In downtown St. Petersburg, they made a detour and stopped in the parking lot of a small strip mall.
“Are you awake?” Dmitri asked over his shoulder when he turned off the ignition. “I’m glad you didn’t fall off.”
His boyish laughter had returned, and Sonya was happy to hear it, though she didn’t have the energy for a witty reply this time.
“Yeah, I’m fine. What are we doing?”
“We’re going to visit my friends.”
“Okay.”
They dismounted the bike and walked into a little store. Along the wall, a shelf was stacked with jars, cans, cracker boxes, each containing delicacies or just typical foods imported from Russia.
There was also a long counter atop a glass case. Inside, there were trays of cheese, smoked fish, pickles, black bread.
“The best caviar in town,” Dmitri said with an approving nod as he pointed to a small container on the counter.
He shouted something in Russian, followed by, “Can I get some service here?” in English, accompanied again by his hearty laugh.
A door opened in the back of the store. Inside, there was a small office set up in a dimly lit storage room.
Sonya saw a man throw playing cards onto a small table beside a pile of money. Another man came through the door with a big grin on his face.
He was huge. Even larger than Dmitri. In fact, Dmitri looked almost like a child next to this giant as the two men hugged.
“Oleg, this is my new wife,” Dmitri said with a mirthful smile as he gestured toward Sonya.
She blushed at his words, then blushed even more when the man took her fingers in his gigantic hands, leaned down from his tremendous height and kissed her middle finger.
The other man came from the back room. He was smiling too and also embraced Dmitri, but the anger of losing money at poker was still burning in his cheeks.
“Andre…” Dmitri started to say, but before he could introduce his second friend to Sonya, Andre had already kissed her on the cheek and asked her name.
His lips felt cold against her skin.
Andre was the smallest. Maybe average height, which was tiny next to the other two men, plus he was lean. His eyes were as cold as his lips.
Oleg spoke to Dmitri in Russian, nodding his head toward the office.
“It’s fine. She doesn’t speak Russian,” Dmitri responded in his mother tongue, letting Oleg know it was okay to say right there what he needed to say.
“Come back here anyway,” Oleg said as Andre walked toward the table and checked his cards one more time, cursing under his breath.
Oleg flicked on another light, and just for an instant Sonya saw what appeared to be stacks of money inside of an opened safe mounted in the wall.
Once the three men were inside the room, the door shut with a dull thud.
She waited, looking at the dense breads, the dark, salty smoked fish, the tub of handmade pierogies.
The food looked delicious. She’d worked up another appetite in the surf and sun and fun on the beach.
But there was something else that mesmerized her about that store. Everything there, the Russian letters on labels she couldn’t read, the aromas, it felt familiar.
Then she heard voices coming from the back, Russian voices that steadily rose in volume until they reached almost a shout.
Even that seemed familiar.
Is this what it feels like when you fall in love? Nostalgia for everything? she thought.
Or is there something else about this place? Deja vu?
The door swung back open.
Dmitri appeared, a ferocity upon his face. It was different than the savage desire and mix of competing emotions Sonya had seen in him before. This was pure hatred.
Dmitri tried to smile when he saw her, but Sonya could tell there was something forced in his expression.
“Excuse me, I have to take care of something. Business. One of our associates has made a big mistake,” he said to her in a soft voice.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Well, don’t worry about that. But I can’t bring you home tonight. I do not mean disrespect, but this is an urgent matter. I’ll call a taxi for you. The driver is a friend of mine, Marcus. He will be here in five minutes. Marcus will take care of you.”
Dmitri kissed her on the cheek, a kiss now almost as cold as Andre’s.
“You can just wait outside,” he said before shutting the storeroom door behind him.
Sonya was disappointed their date had ended so abruptly and that she wouldn’t get to ride on a fast bike with her arms hugging a muscular man again that night.
But she didn’t think too much of it, even the odd kiss goodbye.
It’s stressful being a businessman, I guess.