Although maybe that was an indication that I wasn’t doing it right.

I went down the hallway and stopped where it met the kitchen and living room. Usually I’d go in and do the front room, too, but I sort of didn’t want to go in there at the moment. So I decided, even though I didn’t need to, to vacuum Tyler’s room. Since he was coming home tonight I thought it would be a nice surprise while also being a way for me to avoid being in the same room as Oksana. Win-win.

Tyler’s room was done in dark blues and grays that felt masculine and relaxing. I made sure to avoid the sheets and blankets on his bed so as to not add to my list of vacuum-related issues, and made my way over to his bathroom.

As I passed his walk-in closet I felt the urge to stop and investigate. I turned the vacuum off. When I opened the door, I was immediately hit with his distinct and amazing scent that probably could have lured me to my death like those moths Delia had told us about.

Glancing over my shoulder, I said a quick prayer that Oksana wouldn’t catch me. The first thing I noticed was that Tyler was a secret slob. While he had an extensive collection of ties and suits hanging up, the floor of his closet was covered in clothes. Like the dryer had thrown up in here. Since I worked with second graders and tended to be messy myself, I ignored it as I stepped into the closet. Considering he was currently on a business trip, it was surprising how many things were still here. He had a wardrobe almost big enough to rival mine. Or, my old wardrobe back when I could buy whatever clothes I wanted without considering the cost. I was running my index finger down the length of an expensive blue silk tie that I’d seen on him before, one that made his eyes look even lighter and more piercing, when my phone rang.

The sound shocked me and I rushed out of his closet, like whoever was calling could see what I was doing.

It was Shay.

I swiped to answer. “Shay! You just scared the bejeebers out of me.”

“What are you doing?” She sounded suspicious (rightfully so). Was her Spidey-sense tingling or something?

I was too flustered to come up with even a white lie. “I’m being creepy and going through Tyler’s closet.”

“Oh.” She waited a beat before saying, “You should go through his drawers, too.”

“What?”

“I mean, if you’re going to violate his personal space, you might as well go all the way. And describe it to me, woman with no boundaries.”

Laughing, I said, “The no-boundaries thing is not my fault. I didn’t have personal space growing up.” There was always a bunch of people coming in and out of my room to clean up or put something away or tell me my parents wanted to speak with me so that they could let me know all the ways I was disappointing them. “I blame my parents.”

“I blame your parents for lots of things. Climate change, trouble in the Middle East, why men don’t ask me on second dates.”

“Mine is blaming them for me being emotionally stunted. But Tyler should have his privacy. I’m leaving his room now.”

“Are you really choosing now of all times to be mature and respectful?” she asked.

I walked across the hall into my own room and set the vacuum down near my dresser. Pigeon intuited that I planned on cleaning up in here next, and she took off. I asked, “Did you ever consider that maybe this goes against my moral code?”

“And here I thought your morals weren’t up to code.”

My phone buzzed and it was a text.

From Tyler.

“I have to go! I’ll explain later!” I don’t know why I made Shay get off the phone; I could have just as easily read the text while she waited for a second. It said:

I replied with a sad face and told him to fly safe. After I pressed send, I immediately felt stupid. It wasn’t like he was the pilot. He had zero control over what happened with the plane and whether or not it flew safely.

He seemed to pick up on this when he replied:

I smiled.

There was a loud clatter and what I guessed were swear words in Russian. I went out into the front of the apartment and found Oksana smoking outside on the balcony. I was glad she was doing it out there and not in here, although she’d left the sliding door wide open. She was taking a picture and leaning back over the balcony rail and I had a sudden flash of her tumbling backward like one of those Instagram influencers who fell off a cliff while trying to get a perfect selfie.

“Hey, Oksana?”

She paused what she was doing, blowing a ring of smoke in my direction.

“I just got a text from Tyler. His flight was delayed so he won’t be back tonight.”

She shook her cigarette, letting some ash fall to the ground. She held her phone back up, presumably to verify if I was telling the truth.

But from the look on her face, Tyler hadn’t contacted her.

That should not have delighted me the way that it did.

“The borscht simmers until twenty minutes of the ninth hour.”

I wasn’t sure what time that actually was. 8:40? 9:20? I was about to ask, but she kept talking.

“Then you will pack it up and keep it for Tyler.”

It took me a second to register her instructions. Soon-ish the soup would be done and she wanted me to put it away for her? And given everything still out on the counters, clean up her mess, too? I opened my mouth to protest, but she grabbed her coat and left before I could.

Yes, that’s just what I’ll do. I’ll put away your homemade soup and clean up the kitchen and lie down like the pushover that I am and you can take him and love him and I’ll just be pathetic, sitting on the sidelines.

I went into the kitchen and started putting the leftover vegetables into the drawer in the fridge. I turned the heat off on the soup. I didn’t care when it was supposed to finish. I considered dumping it down the sink, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Why was it so hard for me to say no? I figured it was a combination of needing to please scary, cold women and having no money—I couldn’t let this much food go to waste, especially since there was enough soup here to feed a platoon.

And it smelled delicious. I decided to have a bowl and it was amazing and I wanted to curse her name for being so good at everything, but I held back just in case I made her appear again.

I wanted to have another serving of the borscht but decided against and finished cleaning the kitchen instead. When I started the dishwasher, I noticed that Pigeon had been hiding for a long time.

“Pigeon? Where are you, girl? The Wicked Witch is gone. Come out, come out, wherever you are!” I walked past Tyler’s bedroom and that’s where I saw her.

Lying on the floor, chewing up one of his shoes.

I’d forgotten to close his closet door!

“No, no, no, no,” I muttered as I reached for what had once been a shoe. A very expensive one, from the looks of it. While I ran to the closet to find the matching one, Pigeon stared at me as if she couldn’t figure out why I was upset. I had to throw a bunch of clothes around, ignoring the fact that everything smelled like him. I finally located the other shoe and I made sure to close the door nice and tight this time.

“Well, Pidge, I’ll give you this. At least you have good taste.” And considering what a mess his closet was, she also possessed a fierce determination in unearthing the shoe that I wouldn’t have anticipated.