Her new neighbor was about as restful as a tornado. But he was basically just a stranger passing through. No one she needed to worry about. No one who was going to affect her life.
Paige had survived tornadoes before.
Two
The computer screen glowed in the dark, illuminating a complex jumble of mathematical numbers and equations. No, no, no Stefan typed on the keyboard. Four years ago, discovered this didnt work. Look at line 47. The problem in logic begins there.
When he finished with the post, he leaned back and rubbed his tired eyes. The mathematician hed been communicating with lived in Paris, outside the Sorbonne. Through the wonders of a computer, modem and an internet connection, Stefan could teach or argue theory or share ideas with some of the finest scientific minds in the world.
Hed been in America three weeks. Long enough to discover that freedom was far more addictive than any drug. He couldnt get enough of it.
Growing up in Russia, he had been isolated because of his brain. Patriotism had been drilled into him when he was younghis mind belonged to the state. Forget a movie with popcorn; forget falling in love; forget taking a passel of kids sledding on a snowy afternoon. His brain was a gift, and he had a responsibility to produce for his country, to channel all his drive and abilities toward that goal.
Stefan had no quarrel with any of that. Hed accepted the loneliness, accepted his responsibilities. He never saw the conflict coming that would slowly eat him alive. But physics was his field. Energy. In a world with finite resources, energy problemsand solutionshad increasing power over war, peace, economics, quality of life. Solutions existed, if scientific minds across the world could simply talk together, share what they knew. Repression of knowledge was alien to everything he believed in. Suffering had no country. Certain problems were universal and had no flag. And when hed had a breakthrough, and discovered he would not be permitted to share his research with other physicists across the world, that was the straw that had broken the donkeys back.
Hed started saving his rubles. Enough to give him a solid nest egg in America. It took a long timetoo longbut the waiting had intensified his feelings and his resolve. America was his country long before he set foot on her soil.
Impatiently he flicked off the computer. The living room flooded with darkness. For a few minutes, there was no sound in the whole house beyond the rumbling of the furnace and the rhythmic tick of a distant clock. As his eyes slowly dilated, he focused on the view from his window, where the snowy landscape was mystically glazed by moonlight. Down the winding road, he saw lights. Her lights.
Thinking about Paige had started to drive him crazy.
He lurched out of his desk chair and ambled to the casement windows. Paige slept in the corner room on the second story of the old brick farmhouse. He guessed the location of her bedroom, because lights never emanated from any other room on that floor at night.
Right now, it was just nine oclock, and the second story was predictably blacker than pitch. She hadnt gone to bed yet. But she wouldaround a quarter to eleven. Her bedtime rituals were as regular as a heartbeat.
Stefan never meant to make a pattern of watching her. One night hed just happened to glance out, and caught her standing in the window with the light behind her, as she took down her braid. Her house was four hundred yards distance from his, not close enough to see clearly, but close enough to appease his conscience about being a voyeur. He had never seen anything he shouldnt. She was never naked. Never remotely unclothed. In fact, she seemed to favor sleeping in some big, voluminous garment that resembled a feed sack.
Personally he thought she belonged in satin.
Taking down her hair was the last chore she did before sleeping. She stood at the window, stargazing while her fingers unplaited the long, tangled braid. Then she brushed her hair, always with swift, impatient movements, as if doing a necessary job for the sole purpose of getting it over with.
Personally, he would have brushed her hair quite differently.
When her hair was finally loose, it streamed down her back in a waterfall, past her shoulder blades, as rich as mink, silken, glossy. A man could go crazy, imagining his hands in that hair. Her arms were raised when she brushed back from the crown, and even in that appalling sackcloth garment, her breasts pushed and thrust against the fabric. A man could go crazy, imagining his hands on those firm, full breasts.
She couldnt be a virgin. Stefan had carefully studied all the American newspapers. He wasnt sure how old Paige was, maybe mid-twenties. But it was clear no American women were virgins past the age of sixteen. They talked about sex everywhere: ads, TV, movies, national news. Stefan figured he could not assimilate into the culture until he figured such things outhe would not want to offend some woman sometime by accidentally inferring that she did not have reams of sexual prowess and expertise. This was hard. In his country, it was okay if a woman had not slept with the entire Bronco Bills baseball team. Here, a guy might be considered disgustingly repressed if he failed to talk about sexor worse, if he considered sex to be an intimately private subject. Stefan was trying hard to get on the band tire.
Paige, though, struck him as being on a different band tire, too. Though it seemed impossible, he couldnt shake the impression that she was asleep as a woman.
Hed seen her working attireno makeup, the tight braid, the bulky, concealing clothes. Yet it was only natural that she would choose practical, common sense clothing styles with her work. There was a storm of dreams in her dark brown eyes, the passion of emotion. Her movements had an inherent sensuality and grace. And her face had a classic beauty, a damn near mesmerizing beauty, yet she seemed completely unaware of her looks, or how those looks could affect a man.
The morning of the fire, hed seen the jade cameo in her workshop. It was her. Exactly her. At the time, he hadnt realized it because his mind had been on the fire. But later, the profile in that jade cameo had come back to haunt him. Later, hed considered that a woman who created cameos had to have a deeply romantic nature.
Yet she lived alone. Stefan kept an eye out, not just from nosiness but because if she was so absentminded as to start one fire, she could certainly start another. No one watched out for her. No men came calling. She worked all the time, and only seemed to leave the house for groceries. Yet night after night, watching her in that window, hed seen her vulnerability and loneliness.
He knew loneliness well, but there had always been reasons why it had been difficult to pursue a mate in his life. It was a mind-boggling puzzle why she didnt have a man in hers.
For three weeks, that puzzle had been gnawing on his mind.
Longer than a man who thrived on challenges could be reasonably expected to stand.
Swiftly he turned his head from the window. His gaze pounced on the telephone. Hed mastered the telephone book his first week in America, read the entire Yellow Pages one night. Finding the number for Stanford, Paige was a piece of cake. He considered for a minute, then dialed her number and carried the telephone over to the window.
She answered the phone on the fourth ring, but her voice sounded husky and breathless as if shed been running. Paige here.
This is Stefan. I not bother you long. I guess you are working
Yes, I was, actually
Just one quick question. When you call police here, you dont call police, right? You call 9-1-1? Thats how?
Yes, for an emergency, thats exactly h
Okeydoke. Not bother you further. Thank you for the neighborly help, my cupcake. Gently he hung up the receiver and waited. He counted to ten in English, then French, then started in Russian with aden, dva, tree, chaterriethe telephone jangled next to him.
As innocent as a virgin, he picked it up. Stefan here, he barked, adopting her method of answering.
Her words gushed out like water tumbling from a faucet. Stefan, for heavens sake, are you in some kind of trouble? Do you need help?
He stroked his beard, thinking he should probably be feeling big guilt for trying such a ruse. Perhaps the guilt would come. Momentarily he was captured by the sound of her voice. You would help if I were in trouble? You barely know me?
Were neighbors. In America, neighbors help each other.
This is wonderful quality, he said. We need to spread this American quality of kindness across the world. It would make a difference.
He heard her release a quick sigh. A lustily, loud impatient sigh. Full of passion. Stefan, we can talk about philosophy another time. I was worried why you wanted to dial 911. Did you have a break-in?
Break-in? I dont know this phrase.
Did you have a robbery? A thief?
No, no. No break-in. I am just figuring out how to do things. Not easy. I had much trouble in the grocery store today. Nothing is the same here. I like everything, you understand, this is my country now. But being able to read fluently and talk fluently is not the same, and I seem to be culturally gapped big-time.
He heard her make another soundthe chortling hint of a chuckle.
You would laugh at my problem? he asked her.
Oh, no. She sobered quickly. No, Stefan, I wasnt laughing at you
I worry fiercely about offending by saying wrong things, doing wrong things. But this is truthI am utter confusion. He didnt have to work to make his tone sound mournful. A little talent for drama was in his Russian genes. How kind, your neighborly offer to help. Much welcomed.
Ummmm
I am close to desperate in this confusion, so your offer to help could not arrive at better time. I feel relief. Big relief. Be over in five minutes to accept this help, maybe quicker.
Actually it didnt take him four minutes to burrow into a jacket, hike the snowy road, leap her fence and exuberantly knock on her door. When she opened it, her face had an expression of bewilderment as if she had no idea how this impromptu visit came to be.
Stefan stomped the snow off his boots and closed the doorbiting winter wind was gusting in the foyer. Then he smiled at her. Her forehead had a dusty smudge. Her thick brown braid had wisps escaping in a halo around her cheeks. Her black sweater had a hole, as did her jeans, and she was wearing socks, no shoes. But beneath all that was a breathtakingly beautiful woman, and it was a luxury to just look into those velvet brown eyes. You still working so late, and here, I come and interrupt you. How about I make you something to drink while you keep working, so you not mind this interruption so bad?
Its okay, she said.
Youre not thirsty? Not hungry?
Paige had no chance to consider whether she was hungry or thirsty. She wasnt sure if she was coming or going, by the time Stefan had been there an hour.
She vaguely recalled his exuberantly insisting that she continue working as if he werent there. What a joke. Stefan was an impossible man to ignore. Hed raided her kitchen for a simple glass of water and emerged with a pot of hot coffee, a bottle of vodka under his arm, two mugs and a six-inch-high sandwichfor her. You forgot to eat, yes?
It was trueshe had forgotten dinnerand because there was no convenient place to set up the snack in her work studio, theyd ended up in the living room.
Thered been no lights on. Hed switched on her grandmothers ruby thumbnail globe lamp. Thered been no fire in the fieldstone hearth, but hed fixed that, toostacked the wood, checked the flue and then lit a match to the kindling. Hed tossed her some couch pillows, pushed a claw-foot stool under her feet and had tipped the vodka bottle into her coffee mug a couple of times now.
Cold tonight, he kept saying. As cold as Petersburg in a blizzard. Need to warm your toes.
Her toes were cold, not from temperature but from nerves. Stefan seemed to have settled in as solidly as an oak tree taking root. It wasnt exactly as if he were pushy. It was more like being stuck with a big, effusively friendly bear. Somewhere in that gnarly, wild beard was a boyish grin, a winsomenesshe was clearly trying to help her, to please. It was justthose werent a boys eyes looking her over by the lap of firelight.
Paige kept telling herself to bury the silly nerves. Shed been working all day, looked like something the cat would refuse to bring home. There was no reason to think he was attracted, no reason not to share a companionable drink with a neighbor. Stefan had thrown himself in the overstuffed blue recliner, a nice three feet away. He hadnt said one word on any other subject but the reason he cameand heaven knew, he did need help with the language.
so I pay this woman, and I say thank you, we hit the sack anytime, chick. Stefan shrugged. Something clearly wrong with what I say. I meant compliment. But she turned color of roses, real quick, real red, and started talking so fast I couldnt follow. I dont know what went wrong.
Oh, Stefan. Paige shook her head. Who taught you English?
I learned in school, from early days. But that was always reading more than speaking. In university years, I met Ivan. A friend, a physicist, thirty years older than me, but he had actually lived in America. He knew the real English, the kind people spoke every day. Nothing like textbooks. I studied with him, hard.
UmStefan, she said tactfully, he taught you a lot of slang.
Yes, slang, thank God. I discovered on instant arrival that no one here speaks with grammar. Learning all that grammar useless. I am relieved to know slang. I not want to stick out like sore toe.
Sore thumb. Paige corrected him automatically, and then hesitated, unsure how to approach his language misconceptions without hurting his feelings. About your friendIm sure he was a really wonderful friend, and I certainly dont mean to criticize himbut Im afraid he taught you some slang expressions that arent used anymore. Especially some of the phrases referring to women.
Yeah? Stefan was clearly one of those highenergy, physical men who couldnt sit still for more than two seconds. Not for the first time, he sprang from the recliner, checked her mug, noted it was empty and splashed in another double dose of vodka and coffee. More coffee than vodka this -time, she hoped. Explain to me some examples, okay?
Well, the thing is, Stefan, if your friend lived here a long time ago, he just wouldnt have any reason to know that weve had a strong political womens movement in this country over the last couple of decades. There was a time it was okay to call a woman cupcake or chick or doll. In another time, those were terms of endearment or affection