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corner of the sofa, her legs crossed over one another, wearing jeans and a blue sweater. Her dark eyes flitted weightlessly as she laughed with Jeremy. I had never seen her smile before, at least not beyond the cursory upturn at the edges of her lips as we passed each other in the hallway. But now her smile transformed her, as if she had grown taller or changed her hair color or something. Her cheeks popped with dimples; her lips seemed redder and softer against the backdrop of her white teeth. Damn, she was cute.
    Jeremy and L. Nash looked up at me as if I were a parent intruding upon a slumber party. “Hello?” I said, my tone betraying my confusion. What I wanted to say was “Jeremy, how the hell did you get L. Nash into my apartment and sitting on my couch?”
    L. Nash must have seen the confusion on my face because she offered an explanation. “Jeremy was having a little problem with the TV,” she said. “So I came over to help.”
    â€œProblem with the TV?” I said.
    â€œMaybe the TV did not work right,” Jeremy said, his face shifting back to his normal flat affect.
    â€œJeremy hit the wrong button,” L. Nash said. “He pushed the input button by mistake.”
    â€œMaybe I just pushed the wrong button,” Jeremy said.
    â€œI'm sorry, Buddy,” I said. I had made that mistake a few times myself, accidentally switching the internal input from DVD to VCR, causing the TV to explode with a noisy white static, which had to be a personal hell for Jeremy. “So how did he…I mean who…”
    â€œMaybe Lila fixed it,” Jeremy said.
    â€œLila.” I said, letting the name rest on the tip of my tongue for a bit. So that's what the L stood for. “I'm Joe, and you've obviously met my brother Jeremy.”
    â€œYeah,” Lila said. “Jeremy and I are good friends already.”
    Jeremy had turned his attention back to his movie, paying no more mind to Lila than he did the wall behind him. Like the idiot I was—a condition often exacerbated by the presence of a female—I decided that my next move would be to rescue Lila from Jeremy, to show her a seat at the adult table, impress her with my wit and charm, and sweep her off her feet. At least, that was my plan.
    â€œAre you surprised that I'm not a serial killer,” I said.
    â€œSerial killer?” Lila looked up at me, confused.
    â€œLast night…you…um…called me Jeffrey Dahmer.”
    â€œOh…I forgot.” She smiled a half smile, and I scrambled to find a new topic of conversation, having missed the mark with my attempt at humor. “So what do you do when you're not fixing televisions?”
    â€œI'm a student at the U.” Her words slid slowly from her mouth to punctuate that she knew damn well that I knew she was a student. We had passed each other on the stairs many times with textbooks in our hands. Yet, as lame as my overture had been, I had to view it as progress because we were having our first real conversation. I often timed my entrances and exits from the building to coincide with hers—at least to the point where it didn't come across as creepy—and I could no more get her to talk to me than I could mix sunlight with shade. But there we were having a conversation, all because Jeremy hit the wrong button.
    â€œThanks for helping him out,” I said. “I really appreciate it.”
    â€œJust being neighborly,” she said and started to stand up.
    She was going to leave; I didn't want her to leave. “Let me show you my appreciation,” I said. “Maybe I could take you out to dinner orsomething.” My words fell heavy to the ground as soon as they left my mouth.
    Lila curled one of her hands into the other, shrugged her shoulders, and said, “That's okay.” Her geniality faded like a toy succumbing to a dead battery, her eyes no longer weightless, her dimples gone. It was as though my words