Back then Masha wanted nothing more than time alone together. She changed in St. Petersburg, though. She had changed a lot.
The group was shouting over each other about movies when the taxi arrived. Headlights shone through the kitchen windows. Kristina jumped up to get the door. Left by herself, Lada understood that she was tipsy, nervous, nearly naked. She should have thought to change back into normal clothes. Crazy to be dressed in a bathing suit when seeing Masha for the first time in years. And Lada’s bangs dry, curling—she touched her forehead. No way to help that now. No one else seemed to be bothered. Yegor, beside her, was an amiable slab. Lada tucked her hands under her legs and looked toward the hall.
“Everyone, here’s Masha,” Kristina called as she came back in. “Mashenka, here’s Zoya, Kolya, Tolik, Volodya, Ira, Andryukha, and Yegor. Don’t worry. We’ll remind you. Here’s our Lada.” Lada tried to rise, but she was stuck between the table and other people’s bodies. She had to crouch up. If she were free, what would she do, anyway? Hug the friend who had forgotten her? It seemed—no. Lada sat back down. Masha dropped her backpack against one wall and slid onto the banquette after Kristina.
Masha had gotten more beautiful. Her hair ended blunt at her shoulders, her skin was pale as champagne, and she was not wearing a bra. She still had that look—narrow eyes and solemn mouth—that had made Lada’s mother call her Little Auntie when they were growing up, but it had relaxed from childish primness into something more natural now. Her whole body looked fresh.
Masha stretched her arm across the table to reach Lada’s hand. “Hi.” Fingers cold from the air outside.
“Hi,” Lada said. Warmth bloomed again inside her.
“Where are you coming from?” someone asked.
Masha pulled back. “Petropavlovsk,” she said, at the same time Kristina said, “St. Petersburg.”
“I was just in St. Petersburg last month,” said one of the girls down the table.
“Oh, yeah?” said Masha. That same odd, low voice, coming out from behind teeth neat as a line of pearls. Teeth still as small and lovely and distinct as they had been when Masha was a schoolgirl.
“What do you do there?” asked the detective.
“I’m a programmer.”
“I loved it,” continued the girl, “but I couldn’t live there. Too much craziness.”
“Let’s pour our guest a drink,” Kristina said. In the back of the house, noise rose. The sauna door must have opened. Somebody in there was singing, stretching out each note. Yegor lined up more shot glasses for the friends coming down the hall.
They drank. Lada kept looking across the table. The last time she and Masha celebrated New Year’s together, they were seventeen. They went to a club; Kristina kissed a boy on the dance floor, and Lada threw up in the bathroom, and at the end of the night the girls took a taxi home together, Masha sitting in the middle. Under Lada’s throbbing temple, Masha’s shoulder had been cool relief. The city’s sidewalks were filled with people, even at three in the morning, and the sky above their taxi burst over and over into new light.
Lada caught Masha’s eye. “Did you bring a bathing suit?”
“It’s in my bag,” Masha said.
“Let’s steam,” said Yegor. The group that just got out of the sauna, shiny, thirsty, moved aside, and he pushed his way out from the table. Lada followed. The floor was wet. She stood in the kitchen doorway, letting other people squeeze past, until she saw Masha take an orange bikini out of her backpack. Then Lada turned toward the back of the house.
The sauna was shut off from the hall by a fogged-over glass door. Their group went in: Yegor, Kristina, Kristina’s boyfriend, Kristina’s cousin. Lada, who was trailed by one girl she didn’t know. The air tasted like wood. It hit them hard. Lada swallowed to breathe. Splinters in her throat all the way down.
They took places next to each other on the burning bench while Kristina’s boyfriend tipped a ladle of water onto the heater. Steam billowed up, squeezing their limbs and lungs. Masha came in through the fog. Lada squinted.
“Do you rent a place like this every year for the holiday?” Masha asked once she found a seat.
“My friend does,” said Kristina’s boyfriend. “Kostya. The skinny guy. But this is our first time. Nice, huh?”
“I like it,” said Masha. She shifted to peel her legs off the planks.
To Yegor, Kristina said, “Your first time, too?”
He said, “I visit the city whenever I can, but this is my first New Year’s.”
Kristina’s cousin laughed. “That’s right. Our northern guest. You couldn’t find a party closer to you?” Yegor leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. A rash of red was spreading across his back. “No friends at home?” the cousin asked.
“Be nice,” Kristina warned.
“I don’t mind driving,” Yegor said. “As long as I get here and have a good time.”
In the steam, Masha’s head was bowed. Lada asked her, “How long have you been back?”
Masha lifted her face. “I got in yesterday morning.”
The girl Lada did not know said, “I can’t,” and stepped down to the floor. She was blotched pink and white. Opening the door, letting in a current of cool air, she stepped out.
Kristina’s cousin scooted over on the bench toward Masha. A fingertip touched Lada’s thigh—Kristina, poking her to point them out. This cousin was a few years older. He probably met Masha when they were kids, but he wouldn’t remember that bookish girl. In the bright bands of her bikini, her skin below yellowed ivory, her bobbed hair swinging, Masha looked sophisticated enough to have skipped childhood altogether.
Yegor leaned over to Lada. “More?” he asked. Sweat tracked down his thick arms.
“If you want,” Lada murmured back.
He stepped down and dragged the ladle through the bucket of water. Though he didn’t look around, he seemed to be doing it for her.
Just seeing him move gave Lada a base comfort. He wasn’t attractive, no, but when she looked at his wide shoulders and soft waist, she resolved to like him. He looked like her father and her uncles and a hundred kids she’d stood behind in line at school. She would allow him many awkward moments for the sake of that familiarity.
Men might look different in St. Petersburg. More artistic. But a man like Yegor, from the north, lonely, who drank too quickly and did girls favors and would drive eight hours to attend a party, belonged only here on Kamchatka. He came from the humblest part of this place. When he turned the ladle, the room exploded in new heat.
He came back to sit closer. Their slick knees touched. Again, Lada felt that poke from Kristina, who was not saying anything. They were all paired up now—two by two by two. The cousin was telling Masha something quiet, so Masha bent forward to hear. Sweat trailed between her shoulder blades and spine.
Yegor’s knee kept pressing on Lada. This was different from the kitchen, where they were crammed together. Here, Yegor was letting Lada know he was certain of her. If she wanted to sleep with him, she could.
Maybe she would. Yegor was a little sad, a little forced, but he had peeled that apple for her. He would be a fine choice for tonight. Lada pressed back.
It was good. Masha was home, and the return felt better than Lada had thought it would. Lada had pictured fearing the woman who came back to them. Instead, she found someone who was still recognizable. Changed but not entirely strange. Masha’s voice, her mouth, her funny habits. Lada tried to see the situation with her buried sober mind…it was true, she believed that things were all right.
Anyway, now Masha had the chance to see Lada with this man, who was emphatic with his desire. Lada and Masha never kissed boys growing up—they never tried. Now they were women, and could do whatever, within limits, that they liked.