“You said two?”
“Be ready at twelve o’clock. I’ve missed seeing you. Bye, Kotik.”
He hung up before I could protest, and I held the receiver a moment longer before I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand and tried to be a big girl. A big girl going to see a matinee of Who Framed Roger Rabbit (or Beauty and the Beast). I didn’t try to get to the vodka again, but I did wash my face, then put on Mama’s favorite record. She wouldn’t want to turn it off when she came home, and I could take my time crying out whatever tears I had left while holed up in my bedroom. Ihadto be better by morning.
I was not better by morning.
We received notice that the school would have a delayed start, although no one specified why. Mama and Maxim left to catch the bus around eleven, and I sat by the window and blankly stared at the muddy snow in the courtyard. I should have beengetting ready, but my heart was dead and I felt nothing—no excitement to see Vitali—no dread at facing the next day—nothing. If I had known how to get in touch with him, I would have already canceled. But he’d always called from a payphone and annoyingly never bothered to give me his work number.
It wasn’t noon yet when the knock came, and there was only one person who would come knocking.
I looked down at my wool-knit pajamas and a bathrobe. Absolutely not.
I cracked the wood door, and only the wood door.
“Who is it?”
“Vitali. Open the door, Katya.”
“You’re early, I’m not ready,” I said.
“I just got into town; you were on my way. Come with me, I don’t want to drive back across the bridge later, there’s traffic.”
I groaned. There wouldn’t be time for makeup. There wouldn’t be time for anything. Not even to wiggle my way into the leather pants.
“I’m not dressed,” I said.
“I’ll wait out here.”
He wasn’t leaving, and arguing would only eat away my time. I dashed to the bathroom to brush my hair, then to the wardrobe where I talked myself through fitting my thighs into the tight squeeze of my emergency fund. Thankfully, my high-necked cream sweater was clean. I could smell his cigarette wafting in from the hallway like a watch ticking. Hurrying me along.
The leather choker fell off the shelf where I’d hidden it from Mama, and I stared at it for a moment.
He wouldn’t be able to see it under the sweater unless I folded the collar down. I could probably do it so casually he’d never know I wore it just for him. ‘Oh this? It’s nothing. I wear it allthe time.’
I left a note for Mama and stepped outside.
Vitali didn’t look very cheery. He had bags under his eyes and a shadow of stubble across his jaw that I’d never seen before. Somehow, it made him even better looking. There was something so authentic about him being disheveled.
“How long were you driving?” I asked.
“Through the night.”
“What?” I dodged his hand as he tried to place it on my lower back, the way he did when he wanted me to walk forward (or anywhere really, it was a favored place). “You haven’t slept?”
“I’m fine, Kotik.” He sighed and put out the cigarette. “I’ve done longer, and never with a reward that could match you at the end.”
“I’m not going anywhere. We can go tomorrow,” I protested, and he gave me thislookthat said he took it as a challenge, almost like he wanted to bite me to rid me of the attitude.
“We can stop by my place, I’ll change, and we’ll grab a cup of coffee before the movies,” he said as the elevator door closed on us, and I found that I was, in fact, going somewhere after all. “It’s an early showing. I have plenty of time to go to sleep. It’s not good to break your sleep routine anyway.”
I had little to counter that.
Still the BMW. We were already on the icy streets when his words sank in.My place.
So many thoughts spun through my mind, I forgot to speak for half the ride, and he didn’t try either, as he had a cigarette on his lips the entire time and that seemed like enough.
In my mind, the apartment would be something out of the movies if his clothes were anything to go by. Would he have me wait in the entrance hall? Was there an entrance hall ordid it just open up into the wide space of the living room, as American houses did?
