I checked my phone while I ran my hand under cold water. There was blood, but nothing major—certainly not a Phoebe/hospital situation. I slapped on a Band-Aid that struggled to stick to my damp hand and texted Ros and Touch, hey—where are you??

Touch texted right back: hung up with show prep, be there as soon as I can

From Ros, there was no response.

At that point—with hardly any juice at all and our first injury of the night under our belts—I realized I’d bought evaporated milk instead of condensed, which led to me switching off the oven in the middle of baking the piecrust and heading out on my fourth trip to the grocery store that day. It would’ve been smart, on that trip, to buy more limes, but have you ever cooked dinner for seven people and stabbed yourself in the hand with a fork on the night you’ve set out to bowl your best friend over with your cooking skills and good looks? Your brain just kind of ceases to function.

When I got back from the grocery store, Ros and Touch still weren’t home.

Another text to Ros and Touch. ETA? Need risotto expertise!

Touch: hopefully out of here in twenty minutes

Ros: radio silence.

I had the pie filling done (it didn’t taste like much—I had three-quarters of the lime juice I was supposed to, but what was I going to do, go back to the grocery store?), but I’d forgotten to turn the oven back on, so the piecrust still wasn’t finished. I chopped onions for the risotto while I waited for it to bake, but they were so strong and the knife was so dull that the only way to keep from crying was by wearing a not-terribly-clear child’s snorkeling mask that I found in the basement while breathing through my mouth and hoping that no creative spiders had laid eggs in the mask’s rubber rim.

There came a knock at the door. It was Phoebe, holding an enormous bowl of green beans and garlic in one hand and two cases of LaCroix with her fingers. With. Her. Fingers. Talk about superhuman strength.

“Oh dear,” she said.

“It’s going badly,” I said, though through my mask it sounded more like bits boing badbee.

“I see that,” she said.

She put her stuff down onto the counter and surveyed the mess in the living room and then the kitchen, scowling at the puny lime rinds, the bloody paper towel, my floral hammer. The flour that I’d spilled. She cocked her head and sniffed the air.

“Is something burning?”

“Diz it? I cabn’t really sbell—”

She pulled the smoking piecrust from the oven and set it onto the stovetop. I yanked the mask from my face. The pie’s edges looked like pumice.

“We’re screwed,” I said.