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At 9:04 in the morning the bell above the door to the coffee shop chimed and in walked a woman with her hair curled to fall perfectly around her face, eyes bright with a kind of mischief, and Sophia was glad that she had the excuse of the steamer for the warmth in her face. She was glad, too, that the woman had come during one of the lulls and for the moment there was no one else at the counter.
“What can I get for you?” Sophia asked.
“Affogato, caramel. Large.” The woman answered.
“And a name?” Sophia asked.
“Katya.” Katya said.
Money was exchanged and Katya waited, one eye on the outside watching the passersby and Sophia, admittedly, was watching her. Once the drink was ready, Katya took it and sat in one of the chairs by the window, light streaming in to fall on her hair just so and make it clear how blond she truly was. Sophia did her best not to stare. Katya pulled out a slim laptop and began to write.
She stayed for four and a half hours, ordering one refill of her coffee, and Sophia remained distracted the entire time.
The next day Katya was there again, at 9:04 exactly.
By the second week, Sophia had her order ready and waiting for her.
By the second month, Sophia now knew that Katya was working on her dissertation about the ties between crime and the preservation of art, particularly as it pertained to the Russian mafia. She had been surprised, but when she questioned why Katya would be writing about such a thing she had just laughed:
“What is more beautiful in the world than the marriage between art and crime? Without one, the other would not be as beautiful.”
Every word Katya said was like that. Words bent to her will. And it only made it all the clearer how far their worlds were apart. Sophia worked at the coffee shop in order to put herself through school part-time. She was barely scraping by, making rent on the dingy little apartment she shared with four other people. Her studies suffered as a result, but then again she had never been as passionate about nursing as it seemed Katya was about everything she did. Her eyes were alight with more life and fire than Sophia felt she had ever had.
It was a warmth she craved. Perhaps if she got close, some of that fire might infect her. Or perhaps, like a moth drawn to the flame it would be her downfall. Because Katya wasn’t like her. Sophia didn’t know much, but she knew that the clothes Katya wore weren’t cheap. She knew that the makeup Katya used wasn’t bottom of the drugstore bargain bin. And unlike her, Katya had the time every day to sit for hours and do nothing but sip her coffee and dream about the art lost (or saved?) in the hands of criminals.
By the time it was getting cold, frost hanging in the air, Sophia had learned that Katya enjoyed surprises. If Sophia changed up her order just a bit, perhaps swapping the caramel ice cream for vanilla, or adding on some sprinkles, or changing the roast of the coffee, Katya would be delighted. It became a game, how far could she change the order while leaving Katya still happy with it?
Then one morning Katya picked up her drink, took a sip, and looked Sophia in the eyes: “How do you like your coffee?”
“Hmmm?” Sophia jerked, surprised.
Katya smiled at her over the coffee’s foam top and Sophia’s heart did a twist. “You know, for someone who works at a coffee shop all day, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen you have any.”
Color tinging her cheeks, Sophia futilely wiped at the counter as if imaginary dust could save her from any embarrassment. “Doppio.” She said to the counters.
“Is that it?” Katya asked.
Sophia nodded. Every morning she would knock back the two shots of espresso when she got to work. Sometimes she might sneak one or two more throughout her shift.
“You should try something sweet sometime. You might like it.”
That day Katya stayed for three hours. As soon as she left Sophia prepared herself a marochino, took a sip, and nearly choked. The sweetness of the chocolate laid heavy on her tongue. It wasn’t the sort of drink she could just knock back in order to get on with her day. She tried to drink the rest of it, but it was long cold and still mostly there by the end of her shift, so it went down the sink.
By the time snow had fallen, Sophia felt like she had heard everything she needed to know about Katya’s family.
“Goncharov this and Goncharov that, I really wish they would shut up about him. We haven’t been together for over a year now.”
“Who’s Goncharov?” Sophia asked.
“An old boyfriend. We dated for, well it wasn’t meant to be in any case. Goncharov is an ass. I’ll be glad when my parents finally forget about him.”
Sophia thought she would be glad when Katya forgot about him.
The snow hadn’t melted by the time they had their first kiss.
It seemed to almost be an accident. At 9:07 (running late, Katya was never late) Katya ran into the shop, grabbed her drink off the counter where the ice cream had slowly been melting, and waved Sophia over to take her money. When Sophia reached out for the change, Katya leaned in, kissed her on the cheek with a ‘thank you dear’ before she ran out the door again.
The next day Sophia had to make sure that it was real, that it was not just a misunderstanding, a difference of cultures. She had heard Katya’s accent too, she knew that there was a perfectly rational explanation. So when Katya came to the counter to give her the money, Sophia leaned over to ask, and there their mouths met and when they parted Katya smiled and said:
“If you wanted another kiss, all you needed to do was ask.”
It was New Years when Katya invited Sophia to her apartment for the first time. A party with most of Katya’s friends and friends of friends. Sophia even met Goncharov briefly and he introduced himself with such stiff formality that she and Katya would laugh about it later. The party itself was overwhelming, a new face a minute, and Sophia knew she was out of place but every moment she stood by Katya it felt like she could have belonged there.
It was after New Years when Katya brought her to the apartment alone and they stayed up until four in the morning playing Gin Rummy and talking about nothing. Katya still talked about her dissertation with regularity and every time she mentioned the progress she had made Sophia congratulated her while a pit in her stomach grew. Would Katya still come to the coffee shop, once everything was over?
It was Valentine’s when Sophia’s landlord decided that they could stand to make a little more money and Sophia found herself in need of a new place to stay. She considered, for just a moment asking Katya, but when she saw the smile on her face she couldn’t bring herself to ask. Katya brought her chocolates and flowers and what more could she ask for than that? They drank wine that evening as they sank into one another on the couch and Sophia told herself that everything would be alright.
Three weeks she spent with that anxiety twisting in the pit of her stomach, searching for a new place to stay that fell within her budget. Something that would let her keep her work, her school, that would let her see Katya at 9:04 every morning. It was five days before she would be thrown out, but she found it. A nice place, within her budget. Better roommates than she had had before.
Katya had brought luck into her life. It might have been there to stay.
It was Spring, the first crocuses poking their heads daintily above the snow, when Katya didn't come at all.
The affogato stayed there, melting on the counter into a softened vanilla puddle of cream, until Sophia was finally forced to throw it out. It was just a fluke, she told herself. Katya was sick, or had something else that day. There would be a reason why she had not come.
But then Katya didn’t show the next day or the next and Sophia’s stomach twisted itself into knots. It wasn’t rational, not the sort of thing Sophia normally did, but on the fourth day she called off work and she went to Katya’s apartment and knocked. And knocked. And knocked.
It was when she was waiting for the elevator that the door finally opened. A woman Sophia didn’t recognize stood there. A brief conversation later and she knew three things: the woman worked for housekeeping, Katya had moved out, and nothing had been left behind.
Of course, Sophia thought. It wouldn’t have made sense otherwise. They had lived in two different worlds and would continue to live in two different worlds. Katya had gone on without her. Sophia went home, to her new apartment, with slightly better roommates in a slightly better part of town, and dreamed of a caramel affogato held up under warm blue eyes.
And if at 9:04 in the morning exactly her eyes were still drawn to the front door, well, it didn’t matter. The bell had long since stopped ringing.
Katya was very used to being noticed.
It was a skill her mother had taught her, to be watched and not be bothered. To be seen while never seeming to notice at all.
“They will watch you because of who your father is, Katyusha. You must always be ready. What they see in you is a reflection on the rest of the family. Do not cast us in a poor light.”
But Katya was much more used to the gazes of men. When she walked through the doors of a small coffee shop and felt eyes on her, she didn’t pause until the moment she looked up to meet the gaze of the girl behind the counter. The place waswarm and Katya couldfeel the steam from the coffee as it percolated, but even that wasn’t enough to explain all of the color in the girl’s cheeks. She couldn’t seem to help but stare and Katya found herself for once wishing that the other person wouldn’t look away.
Going to the new coffee shop had been done on a whim. Her old place had changed locations. She needed something close to the University and this had good enough reviews and large enough windows so that she could work while being framed by the sun.
And now she knew it had a brunette girl who blushed every time their eyes met.
So she ordered her usual, took a seat in the sunlight, and began to write.
If there was anything Katya was good at, it was lying. And there was no one she was better at lying to than herself. At first she told herself that it was convenient, a coffee shop close by that also had her favorite for her to order. Not every place did. Then two weeks went by and her order was ready and waiting for her and she found herself missing the chance to talk with the girl behind the counter. Even the few words—‘what can I get for you?’—her world felt more bereft without them. At first she made excuses, asking for additions to her order, for napkins, for the time of day even though a clock stood prominently on the wall. Katya wanted to know her name, but she didn’t know how to ask, and this wasn’t the sort of place where everyone wore a convenient little name tag. So she didn’t ask. It became a game between the of two of them, how long they could go on in conversation while Katya remained clueless about the girl’s name. Not knowing what else to talk about, she talked about her writing. About the art that had been lost to the hands of criminals, that might have otherwise been lost to the ways of time. The girl was the first person to listen when she talked—the first person that was, aside from her professor. The game ended when she mentioned the girl’s likeness to the portrait of Sofia Mikhailovna Botkina and the girl smiled and said:
“We even share the same name.”
In those few months Katya made more progress on her paper than she ever imagined possible. She had to. If she had nothing new written, then she had nothing new to say to Sophia and Sophia soaked up every word she spoke like an amaranth after being long without rain. Katya had to run out of things to say eventually and so she let slip a tid-bit about her family, just the sound of her father’s name passed her lips, but the girl didn’t seem to notice. Sophia still listened happily, watching her with stars in her eyes. So Katya told her more. It was a novel experience. Never before had she been able to speak about her family to anyone who wasn’t certain they already knew the full story. For once Katya was to tell her story and in the telling she told too much.
Sophia didn’t seem to mind what Katya had to say, still looking up at her with those love sick eyes and one day after a particularly bad morning, when Katya was already running late, she made a further mistake and she kissed her.
A mistake of two seconds, but that kiss stayed with her all night. She had made up her mind to apologize in the morning, to take everything back, when Sophia kissed her. Katya hoped, maybe, there would be a chance. Every morning she went to the coffee shop at exactly 9:04 and ordered her Affogato, and every morning Sophia surprised her with a new delight. Sometimes the coffee was absolutely terrible, but that had its own beauty in it. The bad drinks made the good ones seem all the brighter.
The cold came and the cold stayed and Katya threw a party because that was all she knew how to do. Her family had been the host for many a soirée and the expectation that she would grow into her own as a host was there. Once the invitations were sent she regretted it, dreamed instead of having only Sophia there to welcome in the New Year with her. She invited Sophia instead and that was its own kind of mistake as Goncharov—that fucking prick Goncharov!—heard about the party and showed his sad face and while Katya could lie to anyone else she knew Goncharov saw right through her to the heart of her. He said nothing, but his look smoldered and burned something like shame into a pit in her heart.
The next week she invited Sophia back so the night could be for just the two of them, but the feeling deep in her heart never went away. She considered for a moment, asking Sophia to meet her family. It would be a moment she could never come back from, but maybe if she acknowledged something, the hole in her heart would heal. The cost was not something that she could do to Sophia. Katya had grown up in that lion’s den her entire life and she knew that Sophia would be eaten alive. She didn’t stand a chance, not when Sophia’s eyes were still filled with stars every time she looked at her. Sophia still believed that Katya was someone good, someone who could be trusted and a girl like that would never survive what her family could—and would—do to her. Katya didn’t ask; she lied to herself. Later, she would find the time. Later, when Sophia was more prepared. Later, when the lies could be made truth more gently. Later, when Katya was ready to cut off all hope of reconciliation with her parents. Later, when she knew she could live without being married off to Goncharov and his family’s considerable fortune.
Then later came.
Her thesis was finished. Her professor congratulated her on a job well done. A truly beautiful essay, inspired. The words had tasted like ash and rust in her mouth as she had read in front of a panel and then defended what she had to say, watching the clock as it passed the fourth minute on the hour and wishing that instead of being there in that windowless room she was sipping at an affogato as the sunlight poured over her and in the corner Sophia was—
Her mother called her that evening to congratulate her.
“You got your degree.”
Come home, is what her mother was really saying.
“Goncharvo will be there to meet you.”
Katya laughed, the society laugh she had practiced in the mirror more than once. “I don’t need him to drive me home from the airport Мамулечка.”
“He’ll be driving you to the airport.” Her mother said. “And then flying home with you.”
Katya couldn’t bring herself to say Sophia’s name.
“I’m not ready to go.”
“You have your degree.” Her mother repeated herself. “What more could you possibly be waiting for?”
And her mother was right. It wasn’t fair to Sophia. Katya had never once been honest with her. Sophia didn’t know who she really was.
“Yes Маменька.”
They packed up her things so quickly. The apartment that was once hers was once again a sterile flat for anyone to live in. She considered, for a moment, leaving a note for Sophia, but at the very least she deserved to be told in person.
She was early when Katya walked through the door of the coffee shop only to find herself under the attention of a black haired boy who looked at her with a feigned disinterest.
“Where’s Sophia?” She asked.
He shrugged. “She’s not working today. Or she quit. I don’t remember. But she’s not here. What can I get you?”
For once Katya didn’t know what to say.
“Doppio.” She said finally.
The coffee was bitter and hot on her tongue, burning as she drank it down. For a moment longer she considered leaving a note, but she didn’t trust the boy standing behind the counter watching her now and she didn’t know what to say. Of course. It was better this way. Sophia was a sweet girl, who gave out smiles freely, who listened with a quiet and understanding ear. She didn’t deserve this, not the world Katya lived in. Let her leave with Sophia still unaware of who and what Katya was. Let her believe in something untainted.
At 9:04 exactly, Katya walked out of the coffee shop to the sound of the bell tolling one last time for her.