Undercover (6 page)

“I forgot to say I love you.” He laughed softly, and hearing his voice again made her feel better.

She didn’t know the first thing about his country. No matter how hard she fought to visualize it, she couldn’t even say what the flag looked like. Learning would be prudent, and give her something to do. She spent a couple of hours with Google and Wikipedia. The red, white, and blue flag didn’t look even remotely familiar.

Sunday morning, the phone rang again, and Jenny rolled her eyes when she saw the number. Her ex husband was not high on the list of people she wanted to talk to. “Hey, John.”

He didn’t sound sober, and had probably been up all night. “Hey, ba-by.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“I’ll call you whatever I want. You’re my wife.”

Definitely drunk. “No, I’m not. I
was
your wife, now I’m completely unrelated. Did you want something?”

“Yeah, I need some help cleaning this place up. Got any money?”

He might not be able to see her roll her eyes, but doing it still made her
feel
better. “No. You’re an adult, and you get to pay for your own stuff now. That’s how divorce works.”

“Oh c’mon, babe.”

She knew what would come next. Drunken babble about facing her responsibilities, whatever that might mean in his world. “I’m hanging up.”

He laughed. “No you won’t. Hey, I just need a couple hundred.”

The idea that she would never get rid of this man, not until one of them died, was both disconcerting and persistent. “No. You know, I’m thinking of moving to Russia.”

He echoed, disbelievingly, “Russia? Have you gone mad? They don’t even write properly!”

She hung up and didn’t answer when he called again.

Chapter Seven

Alex went to see his commanding officer early Monday morning. He needed to check in and report, and ask for shore leave. The greying officer nodded a greeting, “Captain Lieutenant Alexei Roshenko, sit down.”

He obeyed, and took the offered vodka as the older man listened to his report without interrupting. Vodka… what a disgusting way to start the day. He would give anything to have tea with Jenny instead.

The older man leaned back in the chair and tapped his fingertips together. “Of course you can have shore leave, you always work. I cannot remember you ever having any. May I ask why, after all these years, you’ve gotten the idea to take some the day after you return from America? Did something… unexpected… happen on your journey? Perhaps… something I should know of?”

His behavior must look strange, and he would have to explain, but how could he put it to make sense? “May I speak freely, sir?”

His superior nodded. “Of course.”

Alex drank the rest of his vodka, brought out his cell, and found a photo of Jenny. She was smiling, her head leaned back slightly, and her golden locks cascaded over her shoulders. “I have met someone.”

The other man chuckled, hiding his surprise well but not completely. “You were only there for a couple of days.”

“I know, sir. But this woman is… special.” He smiled, warm inside not just from the alcohol. “You would like her, sir. She is strong, yet gentle, and she’s intelligent. I never expected to experience such a strong emotion for anyone.”

The older man’s eyes were completely void of emotion, and he wondered if this was how he too had looked. Probably; he had awoken to a new and different world.

“Alexei, I must confess I never thought this would happen to you. I have seen you with plenty of girls of course, but you never seemed to have any… feelings… towards any of them. There are many that would describe you as cold, Alexei. I think, even cruel.”

Alex shrugged. “They would have been right.”

He spent a lifetime trying to be detached from the world around him. He
had
been cold, and he had done countless things he wasn’t proud of. If he could go back and change it he would, but it wasn’t possible, and he would just have to live with it.

“You know, I’m old enough to remember the bad old days. In those times, one man would have been sent to spy on you, and another man sent to keep an eye on the spy. They would have been investigating the woman you’ve found in this very moment, trying to estimate what threat or opportunity she might pose, and how she could best be used. Leverage was a big word in those days.”

Alex didn’t answer, there wasn’t anything to say.

“It’s not
quite
like that anymore, but this will not be easy. For either of you. You understand that, don’t you?”

It was a rhetorical question, and he didn’t pause to wait for an answer. “Have you given any thought at all to how you are going to make this work?”

The words sent a cold chill down Alex’s back. The old days weren’t as far away as he would like them to be, and disappearing from her life would be the responsible thing to do. If he really loved her, he should make himself invisible and force her to let go. “No, I haven’t. I wish to spend some time with her, and if she still wants me when she knows me better, we will work something out.”

The other man sighed deeply, and burst out laughing. “Hah, you really are in love, aren’t you. You poor fool.”

Pouring another round of vodka for them, he added evenly, “Anyway, I wish you the best of luck. We’re scheduled for a three-week tour in the arctic region, leaving this afternoon, and I need you there. After that, the ship will go into dry dock to try the new alloys, and you can go have vacation.”

The arctic, what fun. Alex downed the drink, and with its artificial heat spreading through his stomach, his superior’s covert warnings sounded exaggerated. “Thank you, sir.”

*****

Jenny was so tired, but still lay tossing and turning into the wee hours of the morning. When her phone rang at three in the morning, she had just fallen asleep, and grumbled, “What’s all the noise?”

The room was dark, and she squinted at the display before answering. Maybe there was a fire somewhere or something. Then, her mind registered a foreign number, and she snapped completely awake. Alex said slowly, “Good morning, sweetheart. You sound… sleepy. I am sorry if I woke you up.”

“You can wake me up every morning if you want to, I like that. Besides, I should have been up by now anyway.”

At three in the morning… Brilliant line. Well, she’d rather talk to him than sleep.

He sounded like he was smiling, “I just got your e-mail. It was very funny, please send me more.” Falling serious again, he explained, “I’ve spoken to my… uh… boss. We’re going out on a mission to… make some… tests…”

That didn’t sound good. Alex continued in a low voice, “I don’t know exactly how long it will take, probably around three weeks. But when this is over, I intend to fly back to you. I won’t have many opportunities to call you, but I will check my mail when I can.”

Jenny squeezed the phone too hard and forced her hand to relax. He had only been gone for a couple of days, and now even the fragile connection they had over the phone would break. Whatever it was they had would wither and die if it wasn’t nurtured.

“Is this okay?” He asked the question softly, as if afraid she would be angry. She didn’t know what to say. There wasn’t much she
could
say. “Of course it’s okay. You do what you have to do. But you’ll take care of yourself, won’t you?”

“I promise. You too.”

It sounded like a lie. She nodded, and realized he couldn’t see it, so she mumbled, “I will. I really miss you, just so you know.”

He paused for a second, and sounded hurried when he said, “I have to go now. I love you, Jenny.”

He was gone before she had the chance to answer, but she still held the phone pressed against her ear a moment longer. These feelings of both longing and belonging were new. Throughout her life she took pride in independence, and now she was someone’s, much more than when she was married. The idea that she was
his
should be disturbing, but it wasn’t. Instead, it put a goofy smile on her face.

*****

Alex wrote to tell her everything was alright, but it was very cold. It was amazing how they could sit on opposite sides of the globe and communicate almost in real time. His next message read, “I have to go. Please write me… Is everyone okay? Have you practiced playing pool? I miss you.”

He didn’t have to say that twice. She smiled inwardly, went to get a cup of tea, and sat down to compose a long letter, completely ignoring work piling up around her. A part of her brain said, “This is a really good way to get fired, you know,” but she ignored it. She gave the company so much of her life, worked so much unpaid overtime and lost sleep over deliveries gone wrong, it owed her a few minutes of fun.

She wrote about the people he knew, about the cat, about her being ambiguous about keeping or selling her house, and about missing him.

Maybe she should be a little more explicit? Wouldn’t an alone man stuck on a vessel in the arctic appreciate something a bit sexier than talk about the weather? Maybe even… a picture? The idea both excited and terrified her, and she locked it away in her mind.

There was an answer in her inbox the very next morning. Alex said they had a really tough day with rough weather, they had problems with the ship because of the cold, and that he was so happy to find her letter when it was all over. He also wrote he looked forward to seeing the house, and that he was very good at fixing things, so maybe she shouldn’t worry too much about it.

It helped make her mind up; she would keep the house for now. She was reluctant to go there, it was so big it made her afraid of darkness when she was there alone, and her mind painted out all sorts of dangers that might be lurking in the basement or up in the attic. She still decided to clean it up the best she could and make it look really pretty. It might be a vain and shallow thought, but maybe, just maybe, he’d like it enough to want to stay.

That night she did write him a new e-mail, not about colleagues and other small talk, but about breasts and sex, and her hand hovered over the “send” button for a long time before she actually pressed it. Taking pictures of herself made her feel extremely silly and self-conscious, and sending it like this seemed dangerous. What if he didn’t like it? What if someone else got it? What if it ended up somewhere it wasn’t supposed to be, and she became either the laughing stock or the new calendar girl for the entire Russian fleet?

Belinda jumped up on the table and nudged her so she accidentally clicked ‘send’. It was too late to change her mind. Her words and images disappeared into cyberspace.

Jenny brooded over the e-mail the entire evening, and over a week passed without a word from her faraway lover. She must have offended him. Maybe he didn’t want photos of a naked American woman, and now he probably thought she was a slut. Or, maybe he found a beautiful Eskimo girl somewhere on the arctic ice and no longer wanted her.

Another part of her worried. Maybe something happened to him. He could be sick, or hurt, or maybe even… The word ‘dead’ must not be allowed to cross her mind. If she didn’t think it, it couldn’t happen. Still, she imagined a naval expedition to the arctic would be dangerous, even in peacetime. The more she tried not to think about him, the worse it got.

By the time six days passed without the smallest life sign, she had scoured the Internet for any news about ships in trouble, and found nothing. She read online newspapers, even Russian ones with the help of translation software. Nothing. The lack of disasters should have comforted her, but she was too deep in self-induced paranoia.

When the phone finally rang, it was in the middle of the night, and she fumbled to answer. Alex didn’t offer an explanation, but he sounded tired. “I’m so sorry I haven’t been able to contact you. It’s been… difficult. I can’t talk long.”

When almost four weeks had gone by since he left America, Jenny got an e-mail saying they were heading back towards port. She read the words, “I will arrive in Boston on Friday,” over and over again, and blinked tears out of her eyes as she answered, “I will meet you at the airport.”

He replied, “I was hoping you would say that.”

Chapter Eight

Jenny drove the long way to Boston in her old Mazda. She was several hours early, but she could sit and wait for time to pass anywhere. It would be terrible if he came all this way and found no one waiting.

Alone in the hotel room, staring at the walls, time crept by slowly. She kept checking her looks in the mirror, telling herself to stop fretting. Her hair wouldn’t get blonder or curlier from looking at it.

The room made her claustrophobic, and she gave up after an hour. She took a shuttle to the arrival gate and sat down to look at the crowds, hoping time would pass faster among people.

Jenny waited, and when time drew near, did her best to look as if she wasn’t waiting. She sat close to the gate, trying to look in all directions at once. It hadn’t been all that long, just a little over a month, but it seemed an eternity. What if it wasn’t the same when they met again? Maybe he’d turn around and go right back home.

After all her waiting and anxious searching for him amongst the crowds that swept by, she still didn’t see him coming. Someone put a bag down next to her, and when she looked up into his warm eyes, the rest of the world ceased to exist. She jumped off the chair to hug him, and he wrapped his arms around her, lifting her off the floor.

Not until he put her down, and she felt the solid floor under her feet, did she realize she hadn’t been walking on clouds. He had been holding her.

“I got a room for us here, but if you’d rather go home we can do that. Home to the house, I mean. My apartment in town kinda sucks. I didn’t know if you’d be up for the drive, and…”

He watched her with a smile playing on his lips and in his eyes, and she fell silent, suddenly embarrassed. Lifting her hand up to kiss it, he said, “I’m sure the hotel will be fine, sweetheart. Lead the way.”

In the room, Alex tossed his coat over a chair and looked out the window. He sounded every bit like a little boy when he said, “I like airports.”