When Natalia returned home, she found her husband, Nikita, in a very anxious state. He was pacing nervously from one corner to another, constantly dialing a number on his phone.
“Hi, honey,” Natalia said casually, pretending not to notice her husband’s tension. “What’s for dinner?”
It was as though Nikita didn’t hear her; he went on trying to reach someone. Natalia shrugged and headed to the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator and studied its contents. Nikita followed her in.
“Natasha, I can’t get through to my parents…”
“You could’ve cooked something if you were home all day,” Natalia said irritably, ignoring what her husband had just said.
“Are you listening to me? My parents haven’t been picking up for over an hour,” Nikita said nervously.
“Well, it happens,” Natalia replied. “Cell service isn’t reliable everywhere.”
“But they went to pick up their things from that apartment,” Nikita said, frowning. “Is there a total black hole for phone signals there or what?”
“How would I know, dear?” Natalia responded calmly. “I’ve never lived there a single day. I only bought it recently. So I have no clue.”
Throughout the conversation, she continued rummaging through the fridge, trying to figure out what she could make for dinner on the fly. Finally, she chose eggs, cheese, tomatoes, onions, and milk to make a cheese omelet. While the main course was frying, she quickly chopped a salad. Nikita’s anxiety didn’t bother her in the slightest. Meanwhile, he pulled up an online map.
“Tell me the address of that apartment again,” he asked.
Natalia repeated it, still busy cooking. Nikita sat down at the table, fully absorbed in searching for the place. Natalia calmly served herself the omelet, set the salad next to it, and began to eat with gusto while watching funny videos on her phone.
“I don’t get it,” Nikita said in surprise. “It seems like a decent neighborhood. I need to look more closely.”
He finally glanced at his wife, who continued eating alone.
“Listen, you must’ve been there at least once,” he said. “What’s it like inside that apartment? What’s the local infrastructure like, how far is the subway, and all that…”
“What a perfect time you’ve chosen to ask,” Natalia smirked. “I’m sure your parents will tell you all about it themselves.”
Natalia finished her meal without leaving anything for her husband, stood up, and headed out of the kitchen.
“Do the dishes, dear,” she said and left.
From the other room, she heard Nikita’s phone finally ring, followed by his loud exclamation:
“Mom, finally! Thank God! So, what’s going on over there?”
Natalia settled down on the couch and turned on the TV with the remote, anticipating a kind of live “reality show.” She couldn’t care less about what was actually on TV; she was simply waiting. Any moment now… and then—
“Whaaat???” came a shout from the kitchen.
A second later, Nikita practically burst into the room.
“Natasha, you—”
But his words were drowned out by his wife’s loud, uncontrollable laughter.
“The husband works, the wife is beautiful”—this popular model of married life is familiar to almost everyone. And why not, if both spouses are satisfied? The husband takes on the classic role of the breadwinner, and the wife adorns his life with her charm.
In Natalia and Nikita’s family, however, things were the opposite.
Natalia had been born decidedly unattractive, and from infancy she was used to evoking not tenderness, but, to put it mildly, surprise. Her mother, Olga Georgievna—herself far from a supermodel—had once been wooed by a huge man who was kind, generous, and strong… though he looked much like the well-known character Shrek.
Coddled in care and hyper-protection, Olga Georgievna initially paid no heed to her husband’s lack of looks. In fact, perhaps men could be excused for that. Besides, she found life under his mighty wing very comfortable.
But then a daughter was born… One glance at the little girl was enough to see that she had inherited all of her father’s roughly hewn facial features. Instead of joy over a new life, Olga Georgievna shed bitter tears, imagining the mockery and bullying her daughter would inevitably face.
“She might outgrow it,” a nurse tried to reassure her.
But years went by, Natalia grew, and the situation only got worse.
All the same, the girl herself learned to take her appearance philosophically. She was smart, bold, fearless, and reliable. Because of this, she felt quite comfortable among boys, hanging out exclusively with them.
They treated her as “one of the guys.” Natalia did her best to rid her teenage mind of any romantic fantasies. Yet Olga Georgievna knew that sooner or later nature might take its course.
“Natasha, at all costs, try to have a baby with a good-looking man,” her mother begged.
“Mom, I’m not planning on getting married at all,” Natalia snapped. “Why would I? I have other things to do.”
She poured all her energy into her studies and career, always saying she dreamed of saving up a mountain of money for retirement so she could travel the world the moment she stopped working.
But Natalia was being disingenuous. Deep down, she dreamed of having plastic surgery. The idea had taken root when her first love ended in complete disaster at age sixteen. The target of her affections was Kostya, a guy in her friend group. At some point, Natalia realized she got dangerously anxious whenever he showed up. She stopped eating, lost sleep, and spent all her time daydreaming.
That was when she began to spend ages in front of the mirror, searching for at least one appealing feature that might entice him. Finding nothing, she finally plucked up the courage to confess her feelings—and he simply laughed.
“Natasha, are you nuts?” he exclaimed in surprise. “I never expected you to get hung up on that kind of thing. You’re one of us!”
She tried to play it off as a joke, though her heart was pounding so hard it felt like it might burst out of her chest. She never brought it up again, but not long after, she gradually ended her friendship with Kostya. Seeing him together with a local beauty named Marina was unbearable.
Natalia graduated from college with honors in Oil and Gas Engineering, a rare and highly sought-after specialty. She got a job at a major company without any difficulty and soon became one of its highest-paid young specialists.
Initially, her work required frequent business trips, which only seemed to excite her. Life was more interesting that way. Before long, she was able to buy herself a two-bedroom apartment, paying for it outright—no mortgage. Unlike most of her peers, she could afford quite a lot.
Natalia’s parents were truly proud of her and always supported her. However, her mother never tired of lamenting her daughter’s failed personal life.
By then, Natalia had already saved enough money for plastic surgery to fix her nose, reshape her chin, and alter her brow line. But she changed her mind. At that time, Natalia’s parents were living in a one-room apartment on the outskirts of the city. When she noticed an advertisement for a new, modern residential complex, it turned out to be a perfect deal. She decided to buy it for her parents as a gift…
And no sooner had the paperwork gone through than Natalia met Nikita. They were both twenty-seven. Nikita was—objectively—handsome. Natalia found it odd that such a good-looking man had taken an interest in her.
She fell in love, and it no longer mattered what his motives were. The memory of her mother’s words, “Have a baby with a good-looking man!” kept echoing in her mind. Natalia understood very well that the results of plastic surgery are not inheritable.
The newlyweds moved into her apartment.
Nikita quickly saw the scope of his new wife’s finances. Within a week of their wedding, his parents—who lived in a small village—suddenly had pressing financial needs, which Natalia took upon herself to meet.
“Sweetheart, you know I’m in a tight spot at work,” Nikita explained. “As soon as I get it sorted out, I’ll take on all the expenses myself.”
But his never-ending work issues kept piling up. Natalia realized she was being strung along…
The old saying, “Oh, it’s not hard to fool me—I love being fooled,” fit her perfectly. Natalia was willing to pay for the sheer thrill of finally enjoying the closeness of a handsome man she loved.
Her in-laws’ demands, however, kept growing… until one day Nikita dropped a bombshell:
“My parents sold their house in the village and decided to move to the city,” he told her.
“So they’re going to stay here with us?” Natalia asked in surprise. “But there’s not really enough room for four people.”
“I’ve got a better idea,” her husband announced. “I’ll settle my parents in your second apartment. They’ll rent out one room so they won’t be a burden on us.”
“Sorry… rent out one room?” Natalia was confused. “You mean, they want to live alongside tenants?”
“Why not?” Nikita said matter-of-factly. “It’s a three-bedroom, right? They’ll occupy two rooms and rent out the third. That way, they have a place to live and a bit of extra income. Sounds great, doesn’t it?”
“But I bought that place for my parents,” Natalia objected. “I’ve been working toward this for years…”
“Hang on!” Nikita’s tone sharpened. “Your folks have an apartment; mine are now homeless.”
“But they sold their house, so they must have some money left over. Why wouldn’t they just buy—”
“That money is their rainy-day fund. You don’t want them to be left with nothing, do you? Nat, let’s not argue!” Nikita summed up harshly. “My parents will live in your second apartment, and you’ll sign it over to them. We’re family, remember? Or are you thinking of changing that?”
Natalia paused for a moment, and Nikita failed to spot the malice that flickered in her eyes.
“All right, dear, whatever you say,” she smiled.
“That’s more like it,” Nikita said, instantly softening. “They’ll be here tomorrow.”
He had no idea Natalia had overheard his phone conversation with his mother the day before…
On the day his parents arrived, Nikita was urgently called in to work, so all he could do was text them the address of the new apartment and send them the keys via courier to the train station.
“That ugly freak will do anything the moment I snap my fingers! Let her pay in full for all that time I had to sleep with her, imagining other women so I wouldn’t have to look at her face…”
Those words from his phone call echoed in Natalia’s mind as she sat on the couch, waiting for the impending blow-up from the man she had once loved.
Seeing her laughing hysterically, Nikita flew into a rage and decided to check out the address in person. The truth was that the “spare” apartment was in rough shell form—it didn’t even have basic utilities and was completely unfit for living. Natalia had been planning to save up for a major renovation.
When the furious family came back, they found Nikita’s suitcases out on the landing and the door locks replaced. Neither his pleas nor his persuasion had any effect on Natalia. She no longer cared where that scheming family would go.
She had already resolved that as soon as she got that second apartment ready for her own parents, she would start saving again for that round-the-world trip in her old age. By then, her child would be of age, anyway.
Yes, indeed: Natalia’s marriage to Nikita had benefited her as well—far more than it had benefited her handsome, yet greedy, husband.
