Roots

Roots - Chapter 17

Chapter Seventeen

Cat Out of the Bag

About an hour after Mr. Poloski left us at the hotel to go to his meeting, Mandy, Eric and I decided to check out some of the local shops and get lunch at a local café, which I must say was really good.  I had to remember to thank my mom for teaching me Russian whenever I got back home, because I constantly had to try to translate prices and names of items for Mandy and Eric while we shopped.

Store after store, we had fun trying clothes on, or just laughing at how ridiculous some items were.  Like when we found a souvenir shop that had a USA flag on top of a tiny hamburger which in the middle opened up to be a little jewelry box. In one store we all bought little key chains with our names on it spelled in Russian.  I was having fun, spending time with my friends, not really focusing on the huge decision that was going to need to be made in my near future.  I wasn’t focusing on the fact that tour guide had almost figured out that I was related to the family in the paintings earlier.  No, I was just relaxing, having a great time, and enjoy the therapy of shopping, for once.  I had almost forgotten how fun it was when just Eric, Mandy, and I would hang out, and I almost wish that Rachel was here too. Our friendship was just so easy, and with all the crazy secret drama, I had really missed just having fun and being a teenager.

While Eric had gone in to one of the little cafés to use the bathroom, it gave me some quick but good time to really catch up with Mandy.  We hadn’t really talked since our last shopping trip when she admitted to having a crush on Eric, so I didn’t really know what all was going through her mind about that, or even about coming here to Russia.

“Lisa, really I’m having a blast here.  I actually can’t wait to see if you move here, and that way I can have an easy excuse to come back to visit this amazing city.” Mandy said with a laugh and smile as she unscrewed the top of a brand new and cold Aquafina water bottle and took a few sips before passing it to me.

“Ha, well I doubt that is going to happen.” I said in between drinking some of the water and then passing it back to her.

“So…what did you think about Prince Dreamy last night?  I mean he kept looking at you the entire night, and even when Mr. Poloski told him you were fine, Ros still got up and rushed after you, and on top of that, yall were outside for a while.” Mandy said as she smirked at me, knowing she wanted the details.

“He was looking at me all night? I really didn’t notice, besides nothing really happened last night outside.  I had accidentally responded in Russian to him, and then he was surprised that I could speak it, and that’s when yall came out. Which reminds me, I need to give him back his jacket at some point before we leave.” I said as I thought about Ros’ very nice and expensive dinner jacket hanging in the hotel room closet.  However, the more I thought about his looks, and his nice words to me, the more I focused more on his last name and the fact that Ros and I were related…distant, very distant cousins, but still related, and that itself made me giddy inside, just that fact that I had family.  Back at home, my mom only had one older brother…much older, a good eighteen years older, you could say my mom was an “Oops” child, which always caused me to smile when I thought about it and looked at her. So, I didn’t really have cousins that were my age, and absolutely none that I was close to.

“What do you think about Eric then?” Mandy asked, breaking me of my train of thought down memory lane.