“Congratulations,” Clare offered up, distracted by Donna, already knowing what she was so intent on, and wondering what she would say.

“Congratulations?” Sergio pulled his head back in mock shock, his hand flying to his chest. “Congratulations, she says.” He shook his head. “Clare, honey, this is Coke! Coca-Cola! And I…” He pointed emphatically at himself. “Am mother-fucking Second Male Dancer in the highest-budget commercial they are filming this year! They are shutting down Times Square! Times. Square.” He took a breath and shook his head. “This is it.”

Clare stared at him, flabbergasted between the need to respond with an appropriate level of enthusiasm for Sergio and Donna’s silence in the living room. She started with a huge pasted-on smile. “That’s amazing!” she threw her hands into a wide V. “Pour the wine!”

Finally satisfied, Sergio pointed directly at her and narrowed his eyes. “That’s right, baby. We’re pouring the wine!” He turned to grab glasses out of the dishwasher.

In the living room, Donna turned around to face them. Clare’s Atlantic Monthly was splayed open across both her palms. “Sorry to burst your bubble, Serg, but it looks like you don’t get to solo on the celebration center stage tonight.” She was smiling, closed mouth with her eyebrows raised into two high-pointed arches. The resulting expression was confusing, something like sorrow masquerading as happiness—Donna looked like the victim of an accident who was in shock.

Clare met Donna’s eyes and saw the fear, raw, bottomless, and framed in self-doubt. But the revelation was swept away in less time than it took Clare’s heart to beat because Donna forced her face into a manic wide smile, all teeth. “This. Is. Amazing!” she suddenly proclaimed, shaking the magazine with a violence. She sounded nothing at all like the deeply critical, borderline cynical Donna Mehan Clare had lived with for the past four years and everything like a crazed, super-pumped sorority sister.

Clare stared at her, mouth slack, wondering if she should just roll with this fake congratulations or pull Donna into their shared bedroom and try to have a real conversation with her. “Donna, I—”

“What’s this, now?” Sergio emerged from their tiny kitchen holding two mismatched tumblers of Clare’s wine. “I’m not the only one with news?” He placed one glass in Clare’s hand and held the other out to Donna, waiting for her to free one of her hands from the magazine. Donna handed the magazine to Sergio to see the evidence for himself, then took the glass and immediately raised it to her lips as she nodded to Clare.

Sergio turned to her, his face a question mark waiting for an answer.

Clare looked from him to Donna, then back to him as his eyes dropped to the pages in his hands. “My story got published,” she whispered.

Sergio’s eyes scanned the page, then he flipped to the magazine’s cover.