Isabelle shakes her head as the exterminator pounds on the door for the third time, stationing herself before the sink and the cabinet beneath it in which she can imagine her ants even now making their tireless march up and down the back wall. “Exterminator!” he calls. Isabelle swallows, digging her nails into her palms as her mother pulls the back door open. The door is heavy and opens with a familiar whine; Maggie appears at the sound, her eyes glassy with sleep, one ear flipped inside out. Maggie cocks her head, taking measure of the man in the doorway, her tail poised as if to wag, but uncertain yet. Isabelle looks from the dog to the exterminator, the man behind the voice she has heard so often calling from behind the door as he makes his quarterly rounds of their building. He wears white work pants gone brown with dirt on the thighs and knees and cuffs, a thick brown belt around his waist laden with sprays, a flashlight, a measuring tape, and, along the back, Isabelle can see when he turns around to set his tool kit on the floor behind him, a series of screwdrivers. His ponytail interrupts the T-shirt logo on his back, which Isabelle can make out as a foot descending upon an ant, the ant’s cartoonish eyes big with worry. The man turns back into the room, and Isabelle lets her eyes travel up to his face; it is tan despite the winter, and Isabelle can imagine the rough feel of the bristles on his chin and cheeks, longer than her father’s even when he hadn’t shaved for a whole week one summer, just to see.

“Carter?” he says, looking at the clipboard in his hand.

“Yes,” her mother says.

“Specific pests, or evaluation?”

“We don’t have bugs that I’m aware of.” Isabelle leans hard against the cabinet. “But Mrs. Drayton on three says they have terrible roaches, so I thought I’d have you just take a look while you’re in the building.”

“Evaluation,” he mutters, checking a box. “Partial or comprehensive?”

“What’s the difference?”

“Partial is kitchen, bathrooms, windows, fireplaces. Comprehensive is all that plus AC/water heater closets, TV/cable wall lines, plumbing penetrations, voids at baseboards, built-in cabinets, appliance conduits, and all other cracks and crevices.” He looks up from his clipboard.

“God,” her mother says. “I don’t know. Do you recommend one or the other?”

“It’s up to you, ma’am.”

He runs his finger underneath his nose, sniffing. Isabelle wonders if he can smell himself; she can smell him from here, a putrid mix of cigarette and lemon cleaning fluid that she knows will trail him through the apartment and linger for days. She shouldn’t have been so quick to get her mother, Isabelle thinks. She should have peered through the peephole to see who it was first. Why had she not even entertained the possibility of the exterminator? Why hadn’t it even crossed her mind? Stupid, she thinks. Stupid, stupid.