The Troika Dolls - Miranda Darling [62]
Shifting her weight from foot to foot, Stevie tried to harvest patience from the most barren of fields.
The same conversation was waiting for her.
‘Gavaritye.
’ ‘Gorchichniki.’ The pharmacist stared at her with deep suspicion.
Stevie scowled back, refusing to smile. The woman pointed to the third window. Stevie could see the packet, a yellow-and-red box, just within the pharmacist’s reach. This was too much. Quite aside from the time it had taken her so far, and the sheer perversity of the pharmacists and their system, Stevie had her dignity. A stand had to be taken.
Stevie assumed the expression of a brick.
‘Gorchichniki.’
The pharmacist pointed. Stevie repeated her request. A psy-ops guy had told her once that asking the same question over and over again was the quickest way to getting what you wanted. Stevie betrayed no impatience, no anger, only her brick face. She prepared her final assault on the pharmacist’s obstinacy.
‘Gorchichniki.’ The pharmacist crumbled and finally reached for the yellow-and-red box. Stevie all but danced away in victory, and walked smack bang into the swinging door.
She felt her tooth slice into her soft bottom lip, knew it would hurt in a millisecond, bleed into her mouth. But there was no question of stopping. The pharmacist could be watching. So she launched herself into the street, hoping the cold would numb everything, including her embarrassment.
Stevie surfaced like a penguin from under the ice and snow. The warmth of the metro car had brought on a throbbing of her damaged lower lip. She was tired and her head was heavy, aching; she would have liked maybe to cry a little. But Masha wouldn’t cry. This was exactly why she, Stevie Duveen, would never be heroic.
Heroes didn’t cry because they walked into a door; heroes struggled against evil, not pharmacists. In the end though, Stevie thought, even if you couldn’t be a hero, you could certainly try to be a part of the solution rather than part of the problem. This, she felt, was perhaps a more manageable expectation, considering her temperament.
Coward.
There was a car park right in front of the station. A black 4WD sat idling, its exhaust pipe steaming, tail-lights turning the snow around it a festive red. The windows were completely tinted, as opaque as the doors. Stevie noticed it from the corner of her vision: the sort of vehicle to stay away from.
She began to scurry, rapid small steps like a cockroach. It was a gait that, in her experience, usually discouraged all approach. There were a few other people about puffing steam; Stevie could see two mil-itzia strolling through the car lot and this time the sight of them was comforting rather than unnerving.
There was nothing to be afraid of, she told herself. It was just a car waiting for a parking spot. But there were plenty of vacant spaces. It was obviously waiting for somebody to come out of the metro station, it was too cold to walk home. But Stevie couldn’t help it. She was nervous, and she had made an inconvenient bargain with herself a long time ago that she would always trust her instincts over reason.
There were no shops to duck into and the metro was now quite far behind her. Stevie scanned the area. About a hundred metres ahead was a large intersection, people, some restaurants, safety. The car park ended with a wall about twenty metres before the intersection. The car would not be able to proceed further, the intersection was the best bet for safety.
Two men walking ahead of her stopped to light cigarettes. One laughed and slapped his friend on the shoulder. Behind her, a babushka built like a bear toddled along carrying heavy shopping bags. Stevie slowed her pace so the old woman could come closer and felt a little safer.
The 4WD started crawling along