Choose Me (The Me Novellas) (9 page)

“Well, I guess you’d better go talk to him. Don’t keep him waiting.” He said goodbye and hung up.

I tried to stem the flood of frustration rising up inside of me. I knew Andy was upset and I knew what it was about—the choice—but it felt like he was angry at me. His tone both the day before and that morning had been clipped, measured. I needed him to support me, to pull things out of me even when I didn’t want to share, and he had decided to do the exact opposite: create distance.

I tossed my phone on the bed and hurried down the hallway. Knowing Yuri, he’d wait exactly five minutes before heading up the elevator himself.

“Where are you going?” Lance asked. He was still perched in front of his computer, working on a second muffin.

“Yuri’s downstairs.”

Lance raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything.

I left the apartment and walked down the hall to the elevator. I breathed a sigh of relief when the door opened to an empty elevator. I pressed the Lobby button and practiced taking deep breaths, trying to quell the irritation I felt with both Yuri and Andy.

The door opened and Yuri was waiting in the lobby. He was dressed in black dress pants and a white polo that showcased his tanned skin. He smiled at me.

“Hello, Meg.”

I nodded in greeting.

A woman holding a clipboard crossed the lobby. She looked like she’d just stepped off of Capitol Hill. Navy blue skirt and matching jacket, a tasteful pearl necklace around her neck. Her blond hair was pulled into an elegant chignon, loose wisps of hair offering a peak of the pearl drop earrings suspended from her ears.

“You must be Meg,” she said, smiling. She extended her hand.

Bewildered, I shook her hand and noticed a name tag pinned to the lapel of her jacket. Lydia Wells, Sales & Rentals.

For Lance’s building.

I turned to Yuri.

He smiled again. “Lydia has an apartment open in the building. One bedroom, one level below your friend’s, I believe.”

He looked to Lydia and she nodded her in head in agreement.

“Almost directly underneath, actually,” she said. She handed me a brochure of the property. “However, we have excellent sound-proofing here. State-of-the-art, actually. One of the best compliments we receive from our tenants is the fact that you really cannot hear your neighbors. That and the location, of course. The vacancy I have was rather unexpected
…
a diplomat called back to Bolivia. We have quite a few appointments scheduled already today to show the property. Prospective clients. I imagine it will go quickly.” She smiled. “However, Yuri asked to have first dibs. And, so here we are.”

“What is going on?” I asked, the brochure limp in my hands.

Yuri folded his arms across his chest. “You will need a place to stay here in Washington, no? I thought it might be nice to be close to your friend.”

The irritation I’d felt earlier disappeared. In its place was rage. Hot, unadulterated rage.

“What the hell are you doing?” My voice was so loud that a couple exiting the building turned in our direction. I didn’t care.

“Meg,” Yuri began.

“Don’t
‘
Meg’ me,” I snapped. “I want to know what is going on. Now.”

He reached out to touch my elbow, but I yanked my arm out of his grasp. “Now,” I repeated.

Yuri looked apologetically at Lydia, who was watching us with a puzzled expression. “If you will give us a few minutes
…
”

Her expression cleared and she smiled. “Oh. Yes, of course. I’ll
…
I’ll be in my office.” She made a hasty retreat to the concierge counter and disappeared through a set of double doors.

I watched her go and then whirled around.

“I am only trying to help,” Yuri began, sincerity oozing from his voice. “I know it is hard to move to a strange city. I thought it might be helpful if you could live somewhere with friends nearby.”

“Look,” I said, my voice tight. “You’re forgetting one huge thing. I haven’t accepted the offer. I’m not looking for a place to live right now. And I might never be.”

Shock flitted through Yuri’s eyes. “You are considering turning it down?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know anything at the moment. But what I do know is this: I do not need someone taking control of my life and bullying me into making decisions. You did it earlier by shipping my art and buying me a plane ticket before I even said yes to coming. I’m not going to let you do it again. Not now. Not ever.”

He took a step back, his hands held up. “I am not bullying you.”

“Yes. You are.” My eyes filled with tears but they were a product of rage and frustration, not sadness. “You’re forcing my hand on everything and I don’t like it.”

“I am trying to help you. That is all.”

“You’re not helping,” I countered. “You’re steering. And I don’t know what the hell is in it for you but I’m asking you to stop. Now.”

Yuri shoved his hands in his pockets. He wouldn’t look at me.

Good, I thought. Serves you right to be put in your place.

“You are my replacement,” he finally said, his eyes cast downward.

I took an involuntary step forward so I could hear him. “Your what?”

He looked up then and his face was a mask of sadness. “My replacement. You accept Katya’s offer and I can go home. To Moscow. And to my wife.”

FOURTEEN

“Tell me everything,” I said to Yuri.

We were sitting outside on a cobblestone patio, at a tiny brick-fronted cafe just off M Street. Yuri had ordered espresso and I was nursing a cup of hot chamomile tea, hoping the herbs would somehow calm me down.

Yuri watched the curls of steam rising from his cup. They dissipated quickly in the warm, mid-morning air.

“I think you know everything,” he said. “You have the pieces of the puzzle. They are not hard to put together.”

I tore open a packet of sugar and stirred it into my tea. “I want you to tell me. The whole story. From start to finish.”

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I was an artist living in Moscow. I did not paint full time. No one does when there are mouths to feed.”

“Mouths?” I asked. “You have children?”

He shook his head. “No. But I have my mother and my sisters. And my wife.”

I studied him. Never in my wildest dreams had I pictured him as married, nor as the breadwinner of an extended family. I knew him as a pompous, arrogant artist, a man who had spontaneously set an extraordinary chain of events off in my own life.

He sipped his coffee before continuing. “I worked in a factory. Making furniture. I was good at it. I have always been good with my hands. Crafting, painting, those kinds of things.”

I nodded. I knew the feeling. I struggled in a lot of classes in high school but the ones working with my hands were always easy: art, of course, but woodworking and Home Ec were easy A’s, too.

“It was a decent income. We didn’t go hungry but there was not a lot left over for extras. So, I did some art on the side. Very small commissions, mind you. Several I just gave away as gifts. To friends, to extended family.”

I could relate to that, too. The number of paintings and sketches I’d given away compared to the number I’d actually sold was probably at a ratio of 100:1.

“Katya saw one of them,” he said, his voice dropping a bit. “A friend of a friend. She was intrigued. Arranged to meet with me.”

He was silent for a moment and I tried to put myself in his shoes, tried to imagine living in Moscow, scraping by, wishing for a career as an artist but having it elude me. And then having Katya show up and make him an offer that I was pretty sure was similar to mine.

“I painted portraits back then,” he said, smiling.

I raised my eyebrows. “Portraits?” Portraiture was about as far as an artist could get from abstract designs. Not only did an artist usually have a live subject to paint, but they also had to tackle the arguably hardest subject there was to paint: the human face.

He nodded. “My house at home is full of portraits of my family.”

He pulled out his phone and scrolled through images on the screen. He stopped at one and then held it up to show me. A beige wall filled with portraits. I took the phone from him and splayed my fingers across the screen, zooming in. A round, elderly woman with sparse, dark curls. Yuri’s mother. A trio of young women, all sporting the same dark hair and dark eyes that Yuri had. And another portrait, a red-haired woman. I zeroed in and couldn’t hide my surprise. Loose red curls, almost shoulder-length. Green eyes set in a freckled face. A close-lipped smile that hinted at mischief.

She looked like me. An awful lot like me.

I held up the phone so he could see.

“Who is this?” I asked.

He smiled but there was something in his expression that didn’t express happiness.

“My wife.”

I waited but he said nothing more. I handed him the phone and he slipped it back in the front pocket of his pants.

“How long have you been married?”

“Two years.”

I frowned. “Haven’t you been in the U.S. for two years?”

Yuri nodded. “We married before I left.” He rubbed at his temples, his eyes closed. “I wanted to. Before I left.”

I felt a pang of sympathy. It reminded me of my grandparents’ story, of how my grandpa had hastily married my grandma in a civil ceremony the day before he left for England. Neither of them knew if he would survive the war but the last thing they’d wanted to do was wait to get married. He returned almost three years later. And they’d remained married for sixty more years.

“Have you been back?” I asked. “Back home, I mean?”

“Yes. I go back every few months. It is expensive but, obviously, I can afford it.” His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Katya pays you well?”

He thought for a moment before answering. “Yes. In her own way, she does.”

“I don’t understand.”

Yuri toyed with the napkin in front of him, folding the corner into a triangle. “My retainer is good. Very good. However, my reputation as an artist has grown. I am no longer dependent upon her to make connections, to find people to purchase my work.”

“So, that’s a good thing, then,” I said. I sipped my tea and winced. It had already grown lukewarm.

“I suppose.” He continued to play with the napkin.

“Something isn’t adding up,” I said. “Is she forcing you to stay here? Is that it?”

“No, no,” he said quickly. “Not at all.”

“Then what? Because I’m totally confused. You say she’s not keeping you. You say you aren’t dependent on her to sell your work anymore. But yet you need me as a
…
as a replacement so that you can go back to Moscow?”

“More or less,” he said. He drained his coffee and pushed the cup away.

“Explain.”

“I am free to leave at the end of every contract I sign,” he explained. “It is a solid business deal. There is nothing underhanded about what Katya does. We need to be clear on that.”

“OK,” I said, nodding my head.

“But,” he said. “When I don’t renew my contract, I must leave the United States.”

I frowned. “Well, isn’t that what you want?”

“Yes,” he said. “To a degree. But once I leave, I will not be able to return.”

“Why does that matter? Your wife and your family are in Moscow. You want to be with them, right?”

“Yes, very much so. But there is one thing that isn’t in Russia.”

“What’s that?”

“My customers.”

My head was beginning to spin. “You’re not making any sense. You just said you’re not dependent upon her for clients, that your reputation is strong enough to be able to sell stuff on your own. But then you’re saying that you won’t have customers in Russia.”

“I won’t,” he said. “Because they are all here. My client base is in the United States. Some in Europe, but the majority are here. My visibility will virtually disappear when I leave.”

“What about the Internet?” I asked. “If people love your stuff, they’ll find you, won’t they?”

“It might help,” he admitted. “But there are no guarantees. Russia is not a wealthy country. And people don’t travel to Moscow for art shows the way they might to Washington, DC.”

He wadded up the napkin, closing his fist around it. “If I leave, my income dries up. Completely. Unless I do one thing.”

“What’s that?”

He leveled his eyes on me. “Bring you on board to take my place. Katya has offered me a sizeable finder’s fee. Provided you sign the contract.”

FIFTEEN

Lance and I were sitting on a bench at the National Zoo, watching the giant pandas laze in the afternoon sun. I’d needed a change of scenery, a change of pace, after my morning with Yuri.

The zoo was busy with families out enjoying the weekend and joggers utilizing the hills as their own personal running course. I’d been surprised when we walked through one of the unmanned gates. I hadn’t known it was free. Como Zoo in St. Paul operated on voluntary donations but it was a tiny, city property, not a massive zoo like this one.