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“Thanks.”
“I can get you more.”
“I’m okay.”
I am. In fact, I feel better than I have in hours. I glance at him. He might be the only person in the world who looks good under fluorescent lights. They enhance his somberness, the melancholy in his features. He looks unspeakably sad, but also stormy, in a way I can’t place.
I realize I’m being rude and gawking, so I clear my throat and try to make conversation. “Kolya, was it?”
He nods. “You’re June.”
“Yes. I’m—I was Adrian’s girlfriend. How did you know him?”
He sits down next to me. I notice without even trying that he smells like rich vanilla and oaky musk. The watch on his wrist catches the light. Patek Philippe, I see. Adrian loved those.
“We were… childhood friends.”
“Oh. I’ve never met anyone who knew him when he was a boy. He doesn’t—um, he didn’t talk very much about his childhood.”
“I’m not surprised.”
He doesn’t offer anything else. I’m left sitting there in an uncomfortable silence. “What was he like?” I ask at last. “As a child, I mean.”
“Annoying.”
I raise my eyebrows, expecting that answer to be followed up with a smile. But no smile is forthcoming. Somehow, I’m okay with that. I’m not sure a smile would even suit him. Every line on his chiseled face looks like it’s been engineered for the sole purpose of conveying maximum broodiness. Smiling might break him, honestly.
One of the funeral home employees shuffles by just then with a bucket and a mop to start cleaning up. I think of asking her to wait, but then the commingled scent of her cloying perfume and the rancid mop water hits my nostrils and I almost vomit.
Kolya notices. “Something wrong?”
“I’ve always had a good nose,” I explain, eyes closed as I fight back the waves of my roiling stomach. “But ever since the pregnancy, it’s become a superpower.”
He doesn’t really react. But in a way, the lack of reaction is the reaction. He goes perfectly still, and the blue of his eyes seem to split and shatter. It would have been scary, if I didn’t feel so strangely calm in his presence.
“You’re pregnant.” It’s a question only in theory, not in reality.
I nod. “Yeah, I sort of found out recently. So recent in fact that… Adrian didn’t know.”
Kolya stands upright so suddenly I almost yelp. “Come with me.” He takes my elbow and helps me out of my seat before I realize what’s happening.
“Where are we going?”
“Away from the smell.”
It’s bright outside, but the willow trees dotting the grounds offer pools of violet shade. He leads me to a bench tucked beneath one and we sit. The leaves drape in front of us, pale like wedding veils.
Kolya doesn’t let go of me until I’m seated. He arches one eyebrow as if to ask,Is that better?
“Much better,” I say with a sigh. “Only cut grass and vanilla out here.” When his eyebrow stays arched, I blush. “You smell like vanilla. It’s a good thing. I like the smell of vanilla.”
He nods. “Glad to be of service.” Again, he speaks without inflection or a smile. It makes me feel uncertain—of myself, more than anything else.
We sit in silence for a while. Indoors, the shuffling of feet and the whispering of mourners was weirdly grating. Out here, the same kinds of abstract white noises—a distant lawn mower, breeze in the treetops—calm my nerves.
“How’d you get the cut?” he asks abruptly.
It’s funny how I keep forgetting I have it until other people mention it. “I walked into a door,” I parrot automatically.
