Two Months and Three Days (Sinister Romance #1)

Chapter 2 (part I)

There is no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes. This is no better understood than when you are standing in the middle of the sidewalk wearing a thin, sleeveless, denim-like, cotton dress, anxiously watching as the boundless blue sky is suddenly covered with dark, steel-gray, clouds and the cold wind sweeps you off your feet. A storm was coming. She should have worn a different dress, but all the other dresses were in the closet and the closet was in Nellie's room. Besides, Sergei, one of Nellie's lovers, was also in the room.

"One of." Arina put on the first dress that came to hand, basically a housedress. It was comfortable but way too open and short, not even covering her knees. The dress was a little bit baggy, but that was good. Under this overall, nobody could see how clumsy and awkward Arina really was. Only her long arms and sharp elbows gave it away.

"One of." Arina didn't want to think about it. She just stood there in the middle of the sidewalk with her hands wrapped round her shoulders. Her sneakers, dress and a small backpack were all she had managed to grab before running outside. People passed by Arina like water flowing around a stone in a mountain river. Arina's thoughts went back involuntarily to the bills that were lying on the coffee table. Two orange-colored bills each worth five thousand rubles. They couldn't be confused with anything else. Ten thousand rubles for one night with "one of"? Nellie did it for money.

Arina's entire salary at the veterinary clinic, where she moonlighted at night, consisted of five such bills. Three in advance and two on payday. There are thirty days in June, which meant it worked out to 833 rubles per day. Arina had to give one bill to Nellie for the apartment, or rather the kitchen where she had been living. Another one went towards her student loan payment — a girl from Vladimir couldn't get a scholarship. At least they had let her enroll. Her father helped her get a loan. Her mother just gasped with surprise, when her stubborn daughter suddenly decided that she must become a veterinarian at any cost.

At least one more bill had to be used to buy food, no matter how hard Arina tried to economise. The result of her efforts, however, were obvious: her elbows stuck out as if she were suffering from anorexia. Never in her life had Arina starved just for the sake of it. On the contrary, during her first year in Moscow, Arina took the time to find out where and how she could get a free meal. The Hare Krishnas often gave out free meals if you agreed to sing their songs, even for a little bit. There were also a couple of public cafeterias in Moscow but the atmosphere there was particularly unpleasant. Not only did you have to stand in line for a long time, but you also had to wait together with the homeless, the drunks, and other social outcasts. Having waited there once with a textbook in her hands, a shy, clean girl with black hair in a ponytail, she decided that this was not the way for her to save money. It just wasn't worth the trouble. She would rather eat oatmeal at home than drag herself to places like these, wasting her time and energy.

As for the remaining two bills, Arina tried to save them for a rainy day, which, in her case, could come at any time. She wasn't any good at it though: first, her transit pass would expire and she needed to buy another one, then her sneakers would completely fall apart. Somehow, walking around the city barefoot did not seem quite appropriate.

Ten thousand rubles for one night, not even the whole night. Sergei came over in the morning, drunk and cheerful with a bottle of wine in his hand. Arina remembered that lately Sergei had been "visiting" Nellie at least once a week, maybe even twice. She had to suppress the impulse to calculate how much money had been lying there on the coffee table in Nellie's room.

"You don't understand! He takes care of me."

"Okay, okay!" Arina vigorously shook her head just to cut the conversation short.