Page 84 of Semantics
“With the wine?”
“Oh, wait,” Violet said, smiling. “Never mind. I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”
“Okay. Good.”
Stella laughed a little and walked Violet’s bag back to the bedroom. Quickly, she looked around, checking to make sure everything looked all right since she’d set up some flameless candles earlier. She had them in a box in her closet for power outages, but she’d decided when Violet had agreed to come over earlier to get them out and go for a mood. Everything looked okay, so Stella went back out to the kitchen and found Violet leaning back against the island, looking around.
“What’s all this?” Violet asked.
“Dinner,” she said. “You didn’t eat already, did you? I took a chance because you usually eat later. I thought maybe dinner around eight would be good.”
“Dinner?”
“Yeah. Did you eat?”
“No, I didn’t. But dinner? Stella…”
“What?”
“What happened to your actual dinner plans?”
“Jen had a date. I told you.”
“She just got a date at the last minute?”
“She’s on dating apps a lot. She said she matched with someone, and the woman was free, so she’s meeting her for drinks. I planned on staying in and waiting for you to get here at nine, but I thought I’d see if you wanted to come over earlier, and you did, so I made us dinner. It’s just pasta.”
“That’s what the wine is for?”
“What else would it be for?”
“I don’t know. Sex.”
“Sex? You want to have sex with wine?”
“No, I thought you would maybe, like, pour it on me or something and drink it off my body. I don’t know what you’re into.”
“Yes, you do. We’ve had sex before. We’ve had a lot of sex before.”
“Well, that doesn’t mean I know what you’ve planned tonight. I mean…” Violet motioned to the stove, where the pasta water was boiling. “Clearly.”
“I don’t understand what the problem is, Violet. Are you not hungry?”
“Of course, I’m hungry. I had a handful of baby carrots for lunch and skipped dinner.”
“So, what exactly is the issue?”
“Stella, this is a date.”
“It’s a meal, Violet.”
“There are candles on the table.” Violet motioned to the kitchen table behind the island. “And cloth napkins.”
“I have a set of them. I bought them, like, two years ago because I thought I’d have fancy dinner parties. That hasn’t happened, so I thought I’d just pull them out tonight. I even watched this video on YouTube to learn how to fold them. That is called the bishop’s hat fold.”
“You learned how to fold a napkin for dinner?”
“It literally took three minutes.”
