Page 91 of The Dangerous Dance

"Not the heavy kind," she says. "We talked about this."

"You talked about it," I say. "I was in the process of being informed."

Ailish looks at me. "What kind of thinking."

I look at my tea. "The kind about things I can't fix on a Saturday."

"Then it's the right kind of Saturday to not fix them," Ailish says, with the practical logic of someone who has made peace with the category of unsolvable things. "What would help."

I consider the question with the honesty she seems to require. "I don't know," I say. "I don't usually have Saturdays."

Mackenzie looks up from her magazine. "What do you mean."

"I mean—" I stop. Try to find the right shape for it. "My Saturdays have always been structured. Training, or operational preparation, or contact management. There was always something the Saturday was for." I look at the window. "I don't have a—" I pause. "I don't know what I do when there's nothing it's for."

The room is quiet for a moment.

"Ballet," Mackenzie says.

"Not today."

"Why not today."

"Because—" I stop. Because today I don't want to be in a room with a mirror, I think. Because today I don't want to find faults. "Because Petya doesn't run Saturday sessions," I say instead, which is also true.

"Then we'll find something else the Saturday is for," Ailish says, with the matter-of-fact quality she brings to most things. "That's what we're doing."

I look at her.

"Some Saturdays are for planning," she says. "Some are for doing. Some are for sitting in a room with people you trust and letting the week finish leaving you." She holds my gaze. "You're allowed to have that kind."

I think about people you trust. I think about when that became the correct category for the women across from me in this room.

"Gianna's coming later," Mackenzie says, returning to the magazine. "She texted this morning. She and Finn went to look at something in the city — she said she'd be back by noon and that she was bringing food."

"What kind of food," Ailish says.

"She didn't specify. Which means it'll be elaborate."

"It'll be extraordinary," I say, thinking about last night's dinner, which produces a look from both of them that is the specific look of people who have just confirmed something they were already thinking.

"You liked the food," Mackenzie says.

"The food was — yes," I say. "The food was exceptional."

"She'll be pleased to hear it," Ailish says. "She doesn't cook for praise but she receives it well."

Noon arrives with Gianna and two bags from somewhere that produces when unpacked: an amount of cheese that suggests she has opinions about cheese, fruit, bread that is obviously from somewhere that takes bread seriously, and three small containers of something that smells like olive oil and herbs and takes me immediately and involuntarily to somewhere I've never been.

"Amalfi," Gianna says, when I say this. "We have a place there. I try to bring things back when we've been." She sets the containers on the coffee table with the ease of someone who brings the Amalfi coast into rooms regularly. "It doesn't travel well but it travels well enough."

She settles on the couch with the specific quality she has — warmth that doesn't announce itself, the kind that simply fills whatever space it's in and makes the space better without making a point of doing so. She looks at me with the directness I've noticed she applies to most things.

"You were at dinner last night," she says.

"Yes."

"I'm glad." She picks up the bread and breaks it, which is not cutting it, which is a specific choice that I clock. "I've been curious about you."