He said: “My mom tells me you’re a wonderful person to work with.”

We waited for her to respond. She didn’t.

“I didn’t know you spoke Spanish,” I said to Abe. “That you understand it.”

“Only when Omar speaks to me like a child. All I got was: El presidente tiene una cabeza que es grande… and it was pretty much a wash from there.”

“The president is a dick?” said April. “That’s the general gist?”

“Ella comprende mucho,” Omar said.

I went back to the kitchen and set April’s bottles on the counter. Then I took the corkscrew and ducked into the bathroom with one of ours. I opened it, tipped it back—felt the wine, its deep red river—swallowed hard, and tipped it back again. I stashed it under the sink, right next to the toilet paper.

Stan brought a six-pack of home-brewed beer. “Recipe from an ex,” he explained. “The head is better than his was.”

Stella laughed. She said, “We’re going to get along.”

Ted brought a pan of brownies. “Everyone brings booze to dinner parties,” he said. “But I’m not everyone.”

“They look delicious,” I said. I wrapped my arm around Stella’s waist. I spoke away from her face so she wouldn’t smell my breath. “This is Stella,” I told him. “You remember I talked about her?”

“You’re very striking,” he said. He kissed her hand. “And there’s so much of you.”

“Excuse me?” She frowned.

“It’s a line from a movie,” he said. “I forget which one.”

“Oh.”

“It is,” he said. “I swear.”

She picked up his brownies. “I’ll put these in the kitchen,” she said. “With all the desserts we already have.”

We peeled the foil off our dishes and tested them with our fingers. We put them in the microwave. The bread swamp bubbled. The marshmallows puffed into sweet golf balls and then sank into popped balloons of dark sugar. We walked around the table with our plates, every man for himself, and settled into eating without anyone waiting for anyone. I went to the bathroom, crouched down, came back, joined the others. Abe tucked his napkin into his collared shirt. We talked about what it might have been like to discover the New World—the strange berries, the testosterone, the typhoid. Stan asked Abe what he remembered best about our summers in Nevada and he said, Heat, mainly, and everybody laughed. Abe looked at me with a question in his eyes, to make sure it was alright that they were laughing. I went to the bathroom and ate quickly when I got back to cover the smell on my breath. The stuffing tasted like a big mushroom sponge and the charred marshmallows ached against my cavities and chewing the turkey made my jaw sore because I really had cooked it too long and it really was too dry. Everyone was wet. They were drinking April’s wine, then our wine, then April’s wine again. Stan drank his own beer. He offered me a bottle. I said no.