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you say!”
    I bit back a groan. He was the kind of person who shouted everything with a joyous cry. If the decibel level didn’t get you, the enthusiasm might. The monkey looked more like my kind of person. He grinned when you looked at him but otherwise just kind of held back, watching and waiting to see what might be coming his way. Printed on the monkey’s little hat was the name MOJO. A button pinned to his fire-engine red jacket read THE WORLD’S ONLY TALKING/WRITING CHIMP. There was a pad with a pen attached by a string in a small bag around his neck.
    Mojo pressed his tin cup out to Gabriella. He was insistent. She gestured that she had no cash on her and I pulled a quarter out of my pocket and snapped it off my thumbnail into his cup. I expected him to say thank you, seeing as he was a talking monkey, but Mojo only hopped twice, squeaked, took off his hat and bowed.
    “If he talks, why does he have a pad and pen?”she asked.
    “He prefers to write!”
    “I see,” she said. She shot me a look . “Just like Will.”
    A reference to me, not to her bestselling author husband. It took me back a step. Of course, she was also likening me to a chimp, so maybe it wasn’t quite the compliment I had wanted it to be.
    “Well hello, Mojo,” she said, “how are you today?”
    Mojo went, “Ook.”
    Ferdi lifted his arms and clapped happily. “You see! He says he is fine!”
    Gabriella laughed pleasantly and tried again. “It will be very nice having you in the building, Mojo, I hope we’ll become great friends.”
    Mojo did a dance, held out his tin cup, and went, “Ook ook.”
    Ferdi said, “Bravo, Mojo! As all can clearly hear, you have told them you are delighted to be a new neighbor to such gracious and wonderful people!”
    “Why doesn’t he write us a note instead?” I said.
    “I’m sure he soon shall! But at the moment he is enjoying this conversation so much, he has no need to give letters!”
    Gabriella gave me the look again and this time I returned it. We were compatriots, we were sharing a moment. She was laughing and I was smiling. That was good enough. I drew another quarter out of my pocket and tossed it into the monkey’s cup. If nothing else, he was a smart chimp. He’d already taken me for half a buck.
    “Are you with the circus?” I asked.
    “No, nor any carnival! We are our own pair, a team! We have toured Central Europe, throughout Asia, New Zealand, and South Dakota! And now, we arrive here!”
    “I’ll help with your belongings,” I said.
    “Wonderful!”
    Gabriella swept out past us heading for the door, and the overwhelming urge to touch her rose up in me and made me reach for her, maybe to grab her elbow and turn her to face me, so that I might finally find the courage to say something real and true to her, about myself or about Corben, or perhaps about nothing at all. Just a chance to spend more time with her, even if it was only a few more minutes. When you got down to it, I was as needy as Corben, and maybe even worse.
    But my natural restraint slowed me down too much, and even before I managed to lift my hand she was already out of reach.
    My last image of her:
    A gust of wind whirling her hair into a savage storm about her head while she eased out the front door silhouetted in the morning sun, her skirt snapping back at me once as if demanding my attention, a curious expression of concern or perhaps dismay on her face–perhaps the subtle aftereffect of her argument with Corben, or maybe even considering me, for the first time, as a potential lover–moving across the street against traffic. A taxi obscured her, the door finished closing, the chimp chittered, and my secret love was gone.
    ~ * ~
    I thought Ferdi and Mojo might have some friends or fans from New Zealand to help them move in, but they had no one but me. Luckily, they didn’t have that much stuff. Mojo really did have monkey bars, a collapsible cage that when put together took up an entire room of the