Returning home earlier from work, Alla entered the apartment and was genuinely stunned when she saw a young woman in her bathrobe standing in the living room.
The phone rang. Alla looked at the screen and was a bit surprised. It was her neighbor from the same building calling.
“Sorry to bother you. But my nerves are shot. Loud music has been pounding from your apartment for over an hour—my chandelier is shaking.”
Alla was deeply puzzled; there wasn’t supposed to be anyone in the apartment. Her husband was at work.
Or maybe he’d taken a day off again and was hosting another drinking party at home. In her mind, she pictured the living room in shambles and empty bottles on the table.
“Thanks, Nastya, for letting me know. I’ll deal with this mess right away. Sorry you had to experience this because of us.”
Alla saved the document file on her computer and headed to the director’s office.
She had to quickly invent a story about a burst pipe in the bathroom and beg to be let out early, promising she’d come to work on Saturday.
Mark Valeryevich listened with a displeased expression, but eventually waved her off.
Alla quickly got into her silver Toyota and drove home.
She went up to the seventh floor, took the keys from her handbag, and opened the door.
Music was indeed playing inside, though not as loudly as the neighbor had claimed.
The sound came from the living room, and Alla slowly walked down the hallway.
In the living room, by the window overlooking the courtyard, stood a young woman of about twenty-five, wearing Alla’s silk robe.
She held a glass of sparkling wine in her hand and clearly did not expect the lady of the house to return at that moment.
No one else was home.
“What are you doing here?” Alla asked.
The girl froze by the window as if rooted to the spot, gripping the glass tighter with her thin, brightly manicured fingers.
Embarrassment mixed with confusion was written all over her pretty face.
She simply stood there, staring at Alla as if mesmerized.
“I… I was told… that no one was supposed to be here,” the stranger finally stammered, her voice trembling.
“Who told you?”
The girl just shook her head and looked away. She was clearly expecting someone else and had no idea how to get out of this awkward situation.
Alla stepped toward her, grabbed her by the elbow, and dragged her into the bedroom.
“What are you doing? Let me go!” the stranger protested, but weakly.
“Quickly take off my robe and sit there quietly!” Alla shouted, shoving the girl into the bedroom and turning the key in the lock.
She went to the kitchen, opened a drawer, took out a large wooden rolling pin, then moved to the window and scanned the courtyard attentively.
She started searching among the parked cars for her husband.
There was practically no one outside—only the janitor sweeping paths near the playground and a few elderly women sitting on a bench.
From the bedroom came plaintive cries:
“Please let me out!”
Alla dragged one of the chairs to the center of the living room and sat down with the posture of a general before a decisive battle.
She placed the rolling pin on her lap and began waiting for her husband to return.
The music continued to play, creating a tense atmosphere in the apartment.
“Be quiet! I’ll deal with you later! For now, don’t move and don’t make a sound!”
Alla sat like that for almost forty minutes, eyes fixed on the front door, listening for every sound in the hallway.
Every time the elevator stopped on their floor or someone walked past the door, she tensed and gripped the rolling pin harder.
Finally, the lock clicked, and Alla quickly stood up, holding the rolling pin with both hands.
But when the door opened, she saw not Borya, but his younger brother Vova.
He stepped inside and froze, seeing formidable Alla in the middle of the living room with a militant look on her face.
“What are you doing here?” Alla asked, not hiding her extreme irritation.
Vova gave an awkward smile and scratched the back of his head.
“Alka, you caught me—fine, I give up. Honestly, I didn’t expect to see you here at this hour.”
“How dare you bring that girl into my apartment? You have a wife and kids! Have you completely lost your conscience?”
Vova started waving his hands, trying to explain himself.
“It just sort of happened… that girl stuck to me after the corporate party, and… well… I thought the apartment was empty, no one would know. Just don’t tell Svetka, I beg you! She’ll kill me. We already have fights every day over money, and now this!”
“Where’s Borya?” Alla asked, suddenly realizing that this whole time she had been thinking about her husband, though he might have nothing to do with this mess.
“Borya? He’s at work, of course. Did you even call him today?”
Only at that moment did it hit Alla that she’d stormed out of work, gotten furious at her husband, and hadn’t even bothered to call him to find out where he was.
The situation was becoming increasingly awkward, and she felt like a complete fool.
“Do you even realize what you’re doing?” Alla said. “Svetka is at home raising your children, and you’re out here entertaining yourself!”
“She’s not like that, really… just a bit scatterbrained. A girl from our marketing department,” Vova tried to justify himself. “I swear to you, it’ll never happen again! Just don’t tell my wife, Alla, please?”
She walked up to the bedroom door, turned the key, and commanded loudly:
“Come out. Quickly! The show is over!”
The girl had already changed into her own clothes and rushed into the hallway, clearly eager to get out of there as fast as possible.
“I’m very sorry,” she muttered, putting on her jacket. “I didn’t know this was your apartment.”
Vova quickly grabbed the girl by the hand and dragged her toward the exit.
“All right, we’re leaving! Bye!” he shouted, hastily slamming the door behind them.
When the apartment finally became quiet, Alla went to the bathroom and turned on the cold-water tap.
She splashed her face several times with cool water, trying to calm herself down.
She looked at her reflection in the mirror and saw an agitated woman with disheveled hair—someone who had just staged an entire performance driven by her own suspicions.
She returned to the bedroom, picked up the robe, and immediately tossed it into the laundry basket. The scent of unfamiliar perfume still lingered in the air.
She needed to air out the room properly and forget this unpleasant episode as soon as possible.
Alla threw the window wide open, letting in the fresh September air.
“What’s this rolling pin doing on the floor?” she heard a familiar voice from the living room.
Borya was standing in the middle of the room in his work overalls, staring in confusion at the wooden kitchen utensil lying on the carpet.
Alla stepped out of the bedroom.
“I chased your darling brother around with it,” she explained. “Can you imagine? He brought some girl into our apartment.”
“Damn it, Vovka… completely lost his mind,” Borya frowned and shook his head in annoyance. “We need to take his keys away. He’s totally overstepped. Turning our apartment into a brothel.”
“Exactly,” Alla agreed. “If he pulls something like this again, I really will smack him with this rolling pin.”
Borya went to the bathroom to wash his hands after work, while Alla headed to the kitchen, tied up the trash bag, and left the apartment to take it to the garbage chute.
When she tossed the bag in, she unexpectedly ran into their neighbor Nastya, who was returning home with heavy grocery bags in both hands.
“Well, did you sort everything out?” Nastya asked, putting the bags on the floor. “The music finally stopped. I thought I’d have to listen to that rumbling until evening.”
“Everything’s fine,” Alla answered, trying to sound as natural as possible. “My husband just forgot to turn off the TV when he rushed to work this morning.”
“Happens.”
Nastya pulled her key from her pocket and stuck it into the lock. Then she suddenly turned back to Alla:
“By the way, what was your Borya doing half an hour ago near the next entrance with his brother?”
Alla stiffened.
“What? Are you sure you saw them?…”
“Yes, of course. I was on my way to the store and saw your husband near the third entrance. He was talking to Vova about something very nervously, waving his arms around. It was clear they were arguing. I even thought maybe they were fighting over money.”
At that moment, the entire picture finally clicked for Alla.
Borya had probably gone to the pharmacy, leaving the girl in their apartment, and when he came back, he saw Alla’s car and immediately realized he couldn’t go upstairs.
So he called his brother and asked him to take the blow for him.
Alla said goodbye to the neighbor and quickly headed toward her apartment. She pushed the door open with such force that it slammed against the hallway wall with a loud bang.
Borya was just coming out of the bathroom, drying his hands with a terry towel, and he jumped in place from the shock.
“Why are you slamming the door like that?” he asked, trying to feign innocent confusion. “Have you gone completely crazy?”
“So you were at work today, huh?” Alla asked, stepping up close to him and staring straight into his eyes. “Fixing cars at the auto shop all day long?”
“Well, of course. Where else would I be during work hours?” Borya replied, though his voice didn’t sound very convincing.
His face changed instantly; the color drained from his cheeks. He understood that his clever plan had collapsed spectacularly.
Alla stood before him with such a menacing expression that it became clear—the conversation ahead would be long and unpleasant.
Meanwhile, Nastya entered her own two-room apartment and placed her heavy grocery bags on the floor near the coat rack.
She needed to sort the food and put the frozen items into the fridge before they thawed.
She walked into the kitchen, took out the kettle, and filled it with filtered water.
Then she set it on the stove and began unpacking the groceries.
Suddenly, a desperate male scream echoed from the neighboring apartment.
“Alla, what’s gotten into you?! Let go of me!”
Nastya shook her head and sighed.
“What a family. They have a scandal every single week.”
She pulled her favorite flower-patterned mug from the cupboard, brewed strong black tea, and sat down at the kitchen table.
The kettle continued releasing steam, creating a cozy domestic atmosphere that sharply contrasted with the shouting coming from next door.
A few minutes later, Nastya heard a vehicle with a wailing siren pull into the courtyard.
She walked to the window and saw a white ambulance with red crosses on the sides and flashing blue lights on the roof.
Doctors in white coats quickly unloaded a stretcher and headed toward the building entrance.
A little while later, a police car drove into the courtyard, its bright markings glowing as its lights flashed.
Two uniformed officers stepped out and also headed toward their building.
Nastya took a cookie from the small dish on the table, bit into it, and washed it down with hot tea.
Some dramatic events were clearly unfolding outside, but she was already accustomed to such stories in their building.
“Probably the first-floor neighbors fighting again,” she thought. “It happens every weekend when the husband comes back from fishing.”
