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She checks it and gives what sounds like a sigh of relief. “ Merci. Putain , he’s here. I have to go.” Then she turns and looks up at theapartment building. “You know what? Fuck this evil place.” Then her expression softens and she blows a kiss toward the windows above us. “But at least one good thing happened to me here.”
    She pulls up the handle of the little case then turns and begins stalking toward the gate.
    I hurry after her. “What do you mean, evil?”
    She glances at me and shakes her head, mimes zippering her lips. “I want my money, from the divorce.”
    Then she’s out onto the street and climbing into the cab. As it pulls away, off into the night, I realize I never managed
     to ask whether what she had with my brother was ever more than a flirtation.
    Â 
    I turn back toward the courtyard and nearly jump out of my skin. Jesus Christ. There’s an old woman standing there, looking
     at me. She seems to glow with a cold white light, like something off Most Haunted . But after I’ve caught my breath, I realize it’s because she’s standing beneath the outdoor lamp. Where the hell did she
     appear from?
    â€œ Excuse-moi? ” I say. “ Madame? ” I’m not even sure what I want to ask her. Who are you , maybe? What are you doing here?
    She doesn’t answer. She simply shakes her head at me, very slowly. Then she’s retreating backward, toward that cabin in the
     corner of the courtyard. I watch as she disappears inside. As the shutters—which I see now must have been open—are quickly
     drawn closed.

Saturday
Nick
    Second floor
    I lean forward onto the handlebars of the Peloton bike, standing up in the saddle for the incline. There’s sweat running into
     my eyes, stinging. My lungs feel like they’re full of acid, not air, my heart hammering so hard it feels like I might be about
     to have a heart attack. I pedal harder. I want to push beyond anything I’ve done before. Tiny stars dance at the edges of
     my vision. The apartment around me seems to shift and blur. For a moment I think I’m going to pass out. Maybe I do—next thing
     I know I’m slumped forward over the handlebars and the mechanism is whirring down. I’m hit by a sudden rush of nausea. I force
     it down, take huge gulps of air.
    I got into spinning in San Francisco. And bulletproof coffee, keto, Bikram—pretty much any other fad the rest of the tech
     world was into, in case it provided any extra edge, any additional source of inspiration. Normally I’d sit here and do a class,
     or listen to a Ted Talk. This morning wasn’t like that. I wanted to lose myself in pure exertion, push through to a place
     where thought was silenced. I woke just after five a.m. , but I knew I wasn’t going to sleep, especially during that fight in the courtyard, the latest—and worst—of many. Getting
     on the bike seemed like the only thing that made sense.
    I climb down from the saddle, a little unsteadily. The bike is one of the few items in this room besides my iMac and my books. Nothing up on the walls. No rugs on the floor. Partly because I like the whole minimal aesthetic. Partly because I still feel like I haven’t really moved in, because I like the idea that I could up and leave at any moment.
    I pull the headphones out of my ears. It sounds like things have quieted down out there in the courtyard. I walk over to the
     window, the muscles in my calves twitching.
    I can’t see anything at first. Then my eye snags on a movement and I see there’s a girl down there, opening the door to the
     building. There’s something familiar about her, about the way she moves. Difficult to put my finger on, but my mind gropes
     around as if for a forgotten word.
    Now I see the lights come on in the apartment on the third floor. I watch her move into my line of sight. And I know that
     she has to be something to