14 comments/ 15607 views/ 18 favorites Svetlana in Olive Drab By: TaLtos6 I dunno, I was looking at a pair of people in their forties doing their grocery shopping when I noticed some BIG differences in their speech patterns. What was between them appeared to be based on a playful friendship and she seemed affluent to a fair degree. It made me wonder how they got together. They were too new to have been together for very long, but it came to me that if you have a reason to try hard, by that time, you can let a lot of things go by the boards, if you find the right person. So then I went back to my own grocery shopping, but my brain was already spinning its little cogs as I thought about new relationships at that point in life. There are the usual reasons, but I wasn't thinking of those. I thought about death and the wreckage that can leave. I was thinking about putting this in the 'Mature' section, but I checked and that says May/December things. This is a romance. They're just not 21 anymore. Before I knew it I was working on this in my head in the grocery store. By the time that I got in a check-out line to pay, I was a little pleased with myself. I wasn't thinking of a big long thing, but I now had the story in my little head. It makes a little difference climatically, but the Thanksgiving long weekend in this is the Canadian one, so it happens a lot earlier. It wasn't until I got home that I realized that I hadn't gotten ONE of the specials that I was after. Not one. ~sigh~ 0_o ***** Pete looked down, wondering a little at himself. His gaze took in his hands and they said a certain word to him as he saw the ridges of the veins and arteries underneath the surface of his skin. He'd have bet any money that right now, he wouldn't be able to see this clearly. He told himself that he ought to be trying to see through tears at this point. But he wasn't. He was looking at the backs of his hands, with an idle thought passing through as he wondered just when it had been that they'd transitioned on him again. He hadn't sat down to count the times or the nature of the changes, but he remembered when they were smooth and unscarred, the hands of a young boy. He remembered when they'd grown larger into the hands of a teenager, young and strong and growing even stronger, and by that time, they already bore a very few scars. Most of those had gone by now, but he could still see the deep one on the top of his right index finger. He curled that hand, looking for the other part of that scar -- the one which had been across the back of his right thumb. But that one seemed to have disappeared somewhere back down the road. He'd gotten them because he'd held a piece of reinforcing rod tightly in his right fist once. It had been all that he'd seen lying around one night when a man had tried to mug him, brandishing a knife. He was only seventeen at the time and he'd been scared shitless. The man was large, white, and looked to be in his early thirties. Pete could still hear the voice on him. There hadn't been any 'Gimme your money and you won't get hurt' to it. It had only been "Gimme your money, motherfucker." Pete hadn't known what to do then, and he remembered a public service announcement that it was always safest to just give a mugger your cash. It had been what he'd wanted to do, but then his assailant had stepped through the glare of a street lamp as he'd stomped over and Pete had seen those eyes. He didn't see much reasoning ability in there at all, and looking around, he'd seen the re-rod section lying there at the edge of the construction site nearby. The mugger had swung that knife a few times and Pete didn't think that his honest offering of all that he had on him would have prevented a whole lot. He doubted that men such as this would even accept three and a half bucks. He was sure of it when the knife connected to the rod and skipped down its length to open his finger and thumb as it had slashed past. Pete wasn't a big guy or anything, he'd been only average-sized, but he'd prevailed - if winning a knife fight with a lunatic counts for much. It had only been the plan to keep the guy at bay until Pete could get a clear exit to run. But it became clear that it wasn't going to happen fairly early on. Pete chalked it up to the power of fear-driven desperation that a skinny teenager could stab a huge assailant through the chest with an unsharpened piece of re-rod. It hadn't gone in very far and it had the effect that Pete wanted. It stopped the guy's raging fury. Before anything else could happen, Pete hit him alongside the head a few times, dropped the rusted rod and run for his life through the rain. He'd never gotten the cuts seen to, since that would have involved a trip to the hospital and he'd have had to make up a story - which he'd never been any good at. Some people could fabricate ornate and very plausible lies in an instant, but not Pete. So he'd just gone home and cleaned it up himself and the major part of the reminder of that night was still there on his finger. He thought about that night for a second and he remembered how he'd tried for a few days to find out about any injured muggers by listening to the radio and trying to get a look at any newspapers that crossed his path. He'd never heard a thing, but he knew that the man he'd left behind him had been dead at best and if not, then if there was anyone at all who'd loved him, they might have been faced with remembering to bring him a new coloring book for his birthdays for the rest of his life. Pete had been a teenager then and wouldn't have dreamt of harming anyone. But he knew that it would have been him found dead the next morning and he'd been scared to death. Pete remembered the changes to his hands when something had happened to him at near to eighteen. He'd suddenly seemed to have discovered the refrigerator, and had found himself with a raging metabolic rate. He could out-eat any junkyard dog, eating anything, everything, at any time and as much as he could hold and nothing would ever show on him. He grew taller at a time when that was supposed to be over for him and he grew leaner. The jobs that he'd had to do back then just formed his body. He'd never been big or the muscleman type, but Pete had a build on him back then. It was still there too, not that anybody would give a shit now. But Maggie had. Maggie had been a shy and rather short girl back then, the sweetest thing that Pete had ever set his eyes on and it was as though neither one had any say in what happened. They'd just gravitated toward one another and gone from there. They'd never had any kids. Maggie couldn't for some medical reason with a long name. She'd felt bad about that and Pete felt for her because she was his world, but Pete only felt for Maggie. Whatever it had been hadn't changed a thing for Pete. He'd had the love of that girl. That made everything all right. The world went on, spinning in its crazy way, but at least it was round and it made sense to them. They had each other. He wondered if he'd just been short-sighted, but he supposed that the way that it was supposed to go was that they went on forever. He looked up and saw Maggie's face there in the hospital bed, her eyes closed for the last time. After more than thirty years of his doing anything for her and always being ready to do more of whatever she'd asked of him, Pete now realized that he was unemployed at the only job that he'd really ever wanted. He was intelligent and well-spoken and he had a lot of skills, but all of those things were only attributes which had enabled him to keep them fed, clothed, and in possession of the things that Maggie had said that they'd needed on the rare occasions that she'd mentioned anything. He supposed that there had been ample time for him to come to the realization that one day; he was going to lose her to the disease which had claimed her today. Maybe that was the reason that he wasn't crying. He thought that he ought to be crying. If anyone deserved his tears, ... After a little while, he began to feel a little foolish, sitting here with his dead wife. The nurses and the staff were being wonderful and he knew that they'd give him all the time that he needed. But it had already been over an hour and he supposed that he'd better go, so he kissed Maggie's lips for the last time and said goodbye almost silently before he jammed his now old-looking hands into his jeans and walked out. He decided against a look back before he went, since he knew Maggie better than anyone, and to look back like that wouldn't do her any justice at all. Maggie had never lain still -- even in her sleep -- for this long in her whole life. He knew that fact like he knew his own name. He'd so often lain in bed beside her just looking as she'd slept against him or on top of him. Lying still just wasn't her, so he decided that he didn't want to see her any other way. He left the room and walked down the hall, stopping at the nurse's station to thank them and nodding that he guessed that he'd be alright. He walked down the long corridor and saw the light of a new spring day out there through the glass doors. He realized then that he didn't care about that and then he had a thought wondering why the world around him was still in color, because it sure didn't feel that way to him anymore. -------------------------------- He'd had Maggie's body seen to and other than the funeral and accepting the condolences of Maggie's many friends and coworkers; Pete felt the full crush of this on him after everyone had gone back to their lives. But Pete didn't have one of those anymore. He'd spent the rest of his bereavement leave sitting alone in the house that he'd shared with the only girl that he'd really ever loved. But she wasn't there anymore. He made a few trips to the cemetery, thinking that maybe it might help him to talk to Maggie. But she wasn't there either. Her body was six feet under the tombstone that he looked at. It was his first real clue that being a widower was a shitty existence. On the whole, his life wasn't even just a pale imitation of what it had been once. Now it was a non-life. He could look after himself. He'd never been one of those men who marry somebody and they become the replacement for their mothers. Pete could cook well. He just couldn't see a reason why he'd want to anymore, other than for basic sustenance. Things which he'd once enjoyed making for himself and Maggie just didn't appeal to him anymore. Fuck, he said to himself, breathing didn't appeal to him much anymore either, but he kept doing that rather automatically. He got up and he went to work day after day. It gave him his only excuse to leave the house. He noticed a change then. The end of his shift had always been something to look forward to. He'd traded his time for the pay and gone home to his wife for years and decades. Now, what was the point? There was no one there. There would never be anyone there ever again. He even looked forward to doing the housework, since it gave him something to do. But after a while, he came to realize that he didn't have the drive anymore and rather than get bogged down in something that Maggie could have done so much better than he could -- other than the big spring and fall cleanings that he'd once looked forward to because he and Maggie had always made the work of it fun between them, he'd hired a cleaning service. A nice pair of ladies came around twice a week and the job got done. Since they'd never had kids, the two of them had lots of disposable income, so it wasn't a problem. He'd always bugger off when the cleaning ladies showed up. Rather than get in their way, Pete would head down to the only store in the little place and spend an hour or two drinking coffee and chatting with the locals as they bought their scratch and win tickets and talked to him while they scratched and the government won almost all of the time. So Pete's life was a rather empty one and it was as lonely as living on Baffin Island, though perhaps not anywhere near as cold. He could see himself getting a dog one day for company and he knew that he'd enjoy that; just a lonely man who was too young to die of old age (but already feeling quite dead and gone), and a large dog. But he was still working and planned to be for a few years yet. He understood dogs and the sort of companion that he'd have wanted didn't deserve to be cooped up until his or her master returned, so that would have to wait a few more years, but is was on his list of things to try in desperation. ---------------------------------- Pete got through the rest of the spring and then the summer and he was staring fall in the face before he knew it. He tried to stay on top of the yard work and he even learned that his knees weren't the same as they used to be as he tried to keep Maggie's flower gardens weeded. He had no idea what he'd do next year. He wasn't a gardener. He made a mental note to go to a landscaping place that he knew sometime before the snow flew. He wanted to set something up so that he could pay somebody to keep the gardens up. He knew that he'd enjoy them more if he didn't have to weed them. Suddenly -- and it hit him like a bolt from the blue -- he remembered that he had a motorcycle. If it weren't for his knowing the reasons why he'd likely forgotten about it, he'd have laughed. But then, there wasn't all that much to laugh about anymore. His love of the two-wheeled wonders had begun before he'd met Maggie. Back then, he'd ridden around on a Yamaha two-stroke, since it was cheap and it gave him wheels. By the time that he'd met Maggie, he'd made it up to a Honda 305 that he'd bought for pretty much a song and he'd fixed it up. He felt like the motorcycling equivalent of Archie, but Maggie didn't mind it and they went everywhere together. Later on, as the years rolled past, he'd always had some form of roadburner. Maggie didn't care, as long as there was a little bit of room for her skinny little ass and he took her for a ride now and then, she said. Now and then. They rode everywhere together, as long as it wasn't snowing. She seemed to be more excited than he was the day that they went to pick up his Harley. She followed him back in the car and she made a point of pulling up next to him at a light to power down her window and make slightly naughty suggestions to the lean and handsome biker in the next lane. She'd had to shout her ideas a little bit and there were times when he'd glanced at his mirror and seen the shocked faces in the car behind him. He'd mentioned it to her when they'd stopped for coffee about halfway home and Maggie had turned crimson -- but she'd still laughed. That was just Maggie. He hadn't ridden it since about a week before she'd passed on in the spring. The first summer that he hadn't ridden in, ... he had to think about it. Thirty-two years. He opened the garage door and spent the Saturday afternoon doing little things that he'd overlooked, and one of those things was to hook up the charger for a couple of hours. The next day, he started it and went for a short ride. That night, he hooked up the battery tender just to keep a small charging rate going if it needed it. This was the dreaded third year, after all. Every three years, the premium battery would die on him. He took it to work the next week, and he got that sinking feeling when he came out to ride home. The bike started, but the first crank had sounded as though it wasn't going to happen. Every night, it went back on the tender to keep it topped up. The weather grew cold early and he prepared to put it away for the winter, but he kept that little charger going and he kept to his winter routine of going out to the garage to start the bike once a week and let it run until it was warm. But there were a few things wrong. The battery never seemed to take a full charge, though the little charger was on it at all times, so he guessed that this battery had gone the way of the others. The weather warmed up again, so he bought another battery and installed it and then on his way to work, he'd stopped for gas and when he'd hit the starter, all that he heard was click-click-click. He was out a half a day's pay by the end of it, not to mention the cost of a flatbed tow to his home. He charged the battery fully and it seemed to be alright then. But there was still something wrong, and it was with him. Without Maggie, ... he'd fallen out of love with the bike. He prepared to spend Thanksgiving weekend online, thinking that he'd been through the imports back in the day, and he'd run the beasts which could go faster than he could think, and he'd had his Harley. He found that he didn't really want any of them anymore. And there was something else. He lived just outside of a small town in the middle of nowhere. He didn't mind that so much. Without Maggie, he knew that he was only living so that he could die himself one day. It just hadn't worked out well for him. If he could have imagined such a thing; that he'd be widowed one day, well he'd probably have guessed that it would happen by the time he was seventy-five or eighty. But he was forty-eight. He slurped his coffee and stood up to go the bathroom. It might have been his dark thoughts, but he looked at the mirror in passing. His hair and his goatee had turned white since the last time that he'd paid much attention. He decided on a store cup of coffee and he walked out to his car. One kilometer to buy a cup of coffee. With luck, he'd meet up with a local and he might have two -- one sipped just as he listened and chatted, and the other one to bring home. Oh and he might need milk or something as well. One kilometer was a short haul in a car and too long a walk. Well, if he wanted to drink his last coffee of the day at home online. He was in his car and looking at the closed garage door. One kilometer was a short haul on his bike, too. And it wasn't one of the land yacht Harleys either that had places for everything. On his, there was no place to put a fucking cup of coffee. That made him remember the time that he'd stopped three days after getting that fat pig in the garage. He'd gone to the same grocery store that he went to every day to bring home one day's groceries for him and Maggie. There were no kids, so they liked to eat fresh and it was on his way home. That was when it hit him. Almost twenty thousand dollars and unless he was about to spend a whack more, ... There wasn't even a place to put a pack of gum. He bought saddlebags for when he needed them and almost always carried a tank bag after that anyway. He though that now he just preferred to putter the back roads and you don't need 750 pounds of overweight chrome to do that -- not if you were gonna buy a store coffee. He drove to the store and forgot about it for a few hours, just a lonely man who missed his wife. --------------------------------- Natalia knew. She saw it in the body language -- the way that the doctors walked and stood as they emerged. Only doctors moved that way. The nurses were always too busy. The ones which she saw were already shooting out of the room, pushing carts of things and trying to get a look at whatever fate and the carnage of the nearby highway would be bringing them next in terms of human wreckage from out there on a Thursday before Thanksgiving weekend. Doctors didn't move that way, not afterwards; not after they'd done all that they could as whatever sort of team they felt that they belonged to. Natalia looked down past her own lightly bandaged knees at the same four square feet of terrazzo flooring that she'd been staring at for the past two and a half hours and she waited. Svetlana in Olive Drab But she already knew. After a moment, she saw the shadow on that flooring and she heard the tone of the voice, so she looked up into the face of the pretty female ER surgeon. "I'm sorry," the doctor began, but Natalia's gaze slipped down then as she nodded. She didn't really hear the rest of it. She didn't need to. She just began to cry quietly. Her sister Nicoleta, the only person she had left -- the only one who'd given her life a purpose was gone, a victim of physics -- the same science which had driven her to seek out this place in which to live, far from her home, only in her case, it had been the interaction of far larger objects than molecules. They were the products of a broken and severely fucked-up home -- which she'd run away from as often as she'd been able to. One night, when her drunken parents had yelled and screeched at each other long enough, the pair of them had just passed out. Natalia had gotten out of bed and after a long and tearful hug with her little sister, who bravely promised that she'd never tell of their long talks and hopeful plans together, she'd snuck out then, with her little bag packed and a bit of a smile on her face while wondering how their parents had managed to argue themselves into unconsciousness at almost the same time. She slipped out of the door silently to the background chorus of snoring and almost skipped off to the train station. The only bad part -- the really shitty part had been leaving her ten year-old sibling behind, but there had been no other way. Natalia stole back like a thief a few times to see Nikky, and she often worried for her. That night, she bought a ticket to a city which had little in the way of industry or the mines which blighted the landscape with their tailings, and second-best of all, there was no constant cloud of shit in the air. She chose a city which was a bit of an economic and administrative center and the best part was that it lay over a hundred kilometers from the hole that she'd just crawled out of. She didn't know how, but if she could get some sort of life held together for herself with adhesive tape, she'd try to make it a home for them both and then she'd go and pull Nikky out of the same shithole. She found work almost right away and it was murder to keep up her schooling, but she did it and at eighteen, no one could tell her no, and she never saw her parents again. The 'work' was something that she hadn't wanted to be doing, but the money, ... For a very short time -- two months, until she'd decided that she wouldn't fall into the trap of the cash like so many of the others -- Natalia had been a stripper in one of the best clubs in the city. The first night was awful, but it grew easier fairly quickly. A lot of the other dancers had come with the same idea, but they'd stayed. Natalia had never planned to stay long and the night that a drunken customer had lost a large measure of his self-control while she was performing a lap dance had finished it for her. He seized her and wouldn't let her go. He held onto her so tightly that she had bruises on her left breast and right thigh for a little while after and she had the devil's own time keeping her thighs together tightly enough to thwart his attempts to get his fingers into her. One look at those fat, nicotine-stained digits and their black-edged fingernails and she'd almost thrown up. It still made her shiver with revulsion. But she'd looked to catch the eye of one of the solid 'problem-solvers' which the place employed. All it had taken was eye contact between them. The man had seen her wide eyes and then he'd looked past her and nodded, pointing at Natalia. The next thing that she knew, the grabby Czech truck driver's head was being bent back at a painful angle and she was free. She got to her feet and ran for the dressing room. She looked back long enough to see that there were four men hustling the man out as forcefully and as quickly as possible. She'd only looked back because of the sound of the man yelling out that he'd only be waiting for her to leave later. The bouncers in that club were a little famous all over the city for dealing quietly and efficiently with disturbances whenever an idiot decided to put up a fight. And one of their priorities -- very high on the list there -- was to assure the safety of the dancers and her drunken admirer had just said the wrong magic words. As she entered the dressing room corridor, she saw that he was quiet then. They were dragging him to the door unconscious and bleeding from his nose and his mouth. These were professionals and before anyone even knew what was happening, it was over and they were pulling him out. They could do that and most of the patrons wouldn't even notice if it happened beside them. She saw that right through the smoke of the place. She knew that the man wouldn't be waiting for her when she left. She knew that because of the other thing which those bouncers were a little famous for in a very quiet way. Say something -- anything at all which might be taken as your intent to wait for a dancer outside and you'd wake up with an intensely painful reason to seek medical attention instead. Broken arms and legs went a long way toward changing stupid and drunken plans. In about three minutes or less, that man would wake up from a sudden and new pain in a pitch black alleyway and never see the men who had inflicted it. Natalia said that she was alright when she'd been asked, but she never went back. She had more than enough money for a good start and for her schooling anyway. If she'd had another month, it would have been enough to go to the authorities on her sister's behalf and step forward as the sibling who had a stable life to offer -- even if it wasn't completely so just yet. It had been the dream of a pair of sisters to help each other find a better life. The two idiots who'd created them during what Natalia could only surmise as periods of fucking while almost blind drunk probably never knew that it had been Natalia at first and then Nikky who'd always waited until they were both passed out before they got out of their beds and covered their parents with blankets and then returned to bed. Natalia wondered if they even knew that she was not there anymore yet. For a time after that, Natalia was a model, which also paid stupidly good money, since she was a fresh new face. Natalia did go home then with her heart full to bursting with determination that she was going to be leaving with Nikky so that at least she might be able to have the latter part of her childhood to live. But that was when Natalia had the incredibly surreal moment when she'd gone to the apartment block where both of the girls had been born, only to find that her family had moved. No one knew where they'd gone. She met a Serbian girl through a modeling assignment and then she had her first friend in Zorka and her Romanian boyfriend, Matai. But then she'd met Jerczy and the two of them just clicked. They were young and in love and there was nothing wrong with the world at all for a time. It was a year or so after their simple wedding that Natalia began to watch in a little horror as her fine man began to turn into a roaring drunk like her father. It ruined everything and Natalia looked forward to the relatively few times that Jerczy had to work late, because those were her nights to cry. She'd put her journalism studies on hold for a time, but then she was back at it with a feeling in her heart that one day, she'd have to make a living out of a craft that she'd always loved. Then she'd gotten pregnant. Jerczy was incredibly happy when she told him, but he didn't spend much of any time with her. He just celebrated without her pretty much, as though the impregnating of her was some herculean task which only a real man could accomplish. He stayed drunk for three days -- even going to work smashed. For her part, Natalia saw it for what it was; just another excuse to blow more money on bottles and their contents. Natalia lost her baby late in the first trimester. She was hurt and upset and alone almost all of the time, but she preferred it to her husband's company by then. Jerczy kept a look on his face as though he was having the thought that it had been her fault somehow and by then -- if the stupid prick had worked up the nerve to only say it to her, Natalia would likely have killed him for it. She finally finished her studies and found a job writing for a hip and trendy half-underground sort of publication, but it had a huge circulation and it paid well enough. And somewhere, as she stumbled though the dark clouds which her life had become, Natalia saw the shock of slightly orange-looking blonde hair and almost fell back against a newspaper box in shock the day that she'd seen someone whom she'd worried about ever since she'd left home. There on the opposite corner just stepping off the curb, walking quickly to get away from a herd of boys with their intentions clearly written on their faces -- there doing her best to walk as though she knew where she was going, though she really had no clue where to begin to look -now that she'd gotten this far in her search -- was Nicoleta. She was thirteen now, looking like she was trying to give the impression that she was nineteen. Natalia thought that the only ones who were dumb enough to buy that shit were the boys, but they wouldn't buy it forever. It was coming apart even at that moment. Nikky was just about halfway across the busy street when one boy grabbed her arm and she almost cried out in panic and fear. If they'd gotten this brave, Natalia thought, then Nikky's charade was just about crumbled. Nikky turned and almost screamed at them to leave her alone and it sounded like a thirteen year-old girl's plea then. Natalia gritted her teeth as she pulled the hood of her sweatshirt over her head and began to walk. Nikky hadn't seen her older sister yet, and Natalia strode quickly and purposefully toward the little drama. The light had almost changed and there were already some motorists leaning on their horns, not caring, just needing to get somewhere impatiently. The one holding the young girl's arm looked ahead then in a bit of shock into the face that he saw and Natalia grabbed his arm in a death grip just as he released Nikky's arm. She pulled hard on that arm, using it to increase her momentum, ... so that she could plant her knee right between his legs. It was perfect. He grunted and then froze, staring as he began to double over. By the time that he'd laid his head down against the cobblestones, Natalia was hot and everything came out of her as she planted her army surplus combat boot in between the arms which reflexively held his bruised privates. Bang. She'd nailed his solar plexus and stepped over him to grab her sister's arm. Nicoleta hadn't even had time to absorb what had just happened, let alone who it had been who had come out of the throng of faceless people crossing the intersection in the opposite direction. A second boy in the group backed away with bruised ribs from Natalia's second kick, and she'd skinned her knuckle against the third one's jaw, hitting him hard enough to cause him to reel right around and plant his face against the grille of a delivery truck. That one and the other two ran off then as Natalia's loud and angry curses turned most of the strangers' eyes. A single driver had the lack of sufficient IQ points necessary to keep his thumb off the horn at that point and Natalia smashed one of his headlights with her boot as she howled at him to fuck off and mind his business. He began to get out of his vehicle, but Natalia wasn't done yet. As she watched his beefy fingers curl over the top of the door so that he could lever his fat ass out, she'd thrown her body -- with her sister trailing along by the hand against the door with her own shoulder. The door closed on the man's fingers as he was knocked back inside at the same time. "Run!" she hissed at her sister and the two of them tore off the way that Natalia had come hand in hand, their short orangey hair making them stand out as they ran. They didn't stop for blocks until they stood together both bent over a little with their ribs heaving from the exertion and their laughter. The moment of their happy reunion had to wait for three minutes at least. "What are you doing here?" Natalia asked her sibling and Nicoleta burst into happy and relieved tears. "I ran away. Papa is in jail for killing a man in a brawl. Mama drank herself to death a week later -- well, she drank herself unconscious again, but this time she'd taken the tranquilizers that the doctor had prescribed because she was upset that Papa was in jail. I found her in a puddle of her own vomit. She'd suffocated. I called the police and then I left in the confusion," Nikky said, trying to stop sobbing and yet still laughing at how they'd met at the same time. They stood holding on to each other at the entrance to an alley for a long time after that, finally together again. Natalia brought her sister to her home to stay with her and the first thing that she did was to introduce her little sister to her husband. The second thing that she did was to grab him by his balls right through his jeans to tell him that if he so much as looked at her sister the wrong way, she'd gut him like a fish. It went a way toward finishing what little relationship had been left after what Jerczy's drinking had done to erode it. Three months later, Natalia was almost set to leave Jerczy. She'd managed to squirrel away enough to get them a little apartment and she'd set a date to do it, choosing a night when the city's soccer team would be playing a championship match. But it never happened because it hadn't needed to happen. Jerczy was like a lot of his friends from work. They were still in the bag from the semi-final match night before. But he went to work that day because he couldn't have one more absence on his record for the next year. With the innate ability of a young working alcoholic, Jerczy somehow managed to get himself run over and crushed by the same bus that he'd been riding in only moments before. Well the bus driver had been still drunk himself. Natalia put everything into raising her sister, who returned top marks every time and together they planned for her higher academic learning. She didn't even miss Jerczy at all. "What for?" she said to Nikky when she'd asked about it, "There was no love there. He turned into a man who lived here and thought that I had things to do for him. It was beginning again -- just like home. I used to look at things like our money and I always had to keep mine hidden. The bastard drank the rent money more than once. He could get paid on Friday and I'd find him looking through my purse for money on Monday and he knew full well that the rent was due on Tuesday. I'd even catch him and he wasn't shy about it at all. I'd get mad then because he was turning me into the shrieking wife that I never ever wanted to be. I had to be that way. I finally figured out that screaming at the idiot that you married is about the only way to get him to piss off and leave you alone. Otherwise you work yourself to death for him and you get only sorrow. I promise you, Nikky, I am not going to fall into the trap. It's right there and I can even see it. I will not turn into our mother. She fell into the bottle along with Papa. It's what happens so much here. For a lot of people, there is only the job and the bottle." Natalia was just a girl born to a pair of working poor. She had been eleven when Nikky came along, a very late surprise. Somehow, Natalia had always known what her role would be. They were sisters who looked alike because of their hair and their features, but back then, it had been Natalia who had been more of a mother to Nikky. She did everything that she could and then she left for school. When she came back, she just took up the role once more and did her studies and homework as she went. Their mother didn't care much, when she even noticed it. As long as their father was out and pissed raising hell and as long as there was a working television and a bottle for their mother, things were at least quiet. It was more Natalia who taught little Nicoleta to speak as well as everything else and she looked after her little sister without complaint because she knew that there was no one else. But at one point, it had become clear that they had to leave, because though Natalia would do anything for her sister and it went both ways by then, it was either her leaving to at least try to set the stage for them or she'd be doing everything for the four of them. Her logical brain would allow the devotion of a daughter to her alcoholic parents only so much. But by the point where they were left together after her husband's death, their relationship had changed and progressed in a slightly different and very unforeseen way. It had always been Natalia whose bed little Nikky had crawled into as a small child when their parent's constant fighting woke her up and upset her. Natalia could throw herself into taking care of them both since there was no other answer, but she was still a child herself and they needed each other, falling back to sleep in each other's arms almost every night back then. To everyone who saw them they were obviously sisters, the only thing was their ages which set them apart. If it hadn't been for that, they could have passed as twins. They lived there and it allowed them to save some money toward Nicoleta's schooling. It helped that Nikky was considered a hardship case with a father in prison for manslaughter, a dead mother, and that she was living alone with her widowed older sister. After Jerczy's death, Natalia had thrown out the wreck that she'd been sleeping in and bought a new bed, since they wouldn't be needing to rent another apartment. Nikky stopped sleeping on the sofa and the two of them went back to sleeping in each other's arms once more. It happened very slowly to be sure, and it had been Natalia who'd dragged her feet almost every step of the way, but by the time that Nikky was eighteen, they'd just admitted what the younger one had always said and realized that their love had gone beyond a purely sisterly one, though that was what it always had been. Neither one would have admitted to being 'one of those', since it didn't feel that way to either of them. They only knew that there was one person who would never hurt them, never have an agenda which wasn't worked out between them, and most of all, there was no other person who ever made each of them feel this way. Nikky graduated at the top of her class and then she found a position for herself. The years went past as Nikky rose in recognition and that led to better and better jobs and money. Fifteen years later, they were living reasonably well and Nikky ran a government scientific group. That led to a bit of travel occasionally and before Natalia even knew it, Nicoleta had gone to another job in her field, but in another country on the other side of the world. It was so hard for Natalia, but she'd done the right thing and she was so proud of her little sister. But that wasn't the end, no. Nikky begged Natalia to emigrate to where she was and at the first opportunity; Nicoleta sponsored her sister's immigration. All that remained then was to seek citizenship, which Natalia threw herself into, studying all that she could of her new land. Together, the sisters looked for a place where they might have a home and that turned out to be a small house on a large lot in a largely rural township. The worst part would be shoveling the snow off the long driveway, but it hadn't come to either one's attention yet and there was room for as much gardening as they had the want to work at. Nikky then began to pester her older sibling about finally brushing up and re-finishing her journalism studies and that had finally come to pass too. Svetlana in Olive Drab Of course, Natalia regarded herself to be much too old now to really begin that career all over again. But Nikky pushed and prodded and Natalia suddenly found a job writing columns and covering the news desk four days out of seven for a small paper which was still around and published both a full version and a weekend edition which was full of flyers and sales at the stores in the surrounding area. That was why Natalia had heard the call over the scanner about the pile-up out on the highway. The other reporter had called in sick and so Natalia had just gotten the details from the office on her cellphone as she drove off. The rest seemed so surreal now. As she drove, Natalia had been looking back and thinking that life had been very kind to her and Nikky. Her sister was beautiful and always seemed to have a different man in her life, and it was far faster than Natalia could keep up with, not that it was her business to anyway, she smiled to herself. She'd never found much of an interest in anyone again, other than in her sister's arms. There might be little romances for Nikky now and then, but they still preferred each other. Natalia didn't mind. She was happy that at least Nikky could have a good life and that made her own life better. And then she was idling past the police roadblock after showing her press credentials. The air was lit up with flashing strobelights from the fire trucks and the police cruisers. The road seemed to be covered in crumbled safety glass for hundreds of feet, since there were at least a dozen vehicles involved. But then Natalia had seen the firemen trying to work the Jaws of Life in through an opening so that they could pry apart enough twisted metal to get to the driver of the dark blue BMW partially crushed under the cab of the semi. Almost right next to where she'd been told to park. It would be five minutes before the tow trucks could haul a few more of the wrecks away, they told her. Natalia knew how this would go. She ought to be getting a few shots for the paper, but the main thing was when the mess was being cleared away. That was when she'd get her terse briefing as to what and how this had happened. She'd make the best sense of it and it would make the paper the next week. But she was barely listening as she heard what she was being told. They were just waiting for either the diesel towtruck to move the rig or with any luck the firemen would get that lady out and they could begin to wind this up. Natalia heard it all and nodded absently as she recognized the color of the bit of hair that she could see on the head under the blankets of the paramedic gurney being hustled off to the waiting ambulance. That hair, ... just a touch of natural orange in the blonde, ... Any woman would know the exact shade of her sister's hair, wouldn't she? The ambulance was loaded in a heartbeat, the doors closed and it was gone an instant after that, already singing its plaintive wails. Natalia's eyes betrayed her then. She hadn't wanted to see, already having seen enough. But her eyes snapped back to take in the damning detail which would prove to her, ... beyond the last measure of doubt which she so needed to still have to hold onto. She recognized the plate on the back of the almost obliterated car. She didn't even feel it as she sank to her knees onto the broken glass until a policeman who knew her from seeing her around at other scenes where she sometimes showed up ran over and she said nothing because she had no voice right then. She only pointed. Now ... Natalia was alone on the far side of the world. -------------------------------------- Pete's eyes darted back and his mouse cursor followed to hit the 'back' button on his browser. He'd already decided that he didn't want another hog. His own had been a lot of fun for him and Maggie, just because. They just loved to ride the thing together and there was no pretense to it. When it had come up between them, Pete would pull into the lot of a coffee shop, trying to park well away from the lifestylers. They often met a few folks regardless, but that was alright with them. They just weren't into the lifestyle. Where they'd grown up on the streets, they could both plainly remember the people who a lot of these insurance brokers and account managers were trying to emulate and they didn't need the reminders. But they played along in a social sense, knowing that the others knew nothing of it all and were often just in it for the look. And besides, for the most part, they were all really nice people. Most bikers of any stripe usually are, no matter what they ride. If anyone asked, Pete would joke that they'd parked way the hell over where they were as a public service, not wanting any of the dead bug syndrome to spread to the pristine bikes which never saw any wet pavement in their lives. He smiled when he remembered all of the times when Maggie had come bouncing to a stop in front of him in her rain suit, almost begging to go for a ride in the summer rain. Coming back to the present, he remembered that he'd been out to the garage that morning to perform the weekly ritual. He didn't know if it was all because of Maggie, or whether his having to go through the expense of another battery was just bad timing. The beast had started right away and rumbled contentedly as the oil in its gut warmed up. He supposed that if it was a living thing, that it had been offering it's apology for all of the trouble. Pete himself didn't so much blame the bike. It was an inanimate object, after all. But today, he'd felt the change. He was past having fallen out of love with it. He hated it now. The previous page listing dealer's sites opened again and he scanned down until he saw the brand that he'd thought that he'd seen. He had to admit to a little surprise that they were still around, but then he smirked a little and asked himself why not? Harleys were an even older design at over a century old now and other than fuel injection and an on-board computer, they were still pretty much the same primitive things that they'd always been. They just carried a lot more shiny to them these days, that was all. His last real roadburner would have been twenty years old now and even so, it was light-years ahead of what sat in his garage now from a technical standpoint. At least the Japanese had made finding neutral at a stoplight easy. Any Harley made couldn't make the same boast. He followed the link to the dealer's site and was amazed that it was within say, fifty kilometers of him. He reached for his mug of tea and, ... Well it was Saturday after all and he wasn't doing anything. A phone call told him they were open until six. He looked at his watch. Three hours. He was in his jeep and gone into the afternoon gloom of an autumn rain. As he drove, he thought about a few things, but overall, he found himself having something small to look forward to. At least it had gotten him off his ass, and that surprised him a little. Pete had always loved the fall season. What he'd never minded -- as long as he hadn't been out in it working -- was the cold autumn rain. Today, as he rode down the road with his wipers slapping, he felt a tiny little hope for himself in a strange way. He didn't really know what it was, but he knew that he liked it. The photos didn't do what he was looking at any justice at all, he decided. He and the dealer talked for a long time and the man made it plain and very clear that these things weren't for everyone. He explained that they didn't even ride or handle like any motorcycle -- unless you bought one which came without the sidecar and even then, you'd be buying something so far out of date technologically that -- "I ride a Harley," Pete smiled, "It only knows how to say one word. Potato. I'm a little tired of hearing potato-potato-potato-potato, to tell you the truth. If you ignore the fuel injection and the on-board processor and really look at it, it's not much more than a long-throw flathead and that's an older thing than the boxer twin that these have." The dealer nodded with a smile, "There is something else here that I have to stress -- a couple of things, actually. Riding a sidecar rig is different, as I've said. They don't lean in turns, so you have to -- especially right turns, or that wheel will begin to float off the ground. Go too far, and it can roll over. But it is a vehicle from a different time, a slower one, as you'd soon find out, though some might say that it hearkens back to a more romantic one. Some of our models really emphasize that aspect. But as you've said, you know the history behind these, or some of it. These are still made in the same factory set up on the western edge of Siberia and well out of the range of Hitler's bombers long ago. Their first products, thousands of them, were for military use. Those days are gone, thankfully, and the company is now a private one, still making the same products, though with revisions here and there. Most of our products are made for private use, on and off-road, since those ones are two-wheel-drive, once you engage the drive shaft to the sidecar wheel. But they are still mostly military-grade." He smirked a little then, "I think that there are still a lot of the military ones around in the hands of some of the satellite countries' militaries. Somebody told me that they still carry a NATO designation and if that's true, I'm not surprised. My point is that they are made to be a little tough and if that makes them a little less comfortable, well, that's just how it is. They're made to be serviced in the field. See the tires? All three are the same and that one comes with a spare mounted on a wheel. And that spare wheel can go on either the rear wheel or the sidecar position. All of the shock absorbers are identical, so if you hit something hard enough to ruin one, you just bolt on the spare. No motorcycle anywhere is sold with a standard tool kit like the one which comes with these ones. There is even a pair of leather work gloves in the kit. These are made to be fixed wherever they might fail." "Leather gloves in the toolkit?" Pete asked, a little incredulous, "What for?" "Think about it," the dealer smiled, "Where these are made, it's nothing for a winter day to go at twenty-five below Celsius. They're made to start and run day after day at temperatures that most vehicles of any sort might have trouble in. I doubt there are many bikes which even could. Many of these are operated year-round there. By the way, as long as I'm on the subject, I'm telling you now that if you decide to buy one, you ought to have the deep oil sump installed to replace the one that it comes with. There's not a thing wrong with making sure that everything in there gets slathered with oil. It really helps in the colder part of the year. Also," he smiled, "the machine will know that you're serious then, just saying." Pete stared for a moment, "Are those, ... Am I really looking at actual carburetors in 2013?" The man nodded, "Why? Does that put you off? To be happy with one of these, you need to be pretty much self-reliant, but the factory stands behind what it sells." "No," Pete smiled, "I just haven't seen one in a while on a heavy motorcycle, that's all. I'm no stranger to working on them at all." He pointed out something, "Why does this model have a, ... What is that?" "It's a spotlight," the man grinned, "You can turn it on and move it around by the little knob on the back of it. I don't know why you might want that, and a lot of our customers just tighten it down so that it points straight ahead almost like another high beam. These come with an alternator which makes serious juice, far more than you'd see on pretty much any other bike. By the way, you ought to know that this engine design won't give you tons of horses. It's a 750, and it only makes about 40 horsepower. So it's no rocket. The transmission has only four speeds, plus reverse. It's a little clunky." "Once again, I own a Harley," Pete grinned, "It shifts like a tractor compared to the Japanese bikes I've owned." "Then you'll feel almost right at home," the dealer smiled, "These shift like farm implements too." They spoke for a little more time and then seeing as the rain had stopped for at least the moment, Pete was led to the shop and offered a little test ride around the yard if he wanted it. He readily accepted and he learned in the next five minutes that the sidecar made it want to go to one side if he accelerated and to the other if he pulled off the gas. But he found that he liked it, overall. "Absolutely normal for a sidecar rig," the man said, "You'll get used to that. If you're not going to be using it to haul your mother around, I'd suggest putting a couple of sandbags in the trunk of the sidecar." Pete stared into the cave of the trunk for a moment and then he laughed as he thought of his frustration years before over the pack of gum. "If you don't want to wait for my factory shipment over the winter, I've got that one to sell as a bit of a demo. It was owned for a short time by a man who kept thinking that riding these would be like riding most bikes. I guess he scared himself." He mentioned a price and Pete thought about it for a moment. "You'd be buying a vehicle with a useful load of over 800 pounds," the dealer said, "These things aren't fast, but they can work. I've got one in the shop that I'm restoring for myself," he smiled, "Not much has changed since 1953, apparently." Pete looked at the low number on the odometer and then he looked at it overall, trying to decide if he was up for this adventure. He concluded that he was and didn't really mind the camo paint scheme too much. "I'll let you know on Tuesday," he said, "I never buy a vehicle of any kind on the day that I set eyes on it the first time. But I find that I do like it. My days of lighting up the road are long behind me. I'm in no hurry to get anywhere anymore." "Well that's a good thing," the man chuckled, "because you'd be buying a vehicle which was made to have the same opinion. They can cruise at 100 kilometers an hour, but they're happier at 80. This one here would be in heaven at 15, as long as it was in the woods in two-wheel-drive." "Just one thing," Pete said, "This red paint here on the sidecar." He was looking at some lettering which had been sprayed on through a stencil by the previous owner, he guessed. "I don't give a rat's ass about the red star, since it's pretty small. I don't think I care about the rest, but that hammer and sickle thing has to go." "I can see your thoughts on it," the dealer said, "But it would only take a moment with a can of forest green touch-up paint to cover that." Pete nodded, "Thanks for taking the time to talk to me and I'll call you one way or the other on Tuesday. If it's a go, you just get out the spray paint and kill the hammer thing. I know where it's made and I even like that, but I had relatives who had to look at that hammer and sickle shit for too long to make it fine with me." He was told of a site to go to where he could download an Adobe file which would teach him the basic considerations which went with riding one of these things, but they also had hard copies, so Pete bought that instead, along with an embossed key fob. It was just something that he'd always done whenever he'd bought a bike. This one fascinated him a little, he had to admit. It had the logo on one side and he'd been told that they were offered for sale this way in all of the countries where the firm exported them to. There were words in Russian on the other side. He spent the next couple of days asking himself some tough questions. But what settled it for him was that he'd be able to tootle off for some store coffee -- as idiotic as that notion was when he thought about it. Sure it was stupid, but it made Pete smile every time. Considering how the last year had gone for him, Pete would take that and be glad. He still missed Maggie something terrible. But now he felt like he had a way to move forward from where he was. So he phoned on the Tuesday and he said that he'd be there to take delivery on Saturday, if that was alright. "I've been looking at your accessories and I think I want the deep oil sump as you told me and if I could, I'd want the big-assed cop-style fairing and windscreen too. If they make leg shields to bolt onto the engine guards, that would be good as well. I'm pretty sure that -- while I don't expect to go on any winter expeditions, I might want something to hide behind in a stiff breeze. Let me know the final price with the taxes in and the accessories out. I'd prefer to pay for them separately on Saturday with my bank card. And I'll need the serial number and that stuff so I can wake up my insurance agent." -------------------------------------- On Thursday morning, Pete called in and booked the day off as a personal leave. He stopped in at his bank and then he made sure to have a sit-down in town in a hair-cutting place -- and he made certain to ask for a dye-job. "I haven't really taken a good look at the way that I look since before last April, before my wife passed away," he said, "I'd bet anything that I was only gray then. Now I'm white and it scares the crap out of me, quite frankly. I'm not trying to impress anybody so much as I'm trying to feel a little better about myself these days. Otherwise, I'm afraid that I'll just get miserable." It began to snow late in the morning and it carried on though the afternoon and into the early evening. Nothing deep or intense, just about four inches of stuff that some people might not have been prepared for just yet. Natalia was one of them. Pete met her for the first time at the only store in the little town, a slightly thin-looking woman with sort of mildly orange blonde hair in a short boyish kind of cut which looked to be a little frosted with a touch of gray to him and who was surprisingly attractive to him, but that wasn't what motivated him in the ensuing conversation. It was that she was just this side of tears, and he could see from her eyes that there had been a bit of recent history there in some regard. He walked in as she was trying to absorb what the clerk had told her, that she didn't know anyone personally who offered snow-ploughing services, though she said that there surely must be someone. "But by now they'd all be as busy as a buck during the spring rut. They all like to get things like those contracts sewn up long before it snows," she said. The woman stood there looking a little lost and he watched as she lowered her face. Pete knew what that was, though he didn't know the details. The snow was secondary, though it was the present issue for her. He saw her struggling not to cry. He didn't know a thing about her at all, but he knew about not having much of a reserve to one's inner strength after it had already largely been used up. A small and stupid little irritant like a four inch snowfall might be enough of a push for tear ducts that were already halfway opened. "Here's Pete," the clerk said, "Hey, this lady needs her driveway ploughed and she's stuck. Couldja help her out Pete?" "Sure," he nodded as he looked over, "Excuse me, Ma'am," he said, "But where do you live?" She sniffled once and looked up, "I live over on the tenth line, about halfway to the first concession road -- I think it is." Pete stared at her, knowing that his Grand Cherokee was the only vehicle parked outside at the moment. "You walked here from there? In this? Do you have a car?" She nodded, "Yes, but it is stuck in the snow from the plow. I do not know what to do. I have only a little garden shovel. I have to get the car unstuck and then shovel the driveway -- and I may have to go to work tomorrow as well." Svetlana in Olive Drab Pete heard her accent and wondered a little which Eastern European country that she came from. Her English was pretty much perfect, though. He smiled, "I'll help you. It's what the people around in these little places do at times like this." He looked over at the clerk, "Pat? If you don't have any coffee on, then make some please and I'll pay for the whole pot. This lady is almost blue, and I know that I sure need a cup." "Please," she said, "I was looking for a company which does this ploughing. I do not want you to spend your time --" She stopped as she saw him shake his head with a smile, "I don't have much of anything but time these days. Please don't make me lie and tell you that I have just such a company -- because I will if I have to. I don't have a thing planned other than a light dinner and there's loads of time to do that. Just warm up here a little and we'll go get my snowblower. I don't know how long your driveway is, but I don't think it'll take all that long." "But my car is stuck too," she said, a little despondently. "And I've got a tow-rope to get you out with," he laughed, "The only price to you is a cup of coffee that I'm paying for. You're really looking far too cold to have to walk all the way back -- and it's almost dark now. I don't mind at all. My name is Pete. You can ask Pat there if she knows me." "Pete's ok," the clerk grinned, "About the only bad thing I can say about him is that he's a little late returning his video rentals sometimes, that's all." She glared at him pointedly after that, and Pete jumped up to walk over, since he was there in the first place to return the movie he'd rented the evening before. He pulled the case out of his pocket to put it on the counter. He asked the woman how she preferred her coffee and he handled that to set the paper cup in front of her at the small table, "Here you go, uh, ..." "Natalia," she said, trying to smile a little, "Are you sure that it is not asking too much? It is a long driveway." He didn't answer for a moment, still finding that he liked the way that her name was spoken -- Na-talia. "Huh? No, not at all, Natalia. I'm sure it won't be any trouble at all. I was just thinking that you're dressed a little lightly to have marched all of that way. You can't really do that out here -- especially once the winter really sets in. I've only got this jacket, but it's lined and it's made for this. I always keep a parka in my jeep out there just in case." "I think that you are right," she sort of half-smirked with a bit of effort, "This is my first winter here." "Well if you want to live long enough to have a second winter here, then you ought to think about these things a little. You just need an old winter coat in the trunk. That and a pair of mitts, and you'd be set." The coffee didn't last long, but Pete made another two for the road and they were out the door. A few minutes later, and they were backing into his driveway -- which was no short thing either at about a hundred yards long, though most of it was overhung by trees on either side. "Wait right here," he smiled, "I've just got to get my snowblower onto my trailer and then get it hooked up and we'll be off." It happened pretty much as quickly as that, though Pete did run back to the garage for his spare gas can, just in case. He found her Cavalier well stuck, but he had it out in only minutes. "I can tell you, since you're new here, that you need to keep a shovel in your car and you've got to approach your driveway a little carefully from now on. You never know when the plough driver will sneak over to plow you in around here. It's just something that you get to live with. I see it when I come home and I make a point to look in the morning before I go, just in case." He looked up the drive then, "That looks like a wide space there by the garage to turn around in," he said, "or am I wrong?" "No," she smiled a little, "that is exactly what it is. How did you know? Can you see through snow or something?" He shook his head, "That's just what I thought that it might be. Can I pull ahead into there with you following me? That way, you're at home and I can just get started on clearing the snow." She nodded and he drove in, pulling his truck and trailer off to the side. Natalia parked and went into the house to get changed into some jeans and boots and a better coat, and then she began to try to shovel what she could. Pete stopped her and reached into the back of his jeep, "Here," he smiled, handing her a snow shovel, "This will do a better job and save your back at the same time." Then he was off, the machine roaring and the snow flying off in a heavy white curtain. Natalia stood there for a moment as she watched him partially disappear into the darkness until he was just a vaguely humanoid silhouette in the glow of the snowblower's headlight. She found herself smiling a little bit. He was very attractive and pleasant. But the moment passed and she started in on the shoveling, though she was very thankful that he'd come into the store when he had. He ran out of gas once and pulled the snowblower back to his trailer to re-fuel it. As he did, he noticed that everything had been shoveled off neatly, other than where his truck and trailer stood. He only looked for a moment, but it was enough to tell him that she was very neat in the way that she shoveled snow at the very least. He doubted that he could have done that if he'd had a laser to mark out the edges for him. Then he started the snowblower again and he was off to do the rest. But he hadn't looked at the house. If he had, he might have seen Natalia looking out at him from the darkened livingroom window. She watched him again for only a minute before she walked away, wondering now why she'd done that. When she heard the machine's roar drop back down to an idle and stay there, Natalia pulled her boots back on and grabbed her coat. Pete was a little surprised that she was there to meet him. "I have some hot soup," she smiled, "Please do not try to tell me that I must have a company to do that or I will lie -- or something." And then she shrugged a little helplessly and laughed at herself. "Please have some with me? You have helped me to feel better when I just had nothing anymore." Pete nodded, "I think I'd like that, Natalia." He followed her into the house and then he stared for a moment at the huge sprays of flowers adorned in black and dark purple ribbons there in the living room as he passed the doorway. He'd seen things like this before. "They are left over from my sister's funeral yesterday," she said very quietly, "She died last Thursday. I am European. I could not have left them there, not after how much they cost. I would give anything to make time go backward just a little bit." She seemed to have shrunk just a little to his eyes and she looked to be near to where she'd been when he'd first laid eyes on her that afternoon. "Oh my God," he whispered, "I'm so sorry Natalia." He stepped forward and afterward, he couldn't really explain what had happened. She looked to be maybe two or three inches shorter than he was, but right then, she looked so much smaller. He meant nothing by it, other than to offer a little support in her grief as he'd reached out to touch her shoulder. He'd wanted to say that if there was anything that he could do, ... But somehow at his touch, something happened and he found her against him and weeping softly. He didn't mind at all. He just found himself wishing with all of his heart that he could force the hands of time backward, however far she needed them to go. Instead, he very slowly took her into his arms and they stood there for a few minutes. During that time, neither of them spoke a word, but by the end of it, he knew that she had no one else. He lowered his head after a while so that her ear was just against his lower lip. He was surprised that it felt so good to him to do that, as though it was helping him at the same time. "What happened, if I can ask?" he whispered, thinking that the question was a fine one -- for an idiot to ask at a time like this, but she didn't seem to mind much. "A car accident," she sobbed softly, "Nikky was my only family, ... I am here because she asked me to come and live with her here. Now I don't know what to do about anything anymore. I have no family back home. My husband died when I was twenty-two. I do not know anyone here. I have only been here for eight months. I think they will deport me. Nikky was my sponsor to come." "I don't know about any of that," he said very softly, "Though I think that I'd like to help if I could somehow. I could try to find out, if you haven't already. It might be better if somebody else asks." Her head pulled back then, "I offered you soup." She wiped her eyes, "Please, let's eat." The soup was obviously just that, but it was a beef soup with a lot of heartiness to it and Natalia had a platter of buttered buns of some sort there to go with it. Pete knew that he wouldn't be needing to eat any dinner that night. "Where are you from Natalia?" he asked, wanting to lighten this, "Your English is really good and other than a general idea about your accent, I've got no clue as to where you might be from originally. Wherever it was, don't they let you get married more than once?" "I am from Romania," she said, "But growing up there when I did, everyone learned Russian because we had to in school and a lot of the students learned English also. I can speak German as well. My parents were drunkards and I ran away from home when I was almost eighteen. I had my young life planned out, but then I met Jerczy. We got married and he started working in a factory. Then I became pregnant - and then Jerczy became a drunk like all of his friends. I lost the baby, but I found Nikki wandering the street looking for me one day. I was going to leave my husband, but he died before I could. After that, I wanted nothing to do with men again." She looked at him, "You don't drink, do you? I cannot see it in you." Pete shook his head, "No. Who the hell can afford it? Well I suppose that I could, but it's not worth the money to me. I probably only have a six pack of vodka coolers over a summer and another one over Christmas, ... " He looked at her and the way that she was looking at him then and he just went for the laugh, since they both seemed to need it, "I mean -- no, oh hell no. I don't drink at all." Natalia laughed at him then and he felt relieved enough to be able to smile back at her. "Forgive me," she said, "but, ... is there a Mrs. Pete? And if not, then why not, if we are telling of our lives." He shook his head, "There was, but Maggie died of leukemia last April. I was going to tell you that I found it best to get rid of those flowers just as soon as they begin to die off. Keep the vases if you want to, but ditch the flowers. I couldn't bring myself to do it until it was too late and the sad way that they looked then made it even harder for me. I couldn't stand to look at them --even while they were still in bloom and pitching them that far past their prime just made me think of death." "I am sorry to hear this," she said, "Did you have any children? You and, ... Maggie?" Another shake of his head, "She had a condition that prevented it and after a few years, her doctor advised her to get a hysterectomy. I never really cared -- other than the way that something like that can hurt a woman to have to face. I was fine as long as I had Maggie. It's been a little, ... well, a little um, ... empty without her." There was a bit of a silence then as they ate until Pete said that he really liked the soup. "It is an old style to do it," she said, "I think that some people must still do it this way here, too. I boiled some soup bones last night and I made it from that. But I put it in the fridge to eat tonight. I have not been in the mood to eat much lately." She reached across the table to take his hand for a moment. She didn't feel uncomfortable at all with him and it was one of the things which amazed her a little about him. She doubted that she'd have offered anyone else more than some money for their help. Other than this, she hadn't been in any sort of mood to even be a little near to any other human being and this -- to ask a stranger into her home -- well it wasn't like her at the best of times. "I do not know how to thank you for all of your help, Pete," she said very quietly, "but I hope that I can tell myself that now I know someone here." He nodded with a small smile, "I think that I've been pretty much a ghost for a long time now. My friends used to call now and then to ask if I was alright, but, ... somehow, I just wanted to be left alone. Looking back now, I don't think that it was the best thing to do. I haven't heard from anyone in a while. It wouldn't really surprise me if they've given up on me. I am very pleased that I met you, though." ---------------------------------- "What will you do now?" Natalia asked him as they stood by her door, "Your driveway looked the same as mine did before and it is almost ten o'clock. You have to go to work tomorrow, no?" "Yeah," he shrugged, "but it's not really a problem for me the way that it was for you. By now, I'm sure the plough has been by, but all I need to do is shovel a little so that I can get my trailer in. I'll just do that and park it all. A little snow like this is pretty much nothing that I can't deal with tomorrow when I get home. My jeep won't care, not with those tires and four-wheel-drive. I'll be fine." "Your shovel!" she remembered, but he shook his head. "Keep it, Natalia. Really, just keep it. I have another one just like it in the back of my car and only about, ... oh, forty-three more in my garage. I think they've been breeding in there over the years. I won't miss one shovel, but I know that you need one, and I'll feel better knowing that you've got one now." "Thank you for everything, Pete," she smiled, and before he knew it -- and really, before she could even stop herself -- her arms were around his neck and she was hugging him. It lasted only a second, but in that time, he felt her light kiss against his cheek and he smiled down at her for a moment. The moment was a little rough for her, but she forced herself then, knowing that it she didn't, she'd be kicking herself later. "If it is not any trouble," she began, "What time do you get home, usually? I think that someone like you could use a good meal. I have the feeling that you can cook and you are not helpless, but I wish to do something. You have spent hours tonight helping me and a little soup is not enough." Well, the soup had been plenty, as far as Pete was concerned. He hadn't had anything like that in a good long while to eat. But Pete wasn't an idiot, and he had a feeling that she was trying to find a way to spend more time with him, and he didn't mind that at all. He pulled out his cell phone. "Give me a number where I can reach you -- if you wouldn't mind, Natalia. I sometimes get out of work at three and sometimes at four-thirty. Either way, it's about thirty-five minutes to drive home. How about I do a little grocery shopping and we can make something together at my place this time? I dunno, I just sort of had the thought." Natalia did her level best not to beam at him. The truth of it, she admitted to herself, was that she'd been so distraught the past few days and, though the timing of it wasn't right, with him, she was ready to grab onto anything. Something, just anything to be able to function again. She'd been a wreck and was off work on bereavement. But Natalia knew herself. Without something or someone like Pete, she'd just wallow and she had no idea where it would lead -- not anywhere good, likely. "Can I ask you for a favor, Pete?" she asked after giving him her cell number and checking to make sure that he had it right. He nodded, "Sure, What do you need?" Natalia thought that it was a rather apropos way to put it, and she found that she was even thankful for that. "It felt so good to me when you hugged me before. I am not really ready to come out of my shell yet, but I know that I must somehow. I want to cook a dinner with you tomorrow -- whatever you wish for -- but I might still, ... I might, ... cry a little." She took a bit of a breath then and she looked up at him, "I think that I just need this. Wherever I look in this house, I find myself almost seeing Nikky. It happens all of the time to me. I have even spoken out loud, thinking that she is there, ... and forgetting that she cannot, ... be there." She was in his arms again after that, weeping again as he held her on the driveway. Pete was fine with it, understanding perfectly. He told her so in his whisper into her ear. It had only been a few days for her, for God's sake, he told himself. So what was his problem then? He'd buried the love of his life a little over six months ago. Why was he crying as well? It took Natalia a few moments to realize that he was weeping too, and somehow, that made it worse for her and better at the same time. They hung on to each other for a long time after that, both of them sobbing a little, and both of them feeling a little foolish -- especially Pete. They stopped after a time and then they pulled back to look at the other one's tear-streaked face for a moment. Natalia spoke first. She shook her head almost imperceptibly and then she whispered to him, "God bless you, Pyotr. We both have our sadness, but you have made a friend in me." She stood on her tiptoes then and she kissed him very softly on the lips and he returned it for a few moments. She stood watching as he walked to his jeep and after being a little amazed at the ease with which he got it turned around, she waved goodbye as he drove off. He saw the motion in his mirror and he waved back. When he got home, Pete found that the bastard plough operator had well and truly walled up the entrance to his driveway and he worked up quite a sweat to get it dealt with, since it had frozen in the meantime. He pulled his truck in and got things put away before he had a shower, wishing that he knew where that asshole lived. He knew a dump truck operator and he didn't think it would be too much trouble to convince him to drop a pile of fucking gravel and road sweepings there one night. He had some trouble falling asleep after that. He thought about Natalia and her situation for a time. Then he thought about her. Then he really had trouble sleeping. -------------------------------- Natalia found it hard to get to sleep as well, not that she'd gotten a lot of that the past week since that terrible day. But she found that she could cry much easier now and that the crying didn't seem to hurt her as much to do now, and she thanked Pete for that, though she didn't really know how he'd managed to make it better for her somehow. She just knew that he had. It was such a strange thing to her. She supposed that at any other time, she might have felt a little interest in him since he was so very good-looking to her. But she also knew that at any other time, she'd never have done what she'd done tonight. She'd have backed away and hidden herself a little. Men weren't for her. She'd decided that a long time ago. Nobody was for her. It was just easier that way. But now, at almost the worst possible time, she'd met somebody like him, and for the first time in so long, she felt a little hope for herself. And here she was, still a ripped-up, weepy wreck. The timing of this was awful. But she knew at least a couple of things. She felt so thankful to him for his help and more than that, he'd helped her far more than that, likely far more than he knew. Svetlana in Olive Drab She decided that she wanted his friendship and the way that it felt to her, it was already done. If Pete needed a friend at all in his largely self-sufficient life, then he had her. Then she thought about beyond that and it came to her that he must like her a little. It didn't matter for now, she thought. To her, it looked a little as though they needed each other and that was good enough for her. She cried a little more after that and then she fell asleep, unhappy to be in the bed she'd shared with Nikky and feeling the want of her sister's arms around her just one more time . ----------------------------------- Oh, Pete was dragging his ass today, he thought. Mostly, it was the maybe two hours of sleep that he'd gotten. But he walked to his jeep at lunch time and he sent Natalia a text, feeling a little like a kid to do it. He only made a suggestion about dinner that evening. He sipped a can of iced tea, and watched as the snow around him melted. If anything, he might have hoped to see a reply on his phone when he walked out that afternoon to head off and grocery shop. But his phone chirped again and again about a minute later and he was a little amazed. Natalia had been thinking about the same thing for dinner, so she was off to get the meat, wanting to marinate it for a while first. She did have a few things that he could pick up, she said, if he really wanted to. And then she sent a freaking list. Pete laughed his ass off. He grabbed a pen and some paper and he transcribed the list for a hardcopy, not trusting his phone's ability to retain it all or more correctly maybe, his own ability to retrieve it. He felt better with paper anyway. He sent her a text that he had to get back to work, but he thanked her for the list and said that he thought that he could get everything. Natalia asked him to text her when he was on his way home after shopping so that she could meet him at the door of his home, since she knew where he lived now. He agreed and sent her one more text before he set his phone down. He told her that the regular door to the garage with the window in it was unlocked and where to look in there to find the key to his home. He walked back inside wondering what was the matter with him. He'd been a sorry bag of dirt as he'd dragged himself in that morning and he'd just driven himself pretty hard to make his quota of the parts that he'd been tasked with making. Now he felt as fresh as a daisy. He tried to remember that Natalia had seemed to be a little fragile the evening before and he could sure understand that. Even so, he was looking forward so much just to see her again. That made him wonder if he ought to feel a little guilty. It only lasted a minute or so before he remembered Maggie's words to him not to even think about elevating her to some stupid ideal which no other woman could ever hope to match. "I've had you for more than thirty wonderful years," she'd smiled then, "A whole lot of people don't even get that much before something happens or it goes sour. If you find somebody, Petey, you just give it a try. I'm sure I'll be ok with whoever she might be. I just hope that she's smart enough to know her luck." ------------------------------------- Natalia felt at least a little like she was intruding as she pulled her car into the long drive and rolled slowly up to the house. To her, it looked neat and trim and very nice, the way that it sat in the shade of the many trees. Those trees were dropping tons of leaves, given the time of year, but it looked to her that a lot must have been cleared away before -- given the rate of fall and the number of trees, she thought. Without staying on top of it, one could find one's front door a little hard to get into at some point. She sat looking around as her car idled and she felt a little nervous, but she finally shut it off and got out to look for the key that Pete had told her about. The door was open just as he'd said in his text and she found the key in it's hiding place with no trouble. She also saw the many snow shovels, some hung up and some others leaning near the roll-up doors. As she turned around to go to the house, she saw the motorcycle there. She couldn't help herself, she had to walk closer to get a better look, since the only light came from the open door and she didn't want to find the switch for the overhead lighting. It was the first time that she'd ever gotten this close to a motorcycle like this one and she stared at it a little before she re-traced her steps and walked out, closing the door. She wondered a little about him now. He didn't look like the badass type, but then the ones that she'd seen here didn't look much like the ones back home either. Most of the bikes there looked far older, and most of the ones here looked far newer. It was rare to even see a ratty one here, whereas back home, ... Natalia unlocked the side door and walked inside. She found herself on a landing -- halfway between the main floor and the finished basement. She turned around and leaving the door open but closing the storm door, she went back out to her car to retrieve the things that she'd brought; the meat, the ingredients for the marinade as well as a few vegetables. Coming back inside, she closed the door and removed her shoes to bring her things into the kitchen. With hardly a look around, she placed everything on the kitchen table and selected what needed to be refrigerated. Those things went into the fridge and then she looked around, telling herself that it was not polite to snoop. With the obligatory declaration to herself out of the way, she heard the quiet ticking and looked up at the clock on the wall. She had time, so she slowly walked through the house. What she saw was a neatly kept home which bore the slowly fading touch of a woman. To her it seemed that Pete was living in a place where there had been a lot of love for a very long time between two people and with one of them now gone, he didn't know what to do with it. It looked as though it had been kept up and cleaned on a regular basis, but somehow, it seemed to be a rather reluctant shrine to the missing individual. She wondered about that and decided that it would have been the way that something such as this might go -- as though he was living inside of a snapshot which was only just beginning to show a little age. It was a nice home, she decided. She had no idea who this Maggie might have been, but from the feelings that she got as she walked through, it seemed to her that under much different circumstances, she might have found a friend in the woman, though that was difficult to be able to surmise, obviously. Natalia suddenly had a desire to find a picture of Maggie. It didn't take long. She found several here and there, framed and hanging, or just sitting out on a shelf in frames. They mostly revealed a pair of people in love over many years and the backgrounds gave Natalia the notion that they'd been taken on vacations. Maggie had been a lovely girl with long brown hair who'd grown into a lovely woman, and it was so plain to see that there was a bit of a fairy-tale component to it when one looked at it from outside of the relationship. They'd met very young, fell head over heels for each other and then went on as a couple. Fast-forwarding to the present, or the recent past almost brought a tear to Natalia. Fairy-tale romances don't happen to very many people, the way that she saw it, and looking at this one, she saw that the magic enchantment of it could only hold it together for so long. Humans are mortal creatures. All things pass. That thought really did bring Natalia a tear, both for Pete and the woman that he'd loved and for herself. Her fairy-tale had been pretty brief. Reality had set in fairly early and after that, it had all been about Nikky. She had just stuck her head in through the doorway into the master bedroom, wanting to check just one thing, and what she saw caused her to smile a little. He'd made the bed. So that meant that to Natalia, she could now place him into the 'non-bear' category in her head. It wasn't a big deal anyway; it was just a detail to the layers of his onion, so to speak. But then, she realized that there was an en-suite bathroom adjoining the bedroom and, ... well, she was a woman, so, ... She saw that he'd had a shower that morning. The only way that she knew was because the tile spray bottle sat on the edge of the tub. She picked it up and cautiously opened the cupboard doors beneath the sink. Nothing jumped out at her and nothing tumbled out either. There was no mess of things casually thrown in there at some point. She even saw the place where the bottle normally resided, so she put it there and closed the cupboard door. Other than that, all that she saw was his razor on the edge of the backsplash. She left it there. Natalia turned out the light and walked out with a little smile. She walked back downstairs and prepared to get to work. ------------------------------------- When he got into his jeep at the end of the day, Pete picked up his phone. He was a little hopeful, but he didn't really expect to find anything. There was a text there, sent only minutes before. He pressed the button which would allow him to read it. "There are 7 more snow shovels in your garage! I thought that you were joking. Do you have to get them neutered here or something?" He was still chuckling over it when he walked into the supermarket. -------------------------------------- He found her car there in his driveway. He wondered as he parked his jeep just how he felt about that. Fine, he decided He noticed the inside of his home smelling absolutely wonderful, the air carrying the aroma of some sort of food. He realized that it hadn't smelled this good to him since, ... Then he found Natalia in his kitchen, laughing and looking so happy as she handed him a cup of instant coffee. He thought that the sight of her there like that was worth a million bucks and then he was a little surprised at himself over the thought. Well, he'd only just met her not even twenty-four hours earlier. She looked awesome to him in her jeans and she was wearing what he first took to be a tie-dyed T-shirt, but then he got his head screwed on a little straighter and he noticed that it was silk. She kept looking better to him every time that he saw her and he said that, though he could tell that he'd almost made her blush. He wasn't checking her out too visibly, but he did see that she had rather small breasts and he really liked that about her, not that he was a hound or anything. There was a bit of method to his madness. She was taller than Maggie had been, and she was a lot more lithe in her build. Maggie had always worn her hair long and straight where Natalia's was shorter. And Natalia's hair wasn't chestnut brown, and Natalia's eyes were gray and not hazel. Maggie had always had those tits of hers as well. All told, Pete loved the way that Natalia looked. As much as he'd loved Maggie and loved her memory still, the last thing that he wanted -- in even a female friend -- was someone who would remind him of a memory which was still surprisingly raw to him. They sat at his table and drank their coffee and he saw that there was still something slightly fragile in her look, but her expression said to him that she was doing her best to enjoy this time, as though she had something to do at the moment that she wanted to hang onto in order to not have to consider the other things which she couldn't get away from. He did his best to help her in that. The meal was just a goulash, as he'd requested. The only thing that he'd mentioned about it was that he couldn't take the really fiery kind, and she'd answered that she couldn't either. What they made and ate a little later was incredible and he liked it her way best of all. As they washed the dishes, Pete was trying to figure out a way to get her to open up about the financial effects of what had happened without the risk of it peeling away the newly-formed scabs which must be there on her poor heart. It wasn't any of his business, but he cared enough to be concerned. He couldn't think of a way at first. Natalia looked as though she was actually having a bit of fun and enjoying herself at the same time. He didn't dare to broach the topic. But as they joked and got to know each other better in the kitchen, it was Natalia who brought it up in the most astounding way to him. One minute, they were laughing and then she suddenly grew still and quietly said, "I do not know what to do. Nikky and I split the cost of the bills. She paid for the mortgage and I paid for the food. I do not earn enough money to even keep everything together." "Did you buy the property together?" he asked. When she nodded, he said, "Then you were probably there at some point with her when you both got the mortgage. Is that how it happened?" Natalia nodded, "Yes. I have never signed my name so many times in my life. Why?" He held up his hand, "Just wait a second. I need to find something out. Was this at a bank, and was it one of the ones around here?" "Yes," she said, mentioning the name, "but --" "There must have been mortgage insurance. Most banks don't want to give anyone a mortgage without that insurance." She nodded, "I think so, because Nikky and the woman at the bank had to explain what it was to me, but I didn't understand, really. I meant to ask Nikky later but I forgot." He said, "Sometime very soon, I'd like you to find that mountain of papers that you took home when you both bought the house. I just want to see the ones relating to the mortgage insurance. It's a hell of a thing to get through to buy a house -- which is why most people use realty lawyers to get through the swamp of it for them." He wasn't sure right then, but he knew what he felt like doing, so he put his arm around her shoulder, "If you and your sister bought mortgage insurance, then at least one of your worries is over. The mortgage was paid off the second that this all happened. That might not get you out of the woods, but you won't have to worry about the mortgage payments. You just have to notify the bank. I'll help you, Natalia. Next week, I work during the afternoon and evening. I'll have lots of time if you want a little help." She thought about it for a moment and then she turned toward him, reached up to hold him and she kissed him very softly for just a moment. "This is the worst time of my life for me, and then it snows early on a dark day and I meet you. Thank you." She hung onto him as she lowered her head and as he watched her eyes close, he saw the tears begin their slide over her cheeks. His arms went to hold her and she laid her cheek against him. "I don't think that there's any way that a person could prepare for what happened," he said quietly, "You've only been here less than a year and the worst thing has happened to you. I knew what was coming after a while, at least. I had a chance to prepare myself." He reached up and touched the back of her head, caressing her soft hair for a moment. His own darkness seemed like nothing much to him with her in his arms. It was only a background constant to him now; something that he was already long used to. After a minute or two, he said, "If you want to go home, I can take you, Natalia I never wanted to make you feel badly." She shook her head a little and then she looked up, "Please, no. It is not you. I think that I only need a minute. And I like it when you hold me. It makes me feel like I am not alone. At home, I am alone, I have worries and I do not know how to solve them." He nodded and then he kissed her, "I think that I'm beginning to need to hold you too. I don't feel alone then either. If I had any choice, you know that I'd want to make time go backward so that you could have made Nikky stay home that one day." He sighed sadly," But I can't." She nodded, and it shook another pair of her tears loose. "Then please do this for me," she said as she laid her head against his shoulder again, "And it is enough because it must be." They stood like that for a long time; the only sounds in the room were her slow and diminishing sobs and the ticking of the battery-powered clock on the kitchen wall. When she felt a bit better, Natalia lifted her head and looked up into his eyes. Neither of them spoke because they didn't need to. Pete slowly leaned down and he kissed Natalia in a gentle and very slow way. She groaned softly after a moment and he thought that he'd probably done the wrong thing, but before he could withdraw, he felt her kissing him back, just as slowly and carefully. It went on for many minutes before he felt her tongue pressing so gently against his lips and he opened his mouth a little to allow it in. There wasn't much of any passion to it, though it spoke to both of them of their needs, the more subtle one more than the probably obvious one. They both knew what was there, but they wanted to signal their acceptance as well. When they pulled back to look at each other, Natalia found that she could smile at least a little again and Pete felt really lucky to be holding somebody like her. "I have been wondering how to say something to you," she said, "and I still do not know the way to do it, but I wish to say that you are so, ... you look so good to me." Her smile widened then, "And there is a part of it which I cannot understand at all. I think that it must be because I am older. When I was young, I used to think that I liked long hair on a man best of all, as long as it was clean and looked good." Pete smirked a little, "I'm sorry, but you missed the best years of me then. I haven't had hair like that for a long time. I got fed up with the way that it used to stick out of my helmet at the back and get hopelessly tangled by the wind." She shook her head a little, "I do not think that I missed the best part. You had someone for your wife and I wanted no one. But I like this with you so much now. And most of all I do not feel like I am so lost. I feel like I am a little found, but it doesn't make sense to think like that. And I like the way that you look now." She reached up and ran her hand over the close-cropped hair on the top of his head for a moment, finding that she loved the way that it felt to her palm. "In the first place, you still HAVE your hair, and I like that very much, but this, ... this cut that you have, it reminds me of the men that I used to see sometimes. The city where I was had a military base near to it. All of the soldiers had short hair, but on most, it looked a little silly to me because they were so young too -- they looked like they had been sheared something like the way that it goes for sheep. But there was one kind, and none of us trusted them, not even to answer much if they spoke to us over something, and it was worse if they smiled. It happened sometimes that there would be exercises or something and then we would see them -- those men, either the Russian Spetznaz or the Romanian commandos. They all looked like this. The only thing is that their eyes were always cold when they looked at you. But you do not have those eyes. And now, so many years later, you look so good to me." Pete laughed a little, "You don't even know how good you look to me, Natalia. When I was in high school, before I met Maggie, there was this one girl that I used to have a crush on, and it was just a hopeless crush too. You remind me of her sometimes for a moment, but I think that now, it ought to be the other way around because she'd have been -- at most and on her very best day -- only a shadow to you. I was never more than a really quiet kid, just trying to get through and struggling a little to keep my grades up. I got good grades in school, but I had to work at it. Nobody ever paid me very much attention back then, and that was probably a good thing.