In Love With My Ex's Cousin

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Elena

Monday started with the stone sample.

The junior designer had brought the wrong one again, paler than the approved slab and glossy in a way that would mark the first time someone set a cup on it. I had her sit at my table, put both samples under the same light, and made her say the difference out loud before I let her call the supplier. She looked mortified. I told her mortified was useful if it changed the next order.

Sofia set a coffee beside my keyboard without asking.

“You’re in teaching mode,” she said. “Should I be afraid?”

“Only if you specify marble that stains.”

“I sell ideas, not stone. I’m safe.” She leaned in. “Installer today?”

“Eleven. Riverside.”

“Do you want company?”

“No. It’s measurements and brackets. I’ll be back before lunch if they don’t talk too much.”

I left at ten-thirty with the treatment file, a tape measure, and the access card. The river was grey. The building desk had my name on a list and handed me a visitor badge I did not need. Upstairs the apartment was still empty, still loud with no furniture to catch the sound.

The installer arrived eight minutes late, two men and a bag of hardware. The older one looked at the windows, then at my drawings, then at the windows again.

“These headings are short,” he said.

I already knew. I had measured twice. “Show me.”

He held the first track against the recess. It was short by almost four centimetres. Not a disaster. Not nothing either. The order had been cut to a number that did not match the frame once the plaster return was taken into account.

“We can recut,” he said. “Not today. Tomorrow if the workshop is free. Wednesday if it isn’t.”

I stood with my hands in my coat pockets and looked at the river through untreated glass. “Fit the bedroom window. That track is correct. Leave the living room until the new ones arrive. I’ll confirm the recut this afternoon.”

They worked for an hour. Two panels went up on the smaller bedroom window, ivory sheer first, charcoal folded back. The living room stayed bare. I took photographs, wrote the shortfall into the file, and waited until they had packed the unused tracks.

“I’ll call you when the workshop answers,” the older one said.

“Do that.”

Downstairs I sat in the lobby for a minute and sent the note from my phone.

Two living-room tracks are short. Workshop recut needed. Bedroom window is up. I’ll send revised timing once I have a day from the installer.

Luca’s reply came before I reached the street.

Understood. Tell me when they can return.

I put the phone away and walked back to the office.

Marcus wanted an update the moment I sat down. I gave him the short version. He frowned at the delay, then at the name on the file, then let it go when I told him the bedroom was done and the living room was a recut, not a redesign.

The afternoon filled itself. Hawthorne sent three photographs of a sofa they now hated. I answered. The junior designer returned with the correct stone and an apology I did not make her repeat. Sofia disappeared into a call and emerged looking like she wanted to throw her laptop into the river. I bought her a sandwich and told her to eat it before she did something expensive.

At four the installer called. Wednesday morning. Early. I wrote it in the diary, then emailed Luca.

Wednesday, eight-thirty. I’ll meet them on site.

Fine.

I stayed until six because the Hawthorne sofa still needed a replacement option that did not look like a punishment. When I left, the office was half empty. The walk home was colder than the morning. I bought milk. I had run out and ignored it since Saturday.

In the apartment I heated my mother’s leftovers, ate at the counter, and washed the container so I could return it without making a project of it. Sofia texted a photograph of her own dinner and the caption I remembered food exists. I sent back a picture of the empty container.

Borrowed glory,* she replied. *Go to bed.

I checked the Riverside file once more, added the Wednesday time, and closed the laptop. The living-room windows would stay bare for two more days. That was an inconvenience, not a crisis. It meant another early site visit and a conversation with men who measured twice after they had already cut once.

I showered, laid out clothes for the morning, and went to bed with the week arranged again: Tuesday in the office, Wednesday at the river at eight-thirty.

The tracks were short.

The rest of the apartment was still waiting.

That was Monday. I did not try to make it more than that.