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Svetlana has always liked learning about the past for herself. When she was younger, all the adults in her life told her that Ilya and Alexei's father was bad to their mother because of something that happened in a war that he couldn't control. The story changed frequently. Sometimes it was because Irina was unfaithful. Sometimes it was because Irina was too beautiful. Sometimes it was because Irina was too lenient with him, other times because she was too strict.
Svetlana learned the truth for herself after several months of digging through everything she could find about Ilya's father from her father's study. The truth was that his father was a bad man. The truth hurt Ilya and made Alexei mean and killed Irina. Svetlana never made the mistake of learning about the past from other people again. She is no longer interested in finding out the truth too late. Also, she is interested in history. America has lots of history, like Russian, out in the open and never spoken about. You can visit it if you know the right people and the right places.
Svetlana went to college for economics while Ilya was skating on American ice. She did two years of her school in England and then moved to Connecticut to finish her degree. The real pull for Connecticut was because she had watched a tv show about an excavation of a Native American site. She makes big deals for fancy companies now, and then she saves up all her paid time off and takes extravagant vacations to nowhere places. She has waders and waterproof boots. She has over two hundred volunteer hours logged at dig sites. She is mentioned in at least one archaeology paper for her contribution to compiling evidence. The past is a lot like tracing money. It always comes from somewhere. It always goes to whoever holds the most power.
Svetlana is interested in Shane Hollander's past. Everything about him in the media is ironclad, airtight. She respects Yuna Hollander immensely. She also loves this woman for extending her protection to Ilya. For keeping him alive. Not everything can be kept a secret though, and so she knows the address of Shane Hollander's apartment. Svetlana's father was a goal tender. This is not the full history. Ilya's father was Cheka, or KGB, or whatever acronym he found best described working for the government and ruining people’s lives, and her father was his best friend, or best enemy, or whatever title he found best described knowing Ilya's father's secrets because of an unfortunate childhood proximity in the same town. Svetlana knows a thing or two because she has seen a thing or two.
She sent Shane Hollander a letter two weeks ago with a map of Ontario and a few forts she is interested in visiting circled in purple pen asking for his personal recommendations on which ones she should go to this Christmas. He follows her on Twitter and Instagram, but he hasn't contacted her once in the six years since he's followed her. Svetlana is tried of waiting. She does not have much patience for men as it is.
Svetlana owns a house on an acre in Connecticut. Ilya has never come to visit her, but she does not blame him. He is a boy meant for leaving. The good thing about him is that he always comes back. She keeps a room for him, always, just in case. She misses Moscow terribly. She hates it just as much. Everything in her house is Russian. Once a year, she packs everything up like she is going to move back. Then, she thinks of Irina's piano and her father's body, trembling with the weight of the knowing, the weight of his own wife and daughter, so very vulnerable, at the funeral. She will go back to visit. Sometimes she goes back to visit. She can never stay.
This thing that happened to all of them, that Ilya will never talk about, that she wants to talk about, doesn't know how to talk about, that made them all refugees in their own country. The chain with Ilya's blood and her father's hands around Ilya's father's neck, and Alexei's hands on Ilya's body, pulling him into another room, and Irina's hands on Svetlana's body, pulling her into the street. Away from the men and their violence. Irina had no violence in her except toward herself. Svetlana was a wild girl. She is still a wild woman.
There is a past in Russia, and Svetlana knows the whole truth, nothing but the truth. That's how she knows the full truth about Shane Hollander: Ilya has always loved dappled things. Sunlight playing along the surface of a lake. Light through stain glass windows. The red against the gold in his mother's hair. Svetlana's birth mark on her leg. Shane Hollander's freckles. The last time Svetlana went to Boston to visit Ilya, he had several new things in his house. One of them, impossible to miss, was Cliff Marleau. Svetlana almost ate him alive for fun, but he ended up being too sweet and it turned her stomach. Another, an oversized t shirt in his closet that was not black and was not an exercise shirt and did not have any tags along the collar.
Svetlana knows, obviously, that Shane Hollander number twenty four is an unbelievable hockey player, and this is all the press knows about him, and so it must be the least interesting thing about him. She knows from Ilya little things that mean big things. Pictures of a dark haired man blurred, flipping off the dock. The broad expanse of his back (he sleeps on his stomach like somebody asking to be suffocated). He aligns everything on his counters in right angles and parallel lines. He can fix his own car, and he likes to do it, too. So she has deduced that Shane Hollander likes to categorize things and he likes to be outside and he doesn't mind getting his hands dirty. A little like her. A little bit wild, with the wild part quiet, separated from his professional life. A lot like her.
There is a pile of mail on her counter and a pink origami heart next to it. She fingers it and smiles. Her father. He lives one town over, retired with her mother, closer to a city so it's more comfortable for the both of them. Or, more comfortable for her father. Her mother can thrive anywhere. They worry, privately, between the two of them, over Sergei, who was always brilliant on the ice and always lost when tasked to navigate grocery lists. That's how he met Svetlana's mother, lost in an American grocery store in New York City at twenty with poor English and a new NHL contract, her mother a model and startled to see a white man look so out of place among other white men.
Svetlana sorts through her mail. National Geographic subscriptions and various letters from thankful clients. She gets rid of the client letters, keeps the magazines. There's another letter in a white envelope, the return address S. Hollander in neat, block letters. She grabs a handle of vodka, the letter, and a loaf of bread and takes her spoils to her back porch.
She opens the letter cleanly with one of her nails and finds two pictures along with a folded piece of paper. She sets the photographs aside and opens the letter, unscrews the cap of the vodka bottle. It burns smoothly going down. It tastes like Ilya and everything she has ever wanted to crush out of love in her hands. Maybe she will crush Shane, too.
Dear Svetlana, She reads and scoffs. She already grows tired of her name like this. She will tell him to shorten it to Sveta in her next letter.
Thank you for your letter. I have not heard a lot about you, but I do know that you're very important to Ilya. I'm sorry in advance for my answers to your questions below, since I'm not great with words, but I always try my best to be honest.
1. I think Fort William would be best for you to visit if you've never been to Canada and are looking for a good place to start. It's on a very beautiful beach and the site itself has historical actors that stay in character when you ask them questions. If you're at all interested in the fur trade, I think it's pretty well done.
2. I don't have any pets because we travel so much. Ilya wants a dog. I'm sure you know that.
Svetlana did not know this. She takes another swig of vodka and then a bite straight out of the loaf. Her father always buys her a fresh one when he knows she's returning from a trip. Good bread and good vodka can get you started anywhere, he likes to say.
3. I love watching animals but I don't like hunting. I do like to fish. I don't keep any fish below the length and weight guidelines put out by our fish and wildlife bureau because I don't want to deplete the stock too soon.
4. I've played hockey all my life. I don't know when I'll stop playing. Sometimes I think I should have stopped last year, other times I hope I can play forever. I do like other sports besides hockey, like soccer and lacrosse. I really like to swim, too, although I don't like swimming in pools very much because I feel like the water is trying to kill me with all the chlorine in it. I like to be in and around water very much. Actually, as I'm writing this, if you're interested in Canadian water a good selection of wildlife such as birds and fish, I really recommend Calgary. My dad took me there the summer before the draft and we hiked all around the lakes. I think there were twelve, but I'll have to look it up again. I've got some pictures I'll send with this letter. It was one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen.
Svetlana picks up the pictures and angles them so they catch the light from inside her house as the sun sends its final streaks of oranges and reds across the sky. It is true, the lakes are beautiful. She is more interested in the man writing this letter, though.
5. In case you were not joking about finding me somebody better than Ilya (I'm sorry, it's hard for me to read tone sometimes), you're nine years too late. I can't tell many people this, and I'm sorry if it comes off weird because I know you grew up together and people probably don't like hearing about their brothers this way—or maybe they do. I'm an only child. Anyway, so I can put it somewhere without us losing our jobs and Ilya losing his life: he is so kind to me that even his friends are kind to me. He spent half this past summer running drills to make sure I could recover from my concussion without missing a step even though I know he hates playing hockey in the off season. He cuts the tags out of his jackets so they don't bother me. He makes me laugh. He's an asshole, but he isn't mean, and I like that about him, because it makes me worry less since I know if he needed to, he could protect himself.
6. Yes, I would like to be friends. I'm really flattered that you would even want to be my friend. I will try to be a very good friend, but I think you will probably be a better friend to me than I will be to you. Most people are.
Best,
Shane
He has his phone number at the bottom. Svetlana puts it in her phone and doesn't text him. She calls Ilya.
"Ilyushenka, what are you doing, my dear?" The Russian is easiest when she has a little vodka in her.
"Sveta," There is a laugh in his voice. There is always a laugh in his voice. He used to get higher grades than her in school and laugh at her for it, give her the answers to the next test, later. "I'm on the team bus driving back to Boston. We played Montreal last night, you know this."
"Sure, but I didn't know they had you on a bus. Why not a plane?"
"Team bonding." This, in English. Ilya's voice is wry. He has never much liked the concept of team bonding. People either like him or they do not. He either likes people or he does not. No amount of forced proximity changes this fact.
"Torture." Svetlana switches to English, too, makes a comedy out of the American r's. The laugh makes its way out of Ilya’s voice and tumbles from his lips.
"How was digging around by that lake?" Ilya asks. She can hear the low chatter of the bus over his voice. How long has he been traveling? He hates to travel, she knows. But he is always coming and going, coming and going.
"Wonderful," She tells him about the feeling of mud between her fingers, the smell of the trees. How exciting it was to drop sludge into a pan and sift the lake water through it to reveal pieces of a tool held hundreds of years ago. There was also the added bonus of the ruggedly handsome land surveyor. She slept with him twice. He bought her a book on flora and fauna in Michigan, bookmarked a page for her about mushrooms.
"Have you ever seen the way light reflects off a fish's scales?" She asks him. A mosquito flits around her ankle. She crushes it against her leg and wipes away the stain of her own blood from its abdomen.
"I have, actually. There's a different color for every way the fish turns."
"Yeah," Svetlana smiles and settles back in her chair, extremely pleased that he knows what she's talking about. But then again, they have always understood each other this way.
"I wrote a letter to your man," They are back in Russian now, but she still doesn't say Shane's name.
"A letter? Why?" Ilya is made of fire. She can feel him flaring up, even now, miles away on a never ending bus ride.
"Why not? I didn't want him to feel pressured with a DM. A letter is easier, no? You can hold it and read it over again and take your time deciding to reply or not. I had some questions for him. He wrote me back."
"He wrote you back?"
"Are you a fucking parrot now? Yes. God. Listen, I am trying to tell you. He told me about some lakes he thinks I would like, and a fort. There are live reenactors, I could learn about the fur trade in Canada. He is very honest, mister twenty four. He's funny, that way. I like him. I think I will like being friends with him." Svetlana takes another bite of her bread.
"You don't know anything about him," Ilya dismisses, incredulity lacing his voice. She wonders if he is sitting forward with his nose pinched between his thumb and forefinger, looking like he is suffering from a migraine. Ilya has always been more dramatic, between the two of them, which is a hard thing to do. Svetlana is not above theatrics.
"He doesn't like to swim in chlorine pools, he went to a place called Calgary with his father the summer before the draft, and he likes being held by you, so, I know a few things about him, since he told me." Svetlana makes sure Ilya will be able to hear the shrug in her voice. She is very casual, very nonchalante.
"He didn't tell you that. He didn't tell you he likes being held by me."
"No. Lucky guess. He loves you very much, Ilyusha. I'm happy for you. I'm going to take him to dinner, I think. I want to talk to him. I want to hear what he sounds like in his own voice." Svetlana holds up one of the pictures of the lakes again and squints at it in the low lighting just to give her something to do.
"Please, don't...bother him. He's like...he's shy. New people and places make him nervous. Please, Sveta, he's the best thing I've ever had." There's a little bit of beg in Ilya's voice. It thrills her. She likes having the upper hand. Likes when he shows her his belly, because she personally thinks she can protect it better than he can.
"My love, that's why I'm writing him letters first, so he can know me on his own terms, in his own space. Haven't you ever domesticated a feral dog before?"
"Hm." Ilya swallows a laugh. "I believe that dog was me, and you were the domesticator."
"Yes, well, I didn't do a very good job. I'm learning from my mistakes. You saw him after you beat Montreal, right?" Svetlana wants to know.
"Of course."
"And, what? You fucked?" She prompts. She stands, sandwiches her phone between her shoulder and her cheek, carries her things inside to get ready for bed.
"I don't know why you need to know this."
"You want to know what I really know?" Svetlana doesn't wait for Ilya to answer. "I bet you make sickeningly sweet love to that man, the kind that makes my skin crawl. I bet you kiss him all over his face, and you make him laugh, and you wear his clothes, and you hope for a future. That's what I know. Am I right?"
"No."
"No?"
"No. You forgot the part where I hold his hand and his feet are always cold, so I put them under my thigh, and he wants a little girl one day, and I think he'll be a great father, and it makes me furious because he can't be one, with me, now, and I think he wants to marry me off to you so I can get my citizenship, but I told him I don't want to be what I am for him to anyone else. You forgot about how I drove him to Ottawa after his concussion and carried him inside and I've never held anything so precious and so fucking heavy, because I think he's close to two hundred and fifty pounds. You forgot about the way I put all my secrets in his eyes, when I can get him to look at me." Ilya rattles off.
Svetlana drops her glass in the sink and puts the bread in the refrigerator, since she's been fighting the ants recently and she needs to get more ant traps, doesn't want to leave her bread as an easy feast. "What else have I forgotten?"
"That I can let him love me only because you never stopped showing me love, and you never hated me, even when I was making stupid decisions and ruining my life. I think you'll really like him, Sveta. He's special like you. He belongs to the land."
They used to sleep in the same bed together, Ilya and Svetlana. The rumor was that Sasha wanted to fuck Ilya and that Ilya was fucking Svetlana. They were fast friends at five, then nine, then thirteen, then fifteen and sharing a bed after a school mate's party, because they were too drunk to make it home and it was safer that way. They were protection for each other. Everybody knew they were sleeping together. The truth was that all Ilya did was hold her. They went clubbing and sometimes they kissed to remember that they were both young and pretty and alive. This thing between them traveled all the way to America. They fucked on the Russian new year, and never again. Not because it wasn't good, but because it wasn't real. They were two bodies then, not Ilyusha and Sveta.
"I'll always like you the best, little moon." Svetlana has always called Ilya this, because he has always been a wonderful mirror, reflecting whatever light other people put off back at them. His father couldn't stand this quality. He'd wanted a ruthless son. Not one that won and then turned around and tried to bring others with him onto the podium.
Montreal plays New York and Svetlana buys herself a ticket. Rink side. Premium seating. She loves hockey like a man does, like she was not allowed to growing up. Sometimes she thinks about putting on skates and playing a pickup game with a local women's league, because they have those in Connecticut, in America. It's the same way she thinks about moving back to Russia once a year though; she only gets as far as the first step.
Svetlana blames her father. He was an enabler. He would take her to games and nobody said a thing because he was so big and so respected. He raised her to have opinions and hubris and greed. He gave her hockey, too, like anyone was going to let a little mixed girl on the ice on her own in Moscow. Ilya's mother used to skate close by her, just in case, her red gloved hands available to clasp the hands of Ilya, Alexei, or Svetlana at any moment. Svetlana knows she broke her father's heart with how much pride he has in her. She would have made a better son.
Svetlana has a beautiful pair of red kid gloves, fleece lined, that she wears to hockey games. Irina used to help her mother braid her hair, used to tell Svetlana how much she wanted a daughter, how she'd gotten her gloves from her mother, and she would give them to Svetlana. Alexei threw the gloves in the fire after the funeral. Svetlana cracked his front tooth for it. The anger in all of them. Children with no masters. Monsters to each other because of the evil done to them.
There is a man seated next to Svetlana in an Admirals jersey that wants to know what team she's rooting for, since she's wearing the colors of neither. She looks him up and down and curls her lip. He is balding and already very drunk. She flicks a hand, dismissing him. "I am here for Shane Hollander."
"So, Montreal?"
"No. Shane Hollander, only." Svetlana makes this very clear. She has not been particularly impressed with Montreal this year. She thinks they should have made more trades at the end of the season. She also hates Shane's line. Pike is good, but he cannot make up for Drapeau. And, the two defensemen they have are clowns with knives on their feet, in her opinion. Svetlana would kick them back two lines, bring up the young Russian fellow, put JJ Boiziau on wing in Drapeau's place, and send Drapeau to an Australian penal colony. Svetlana visited a recreation of one during a layover when she went on vacation to New Zealand three years ago. It's the perfect place for a man who settles for good when he should be great and would rather bring down other great men to his level through injury or otherwise poor plays.
Svetlana has seen Shane Hollander play on TV. She has seen his commercials, the magazine spreads, watched compilations on Ilya's phone over his shoulder and teased him for it. To see him in person in real time is something else entirely. She does not go to Ilya's playoff games because he's asked her not to. The fear of failure in front of family eclipses his desire for support. In any event, she has never seen Boston play Montreal, so she has never seen Shane Hollander play for real. She can tell as soon as he begins to warm up that he is going to be a problem. Ilya once told her he would have done well in a Russian rink. Svetlana sees what he meant, now. Hollander is perfect.
Svetlana holds her breath for the first face off. Scott Hunter doesn't stand a chance. He never did. Nobody does. Shane sets his back skate and Svetlana can see how he always beats Ilya. Body mechanics. Ilya has too much length in his limbs. Shane gets lower, has a steadier platform that lets him extend faster. And his skating. God. God. Puck to tape to tape to tape, off the back hand—Svetlana stands with the crowd. Sits with the clang off the cross bar, gets to her feet again for the rebound, for the buzzer, for Shane's stick in the air in victory. He takes a half lap with his team trailing him and catches her eye. Svetlana sent him her seat number before the game. He has a grin on his face, messy and wide, and Svetlana knows her face matches his. She understands how Ilya could love a man like this: very easily.
Worse, Shane Hollander is very handsome in a man's man sort of way. He meets her after the game in a dressed down version of his pre-game suit. Svetlana can only assume Ilya bought this for him. Nothing she knows about Shane Hollander suggests he would own pleated slacks and a finely knitted pullover without any team logo of his own volition. He holds his jacket over his arm.
Svetlana looks him up and down. "Where are your pads? Your skates?" She sees a distinct lack of bulky duffle. Shane laughs, casts his eyes to the ground.
"My friend Hayden is bringing them back to our hotel room. I told him I had a date, and he owes me since last time I watched his kids they—well, it doesn't matter. Hello. It's nice to meet you in person." Shane extends his hand. Svetlana takes it. He has a good hand shake. Firm and warm.
"Shane Hollander." Svetlana rolls his name around in her mouth. "You are very good looking. People tell you this?"
"Oh. Um. Sometimes." Shane shifts his weight. Svetlana can tell he's getting ready to be done with all the people milling around them in the crowd. She makes a decision and grabs his hand.
"They should tell you more often. Let's get out of here."
They take a cab to the place Svetlana has reservations for. She watches Shane pinch down the seam of his slacks the whole way there and lets him be nervous about it in peace. He will like this place, she is sure. And, she sent the menu to Ilya a week ago when she was making her decision, so she already knows there are several things Shane will eat.
The lighting is low inside and Svetlana watches Shane's shoulders come down from his ears. She waits for him to notice the fish tank. "Is that a shark?"
"A baby one," Svetlana confirms. "Yes. Do not worry, I looked it up. Is humane. They hatch the shark from eggs from nearby aquarium so the baby doesn't get eaten by other fish at the aquarium. Then, when he is big enough, he goes back."
"That's really cool," Shane lifts to his toes to get a better look at it while the hostess gathers their menus. "I wonder what kind it is."
Svetlana's coup des gras is revealed when they are seated in a booth with a wall created by part of the tank. "Oh, wow, look, Svetlana—do you see the tiger shrimp?" Svetlana follows his finger to the shrimp scuttling along the pebbled floor.
"Call me Sveta. We are friends enough, I think. Congratulations on your win, my dear."
Shane smiles at his reflection against the tank. "Thanks. Really. Thank you for coming and thank you for...this. It's really cool."
"My pleasure. I thought we could go to a bar, but then I thought the game is very loud for you all night, and this is better, anyway. I think, if I could be any animal, it would be a shark." Svetlana gives him a truth. She watches him tilt his head, eyes sliding from the tank to the menu in front of him.
"Why?"
"They're intelligent and sleek, and they have to keep moving or else the oxygen doesn't pass through their gills and they die."
Shane blows out a breath. "Sounds familiar." He mutters. Louder, he says. "I'd want to be a deer."
"Why?" It's Svetlana's turn to ask this question. She sees that he is following a pattern laid out for him, and she intends to follow it herself until he stops sitting so rigidly.
"They're careful, but they're strong. It's hard to kill a deer, especially in the forest, even with a rifle."
"Are people hunting you with rifles?" Svetlana challenges.
"Sometimes," There's a lightness in Shane's voice that Svetlana thinks can only indicate a devastating seriousness. "My body doesn't know the difference between being hunted for sport and speaking to somebody new."
"What about now?"
"Well, I just played really good hockey, so the adrenaline helps. There's a fish tank. The menu has familiar things, so I'll get something I know, and then later tonight, I'll probably have a terrible nightmare about somebody coming into my room and slitting my throat." Shane shrugs.
"What," Svetlana says, "the fuck."
"Yeah, I know. It's pretty bad. Sorry." Shane thumbs at his ear. The waiter saves them from further conversation. Shane orders a salad and Svetlana orders seared tuna in coconut sauce. She gets a glass of wine to go with it. Shane sticks with water.
"I get dreams like these," Svetlana offers. "I had them more when I was younger. I never told anyone. I thought I'd grow out of them, but. Oh well. Tell me something else about you,"
"I was nervous to meet you." This does technically count as a fact, Svetlana supposes. It's not one she likes. She takes out her phone and unlocks it, slides it over to him.
"I'm only mean to idiots. Here." She leans over the table and uses her index finger to tap into a text thread. They hover over her phone together. Shane glances at her above his eyebrows.
"I can't read that." He is talking about the Cyrillic texts.
"Oh. I forgot. My turn to be sorry. This is Ilyusha. Here he's asking if we're at dinner yet. I tell him yes, and that I'll wait to kidnap you until later. He says...well, he is basically saying I'm not funny, and that I need to be nice to you. He is very worried about how I'm treating you. Is he always like this?" Svetlana wants to know.
"Uh, I don't know. I think, um. Well, there's not a lot of people that know about us, and you're the only one that's taken me to dinner about it, so far." Shane rubs his bottom lip over the edge of his top teeth. "But I'm glad I'm here, with you. I really mean it, how nice it is to meet you. Ilya doesn’t talk about you very much, but when he does it’s like he’s surprised I don’t know everything about you, or like he forgets he doesn’t talk about you all the time. I think if I knew Russian, he’d tell me more things.” Svetlana watches Shane rip a strip off of his napkin and roll it methodically. She appreciates his technique, although she prefers straw wrappers for the rolling.
“Maybe.” Svetlana hedges. She doesn’t know what Ilya is like around Shane. She can only assume he is himself as she knows him, and in that case, he would be careful with his memories in Russian, too. “I think probably he does not talk about me a lot to you because it would involve explaining how we grew up together, and it is very hard for him to talk about that.”
“Oh.” Shane nods, considering her point. “Because of his dad?”
“What do you know about his father?”
Shane has not met Svetlana’s eyes in any kind of deliberate way all night. She hasn’t minded it. He looks her in the eye now, and she sees that his eyes are not simply brown, they are the color of tea left steeping when you get carried away in a conversation with a friend. “I know he used to beat the hell out of Ilya. I know he used to beat his mother, too, and he’d come home from business trips and trash the house and bring home strange women with all of them still in the house. I know he was some kind of law enforcement and people in Russia know their family because of it.”
“Okay,” Svetlana is mildly impressed. “He has told you some. And Irina?”
Shane steeples his fingers on the table. “She played piano. She was a teacher for it, and she danced, I think, too. Ilya says if you looked at her, you’d know that, so I think she was graceful like he is, long limbed like he is. She taught him and his brother how to skate, and she was very kind and lovely and used to play with her sons all the time. I know she was the youngest of several brothers, and they all killed themselves, and they’re all buried together in the same graveyard in Moscow.”
Svetlana taps the side of her nose. “Somebody is a good listener. And you, Solnyshko? What of your family’s history?” She can’t help the Russian. Her language attached it self to him, because he is like the sun indeed. There’s a solidness to Shane Hollander that gets covered up by his nervous hands. He has a gravity, and steadiness that pulls people in. Trustworthy.
Their food comes and Shane tells her about his mother and father. He’s a good story teller. He gives her all the facts. Svetlana is sad to hear that his grandmother died far before he could meet her and that his mother came to Canada like Ilya came to America, without much family and without any backup plan. Shane’s description of his father makes Svetlana laugh.
“He cries over anything. He’s the target audience for those homeless animal commercials,” Shane says matter of factly. “And he’s the kindest person I know. He’s the best dad ever. I know everybody says that, but I’m serious, mine is the best. My mom, too. I got really lucky with my parents, especially since I was such a difficult kid.”
Svetlana sips her wine and sees Shane looking at the liquid in the glass. “You want to try it?”
“I don’t know, I don’t really like the taste of alcohol. It all tastes like hand sanitizer to me.” Shane shies away. Svetlana tilts the glass toward him.
“That is because people have been giving you hard liquor in dive bars. Wine is different. Try it. This is white win, is dryer, and it goes with fish. There are rules with it, which ones goes with which dish. I like that because this is something I can get right with a meal and feel like I am a fancy woman.”
Shane takes her glass and puts it to her lips. “You are a fancy woman.” He takes a very small sip and holds it in his mouth. He tilts his head, considering. Svetlana waits for his review. “Actually,” Shane decides. “I think I like that.” He looks surprised. Svetlana is not. A man who prefers honesty and low overhead lighting and fishing to bawdy lies and strobe lights and fucking strangers is bound to also prefer wine. Svetlana lets him have the rest of her glas. She would order him one of his own, but she doesn’t want him to feel like he has to suddenly become a wine drinker.
At the end of the night, Shane helps her into her coat. He fingers the silk lining appreciatively. “This is really nice.”
Svetlana turns her face up toward him and smiles with all of her teeth. “I only buy clothes that are.” Since she insisted on paying for their dinner, Shane insists on getting them ice cream. They lick their cones huddled against the chilly night air beneath the store’s awning.
“I haven’t had ice cream in so long. I forgot how much I like it.” Shane grins at her and Svetlana falls a little in love with him. She pulls on the threads of the frayed edge he’s showing her.
“You are a millionaire, you cannot afford to buy ice cream?”
“No. It’s hard for me to eat by myself sometimes. It just seems like another task. It’s easier when I have food I know. I know ice cream, obviously, it’s just not on my meal plan. So.” Shane lays these facts out between them like they’re supposed to mean something to Svetlana. She raises both her eyebrows.
“Okay? So, call me and we will eat ice cream together. Being by yourself does not mean you cannot be happy. I love to be by myself. I have a whole house by myself and I eat ice cream every night.” Svetlana informs him.
“Velikolepnyy.” Shane bites off a piece of his cone. Svetlana laughs and laughs and laughs.
“Your accent is crazy. You sound like you are member of track suit mafia,” She loops her arm through his. “I will help you. Seriously, call me. We are going to get along just fine, you and me, Shane Hollander. Just fine.”
There’s a picture that hits the tabloids the next day of Svetlana laughing and Shane smiling at his shoes, hand at her back to guide her away from the curb. Svetlana buys the magazine in the airport because it’s a good picture of her, she thinks.
Sveta: Congratulations on our engagement
Shane: Expect your ring to come in the mail
Shane: That’s actually a really nice picture of you. It looks like a candid on a movie set
Sveta: Yes, I thought so, too
Svetlana gets a package from Shane two days later. He must have sent it overnight shipping. It’s a pack of candy peach rings. She begins to idly look into Drapeau’s history. Just for fun, of course, nothing serious. And Shane’s head coach, too. Canada is different from Russia, maybe, and Svetlana is sure Yuna Hollander has seven backup plans to cover her son if anything bad were to happen to him, but she likes to have her own, too. Just in case.