“I am,” I said anyway.
“Well, sorry. You’re in this now; things happen. This isn’t the worst thing that could happen.”
No, the worst thing (in that apartment) would take place a week before my birthday.
21
Moscow
“Allo?” said the woman on the other end of the line.
“Irina Ivanovna, is Elena home?”
Everything had been so hectic that I’d missed the mandatory weekly calls with Elena. I hadn’t even given her my new number. Either of them.
“Who is this?”
“Katya.”
“Katushka! No, she is not home. She has been working so much. I can let her know when she gets back, but she is on the overnight shifts. Maybe tomorrow,” her mama said.
“Please. I have a new number—could you please pass it on to her?”
When I hung up the phone, I remained very still, as if Elena would call back any second. Friends called each other. They supported each other. They told each other when they moved into a mafia cache house and found an arsenal full of guns. When they did unspeakable things on the hoods of expensive cars while holding a gun.
Perhaps it was best I didn’t tell her. I might be in it deep, but there was no reason to drag her through the mud, given that she had her own issues. I’d already gotten too many people involved.
The cellphone rang and I nearly fell out of the chair. My idiot brain thought it would be Elena.
“Allo?” I squeaked.
“Kotik, it’s me—I just got in. Hello. I need you to do something, and do it very quickly.”
The last phone call I had with Vitali was a week ago, and I’d hung up on him.
“Hello. Alright.”
“You’re still angry, that’s fine. We will talk about it at a different time. I need you to get in a taxi and go to a store in the City Center called ‘Silk Lotus.’”
His tone had me moving at once. Mama peeked out from the living room to see what the rustling was about, but she did not question my comings and goings. I still thought of myself as living in her home, but this wasn’t her apartment. That changed things between us in a way I didn’t like. Hurricane Olga Nikolaevna wasn’t meant to be a light drizzle on a gloomy day.
“What do I do there?” I wiggled an arm into a coat, trying to balance my purse strap and the cellphone.
“They’ll take your measurements, and then you’ll go next door. They’ll do your hair and whatever else you need.”
I paused, scrunching my nose. “You had me panicking—if this is your idea of—”
“It’s not an apology, Kotik. I just don’t know your measurements. They have to adjust the dress, and we only have a few hours before Sergei wants us across town.”
“Sergei?”
“Listen, I want to take credit—I do. But this is a work thing. It is very important. I’ll come get you from City Center and we will go directly there, so bring a bag to carry your clothes.”
* * *
I got the taxi, spent twenty minutes imagining what I was headed into as we drove across town, burst into the Silk Lotus, and spent another forty-five being poked and stabbed and muttered at. It was hard to blame the nice(ha!)lady. She was all done up with her red hair and tasteful eyeshadow, and here I was—disheveled with the remains of yesterday’s mascara still smeared under my eyes. And yet, I was the one who came in with a pre-paid fortune, no doubt. This kind of store—the kind with only one mannequin in the window and soft lighting—did not work on last-minute alterations for nothing.
The salon next door proved to be no more hospitable. The nice(ha! ha!)lady there took one look at my clothes and made a sour‘let’s get this over with’face she wore for the rest of the time. I thanked God for Vitali making the calls; otherwise, I don’t think she would have bothered to put in any effort.
