Chapter Seven
Admissions
I should have gone back to my apartment; I went to my office instead—the office that I shared with Ala, my younger, Polish, lively, raunchy, loud . . . guide.
Not a private space.
Not what I would have done if I really wanted to be left alone.
No.
And she was as close to discrete as—given who she was—she could manage.
I was coming in a little late, rumpled, dazed, wearing what I had worn to the bar the night before? She did a little eyebrow dance and left it at that.
Her friend Magda stuck her head in around one—asked about lunch. They had some quick, giggly, furtive-obvious, back and forth in Polish, then asked me if I wanted to come. I saw no other choice, really.
I was confused.
“He didn’t fock you!” Magda said, over her second stein of beer, Ala’s han
