Violetta turned off the ignition and grabbed her phone on the second ring.
“Mr. Grigory Sergeyevich?”
“My golden goose, turn around!” her boss sounded deflated. “The deal fell through. Business trip is canceled.”
Violetta looked at the airport board through the windshield, then at the suitcase on the back seat.
“What do you mean, fell through? I spent three days proofreading every comma in that contract till midnight.”
“It’s not you, my golden goose. Their funding collapsed. They pushed it to next quarter.”
“Wonderful. So the poultry-plant director is giving me unscheduled time off?”
“A whole week is yours. Rest up—you’ve earned it.”
Violetta swung the car around and headed for the ring road. In late August the lake water should be warm—perfect for some time alone with her husband.
After a few kilometers, she picked up the phone again. She couldn’t wait to tell Maxim about this unexpected gift of fate. It had been so long since they’d been together without work, trips, and endless errands.
“At last we’ll just be with each other,” she murmured dreamily.
Maxim wasn’t answering. Violetta frowned—he usually never let his smartphone out of his hands. Ever since being “let go by mutual agreement,” he’d turned into the perfect househusband: cooking, cleaning, doing lessons with six-year-old Katya. Their daughter adored her father and saw her mother less and less.
The last hundred-million contract had brought Violetta a five-percent commission. She bought a new car with it and gave her husband expensive gadgets for their seventh wedding anniversary. Katya had been sent to Grandma’s in the village for a month—ideal timing for a second honeymoon.
She dialed again. Subscriber unavailable.
“Strange,” Violetta muttered, turning onto Petrovskaya Street.
She tried to recall what Maxim had said that morning. Something about meeting their neighbor Tamara—Katya’s friend’s mother. They were supposed to discuss a children’s party. But that was no reason to switch off his phone.
“Maybe the battery died?” Violetta soothed herself.
The customary gathering of elderly women by the entrance met her with surprised looks. Neighbor Valentina Petrovna stopped cracking sunflower seeds.
“Violetta? What are you doing home in the middle of the day?”
“The trip was canceled.”
“See? Told you,” cut in Zina, the fifty-year-old daughter of the neighbor, who looked older than her years. “She takes too much on herself. Doesn’t raise the child, runs off on business trips. A she-wolf.”
Violetta shrugged and headed into the Stalin-era building. Maxim stubbornly refused to move to a new development, clinging to its “historic value” and “atmosphere.”
“Your Maxim’s at home,” Zina went on. “Turned so handy, he has. Always planning kids’ events with our Tamara.”
“Zina, don’t run your mouth,” Valentina Petrovna scolded.
“What did I say?” Zina shrugged.
On the second floor, Violetta heard running water. The Jacuzzi was on.
“I’ll surprise him,” Violetta smirked.
She stripped down to lace lingerie and pushed open the bathroom door.
Sitting in the Jacuzzi were Maxim and Tamara—Katya’s friend’s mother, a woman of substantial proportions that did not at all match the agility she showed a moment later.
“Surprise delivered,” Violetta said coolly, grabbing the hair dryer that was plugged in.
“Vika?!” Maxim tried to scramble out of the water.
“Yes, me!” Violetta aimed the dryer toward the water. “Why is my husband running a water park for the neighbor?”
Tamara leapt from the tub with surprising speed; Maxim tumbled out after her and fell to his knees before his wife.
“Hear me out! I’ll explain everything!”
Violetta, almost on autopilot, switched on the dryer and began blow-drying his wet hair.
“At least they won’t have to wash you in the morgue,” she said thoughtfully.
Tamara reached for her clothes, but Violetta cut her off, arming herself with a can of hairspray.
“Pssst! Shoo!”
“Violetta, don’t think the worst!” Tamara babbled, clutching a towel to herself.
“What am I thinking?” Violetta tilted her head. “That you were discussing a children’s party in the Jacuzzi? A new pedagogical approach?”
“We just…” Maxim began.
“Just decided to save on a trip to the water park,” Violetta finished for him. “Got it. Thrifty, aren’t you.”
A minute later, Violetta stood at the kitchen window with an armful of someone else’s things: dowdy jeans, a sweater, red lingerie, a matching purse. She opened the window and shook everything out into the courtyard.
The jeans snagged on the lilac branches, the lingerie caught on a shrub, and the purse landed squarely on the local drunk, Seryoga, who was sleeping under the tree. He woke up, lifted the red bra, and studied it at length.
“Seryoga, that’s not your size!” Violetta called from the window.
“Whose is it then?” Seryoga asked guilelessly.
“Nobody’s now!”
The women by the entrance watched with evident relish.
On the kitchen table lay the traces of a romantic rendezvous: cream, orange liqueur, two shot glasses, neatly sliced fruit.
“My groceries, my apartment,” Violetta muttered, pulling out her phone. “Yegor? It’s Violetta, your neighbor. Your wife is at my place and needs a change of clothes. Desperately.”
“What do you mean ‘at your place’?” Yegor’s voice was suspicious.
“Literally. She’s in my bathroom with no clothes on. What she had on is decorating our yard.”
“I’m on my way,” he growled, promising interesting developments.
She locked the front door, collected all the keys, and sat down to wait.
Yegor arrived half an hour later. From the window, Violetta watched the enraged taxi driver chase his half-naked wife around the courtyard, swatting her with a bag of clothes. Tamara ran in one slipper, clutching a towel.
“Beautiful,” Violetta assessed.
“Tamara!” Yegor shouted. “Where were you?!”
“We were discussing the kids’ party!” Tamara squealed, trying to pull on her jeans as she ran.
“In a Jacuzzi?! What party is that supposed to be?!”
“Neptune Day!” Tamara didn’t miss a beat.
Maxim was packing things into the expensive suitcases bought with her money.
“Only the essentials,” she said, handing him plastic shopping bags. “The rest goes to charity.”
She took off her wedding ring and tossed it into the toilet. The cream and liqueur followed.
“Violetta, let’s talk like adults,” Maxim tried.
“Adults don’t hold water rituals with other men’s wives,” she replied, opening the door for him. “Goodbye.”
“But listen to me! This can all be explained!”
“Explain it to your lawyer. He’ll understand better.”
“What lawyer?!”
“The one I’m hiring tomorrow. Goodbye, Maxim.”
When Maxim left, Violetta called the travel agency.
“I want to change my booking. Instead of a family room—single. The wildest, most remote spot by the lake where there’s no one around.”
“There’s a lodge on Lake Glukhoye. Total isolation.”
“Perfect.”
Then she called her best friend, Anna.
“Anya, you won’t believe what happened today!”
“Violetta? I thought you were on a business trip!”
“Trip got canceled, but new horizons opened. I caught my husband in the Jacuzzi with the neighbor.”
“What?! That can’t be!”
“Oh, it can. I’m free now, and I’m going to the lake. Alone.”
“Good for you. Men are bastards.”
“Not all of them; I just got a defective model.”
Violetta closed her suitcase and looked around the apartment. Tomorrow she’d call a realtor—sell this place and buy a new one by the river. Just for herself and her daughter.
She took the car keys and headed for the door. The women by the entrance saw her off with respectful looks.
“Not a she-wolf after all,” she heard Zina behind her. “A real she-wolf.”
Violetta turned and smiled. “Thanks for the compliment.”
“What’s going to happen to Maxim?” Valentina Petrovna asked.
“Maxim is now free to stage his water rituals wherever he likes—just not in my home.”
“You did the right thing,” Zina approved. “I’d have drowned him in that Jacuzzi.”
“Pity the Jacuzzi,” Violetta laughed. “It’s brand-new.”
An hour later she was already driving toward Lake Glukhoye, where she planned to spend the best vacation of her life. On the way she called Katya.
“Mommy!” her daughter cried, delighted. “Have you already flown back?”
“No, honey. Plans changed. I’ll come for you soon, and we’ll have a real holiday.”
“What about Daddy?”
“Daddy… Daddy will be living separately. But he still loves you.”
“I see,” Katya said solemnly. “So we’re having a girls’ party?”
“Exactly. A long, long girls’ party.”
Violetta smiled and stepped on the gas. A new life lay ahead.
