Page 70 of The Beauty Who Loved Him

Hannah’s choice in lunch matched Vera’s right down to the vanilla chai lattes in little pink mugs. Each featured hand painted matryoshkas along the outside upper rim. Between the four plates and two mugs, there wasn’t much more room on the small round table, and there had only been seats for two. Kiril ended up three tables down.

Not that it mattered.

The cafe was mostly empty other than a boy, maybe eleven, or twelve, and who Vera suspected might be his little brother sitting across from him in the booth. The two boys sat opposite to Kiril who barely glanced up from whatever he was scrolling through on his phone.

A line of booths faced the front windows of the cafe, converted from the ground floor of an old bookmaker’s shop. Old tools and bindings hung displayed from bare rafters.

Their trio was lucky to arrive just after the afternoon rush that typically kept the cafe full and buzzing with activity. Vera waved her fork at the two plates closer to her, asking Hannah, “You wouldn’t judge me for eating dessert first, right?”

The freckles splattered across Hannah’s face almost seemed to dance with the same happiness as her eyes when she laughed. “That was my plan, too.”

Hannah picked up the tiny three-pronged fork that had come with her Almond Puff, and stabbed it into the corner of the rectangular chunk of sugary heaven, promptly plopping the bite into her mouth. Winking and nodding as she chewed, Hannah didn’t need to talk for Vera to understand.

Melt-in-your-mouth goodness.

She was half way through her own pastry, making an effort not to moan around every thin slice of crunchy almond that made up the top layer of the puff; her favorite part of the sweet. The buzz of Vera’s phone in the clutch she’d hung off the corner of the chair broke the silence between the two. Hannah shot her a questioning look.

“It’s a bit early for your mom or dad to be texting you from New York, right?” Then, she squinted one eye, asking, “Or am I off on the time zones? Didn’t you get a message when we were leaving the church, too?”

“Just ask me who’s messaging me,” Vera told her friend. “We can skip the twenty questions.”

Hannah pouted exaggeratedly. “You’re no fun.”

“You’re nosy.”

With a shrug, Hannah didn’t deny it. She did, however, say quietly, “Only maybe a little worried, too.”

Vera used the phone she pulled out of her clutch as a momentary distraction from the conversation. She didn’t think it would stop Hannah from bringing it up again, however. While her friend lifted her mug for a sip of latte, Vera checked her phone for the cause of the buzzing alert.

A smile bloomed instantly. “The invitations are ready.”

Hannah’s brow lifted high as she lowered the mug back to the table. “That was fast. Didn’t you put the order in two days ago?”

Vera shrugged. “I only needed ten, and they didn’t have to be ... fancy, or anything.”

Not to mention, the invitations didn’t need very much information. Her name, Vaslav’s, too. A standard greeting and appropriate invite followed by a time and an address to a church in Dubna that Vera had yet to visit. It had been, however, requested by Vaslav for reasons he promised to explain later.

“You’re really only inviting ten people?” Hannah asked.

Vera nodded. “Who else needs one?”

“I can name twenty women off the top of my head who would appreciate an invitation from you to literally anything.” Hannah yanked her chicken sandwich plate closer and picked up one triangular half in both hands. “And I know you have more family than your parents, so. Say it like it is. Vaslav Pashkov said ten guests, and ten it is.”

Vera barely suppressed a smile. “Getting right to the point, are you?”

Hannah sighed and stared at her sandwich like she might take a bite. Instead, she told Vera first, “You know he spent time in an institution, right? Not just prison institutions, Vera.”

“I saw the newspaper records you found on the online archives.”

Yet another thing Hannah had tried to bring to Vera’s attention over the past evenings. She simply hadn’t read through them as carefully as maybe she should have, except the information felt like an invasion of Vaslav’s privacy, in a way.

“He did terrible things to people,” Hannah said, “and it doesn’t take very much to find what those things were, either.”

He still does, Vera almost said.

Hannah had no fucking clue.

Instead of speaking what was on her mind, because she loved her friend just enough to put up with her prodding and concerns as it came from a good place, Vera glanced back down at her phone. She smiled at the image the designer and printer had attached of the simple and elegant invitations printed on cream card stock, framed by flaked gold leaf with black script in the middle spelling out her name and Vaslav’s larger than the rest of the writing.