Love by the Numbers

by Karin Kallmaker

  “Not ride sidesaddle, I guess.”

  Nicole’s voice sounded very tight. “If you don’t mind I’d rather panic.”

  * * *

  After an extremely uncomfortable twenty minutes on horseback, moving at a steady descent along what was clearly a well-used trail through one of the large pastures, Nicole found herself deposited in front of a small single-story dwelling. Smoke curled from the chimney. The bright, comforting light cast from its windows was sufficient for her to make out a modest, sturdy barn and several riders returning from it. Their suitcases were stacked on the wooden porch.

  Lily had spent the journey talking to the boy. He had dismounted first and helped her down and Nicole could only marvel at the sight of his smiles and Lily’s remarkable aplomb. Her own thighs were on fire and her underwear felt as if it had been pushed into places it was never meant to go. Lily, surprise surprise, looked as if she did this every day.

  An older woman clad in a flannel work shirt and sturdy canvas pants appeared in the doorway, adding to Nicole’s relief. An exchange ensued, which Lily joined. She heard Lily say her own name and then Nicole’s, and they all went inside.

  It was more of a bunkhouse than a family home, Nicole thought. The structure appeared to be constructed entirely from wood, with a well-scrubbed but unpolished floor under a thin carpet that showed the most common paths the inhabitants took from beds to kitchen to the table. Like something out of a Hollywood western, four bunks lined one wall and the rest of the space was devoted to a communal table, fireplace and an ample kitchen. The main room was blessedly warm, both from the roaring fire and the substantial wood-burning stove in the kitchen area. She couldn’t help herself and made a beeline for the fireplace. She wasn’t sure they would have survived the night, even walking. The very thought made her a little dizzy.

  Nicole smelled coffee as the woman set a large kettle with steam rising from its spout on the table next to a mixed assortment of mugs. A covered dish from the oven immediately joined the kettle. The woman didn’t look much older than forty, though it was hard to say. Her long, dark hair had no silver strands but her face showed a lifetime of hard work. She gestured at them and Lily translated, “She kept the dessert warm. We’re invited to join them.”

  Whatever it was, it was bubbling hot and smelled sweet. Nicole sat next to Lily at the end of one of the long benches. The coffee was unsweetened and unpalatably strong, but the hot mug felt heavenly in her hands.

  Lily translated some of the conversation but admitted she couldn’t follow it all. When handed her plate, Nicole automatically said, “Thank you.”

  The woman looked at Lily, who translated. She said something back and Lily smiled. “She says this is her son’s favorite.”

  “And we just took some of his share. Should I offer it to him?”

  “No. We should break bread with our hosts, don’t you think? I’ve got a packet of M&M’S in my suitcase I can give him later. Leonid…” She nodded at the boy. “Leonid told me that his father is in charge of one of the largest herds in the area, and his mother is the best cook in Russia. They do have a truck, but two of the men use it to circle the fences during the night. He’d gone out to close up the barn and saw the lights on the road which, you can imagine, is rare at night because everybody knows the road is only for repair crews.”

  “Stupid GPS.”

  “You got that right. So when the car didn’t get any closer and the lights went out he told his father. They thought we were rustlers. Yippee ki-yay.”

  “Yippee ki-yay,” one of the men echoed enthusiastically and everyone laughed.

  Whatever worked, Nicole thought. She raised her mug. “Yippee ki-yay!” There was another laugh and they all shared a universal gesture of toasting.

  “Well, thank you Roy Rogers,” Nicole muttered.

  Lily nibbled at her cobbler, then said something in Russian that made the woman smile back.

  Nicole burnt the tip of her tongue on her first bite, but she immediately felt better for the warmth of it. No doubt she was low in dopamine and blood sugar. She looked at their hostess and said, “This is delicious.”

  Lily murmured a translation and the woman looked as pleased as Nicole’s mother did when complimented for her cooking.

  “I don’t know her name,” Nicole said to Lily.

  “Katerina.” Going on around the table, without missing a beat, Lily added, “Leonid Senior, Leonid Junior, Bela, Novick and Yusef.”

  She nodded at them all, feeling less alien. “I’m sorry I don’t speak Russian, but I’m pleased to meet all of you and grateful for your rescue and hospitality.”

  Lily’s translation seemed to take a lot longer than necessary.

  “What else did you say?”

  “I hope I said that you’re a very smart doctor who studies brains. I haven’t a clue what the Russian is for neurobiology.” She paused to field a question, shaking her head. “I just explained you’re not that kind of doctor. I think.”

  Dessert was quickly finished, and the three other men retired to their bunks with battered paperbacks and to take turns using the shower. The two Leonids sat down to play a game of cards with a deck that had lost most of its printing on the backs. She thought they might be playing gin, but it was hard to tell. Lily joined them as a spectator, offering a new deck of cards that Nicole recognized as one an airline had handed out on a flight after they’d been upgraded to first class. It was accepted with smiles and promptly put into use. Leonid fell on Lily’s M&M’S as if he hadn’t been fed all day, making his father smile. There were plenty of basic packaged goods on the open pantry shelves in the kitchen—pictures alone identified pancake mix and canned vegetables—but she was willing to bet store-bought candy was a rarity, and she felt inordinately beholden to Lily for having something to give.

  When the last cowboy emerged from the bathroom, she made a grateful visit to it herself. The heavy cast-iron fixtures were something out of the early twentieth century, but their functionality and durability was undeniable. When she returned the table had been shifted to make room for a thin mattress in front of the fireplace. A blanket showing creases from having been unfolded covered the mattress. Its bright red pattern stitched with white roses was incongruously frivolous in a home with no pictures on the walls, she thought, but there were shelves on one wall stuffed to overflowing with paperbacks. She had no issue with those priorities.

  Lily was leaning over her open suitcase. “I’m going to change into a T-shirt and keep on my jeans—do you want to change?”

  “Yes, actually.” She found a T-shirt and her own jeans while Lily excused herself. She tried not to think about the fact that she was about to share a bed with Lily. The mattress wasn’t that big. She’d stay near the edge. She told herself crossly it was not the time and place for sweaty palms.

  Katerina, dressed in woolen long underwear and a shapeless dressing gown, appeared from the only other room with two more blankets, both substantial wool blends. She offered them to Nicole, who made a stab at saying thank you in Russian. It earned her a giggle and a parting phrase that probably meant “sleep well” or simply “goodnight.”

  She glanced at the men in the bunks, all now sound asleep. It wasn’t a life where sleep was wasted.

  Lily returned to pull out a thick pair of socks before zipping her suitcase closed and quietly rolling it out of the way. In a low voice she said, “This is quite the adventure, isn’t it?”

  “We’ll have to take photographs, because no one will believe it.” She took her clothes into the bathroom and wished she’d gotten out her toiletries. She didn’t want to wake anyone at this point by opening her suitcase again. Fortunately, there was a tube of a minty paste on the shelf above the sink. Hoping she wasn’t breaking some kind of international custom, she squirted a little on her finger and rubbed her teeth. The water she scooped up from the tap was frigid but delicious with a slight tang of minerals. Her hands were tingling from the cold when she joined Lily on the mattress
.

  Lily had wrapped herself in one of the blankets, sleeping bag style, and taken the side further from the fire. Nicole followed suit and realized Lily had fashioned her a pillow from one of her sweaters.

  “Thanks for this,” she whispered, tugging one corner of the makeshift pillow.

  “You’re welcome. They took our mattress off their own bed.” She ran a hand over the blanket under them, tracing one of the roses. “She said this was a wedding gift.”

  Nicole digested that, and made a pledge to never complain again about having to share a large house with her mother. She had always accepted that her life was privileged, but this experience was definitely reminding her of how much she had. She felt a wave of gratitude for her mother—what if she’d gone back to India before she’d met Robert Hathaway? As annoying as it was to have her uncles trying to wield influence over her, they had not succeeded. Their interference was nothing more than a petty annoyance in the larger scheme of things.

  Lily’s breathing steadied but Nicole couldn’t quite drop off to sleep. Her awareness of Lily’s body, just inches from hers, was a constant drumbeat of desire. The tousled curls were orange in the light from the glowing embers. Her expression had relaxed, though one laugh line showed at the corner of her mouth. Nicole wanted to kiss it softly, whisper goodnight and feel a promising tremor against her. The tenderness that washed over her was surprising—it wasn’t something that Cole felt.

  Or, she asked herself, was tenderness something Cole wasn’t allowed to feel? She hadn’t just led a privileged life because of her home and access to education or even due to her own hard work. She’d found a way to be a lesbian but avoid any social consequences. Her arguments for doing so—as she trembled with a longing to touch the woman next to her—no longer made any sense.

  They would make sense again, she told herself, when she got home. But with the firelight flickering over Lily’s face, she didn’t believe it. A half-life wasn’t what she wanted. While this experience, lost in the Russian countryside and rescued by cowboys, was easily the strangest of the trip so far, the feeling of being a coward and a fraud on the beach in Brighton was the most unpleasant. She didn’t want to go back to that. And if there was no going back, that meant there was only moving forward.

  Simple physics, Dr. Hathaway, she told herself. Entropy works in one direction.

  Lily shifted and opened her eyes. Her voice barely above a whisper, she said, “Cole?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I can’t get warm.”

  “C’mere.” She rearranged their blankets so they were both wrapped together with Nicole spooned behind Lily in what she hoped seemed an impersonal arrangement. Her breasts felt swollen and her palms were damp, and if she shifted just slightly her lips were in Lily’s hair. The warmth of Lily’s body against hers seeped into places she realized had never felt warmth before. She knew that her brain was sending out massive amounts of oxytocin but that knowledge didn’t diminish its impact. Her muscles relaxed, her thoughts slowed and every nerve capable of conveying pleasure sparkled into awareness.

  Her hand rested lightly on Lily’s hip. It would only take a slight change to move it to a suggestive, intimate position. It’s what Cole would do. Cole would delight in the need for absolute quiet.

  It was time, she thought drowsily, to let Cole go. She snuggled a little closer to Lily, who made a quiet, sleepy sound. Cole made things complicated. With Lily asleep in her arms, life seemed very simple.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Surfacing from sleep Lily was first aware that her hip hurt and her thigh muscles were sore. Had she moved at all in the night? Then the unusual feeling of sharing her bed with another person kicked her brain all the way awake. Blinking, she took in the fireplace, the floor, the vigorous snoring from across the room. When she’d drifted off last night she’d thought maybe it would turn out to be a dream. But she really was somewhere in Russia, warm, and fed on the generosity of cowboys. Yippee-ki-yay.

  She was also sharing a bed with Nicole and steeped in the steady warmth. She could feel Nicole’s chin against her shoulder and stopped herself just before she snuggled back and drew Nicole’s arm closer around her as if it were a protective, warm blanket.

  She nearly went back to sleep, drifting on a fantasy of long, slow kisses, but the nerves in her hips woke. Sharp needles lanced down her legs and she had to shift her position onto her stomach.

  Nicole moved with her, arm now stretched across Lily’s back. Libido began to make pointed suggestions but then her bladder played the ultimate trump card. With a sigh of regret she slid out from under Nicole’s arm and escaped to the bathroom.

  When she returned she saw that a low light had been turned on. Katerina was in the kitchen, filling the kettle with water and ground coffee. She flipped levers on the stove and the change in heat output was immediately palpable.

  Tiptoeing past Nicole, Lily said quietly to Katerina, “Can I help?”

  “No, sit. We’ll have coffee and milk. Sit and wake up.”

  Lily definitely felt more comfortable with her limited Russian. Nicole could probably explain why her brain, after sleep, could recall vocabulary more easily. No doubt it had to do with something-nefrin or whatever-tonin. “I slept well. Thank you so much.”

  “That blanket has always been good for sleep.” She smiled and added, “Good thing you are both women. It also helps make babies, so my mother told me.”

  Lily grinned. “A baby would be hard to explain when we got home.”

  “Our boy arrived ten months after we married, so I put it in the drawer for two years. Got it out and was pregnant right away, but it didn’t last. The doctor said no more, so it has stayed in the drawer.”

  “I am so sorry,” Lily said. Katerina seemed capable of raising a dozen children, and they would have all been loved.

  “We have a good life. Busy. Hard, but good. Away from the wars.” Katerina brought a cutting board and a bowl of apples to the table. “Do you like apple cakes?”

  It didn’t matter what apple cakes were, Lily would have said yes. A block of firm white cheese joined the apples, and Lily picked up the grater before Katerina could protest. “Stop me when it’s enough.”

  Over the next twenty minutes, one by one, the other members of the household joined them. Nicole sat between Leonid Junior and the broad-shouldered Yusef, looking only a little bit nervous. Lily was amazed at how quickly the apples were peeled, chopped and stirred into a sweet batter along with the cheese. The end result was a kind of stick-to-the-ribs pancake served with strips of dried beef. It tasted like manna from heaven to Lily.

  They were just finishing when there was a rumble of an approaching vehicle.

  Lily explained to Nicole, “That will be our transport, back from their rounds.”

  The two weary men, heavyset and darkly bearded, were taken aback to find their usual seats at the table occupied. Explanations were shared. One of the two said he’d seen their car and wondered where the occupants had gone.

  Lily excused herself to shower and dress. She hoped that they could find a working phone in Novgorod in time to let the bookshop know they wouldn’t be making that appearance, and to tell the rental car folks where to find their vehicle. It was a good thing she’d paid for the extra insurance. Hopefully Uncle Damon wouldn’t have a conniption.

  When Nicole took her turn in the shower Lily stepped outside to take pictures of the house and barn. The horizon was a soft orange with a halo of lavender and amethyst where the sun would soon rise. She took several steps before she realized the crunching underfoot was frost.

  Uncle Damon wouldn’t believe where they’d ended up. There was not a sound of modern life—no drone of cars, no thudding underfoot of the subway, no clicking of anything mechanical except for her camera shutter.

  She inhaled as much of the champagne air as she could and let it out slowly. They were lucky to have survived the night. Looking up she was glad to see that the overcast skies were gone. All the stars h
ad faded save one. Wondering if a wish on the morning star was a Russian tradition, Lily made one quickly, just a silly one, not important really.

  The door opened and closed behind her and she thought the light step probably belonged to Nicole. Her suspicion was confirmed when Nicole stopped alongside her and said softly, “How beautiful it is out here.”

  “So quiet,” Lily said. “It’s a revelation for this Manhattanite.”

  “Some winter mornings in Meredith are like this. As if the whole world is asleep and dreaming the same dream.”

  Surprised by the fanciful words, she turned her head to look at Nicole’s profile. The cold air had reddened her cheeks, but the rugged landscape suited her. She wondered how she’d ever thought Nicole looked anything like the prosecutor who had interrogated her. They both had dark brown eyes, but Nicole’s could be soft with emotion or sparkling with humor. Without warning, Lily raised her camera to take a picture of Nicole with the barn in the background.

  Nicole frowned, but after the camera clicked. “I’m not really awake and you’re taking my picture?”

  I want to remember her with the sky in her eyes, Lily thought. “For the scrapbook. Two days from now this will be a blur.”

  Still frowning, Nicole said, “You’re probably right. I wish it weren’t true. This is a memory I want to keep.”

  Lily wasn’t sure if she meant their Russian cowboy adventure or the ruggedly beautiful countryside in the chilly morning air. “It’s funny how an unexpected twist in the road can still lead to something good.”

  Nicole looked at her, lips parted as if she were going to say something. But she turned away at the sound of the door opening. “Time to be on our way, I think.”

  Lily took a last look at the morning star, but it had faded into the brightening sky. It didn’t seem likely that her wish would come true. She was traveling with someone who had proven that happiness was in your numbers, not in your stars. It had been foolish to wish for magic. Magic wasn’t real and there was no future for her feelings.