Page 20 of One For my Enemy

“Always so rude in the mornings,” she said, and shut the door behind her, leaving Sasha to look back down at her texts.

SASHA:37$&%^*802y

LEV:are you by chance having a stroke?

LEV:or have I already reduced you to incoherence

SASHA:I dropped my phone. and you’re awfully cocky aren’t you

LEV:I could be, if that’s what you like

LEV:or I could be an intellectual, or at least try to be

LEV:what do you think is more vast, the universe or time?

Sasha sighed.

SASHA:stop

LEV:stop what? which part

LEV:be specific

SASHA:all of it. most of it

LEV:you and I need to have a talk about words. specifically specificity

“Sasha,” her sister Liliya interrupted sleepily, sticking her face between the door and the frame. “Do you have my red sweater?”

“No,” Sasha sighed, exasperated. “Galya just asked me for it.”

“Right, she’s looking for it,” Liliya confirmed, stifling a yawn. “So, do you have it?”

“I—no,” Sasha groaned. “I don’t!”

“Well then who does?”

“Liliya,I don’t know—”

“Who are you texting?” Liliya asked, suddenly awake enough to slip inside the room and look at Sasha’s screen before earning herself a well-deserved shove. “Is it a boy? Are you texting a boy?”

“What boy?” Sasha heard from the hallway, just before Galina poked her head in. “I didn’t know you had a boyfriend, Sashenka.”

“I don’t,” Sasha insisted, glaring at both her sisters. “Can you both just go, please?”

“What boy? I heard boy,” announced Irina, appearing in the room as she sipped loudly at her coffee. “Tell me about him.”

“You don’t evenlivehere!” Sasha growled.

“Speaking of boys,” Galina said to Irina, “have you broken up with that… what was his name?”

“Vanilla,” Liliya supplied dreamily, and then frowned, noticing Irina’s outfit. “Is that my red sweater?”

“No, it’s Sasha’s,” Irina said. “And he’s not vanilla. He’s just… he’s, you know. From Connecticut.”

“Ugh,” said Galina and Liliya in unison, making twin faces of disdain as Sasha let out a loud groan.

“Can you all getout,please? And Irka, that’s not my sweater, it’s Liliya’s,” she said. “Give it back to her so she can give it to Galya so they can both leave me alone.”

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