Getting laid off feels like getting a C on a test I studied really hard for. I can’t even bring myself to call my parents or my best friend Louisa, because even though I know I didn’t do anything wrong (“the perfect employee,” Hettie said), I still feel oddly ashamed.

Okay, I tell myself, as I circle for parking near the Somerville apartment I share with my boyfriend, Werner (step six). I got laid off, and that sucks. Tonight, however, I will be able to check off number seven on the master plan. I am meeting my boyfriend, Werner’s, parents. And meeting the parents is the perfect stepping stone to number eight.

Werner’s and my one-year dating anniversary is just a few weeks from now, and I’ve been fantasizing that he’ll propose.

Candlelit dinner, champagne, a ring box, or, better yet, a ring atop a chocolate lava cake or a tiramisu… And Werner on one knee, eyes glittering with love, telling me that since the moment he first saw me at the college alumni event and crossed the room to talk to me, he’s known that this was where we were headed…

Then a nine-month engagement, a spring wedding, a year of getting to know each other as man and wife, and the two-point-five kiddos (step ten)…

(I will make up my mind by then. I’m not planning to deal in fractional kiddos, I swear.)

The layoff is a minor setback, I tell myself. As a step in the plan, it isn’t even essential to the success of the next few steps.

Whereas meeting the parents is key. And—silver lining—the early dismissal today gives me plenty of time to finish cleaning the apartment and make a few pies. It’s only 10:22.

I slide my Prius into a skinny parking space and walk the three blocks to the two-family where Werner and I live. As I unlock the door and let myself in, I can smell the roast I left simmering in the slow cooker. And the cleaning products I used this morning as I started the process of making everything perfect for the parent visit.

I take another step and trip over something, a pile of black slinkiness on the foyer floor, a tossed-aside heap.

Absentmindedly, I bend down and pick it up.

It’s a short, black skirt with a lacy hem. Pretty. Sexy.

My mind stops, like someone jammed a stick into the spokes of the hamster wheel.

This is not my skirt.

And then I hear the sounds. Two voices. One low, familiar, grunting, the other higher-pitched, whimpering.

My brain races to provide any possible explanation except the obvious one. And part of me must not want to know the truth, because I start making up reasons I shouldn’t walk towards the grunts and whimpers.

There might be an intruder in our apartment.