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to her. I feel them beside each other—see him put his hand on her shoulder. Hear him tell her, “She’ll leave tomorrow.”
    Lou set me up on the sofa. Sheets, a pillow, a quilt with loose threads like dancing spiders. I won’t sleep tonight even though his building is a monastery compared to my place down in the valley of nightclubs and fire stations. I haven’t slept well in months. Ever since Nico started pulling unexplained absences. I’d ask, Where you been? And he’d say his family didn’t flee Cuba so he could be oppressed by another regime, meaning me. I’m no beggar for love, despite what you might think, so I’d kick him out and he’d howl throughthe door how cruel I am, that I never loved him, that I don’t know how to love because I’m a loveless, heartless panther who’d eat her own cubs, and I’d wonder who was this girl that he was talking about, because I knew she wasn’t me.
    These fights would go on till a neighbor called the police, till one of us quit, dropped to our knees in apology, till one of us began negotiating or proposed some semiplausible reconciliation plan, till we fell into each other again and admitted ownership as if there were no other choice but to keep this calamitous opera in production.
    Just when I’ve beaten the night, I feel his arm on me. Lou shaking me from my half sleep, his muscular fingers tugging my skin. The darkness breaks with the glow of the street, spots of car lights on the walls, shining right through Lou so he looks as if he has a halo. He turns on a lamp. He’s got a guitar hanging from a strap on his back and another, which he hands to me. I sit up, let the quilt become a pond around my waist. Take the guitar from him and run my fingertips over the fat metal strings.
    I think maybe he wants to talk, but when I ask him what’s wrong he puts his finger to his lips and shakes his head. We run through chord progressions. Play a few songs. In a couple of months, Lou has given me a small repertoire.If you didn’t know better, you might think I have talent. A real miracle worker, that Lou, teaching the unteachable.
    We stay like this for a while. Lou, shirtless and shiny like porcelain, in black drawstring pajama pants, holding the guitar in his lap like a child. And me, in my university sweats, letting him lead me. Then I see Olive on the edge of the room like it’s her curtain call and she’s the sleeping princess who’s come out for applause in her gauzy nightgown, sleepy-faced, pillow-bruised cheeks.
    I stop my strumming and Lou looks behind him to see why.
    I apologize for waking her, though I know that’s not what she came for.
    She doesn’t say anything. Just stands there, and Lou gets up, tells me good night. He follows her down the hall and I hear the door click shut behind them.
    Once we went to Coney Island and Nico got his teeth knocked out by some locals who didn’t like his swagger. They were following us for a while, cooing that I had a hot ass and asking how much. When we were leaning on a railing sipping slushies, the guys came up close. Nico told them to fuck off and next thing you know they had him on the ground, his fly busted open, blood on his face, eyes shut like a smashed-upnewborn. We were only together a few months by then, but that was the clincher. We’d laugh about it later, especially when his replacement teeth came loose or fell out while he was eating, say that that day was like a scene out of The Warriors and I was the girl in the leotard dress whose nipples are popping throughout the whole movie.
    “The punches I took for you,” Nico would say, like it was a debt to be paid.
    I used to say: Why can’t we be like normal people? Go to the bookstore, the movies, eat meals in restaurants and have conversations about things other than our latest love war, communicate in a language beyond screaming and screwing. We could be friends with other couples, have brunch, and hold hands at parties instead of eyeing each other