“Certainly,” Baba said, her face lighting.
Alek lifted the top of the doll, removing the torso of a brightly painted character to reveal another doll. I moved toward him as, one by one he pulled the next doll from its hiding place, each smaller than the previous one until he had four of the nesting dolls lined up on the shelf. He turned to look at me before glancing back toward the dolls featured in Tchaikovsky’s famous ballet, The Nutcracker.
“The Nutcracker, Drosselmeyer, the Sugar Plum Fairy, Hans-Peter, or the Mouse-King… but one is missing. The most important one,” he said, turning his gaze back to me.
“I’m afraid little Clara was lost years ago,” Baba said.
Alek looked from me to my babushka, back to the shelf and then to me again. “I think perhaps she decided to come out of her hiding place and grace the world with her presence.”
His words struck a chord within me that had my eyes welling. As a little girl, I’d cried for days when the smallest of the Russian nesting dolls had been lost. For the first time I considered how Alek might be right. I smiled as he bent forward to kiss my forehead and then slipped the dolls back into their hiding places until he settled the top of the Nutcracker back on, making me smile as he carefully aligned it just so in order that the outer doll appeared seamless. Picking up the remote, he turned to hand it to my babushka who was smiling brightly in apparent approval.
“Thank you. Now, go. I’ve got another sexy man to watch.” As if to demonstrate her sincerity, she carefully set her glass down and took the remote from him.
“Do you need help with that?” Alek asked as gnarled fingers curled around it.
“No, my granddaughter got me the fancy one,” my grandmother said, lifting the remote to her mouth. “Alexa, turn on The Movie Channel.”
Alek chuckled and then turned and took my arm. “I think we’ve been dismissed.”
“We have,” I agreed, and we left the house to the sound of the opening strains of Dr. Zhivago.17ClaraA half hour later Alek extended his hand to offer me help out of his car. Once I was standing beside him, he splayed his fingers against my lower back as he led me up a sidewalk. He’d not pulled into the parking lot of some restaurant. Instead, he’d pulled into a driveway.
“Okay, I’ll bite,” I said as I carefully navigated my way up the stone steps that led to a porch.
Stilettos required an entirely different set of muscles than a pair of ballet flats, and a hell of a lot more attention to where you placed your foot. Snapping a pencil-thin heel could do a lot of damage to a dancer’s ankle, but I’d really wanted to play the girly girl tonight.
Once we stood safely on the porch, I turned my attention from my feet to look up at his face. “What? Did you find some private chef to cook for us in her house?”
“Sort of,” he said. “I did hire a chef and, while he did cook us a meal, I’ll be the one serving it in my house.”
“Your house?” I said. While it might be sexist, my eyes swept across the façade where certain touches had me thinking the house belonged to a woman. Brightly colored pots filled with ivy spilling over the edges were arranged in groupings along the porch. A rocking chair sat at the end, angled toward the street as if its occupant enjoyed sitting and watching the world go by.
“Well, it’s mine now,” he said. “I bought it after my mother died.”
I looked back at him and smiled. “That’s sweet.” Another thought had me not smiling quite so wide. “Um, does Yuri live here as well?”
“Hell no,” Alek chuckled. “We might work with each other, but no way are we going to live together. I bought out his half. He owns a loft closer to the theater.”
“That’s a relief,” I said and watched as his eyebrow quirked up, feeling my cheeks heat. “Come on, Alek, I’m not some naïve little girl. You change our professional meeting assuring me that nothing ‘personal’ was going to happen to a ‘date’ and bring me to your house? If that doesn’t mean things are going to get quite ‘personal’ then this dress and these fuck-me shoes are a total waste.”
His laugh was instant and unchecked. It warmed my soul, and the look in his eyes warmed me in a far more personal place.
“God, you’re like no other woman I’ve ever known,” he said as he unlocked the door and pushed it open. “Welcome to my home.”
I walked inside and that was exactly how I felt… welcomed. The interior was light and airy, natural wood tones shone with the patina of age, and scattered rugs assured comfort yet I could so easily imagine them being pushed aside so one could lose oneself in dancing across the room. Colorful pillows provided spots of color. “This is beautiful,” I said, turning to look back at Alek.