She was wearing the same outfit she’d worn on their fancier dates, the few outings that involved dinner reservations. As he watched her disappear, as the elevator door closed, he thought about what was on tap for his own evening—a night of television and chips.

He’d made himself comfortable quickly that night, grabbing a beer from the refrigerator and sinking into the couch with his newly purchased, oversized bag of Doritos. Then he tuned in to ESPN just in time to watch a feature about Oregon’s offensive coordinator, a hotshot who had been hired from the University of New Hampshire whose career was on a quick rise. Two and a half beers and an hour later, Phil called Hank to place the bet. Hank was Phil’s longtime bookie, whom he’d seen more frequently years ago when he was a more aggressive gambler. After Phil requested this new bet, Hank paused before responding.

“Really, Phil?” he finally asked.

“Hank,” Phil said. “This guy was a crackerjack up at UNH. I like the line.”

Hank was quiet, his silence teeming with judgment.

“Hank, you’ve never had to chase me down. Aren’t you supposed to want me to take some risks?”

“I don’t need to chase you down because I’m not a bookie,” Hank blurted into the phone nervously, as if the line were bugged. “I run an informal gaming community.”

“Yeah, okay. You’re a model citizen, Hank,” Phil said. “Give me Oregon and the over.”

Now Phil was in the heart of Terrapin country, stuck watching the Maryland-Rutgers game. It was all Elizabeth’s fault, he thought. Elizabeth and her date makeup and her skirt with the flowers on it.

Elizabeth and Elana had rented the condo next to Phil’s for three years, but for the first of those years, they did little to acknowledge Phil other than to nod and smile when he passed them in the hall on the way to and from the building’s carpeted elevator. Phil knew their first names thanks to the thin walls and the mailbox in the lobby.

Elana was the more outgoing of the two. She had a laugh that sounded like a cartoon witch’s cackle and unruly curly hair that Phil believed a more-sophisticated woman would iron straight. She was thin except for her arms, which were usually too big for her shirtsleeves. It seemed to Phil that at any moment Elana’s muscles would expand and that her top would rip to pieces, just as if she were the Incredible Hulk.

Elizabeth, the more attractive of the two, was a mystery, at least in the beginning. She kept to herself and rarely made small talk with anyone in the halls. She often left before seven in the morning, and she had not requested a parking space out back because she traveled by bicycle. For that reason—and because of the tiny diamond stud in her nose—Phil assumed that she was some sort of hippie. This theory was supported by Elizabeth’s regular uniform: long, flowing skirts and tight tank tops.