The wedding cost 1.2 million hryvnias. A trifle by the standards of her real fortune, but Snezhana kept a tally of every “accidental” card decline, every forgotten wallet, every sigh of regret that cost nothing. She thought it was a temporary inconvenience, that everything would change after the wedding. She didn’t understand that she was being systematically tested, to see how much could be squeezed out of the “poor girl with an inheritance from her grandmother.”
3 months before the wedding, Angelina appeared, Vadim’s best childhood friend, whom he had somehow never mentioned before. A tall blonde in a tight dress, with a loud laugh and a habit of constantly touching Vadim’s arm during conversation, adjusting his collar, brushing invisible dust off his shoulder.
— Remember our trip to Lviv after graduation? — she would ask, barely looking at Snezhana, her attention entirely on Vadim. — That bar on Rynok Square where you sang karaoke, and the waiter brought us champagne for our bravery?
— Linochka, you look stunning! — Larisa Arkadyevna would gush, her eyes shining in a way they never did when she looked at Snezhana. — Snezhana, maybe Lina could take you shopping, pick out something more interesting?
Snezhana felt a pang of jealousy, sharp and unpleasant, but she pushed it away, reassuring herself with the obvious facts. She had a ring on her finger, she had the man. Angelina was a ghost from the past, nothing more.
Snezhana found the apartment on Frantsuzkyi Boulevard herself: a four-room flat in a historic building, with high ceilings, stucco molding, and a view of old chestnut trees, for 10 million hryvnias. She explained to Vadim that she had received an inheritance from her grandmother, and this half-truth allowed her to keep her cards hidden.
— Vadik should handle the purchase himself, — Larisa Arkadyevna immediately interjected, a new, business-like note in her voice. — Run the money through his account, sign all the documents, negotiate with the seller, so he feels like the master, the head of the family, so the neighbors respect him.
— Mom’s right, — Vadim supported. — It’s a matter of my male pride.
Snezhana agreed; she wanted him to feel like a provider, a real man. But she was no fool. Her lawyer, Ulyana Makienko, a woman with 30 years of experience and a reputation as a bulldog in a skirt, drew up the papers so that the ownership belonged entirely and unconditionally to Snezhana. The money passed through Vadim’s account for show, but legally he had no rights to the apartment, not a single square centimeter. Vadim signed the documents without reading the fine print. He only saw the numbers in his account and already considered himself the owner.
And so, the wedding night arrived. Six hours of dancing, toasts to the happy couple, handshakes with people whose names Snezhana didn’t remember and never would. She went up to the room before her husband, still in her wedding dress, its lace scratching the skin under her arms and leaving red marks. A silly idea came to her on its own, born of fatigue and a strange, childish desire to start a new life with something fun: hide under the bed, jump out when Vadim entered, and laugh together at her foolishness.
She crawled under the high hotel bed, clutching the full skirt of her dress, and froze in the darkness, breathing in dust. The lace caught on the carpet fibers, the corset dug into her ribs. 32 years old, owner of a fortune her mother-in-law couldn’t even dream of, and she was hiding under a bed like a teenage girl.
The door opened, but it wasn’t Vadim. A heavy, cloying scent of perfume, the kind Larisa Arkadyevna always wore, wafted into the room, and Snezhana pressed herself against the floor, holding her breath. She heard footsteps, the rustle of fabric, the dull thud of a phone on the bedspread right above her head.
— Hello, Tamara? — her mother-in-law’s voice, on speakerphone. — Everything is going according to plan. The fool suspects nothing.
— What if she’s not as much of a fool as she seems? — asked a female voice from the speaker.
— A country bumpkin, I’m telling you. Reads books on weekends instead of making useful connections, dresses like a student on a scholarship. An arrogant empty shell who thinks she’s caught God by the beard. They’ll live together for a year, a year and a half, long enough for the marriage to look real. Then Vadik will start complaining about her everywhere, we’ll stage some fights, and she’ll run away on her own, she won’t be able to take it. We have the receipt: the money for the apartment went through his account. We’ll take it through the court. Where is a secretary like her going to find money for a good lawyer?
Snezhana covered her mouth with her hand, feeling her fingers go cold, her whole body go numb. The door opened again, letting in new footsteps.
— Vadik, — the mother-in-law’s voice instantly warmed. — How is Lina?
— Her lease is up in six months, the landlord is selling the apartment. What are you going to do? That’s why we need to hurry, Mom. I can’t let her sleep on her sister’s couch forever. Besides… — a pause. — The baby needs a room.
Snezhana pressed her palm to her lips so hard she tasted the salty tang of blood from her bitten cheek. A baby. Angelina was pregnant. Vadim was the father.
— We’ll turn that awful blue bedroom into a nursery, — Larisa Arkadyevna continued matter-of-factly, already planning the future. — When this one is gone… There’s a lot of light there, the windows face south.
— Mom, I’m sorry it turned out this way, that you have to put up with this. — Vadim’s voice sounded guilty, but not in the way Snezhana expected to hear. Not at all. — Snezhana… she’s boring. Reads her books, stays home in the evenings. No connections, no useful acquaintances for me, even though she seems to have money.
— You’ve been patient, son. You’re doing great. This is all for the future.
— She’s bland, Mom. Bland as kefir.
Under the bed, in the darkness and dust, Snezhana closed her eyes, and two years of her life flashed before her, two years of pretense that she had believed was love. She remembered hiding her designer dresses in the back of the closet so he wouldn’t feel poor next to her. How she pretended not to know about wines, ordering the same thing he did in restaurants…
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