Page 18 of The New Couple in 5B

He goes on, “Everyone loved your proposal, Rosie. Your changes were spectacular—the Windermere, wow, what a scary place.”

The encounter in the basement comes back to me. I put my hand to my head; it’s still tender.

“Rosie?” says Max. He takes off his glasses, puts a hand on my arm.

“More good news,” I say, my voice sounding falsely bright to my own ears. “Uncle Ivan left us his apartment. We’re actually moving in at the end of the week.”

His reaction is not what I expected. He freezes for a second, and then looks stricken. Kind of like he looked when I told him I was marrying Chad.Wait, you’remarryinghim? I thought it was just a fling.

And I thought you’d be happy for me, I’d said then, wounded. To be truthful, I never imagined that he’d be overjoyed that I was marrying Chad. There’s always been an undercurrent between Max and me. So while I didn’t think he’d behappy, much in the way I wasn’t exactly thrilled when he was seeing someone, I hoped he’d at least be friend enough to fake it.

I am. It’s just—Chad. He’s kind of a player, isn’t he?

What is that supposed to mean? You don’t even know him.

We didn’t talk for a couple of days after that, but in the end our friendship was too important to each of us to let it drift. He apologized, celebrated with us at our wedding and has never said another bad word about my husband.

The small orchestra starts tuning, that thrilling flutter of winds and strings. I have butterflies in my stomach for Chad, but Max’s face gone pale is a distraction.

“You’re movingintothe Windermere?” he says.

“We inherited Ivan’s apartment,” I say, keeping my voice low, my eyes on him. “So, yeah. I mean, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

“You could sell it,” he says. “It’s probably worth a fortune.”

I’m surprised at a powerful rise of resistance, even though of course we’ve discussed and considered it as anyone would. “I—we—don’twantto sell it.”

“But Rosie, its history,” he says, worry etching around his eyes. “All those murders. Those suicides.”

I push out a laugh, annoyed now, disappointed in his reaction. “I thought you didn’t believe in ghost stories.”

“I don’t,” he says. “But I believe in energy—good and bad. The Windermere has—a dark past.”

Another flash on the incident in the basement—what happened, really? The lights went out; I panicked; saw something that wasn’t there. Right?

“That’s irrational,” I say, partially to myself. “Bad things happen everywhere. Especially in this city. Is the sidewalk out in front of the restaurant cursed now because we saw an accident there?”

He seems to consider this, looks down at his Playbill.

“I thought you’d be happy for us,” I say when he says nothing.

I can tell he hears the echo of our last friendship-threatening conversation about my life choices. Max presses his mouth closed, as if he’s physically trying to shut himself up.

“I am,” he says with a hand on my arm and an apology in his eyes. “Of course I am.”

He laughs a little. “See,” he says, pulling me in and giving me a squeeze around the shoulders. “That’s how good your proposal was. You scared the bejeezus out of a nonbeliever like me.”

An awkward silence swells between us. I look around the buzzing theater. It’s packed, with the usual eclectic mix of Manhattan artsy types, young and old, swanky and grungy, tattooed, pierced, bejeweled. My eyes fall on a woman in the front row across the aisle, her eyes heavily ringed in dark shadow, her bare arms sinewy thin, wrists bangled in silver, clad in a slim black tunic. She’s staring at me. I offer her a smile, but she just watches me another moment, then turns back toward the stage. She reminds me of someone. Do I know her?

“Hey,” says Max, drawing my attention back. “I’msorry. I’m happy for you. Truly. I can’t wait to hang out in your haunted apartment.”

I give him a look, but then we both start to laugh.

He’s right. The proposal—itisdark. Truthfully, I’m not certain that I would have chosen to live at the Windermere, either. But that’s life, right? A twisting helix of choice and chance. Sometimes you choose, but only within the constructs of your current situation. Anyway, it’s short-term. I’ll write my book, and after a while we’ll sell, make a fortune and then move out to the burbs to raise a family like everyone else.

And—p.s.—despite my upbringing, I’m with Ivan. I don’t believe in ghosts.

The houselights go down and the music solidifies. The curtain draws back, and the play begins. It’s thrilling—the darkness of the theater, and the wild production ofMacbeth—alive with gorgeous costumes, the quirky but excellent and original score, the talent of the actors. In a pre-opening review,The Stagehad called it “a fresh, exciting and darkly funny rendering of a Shakespearean classic.” And so it is.

---