The First Supper

The door buzzed, a harsh, electric sound that cut through the sizzle of onions in the pan. Emma tasted the contents of her ladle—needed salt—set it down, and quickly shuffled to the intercom.

“Jasper!”

“Ems! You sound surprised! Didn’t think I’d come?” the voice on the other end crackled, laced with a smile she could hear even through the cheap speaker.

“Nah,” she said, pressing the button to unlock the lobby door. “Just didn’t expect YOU to be first.”

A minute later, he was at her door, a bottle of red wine in hand, his grin giving off the distinct energy of a golden retriever who’d somehow taught himself to use the subway. He was wearing a flannel shirt that looked like it cost either eight dollars or eight hundred—with Jasper, you could never tell—and his hair was doing that thing where it appeared to have been styled by a gust of wind and sheer optimism.

“Well, if I’m being honest, I still haven’t reset my clocks for daylight savings and I got my times mixed up…” Jasper trailed off as Emma, already having turned back to the kitchen, shot him a look over her shoulder.

“Daylight savings is next month, you bozo. Also, you were literally looking at your phone when I opened the door. You could just say you made an effort to be here on time,” Emma said, her attention back on the stove. The onions were hitting that perfect sweet spot—translucent and slightly golden, the smell filling the narrow kitchen with a warmth that no scented candle could touch.

Jasper, unfazed, began digging around in a drawer for a corkscrew.

“Two drawers to the left. Like literally always,” Emma said without looking, the words a familiar refrain in the long-running play of their friendship.

Jasper located the corkscrew and finally responded, “I wouldn’t want to lie to you.”

She glanced at him, they both smiled, and she rolled her eyes, the gesture as comfortable and practiced as a sigh.

The door buzzed again. Jasper, in the middle of twisting the corkscrew into the wine bottle, called out, “Can you get that?” in a sarcastic, mocking voice, already on his way to the door. He pulled it wide open, and with a final, dramatic tug, freed the cork with a satisfying pop.

“WELL, LOOK WHO IT IS,” Jasper announced to the hallway with his trademark smirk.

“Olivia?” Emma called from the kitchen.

“And Oliver and Noah,” Olivia’s cheerful voice called back as the trio stepped inside. Olivia entered first, as she always did—a flurry of energy in a cashmere scarf and a smile that could talk you into anything. She was carrying a small paper bag that smelled like something expensive and floral. Oliver followed a half-step behind, already looking for somewhere unobtrusive to stand, and Noah brought up the rear, shrugging off his jacket with the methodical efficiency of someone who’d timed the optimal coat-removal process.

“Welcome, welcome,” Jasper continued, playing the role of host in someone else’s apartment. “I’ve just opened a very exclusive vintage that needs a bit of time to open up. Can I get you anything else to drink while we wait?”

“Liv, I’ve got some deviled eggs in the fridge. Can you take them out and sprinkle some paprika on them?” Emma called out, cutting through Jasper’s performance.

“On it!” Olivia said, brushing past Jasper to help Emma in the kitchen, a silent, sisterly alliance against his antics. She set down her paper bag—candles, Emma noticed, from Marcus’s shop on Bedford Ave, the ones that smelled like cedar and blood orange—and opened the fridge. She pulled the eggs out, dusted them with paprika, and arranged them on a plate with the instinctive precision of someone who’d once seen a magazine spread on appetizer presentation and had never recovered. Then she pulled out her phone and snapped a photo.

“These are gorgeous, Ems. I’m posting this.” Olivia was already typing. “Seriously, you should let me set you up with some private dinner gigs. I know at least three people who would pay real money for this.”

“Liv—”

“I’m just saying. You’re too good to not be cooking for people.” She hit post and slid the plate onto the coffee table with a flourish.

“Rude, but okay,” Jasper sniffed. “How ‘bout you, gents?”

“How about a glass of that $15 bottle of wine you bought because it had a fancy-looking label?” Noah said dryly, already scanning the room for an empty surface to claim. He settled on the end of the couch that was most structurally sound—Noah had strong opinions about Emma’s furniture, none of them positive.

“Ah! You know me all too well!” Jasper went into the now-crowded kitchen in search of wine glasses. Emma’s apartment was what real estate agents called “charming” and what everyone else called “tiny”—a railroad layout where the kitchen bled into the living room, which bled into the bedroom, all of it connected by a narrow hallway that could accommodate roughly one and a half human beings at a time. When all six of them were here, the apartment felt less like a living space and more like a ship’s galley during a particularly social storm. Emma loved it. She’d furnished the place with an eclectic mix of hand-me-downs and street finds—a loveseat she’d rescued from a stoop in Greenpoint, folding chairs she’d bought in bulk, and milk crates that served as both seating and storage depending on how desperate the evening got.

Jasper, who had lived this exact series of events enough times to announce his confusion in advance, began opening cabinets. Emma, who had lived it enough times to know he was coming, proactively shouted the location of the wine glasses before he could ask.

Jasper poured the wine—generously, as always—and handed out the glasses. Olivia, doing a quick count, asked, “What about Elijah?”

Before Jasper could say something sarcastic, Oliver jumped in. “He had a report to file before the end of the day. Said he’d head over as soon as that was done.”

“And you’re just telling me now? Also, it’s Sunday!” Olivia retorted.

“Yeah, guy never stops working,” Noah chimed in. “He needs to find work-life balance. He’s too caught up in that hustle culture; it’s gonna catch up with him.”

Not wanting to hear Jasper and Noah argue about hustle culture—a debate they’d had at least four times, always with the same talking points and the same inconclusive ending—Olivia changed the subject. “A toast!” she exclaimed, holding her half-full glass of wine aloft and staring pointedly at Oliver to follow suit. He raised his glass, then looked at Jasper and Noah, nodding for them to do the same.

“To Ems!” Olivia said, pushing her glass higher.

The men responded in unison with a mix of names for their host, a messy, affectionate chorus. “To Emma!” “To Ems!” “To Mama E!”

Emma turned around from the stove, a genuine smile on her face—the first one that had felt easy all day. “Thanks, guys, but seriously, I don’t need any of that. Just relax and enjoy Liv’s beautiful presentation with your very exclusive vintage.” She winked at Jasper, who winked back.

The guests settled into the living room, finding their usual spots in the geography of Emma’s furniture. Oliver and Olivia shared the loveseat, Oliver’s arm draped behind her with the comfort of seven years of marriage. Noah claimed the structurally questionable end of the couch. Jasper sprawled across a folding chair in a way that suggested he believed furniture was merely a suggestion.

Emma continued with dinner, occasionally bringing a tasting spoon into the living room to let her friends try her work. The squash soup was warming on the stove—velvety, rich, and transformed by the drizzle of Hank’s hot sauce she’d stirred in that afternoon. The root vegetables were turning golden in the oven, filling the apartment with the smell of browned butter and thyme. The conversation flowed the way it always did with these five: overlapping, circling back, branching into tangents that sometimes lasted twenty minutes before someone remembered what they’d originally been talking about. They shared stories of work, bad dates, and the news, though whenever they circled back to the news, they inevitably agreed to change the topic. Nobody wanted to ruin a Sunday.

Jasper’s wine was running low, and Noah seized the opportunity to introduce his own bottle. It was from a sustainable vineyard in the Finger Lakes that grew organic, sulfur-free wines. He was explaining the biodynamic farming process with the enthusiasm of someone who’d just discovered a new religion when Jasper interrupted to let Noah know, with great compassion, that they didn’t care.

Oliver added in the background that most new wine-growing regions were the result of tax policy rather than changing weather patterns, in the tone of a man resigned to nobody hearing him. At least one person did. Olivia looked over and mouthed “thank you, babe” while Jasper and Noah were fake fighting over whether sulfites were a government conspiracy.

Olivia, tired of their typical banter, interrupted with a loud call to the chef, “Everything alright in there?”

“Soup’s ready,” Emma announced, ladling it into bowls. She set one in front of each of them—the butternut squash, silky and golden, with a thin ribbon of deep red heat swirled across the surface. “Try it before I tell you anything.”

Jasper went first. He took a big spoonful, paused, and looked up. “Ems. What is in this?”

“Just try it.”

He did. “Holy shit.”

Olivia was next. She closed her eyes after the first taste and made a sound that was somewhere between appreciation and disbelief. “Emma, this is… what is that? There’s this heat, but it’s not just heat. It’s like… smoky? And there’s something sweet underneath?”

“It blooms,” Oliver said quietly, having already had two spoonfuls. He was studying the soup the way he studied everything—carefully, seriously. “The heat doesn’t hit you immediately. It builds.”

Even Noah, who had been about to say something about the wine, stopped mid-sentence after his first taste. “Okay. Yeah. That’s really good.”

Emma watched them eat and felt something loosen in her chest. This was the reaction she’d been hoping for. She reached behind her on the counter and held up the bottle—small, no printed label, just Hank’s careful cursive: Heritage Pepper Sauce - Small Batch - Hank.

“This is from a guy named Hank who sells at the farmers markets. Or he did.” She set the bottle on the counter. “He makes it from a pepper his great-grandmother brought north from Virginia in the twenties. A Fish Pepper—heirloom variety, impossible to find commercially. He’s been at McCarren every Saturday, McGolrick every Sunday, for three years. He does this whole theatrical pitch, waves a tasting spoon around like a conductor’s baton. You’d love him.”

She paused. “He’s gone. Both markets, just—gone. Stall’s empty. Phone goes to voicemail. The honey vendor next to him said he seemed off the last time she saw him, and then he gave up both stalls overnight. No explanation.” She picked up the bottle again. “Dorothy—that’s the honey lady—said he gave her this and told her his great-grandmother would’ve wanted her peppers shared. ‘Just in case.’ She gave it to me this morning.”

The room was quiet. The soup steamed in their bowls.

“In case of what?” Olivia asked.

“That’s what I said. She didn’t know.”

Olivia set down her spoon. “No, I just mean… you aren’t really you today. Everything okay? I know life’s been a bit… messy lately.” The men quieted down, as if they’d wanted to ask the same question but hadn’t trusted themselves to navigate the emotional terrain.

Their entire time in New York, Emma had worked in kitchens. Inconvenient hours, difficult shifts—they knew it weighed on her, but they were all pretty shocked when she told them she’d quit three weeks ago. After all, it’s New York City. You don’t just not have a job. Not unless you had a plan, or a safety net, or a trust fund—and Emma had none of the above.

“Don’t worry about it,” Emma responded, turning back to the stove. She adjusted the flame under the root vegetables, checking their edges. “The kitchen just needs lookin’ at.” The sudden shift into her blunt, Western Pennsylvania dialect was a clear sign to her closest friends that she wasn’t fine at all. Emma only talked like that when she was either very drunk or very stressed, and she’d only had half a glass of Noah’s questionable wine.

“Yeah?” Olivia responded softly, trying to leave space for Emma to continue.

“Honestly!”

“Honestly, it sounds like you’re, I don’t know, kind of stressed,” Jasper interjected. “You know I’ve got you if you need. Just, like, let me know.” His voice had shifted—the performative chaos dialed down to something warmer, more genuine. It was the Jasper that surfaced in small moments, the one his friends sometimes forgot was underneath all the noise.

Emma picked up the bottle of hot sauce and turned it over in her hands. “It’s not just about me. It’s this—” she held up the bottle. “This guy put four generations of his family into this sauce. His great-grandmother’s peppers. And now he’s just… gone. And his stall is empty, and this might be the last bottle of it that exists.” She set it down. “I know it sounds ridiculous. A missing hot sauce vendor. But something’s wrong, and I can’t stop thinking about it.”

She went to sip her glass of wine, had a visceral reaction, and threw it in the sink. “Can I choose the next wine?”

“YES!” Everyone but Noah responded in unison.