I wasn’t wearing much makeup, though I’d taken to painting the cat-eye swoop across my top lid like Lonnie. I’d spent a long night in front of the mirror perfecting the delicate technique on the quivering canvas. It was annoying to have her pick out this little detail I’d struggled over and label it as posturing.

We’d lived side by side for years, Sam and I, and in the end there was nothing there but that—just a shared address, an unwanted intimacy. I had nothing to say.

“I wish we could be friends,” I muttered, though I hardly meant it. What I really wanted was for her to be someone else. I didn’t really want anything from her at all.

All around us people were laughing, shouting over the music, grabbing onto one another. It all seemed obscene, being outside of it. A couple next to us started to kiss—lapping at each other’s mouths. A bunch of monkeys at the zoo.

“We are friends,” Sam said.

“Just better, I mean,” I stumbled. “I mean, I’m sorry.”

LATER THAT NIGHT THE SOUND CAME SHARP THROUGH MY OPEN window: a woman’s scream. Though it woke me, I was sure of what I’d heard. My back shot up straight, the sheet falling around my waist. I waited, but heard nothing else, nothing distinct. I strained my ears with anticipation and wondered if that faint rustling was hurried footsteps or merely pigeons on the roof. When I couldn’t stand it anymore I walked down the hall.

“Sam,” I whispered into her dark bedroom. “I heard a scream.”

“I didn’t hear anything,” she said, groaning. “Go back to bed.”

“It was a woman’s scream.”

“It’s a bad neighborhood,” she said, dismissing me.

I couldn’t go back to sleep. Instead, I checked all my jacket pockets and eventually fished out a loosey. I rarely smoked but there was sometimes one stale cigarette floating around my things, left over from an unremembered moment of indulgence or anxiety. I pulled on a pair of shorts, shoved a matchbook in my pocket, and ran down the stairs and out the front door of my building.

Across the street a group of men were sitting on plastic buckets, smoking too. They said nothing but laughed as I walked by. It seemed like a bad omen, but I hurried past anyway, heading toward the tall LeRoi house.

Every window was dark when I arrived. It was three A.M. and the street was quiet save for the scurrying of rats back and forth across the sidewalk. I was beginning to doubt myself. Had I dreamed that scream? Was I making up an excuse to visit the house at night? Was I just aching for some imaginary ghost to reach out and hold my hand? I sucked on my cigarette, promising myself I’d turn around just as soon as it was out.