Kent Breyer took his three grown children out to dinner at the Outback one Sunday.
Chad was dating a girl who was a reporter for the Port Charles Gazette. This girl, Mary Ellen Delaney, said Jackie Templeton was coming back into town.
Kent was a reporter for a Buffalo paper. Jackie was a famous international correspondent. They had gone to high school together. Kent was curious to talk to her. He remembered her as friendly. Maybe she wouldn't be too vain about her bigger success.
Toby was as usual; the band had recently had a gig in Buffalo. Kent had not had the chance to go. It frustrated him, but he needed to do his job. The band still played a lot at the relatively new Port Charles Club, the London Underground.
Laraine had endured an IRS audit at work. Kent smiled. "You've been through the worst early," he said.
"My boss' son was telling me how it gets less intimidating. At least, that's his observation of his parents. He has no experience with it himself."
"How do you come to talk to her son? Does he work at Deception, too?"
"No, the bartender at the London Underground is her boss' brother," Chad said. "And she went over to the house to talk to him."
"No, Oksana called me over the house to bring her some figures and I ran into him and her son."
"Wait, I'm still trying to connect the dots here," Kent said, starting to laugh.
"It's crazy, Dad," Laraine said. "A guy who hardly spoke English came to make a delivery at Deception and I was telling my friends how that might make for a good relationship because you can't get into things too much. You know, over-talk things."
"This sounds good," Kent grinned.
"Then out of the blue I went to get a drink for myself and my date the preacher," Laraine said.
"Mom's idea," said Chad.
"Of course," Kent said.
"I ordered lemonade for the preacher, and it turned out, that confused the bartender. Because he was a recent immigrant who doesn't have a complete grasp of the English language."
"But he wants to learn," Chad put in, thinking of his father's somewhat conservative tendencies. "He is dead set on learning. Then Laraine and I were in the park, and it turned out Oksana was in the park with her brother, too, and that happens to be this same bartender."
"Somehow Oksana got his immigration papers for him from Russia," Laraine said. "She is an immigrant too. But from many years ago. It takes years to get your brother over. It's not as instantaneous as people make it seem."
"Russian men are really sexist," Kent said. "You'd hate that, Laraine."
"I don't see any symptoms of that," Laraine said. Her father thought he knew everything. He must have heard that from some woman journalist who'd had an affair abroad, or something. They were all hardened and cynical. "But that's because I can't talk to him that well. I think that was my original idea. A stupid joke, I know. If he's sexist, he can't order me around. I just pretend not to understand him."
Her father and brothers had a good laugh over that one.
"Don't mess with his head, Laraine," Toby said, suddenly contributing to the conversation. "He's a good guy. He doesn't deserve you messing with him."
"Now Toby," Chad said. "It's not like that."
Laraine felt sad in an instant. "I think this is not about Mikhail, but about Toby, Chad," she said.
"Oh, Taryn messing with his head," Chad said, understanding.
"He's not a sexist," said Toby, as if he hadn't heard them. "He has a daughter."
"Divorced," Chad added in. Laraine could have hugged Chad for helping her so much in this conversation. It was as if he anticipated their father's next question and got the answer out of the way as quickly as possible.
"And he does everything he does for that daughter," Toby went on. "He could still be an engineer in Russia. He had a good job there. But his sister talked him into coming, because of the opportunities for the daughter."
"She's eleven," Laraine added, to Kent. "How do you know all this, Toby?" she asked. "You have the same language issues I do."
"He just doesn't turn into a zombie the minute Mikhail looks at him," Chad teased her. "So he gets more out of the conversation."
"I just pick it up, over time," Toby said. "From him or from other people. Sometimes his nephew is there, or his nephew's wife, or his sister and new brother-in-law, or Sergei says something – Sergei can be an interpreter. At first Clay or Skye called Sergei in now and then to get something through to Mikhail."
"Sounds like a decent guy, on paper," Kent said. "Just how bad is his English?"
"It's just not completely fluent," Chad said. "He can hold a conversation."
"I won't mess with his head, Toby," Laraine said. "If you like him so much, I swear, I won't. I thought it was OK, because he is so good looking – usually that means a guy has a lot of experience with women, and that means he's in control."
"Maybe," Toby said. "He doesn't seem to have the upper hand with Tatiana."
"Tatiana?" Kent almost laughed.
"I know I shouldn't pry on this, but I'm dead curious," Laraine said. "Is he really over this Tatiana person?"
"I think so," Chad said. "He's got to be."
"I don't think he's still crazy about her," Toby said. "She's just there a lot, and when you hear them talking in Russian, she just seems to cut him off or mock what he's saying."
"Interesting," Kent said. "You don't understand what they're saying, so maybe that means you can get more of the feeling behind it."
"Tatiana's going to have to go anyway," Laraine said, waving her hand as if to dismiss Tatiana as already deported. "Zander told me her visa runs out in September."
"One way to void the competition," Kent teased her. "But what does your mother think of this?"
"She doesn't know. She just wants me to date Pastor Quackenbush."
"Good God," said Kent.
"Praise the Lord," said Chad. "Mom is praying for Laraine and Pastor Quackenbush, but God never answers her prayers and just puts this Russian in Laraine's path."
"Yeah, if God is in on this," Laraine joked. "He favors Mikhail."
"A handsome man?" Kent said. "I can tell you what your mother thinks. That it is the devil's temptation."
"What could be clearer?" Chad said. "The light – the man of God, the Pastor – versus the Dark, Russian, godless communist."
"Exactly," Laraine said. "But fodder for conversion, too, don't you think? It's got to be easier when it's someone with no religion than with someone who is devoted to another religion."
They laughed again, bonded over their common problem.
"Mom was telling me the other day about this girl younger than I am who is a nurse, who is married," Laraine said. "That girl's mother was telling Mom about her at the library."
"Implying that you were remiss in not being married yet," Kent said.
"You got it," Laraine said. "Why doesn't she bother Chad?"
"Sexism," Kent said. "Those fundamentalists always are. And the women are worse than the men."
"So you're not a sexist, Dad," Chad said. "Why is that? You're pretty conservative on other stuff."
"I have a daughter," Kent said.
"Thanks, Dad," Laraine said. "So I guess you're going to give Mikhail some space on that? Being as he has a daughter and all that, too."
Kent laughed. "Sure, 'Raine," he said. "I'll give him a total pass. And you'll need that from me should it come to it."
"I know, Dad," Laraine said. They all knew her mother was going to blow a gasket, in her own way, should it come to it. She wouldn't yell or argue. She would just patiently explain the will of God.