by Megan Mulry
I don’t bother mentioning that Pavel is the slimy bastard who went out with Azi for over a year and then accused her of trying to force him into marrying her when he learned she was pregnant with his baby. I’m not in the mood to quibble, but I can’t repress a laugh. “Really? Because you’ve always been so devoted?”
“Fuck you.” He hangs up, and I smile at the phone, hearing the hint of humor in the supposedly bitter words. He’s already told me Aziza will be in Russia for the weekend, and I suspect this might even be the occasion of their secret-wedding announcement. She’s been in Saint Petersburg a couple of times—according to the newspaper and gossip rags—but I’ve yet to see her in person since Margot and Étienne’s wedding.
Rumors of her pregnancy are starting to circulate, and rude questions about paternity are starting to crop up on some of the more salacious sites. She broke it off with Rome after the pictures of him and me made it impossible for her to turn a blind eye without looking like a doormat. She also publicly claimed to be considering her parents’ wishes that she agree to an arranged marriage after all.
When the story broke that Rome and I were fooling around while he was engaged to Azi, he basically took all the heat. Not that I was paying attention, since I was too immersed in taking Voyanovski Industries—and taking myself seriously—to glance at what probably amounted to some modern act of chivalry on his part. I just couldn’t bring myself to care.
If Rome wanted to throw himself onto some sort of public-relations expiatory pyre, so be it. He said he seduced me to devalue my company, and—though I had my hackles up about being depicted as some hapless victim—my new (highly paid) publicist in Los Angeles assured me it was the least of several worse depictions. My publicist, Dani Stephens, came highly recommended by Vivian, so I trust her completely. She spins my academic background into the cause of my inability to deflect Rome’s playboy wiles. I’m such a bookish genius that it is difficult for me to understand when a French pirate is making love to me.
None of it matters. In that sense, Rome was right. It’s all just PR—like those teacups spinning in that children’s amusement-park ride—not really affecting anything outside of a very small orbit. Dani has constructed a public Dr. Mikhaila Voyanovski Durand persona that vaguely resembles me—who goes out to dinner with clients, sponsors arts events in her new hometown of Saint Petersburg, and crunches numbers like the Hulk crunches cars—but that Mikhaila never actually penetrates my real life, my work life. My quiet private life.
I leave work on Friday afternoon, and my driver takes me to my father’s apartment so I can change and pick up my luggage for the weekend. Despite my father’s seriously vast wealth, I’m coming to adore the intensely private and simple way he managed his everyday life. There is an older woman who lives down the hall from his apartment who comes in every morning after I leave for work and cleans, does laundry, makes dinner—hell, I don’t really care what she does, but it means I don’t have to do anything when I get home exhausted and hungry every night. She’s uncommunicative and bristly, and I pay her what my father paid her, and that suits us both just fine.
I swim every morning at the indoor pool at the Four Seasons. I go to work. I go to dinner with Alexei or a new colleague a couple of times a week, but mostly I’m just getting to know Saint Petersburg. I wander around the city at all hours of the night (which makes Alexei adorably protective and furious). I suspect he’s hired a few bodyguards to follow me at a distance, but I’ve never been able to catch them. I go hear music and see student films and have even spoken to one of the local universities about teaching a few classes. I’m trying to understand the intense political undercurrents of the country, but I know it will take time.
I’m not totally isolated, despite my mother’s constant griping phone calls to the contrary. She’s back from Cairo and living the high life in Paris and acting like she’s worried about me, when it’s pretty obvious she just wants a partner in crime. She hasn’t said so directly, but I think Jamie what’s-his-name is also back on the scene. I do video calls with Vivian and Margot all the time, for just a quick hello or for longer calls about what they’re up to. Since I don’t feel like I have very much going on—other than work—I can finally be a good, listening friend again, and not the desperate mess I was in the spring.
I change into jeans and grab my weekend bag and go back downstairs to my car. In that, at least, Alexei put his foot down. He forbade me to drive around the city like a slow-moving target for any thug to rob, or worse. My company car is a massive Escalade with bulletproof, tinted windows, and the driver, Sergei, is, well, ex-FSB and a heat-packing beast.
Vivian loves all these dramatic details. She keeps calling me Natasha Fatale and wonders when I’m going to start spying. As the driver and I head out of the city to Durchenko’s dacha, I pull out my phone to check emails. After I finish replying to a few important ones, I see it’s after seven my time, so it’s after eight in the morning for Vivian, and I decide to touch base.
“What’s up?”
I love how she answers my calls like I’m still in Venice or sitting at my desk at USC.
“Nothing, just headed out to Pavel Durchenko’s dacha for the weekend, and I’m riding in the back of the car for an hour and a half.”
“He’s totally got the hots for you.”
“Trust me on this. He totally doesn’t. I’m pretty sure he and Aziza are going to announce their engagement this weekend. Or even their marriage, if they’ve been able to keep it under wraps.”
“That woman just follows you around. You need to scrape her off.”
I burst out laughing. “She’s pretty wonderful. I bet you’ll meet her at some point and you’ll fawn all over her. She’s one of those people everyone wants to hug and be best friends with.”
“As Isabel would say, blech.”
I laugh and then ask, “How is my sweet Isabel? I miss her.”
“You want her? She’s driving me fucking crazy. She’s always bored. Everything is boring. And she’s dying of boredom.” Vivian says the words with a long, drawn-out voice, perfectly imitating Isabel’s tween whine.
“I would love to have her for a visit. Are you serious?”
“Well, I was kind of joking, but now that you mention it, I need to come to Italy at the end of August for the film festival. Maybe we could all meet up there?”
“Ugh. My mother’s been trying to get me to meet her there, too. She’s renting a villa and then going to the film festival in Venice. Is that why you’re coming?”
“Yes. You should come. It’s a lot closer than LA.”
“I don’t know. The last week in August is pretty busy for me.”
“You sound like you’re hedging. Please come. For me?”
“You are such a pain. You know I don’t want to see my mother—and Jamie is back in the picture, by the way.”
“Yeah, I saw something about that in Variety or something. I think that independent movie he was making in Mexico last year is actually up for some awards. Who knew?”
I sigh. I don’t know why I’m still blaming my mother for having set so much of the Rome nonsense in motion. It’s obviously not her fault. Maybe I just don’t like being reminded that I have that same reckless streak inside me and I need to keep it on a very tight rein.
“Yeah, and my mom was a producer, so I guess they kissed and made up and they’re tooling all around Europe together for the movie.”
“Well, that’s better than having her whining to you, isn’t it?”
“I guess. I don’t know.”
“Look, we’re never going to solve your mother. Just don’t even tell her you’re going. I’m staying in a huge villa on the Grand Canal, and there’s plenty of room. You and Isabel can tour the city while I kiss movie-star ass.”
I start laughing again. “I thought they had to kiss your producer ass.”
She starts
laughing, too. “No. It’s the directors who have to kiss my producer ass.” By that point, we’re both laughing happily, and I realize I want to see her in person and hang out in a big hotel bed with Isabel and watch movies and ride around in a gondola and just be silly for a few days.
“Okay, I’ll do it. I’d love to come. Email me your dates, and I’ll meet you in Venice. If you can get there a few days early so we can all hang out together, I’d love that.”
“This might put Isabel in a better mood for a few weeks . . . or a few minutes. It’s impossible to tell these days. Okay, I’m at work—I’ve got to go. Bye, sweetie. Can’t wait to see you!”
As the call disconnects, I pull the phone away and smile at the screen. Then I scroll through my messages and see a few from my mom that I’ve listened to but haven’t returned. It’s been only about a week since we last spoke, but she’s in bizarrely attentive mom mode, so I know she’s going to be all dramatic about not having heard from me in ages. I click on her number and gird myself to be verbally assaulted.
“Finalement!” she cries into the phone.
“It’s only been a few days—”
“Never mind that. I’m just dying to see you. I have big news!”
Oh, dear. This can’t be good. “What news?”
“Jamie and I are engaged.”
I try to think of something to say, but a few beats of silence pass.
“To be married,” she adds needlessly.
“Wow.” I’m watching the city gradually turn into countryside out the darkened window to my right. My mother is finally going to get married. How messed up is it that I have basically zero response, other than Please tell me you’re going to sign a prenup.
“Wow?” Now she’s pissed. “That’s all you have to say to me after all these years of begging me to settle down and be a mature adult? You know what, Miki—”
“Mom! I’m thrilled for you. I’m just surprised, okay? The last time we saw each other, you told me everything was over between you and Jamie—”
“Well, sort of. I was distraught by your father’s death, and that upset Jamie, but, you know, he loves me and I love him. Oh, Miki. I wish you would change your mind and join us in Italy at the end of August. We’re going to do a small wedding the weekend before the film festival. Please say you’ll come.”
That at least I can give her. “As it turns out, that’s why I’m calling. I’m definitely coming to Venice after all. Vivian is renting a villa, and I’m going to meet up with her while she’s there, so I’ll just come in the weekend before and stay with you.”
“That’s fabulous! Darling, I can’t wait to see you. I’ve missed you.” Her voice lowers, and she sounds sweetly hesitant. “Do you think next month is too soon to get married?”
“No,” I finally laugh. “I think after fifty-three years, next month is absolutely perfect.”
“Oh, wonderful!” She turns her mouth from the phone and calls into the distance. “Jamie, love, Miki is going to come to Italy for the wedding.”
I can hear him in the background, and he actually sounds sort of genuine when he says, “Excellent!”
“Okay.” Simone is sort of breathless now that she’s once again got everything her way. “So why don’t you fly in that Friday afternoon and we’ll go for a small dinner at Le Calandre, just the three of us, and then I’ll wear a simple white suit or something on Saturday and you can be our witness and we’ll have lunch at the house with a dozen or so friends? Does that sound good?”
“It sounds divine. I’m really happy for you, Mom. I’m sorry I was taken aback at first. No one can ever accuse you of being rash—in this, at least.”
I can hear the smile through her words. “Yes, in this, at least. In many other things, perhaps I have been rash.”
“Well, haven’t we all?” I ask kindly.
“Yes. Yes we have.” She’s silent for a few seconds; then we wrap up the call. “So we’ll see you in a month?”
“Yes, I’ll see you then.”
We end the call, and I take a deep breath and realize I just shouldn’t take my phone out when I’m riding around in the back of my car, feeling open-minded. In less than an hour, I’ve managed to get myself roped into ten days in Italy. Leaving Russia feels sort of unnerving all of a sudden. I sink lower into the backseat and shove my phone into the bottom of my bag. I promise myself I’m not initiating or answering any calls for the rest of the weekend.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Durchenko’s place looks more like a summer palace than a dacha. My father and Alexei’s dacha is the old-fashioned kind, a rustic log cabin where men go to drink and beat each other up for fun, or to swim in the freezing water of the Gulf of Finland and then beat each other up. Like everything about him, Durchenko has taken the idea of a traditional dacha and pumped it full of steroids, or, in his case, money.
It has to be at least ten thousand square feet; the rustic log exterior stretches in two long wings from either side of the large, double front doors. A huge bear head hangs above the outside entry, beneath the roof of the covered porch that extends around the whole perimeter of the house. As my car pulls up, Durchenko himself comes out the front door to greet me. I grab my weekend bag and my computer case out of the car, tell my driver to pick me up at noon on Sunday, and follow Pavel into the house.
There are ten or twelve people hanging out in the sunken living room. Some of them look remotely familiar and wave to me without getting up. The high glass walls on the far side of the room have an unobstructed view of the gulf, and the summer evening is bright. It’s a beautiful space.
“It’s gorgeous, Pavel. I didn’t even realize I was sick of being in town.” I smile up at him, and he nods.
“Good. This is good. Let me show you to your room so you can put your things away.”
He takes me down a long, wide hall that’s lined with hunting and fishing photographs, of Durchenko, of course—often accompanied by some easily recognizable famous companions—holding up a marlin or a large deer or some other animal I’m pretty sure is not meant to be hunted anymore.
We turn into a smaller hall, and he leads me into a large, simply furnished room with rough-hewn wooden furniture and another pristine view of the gulf through a set of French doors to the covered porch. “This is truly spectacular. Thank you again.”
“I am glad you came.” He pauses, then looks at me carefully. “Aziza is looking forward to seeing you again.”
I look up from where I am setting my bag on a luggage rack at the end of the large bed. “Oh. It will be nice to see her, too.”
“No, it won’t,” he says in that brusque, half-scoffing way of his. “It will be awkward and uncomfortable, but it has to be done. Drinks at eight thirty. Come out and join us whenever you wish.” He leaves the room, shutting the door behind him to give me privacy, and I am left standing there hoping it’s not going to prove that awkward or uncomfortable.
I unpack my things and then step out onto the porch and sit for a while, taking in the bright northern evening and listening to the expansive quiet of the forest. Alexei and I have gone on several site visits over the past few months, and, as much as I miss the ocean, it’s been incredible to hike in the forests and other natural areas of this country. It could easily become home, for at least part of the year.
Getting up reluctantly, I put on my imaginary social armor and head into the living room.
“Mikhaila!” Aziza’s voice is high and excited. She walks across the large room and pulls me into a tight hug. “How are you?” she asks after she’s released me but is still holding on to my upper arms.
“I’m fine. How are you?”
“No, no, no.” She shakes her head, and her long earrings swing. “I mean, really, how are you? Let’s go sit outside.” She slips her arm though mine and leads me out to the enormous back porch. “Pavel, we’ll be back soon.”
He blows a kiss to Aziza and I want to make fun of him, but then I realize he’s actually in love with her. The flash of pride or adoration or whatever is unmistakable. He can’t really take his eyes off her as we walk outside.
“Sit,” she orders, gesturing toward a large, comfortable sofa. She stands in front of me for a few seconds; she’s wearing tight black pants and a fitted boatneck top that clearly outlines the round curve of her stomach between her narrow hips.
She sees the direction of my gaze and begins to rub her stomach lovingly. “I’m having a baby.”
“I heard.” I look up, and she smiles and takes a deep breath, then sits down next to me.
“I owe you every apology, Miki. May I call you Miki?”
Awkward does not even begin to describe how I feel. The last thing I want is some heart-to-heart with this woman I barely know.
“Aziza, please. Of course you should call me Miki. I mean, we met at Margot and Lulu’s—”
She swipes her hand impatiently in front of my face. “No. We have to speak the truth. Rome cares for you so deeply, Miki. You must know that?”
My stomach drops a few inches, and I want to squirm off the sofa and run back to Saint Petersburg in my strappy sandals if I have to. I do not want to sit here like a trapped creature and listen to this blissfully happy woman tell me why I should be with someone who is so entirely ill-suited to who I really am.
Even though she looks far younger, I know Aziza is in her thirties. I have no doubt she has seen her share of life’s ugly side, between her childhood in Somalia and the work she’s done to help refugees since then. Lulu and Margot genuinely like her, and she is probably a wonderfully insightful and charming woman. Still, I don’t want to hear what she has to say.
“Aziza. Please listen to me. It’s all in the past and—”
“No!” She sounds really angry, and I realize I’ve underestimated her, misled by her dazzling smile. The smile is now distinctly absent. “I will not listen to you.”