A few weeks after the office Christmas party, Davis’s boss, Scott, invited him over for dinner. “Bring that charming girlfriend of yours,” Scott said, so Davis invited Julia. They brought a $30 bottle of Sancerre. 

Scott’s place was surprisingly small, smaller than Davis’s two-bedroom house. It had a living room, a bathroom, a bedroom that was mostly filled with a queen bed, and a kitchen that included a table for four. But there was a nice deck, full of succulents, with a view of downtown San Francisco. As the three of them stood on the deck, looking at the blunt, cucumber silhouette of the Salesforce Tower, Scott explained that he had chosen this house for the deck and the view. He was in the middle of a divorce, he elaborated. His wife and two teenagers still lived in their four-bedroom house in Cole Valley.

Julia said, “Where do your kids sleep when they visit you?”

Scott pointed to the futon in the living room but conceded they rarely stayed over, and even more rarely together, since they didn’t like sharing a futon. “Or, indeed, being in the same vicinity,” he said. 

Ignoring Davis’s look of alarm, Julia said, “But why did you choose a place that didn’t have room for your kids?”

Scott smiled in a way that struck Davis as a little sinister. “If you love someone, set them free,” he said. Julia seemed satisfied, and smiled back. 

All evening, Julia’s reactions to Scott surprised Davis. She did not seem put off, for instance, by the fact that Scott was serving Dungeness crabs, which involved dropping them into a pot of boiling water. She did not recoil when one of the crabs struggled and extended a claw, as if desperately attempting to escape from being boiled to death. She laughed and touched the tortoiseshell claw that pinned back her long, black hair.

They ate dinner on the deck. Julia seemed unfazed by the messiness of eating crab. When crab juice splattered onto her red cardigan sweater, she said merrily, “That’s what dry cleaning is for!”

Davis wondered if he was just imagining the vibes between his boss, who had never invited him over for dinner before, and his girlfriend.

Scott said, “I enjoy thinking of Marion sitting at our dining table, many nights all alone, because the kids always have their activities—basketball practice and dance class and so forth. I enjoy thinking of her feeling like the house is big and empty. Does that make me a bad person?”

Yes, Davis thought. 

But Julia smiled at Scott, just as she had smiled at him when Scott had used a wooden spoon to force the crab who was trying to haul himself out of the pot back inside it. Davis wondered if this was the crab he himself was currently eating, if he was cracking that very claw open with his grimy nutcracker.