The complication began as small things often do in New York: with a notice taped to a door.
Dez found it when he came home that evening, fingers stiff from sorting returns, the green sweater still shedding needles like confetti with a purpose. The notice was from the building management company, typed in a font that had never known joy. It said, in essence, that the lease on their purple apartment would not be renewed in February. The building was going condo. The building was becoming a future that did not include three late-twenties dreamers and a grape-soda living room and a Christmas tree that had already negotiated with the ceiling.
Dez read it twice. Then he sat on the bottom step of their walk-up and felt the year tilt.
When Wren came home she found him there, notice in hand, face carefully blank in the way that meant it was not blank at all. She read over his shoulder. For a long moment neither spoke. Then Wren said, with the calm of someone deciding not to shatter yet, "Okay. Okay. We figure it out."
Gus arrived third, glasses fogged, arms full of student papers, and said, upon reading, "This is structurally terrible. Who writes an eviction into Christmas week? Amateur hour."
They went upstairs. The tree glowed as if nothing had happened. The angel looked more judgmental than usual. Wren made tea. Dez paced. Gus opened his legal pad and wrote POSSIBLE RESPONSES, underlined twice, then stared at the blankness beneath as if plot points might materialize from wishful ink.
"We could fight it," Wren said.
"We could," Dez agreed. "Lawyers cost money we use for heat."