There are seven people here. I can hear each of their heartbeats. “Hey!” someone says. It’s the woman from my floor who I often see outside her studio, her hair, out of the scarf it’s usually tied in, a huge dark halo around her head. As she speaks, everyone else in the room turns to look at me, and they all wave or smile in my direction. A couple of people say hey too, and I nod back. Only Ben, who is chopping vegetables in the kitchen area, doesn’t greet me. He looks up and sees me, then looks down again and pretends he didn’t. Next to him, an East Asian woman with her hair twisted into a knot on top of her head is leaning into his body slightly and putting things on the cutting board for him to slice; she smiles at me.

“Are you joining us?” the woman from my floor asks, gesturing with her hand for me to sit down. “There’s plenty of food, right, Shakti?”

“Yeah, absolutely!” says a woman who is standing in front of the stove, cooking what looks like gnocchi, as well as whole eggplants. I notice, next to her, Ben’s ears redden.

“I’d love to,” I say. I feel bizarrely confident. I take a deep breath in; through the smell of spices and garlic and onion, I smell a few different scents of shampoo, perfume, sweat, breath, tiny hints of other things. My bones feel light, like they have filled with air, and I could just take off from the ground were I to lift my arms. Then I exhale, and I feel grounded again, and I smile and cross the room.

“So, finally we meet!” the woman from my floor says. She takes my hand. It’s a surprisingly intimate gesture and makes me feel immediately welcome; she doesn’t mention my cold skin. “I’m Maria.”

“Lydia,” I say. My voice sounds different. It projects more easily. “I go by Lyd.”

Maria leads me to the dining table, where there are mismatched plates laid out.

“You’re A14, right?” Maria asks. At the same time, a man leans across the table with his hand outstretched, “Hey, I’m James,” he says. I shake his hand. “Whoa, cold,” he says.

“Yeah, I’m A14.”

“So, what kind of work?” James asks. “Wait, wait, let me guess.”

“James, don’t do that,” Maria says. “It’s completely reductive to guess someone’s practice from how they look, and it feels horrible.”

“Oh, come on, you’re just upset because I’m always right.”