She shrugged. "Doesn't matter. You're a young, attractive woman-"

"We're childhood friends!"

She let loose a sigh of disgust. "Oh, for Christ's sake. You took this job to report on a childhood friend? In what world did you think you were going to be objective?"

"But I am!"

She leaned back and shook her head. "I should fire you for this, you know."

"You can't fire me for having a friend," I argued, even though I had no idea whether she could or couldn't. "That's discrimination against...friendship."

She waved a hand. "Don't worry, I'm not going to fire you. I'm going to use you."

Somehow, that didn't make me feel any better.

At home Lucy had set about planning the dinner party with verve. "So it's going to be in like two weeks, on the tenth. At least three of my friends are coming," she told me, after I arrived home after my exhausting interview with Tanya. Lucy stood in the kitchen, making some strange tea. "Two of them are single guys-Hey, are you okay? You look even whiter than usual."

I dropped my purse on the floor and leaned against the counter as I poured a glass of water. "Weird day at work." Tanya hadn't said how she planned to use me, but now I thought I knew what an ace in the back pocket might feel like-sat upon and suffocated.

"Weird good or weird bad?"

"Weird-weird, I guess. Bad? Odd, definitely."

She looked at me strangely. "You're definitely acting odd."

The next day at work, our building threw us a tenant appreciation party. "So what is this?" I asked the guys as we took the elevator down. "Like they feed us?"

They all looked at each other and shrugged. "Yeah."

"Last year there was a performing monkey," Carlos said.

Jin frowned. "I don't remember a monkey."

"You were in Philly," Carlos said. "There was a monkey. It wore a hat."

"Is that legal?" I asked.

Mduduzi cocked his head. "For monkeys to wear hats?"

"No, for-for monkeys to perform."

Jin gave one of his lackadaisical shrugs. "We perform constantly."

"Ha, ha." Carlos rolled his eyes.

We sat at a round table, eating our lukewarm burgers and soggy fries and contemplating the other magazines. Mduduzi nodded at a girl who walked by, pulling off a skirt and heels that I never could have. "That one. I was in an elevator with her, and she asked me where I worked, and when I said ST she raised her brows and said 'Oh.'"

He managed to infuse the word with enough disdain that I bristled and narrowed my eyes at the girl, but when I turned back to my friends I noticed that Carlos had deflated slightly.

Interesting.

I was considering a Romeo and Juliet situation of epic proportions (Sports journalism, ha! I should be writing for National Enquirer) when my phone went off. I stilled, hope and fear and anticipation flooding me. What if it was Abe? What if it wasn't Abe? It probably wasn't; it was the night before a game for him, so he was locked away at some hotel, going over strategies. Paying very close attention to the coaches, I was sure, and not texting me.

I picked up the phone with trembling fingers, and all the nerves whooshed away, washed out by my happiness. Abe.

I'm taking you out on a real date this weekend.

I raised my brows and bit down on my grin. You forgot the question mark.

He responded almost immediately. Didn't. It's happening. Otherwise you're in huge trouble.

I stared at the words, which tingled across my emotions like a mesmerizing spell.

"Tamar?"

I almost jumped out of my skin, and then looked up to see Jin and Mduduzi regarding me quizzically. "You okay, Tamar?" Mduduzi asked.

I nodded. "Oh. Yeah."

Jin swiveled slowly toward me. "Who texted?"

My eyes widened. "An, um, old...friend."

The guys exchanged a glance. Mduduzi smiled at me, but like he was including me on the joke. "A friend like Abe Krasner?"

I dropped my head into my hands and groaned.

"So, what is this?" Jin made one of his vague hand motions, but appeared more invested in the conversation than I'd seen him since the last time we tore apart a game. I guessed he was just as interested in relationship issues as he was in sports. I wondered what he thought about Carlos and Attitude Girl. "You two."

"I don't really know."

"Well, is it...serious?"

I had a story, and I was sticking to it. "We're old friends."

Everyone sat there silently for a moment.

"Fuck it." Carlos looked me straight in the eye. "Are you guys-?"

"No!" I shook my head rapidly. "God. Guys. Wow, let's not be talking about this."

Mduduzi leaned over to try to see my phone. "What'd he say?"

I clicked it dark immediately. "Nothing." When they didn't buy that, I relented. "He wants to hang out."

"And? What did you say?"

I looked down at my message, and then typed I suppose I'll be free on Sunday and clicked send. "I said yes."

Abe and I walked down the quiet streets west of Broadway, the main drag through Astoria. When my grandparents lived here, it had been mostly Eastern European Jewish immigrants, but now the restaurants and bakeries lining our walk slanted Greek and Polish. We paused to buy honey-soaked baklava before continuing on to the address I'd scribbled on the back of a grocery receipt.

When Abe had asked me what I wanted to do on Sunday, I'd immediately told him I wanted to go see my grandparents' old apartment. It had been sitting in the back of my head for a few weeks now, but I didn't have the guts to go by myself. I wasn't sure why not; perhaps I was afraid it would be a letdown, to just stare at a building, and I wanted someone there to pick me up.

I'd half-expected Abe to tell me that wasn't a real date, but he agreed instantly. It wasn't a date, really, but I wanted him there. I wanted my best friend.

It took a minute to locate the exact building. The numbers didn't work in an orderly fashion, but skipped by twos and tens sometimes ate up whole dozens. Finally, my eyes landed on 712B.

I stood back to take it in. It looked much like all the other buildings on the street: small, brown and cramped. A small Laundromat filled the ground floor, and I wondered if it had been there when my grandparents had. Probably not.

Abe stopped beside me, tilting his head up. "So this is it?"

"Yeah." I peered up at the third-floor windows and pointed my finger. "That's where they lived."

We stared up at the dark glass. I tried to imagine my grandparents peeking back out at us. They'd been younger than I was when they moved here-twenty-one and twenty-two. "What a strange life."

He nodded. "Want to see if we can go inside?"

I glanced at the door. "Not really. I just wanted to...ground the stories. It's weird how by the time they were our age... They were just kids, you know?"

He took my hand. "I know."

"I'd like to go to Wroclaw. Though that sounds silly-what would I do, stare at the building where the chocolate shop used to be? That would take ten seconds."

He shook his head. "It makes sense." He hesitated, and then said with sweetness and sincerity, "I'd go with you."

I squeezed his hand. "I'd like that." Another beat of silence passed. "When I was little, I used to think their whole story was so romantic. Love. War. Paris and New York. But it's not romantic or glamorous. It's just sad."

Abe nodded. His dad's parents and Abe's maternal grandfather had all grown up in California, from families that had lived there since the early 1900s. But his mom's mom, Grandma Lewinski, had only come over after the war. She'd been an orphaned teenager, and had been separated from her sister and brother as they were all sent to live with distant relatives all over the country. She didn't speak English and didn't know the people she lived with, and there was nothing romantic about that. "I know."

It was petty, cowardly people who ruined a generation in their quest for power.

We stood there another minute before both of us slowly noticed a family of four hovering in our peripheral vision. Abe glanced at me, and I inclined my chin a tiny bit.

He opened up his body language, and the family was on us in seconds. They were all tall and slim and smiling nervously. Tourists. Tourist Dad had a trim goatee and stepped forward. "Aren't you Abe Krasner?"

Abe grinned. "Yes, sir."

The man fumbled in his pocket for his camera. "Do you mind?"

"Not at all."

Tourist Dad held out his camera to me.

Oh, I saw how it was. I bit back a smirk. A guy in the door of the Laundromat shook his head, his handlebar mustache shaking. My smirk tried to surface even more. Locals disapproved when tourists assaulted their celebrities.

I took several shots of the whole family with Abe, and then the two daughters. Tourist Dad was clearly psyched beyond belief, and so was Tourist Daughter 1, but Daughter 2 looked like she just wanted to get back to Angry Birds.

"Thank you so much," Tourist Dad gushed at the end. Tourist Mom looked like she was trying to resist smirking.

Abe laughed, and then he extended his own phone. "You mind?"

Tourist Dad looked like he might pee himself, and he turned and angled the phone like he'd been Ansel Adams in a past life. I was so busy watching the man that Abe took me by surprise when he swept me off my feet and cradled me against his chest.

I caught my breath and threw my arms around his neck for balance. I felt weightless and airy, and Abe's face was very, very close. "What are you doing?"

He grinned down at me. "Re-creating your grandma's photo."

I wasn't surprised he'd seen the picture. "We're missing the veil and too small suit."

"Shh. Smile for the camera."

We did, and I couldn't help the happy leap within me as we posed. Abe spun me about, my skirt flaring dramatically. Tourist Family oohed and ahhed like we were the ending of their Broadway show. Even Handlebar Mustache cracked a smile.

Afterward, we sat in a small cafe drinking hot tea. I watched him, studying the square of his jaw, the darkness of his eyes, the way his hair just slightly curled over his ears. Studying beyond that. "I was thinking."

"About?"

"I think you should take classes."

He looked puzzled. "What?"

I glanced down at my tea, slightly embarrassed. "You just sounded...I don't know, slightly despondent the other day. Like you wish you had your BA."

He swallowed, and now it was his turn to look into his tea like he could read the leaves.

I leaned forward. "It doesn't matter if you do or don't. You know that, right? It just matters if you want it."

"It seems like too much," he told his tea. "Professional football and endorsements and now I think I can take classes too?"

His words were doubtful. He sounded like he wanted to, and just didn't know how. "Hey." I nudged his foot until he looked at me. "You were always great at football. But you were always great at everything."

He cracked a smile. "You always believed in me too much."

"You don't believe in yourself enough." I paused. "You know, when we first met, I thought you were going to be an astronaut."

Surprise crossed his face. "You did not."

I leaned back. "Did too. Thought you'd go to the moon. Bring me back a moonstone."

He grinned at that, but then shook his head. "When would I even have time?"

"Off season," I said promptly. "Abe, just-don't do something just because you think you're supposed to."