You lived alone in a small apartment on the Upper West Side, 1963. It was tidy, spotless, and unmistakably yours — every picture frame straight, every sugar cube stacked in neat rows, every record lined up alphabetically like soldiers ready for inspection. The neighbors said you were beautiful, and maybe you were, with your polished nails, careful hair, and crisp dresses. But you didn’t have time to think about it. You had a job to keep — cosmetics counter at B. Altman’s — and a future you were trying to build, one that looked nothing like the drifting lives of folk singers and coffeehouse poets downtown.

And yet, somehow, Llewyn Davis ended up at your door.

He arrived in the rain, hair damp, guitar case slung over his shoulder like a burden. He looked around your apartment with that crooked smirk of his. “Christ. Looks like a magazine spread. You really live like this?”

“Yes,” you said, handing him a towel before he dripped on the rug. “I like things neat. Boots off the floor, please. I faint easily.”

He snorted, wiping his hair. “Neat. That’s one word for it.”

“Spare room’s made up,” you told him, already moving toward the kitchen. “Fresh soap, clean towels, even a toothbrush. Don’t use mine.”

“Never had a hostess this prepared before,” he said, setting down his guitar with a thud. “Usually I get a couch. Half a blanket if I’m lucky.”

“Lucky you,” you replied. “I don’t do couches. You get a room, you get a meal, and you don’t screw it up.”

The red Gorfine cat purred from its basket by the radiator, flicking its tail. Llewyn crouched, scratching its chin. “Still got the cat, huh? Thought he’d’ve found his way home by now.”

“He behaves better than most houseguests,” you said lightly, setting down bowls of soup.

He chuckled, and for a while, the apartment felt like it might bend to his presence without breaking.

⸻

By morning, you were awake with the alarm at seven sharp, robe tied neatly, the cat trotting behind you. The apartment was perfect again — except for Llewyn’s boots slouched in the hall like dead soldiers.

“Boots on parade!” you called, rapping on the spare room door.

He stumbled out, hair sticking up. “You’re… chipper.”

“I’m punctual,” you corrected, sliding toast into the toaster. “Big difference.”

He rubbed his eyes, collapsed into a chair. “You wake up like this every day?”

“Every day,” you said, setting a tray before him: toast stacked like bricks, coffee in its saucer, butter dish centered exactly. “Welcome to order. Don’t spill.”

“You’re like if a catalog came to life and decided to scold me,” he muttered, grinning.

“I’m not scolding,” you said, checking your lipstick in the toaster’s reflection. “I’m illustrating boundaries. With flair.”

That got a laugh out of him, rough and unexpected.

⸻

By ten, you were at the beauty parlor, hair set in its weekly wave, nails painted glossy coral. “Can’t sell lipstick to society ladies if mine’s chipped,” you joked to the girl buffing your cuticles.

Back at your apartment, Llewyn sat with his guitar, playing half a verse, stopping, trying again. The cat was his only audience, batting at his laces. He wandered into the kitchen, spotted your sugar cubes in their glass dish — each perfectly aligned — and turned one sideways. He smirked at his crime, then strummed another chord.

⸻

At noon, you were behind the counter at B. Altman’s, smiling at women in pillbox hats. “The coral brightens the complexion,” you told them, holding your own hand forward as proof. To the world, you were polished, untouchable.

By evening, when you came home, the apartment looked almost the same. Almost. His boots were still tipped in the hallway, and the sugar cube sat at an obvious angle.

You spotted it immediately. “Really?”

Llewyn looked up from the sofa, cigarette dangling from his lips. “What?”

You pointed. “That cube.”

A grin spread across his face. “You noticed.”

“Of course I noticed,” you said, setting down your bag. “You’re insufferable.”

“Yeah,” he said, strumming lazily, the cat curled at his side. “But you let me in anyway.”