The rest of the menu we’d agreed upon via text. The main event was risotto, carrot and feta, a dish Ros’s mom used to make, a double recipe because there would be seven of us in total: me, Ros, Touchstone, Audrey, Jess Orlando, Phoebe, and Oliver Teller. For sides, Phoebe would bring green beans and garlic, and I’d make a salad, too, since Oliver, not unlike Touchstone, was obsessed with getting nutrients. Oliver Teller was actually a last-minute addition to the guest list: I’d finally taken the ball that was in my court and asked him if he’d wanted to come to dinner as my date. I’d told neither Ros nor Touchstone that I’d invited him—Touchstone because I wasn’t about to incur his wrath/be audience to another diatribe about the quality of Power Jam. I hadn’t told Ros because—if I’m being honest—I wanted to make them jealous.

On the day of the dinner, I’d panicked we wouldn’t have enough food, so I’d decided to add the artichoke dip that my mother made on Christmas, crackers and cheese, some sort of pâté, grapes because you needed grapes on a cheeseboard, and then also some cocktail shrimp, as an ode to Ros’s ode. That was my third trip to the grocery store. Let no one say I wasn’t rooting for Ros and Jess. I just wanted Ros to, you know, rue the day they’d chosen Jess Orlando over me.

There was no juicer in the kitchen. There was no Ros in the kitchen, either, which was a little annoying, since they’d promised to help me not only shop but also cook, but honestly the lack of the juicer was a more immediate problem, and it would be better if the pie was a surprise anyway. I imagined myself delivering the pie to Oliver, Ros looking on with a bewildered, envious expression. I crushed the graham crackers for the crust, which was messier and more labor intensive than I might’ve liked, but I got to use my hammer for the first time since hammering down that rogue nail; popped the crust into the oven; and shifted my focus toward the filling. I tried to squeeze the limes by hand, but they were so tough that I barely got any liquid out. I attacked them next with a spoon and succeeded more in spraying juice into my eye. In a fit of pique, I attempted to stab the juice loose with a fork, but my hand slipped and I stabbed myself in the palm.

It was at this point that I remembered my mother had told me to be patient.