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Michael

Iwas settling in to watch the last ten minutes of the Chicago Bulls game when I heard the swearing start. I wasn’t sure what the words were exactly, given that Olga was swearing in Ukrainian, but I’d spent enough time with her to know that she was definitely saying some things that would make a sailor blush.

She stormed into the room, looking a little crazy eyed. Her thick brown hair was a mess, as if she’d been digging her fingers in it, and her little hands were folded into fists.

“What’s the matter, baby?”

The endearment slipped out without my conscious thought. I couldn’t imagine what I had done to make her this mad, but judging by the mutinous expression on her face, my calling her ‘baby’ had just made her madder.

Technically, we were only roommates. Well, roommates with benefits. Mind blowing, life changing benefits. But there was the tiny little issue of me being madly in love with her. I just hadn’t worked out how to tell her yet, mostly because I wasn’t sure how she felt about me – if she loved me as more than a friend.

Olga was like a vault. She kept her emotions close to the vest. Except for right now. There was no mistaking the look on her face. My love was pissed off. And in a panic. The last time I’d seen this exact look on her face was in the third grade when a pigeon had swooped down and stolen her contraband twinkie right out of her hand.

Turning off the TV, I strode over to her and placed my hands on her shoulders. She wasn’t short, but she still felt small and delicate next to me. I gave her shoulders a small squeeze and waited for her to look up at me.

“Olga,” I said carefully, using the calming voice you’d use to talk down a guy trying to rob you on the sidewalk, something that happened from time to time here in Chicago. “What’s wrong?”

“My father is going to kill you. Slowly and gleefully, the way he learned in the Ukrainian military. Then my mother is going to send me to the convent. I’m going to be a terrible nun…” her words broke off in a high pitched wail that I’m pretty sure every dog in the neighborhood heard.

“Why would your father kill me? He loves me, and so does your mother. And I’m pretty sure your mother wants to keep you around too. Alona always says you’re her favorite.”

I’d spent many a happy Saturday at the Pavlenko household in the Ukrainian Village neighborhood, eating delicious ethnic food until I was too stuffed to walk. Olga’s mother was an incredible cook who was sure that none of us were eating enough. Every time I went over there, I had leftovers for days.

“They’re not going to love you now,” she said bitterly.

“Why?”

“Because you knocked up their unmarried daughter!”

Olga

Six months earlier…

I stared at the eviction notice in shock. How could this be happening? Again. I paid my rent on time and I was a model tenant. Oh my God! I shouldn’t have bought that new designer handbag! I was going to need money to put down a deposit on a new apartment. And to pay the movers…

This was the absolute worse time for me to have to move. My boss and I were right in the middle of a complicated real estate deal, and I was also in charge of setting up his new charitable foundation. I barely had time to eat, let alone pack up all my worldly belongings and tour apartments.

Feeling myself start to hyperventilate, I pressed my fingernails into my thighs and forced myself to take deep breaths until the panic receded. Pushing out of my chair, I headed for a conference room in the back of the building. It was a drab, windowless room in an otherwise tasteful and cheerful building, and we usually only used it for auditors and people we didn’t like. It was the perfect place to make a personal phone call.

I worked as an assistant for billionaire real estate magnate Mark Barone, although ‘assistant’ was a bit of a misnomer. The title made people think I took minutes and answered the phone, but that was the admin assistant’s job. I was essentially Mark’s right hand person, working on project management, supervising the administrative staff, and stepping in wherever he needed me, including doing the legwork to set up his new charity. My job was hard to define, which is why Mark and I had never come up with a better title. That’s okay though, he paid me way better than the title suggested.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t as good of a saver as I should be, something that was going to come back to haunt me now that I was going to have to move. Again. It was the third time I was having to move in five years, which was really putting a crimp in my ability to save up to buy a house.

After closing myself up in the conference room, I found my landlord’s phone number in my contacts.

“Mr. Roberts?” I asked when the landlord answered the phone. “This is Olga Pavlenko, from the Admiral Building.”

“Hello Olga, how are you?”

Even through the phone I could hear the forced casualness of his tone.

“Well, I’d be better if I hadn’t just received a thirty day eviction notice. I don’t understand.”

My landlord sighed deeply. “I’m sorry dear, my wife is going into long-term care which, as I’m sure you know, is very expensive. I’m having to liquidate several of my properties to pay for it.”

“But thirty days?” I asked. “Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find a nice apartment in a decent neighborhood in this city? Especially one that accepts cats?”

I’d live in a cardboard box on Lower Wacker Drive before I’d give up my cat. Which I might have to do, given the rapid pace at which rents had been increasing over the last few years. It was either a cardboard box or a move into one of the neighborhoods farther away from downtown, many of which were a bit shady. As a woman living alone, I was adamant about living some place safe.