That evening Laraine asked Cheryl if she wanted to go to the bookstore with her.

"Sure," Cheryl said. "I take it that you're not going to ask your mom to find a book on elementary Russian for you?"

"Never," Laraine said. "I can't think of any explanation for wanting it other than the real one. And Mom will start asking right away if he's a Christian. And worrying that he's not."

"You're going to have that with anyone, unless you date a fundamentalist," Cheryl observed.

"I know it," Laraine said.

"Doesn't she care if you're in love or not?"

"I think she includes that," Laraine said. "In fact, she loves my Dad and my Dad is definitely not a Christian in her book. So she believes it is OK to be in love with a non-Christian. But she prays he will be saved."

"So, it would follow, you need to pray Mikhail will be saved, but can you see him in the meantime?"

Laraine laughed. "I'm not sure. Mom has the history with Dad. She wants better for me, I bet. Which means the man is a Christian from the get-go."

"How is it going with the preacher?" Cheryl smiled.

"I haven't heard from him," Laraine said, grinning. "I think he must date different women all the time – he would be the envy of men generally except that he can't - "

"Get laid," Cheryl said, and Laraine laughed.

"I wonder," Laraine said, as they looked at the books in the foreign language section. "To be consistent, Mom should say Mikhail is like Dad, that is, not a Christian, but a girl can be in love with him and wait for him to see the light. Pray for it, as she does for Dad."

"There's the communist state," Cheryl said. "It's not so much a choice Mikhail made as just conditioning."

"Since the fall he had the chance to go all religious," Laraine said. "I found an article about that. There are a lot of people really fervid about religion over there. The reaction of sudden freedom, you know."

"Anything suppressed with eventually spill out."

"Like that. It's mostly their historic religion, though. Not Mom's brand. Mom's type has missionaries over there, as if it were a generally godless country."

"You know it's sweet, you trying to learn about him that way," Cheryl said. "Searching in other places for what you can't get from him, about what it is like in that country, that he might not be able to tell you."

"It's general stuff. I don't know what he thought of it. I can only see that he didn't fall into the religious fervor."

"And you like that."

"With mom around, I have enough religious fervor."

"Sounds like it," Cheryl agreed.

Sean Monroe could not believe his good luck.

"Skye!" he said, at the door of the office in the London Underground. "Do you have a camera?"

"I have a digital in my car," Skye said. "Why?"

"I want to get a picture of this chick dancing," Sean said.

Skye looked at him as if he must be kidding.

"I swear, its Edwards' client," Sean went on, obviously excited. "The plaintiff in the Warren case. She claims she can hardly move."

"Oh, I see," Skye said. She got up. "I'll go out and get the camera."

When she came back in with the camera, Sean wasn't sure how to use it. "Want me to do it for you?" she asked.

"Would you? You're the greatest, Skye."

"Do you need movie film?"

"That can take a movie?"

"Not a real long one, but it can take moving pictures."

"Wonderful. She's the one in the pink top."

"Blonde hair?"

"Yeah, that one."

Skye took some pictures of the woman as she danced. Skye was far enough away for the woman not to notice her, but Skye kept an eye out and pointed the camera elsewhere if she thought the woman might see her. Other times, Skye boldly moved in a little closer. The woman was dancing away, having a great time.

"Serendipity," Sean said, when they were back in the office. "Perfect sub rosa evidence."

"Glad to help," Skye said.

"You're great," he squeezed her. She put the pictures onto the computer and emailed them to Sean. He marveled at her brilliance and use of technology until she asked him to please shut up.

"Now I bet I can get the insurance company to put out for a sub rosa investigation," Sean said. "It'll be worth following her around to see what else she does that she allegedly can't do."

When Laraine got home, she was pleased to see an email from Mikhail. He asked her to come down to the bar for a little while. He was at work. Then, he answered her question about taxes in the communist USSR, having asked his parents about it. Laraine had forgotten the question and thought it very sweet of him to remember it and to answer it. It must have been a strain on his English.

Ned Ashton and Allison Hancock were playing as Laraine went into the London Underground. The harmony was pretty, Laraine thought, and Allison's voice complimented Ned's nicely.

Laraine sat at the bar, near the end and just smiled as Mikhail just brought her a glass of white wine, without asking her. It was tangy and different.

"Georgian wine," he said.

"From the state of Georgia?"

"The country of Georgia."

Laraine was amused, letting him have control of the minor issue of what she drank. "So they withheld all the taxes under communism," she said. "Just directly, and nobody had to file a return. Then all of a sudden, the country changes and the people have to pay on their own, and they actually do it. I am impressed. You wouldn't have that here."

"Too many who wouldn't pay," he said. "As you said."

"And in fact the government has to take too much so it makes it look like they're getting some back," Laraine said. "The psychology is very brilliant. People feel as if they don't pay taxes, and feel like the government just gives them money, even though it's not so."

"The taxes a lot higher," he said.

Someone called him to make a drink. She watched him work, admiring how deft he had become at handling the bottles, hoses, ingredients and glasses.

A woman was holding forth. Everyone seemed interested in what she had to say. Laraine realized soon that it was the famous international reporter, Jackie Templeton. She had been all around the world and had plenty to tell, and was clearly used to being considered the most interesting person around.

"You think the twin towers came down the way the government says they did?" A tall guy in a suit and tie asked Jackie Templeton. "Or was it a controlled demolition?"

"Sean!" Skye Quartermaine exclaimed. "How can you even think such things? Let alone say them out loud."

Jackie Templeton was unfazed. "People outside the US wonder about this a lot," she said.

"You're an engineer, Mick," said Sean. "Do you think that jet fuel fire can bring down a building with steel supports? When the burning temperature of jet fuel is considerably lower than the melting point of steel?"

"No," Mikhail said, pumping soda into a glass and then picking up one of the liquor bottles and adding that to the drink. Laraine perked up. Now that was interesting. And he had been outside the US, too. "Burned ruins with steel - still standing," he said. "Burn out, with steel sticking up. There is some thing I do not know, or do not understand."

"Where are you from?" Jackie asked him.

"Russia," he told her. He put the drink at the end of the bar and poured a glass of wine and put that next to it.

"I dated a Russian once," Jackie said as he did this. "When I was in St. Petersburg, covering the Olympics. What a sexist he was! I practically had to brain him with my copy of The Feminine Mystique!"

"Anti-communist reaction," Sean said. "All that equality stuff under communism."

"Yes," Mikhail said. "Some people."

"All that equality stuff," Skye said, scornfully. "We are your equals. Women are just as smart and men. Smarter."

"Bravo!" Jackie said, clapping her hands.

"My dad is a reporter, too" Laraine said. "He said the same thing. About Russian men. Don't know where he got it. He's never been there. But Mikhail doesn't seem afflicted with that particular disease."

"No," Mikhail said, and Laraine was surprised he understood her comment to Jackie.

"What's your Dad's name?" Jackie asked her.

"Kent Breyer."

"No way! I went to PCH with him! Back in the day! How is he? Who does he work for?"

Laraine told her. Jackie gave her a business card and told Laraine to have her father call her.

"Sure, I'll give it to him," Laraine said.

About twenty minutes later, Mikhail came over to her with another glass of the same wine.

"Thank you," she said. "I'll need coffee next, though."

"No problem. If you stay," he grinned.

Laraine said she'd stay and close the bar down. He smiled at that.

A few minutes later, Tatiana came down. Laraine noticed Mikhail poured her a drink without asking her what she wanted, too. Maybe he just knew what Tatiana wanted.

Glen went up to Ned and Allison at a break between sets. He complimented them both and hugged Allison.

Ned wandered up to the bar, leaving Allison and Glen space to talk.

"Well, Mikhail," said Ned. "Let me have a beer." He was in a good mood. He saw Tatiana sitting next to him. "And another one for the lady."

"Thank you," said Tatiana.

"Careful," Mikhail said to Ned.

"My ex-husband," Tatiana said, indicating Mikhail to Ned.

"Oh, no wonder," Ned said. "Thanks for the heads up, buddy. I have one of those, too."

"She think you not so great," Tatiana said to Ned.

Ned laughed and toasted her with his beer. "Here's to divorce," he said, touching Tatiana's glass, or trying to. She scowled at him, but said, "Divorce."

Laraine took a sip of the Georgian wine. Mikhail went to the end of the bar to get an order from Taryn.

"So did you guys get divorced in Russia?" Ned asked Tatiana. "Or here?"

"Russia," Tatiana said. "Reason I not have green card."

"Oh, if you were still married you would have it?"

"Exactly."

"Too bad. Do you have kids?"

"Daughter, eleven years."

"I have a daughter who is eleven, too," Ned said. "She lives with her mother in Brooklyn."

"You see her?"

"As often as possible."

"Brooklyn, where is?"

"New York City."

"Not close to here."

"No, and it's a real pain in the neck."

"Russia much further from here," Tatiana said.

Laraine listened, fascinated.

Ned asked Tatiana where she was from in Russia, and eventually understood that it was very far away, indeed. "That's rough," he said, sympathetically. "And I thought I had it bad."

When it was closing time, Laraine lingered, so Mikhail and she could walk to her car.

"There's no moon tonight," Laraine said, as they went out. "Luna, nyet."

"You sound – like me."

She smiled. "I think there's a potential victim," she giggled.

"A what?"

"Tatiana and Ned, talking. He has an eleven year old daughter who lives in New York City. He gave Tatiana some sympathy. Knows how that is. His daughter is the same age as Irina."

"Oh," he said, understanding. "We see how smart Ned be."

"We will," she laughed.

At her car, she pulled him toward her, her hand on his elbow. He slowly put his arms around her and hugged her. Touched, she held him back.

"Thank you for coming," he said, against her hair.

"I liked it," she said. "I wish I could have you visit me at work, but it's too boring."

"Oksana show me the place," he said. "When I first in U.S. I did not see you."

"When was it? I must have been there."

"Not to me to see, or I remember."

"Me too," she said, cuddling against him. She looked up into his eyes. They were very bright and dark, dazzling, half dangerous, somehow. Still, she felt very comfortable. She drew her hand to the back of his neck as he leaned in slowly and kissed her, like he had before, but a little more insistently. She was acutely aware of his hands on her back and one of them moving up to cradle her head.

They kissed for a little while. Laraine felt like she was seeing stars, and then really did see some up above, as he pulled away a little.

"You," she said, "I will take you on a little trip, around town, Saturday, OK, if you want to. To see where I grew up."

"Yes," he said, smiling into her eyes. Her heart thumped a little. He seemed to feel that, and squeezed her shoulder.

"I will come get you at noon," she said, "Is that too early."

"Nyet," he said, and she giggled. She kissed him again before letting herself into her car. He closed the door and stepped away, staying there until she drove away.