IT PROBABLY HAPPENS all the time, but I disliked my kid sister’s fiancé right from the start. And the less I liked him, the more doubts I had about her. I was disappointed in her for the choice she had made.

Maybe I’m just narrow-minded.

My sister certainly seemed to think so. We didn’t talk about my feelings, but she knew I didn’t like her fiancé, and she let her annoyance show.

“You’ve got such a narrow view of things,” she said.

At the time, we were talking about spaghetti. She was telling me that I had a narrow view of spaghetti.

This was not all she had in mind, of course. Her fiancé was lurking somewhere just beyond the spaghetti, and she was really talking about him. We were fighting over him by proxy.

It all started one Sunday afternoon when she suggested we go out for Italian food. “Fine,” I said, since I just happened to be in the mood for that. We went to a cute little spaghetti house that had recently opened up across from the station. I ordered spaghetti with eggplant and garlic, and she asked for pesto sauce. While we waited, I had a beer. So far, so good. It was May, a Sunday, and the weather was beautiful.

The problem started with the spaghetti itself, which was a disaster. The surface of the pasta had an unpleasant, floury texture. The center was still hard and uncooked. Even a dog would have turned its nose up at the butter they had used. I couldn’t eat more than half of what was on my plate, and I asked the waitress to take the rest away.

My sister glanced at me once or twice but didn’t say anything at first. Instead, she took her time, eating everything they had served her, down to the last thread. I sat there, looking out the window and drinking another beer.

“You didn’t have to make such a show of leaving your food,” she said when the waitress had taken her plate.

“Yuck.”

“It wasn’t that bad. You could have forced yourself.”

“Why should I? It’s my stomach, not yours.”

“It’s a brand-new restaurant. The cook’s probably not used to the kitchen. It wouldn’t have killed you to give him the benefit of the doubt,” she said, and took a sip of the thin, tasteless-looking coffee they had brought her.

“You may be right,” I said, “but it only makes sense for a discriminating individual to leave food he doesn’t like.”

“Well, excuse me, Mr. Know-it-all.”

“What’s your problem? That time of the month again?”

“Oh, shut up. I deserve better than that from you.”

“Take it easy,” I said. “You’re talking to a guy who knows exactly when your periods started. You were so late, Mom took you to see a doctor.”

“You’re going to get my pocketbook right between the eyes …”