Then came the inevitable intrusion: the server arrived with the check.

She placed the slender, dark leather folder on the table between us with practiced neutrality, offering a polite, subdued invitation to settle the obligation. I reached for my wallet without pause, pulling out my card. Claire, meanwhile, was engrossed in recounting a humorous anecdote about a disastrous moving-in day, her face animated and her hands moving expressively. I slid the card into the folder and handed it back to the server, barely breaking the flow of the moment.
The rhythm of the evening, so perfectly established, began to fracture with the server’s return. She approached the table with a slight hesitancy, her practiced smile faltering at the edges.