Anthony Young liked his job as the live-in manager of the Apthorp. It gave him a chance to show he was a capable adult and no longer the underachieving college student he had been. He also liked being surrounded by the attractive college-age women who lived in the Apthorp.

Anthony made himself tackle work he thought an apartment manager should do, even jobs he hadn’t done before, such as washing windows. The Apthorp had rows of windows on each floor, and some of them were dirty. Anthony decided to start with a pair of windows in an upstairs hall. They looked out on the Pacific Ocean, but the view was obscured because all the panes were covered with grey dirt.

Anthony’s supplies rested on the floor next to him — a spray bottle of window cleaner, a short-handled squeegee, and a pile of old newspapers. He tried to pull down the upper sash of one of the windows, but it wouldn’t move. The top half of the other window wouldn’t budge, either, so he lifted one of the lower windows and worked it all the way up. He arranged the spray bottle and the squeegee where he could reach them and hoisted his hip onto the broad window sill. Hooking an elbow around the jamb between the two windows, he leaned out. Far below him, the green lawn ran from the base of the building to a steep slope that fell off to the ocean. Anthony could see white lines of surf running rhythmically up toward the beach.

He picked up the window cleaner, stretched his upper body over, and sprayed the left-hand window. Reaching out with the squeegee, he pulled it toward him across each of the individual panes, starting with the top row. It was harder to do than he expected, and when he finished, streaks of dirt still marked the glass. He leaned further over for another try.

As he concentrated on pressing the squeegee against the glass, his elbow around the window jamb slipped. The edge of the jamb slid along his arm, and his weight shifted toward the open air. He scrabbled at the window frame for support and let go of the squeegee. He couldn’t take his eyes off it as it tumbled down end over end for what seemed a very long time. It bounced when it landed.

Anthony couldn’t find a grip, and his upper body tilted out and down. He began to slip off the sill. He had just taken a deep breath in preparation for screaming when something caught his belt and pulled him sharply back. He grabbed the window frame, squirmed and pushed, and shoved himself inside to safety, falling to the floor with a thump.

He twisted around and saw Audrey standing over him, an alarmed look on her face. “What ARE you doing?” she said.

Anthony leaned against the wall, panting. “Washing the windows.”

“Oh. I thought you were falling out.”

“That, too, but you rescued me. Thank you. My unborn descendants thank you, too.”

“Why were you doing it like that?”

“The upper windows don’t open,” said Anthony, “but I figured out how to do it, anyway. I’m using a squeegee.”

“What squeegee?”

Anthony gestured at the open window. “The one down there.”

“Yeah.” Audrey shook her head. “The upper windows don’t open?”

“Nope.”

“The ones in my apartment do.” She started to leave, but turned back. “You know, anyone can see you’re really trying, but maybe you should try a little less and think a little more.” She walked down the hall toward her apartment.

Anthony stood up and looked at the window. He was still rattled by his narrow escape, but he realized Audrey was right. Because he wanted badly to succeed, he was racing from one chore to the next, doing things without thinking them through. He knew one thing for sure: He needed a better plan for the windows.

After a moment, he had one. It would be both safe and efficient, cleaning the outside of all the upstairs windows at once. He wanted to start immediately, but then he thought he should wait until the next day so he could notify everyone. Pleased that he had thought things through, he closed the window and went to write a note describing his plan. He left the note in the kitchen and spent the rest of the day cleaning a storeroom.

The next morning, Anthony laid two lengths of hose on the lawn below the windows and threaded them together. He pulled one end around a corner and attached it to an outdoor spigot. Coming back, he screwed an old nozzle from the storeroom onto the combined hoses. The nozzle looked vaguely industrial to Anthony, and it didn’t have a twist to turn it on and off. He decided that didn’t matter. He wedged the hose and nozzle into the branches of a convenient bush and went around the corner again to turn the water on.

When he came back, the hose had broken free from the bush. It thrashed about the lawn, spraying wildly in all directions. He ran back around the corner and turned the water off. Returning once more, he picked up the nozzle and dragged the hose toward the faucet, so he could control it when he turned the water on again.

A voice floated down from above him. “You know, I want to play tricks on you, but nothing I come up with is as funny as what you do to yourself.” Isabella was leaning out of one of her windows with her arms crossed on the sill. She grinned down at him.

“Washing windows,” Anthony called back. “Gonna do it with the hose.”

“Sounds kinky,” said Isabella. “I’m looking forward to it.”

“Yeah, well, be sure to close yours all the way. I can’t see the bottoms because of the sill.”

“I saw your note.”

“Good. Yours are first.” Anthony turned on the water, dragged the hose around the corner yet again, and aimed the stream of water at Isabella’s windows. It reached them easily, and the water cascaded over the glass. He congratulated himself on his new approach.

Mackenzie’s apartment was next. Anthony’s relationship with Mackenzie had been rocky since he arrived at the Apthorp. He wanted her to be pleased that he had cleaned her windows, because it could be a new start. He took extra time, spraying repeatedly back and forth.

Unfortunately, Anthony didn’t know Mackenzie’s windows were always immaculate, because she washed them herself whenever they showed a hint of dirt. And because of the Apthorp’s wide window sills, he also didn’t know that Mackenzie’s lower windows were, in fact, open.