Gone in a Cloud of Smoke

Chapter 3

My mother was yelling something in her native tongue that caused my eyes to open the following morning. Rolling over, I cursed at the time on the clock and fell out of bed. It was seven AM, thirty minutes before classes were to begin.

Falling down on the chilled floors, I was tangled in the sheets, wrestling my way back to my feet. Sliding my wooden closet door open, I took hold of a pair of straight leg jeans that were faded and a white polo with a grey collar. I tossed the clothes on the unmade bed and slipped my white tank top over my head.

“Andrei, hurry up!” My father unlatched the door and stepped in, freezing in place when he looked at me. My heart stopped as my eyes wandered to the tattoo on my left arm.

“I paid for it,” I said in quick Russian, holding a hand up. “You said that I could.”

“I did,” he replied in the same tongue, the wrinkles on his forehead rising into his grey hairline as he stepped out. “It looks nice,” he said before closing the door.

Sighing, I ran into the bathroom across the hall and brushed my teeth as fast as possible. My fingers were used to fix my hair, and I grabbed my school book bag before running out the door. Standing in the hallway, I cursed to myself again and went back inside to find my mother holding my sneakers.

“Thank you,” I told her as she kissed my cheek. I was then able to race out the door and run to school.

~~~

“You’re late, Mr. Novikov,” Mrs. King, my History teacher, scolded as I trudged into her classroom thirty seconds past the bell.

“I know.”

“Take your seat.”

Huffing and trying to gain my breath back from running twenty blocks, I collapsed in my desk in the middle of the room. As buried my face in my hands for a split second before something appeared from between my fingers.

“You can sit next to Andrei over there.”

Lifting my head fast enough to crack my neck, I noticed a familiar girl with long brown hair and beautiful, brown eyes making her way over to the desk at my right. She wore a tight, yellow t-shirt and denim skinny jeans with rips in the knees. Chills ran down my spine and my breath caught in the throat as she sat down and smiled at me.

“We meet again,” Nae chuckled softly, taking a notebook from a green shoulder bag.

“Hi,” I greeted her back with a smile. “Vat are you doing in this class?”

“I’m the only person in my first class,” she said in a hushed tone. “Literally. All the seniors left on Friday, and I took this class last year with Mrs. King, so my teacher sent me here.”

“Vat class?”

“AP Studio Vocals,” she said, swirling her pen on the notebook paper as she spoke. “I’m a singer, by the way. That’s where I was coming from last night. I was auditioning for a gig.”

I viewed the board with the left eye and kept the right one on Nae, staring at the way her glossed lips formed a smile. “You are probably a very good singer.”

She shrugged and gave a weak smile. “I try.”

“Did you pass the audition?”

“They haven’t told me yet.”

“You vill, I know it.”

“Andrei!” Mrs. King barked at me from the front of the room. She had a black marker in her hand, standing in front of the words “Cold War” that she had written.

You must be kidding me.

“Yes?” I sighed.

“Since you’re so talkative, tell me when the Soviet Union collapsed?”

I could feel my eyes roll at the question. “1991.”

Two students about a year behind me snickered from the back of the room.

“Sure, ask the Commie!” one of them said, slipping his greasy, black hair back.

I bit down on my bottom lip out of frustration. “That vas also ven Communism fell,” I retorted but did not look at the boys.

“You would know,” the other boy chuckled.

“Boys-” Mrs. King was cut off when Nae turned in her seat and shot daggers at the boys.

“He would know because he’s obviously a better student than the both of you,” she said through her porcelain teeth. I then turned to face them also and shot them a comment in Russian, knowing they would not know what it meant.

“That’s enough, all of you!” Mrs. King shouted over the argument before she went back to the board.

Nae tapped my arm. “What did you tell them?” she whispered.

“To kiss my ass,” I told her with a smile of triumph forming in the corner of my mouth.

Nae buried her face in her hands to keep from laughing.

~~~

“So you are in my class for the last two veeks of school?”

“Do you have a problem with that?”

“Not at all,” I laughed as we left the classroom after the ending bell. “It must be nice to not have to do anything in class since you already took it.”

She shrugged her shoulders as we turned to corner in route to the Junior lockers. “It is now that I have someone to talk to.”

My laugh was interrupted by a yawn. “Sorry,” I apologized with a hand to my mouth.

Nae frowned. “Staying out late didn’t treat you well, huh?”

“You can tell?”

“That and I saw you running down the hall when I was in my other class,” she teased. “Someone woke up late.”

I shrugged. “Maybe.”

~~~

Nae left me as I stepped up to my locker, and I could not help but stare after her. I stared at the way her hips moved the rest of her slender body, the little wave I got when she said goodbye. Leaning against my locker door, I watched her turn the corner and disappear.

“Hey!”

I jumped when Vincent’s hands landed on my shoulders from behind. “Damn!” I cursed, in English for once, as I turned around. “Thank you for the scare.”

“You’re welcome,” he said in a cheery way, coming around to face me. “Who was the chick?”

“Hmm?”

“The girl you were walking with?”

I reached down to grab a calculus book from the bottom shelf. “Oh, that was Nae. I met her last night.”

My friend’s eyes lit up as he slapped my shoulder that was still red from the needle. “So you did stay out late last night!”

I shook my head. “No, no. I met her at the map and we talked, but that was it.”

“Well, she’s cute,” Vincent spoke what was true. “You get with her and I’ll be impressed.”

My eyes rolled. “I am not you, Vinny.”

“True,” he snorted. “You’re a virgin.”

“And you are not.” The boy had slept with more girls than I was able to count, and he had never had a serious relationship. I had only dated a few girls, and I was fine with that.

“Whatever,” he said as I closed the locker. “But I think she has a thing for you.”

“Shut up.”

As we walked off, for once I hoped that he was correct.

~~~