I had enough to keep us going for a month or two, but who knew how long this would last?
Nightmare. I was in a nightmare. My heart was breaking, and the pieces swirled down the drain alongside the murky city water.
Those damn pants. What was I thinking?
I pulled a chair over to the fridge, to the dusty cupboard no one had touched since Papa died. My hand trembled as I reached. He left behind a half-bottle of some cheap vodka, and I didn’t have the heart to throw it out. But God… if there was ever a time. I couldn’t be crying when Mama came home. I just needed to go to sleep. To calm down.
Just as my fingers brushed the little, thick painted door, the phone rang. I let out a bark-like cry and stumbled off onto the floor, steadying myself shakily against the table.
Did Elena find out?
Still sobbing, I tried to get myself together enough to sound like a confident adult who wasn’t losing her mind in the kitchen and side-eyeing a two-year-old bottle of vodka thick with dust. Yekaterina Petrovna did not crumble. She didn’t show weakness. She didn’t cry. She would be alright.
I grabbed the receiver, and my eyes unconsciously fell on themicrowave when I said, “Allo?”
“Katya, hello.”
I forgot about the movies…
It had been two weeks since I saw Vitali and I’d forgotten about the movies.
“Hi,” I squeaked.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, nothing, how was your trip?”
“Katya.”
“I’ll hang up,” I warned.
The other end of the line vibrated with a deep grunt and the rattling of wind pummeling the plastic glass of a phone booth. “We’ll discuss it later, then.”
“There is nothing to discuss—how was your trip?”
“Long,” he said. “Too long to be away from you. Movie tomorrow? At eight.”
“I can’t,” I sniffled before I could stop, and immediately pressed my palm to the receiver, cursing myself, the weather, and Vitali. “I have to be here; a doctor is coming to look at Mama’s leg. We had it scheduled for a while. Can you please give me more notice?”
“What’s wrong with Mama’s leg?”
“Day after?” I suggested irritably, as if I had any right to be. It wasn’t right to take it out on Vitali, but I still considered hanging up. My family came before him, and I was dealing with enough that watching Americans prance across the screen wasn’t even the top one hundred on my list of priorities. “Vitali, I can’t be out so late all the time. They need me here.”
Silence. I waited, twisting the cord and nervously glancing toward the hallway as if Mama would come in at any minute and read my thoughts.
“They only play children’s films earlier than that,” he said after a while. “But it has to be tomorrow. That’s when I get back. You may choose between Beauty and the Beast or Who Framed Roger Rabbit. What time are you off work? I can come directly to you.”
I breathed in and squeezed my eyes shut, but despite my best efforts, he heard the hard gulp of my repressed tears.
“I see,” he said, and I died right on the spot because hedidn’tsee. Whatever he thought he understood, he didn’t. “The matinee is at two.”
“Alright.”
“Katya,” he said, the question poorly disguised as a statement.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I murmured.
“I’ll pick you up at noon.”
