Part 80
Sunday evening, Quinn sat across from Zander at the Outback, looking at the pictures he had taken, across the table.
"I thought I of you instantly when I saw my grandmother," he said, pointing to the elderly woman in the pictures, "I remember you asking me if I was part Asian."
"I guess so!"
"I used to see Asian people in Moscow, who were obviously from Siberia, or way to the east, tourists there to see their capital. My grandmother said her father came from another city to the east. To work in the big factories there. Like she did, and my grandfather did, too."
"Oksana never had a picture of her parents?"
"No. Would you have left your country knowing you couldn't come back, without at least a picture?"
"Maybe it would have been suspicious to carry it."
"I hope so! I'd hate to think she's that unsentimental."
"She didn't have any from more recently, when she took Peter there?"
"Maybe. I never thought of asking her for one."
"You thought of going to see them for real, first. That's better. This is all so neat. You really belong to this family, anybody could tell!"
He smiled.
"What's this?" she asked.
"This is the Novo-Tikhvin Nunnery, which has a sacred number of ponds and its own little river. See my little cousin, running by that wall. That is a pond beyond there. And it had more nuns than any other in the Ural mountains, and 8 churches and a hospital. The nurses must have been mostly nuns in the old days. The Russian word for nurse is 'medical sister.'"
"So I'd be saying 'I'm a medical sister?'"
"Yes. Like the tooth doctor. Dad told us he was taking us to the tooth doctor one day, so I said, very funny, what is the word for dentist. He repeated: tooth doctor. That's it!"
"What is a sacred number of ponds?"
"I forget!"
"Shouldn't you remember that?"
"I hardly learned a thing about my religion. See after the Revolution of 1917 the nunnery was deserted. No religion allowed after that. So now you just have these ruins."
"It's gorgeous," she said.
"That is the Cathedral of St. Alexander of the Neva, one of the churches in the nunnery. And the architect, Malakhov, was famous in Yekaterinburg and created many of these buildings. And this is the Church of the Ascension. There must be a hundred churches in Yekaterinburg with these shiny gold domes."
"I like the blue walls. It has the same rounded windows as the other church."
"That might be one of the unique features - See, there is Marina, Vadim's wife - my aunt, standing in front of the church. She got a degree in architecture. She told me about this, and that they this architecture unique to Yekaterinburg."
"This looks like a whole Roman City."
"It is just one house, built for a family, but ended up being a Soviet Institute for something-or-other."
"This is a handsome man," she said, looking at a picture of a man standing on a set of wide terrace.
"That's my uncle, Mikhail, you want to marry him and get him his green card?"
"Now there's a good reason to get married," Quinn declared.
Sunday evening, Paul went to Elizabeth's studio to pose for her to finish things up.
"Now I can do the finishing touches," she said. "You're off the hook."
He was afraid there was no way to see her again.
"Maybe I can see it when you're finished with it?"
"Of course."
As he was leaving, he came up with an idea. "Hey, would you help me pick out paint for the house? You're pretty good with colors."
"Sure. It's the least I could do, after you posed all that time for me."
"Oh, I don't mean it like that. I didn't mind it at all."
"Then I won't mind looking for paint, either."
She went to the door with him, and opened it slowly. He tried leaving, but instead closed the door and very suddenly kissed her. Her arms went around his waist as she kissed him back passionately. He felt like he was going wild, and finally got a hold of himself, but turned and kissed her again. When he finally recovered from that, he opened the door and left.
Laura Spencer was talking to her sister-in-law Bobbie, at the counter at Kelly's. Bobbie and Laura's husband owned Kelly's, and so the two could sit and drink as much coffee as they wanted.
Laura had been talking of her partner, Carly, or, actually, Sonny, Corinthos. Carly's arrest had created bad publicity, though it had not lessened Carly's hours or her contribution, since she had not done much to start with. She was ready to take the credit for being a big shot executive so long as she didn't have to do any actual work.
"Now he's withdrawing all of the investment. I don't even know if that's legal. Everything is running well, but it will crash if I don't replace him. Even if I sued him and won, I couldn't keep the business running at present. The bank won't give me another dime. They already own my house and my husband's bar.
"Maybe your son would help?" Bobbie suggested.
Laura sighed. It was a thought, but she hated it.
She saw her son's aunt coming in. "Alexis," she said, when Alexis came up to the counter. "What do you think about this?" She described the problem. Bobbie poured Alexis a cup of coffee. "On the house," she said.
"Well, I think he's a rat. I suppose you got a written contract that's not worth the paper it's on? He can't take money out of a corporation on his whim."
"To hear him talk, you would think he could. The board of directors is just him and me. Or just her and me." Laura rolled her eyes. "She has 51. She never shut up about how that means we do what she wants."
"That's what they say, but it isn't that simple. They have fiduciary duties to the corporation. But that doesn't help much with day to day operations. Having to go to court is not an easy thing, or a cheap thing. Do you think he will carry through on these threats?"
"I think so. Even if he doesn't, I know he'll keep it up and do it again in the future. We have no stability."
"Wait, I have an idea," Alexis said.
"An idea?" Bobbie said, encouragingly.
"An investor. A potential investor. Someone I know. Would you want to meet this person?"
"Yes," Laura said, cautiously. "If you think there is a chance it will work out. As soon as possible."
"OK. I'll call you." Bobbie handed Alexis the cup of coffee with great enthusiasm, as Alexis turned to leave.
