argument, please do so before ten in the evening.”
Nat smiled. “We’ll put it in the agreement.”
Michael looked at her, but Mrs. Gable was already handing them the lease.
They reviewed every page at the dining-room table.
Michael read each clause carefully, asked two questions about utilities, and pointed out that the stated security deposit did not match the advertisement.
Mrs. Gable corrected the amount without complaint.
Nat supplied her banking information, signed where Michael indicated, and tried not to think about the fact that she was entering a one-year lease with a man she had met the previous morning.
Mrs. Gable gave them two brass keys.
“Welcome home,” she said.
Upstairs, the empty apartment looked different in the evening.
Streetlamps cast pale rectangles across the living-room floor.
The kitchen waited in shadow beyond the archway.
Without Mrs. Gable or the Bells present, Nat and Michael no longer had an audience, a script, or any immediate need to pretend.
Nat placed her key on her palm. “We did it.”
“We signed a lease.”
“That is generally how people do it.”
Michael looked around the room, taking in the fireplace, the windows, and the two closed bedroom doors. “We need to arrange the move, utilities, insurance, furnishings, household supplies, and an operating schedule.”
“Or we could stand here for ten seconds and enjoy having somewhere to live.”
He looked at her.
Nat held out her hand. The new ring gleamed beside the brass key.
After a moment, Michael placed his key beside hers.