Page 66 of The New Couple in 5B

I draw in and release a breath. He does the same.

And then we’rewhoopingand dancing again; he spins me around. We spill champagne on the new rug and don’t care one bit. Finally, we collapse on the couch, breathless, giggling.

“It films here in the city and on location upstate, but we don’t have to move,” he goes on, a little breathless. “And if I need to be upstate you can easily just come with me and write up there, commute into the city as needed.”

The details don’t matter. We’ll make this work, whatever it means.

“I’m so proud of you,” I tell him. “You’ve workedsohard for this.”

“Wehave. Everything is about teamwork. I would have lost heart so many times if not for you, your support.”

You and Chad have something special, Ivan used to say.There’s a selflessness to each of you when it comes to the other. And that’s what it takes to stay in love, stay committed, stay together.

Celebrating his success, I push all the other events of the past few days away so that I can be present for this wonderful moment with my husband. He turns on some music, takes another deep swig of champagne. I’m just taking tiny sips, but he doesn’t seem to notice. We dance some more, laugh, then make love on the living room floor.

Afterward, we don’t have wood for a fire, and it’s not cool enough yet anyway, but he lights the pillar candles we decided to keep in there during spring and summer, and we lie naked, enjoying the moment, the flames dancing, the smell of roses and wax on the air.

“She followed me here,” he says out of the blue.

I know who he’s talking about because she’s not far from my mind, either, as much as I wish I could forget Dana for a while. Just for this moment. “From the town where we grew up in New Jersey. I came to Columbia. She went to Parsons.”

Chad nearly dropped out a couple of times, struggling with tuition, even with the money his parents had left him. He started bartending, going to acting classes given by the famous teacher Martin Waldorf. He landed small roles right away, but money was always an issue.

“Ididthink it was odd when she asked me to pose for her class. But I was, like, really desperate, you know? And—I’m not shy about taking off my clothes.”

“Thatwe know,” I say, tracing a finger along those perfect abs.

“Ivan and I got closer during those years,” he goes on. “He and Dana got further and further apart. Honestly, I think it’s why she came to New York, to be closer to him. But he was gone all the time.”

He stares up at the ceiling as if the memories are playing out for him there.

“Ivan was scattered, would make plans then not show up. Her mother was so bitter, and Dana carried that with her. She chased after him for a while. He let her down, time after time. Finally, she just started to hate him.”

I think about what Ella said about chemistry, how sometimes it’s not there even between parent and child.

“I guess I figured out that she was following me a couple of years before you and I met. I finally confronted her, and she said the strangest thing.”

“What?” He’s never mentioned this before. I push up on my elbow, watching him.

“She said that she was trying to figure out what everyone saw in me, including Ivan. Why he chose me over her. She said that when she looked at me, she saw someone vain, selfish, ugly inside. A dark heart beneath a beautiful mask.”

I can tell he’s upset by the tautness in his voice, the stillness of his face. I reach for him, and he puts my hand to his lips.

“That hurt me, you know?” He looks at me and I can see it. “I told her that it wasn’t a choice—her or me. That we could be a family. Ivan and I had a close relationship, yeah, my father’s brother. He filled the gap my parents left behind. But that didn’t exclude her.”

I stay quiet just letting him talk, pulling the blanket down from the couch and around us against the cold.

“Do you think it’s true?” he asks into the quiet.

“Dana wasn’t well. That’s clear. Okay, Ivan wasn’t a good father. He’d admitted as much. But Dana was angry, bitter, deeply depressed. She’d fixated on you, but ultimately you and Ivan just had something special. That wasn’t in his control or yours.”

He bobs his head slightly, is quiet for a second. Then he turns his face to me and the candlelight dances there, shadows gathering in the dips and valleys of his face.

“No, I mean that there’s something dark inside me.”

His forehead wrinkles with sadness. Everything in me wants to comfort him.

“That onlyshecould see? No. If Dana saw darkness, it was within her.”