"Oh, hi." I get Alfred's carrier on the floor and swing open the door. He shoots out like a cannonball, knocks over a lamp, and plunges behind the sofa. The big white lamp breaks into a dozen pieces on the floor. I never liked it anyway.

"Everything okay there?" Mike asks.

"Just one unhappy cat. What can I do for you?"

"I was looking for someone to help me clean my apartment. Ivan said you did great."

Here's the thing: now that the moon is now longer full, I'm about as interested in cleaning as I am in knitting. Which is to say, nice for other people but not for me. I probably won't do my own dishes for a week. Besides which, I really don't want Mr. January-er, Mike-to see me in full blown housekeeper mode.

"I'm really not available," I tell him.

He sounds genuinely disappointed. "Oh."

Alfred makes a plaintive mewling sound from under the sofa.

"Okay," he says. "What if I said I was lying, and I don't want you to clean my apartment, but maybe go out for beer and pizza? Unless you're not a beer and pizza kind of lady. Maybe wine and cheese. Or Thai and whatever goes with Thai food?"

This is a mistake. It can't end well.

"Beer goes with Thai food," I say.

The restaurant is a hole-in-the-wall establishment in what was once a bookstore and which will one day probably be a coffee shop or internet cafe. Everything in the city changes constantly. Mike Hennessee shows up wearing a blue shirt that matches his eyes and shows off the long muscles in his arms. He probably gets those muscles from carrying children out of burning buildings or lifting wrecked vehicles off elderly pedestrians.

"Most of what we do are medical calls," he says when we talk about his work. "Heart attacks, diabetics, sometimes a woman in labor."

I've bypassed the Asian beer on the menu for an icy watermelon drink. It's about a zillion degrees outside, and if I keep my arms just right maybe he won't notice the sweat stains under my arms. Not that I was worried about this date, but I changed blouses three times before leaving the house and swapped my shoes twice. My best friend Maryanne is on speed dial, ready to show up and help me escape if Fireman Hennessee turns out to be a crackpot or serial killer. So far, so good.

"How long have you been a fireman?" I ask.

He stabs at some basil eggplant. "Four years, three months and a week."

"In my experience, people who count aren't always the happiest at what they're doing."

"When I was growing up I wanted to be an actor," he says. "Three years of casting calls cured me of that. Now I get twenty-four hour shifts, lots of spaghetti dinners, and people who throw up on me. But what about you? The cleaning business is okay?"

Already we're in tricky territory. "It's just moonlighting. I like meeting people."

He nods. But he doesn't look convinced. "It's just . . . look, Tania, I know some cops, some lawyers. You can trust me. If you're in trouble and need some help, they've worked with cases like this before."

Now I'm confused. "Cases like what?"

His gaze is intent and serious. "Your English is very good. I mean, you could pass for a local. And Ivan, he's a good guy. But lonely. I know how these things work. They get you a visa, they promise you all sorts of jobs, you get to America and now you're making house calls that last all night long-"

The realization that this handsome guy thinks I'm part of a sex trafficking ring makes my Pad Woon-Sen go right down my windpipe. Suddenly I can't breathe at all. Before I can make the universal sign for choking, Mike's out of his chair. He wraps his arms around my mid-section and levers his fists under my ribs. He smells nice, but this is not how I imagined ending up in his arms. One Heimlich thrust later, I'm ejecting broccoli and wheezing for breath.

"You okay?" he asks, breath warm in my ear.

"I'm going to throw up," I say. "I'll be right back."

I lurch off to the bathroom, sure that everyone in the restaurant is staring at me, and when I find the back door next to the kitchen it's an opportunity for escape too good to pass by. I feel humiliated and sick and I'm sure I have brown sauce on my face.

So maybe it isn't nice to leave him like that, but I don't know any happy couple who started off with the misunderstanding that one of them was a Russian sex girl. Luckily Mike doesn't know my real name or where I live. I throw away my cell phone, tell Alexi that I need a new client, and spend the next few weeks buried in work. Vlad the murderous cabbie gets a break when the two punks get busted for trying to rob a hack in Astoria. Igor and Boris stop fighting about Igor's useless nephew and instead start arguing about Boris's niece's son, who is in trouble with the IRS for several years of back taxes. My friend Maryanne starts dating a police officer; he's got a friend and we could double-date, she says.

"I'm never dating again," I tell her. It's not worth the trouble. I wish my were-curse turned me into a superhero or asset to society but that's the thing about Old World curses; they're not useful at all. Mom transforms into a wolf but in her animal stage she doesn't drag children from swollen rivers or rescue Alzheimer patients who've wandered away from home. She eats things, and licks herself, and sheds hair all over the carpet. I can mop up a crime scene but not tell you who the perpetrator was; I can scrub smoke stains off walls but I don't save people from blazing infernos. I just clean.

Maryanne sighs over the phone when I turn down the double date. "You have to get over this Jason thing."

"I'm just not interested," I say. It's not like I think about Mike every night, wishing we'd met under other circumstances. Or that I checked with some friends and found out that he's stationed at Engine Company 234, and was honored last year for volunteer work getting homeless people off the streets during the winter.

"Meet us for drinks tonight," Maryanne says. "For me. Just this once."

Tonight's the full moon. I've never told her about the curse, and now doesn't seem like a good time to try.

"Boris is yelling for me," I say. "Bye."

Boris isn't yelling for me at all. He's sitting in his rolling chair, clipping his fingernails. Goodness knows that if all else fails, I could break in here and free his desk blotter from all those yellow pieces of fingernail that have accumulated over the years. I could dust the ceiling fan and venetian blinds, scrub and wax the floor, organize the shelves-but like Mom always said, you don't want to bring your curse to your job. Actually, she said don't piss in your own yard, but it's the same principle.

Ivan is at his own desk, ostensibly leafing through the pages of a Russian newspaper, but his gaze is firmly on Boris and is so obviously affectionate that I start to feel bereft. No one looks at me that way now. Certainly no one will look at me that way when I'm gray and wrinkled and seventy years old.

"Let's get some tea," Boris says to Ivan.

Ivan shrugs without looking up. "Who's thirsty?"

"Tea," Boris insists, and you don't have to be especially insightful to know that's not exactly what Boris has in mind.

I'm depressed and lovelorn, and unless I find a way to lock myself into my apartment tonight, come moonrise I'll be a madwoman roaming the streets with a carpet sweeper. Luckily Alexi calls around three o'clock. He has the name of "a nice old lady in a wheelchair, you'll like her" over in Brooklyn Heights. It's certainly a very nice neighborhood, with views of Manhattan and well-kept tiny gardens. She lives in a two-story brick house and answers her own door. She's seventy or so years old, with a gray braid of hair coiled to her waist and sharp eyes in a wizened little face.

"Alexi said you were pretty." Mrs. Vasilyeva wheels her chair aside to let me in. "I'm afraid it's so messy. I wish I could clean it on my own."

I get two feet inside the doorway before a snarl stops me. Sitting in the shadows is the most enormous dog I've ever seen-a big black hulk of a canine with wary eyes and a mouth of very sharp teeth.

"That's just Rocco," Mrs. Vasilyeva says. "He likes you."

Maybe he'd like me for dinner, sure.

"The kitchen's that way," the old woman says.

The marble hallway leads past a curving staircase and dark library to a modern kitchen that's all steel and granite. The recessed lights cast pools of cool light. The sink is empty, the counters clean enough to eat off, but the white floor is stained and scuffed. Nothing I can't handle. Some soap and hot water and scrubbing, hands-and-knees work that I'm good at, with wax and buffing- Rocco growls from behind me. He's sitting now next to Mrs. Vasilyeva, who is fiddling with something in her lap.

"Maybe you could put Rocco in another room?" I ask, trying to sound deferential.

"He likes to watch." She lifts up a video camera and gives me a smile of her own. "I like to watch, too."

My throat dries up. "Okay. I need to use the bathroom first."

The bathroom is down the hall. I lock the door behind me, admire the cleanliness of the handicapped-accessible tub, and then shimmy out the window over the toilet. My uniform tears on the sill and I think my bucket cracks the glass. Soon I'm sprinting away from Brooklyn Heights and yelling at Alexi on my cell phone.

"I can't believe you sent me to that crackpot! I was going to be the star of some snuff video on the internet!"

"I'm sorry," he says. "Who knew?"

"You've got to let me into the banya to clean it."

"I can't. I'm in Jersey. Why don't you go see Ivan Federov?"

"I can't do that."

"What are your other choices?"

Clean an alley full of puke and other excretions. Been there, done that. Swab down the steps of Brooklyn Borough Hall. Hard to do since they opened a police sub-station across the street. Hospitals always need cleaning but I've nearly been caught twice-the black dress and tea apron always stand out.

The need to clean something makes my skin itch like there's an army of germs dancing all over me. The compulsion to scrub the world fresh has me strung out like a heroin addict needing a big bad fix.

You've got to do what you've got to do, Mom always says.

I don't have Federov's number, so I go straight to St. Mark's Ave and slip through an ajar side entrance. Up on the fifth floor, I knock on Federov's door. The hallway is too bright, too open, and I feel totally vulnerable. Please don't let Mike be home and waiting for a pizza. A minute of silence passes, and the only sound is the humming of the fluorescent light overhead. I tap on Federov's door again.

Mike opens his door.

"Hey," he says, face neutral. "You're back."

I nod, unable to think of a single thing to say.

He leans against his doorjamb. His hair is tousled and there are sofa creases on his face, as if he fell asleep while watching TV. "Ivan went into the hospital a few days ago. Broken hip, but he's okay."

"Do you have a key?" I ask. Surely beyond Federov's door there are dirty dishes that need scouring, and dust bunnies under his bed, and a coffee filter turning moldy.

Mike's eyebrows go up. "You look-kind of anxious. Are you okay?"

At times like this, my nose goes on high alert. From behind Mike I smell something going bad-old Chinese food, I think, sour with old soy. If he doesn't move out of the way I'm going to knock him flat and storm the apartment.

"Please don't ask questions," I tell him. "It's just this thing. I need to clean something. Your kitchen or your bathroom or anything you want, but please."

He hesitates, maybe cataloging my mental state for the call to 911. But then he says, "Go for it," and steps aside.

His apartment is dark and minimalist, with some old movie posters hanging on the wall over secondhand furniture and bookshelves filled with DVD cases. The Chinese food is right where I expect it to be, and there are some dirty dishes in the sink, but aside from that I've evidently met the cleanest firefighter in Brooklyn. His bathroom has only one stray hair in the sink. The tub looks like it was scoured by magic brushes from some cartoon TV commercial. Even his bed his perfectly made, and smells freshly laundered.

"What are you, a clean fanatic?" I demand of him.

He laughs. "Says the lady in the maid uniform."

My face heats up in a fresh new wave of humiliation.

Mike stops smiling. "Tania, sit down. Please. Tell me what's going on. Is this a bipolar kind of thing? You can trust me. I'm not going to judge you for it."

Trust him. Trust him not. This is how my father met my mother: he was walking by Brighton Beach Pier early one winter morning when he recognized the tracks of a wolf in the sand. Not your usual kind of wolf, he thought. He took to sitting out at night with a scraps of meat. It took months of patience before he befriended the animal, who was skittish and wary of humans. He followed it through the dark streets of Coney Island until it climbed through a bedroom window. In the morning my mother came down to breakfast to find him drinking coffee with her parents, and their courtship started.

"I will tell you everything if you find me something to clean," I vow.

He purses his lips, deep in thought, and then grabs his shoes. "Come on."

Six blocks from Mike's apartment, there's an old building that was once a Jewish hospital. The courtyard is locked off by big iron gates. Mike has a key to the gates and then to a basement Laundromat that must have been the hospital laundry once. He flicks on some of the fluorescent lights and steers me past some old industrial washers and dryers. Dozens of paper and plastic sacks sit piled in the corner.

"How do you feel about doing laundry for strangers?" he asks.

Clothes that reek of vomit, sweat, spilled alcohol, stale cigarette smoke. Sleeping bags and towels with stains of brown and red and yellow. Underwear and clothing with very questionable stains on them.

"What is this place?" I ask.

"Homeless shelter," Mike says. "I volunteer here. There's about two hundred people sleeping on cots upstairs, and none of them can afford a Laundromat."

I can't help myself. I kiss him right there and then.

I'm in heaven.

Mike stays with me all night. I tell him he doesn't have to; he says I owe him a story.

Between soap and bleach, fabric softener and lint sheets, I reveal the improbable tale of my parents and the were-curse, and what drives me to the streets every full moon. He drinks soda from a vending machine and nods in all the right places. He lets me teach him how to fold a fitted sheet, and we have a long conversation about the best way to fold socks (tie them together or invert one into the other), and near dawn he looks at the clock and says, "We better scoot before the day shift gets here."

"What are you going to tell them?" I ask.

"That they were visited by the laundry fairy godmother." He stretches with a grimace; plastic chairs are bad for the back. "I bet they'll beg you to come back tonight."

By the time we lock everything up and go outside, the sky is gray with pre-dawn light. The air is fresh and clean. Or as fresh and clean as it gets in a metropolis of grime. Mike says, "Let me take you home," but that means he'll know where I live. He'll learn my last name. The were-maid's final secrets will be revealed.

"Look, thanks for all you did-" I start.

He puts one finger to my lips to silence me. Uses the other to point at the sky.

"See that? It's beautiful. Like dirty dishwater." He steps closer, a warm smile on his face. "I don't care that you're cursed. I want to spend more time with you. Full moon, half moon, no moon. Maid uniform or blue jeans. Apron or high heels."

It's a risk, trusting people. They can break your heart as surely as lemon rinds make a garbage disposal smell nice. But I kiss Mike anyway. He touches my hair just as the rising sun makes my hair unwind and yellow gloves dissolve. The were-maid is gone for now, and cleaning is the last thing on my mind.

SHE DRIVES THE MEN TO CRIMES OF PASSION!.

GENEVIEVE VALENTINE.

The scene was this: Cocoanut Grove, Saturday night, packed so tight you had to hold your drink practically in your armpit, and the band loud enough that you gave up on conversation and nodded whenever you heard a voice just in case someone was talking to you.

You never went to the Grove on the weekends if you had any kind of self-respect at all-by 1934 all the stars had turned their backs on the Grove and fled to the Sidewalk Cafe, where they could drink themselves onto the floor without any prying eyes. The reporters had given up trying, and now they came to the Grove to dig up dirt on the third-rate bit players.