A woman like Evelyn Luke—quick-eyed, attuned to what isn't said—was probably better suited to someone like Grace Barron, who came home most nights used up, bones ringing faintly like a struck glass. Thoughtful. Perceptive. She could read a room by the drafts under the door. Oakley Ponciano, by contrast, came fully outfitted with blunt edges and mismatched screws. Not only did she fail to take care of Grace; she routinely needed Grace to take care of her.
Give it time, and Grace would grow tired. Wouldn't she?
Oakley didn't know what hex had been laid on her mind tonight. Thoughts kept turning feral, slipping the leash. She tried to call them back and they only ran faster.
"I'm going to the restroom," she said, setting down the spoon. She pulled her bag off the back of the chair, slipped the strap over her shoulder, flicked a strand of hair behind her ear. The smile she sent Grace was lively and clean, bright enough to paper over the mess beneath.
"Okay, go," Grace said, fooled by Oakley's surface and nothing else.
The moment Oakley turned, the smile fell off her face like a sticker peeling free.
Inside the restroom, she took out her phone, stared at the dark screen, and just stood awhile.
Why did Evelyn rub her raw like this? Was it because Evelyn belonged to a type of woman she'd never learned how to be around—polished, soft at the edges, all intuition? Or was it simply that Evelyn stood too close to Grace? Closer than Oakley liked to imagine?
Her head was a skein of yarn snarled by cats.
After a minute she raised her eyes to the mirror. Her brows, the tilt of her mouth, held a film of thought she couldn't blink away.
Grace and Evelyn had been friends for years; of course they lived without the old hedges between them. Deep friendships behave like rivers—they overflow their banks. If two people were still stiff and fenced after that long, wouldn't that be the stranger thing?
Oakley dropped her gaze, closed her bag, then caught herself and huffed a laugh. What was she even doing, gnawing at air? This marriage of theirs was—on paper—an arrangement. As long as Grace didn't go chasing foolishness outside, wasn't the assignment simply to keep the thing intact?
Honestly. Her brain had sprung a leak. She patted her face briskly with her fingertips, and, noticing a patch of foundation left unblended, dabbed at it with a sponge.
When she returned, the two of them were laughing—heads tipped together, easy as breath.
Oakley pulled out her chair and sat. She brushed the hair off her forehead, scooted closer to the table edge, and smiled. "What's so funny?"
"Oh—" Evelyn lifted her chopsticks, hovering, a small grin in place. "We were talking about the class rep from our year."
"The class rep?" Oakley looked at Grace. "What about her?"
Grace was dismantling a crab with monk-like calm. "She was a riot. Terrible at words. Once we went to get fried chicken, and the moment we got to the counter she yelled, 'One fried c—'" Grace paused, winced at the memory. "Then she realized how that sounded and, even louder, corrected herself—'Sorry! I meant chicken, fried chicken!' Everyone turned to stare."
Oakley snorted. "Secondhand death. I can feel it from here."
"Exactly." Grace slid a neat mound of crabmeat into a small dish with the grace of a diamond-cutter. "We wanted to crawl into the condiment shelf and live there."
She nudged the dish toward Oakley. "For you."
Oakley blinked. "You…peeled this for me?"
"Sure," Grace said.
"That nice?" Oakley's mouth was already sweetening.
Grace fished a wet wipe from its packet and carefully cleaned each finger. "You're slightly disabled, remember? Someone has to look after you."
Oakley choked on laughter. "Right. You're the hand of God."
"Thank you," Grace said serenely, as if Oakley had just pinned a medal to her chest.
Unbearably smug. Oakley rolled her eyes, but when she glanced at the pile of shells—stripped clean—and then at the bowl of delicate meat, she had to admit: the work was immaculate. Her own attempts usually looked like a cat had been at them. Doraemon hands.
Oakley lifted a bite. "I wish my fingers were half as nimble."
Grace comforted her without missing a beat. "Clumsy fingers mean you were blessed in a past life. You did so much good then that heaven decided you wouldn't have to do as much now."
"That's a charming lie." Oakley chewed, slow. "But this is… really good."
Across from them, Evelyn watched for a moment, then lowered her eyes and stirred her soup with measured circles, saying nothing.
Grace suddenly coughed, brow tightening.
Oakley turned, chopsticks caught between her teeth. "Spice go down the wrong way?"
"It's just hot," Grace said, voice roughening. "This dish… too much heat."
Oakley opened her mouth to tell her to leave it, but Evelyn had already reached for the water and held it out, frowning in that gentle way of hers.
"Here." Evelyn's voice thinned with concern. "It's the only spicy one on the table. I didn't think it'd be this much. Your stomach's touchy—skip it."
"Okay." Grace took half the glass in a single swallow, breathing through the last of the cough.
Oakley watched the water settle, ringlets rippling against glass, then let her gaze move from Grace to Evelyn and back to her own bowl. She said nothing.
So thorough, this woman. Meanwhile Oakley, blunt instrument that she was, hadn't even thought to pass a glass. In the shadow of Evelyn's precision, she felt all elbows.
A ten-out-of-ten handicap, she thought with bleak humor. Clumsy hands, clumsy heart.
The crab was objectively lovely, sea-sweet and fresh. Somehow, taste fell away for her. The mouthful turned to nothing.
They paid and stepped out into a street the dark had already claimed. Lamps dotted the night like candleflames stuck into velvet, giving the city a fuzzy, dreamlit feel—as if they'd wandered into a fairytale that had learned some shadow.
Evelyn looked down the block and smiled, the present folding around her like a shawl. "Let's go walk the street we used to love," she said. "We're so close."
Since opening her flower shop, she'd moved to the new district and rarely came back. Tonight was chance, waiting with its hand out.
"Now's as good a time as any." Grace checked the time, then nodded. "Let's go."
Oakley got in the car because that was what the plan required. The door closed and the air tightened. A faint stuffiness pooled inside.
She buckled her belt, smoothed her hair, and asked—so casually it was almost careless—"I bet Evelyn doesn't lack admirers, does she?"
Grace glanced out the window toward where Evelyn waited. "No. She's gentle. Attentive. And she's beautiful. Put that together, and people like you wherever you go."
Gentle. Attentive. Beautiful. Oakley tasted each word as if it might dissolve differently on her tongue. She curled a lock around her finger and let the city smear by in little streaks of light, choosing silence.
The old street was ten minutes away.
By the time they found a spot and stepped out, the night was full-throated. The buildings wore their years openly; the pavement held dips and rises like old scars; the signage was pure turn-of-the-millennium—fat fonts, dated flourishes that would look worse by noon. Under night, softened by gold and blue, it was almost pretty. Daylight would be crueler.
"Time," Evelyn breathed, taking it in. "Fifteen years since the first time we came, right?"
"Yeah." Grace smiled sidelong. "We've known each other that long?"
"Longer than we realized." Evelyn's gaze snagged on a stationery store sign, and she touched Grace's shoulder, eyes warming. "Look. That shop survived."
Grace squinted. "It did."
"I used to go in just to smell the erasers," Evelyn said, laughing at herself. "The fruit-scented ones? For my birthday you bought me a mountain of them. I stared at the pile like, what am I supposed to do with this abundance?"
"I don't know why I thought that was a good idea," Grace admitted, amused now at her younger self.
A few steps later Evelyn squeaked softly. "No way—that dessert place is still alive."
The storefront, freshly glossed in white, had clearly been remodeled, but the original name—bold, unabashed—remained. The letters were lodged in both their memories like a childhood rhyme: you only needed the first beat to call up the rest.
Every summer, they'd come here until the owner learned their names. When she bought extra-sweet oranges, she'd press wedges into their palms like contraband sunshine.
"I remember we were obsessed with their Number Eight," Evelyn said, grinning. "But I hated the jelly. I always shoved mine into your bowl."
"You did." Grace lifted her phone and took a photo, as if proof would steady the vagueness of memory.
The deeper they walked, the more the past unspooled between them, bright threads tugged free by neon and night air.
Oakley's restlessness rose again, a low flame catching. Maybe she'd overdosed on nuts this week and her body had decided to burn from the inside out—she almost preferred that explanation.
She folded an arm over her waist and scanned the shopfronts. Every one looked brutally unfashionable. Relics. The kind of ugly that had become its own museum.
Halfway down, a pink storefront appeared like bubblegum in a mouth of old teeth. Big space, cheerful lighting. Inside, shelves of plush toys, scarves, gloves, small figurines—sweetness lined up by size.
Evelyn wanted to go in. So they went.
Oakley's phone chimed after two steps. Her mother's face bloomed on the screen—video call. Different country, wrong hour. She couldn't miss it.
"You guys go ahead," she said, stopping. "My mom's calling."
Truth was, she didn't want to be inside. Not just now. Being alone on the sidewalk sounded like medicine.
"Want to take it indoors?" Grace glanced at the street, wincing at the draft. "It's warmer in there."
"I'm fine," Oakley said, eyes lowered to the incoming call. "It's not midwinter. If I can't handle this, I wouldn't last long anyway. And it's noisy inside. I won't hear her."
"Alright." Grace's eyebrow tipped up. "If we're not out when you finish, come in and find us."
Oakley raised a hand and made an idle little O with her thumb and forefinger.
Grace let it go and followed Evelyn in. From the doorway, a small, sugar-sweet "Hi, Mom," floated after her. She glanced back and caught Oakley idly kicking a pebble along, a kindergarten child disguised in a woman's coat.
She smiled, low in her throat, and then the door swung closed. Inside, the store was the most modern thing on the entire street, bright and cheeky to the point of rupture with the neighborhood's mood.
"Odd," Evelyn murmured, drifting a hand along a shelf. "Why open something so trendy… here? Is there even a market?"
"There might be," Grace said, picking up a doll and testing its squish. "There's a high school not far. Teen girls eat this up. And it's the internet age—you can drag foot traffic from anywhere if you know the platforms. If your budget's tight, being here saves rent. Look—photo wall. It's an influencer trap. Curious kids will come to post, and once they're in, someone always buys."