The View from Sixty-One

You answer on the fourth ring, because you want him to wait for it.

"Cute," Bryce says.

Not hello. Not what have you done. Just cute, in the voice he uses for junior analysts who bring him ideas.

"Hello, Bryce."

"Delaune? Really?" He laughs. It's a real laugh, which is the worst part. "God, Ava. If you wanted attention you could have just said so. I'd have taken you to dinner."

"You had five anniversaries to take me to dinner."

"I took you to dinner every year."

You think of the dinners. The good restaurant on the Upper East Side, his phone face-down on the cloth like a promise he broke by dessert. The folder he always brought. One more thing, sweetheart. Trust paperwork. Family stuff. You signed it next to the bread basket without looking, because he was your husband and he said it was boring.

"Here's what happens," Bryce says. "You come home by dinner. Our lawyers call it a stunt, a misunderstanding, whatever. Delaune gets his headline and we all move on."

"I'm not coming home."

"It's not your home, technically." He's still amused. "You signed it away. Remember?"

"You didn't read what I signed."

A pause. Very short.

"Come home, Ava."

You hang up on him. Your hand is shaking. You've never hung up on anyone in your life.

The big silent driver glances at you in the rearview mirror. He has a shaved head, a jaw like a cinder block and a scar through one eyebrow.

"Good," he says. It's the first word he's spoken.

"Thank you. I'm sorry, I don't know your name."

"Radek."

"Thank you, Radek."

He nods once, satisfied, and turns up Park Avenue.

Your phone rings again before you reach Fiftieth Street. Not Bryce. A Connecticut number.

"Is this Ava Halden? Delaune, I suppose now." The voice is old, female and sharp as a filing cabinet. "Theodora Ruskin. Northeast Teachers' Retirement Fund. We met at three of your husband's Christmas parties. You were the only person who asked me about my grandchildren."

You remember her. Steel-gray hair, a cane she used like a weapon. "Of course, Mrs. Ruskin."

"My fund has two point one billion dollars invested with Halden Group," she says. "And this morning the CEO divorced his wife in four minutes and she married his worst enemy before lunch. So I'm calling to ask you, not him: is Bryce all right?"

You open your mouth to say I don't know. Then you realize nobody has asked you a real question about Halden Group since you quit the credit desk five years ago.

"I don't know what he's all right with anymore," you say carefully. "I'm sorry. That's the truth."

"Hm." A long silence. "That's more truth than I've had from that building in a year. I'll call you again."

She hangs up. Before you can put the phone down, it rings again. A family office in Greenwich. Then a man from a Dutch insurance fund who says your name like he isn't sure which one to use.

By the time the car pulls into the underground garage of Delaune Tower, you've had seven calls from Halden investors and four from reporters, and Bryce has texted twice.

This isn't funny anymore.

Answer me.

The elevator is private and goes up for a long time.

The penthouse on the 61st floor is glass on three sides, all of Manhattan laid out like a map someone forgot to fold. It's beautiful and almost empty: pale wood floors, a long gray couch, a kitchen that looks unused, a chessboard on a low table with every piece in its starting square and a film of dust on the king.

"Nobody plays," Max says, following your eyes. "It came with the apartment. Like me."

Before you can ask what that means, the elevator opens again and a whirlwind walks out.

"Where is she?" A young woman with dark curls, scarlet lipstick and four garment bags over one arm. She has Max's gray eyes and none of his patience. "Oh, my God. You're real. I saw the photos and I thought he'd paid an actress."

"My sister," Max says. "Josette. She dresses people for a living and believes it entitles her to dress everyone."

"It does." Josette drops the bags on the couch and takes both your hands. "He called me at ten after twelve and said, 'I got married, she has one dress, fix it.' Max doesn't call me. Max doesn't get married. Max doesn't say 'she' like that." She turns your face to the light. "Okay. Yes. I understand everything now."

"Josette."

"I'm leaving. I'm leaving." She kisses your cheek. "Welcome to the family. It's small and rude. You'll love it."

Your room is at the end of a long hall. Big bed, white sheets, a lock on the inside of the door, exactly as the contract promised.

You go to the window and stop breathing.

Directly across Park Avenue, close enough to see the brand of the lamp on his desk, is Halden Tower. The 52nd floor. Bryce's corner office.

The light is on. He's standing at his own window with his phone at his ear, looking up.

Looking, you realize, straight at Delaune Tower.

You pull the curtain.

Dinner is Thai food in cartons at the kitchen island, because Max can't cook and doesn't pretend to.

"So," you say. "House rules."

"There aren't any."

"There are always rules."

"Not here." He hands you chopsticks. "Eat when you want. Come and go when you want. Radek drives you wherever you like. If you want me to disappear, I'm very good at disappearing."

"And Schedule B?"

"By Friday." He watches you. "What do you like for breakfast?"

You blink. "What?"

"Breakfast. Tomorrow. What do you want?"

Nobody has asked you that in five years. You hear yourself say, "Eggs. Soft. Toast with too much butter. Coffee with cream, no sugar," and he nods like he's committing it to memory, like it matters.

At ten you go to your room. You lock the door because the contract says you can, and then you feel silly and unlock it, and then you lie on the white bed in the dark, wide awake, listening to a city that finally sounds like it's yours.

At 10:47 your phone lights up on the pillow.

An unknown number. You open it.

Mrs. Delaune. Your ex is in my lobby. Shall I let him wait?