“Hello,” the pajama-wearing young woman says, her breathing nervous and heavy. “You must be new to the neighborhood.”

There are some sights you expect to see in an old walkup somewhere down in the depths of the West Side. An aging tenement building on Eighth Avenue, perhaps. One that’s falling apart and carries the stink of neglect and decay going back decades.

This is one such sight, I’m sure of it. Except this sight isn’t in some rundown flophouse by Penn Station.

This sight is unfolding, as clearly as my eyes can see it, right here in what’s supposed to be the Upper East Side.

In what’s supposed to be a luxury building, complete with a doorman.

In what’s not only supposed to be, but very much is, the hallway just outside my apartment.

An apartment that’s goddamn supposed to be protected from this sort of thing. Both by geography and by a security staff who must’ve decided it was high time to stop taking their jobs seriously.

“Who are you?” I’m being calm, calmer than any rational person should be given such chaos. “What are you doing here?”

“My name is Mary. You must be new to the neighborhood!”

Oh, dear Lord and Taylor, this is what I get for living west of East End Avenue.

How did I ever let that walking sweater vest I call a husband talk me into it?

“I’m not new here, Mary. Are you?”

“I like to go skiing!”

“I hope you don’t wear those pajamas to your chalet in the Poconos. At least not until you get inside.”

“My name is...bye!”

Goddamn it—what’s really going on? Is she okay?

“Mary, are you…”

She’s already skipping down the hallway at quite a clip. Daring to poke my head out the door for the first time, I look down the corridor see several other young women waiting for Mary by the elevator.

All of them wearing cheap, drab pajamas.

And all of them giggling as she skips over.

And there’s Thomas, wearing a light blue cardigan, walking through that whole mess like it’s a perfectly normal thing to see in this building.

“I still can’t believe they let you wear that to work,” I comment as the Pajama Club boards the elevator.

“What you really can’t believe is that I have the status to get away with it.” Thomas is still several doors down the hallway, but he’s speaking louder than he needs to.

“You don’t need to brag so loud the whole floor can hear.”

“You think I’m bragging?”

“You know what, dear? You need to be more observant.”

“Why would you say that?”

Thomas reaches our open doorway and squares up to me. He immediately starts searching my eyes, trying to figure out how serious I’m being.

“Did you even stop to think why I was leaning halfway out our door when you got off the elevator?”

“I’m observant enough to know you weren’t leaning nearly that far out. And besides, I’m sure it had something to do with that improvisational performance art troupe wandering the hallway.”

“Is that what that was?”

“Just a guess. Are you going to let me in?”

Our routine is all thrown off. I’m supposed to be halfway through my martini right now. Thomas’s own martini is sitting next to mine on the bar.

Usually, I make them at the same time, but it’s well accepted that I need at least half a glass of gin and dry vermouth before having to talk to him in the evening.

This evening, thanks to Pajama Peggy and the Slumber Party Gang, we’re both starting our cocktail hour at the same time.

“And I’m stuck dealing with this lunkhead stone-cold sober.”

“You do realize you said that out loud, Margarita.”

“Oh, don’t act all wounded. You know I can’t get that drunk from half a cocktail.”

“Why, that’s just the perfect thing to say, my love. I feel so much better after that bit of reassurance.”

“Sigh...come on in.”

“You know,” Thomas breaks into one of his professorial rants the moment we start walking towards our drinks, “most people don’t say the word sigh. Most people just sigh. It’s a breathing thing—not a talking thing.”

“First question: Do you think I’m five? Second question: Do you not enjoy my quirkiness?”

“Do you not enjoy mine?”

There’s no confusion as to which drink is Thomas’s when we get to the bar. He eagerly grabs the glass with six olives—I know how my husband likes it.

“Don’t act like you were just playing along, Thomas.” I add a heavy French accent to his name before finally enjoying the first sip of my shaken cocktail.

“Mon cheri, je n'apprécie pas cette fausse déclaration de mon identité.”

Thomas looks so pleased with himself, tipping the rim of the martini glass to his lips.

“Oh, come off it. We both know you grew up in Gramercy Park.”

His smug look fades a little, but that ghost of a smirk is still on his face as he takes his second sip.

By now, I’m supposed to be well into my martini, and I never let myself forget to dim the lights before I spend time with my perpetually sweater-clad spouse in our front room.

But he got home earlier than expected, and I got distracted by those corridor crazies, and now I’m taking in the full, sober show of my Thomas standing so close to me under the full power of the LEDs.

There’s an abrupt twinge of warmth in my chest, right around my heart, and I’m compelled beyond reason to reach over and clean than little piece of fuzz from my husband’s left shoulder.

“Now, we wouldn’t want your sweet little sweater to get all frizzy, would we?” My voice sounds delicate and tender, at least to my ears.

But, apparently, not to Thomas’s. He takes a horrified step backwards and crosses his arms so fast he almost spills a precious drop of martini on the Brazilian walnut flooring.

“Uh-uh…I mean, what do you think you’re doing?”

Taking a step back myself, I suddenly don’t feel like finishing my cocktail.

We’re still young enough, and so is our marriage.

So how did we ever get to this point?