Dinner at Seven

Dinner at Seven

Jenny breezed toward Bill’s apartment; it was just their one month anniversary, but this one felt right. Bill was a former pediatric oncologist, the doctor that mother always said Jenny was too plain to attract, too careless to preserve. Bounding through the studio door, she was frozen by a tea kettle's fainting whistle, burners hissing fumes; heat rising above ninety on an August Manhattan night. The oppressiveness asphyxiated fresh tulips; a Chardonnay bottle sweated through her paper sack, spattering cracked Travertine. The bathroom door unlatched, Bill humming “Let’s Stay Together;” Jenny harmonized, double-bolting the lock as she removed her shoes.