Page 133 of The New Couple in 5B

He looks off over at the playground, where shouts and laughter ring out and leaves fall.

“Any word from Olivia?” I ask gently.

He shakes his head. “I just follow her on Instagram now.”

After her abduction, Olivia decided she needed to take a break. She admitted to Max that she’d never stopped loving Chad. She never wanted to practice law, was only doing it to please her family. So she quit her big job, sold her apartment and left the city to go on a “vision quest” as she put it on social media. The last I saw, she was helping to build a school in rural Guatemala. The smile on her face reminded me of the one she wore in the picture I saw in her drawer. I’m glad she’s happy, and I’m sad for Max, who clearly cared for her. He’s been meeting girls on Torch, the popular dating app. But so far, no love connection.

I give him a peck on the cheek. “Love is right around the corner,” I tell him.

“Is that a prophecy? Did you read my cards?”

I smile at him. “Just a guess.”

“I’ll take it.”

I’m walking the short distance home, hustling up Park Avenue, when the phone rings. I’m surprised to see it’s Chad’s agent, who never calls me unless he can’t reach Chad and something big is happening.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hey, Rosie, sorry to trouble you but are you with Chad?”

“No,” I say. “But I’m on my way to meet him at home.”

“I’ve been trying to reach him, but my calls go straight to voice mail. The showrunner needs to talk to him and hasn’t been able to get him since he left the set yesterday.”

“Oh,” I say. Yesterday?

I feel a familiar flutter of unease.

“When you see him, can you have him give me a call?”

“Of course,” I say. As far as I knew, Chad was still on set yesterday.

I check the location app now and see that he’s at home. I pick up my pace.

Chuck, the new doorman, is not at the desk when I enter the building. I check the mail and press the button to call the new self-operated elevator and press the button for floor five. We’ll be paying off the assessment for years, and I miss the romance of that old elevator. But the privacy is worth it.

The doors open, and I take a quick step back.

Lilian, looking gaunt and angular, angry.

We face each other for a moment. She tried to buy us out of the apartment, but we declined. Now Charles and Ella’s place is languishing on the market.

I expect her to glare at me, but instead she offers an unkind smile that reminds me of her mother. I flash on Lilian at the theater, in the photos with my husband. Chad admits now that he met her before he told me, but swears that he has always been faithful. It’s something we’re working on in therapy—honesty. How omissions are lies.

Needless to say, Lilian never called my agent for film rights, nor did her husband offer Chad a role in his new film. He still claims she was only there on his opening night to scout him for her husband. Whatever she saw didn’t impress. I look forward to the day when I won’t run into her in this building again.

“Rosie,” she says, eyes lidded with dislike.

“Lilian.”

I brush past her, and catch the whiff of her cologne. The elevator reeks of it as the doors close.

Chad’s waiting for me at the apartment door, looking sexily tousled. His hair is longer, and he’s a bit beefier with the weight he’s gained for the role of Detective Jones Cooper. And I’m so happy to see him after our days apart that I forget all about the call and his agent.

I’m about to tell him about my encounter with Lilian. But he sweeps me off my feet the moment I cross the threshold and kisses me deep. It quickly heats up, and then we’re tearing at each other’s clothes. It’s our window for baby making, and nothing keeps us from it. Soon, we are a tangle of limbs, and I lose myself to love and pleasure, and my still-fervent desire to have a child with my husband, every dark thing forgotten.

It’s nearing dusk when we’re spent and lying side by side. I listen to the beating of his heart, and relish the warmth of his skin.

---