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Sophia could feel the heat of Katya’s skin from where she sat inches away. She wanted nothing more than to close the distance. The chatter of the hair salon was just white noise in the background of Sophia’s mind. Every hair on her arm stood up. If she shifted just a little, it could look accidental, right? Her blood pounded in her ears and she wanted to touch Katya. She wanted.
Sophia caught Katya looking at her out of the corner of her eye. Katya immediately looked away. This was the game they had been playing since that night at the dinner party. Katya makes an overture, Sophia advances, Katya retreats. Sophia makes an overture, Katya advances, Sophia retreats. My god, what even are we to each other? Sophia thought. What did she, Sophia, even want them to be? She closed her eyes and took several deep quiet breaths through her nose. The smell of hair product and hot curling irons filled her senses.
A touch at her hand. Sophia looked down. Katya’s hand had closed the gap between them. Her pinky nudged at Sophia.
Katya Gonchrova was a married woman. She was the wife of the mob boss whose business already had a tenuous relationship with her father’s. She dressed in Armani and smelled like Yves Saint Laurent. Even now she carried a gun hidden somewhere on her person. Sophia was terrified of her and at the same time wanted her complete undivided attention. She thought about their earlier conversation;
“I’m tired, Sophia,” Katya said. “I’m so tired. These men demand reward for the most puerile of intentions. So distracted by each other they can’t even get the work done! I need someone intelligent, someone loyal.”
“I don’t want to talk about men,” Sophia answered. “Do you see a single man here? Let Goncharov stay in his lane. Be here with me without him.”
“I didn’t mention Goncharov.”
“Who else were you talking about, then? Angelo? Lorenzo? Mario? How about Misha or Andrey? You are always thinking about Goncharov.”
“He is my husband. I might hate him, but I love him.”
“Only last week you contemplated killing him.”
“Of course. That’s what love is. He is a man worth killing. He is my husband.”
“Is he?”
Katya’s eyes narrowed. “What else would he be?”
“Your paperwork? Your collar? You let him put you in a gilded cage and call it a palace. You see? I do not want to talk about men! You see me and you want to vent about your husband. I see you and I want to write poetry!”
Sophia fell silent. She was wasting her time with Katya in argument. She wanted to make Katya smile.
“Poetry?” Katya asked softly.
“A woman like you deserves to know the name of every star in her eye.” Sophia answered.
“A woman like me? What am I like?”
Sophia had thought about that question for the last hour. She glanced back at Katya who was determinedly looking ahead. Sophia curled her pinkie around Katya’s and met her eye in the mirror across the room. The first time she had locked eyes with Katya, Sophia had wanted to vanish. The next time their eyes met, Sophia had wanted to seem clever and winsome. When their eyes met and they greeted each other at the fruit stand Sophia had wanted to be charming and interesting. Now, looking into Katya’s eyes, Sophia wanted to be brave. Mindful of the people around her, Sophia leaned over to Katya’s ear and whispered.
“A woman like you is incandescent. I am drawn like a moth to a flame which will surely ruin me, but why worry about that when the light is so bright?”
Katya smiled. “Go on,” she urged.
“Women who deserve poetry are women who make me question what I need from the world and think furiously about what I want to give. A woman like you takes the script of my life and edits the pages. I’ll never know how it was supposed to end now.”
“Maybe it was always supposed to end like this,” Katya murmured.
“How?” Sophia asked.
Katya withdrew her pinky before turning her hand palm up and resting it on the chair’s arm. Sophia’s heart was beating so loudly she didn’t know how everyone in the salon couldn’t hear it. Slowly, gently, she slid her hand over Katya’s palm. Katya laced her fingers into hers.
“Like this.”