Music was playing, and some people were already smoothly heading to the dance floor. I watched and out of nowhere, I heard his name being called out.
“Mr. Volkov.”
I turned and watched as the young woman I’d spotted with my mother ran towards him.
He stopped but his eyes were on me, and only when she reached him did he turn to her.
She flushed, and almost couldn’t say a word.
Oh yes, I understood exactly what had come over her. I grabbed another drink, but it felt like shards going into my system as the liquid went down. I wanted to rise, to leave, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t take my eyes off Yuri and the woman. She was laughing up at him. The table I was sitting at began to fill up. I received polite nods from the guests as they took their seats and I prayed that no one would ask me who I was.
The prayer wasn’t answered.
I soon realized both the Mayor and the Deputy Prime Minister respectively were just a few seats from me. I drained the glass and wondered who the hell had seated me here.
“Hello, are you here with Yuri?” the mayor’s wife asked me.
Yes, that’s right I’m a nobody. My only worth is I’m sleeping with Yuri Volkov, I wanted to say but instead I rose to my feet. “I need to use the Ladies. Please excuse me.”
I was out of there and it took everything I had not to run across the room. I kept my chin up and finally got my escape. When I got to the restrooms, there were too many people at the mirror, so I found an empty stall, sat on it, and called Charlotte.
She didn’t pick up, and I wanted to flush the phone down the toilet. I wanted her to tell me not to be cowardly, or to talk some sense into me to realize my place and to get out of here. I had no clue of what to do.
Eventually, when the bathroom quieted down, I got out of the stall and stood in front of the gigantic mirror to kill more time by reapplying my lipstick.
Ask him about Yulia, I reminded myself. If she’s not here then it means he tricked you. You can then leave.
A woman came up to the mirror. I tucked my hair behind my ears. Our eyes met in the mirror and I froze.
Chapter 34
April
It was my mother… and she was smiling at me. My chin trembled, but somehow I was able to stretch my lips into a thin smile.
Her smile widened as she extracted a gold lipstick case from her purse.
I stared at her in amazement.
Her eyes were bright and her short hair was a beautiful dark blonde. She looked nothing at all like me, but damn she was beautiful.
“You’re sitting beside Yuri Volkov,” she noted.
I nodded politely in response.
“Are you two…” She raised her brow suggestively.
The smile left my face. The disappointment I felt was so great I was sure she would never be able to comprehend it. I couldn’t hold back. “It’s none of your business,” I said tightly.
The smile left her face also.
I pretended to adjust my hair until she moved a step closer to me. I turned and looked at her.
“I don’t know who you are,” she said, “but you look, quite out of place here. Just because you wear a designer dress, doesn’t mean you can fit into a strata of society you don’t belong to. So I’m here to give you a piece of advice. Take it in the vein it is given. I’m being cruel to be kind. You are wasting your time with Yuri Volkov. He will play with you and then he will leave you for someone from his social circle.” She smiled then and turned to take her leave.
“Don’t you recognize me, mother?” I asked when she had already flounced away and shut the door behind her.
The tears fell from my eyes before I could stop them. “Ah, fuck,” I cursed, and quickly wiped them off my face. I wouldn’t let myself cry. I turned towards the mirror. My eyes were bright with unshed tears. Not here. Not among these cruel people who understood only money, power and social class.
I thought of my mother. How she had climbed the ladder herself and yet, she had tried to stop another who she recognized as a social climber. It was heartbreaking, but I understood exactly what had happened. My own mother saw me as the interloper. She was saving Yuri for that elegant young woman she had come with.
I watched myself in the mirror. What was it about me that gave me away? My hairstyle? My lack of social graces? I’m not covered in pearls and diamonds? Or something else intangible only they understood.