Cooking Wine

Six-thirty at the Provigo, and everyone in here is buying for one and pretending otherwise. You can tell by the baskets. Nobody with a family carries a basket.

You're at the tomatoes doing the thing where you pick one up and put it back somewhere else.

"The good ones are gone."

"Story of my life."

You turn around, surprised anyone answered. I'm surprised too.

After that we're in the same aisles at the same time and neither of us mentions it. Bread. Then dairy. Then you double back for something and I don't.

At the wine wall you're holding a Malbec.

"For cooking."

"Sure."

I put one in my basket too, which is not subtle, and I know it isn't.

The express line is nine deep because two registers are down. Your basket: four frozen dinners, coffee, the Malbec. Mine: oranges I'll let go soft, bread, the Malbec.

The cashier asks if we're together and we both say no at the same time, too fast. She doesn't care. She's seventeen and it's a keystroke.

It's raining outside. We stand under the overhang with the bags at our feet, not leaving.

"You want to cook something," you say. "Since we both have the wine for it."

Neither of us cooks. We open the bottle at your place at eight and don't eat until midnight, standing up, out of the pan.