“This is my house, now that my mother is dead.” She said the words flatly, with little emotion, but Niko wasn’t fooled. Galina could switch from hilarity to fury in a blink. He had no doubts she could just as easily erupt into grief. “We can all stay here together. You don’t have to go away so soon, Kolya. That’s all.”
He paused at that. Babulya had often referred to him and his brother by the Russian diminutives of their names, but Galina hadn’t made it much of a habit. If anything, she’d said more than once that the only reason she’d agreed to give her sons Russian names instead of American ones had been to please her mother.
“No, I guess I don’t,” he said.
His mother smiled then. It looked genuine. She looked at the table of food, then at him, and laughed. “Who else would help me eat all of this?”
“Mom.”
She looked at him. “Hmmm?”
“I’m sorry about Babulya. I know losing her had to be hard.”
Galina’s smile faded. “We didn’t get along very well, my mother and I. A lot like your brother and I don’t always seem to get along very well. You and I were always so much closer.”
“Mom—”
“She’s dead, Nikolai, there’s no point in telling lies to make it all better,” his mother said firmly. “That serves nobody. If anything, we should take this as a chance to remember that we never know how much time we might have left in this life, and if we want to put the past behind us, we ought to start now.”
He nodded, agreeing to keep the peace but knowing there was no way to leave the past behind. “Sure. Of course.”
“Maybe you should run some more of this over to Allie’s house.” She held up a platter of brownies.
Especially when the past still lived across the street.
Niko hesitated. “Ah . . . it’s late, Mom.”
“Maybe tomorrow, then.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
They worked together in silence, clearing off the table and putting away the perishables. Galina paused at the back door, her cigarettes and lighter in hand. She said his name.
“Yeah?” Niko replied.
“Thank you. For what you said about my mother.”
Before he could answer, Galina had ducked out the back door.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Then
Niko was watching her.
Alicia had her eyes closed behind the black-and-neon pink plastic sunglasses she’d bought at the dollar store along with the cheap plastic raft that got too hot in the sun and burned the backs of her legs. She didn’t need to be able to see him from here to know it. He was plotting something, some kind of revenge for the prank she and Jennilynn had pulled two nights ago when they’d snuck out of their house and gone across the street to peek in the windows of the Sterns’ den. Ilya and Nikolai had been watching some old scary movie, and they’d both screamed when the girls slapped at the windows and ran away. Now it was the boys’ turn to do the scaring, and the anticipation was almost worse than whatever they were going to do.
Nobody was supposed to swim in the quarry, but that hadn’t stopped anyone over the years. Most of the town kids got to it from the other side, on the old access road. There was a kind of beach there, mostly rocks and weeds, but at least it was at water level. The cops raided it sometimes, chasing away underage drinkers and pot smokers and the kids humping in their parked cars. The cops hadn’t ever bothered the Harrison and Stern kids, who made their place here on the end of Quarry Street.
Nikolai was the one who found the long coil of rope in the abandoned equipment hut. Alicia had come up with the idea for the swing, but Ilya was the one who climbed up the tree to tie the rope to the branch. Jennilynn had been the first to try it out, pulling the length all the way up the hill as far as she could, then holding tight and jumping from the fork in the tree, over the hill’s steep slope. Swinging out, out, making sure to let go so she wouldn’t hit any of the rocks if she fell in the water. Their parents would have shit bricks if they knew what their kids were getting up to, but that was part of the fun, wasn’t it? Doing the stuff you knew your parents would forbid because it was too dangerous?
They didn’t have a beach on this side, and the hill was steep enough to make the climb a pain, but there was a trail down to an outcropping of rock that hung over the water. It was big enough for all of them to lie on. There was another trail down to the water. If you were too chicken to use the rope swing, you could still jump off the rock ledge, then swim over to the spot at the bottom and make your way back up the trail. They’d talked about building a dock or something down there to make it easier, but even though the equipment shed was filled with odds and ends of scrap wood, they’d never gotten around to it.
For now, it was awesome to float in the old quarry’s chilly water. Baking on one side, freezing on the other. A can of cola and a peanut butter-and-jelly sandwich awaited her on the rock ledge, where they’d all spread their towels, and later she would eat her lunch while they played Uno or gin rummy. There was a blue sky overhead, and a popular new song they’d all hate by the end of summer blared out from Nikolai’s radio.
“So . . . whattya think about Barry?” Jennilynn paddled over in her tube. She nudged Alicia until she opened her eyes. “He’s pretty creepy, huh?”
Alicia gripped the sides of her raft, too aware of how easily she could tip. How deep the water was beneath her, and how cold. “Hey, watch out.”
“He is, right?” Jennilynn nudged her sister again with a red-painted toe. “What are you afraid of? You’ll melt or something?”
Alicia gripped the raft so hard it dented the soft rubber. “Stop it. I just don’t want to get my hair wet.”
“I know, you’re afraid of Chester. You think he’s gonna chomp you.” Jennilynn grinned and disappeared for a moment inside the center of her tube, then resurfaced, ending up with her butt in the center with her legs dangling over the sides. She didn’t give a damn about her hair getting wet, and why should she? It would dry in blonde ringlets and get even whiter in the sun.
Chester was the carnival goldfish Jennilynn had tossed in the water a couple of weeks ago. They’d been joking that he was out there, growing and growing like the sunfish in that movie they watched a few months ago about a mountain where all the animals had mutated because of mercury poisoning or something from a mine.
“Answer my question, Allie.”
Alicia settled back on the raft, though she hooked a foot against her sister’s to keep them from floating away from each other. “About Chester?”
“No-o-o-o. About Galina’s new husband.”
“I dunno. He seemed okay at the wedding. He’s been nice to us so far.” Alicia shrugged. Barry Malone was one more adult in their lives they all did their best to avoid.
“Theresa’s okay, I guess.” Jennilynn, for once, kept her voice down so it didn’t carry across the water and alert the other girl that they were gossiping about her. “Can you imagine, though? Having to actually live with those guys?”
“At least she doesn’t have to share a room,” Alicia said. Nikolai had taken over the attic so Theresa could have his old room.