Chapter 1

No way. To me, a true calling and finding your place in life matter far more. If you're lucky enough to find that place, you could be a molecular biologist, the fifth violin in an orchestra, a baker's assistant, or a seller of Christmas ornaments—it all comes down to inner harmony. Period!

The same goes for a person. If you have someone you love, someone who's the one and only, someone to whom you mean more than anything in the world, does it really matter whether he has status or not? Is he a cab driver, or a dentist with a bright future?

No, of course there are girls who care about that, but that's not me. I loved Zhorik just because he was Zhorik.

Sure, I didn't become the economist my parents dreamed of, and I didn't become an engineer like my brother. But I'm such a good hairstylist that people book appointments with me two months in advance. I don't even have time for tea during my shift! And I work at the best salon in town, where they wouldn't hire just anyone. I walk through downtown like a queen because everyone says hello—especially around City Hall. And why wouldn't they, when all the city's famous and important people come to us?

And if we're being honest, I make just as much as my brother. I saved for two years to buy a car, but I did buy one—a Daewoo Matiz! Sure, it's no Ferrari, but Vovka got four thousand in hard currency as a handout to put toward an apartment. As for me, my little car is more than enough!

"Dad, what do Vovka and the stairs have to do with anything?" My shoulders slumped. "I honestly thought Zhorik and I were serious until the very end. That we'd have a family. Kids. That he'd grow up and understand that, sure, his mom was great, but he needed a life of his own! He's a good man, and he loves me."

Dad snorted, Mom sighed, and I immediately corrected myself, frowning as I remembered the phone call with my would-be mother-in-law—the one that had revealed her son was seeing someone else:

"Loved me, I should say. But now it's over! I'm tired of it. I want to start a new life from scratch! Right now! You know what? You were right—it was long past time to cut the Gordian knot and admit that nothing was ever going to work between us while Crocodile Tears was still alive. That's why I'm leaving. Tomorrow the wind will shift, Zhorik will be hanging around outside the building again, and I'll cave, just like always. But this time I want to hold my ground, or we'll spend twenty years making each other miserable."

The puck flew past the net, the period ended, and Dad got up from the couch. He hitched up his pajama pants.

"Natash…"

"Hold on, woman!" Dad stopped Mom and pulled her close. "Our daughter is right!" He nodded approvingly. "But this time, Natasha, if you're going to do it, make it a clean break—a real one!" He clenched a fist and shook it beside his face. "And if we see that skinny-legged ferret, we'll tell him you've moved to Alaska. No need for him to mess with our daughter's head anymore!"

"Sergei, calm down! Natasha and Georgy will sort it out themselves," Mom said carefully, sensing that Feyakin Senior was starting to heat up.

"I'm worried, Lyuda! I care! Our Natasha is too kind, just like me! I can feel what she's going through with my whole soul—with every fiber, unlike you!"

Oh. Dad really shouldn't have said that—Mom's wings unfurled at once. More precisely, she planted her hands on her hips, and all her delicacy disappeared as she banked hard and nosedived.

"What?!" She perched her glasses on top of her head and blinked rapidly. Her eyebrows drew together above the bridge of her nose. "You think, Feyakin, that I don't feel things? That I don't worry?! My heart hurts more than yours does, watching all this! One minute they're together, the next they're breaking up! One minute Zhorik is cooking little pots of soup for our Natasha and never taking his eyes off her, and the next he's running back to his mother! One minute his shoes are in our entryway, and the next they're gone! I didn't raise my daughter for twenty-five years so that that hag Izolda and her son could mess with her head! I don't spend half the year at the dacha with you so Natasha can sort out her personal life! You think I don't have fiber, Sergei?"

"Fibers, Lyud."

"Same difference! I've got them! And mine are finer than yours!"

"Mom, Dad, the last thing we need is for you two to start fighting, too!" I walked over and kissed them both on the cheek. Back at the doorway, I adjusted my hat and reached for my suitcase again. "Don't get upset! Whatever happens, happens. I'm off!"

"Where?" my parents asked in unison, and Liza added a bark of her own.

Honestly, how could they not figure it out?

"To find my happiness, of course!"

"To Masha's, like always?" Dad called after me, catching on.

I stopped for a second and thought. I had a best friend, Masha Malinkina. A wonderful human being, that girl. We'd been inseparable since childhood—as they say, together through good times and bad. I adored her kids as if they were my own, but tonight I wasn't going to her. The sun in Malinka's life was named Dima Gordeev, our mutual classmate, and I wasn't about to get in her way.

At this point in a melodrama, tradition probably demanded a tear. After all, the heroine's love life had fallen apart. It was cold outside, she was walking into the night, and it was easy to imagine the ice crunching beneath her feet, leaving her alone in a city locked in a hard freeze… But I suddenly turned around and smiled.

When you're born an optimist, you can't help believing in a brighter tomorrow!

"No, Dad, not Masha. I rented an apartment for three whole months! It's gorgeous, with a living room and a bedroom! It has a parking spot and a ten-square-meter balcony! I'll live like a princess in a tower on the thirteenth floor! And best of all, it's on the other side of town!"

"Three months?" Mom gasped and pushed her glasses back onto her nose. She exchanged a look with Dad. "But what about us, Natul? How are we supposed to get by without you for that long?"

It was a dilemma. But I could come visit, couldn't I? And call? Wherever I went, this would always be my home.

"Mom, you've raised me for twenty-five years. Why don't you two finally live for yourselves, okay? I need to figure out whether I can be on my own."

The door opened, and I left.

When children grow up, questions aren't enough to stop them.