"Believe it. It's ours-twenty-foot ceilings, bad plumbing, and interest

rates from h.e.l.l." On a quick laugh, Emma did three spins. "We're

property owners, Marianne. You, me, and Chase Manhattan."

"We bought it." Marianne sat down on the scarred wide-planked floor. The

rattle and hum of downtown traffic echoed up from three stories below.

Something crashed outside, and even through the closed windows they

heard the shouts and swearing. It was like music.

The loft was a huge square of s.p.a.ce, banked by a band of windows in the

front and a towering panel of gla.s.s on the right.

A sound investment, Marianne's father had grudgingly called it.

Complete insanity, had been Johnno's verdict.

Investment or insanity, it was theirs. Still dressed in the tidy suits

they'd worn to settlement, they each studied their new home, the fruit

of weeks of search, endless calls to realtors, and numerous bank

interviews. It might have been a huge, empty s.p.a.ce with spotted

ceilings and grimy gla.s.s, but for them, it was the dream they had shared

throughout childhood.

Then they studied each other, their faces mirrors of giddy terror. It

was the laughter that broke the last strain. It bubbled up from Emma

first, then echoed off the high plaster walls. Grabbing each other,

they did an impromptu polka up and down the length of their new home.

"Ours," Emma panted out when they teetered to a stop. "Ours." They shook

hands formally, then laughed again. "Okay, co-owner," Marianne began.

"Let's make some decisions."

They sat on the floor with Marianne's sketches, warming Pepsis, and an

overflowing tin ashtray between them. They needed a wall here, the

staircase there. Studio s.p.a.ce above, darkroom s.p.a.ce below.

They arranged, rearranged, constructed, destructed. At length Marianne

waved her cigarette. "This is it. Perfect."

"It's inspired." Emma took the cigarette out of self-defense and

rewarded herself with a puff. "You're a genius."

"Yes, I am." She shook her spiky hair as she leaned back on her elbows.

"You helped."

"Right. We're both geniuses. A s.p.a.ce for everything and everything in

its s.p.a.ce. I can't wait until we-oh, s.h.i.t."

"s.h.i.t? What do you mean, s.h.i.t?"

"There's no bathroom. We forgot the bathroom."

After a brief study, Marianne shrugged. "Screw the bathroom. We'll use

the Y."

Emma simply put a hand on Marianne's face and shoved.

PERCHED ON A sTEPLwDER, Marianne painted full-length portraits of

herself and Emma between two windows. Emma had taken on the more

pedestrian ch.o.r.e of marketing and was storing food inside their

reconditioned Frigidaire.

"That's our buzzer," Marianne called out over the boom of the radio.

"I know." Emma balanced two grapefruits, a six-pack of Pepsi, and a jar

of strawberry preserves. When the buzzer sounded again, she dumped all

of them on a sh.e.l.l Beside the elevator, which opened up into their

living area, she pushed the intercom. "Yes?"

"McAvoy and Carter?"