I realize I’m entranced by apartment building vestibules in the middle of the night. Sometimes, also, the antechamber lobbies of banks and businesses that are locked and brightly-lit, empty except maybe someone’s come by to pick up their friend and they mutely converse and smile.

The ones that are glass, metal, and marble have white or black couches. Other ones are darker or wooden, and they have couches that are of other colors, like maroon. None of the couches are used. The rooms are useless and spare. Sometimes they have a potted plant or a piano. The walls are glass so a blank pane of light is projected onto the street.

I walk past some on my way from bar one to bar two, and others on my way from bar two to bar three. I would much rather be sitting in them, barely-owned wasted spaces of urban civility, than in any bar.

This also reminds me of a passage from AVA, by Carol Maso:

Neither Francesco nor I could be faithful to one another for more than a month or two at a time. We had, shall we say, met our matches. I was only twenty then.
We were truthful at any rate.
I was not looking for anything, anyone else, I was simply sampling.
As for Francesco? Who can say?
We were always, at any rate, truthful. Had strict rules which we stuck to:
No lovers in the apartment.
No lies.
The apartment vestibule was OK, though.