Chapter 15: Her Name Alone

Sal's text sat on my phone all night, and I did not answer it.

I typed that I was sorry about the round, and deleted it, because I could not tell who the apology was for.

The money was Dario's problem now, and the lie on his slide was his to explain.

I looked at two apartments that Saturday, and Donovan drove me to both.

He had not offered to help. He had said, "I'm headed that way," about a neighborhood he had no reason to visit.

The first was a clean one-bedroom in a new building with a doorman and a gym.

The second was a two-bedroom on the third floor of an old brick building in Windsor Terrace.

It had a crooked kitchen and a radiator under the front window that clanked every few minutes.

I stood in the front room for a long time.

"Which one?" Donovan asked from the doorway.

I waited for the usual thing, where someone tells me what's sensible.

"You can say it," I said. "I know the doorman one is better on paper."

"I didn't ask what's better on paper. I asked which one."

"This one."

"Then it's this one," he said, and went to the landing to call the super.

He did not add a word.

I stood in the clanking room and noticed that I had said what I wanted and the room had not tilted. I had been sure it would.

The broker was a tired man with a clipboard and a coffee stain on his tie.

"Names for the lease?"

"One."

"Just the one? You'd get a better rate with a roommate."

"Just mine."

I wrote it out in block capitals, Justine Halstead, and it took up most of the line.

I had never seen it alone on a page before.

That evening my cousin and her fiance arrived in a borrowed van with my five labeled boxes.

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