The walls were all painted a soothing sand color. When the sun came in, the light was warm and comforting. It was always quiet, and the courtyard and terrace were filled with plants. Barbara had excellent taste in decorating. On the wall, beneath a skylight, hung an antique gray print-shop cabinet filled with coffee cups and glasses and knickknacks; during the day, this cabinet was draped in light. A beautiful, refinished 1960s Danish table stood beneath it, and across the dining room was an armchair where I’d sit and watch the sun from the skylight playing over the cabinet, and I’d relax and read a manuscript before getting to work.

After knowing each other only a month, I started paying half the rent, as soon as Barbara’s friend took off, with the secret agreement—I learned about this much later—that she wouldn’t look for another room for two months and would stay with someone else (I don’t know who), waiting to see if things worked out between Barbara and me, or if she could move back in.

She never did, and in those first months, it felt like a miracle that I’d settled into that apartment with this woman who was living the good life. It was the happiest place I ever laid my head, and all it took was the lavish wooing of a stranger.

In the end, this was all a case of masculine pride. For a long while, having successfully played the peacock and won that glorious apartment, I completely ignored Barbara’s life, her history, like this was all in the past, like the world starts over once a man struts around for a woman.