Anatoly Medlov (33 page)

Renee had been one her favorite grandchildren. After her mother and Army father divorced early in her childhood, Renee was dropped off with Big Momma, and she stayed there until she graduated from Clarke Atlanta University and moved to Memphis. The rest was history.

***

It was the middle of the week, and Renee had one day off. She was using it to help weed Big Momma’s garden for her, since she had been ailing from gout all morning. Out in the petunia patch, she worked in a pair of sweat pants and an old Clark Atlanta t-shirt with her I-pod buds planted deep in her ears. She just wanted to drown the rest of the world out. Every morning since she’d arrived, she’d cried. And every evening, since she’d arrived, she’d spent waiting. Anatoly never called and he never came for her. And something in her wouldn’t let her call him.

If she knew anything about Anatoly, she knew that he thought that he was God’s gift to women. He didn’t respond well to constant affection or attention. It worked in spurts, when he was low, he would need a pick-me-up, and when he was too high, he needed someone to ground him. Other than that, the boy stayed somewhere in the middle all of the time. It had worked for them, however. Their strange relationship allowed her to go about her busy schedule with the shop and him to travel around the world, and they still have someone to come home to at the end of the day. Because from what she had seen, no one else cared for her schedule or her passion for clothes.

Renee knew that she had run the store better than Royal – better than anyone. And Anatoly knew it too, which was why he had begged her to stay.

The thought made Renee nearly cry again. She hadn’t stayed.

Shaking her head, she dug her hoe down into the earth and tried to block more images of the man she’d run away from out of her mind.
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On the porch, just a few feet from her, her cousins Angie and Rita sat talking to each other and watching all the cars as they went past. Many of them blew their horn, especially the men, because everyone knew Angie and Rita. They were the black sheep of the grandchildren or sisters-in-trouble as Big Momma called them.

Out of 12 grandchildren, Rita and Angie were the only ones who hadn’t gone to college and had barely finished high school. They had seven children between the two of them and not one stable father. Of course, they hated Renee, because she was Big Momma’s baby and had so many good things going for herself. So, they were thoroughly enjoying her serious depression.

“Girl, why don’t you get up out them weeds before you get funky,” Rita said, picking her teeth and leaning off the elevated porch.

Renee could hear her even though her ear buds were in, but chose to act as if she could not. She kept her eyes on the garden.

“She can’t hear you,” Angie said, rolling her eyes. “Oh...look. This is the hairstyle I told you I wanted you to do for me.”

Rita sauntered over to the bench that Angie was sitting on and took the hair magazine. Smacking her lips, she hit the page. “Girl, you can’t do that with your hair. That’s for somebody who got
good hair
.”

“There is no such thing as good hair,” Renee said, looking up from her work. “It’s all designed to keep you ignorant.”

“I told you her stuck up ass could hear us,” Rita said, rolling her eyes.

“Who is she calling ignorant?” Angie asked, standing up.

“I don’t mean you,
necessarily
,” Renee said shaking her head. “I mean...us...black women. If you want to get a perm – fine. Go for it. But do it because you want to do it and not because society tells you that it makes you more attractive. You’re already beautiful.”

“This bitch thinks she’s Erykah Badu or something,” Rita said, rolling her eyes.

They quickly turned to ignore Renee, who simply went back working, and this time turned up her I-pod where she couldn’t hear them at all.

***

Anatoly had been to Atlanta on a couple of occasions, but he had flown in and out – never driven. As he pulled down the street that Renee’s grandmother supposedly lived on, the hoards of people on the corners and on the various porches looked on curiously. He could see from the car, their many points, waves and stares.

Stopping at the corner, he rolled down his window and stuck his head out. Getting the attention of one of the guys talking by the stop sign, Anatoly waved him over.

“What you looking for, homey?” the man asked, hitting the tip of his nose with the knuckle of his index finger.

Anatoly took the sticky note off the dashboard and passed it to him.

“I’m looking for that place,” Anatoly said in his thick Russian accent without a smile. He pulled his Aviator shades off and looked the man in the eye. “Can you help me?”

The man first surveyed the car, then Anatoly and the Glock in his passenger seat. Finally, he turned and pointed in the opposite direction. “You see that white house right there?”

Anatoly lifted his head. “
Da
,” he said slowly.

“That’s Big Momma’s house. That’s the address you’re looking for.”

“Does Renee live there?”

The man laughed. “Yeah, I think she just moved back.”

Anatoly slipped on his shades and smiled. “Thanks...
homey
,” he said, mockingly.

Angie and Rita spotted the Bentley before it could turn down the street. Standing up, they hit each other and made their way down the steps.

“Who in the hell is that white boy?” Rita asked, pulling down her shirt. “Damn, he’s is so fine.”

“Girl, I got dibs on this one,” Angie said, patting her hair. “Oh...look. He’s stopping right here, girl.”

“Do you think he’s one of those mission dudes that Big Momma be working with?” Rita whispered.

“I don’t know. She be working with some really rich people, but he don’t look like no saint,” Angie said smiling.

Anatoly parked right in front of the house and looked at the sticky note again. This was right place. Turning the car off, he stepped out and made his way up to the fence where he saw two women on the steps of the porch and one burrowed down working in the garden. It didn’t even take a second glance for him to know who that was.

As he walked up the narrow concrete walk-way that led to the steps of the house, he pointed towards Renee.

“Does she have those ear buds in?” he asked the women as he touched his own ears.

Rita was dumbfounded. Laughing and looking at Angie, she nodded her head. “Yeah, she’s got’em on.”

“Oh, I don’t believe this shit,” Angie said, shaking her head.

Anatoly walked up behind Renee as she worked. The music was up so loud until she could not hear anything going on ar her. He knelt behind her, right on her back and watched her.

She felt his body heat and turned around. Surprised, she fell over into the dirt and on top of the flowers.

Anatoly laughed. He was so happy to see her, so happy to smell her again. She had on the perfume that he had bought her in Israel and the gold hoop earrings he had bought her in Istanbul. But it warmed his heart even more to know that she wasn’t off with another man. She was here waiting on him.

“Ana, what are you doing here?” she asked, taking off her IPod. She looked around for Vasily and realized that he was alone.

“Chasing you, I guess,” he said softly, helping her up.

They stood up, only inches away from each other. Renee looked away and wiped the dirt off her clothes, embarrassed that he had seen her looking so homely. But Anatoly quickly grabbed her chin and pulled her to him.

“Do you think I drove all the way down here to watch you wipe yourself,” he asked.

Renee couldn’t talk. With a grin, she wrapped her dirty arms around his white t-shirt and kissed his lips slowly. He met her with the same enthusiasm, taking her mouth hungrily, he wrapped his strong arms around her, exposing his many tattoos as he tightly held her.

“I missed you,” he whispered on her lips with his eyes still closed, still savoring her taste.

“I missed you,” she answered, kissing him again.

“Ain’t this a bitch,” Rita commented. “I’m gon’ quit worrying about my hair and start doing yard work.”

Angie laughed. “Shit, me too.” She screamed out to Renee. “Hey, girl. Can I borrow your hoe?”

***

By dusk, everyone was at Big Momma’s house for dinner. Renee’s two uncles, who also lived with their mother, along with a host of cousins and aunts gathered in the backyard for a fish fry.

Anatoly had never seen so many family members in one place who were all happy to see each other or cordial to one another.

Big Momma had insisted that he stay the night in the guest bedroom, which was a box of a room down the hall from Renee painted in sea blue with a picture of a black Jesus above the bed. He agreed happily, interested to see what type of home Renee had come from. In truth, he envied her. He had never had a grandmother, especially one as grand as Big Momma. And while the family was poor in finances, they were richly rooted in love.

Anatoly sat by Renee in the lawn chairs out on the patio, talking and eating spaghetti, slaw and catfish while the men interrogated him, and the women swooned after him.

“So you own a clothing st?” Uncle Leman asked, cleaning his teeth with a toothpick after dinner.

Uncle Leman was a factory worker with an honest gambling habit. He was living with Big Momma to get up on his feet after a nasty divorce from his wife of twenty years. Still, he was grounded. He had spent four years in the military and had come back to Atlanta to open a barber shop, but things hadn’t panned out for him after he developed an appreciation for game of craps. Still he was crazy about Renee and didn’t necessarily like the element that she was around. He knew trouble when he saw it, and Anatoly Medlov was big trouble.

“
Da
, I own a clothing store among other things.” Anatoly answered, trying to get comfortable in the chair.

“And you make enough to drive a Bentley?” Renee’s other uncle asked. “You know, I used to know a pimp who had a Bentley.”

“A pimp?” Anatoly raised his brow. “I am no pimp.”

“Good,” Uncle Leman said, opening his beer. “Cuz if you were
a pimp
, we were gonna have to kick your ass.”

“Uncle Lee!” Renee gasped. “This is my friend.”

“Boyfriend,” Anatoly corrected.

Renee looked back at Anatoly and smiled. “My boyfriend. And he’s no pimp. Now let it go.”

“No, he’s right. If I were him, I’d be concerned also,” Anatoly said, touching her hand. “I’m a business man.” He looked back at Uncle Leman.

“I Googled you on my new cell phone my daughter bought me, and it says here that you’re a mobster,” Uncle Leman said, raising his phone. “Is that true?”

Anatoly smirked. “You can’t believe everything you read on Internet.”

“I’m sure that there are things that are not on the Internet, Uncle Lee, that you wouldn’t want people digging up about you. Now, let it go,” Renee said, rolling her eyes.

Rita and Angie sat across from them, watching and whispering to one another. When Anatoly glanced their way, they waved. He waved back and raised his brow at Renee. “Your cousins are very colorful.”

“Careful, you look at them too long, you’ll get them pregnant,” she said under breath.

Anatoly laughed. “You have a beautiful family.” He moved her hair out of her face. “But I want you to come home.”

Renee put down her plate. “You wanna take a walk?” she asked, standing up.

“Sure,” Anatoly said, putting away his food.

They headed through the ence together, hand-in-hand. The street lights had come on and people walked up and down the sidewalks as they talked quietly.

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” Renee said, biting her lip. “And I have to have something of my own, Ana. I know that you don’t understand, but the morning that I woke up in your bed, I realized that you were starting to be my everything. That frightened me, because I knew that it wouldn’t be reciprocated. So, I left.”

Anatoly looked down at her as she talked.
Her everything?
The words were only recently familiar to him, but he shared her sentiment. Suddenly, he knew that he had heard what he needed to hear.

“I have something for you,” he said, reaching into his back pocket.

“Ana, I don’t want any more gifts,” she said protesting.

“It’s not gift. Well, not really.” He stopped walking and turned to her. Under the streetlight, he passed her a document.

Renee took the paper and unfolded it. As she read it, tears formed in the corner of her brown eyes and rolled down her hot cheeks. She looked up at him and sighed. “Is this for real, Ana?”

Anatoly shook his head. “I wanted to give you reason to stay in Memphis. Plus, it’s yours. You...you’ve done well with it.”

“What did Dmitry say?”

“He told me to sell it almost a year ago. I was just holding on to it, because you were there.” He wiped her face. “But I have one
little
request.”