“Do you think you could?” Rebecca hugged her damp towel around herself. Her feet were cold, and her teeth were chattering suddenly. The heating system in the building was impossibly antiquated, and in order for there to be decent heat on the lower floors, the top floor was often roasting hot. When he was working, George often didn’t notice this until sweat dripped off the end of his nose. Then, on even the coldest days, he would have to open a window an inch or two until the loft became chilly and one of them was bothered by the draft.

“Could what? You should get dressed. You’re freezing. Look, I don’t know. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to snap. This is a bad subject. Doesn’t it make me a narcissistic lunatic if I tell you sometimes I kind of imagine I could bring it on with my music?” He got up to close the window.

“Not really, if you take seriously even half the hocus-pocus the New Agey people ascribe to your musical powers,” Rebecca said. She went over to him, shivering, and he put his arms around her. “If you take the positive effects as genuine, all those Echinacea Serenade healings so many people swear by—”

“Who swears by that? Nobody serious even thinks actual echinacea has anything but a placebo effect.”

“Oh, that’s not true. Sharon swears by it. Only everyone we know believes that listening to the CD helps clear up colds. You know this, George! So how can you deny the potential for the negatives if you admit the positives?”

“But I’m Mr. In-Between! Beck, sweetie, you’re being much too reasonable and rational and scientific, except about echinacea, maybe. A little craziness makes it work, trust me.” He pushed her damp hair out of her face. “You’re so rational.”

“Not really. All my rational and reasonable and scientific friends would laugh at me.”

“Come on, haven’t you ever wondered about Huntington’s music? Why I never tried to write any, I mean? You know me! Why haven’t you? That doesn’t make sense, really.”

“Oh, I’ve wondered,” Rebecca said. “I remember wondering about this the week we met and you told me about Huntington’s in your family. I was just afraid of it. I never dared bring it up. I am afraid of it. Aren’t you? I see it every week, and I am always afraid of it. I’m not being rational at all. I just never wanted to think about it. I didn’t want to let it in the room.”

“Well, sweetie, it’s here, it’s always been here, it’s been in the room forever, since long before we met, and it wasn’t just up to you to bring it up, I know. You know how I wonder if I have it every time I drop something or cut myself shaving or forget a word.”

“My father was always dropping things and cutting himself shaving.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. He was a total klutz. Between him, with the bloody drips all over the bathroom when I was little, and then Esther, with her hands all red from making borscht, I grew up thinking that my family was actually red in tooth and claw, and not just their politics.”