Page 45 of Bedazzled
Laughing, I said, “That reminds me, we took one of the layers of your wedding cake up to the honeymoon suite and Yuri spent half the night licking it off my…” My smile died and I scraped the fork along the plate.
“I can’t stay here, I just can’t.” I shoved another piece of cake in my mouth so she wouldn’t hear my voice quiver. “I have to leave,” I said through a mouthful of chocolate ganache. “I don’t know this Yuri, but he wants nothing to do with me. This is nuts-”
“Okay, hold up!” Ella pointed her fork at me accusingly. “You know who I don’t recognize? You! Who is this fragile flower? What happened to my Tania, who beat the shit out of that mugger who tried to rob us outside of the Callin Bodega? Or the girl who threw that sixth grader into the dumpster because he was making fun of me?”
“Or…” her voice softened, “the woman who graduated with honors from NYU on a full scholarship because she’s brilliant? The Tania who stapled her resignation letter to her sleazebag boss's chest when he tried to grope her? I know Yuri’s a closed-in mess right now. I think he’s barely holding himself together and he’s terrified that the slightest hint of softness could unravel him. If there’s anyone who can get this man to heal and become Yuri again, it’s you, Tan.”
“I don’t think I can do this.” Damnit, my voice was wobbling pathetically.
Ella took my hands, “You have never given up on what you wanted. And youwantthis future with Yuri.”
We hugged tightly, and went back to eating the cake. “You know the worst part about this?” I said.
“Hmm?” Her mouth was full of frosting.
I put down my fork, appetite gone. “I have to call my mother and tell her that not only did I get married, it was without her, it was in Russia and I’m staying here.”
She swallowed the cake with a gulp. “She is going to freak. Be grateful that you’re a full continent away from her.”
The next five days were wonderful, mainly because the men were gone for three of them. I don’t have to look at Yuri and have the galactic stupidity of what I’ve done smack me in the back of the head again and again.
We spent two days from opening to closing at the glorious Hermitage Museum. The girls dragged me through John Lennon Street, which was a tiny passageway that opened up into a courtyard filled with tokens, art, and sculpture dedicated to the Beatles. Mariya was a huge fan of the Beatles and refused to leave until she read every terrible bit of poetry that people had scribbled on the walls.
Ella insisted on a trip to the Literary Cafe, where writers like Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote brilliant stories and dined on baked apples in puff pastry. We browsed the shelves filled with battered books from legendary writers who’d sat in these chairs, drank vodka and pondered their next masterpiece until Ekaterina begged to be fed. We sat at a table under the unnerving stare of the Cafe’s seven-foot stuffed bear which made finishing my lunch impossible, that was a shame because the dried tomato carpaccio was freaking delicious.
On the last day, we joined Lucya and Alexi Turgenev and their family to go sailing on Lake Ladoga. I liked Lucya, we’d hung out together after she took Ella under her wing to help her navigate the weirdness of being a Bratva bride. It hit me as we were saying hello that I was one now, too.
“Tania!” she beamed, kissing me three times, left cheek, right cheek, left cheek. I was never a big social kisser, but I clumsily returned her greeting and smiled uneasily at her scary as fuck husband Alexi, who was staring at me intently.
“It’s so cool you’re here in St. Petersburg, too!” I said happily, “I didn’t know I’d get a chance to see you.”
“Oh,” she exchanged glances with Alexi, “we were here for the… ah… the wedding, you see.”
“Oh, yeah, of course.” I nodded a little too fast.
So, this is mortifying.
I was saved from severe social awkwardness when Mariya and their son Konstantin started bickering over the rigging on the sailboat.
“Have you ever sailed before?” she snarked, “This mess won’t even get us out of the harbor.”
“No, it won’t, the motor will,” he sneered, “do you even understand how this works?”
“Yeah, that’s young love right there,” I murmured to Lucya.
“Oh, quite,” she sighed, “it is customary to arrange marriages at a young age, but betrothing my son to your little sister-in-law still infuriates me.”
“Ella told me Mariya was cool with it?”
“They were both raised in the Bratva, they understand their roles,” she said. “As did I. It doesn’t make it easier to watch. With this, at least, I am very happy that our two families will be connected. The Morozov family have always been our friends, they’re loyal and honorable.”
Lucya was beautiful, blonde and she had a perfect figure that would make me hate her, but the fact that she was extremely kind and had a wicked sense of humor made it impossible. Her warm brown eyes were so sad. “It doesn’t always turn out that way,” she murmured.
She sucked in a deep breath and smiled at me. “While yours may not be an arranged marriage, I cannot tell you how happy we are that you are married to Yuri and not Ksenia Balabanov.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I sighed, “all the Morozov women are okay with it, aside from Yuri's mom. She hates everyone so I don’t take it personally.”
Laughing, she gave me a side hug. “You are completely correct.”
