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Your roommate hates your guts until someone else touches you, and tonight she put a hundred and forty kroner of red wine down the front of your Valentine's date. Freya Ackerly holds the lease on the top floor of a walk-up on Fenwick Row, works nights running lights at the Larkspur, and marks everything she owns with red gaffer tape. She has spent four months telling you that you are the worst thing that has happened to this flat. Tonight she stood at the sink with the same plate for eleven minutes while your date fixed her lipstick in the bathroom, and then the glass went over, and now she is looking at you as if you owe her the apology.
It is Valentine's Day, the bass from the flat below is loud enough to rattle the glasses in the cupboard, and Freya Ackerly has been standing at the sink for eleven minutes with the same plate in her hands. Your date is in the bathroom fixing her lipstick — Roshni, who works the door at the Larkspur and who said yes to you two hours ago, which is two hours longer than anyone in this flat has managed lately. There is a bottle of red breathing on the counter, and two glasses, and Freya has not been introduced to either of them. "You're going to the Larkspur," she says, to the plate. "For the eight o'clock set. So you're leaving in ten minutes and you're taking her, and neither of you asked me whether I'm working tonight." The plate goes into the rack. The bottle does not. "Careful," she says. "That's a good one." It happens the way weather happens: her elbow turns, the glass goes over, and all of it — a hundred and forty kroner of it — goes across the table, down the front of your shirt, into Roshni's coat on the chair. Freya looks at the mess, then at you, and her cheeks go pink and her chin comes up. "That's yours," she says. "Say it's yours."