In Love With My Ex's Cousin

CHAPTER 21

Elena

Wednesday started before the city had decided to be awake.

I left the apartment at seven-forty with coffee in a travel cup and the treatment file under my arm. The streets were still wet from a night rain I had slept through. I walked two blocks, then took a cab across the river because eight-thirty did not allow for the longer route.

The lobby of 18 Riverside Drive smelled like polish and cold air. The desk had my name. I went up alone.

The bedroom window looked finished in the grey morning light. Ivory first, charcoal held back. The living room was still bare glass and river. I set my bag on the long black table and checked the time.

Eight-twenty-six.

The installer arrived at eight-thirty-four with the recut tracks and the same older man from Monday. He held the first heading against the recess without ceremony.

“Better,” he said.

It was. The extra length sat correctly in the plaster return. I nodded once.

They started on the left living-room window. I stayed out of the way and watched the drop of the sheer against the water. The ivory warmed the grey instead of fighting it. For twenty minutes the work was ordinary: drill, level, bracket, check.

Then the older man stopped.

“This wall,” he said.

I came closer.

The plaster at the far edge of the second window had blown. Not a crack I could ignore. A soft patch the size of a hand, hidden until the track sat against it. The bracket would have gone into dust.

“If we fix it now, we wait for filler to set,” he said. “If we skip it, the track comes off in six weeks.”

“We don’t skip it.”

He looked at the river, then at me. “That’s a plasterer. Not us. We can leave the first window up and come back when the wall is sound.”

I stood with my hands in my coat pockets and looked at the damaged edge. An empty apartment made every problem louder. There was no furniture to hide it and no second adult in the room to share the decision with.

“Do the first window,” I said. “Leave the second. I’ll get the wall sorted and send you a return date.”

They fitted the one good window. Sheer. Charcoal. The room changed immediately: half dressed, half unfinished, the river cut in two. I photographed the blown plaster, wrote the measurement, and waited until they had packed.

“Call us when it’s dry,” the older man said.

“I will.”

Downstairs I sat in the lobby again and sent the note.

First living-room window is up. Second wall has blown plaster under the track line. Needs a plasterer before we can finish. I’ll get quotes today.

The reply came at nine-twelve.

I’ll come by at lunch. I want to see the wall.

I read it twice.

It was a practical sentence. The apartment was his. A damaged wall was not a detail to leave on a photograph. I answered once.

I’ll be on site until twelve. After that I’m back at the office.

Twelve is fine.

I went to the office anyway. Hawthorne could not wait for plaster. I sent the sofa option, took a call from the stone supplier, and told Marcus the living room would slip by a few days. He asked if the client was unhappy. I said the client wanted to see the wall. Marcus accepted that as the kind of answer a Moretti file required.

At eleven-forty I crossed the river again.

Luca was already in the living room when I arrived, coat still on, standing where the second track should have gone. He looked at the plaster, not at me.

“How long?” he asked.

“If I get someone today, they can patch this afternoon. It needs to set. Installer back Friday at the earliest.”

He pressed his thumb to the soft edge, then took it away. “Do it. Use whoever you trust. Send the invoice to me, not the firm account.”

“All right.”

The one finished window held the river still. The unfinished one let the raw morning in. We stood in that split light with nothing else in the room to make it look like a home.

“Will you be here Friday?” I asked.

“If the plasterer is done, no. You and the installer are enough.”

“Good.”

It was the correct answer. I did not need him for brackets.

I called the plasterer from the hallway while Luca stayed at the window. The man I used for Hawthorne could come at three. I told Luca. He nodded, looked at the wall once more, and left first.

I locked the apartment behind us.

In the lift I booked the three o’clock slot and sent the plasterer the photographs. By the time I reached the street, the morning had become a delayed window and a client who had chosen to look at the damage himself.

That was still work.

I walked to the corner, found a cab, and went back to the office with the file updated and Friday waiting on a wall that had to dry.