The Grill Was Good

The Invitation

It was May. The season was over and it had been a good season. They had done the work and the work had been good and now it was finished.

Felice sent word. There would be a gathering. Sunday the seventeenth. One o’clock. The house on Scituate Street in Arlington. The garden behind the house where the light came in late afternoon and was good.

Jeannine would be at the grill.

That was the important thing. The others were details and the details would arrange themselves but Jeannine at the grill was the thing that mattered and everyone who had been before knew this without being told.

He read the invitation again. Bring food or drink to share. He thought about what to bring. He would bring something good. It was the least a man could do.

There were things they did not say in the invitation. They did not say how much the season had cost them or what it had taken to get through it or how many times in the dark months it had seemed like it might not come together. They did not say any of that. There was no need to say it. The people who were coming knew and the people who did not know would not have understood anyway.

They said: come to the garden. One o’clock. Bring something.

That was enough. That was all of it, really.

Jeannine worked the grill the way she always worked it. Without fuss. Without explanation. The smoke went up and the smell was good and people stood near the grill the way people always stood near a grill when the person working it knew what they were doing. Nobody said anything. There was nothing to say.

Someone handed him a drink. He took it.

Across the garden Felice was laughing at something. The Others were there — the ones who made it happen. The whole of the Magic Lab was there or would be there and the afternoon was long and nobody was in a hurry and this was right. This was the way it should be after a season like the one they’d had.

He looked at the grill. He looked at the smoke going up into the May afternoon.

It was good.

It was very good.

The Boston Magic Lab. 70 Scituate Street, Arlington. May 17, 2026. One o’clock. Rear garden. Bring something.