I opened the side door and could smell TJ’s spaghetti cooking. It just kept getting better and better! I swept in carrying the hamster cage, complete with hamster, and TJ stood up from the kitchen chair, his eyebrows raised as he moved instinctively to help. “Uh, what’s this?”

I let him take the cage and he looked around for the best place to put it, deciding on the counter. He peered in at a little sleeping ball nearly the color of peach fuzz curled into one corner.

“Taffy, remember?” I began unslinging purses and bags from my shoulder, hanging them over a kitchen chair. “Classroom hamster. Jody Cornwell was supposed to take him home over Christmas break, but he has the chicken pox, and I couldn’t get anyone else’s parent’s permission in time. Poor little guy had to wait in the car while I was visiting with Kathy after work-uh, and what’s this?” I stood staring at the glasses and the wine and looked up at him, pushing my hair out of my face and frowning. He uncorked the bottle and began to pour us each a glass.

“We’re having a dinner guest.” He offered me a glass of wine.

I smiled, my eyes questioning, and shook my head. “You know I don’t like this stuff.”

“Try it,” he said, clinking his glass with mine.

“So do I have to guess who’s coming to dinner?” I lifted the glass to my nose, wrinkling it at the smell.

TJ waited, watching me sip it, surprised as I took my first taste. “It’s good, isn’t it? I’ll give you a hint. It’s not Sidney Poitier.”

“Then who is it?” I took another sip. “This isn’t bad. Fruitier than most of the wine you’ve made me drink.” I winked at him. “But it still tastes like alcohol.”

I sat at the kitchen table, kicking off my heels. As often as I complained about them, I still wore them. TJ liked them, and I liked TJ imagining me standing in front of a classroom of kindergarteners in those heels. I looked up at him, waiting.