For several beats, Jack stared into Laurie's blue-green eyes. It was clear that she wasn't going to be placated easily. "All right," he said, exhaling noisily as if he was conceding. He averted his gaze down to his bare feet. "We'll talk about it tonight over dinner."

"I need to talk about it now!" Laurie said emphatically. She reached out and lifted Jack's chin to lock eyes again. "I've been agonizing over our situation while you've been sleeping. Putting it off is not an option."

"Laurie, I'm going to go in and take a shower. I'm telling you, there's no time for this at the moment."

"I love you, Jack," Laurie said after grabbing his arm to restrain him. "But I need more. I want to be married and have a family. I want to live someplace better than this." She let go of Jack's arm and swept her hand around the room to point out the peeling paint, the bare lightbulb, the bed with no headboard, the two night tables that were empty wooden wine cases set on end, and the single bureau. "It doesn't have to be the Taj Mahal, but this is ridiculous."

"All this time, I thought four stars was adequate for you."

"Save the sarcasm," Laurie snapped. "A little luxury wouldn't hurt for as hard as we work. But that's not the issue. It's the relationship, which seems fine for you but isn't enough for me. That's the bottom line."

"I'm taking a shower," Jack said.

Laurie gave him a crooked half-smile. "Fine. You take a shower."

Jack nodded and started to say something, then changed his mind. He turned and disappeared into the bathroom, leaving the door ajar. A moment later, Laurie heard the shower start and the sound of the shower curtain rings scraping across the shower rod.

Laurie exhaled. She was trembling from a combination of fatigue and emotional stress, but she was proud of herself for not shedding any tears. She hated when she cried in emotional situations. How she had avoided it at the moment she had no idea, but she was pleased. Tears never helped, and frequently put her at a disadvantage.

After slipping on her robe, Laurie went into the closet for her suitcase. The confrontation with Jack actually made her feel relieved. By responding just as she'd anticipated, Jack justified what she had decided to do even before he had awakened. Opening up her allotted bureau drawers, she took out her things and began packing. With the task almost complete, she heard the shower stop, and a minute later Jack appeared in the doorway, briskly toweling off his head. When he caught sight of Laurie and the suitcase, he stopped abruptly.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"I think it's perfectly clear what I'm doing," Laurie answered.

For a minute Jack didn't say anything, merely watching as Laurie continued her packing. "You're carrying this too far," he said finally. "You don't have to leave."

"I think I do," Laurie responded without looking up.

"Fine!" Jack said after a beat, an edge to his voice. He ducked back through the door to finish toweling off.

When Jack came out of the bathroom, Laurie went in, carrying the day's outfit. She made a point of closing the door, although on normal mornings, it remained open. By the time Laurie emerged, fully dressed, Jack was in the kitchen. Laurie joined him for a breakfast of cold cereal and fruit. Neither took the time to sit at the tiny vinyl dinette set. Both were polite, and the only conversation was "excuse me" or "sorry" as they danced around each other to get in and out of the refrigerator. Thanks to the narrowness of the room, it was impossible to move without touching.

By seven, they were ready to leave. Laurie squeezed her cosmetics into her suitcase and closed the lid. When she rolled it out into the living room, she saw Jack lifting his mountain bike from its wall rack.

"You're not riding that thing to work, are you?" Laurie asked. Prior to their living together, Jack had used the bike to commute, as well as to run errands around the city. It had always terrified Laurie, who constantly worried that he was going to arrive one day at the morgue "feet first." When they had begun to commute together, Jack had given up riding the bike, since there was no way Laurie would consent to doing the same.

"Well, it looks like I'll be on my own coming back to my palace."

"It's raining, for God's sake!"

"Rain makes it more interesting."

"You know, Jack, since I'm being honest this morning, I think I should tell you that I find this kind of juvenile risk-taking of yours is not only inappropriate but also selfish, like you're thumbing your nose at my feelings."

"That's interesting," Jack said with a smirk. "Well, let me tell you something: Riding my bike has nothing to do with your feelings. And to be honest with you, your feeling that it does seems pretty selfish to me."

Outside on 106th Street, Laurie walked west to Columbus Avenue to catch a cab. Jack pedaled east toward Central Park. Neither turned to wave at the other.

JACK HAD FORGOTTEN THE exhilaration of riding his dark purple Cannondale mountain bike, but it came back to him in a rush as he coasted down one of the hills after entering Central Park near 106th Street. Since the park was nearly deserted save for the rare jogger, Jack had let himself go, and both the city and his suppressed anxieties miraculously disappeared in the misty city-bound forest. With the wind whistling in his ears, he could remember as if it were yesterday sailing down Dead Man's Hill in South Bend, Indiana, on his beloved red-and-gold, wide-tired Schwinn. He'd gotten the bike on his tenth birthday after having seen it advertised on the back of a comic book. Mythologized as a symbol of his happy and carefree childhood, he'd convinced his mother to save it, and it continued to gather dust back in the garage of his family's home.

Rain was still falling, but not hard enough to dampen Jack's experience, despite his hearing droplets splattering against the brow of his bicycle helmet. His biggest problem was trying to see through the moisture-streaked lenses of his aerodynamic bicycling sunglasses. To keep the rest of himself reasonably dry, he wore his waterproof bicycle poncho, which featured ingenious little hooks for his thumbs. When he learned forward with his hands grasping the handlebars, the poncho created a tentlike covering. For the most part, he avoided puddles, and when he couldn't, he lifted his feet off the pedals to coast until he reached drier pavement.

At the southeast corner of Central Park, Jack entered the Mid-town city streets, already clogged with morning rush-hour traffic. There had been a time when he loved to challenge the traffic, but that was when he was, in his words, a bit crazier. It was also when he was in significantly better shape. Since he hadn't been riding much over the last few years, he didn't have nearly the same stamina anymore. His frequent basketball playing helped, but basketball didn't involve quite the same sustained aerobics that bicycling demanded. Yet he didn't slow down, and by the time he coasted down the ramp into the 30th Street receiving dock at the medical examiner's office, his quadriceps were complaining. After dismounting, he stood for a moment, leaning onto his handlebars to let his circulation catch up with the oxygen demand in his leg muscles.

When the hypoxic aching of his thighs had been mollified, Jack hefted his bike on his shoulder and started up the steps to the receiving dock. His legs were still rubbery, but he was eager to find out what was going on at the morgue. When he'd passed the front of the building, he'd seen a number of TV satellite trucks parked at the curb with their generators cranking and their antennae extended. He also had caught sight of a press of people within the reception area just beyond the front doors. Something was brewing.