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ever being a Hope and Elliot, the happy couple so destined to be together, so clearly, clearly right for each other. Other than the fact that I have a boyfriend, and the fact that Elliot generally doesn’t notice me, there is the fact that Elliot has a girlfriend, Claire.
    Claire. Claire. Anyone who grew up in the eighties, anyone who was raised on John Hughes movies knows that Claire is a fat girl’s name.
    I turn away from the Rothko and begin to gather my things. Usually, on days when the sky is not so clearly about to fall, I don’t leave work so early. No one leaves work this early. Elliot, I think, never leaves work, ever. On top of being intense and sexy and deep and meaningful and really very handsome, Elliot is also quite diligent. Try as I might to get to work ahead of him, I never have. As late as I have toiled at times into the night, Elliot has always stayed later. It’s actually almost annoying enough to make me not head over heels in lust with him. But not quite.
    Today though, I want to leave at 5:30, because I have dinner at The Union Club with squash-playing fiancé at 8:00, and I just really feel that I need to go home and chill out for an hour or two, need to, you know, give myself a minute. I think it’s important sometimes to give yourself a minute. Because it’s so early and everyone’s so busy, I don’t say good night to anyone, not even to Elliot. Well, especially not to Elliot. I shut down my computer and slip silently out the door.

    At Eighty-sixth and Central Park West, I get off the crosstown bus and head down to Eighty-fifth Street, then toward Columbus. In the distance, I can see the steps that lead up to my brownstone. I look at those steps and I smile in spite of myself, in spite of my belief that, among other things, I may never live to see the other side of this speech. I’ve always loved that my building has outdoor steps; loved this more I imagine than you’d think a person would.
    I speed up and soon enough I’m walking up the beloved outdoor steps and then up the three flights of interior stairs. The interior stairs are far less beloved: they are actually a bit skanky. I unlock the door to my apartment and walk in. I let out a breath I didn’t even realize I’d been holding, and look around at the familiar room. This is good right now, I think, as I shut the door behind me. I inhale the lingering scent of the Soku Lime relaxation candle I was burning at some point over the weekend, before today happened, before I had any idea how much I really needed to relax. I put my bag down on the floor by the door and cross the room to put my keys in the dish on my mantelpiece. It’s an unspoken agreement I have with my apartment: if I leave the keys on top of the mantelpiece I will find them again when I have to leave. If I put them anywhere else it will take me hours.
    I rest my hand on the mantelpiece and look down at the white-painted bricks that were put in place, sometime long before I got here, to board up the fireplace. Like many brownstone-dwelling Upper West Siders, I have the ubiquitous “decorative” fireplace. “Decorative,” on the Upper West Side means “doesn’t work.” I wonder if there is any symbolic significance to the fact that Evan and I both live on the Upper West Side.
    I look away from the boarded-up fireplace, stare instead for a moment at the wall. I do not have the ubiquitous Upper West Side exposed brick wall. Having never actually been a fan of the exposed brick wall, I’m really okay with that. What I do have are beautiful moldings and closet doors with proper handles. I have built-in bookcases and an archway that leads from the living room area of the apartment to the sleeping area of the apartment. In the front I have a bay window, and off the back of my kitchen, I have that ever-so-elusive element of New York real estate, outdoor space: a tiny balcony that has room enough for exactly two small folding chairs. I look out at the chairs,