Tuesdays

They were painting Emilio’s kitchen because he’d finally admitted the yellow was a mistake, and because Simone had nothing better to do on a Sunday.

“So,” she said, rolling white paint over the wall above the sink. “Tuesdays.”

“What about Tuesdays?”

“You used to hate Tuesdays. You told me Tuesday was the worst day of the week. Worse than Monday, you said, because Monday at least knows it’s bad.”

Emilio kept his eyes on the edge of the door frame. “It’s a choir. I like singing.”

“You joined a choir.”

“People join choirs.”

“You,” Simone said, “hate group activities. You left a football team because they started a group chat.”

“That was about the group chat.”

“It was about the group.”

For a minute there was only the wet sound of the roller. Outside, somebody’s car alarm went off and stopped again.

“She runs it, doesn’t she,” Simone said. “The Tuesday one. And don’t tell me you don’t fancy her, because you’ve gone the color of that paint.”

“It’s white paint.”

“Exactly.”

He put the brush down, then picked it up again. “She’s very good at it. And she talks to about forty people every week, and I’m one of the forty.”

Simone let that sit. She’d known him since they were nineteen, and she knew the shape of this: the way he tended to build a fence around a thing and then stand on the wrong side of it, describing the fence.

“You could tell her,” she said.

“I could ruin a Tuesday.”

“You could ruin a Tuesday,” Simone agreed. She dipped the roller again. “You’re forty-one.”

“I’m aware.”

“I’m only saying, at some point the fence—”

“Don’t.”

“Okay.”

They painted for a while. The white was going on badly over the yellow; it would need a second coat, and probably a third.

“She asked if I was coming next week,” Emilio said, to the wall.

Simone didn’t turn around, because if she turned around he’d stop. “And what did you say?”

“I said Tuesday’s a good night.”