John opened the second door, and noise exploded. He blinked in the florescent lights, bewildered: Children were everywhere, screaming and laughing, and running across the floor, and the jingles and blips of arcade games sounded discordantly from around the room. There were play structures, something like a jungle gym to his left, and a large ball pit to his right, where two small girls were throwing brightly colored balls at a third girl, who was shouting something he could not make out.

There were tables set up in the center of the room, where he noticed five or six adults talking to one another. Occasionally they’d look over their shoulders at the chaos surrounding them, at the stage in back of the room, its red curtain closed. A chill went down his spine, and he looked around again with a terrible déjà vu at the playing children and complacent parents.

He started toward the stage, twice stopping just in time to avoid tripping over a game of tag. The curtains were brand-new, the red velvet plush and gleaming in the light, and trimmed with golden ropes and tassels. John slowed his pace as he got closer, the pit of his stomach tensing with an old, familiar dread. The stage floor was about level with his waist, and he stopped beside it and glanced around, then carefully grasped the thick curtain and began to pull it back.

“Excuse me, sir,” a man’s voice came from behind him, and John straightened like he’d touched a hot stove.

“Sorry,” he said, turning to see a man wearing a yellow polo shirt and a tense expression.

“Are you here with your children, sir?” he asked, raising his eyebrows. The shirt read CIRCUS BABY’S PIZZA, and he was wearing a name tag that read STEVE.

“No, I …” John paused. “Yes. Several children. Birthday party, you know. Cousins, so many cousins, what can you do?”

Steve was still looking at him with raised eyebrows.

“I have to go meet someone … somewhere else,” John said. Steve gestured to the door.

CHAPTER FOUR

No!” Jessica cried in dismay as she wrangled her keys from the pocket of her fashionably too-tight jeans. An apple tumbled out of the paper grocery bag she was struggling to balance on her hip and rolled away down the hallway. It came to rest on the welcome mat of her worst neighbor, a middle-aged man who seemed capable of detecting the tiniest noise, then promptly complaining about it. In fact, since she moved in to the apartment six months ago, leaving behind the dorm room she and Charlie had shared, he had come to her door three times to complain about her radio. Twice it had not even been on. Mostly, he just glared at her whenever they passed in the hall. Jessica didn’t really mind the hostility; it was a little like being back home in New York. She left the apple where it was.