Paul Rice appeared in her doorway. He was dressed in a beautifully tailored suit with a crisp white shirt. He looked, Mindy noted, expensive. More like a sophisticated European as opposed to an ink-stained mathematician. But mathematicians wouldn’t be ink-stained anymore.

They did their work on computers, like everyone else.

Mindy stood up and leaned over the desk to shake his hand. “Hello, Paul,” she said. “This is a surprise. Have a seat.” She gestured to the small armchair in front of her desk.

“I don’t have long,” Paul said. He pointedly held out his wrist and looked at his watch, a large vintage gold Rolex. “Exactly seven minutes, to be precise. Which should be the amount of time it takes my driver to circle the block.”

“Not at four-thirty in the afternoon,” Mindy disagreed. “It will take him at least fifteen minutes in rush-hour traffic.”

Paul Rice stared at her, saying nothing.

Mindy began to feel slightly excited. “What can I do for you?” she asked. Since she’d met Paul at the board meeting, it had crept up on her that she was secretly affected by him. She found him sexy. Mindy had always been a sucker for a man of genius, and Paul Rice was rumored to be one. Plus, there was all his money. Money didn’t matter, but men who made a lot of it were always interesting.

“I need those air conditioners,” he said.

“Now, Paul,” Mindy said, sounding slightly schoolmarmish to her own ears. She leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs and began picturing herself as a Mrs. Robinson type. She smiled. “I thought I explained this in my letter. One Fifth is a landmark building. We’re not allowed to alter the face or the structure of the building in any way.”

“What does that have to do with me?” Paul said, narrowing his eyes.

“It means you can’t have in-the-wall air-conditioning units. No one can,”

Mindy said.

“An exception will have to be made.”

“I can’t do that,” Mindy said. “It’s illegal.”

“I have a lot of expensive computer equipment. I need to keep my apartment at a precise temperature.”

“And what would that be?” Mindy said.

“Sixty-four point two degrees.”

“I’d like to help you, Paul, but I can’t.”

“How much money will it take?” Paul asked.

“Are you suggesting a bribe?”

“Call it whatever you like,” Paul said. “I need my air conditioners. And the parking spot in the Mews. Let’s make this as easy as possible for both of us. Name your price.”

“Paul,” Mindy said slowly. “This is not about money.”

“Everything is about money. It’s all about numbers.”

“In your world, maybe. But not in One Fifth,” Mindy said in her most patronizing tone. “It’s about preserving a historical landmark. That’s something money can’t buy.”

Paul remained impassive. “I paid twenty million dollars for that apartment,” he said. “So you will approve my air conditioners.” He looked at his watch again and stood up.

“No,” Mindy said. “I will not.” She stood up as well.

“In that case,” Paul said, taking a step closer, “it’s war.”

Mindy gasped involuntarily. She knew she should have sent the Rices the official letter denying the air conditioners weeks ago, when they’d first presented their plans for the renovation, but she’d liked having an excuse to talk about something with Paul when she ran into him in the lobby. But this was not how the game was supposed to play out. “Excuse me?” she asked. “Are you threatening me?”

“I never threaten anyone, Mrs. Gooch,” Paul said, emotionless. “I merely state the facts. If you don’t approve my air conditioners, it’s war.

And I will win.”

10

“Look,” Enid Merle said the next afternoon. “Schiffer Diamond’s new TV series premiered with a two point oh share. And four million viewers.”

“Is that good?” Philip asked.

“It’s the highest cable opening in history.”

“Oh, Nini,” Philip said. “Why do you pay attention to these things?”

“Why don’t you?” Enid asked. “Anyway, it’s a hit.”

“I’ve read the reviews,” Philip said. SCHIFFER DIAMOND SHINES, declared one. DIAMOND IS FOREVER, gushed another.

“Schiffer is a star,” Enid said. “She always was, and she always will be.”

She put down Variety. “I do wish ...”

“No, Nini,” Philip said firmly, knowing what she was getting at. “It’s not going to happen.”

“But Schiffer is so ...”

“Wonderful?” Philip said with an edge of sarcasm. Enid looked hurt.

“I know you adore her,” Philip said. “But it’s impossible to be with an actress. You know that.”

“But you’ve both grown up,” Enid countered. “And I’d hate to see you...”

“End up with Lola?” Philip said. It could happen. Lola was crazy about him. “I wish you’d try to get to know her a little better. It would mean a lot to me.”

“We’ll see,” Enid said.

Philip went back to his apartment. Lola was curled up on the couch, watching TV. “Where were you?” she asked.

“Visiting my aunt.”

“But you just saw her yesterday.”

Philip felt snappish. “You call your mother every day.”

“But she’s my mother.”

Philip went into his office and closed the door. After a couple of minutes, he got up from his desk, opened the door, and stuck his head out.

“Lola,” he said. “Can you please turn down that damn TV?”

“Why?”

“I’m trying to work,” he said.

“So?” She yawned.

“I’ve got a rewrite due in four days. If I don’t get it finished, we don’t start shooting on time.”

“What’s the problem?” she asked. “They’ll wait. You’re Philip Oakland.

They have to wait.”

“No, they do not,” Philip said. “It’s called a contract, Lola. It’s called being an adult and honoring your commitments. It’s called people are counting on you to produce.”

“Then write,” she said. “What’s stopping you?”

“You are,” he said.

“All I’m doing is sitting here. Watching TV.”

“That’s the point. I can’t concentrate with the TV on.”

“Why should I have to stop doing what I want to do so you can do what you want to do?”

“What I have to do.”

“If you don’t want to do it, if it doesn’t make you happy, then don’t do it,” Lola said.

“I need you to turn off the TV. Or at least turn it down.”

“Why are you criticizing me?”

Philip gave up. He closed the door. Opened it again. “You need to do some work, too,” he said. “Why don’t you go to the library?”

“Because I just got a manicure. And a pedicure.” She held up a foot and wiggled her toes for his inspection. “Isn’t it pretty?” she asked in her baby-girl voice.

Philip went back to his desk. The noise from the TV continued unabated. He put his hands in his hair. How the fuck had this happened?

She’d taken over his apartment, his life, his concentration. His bathroom was littered with makeup. She never put the cap back on the toothpaste.

Or bought toilet paper. When the toilet paper ran out, she used paper towels. And stared at him accusingly, as if he had fallen down on the job of making her life easy. Every one of her days was a never-ending orgy of pampering. There were hairstyling appointments and massages and exercise classes in obscure Asian martial arts. It was, she explained, all in preparation for some great, future, unnamed, and undefined event that would inevitably happen to her and would change her life, for which she needed to be ready. Camera-ready. And he couldn’t get her to go home.

“You could go back to your apartment,” he’d suggest.

“But your apartment is so much nicer than mine.”

“Your apartment is so much nicer than most twentysomethings’,” he’d point out. “Some of them live in the outer reaches of Brooklyn. Or New Jersey. They have to cross the river by ferry.”

“What are you saying, Philip? That it’s my fault? Am I supposed to feel guilty about other people’s lives? I don’t have anything to do with their lives. It doesn’t make sense.”

He tried to explain that one ought to feel guilty about other people’s hardships and struggles because that was how decent people felt about the world, it was called a conscience, but when pressed by her, he had to admit that feeling guilty was a legacy of his generation, not hers. She was, she explained, a child of choice — her parents chose to have her. Unlike previous generations in which parents, like his mother, didn’t have a choice about having kids, and therefore made their children feel guilty about coming into the world. As if it were the kid’s fault!

Sometimes it was like trying to argue with someone from another planet.

He got up and opened the door again. “Lola!” he said.

“What is wrong with you?” she said. “I haven’t done anything. You’re in a bad mood because your writing isn’t going well. Don’t you dare blame that on me. I won’t tolerate it.” She got up.

“Where are you going?” he said.

“Out.”

“Fine,” he said. He shut the door. But now he did feel guilty. She was right, she hadn’t done anything wrong. And he was in a bad mood. About what, he didn’t know.

He opened the door. She was carefully sliding her feet into ballet flats.

“You don’t have to go.”

“I’m going,” she said.

“When are you coming back?”

“I have no idea.” And she left.

In the elevator, Lola checked her Facebook page. Sure enough, there was a message from Thayer Core. He left her messages regularly, although she rarely responded. From her Facebook page, he’d found out she was from Atlanta and, from the photos she’d posted, seemed to think she was a party girl. “Hey Southern Girl,” he’d written. “Let’s hook up.” “Why?” she’d texted back. “Because you’re crazy about me,” he wrote. “All girls are.”