"I've had a couple of people try to talk to me in Russian, and I can never understand a word of it," she says, and she reaches out to snag the sketchpad between thumb and forefinger, and pull it back into her lap. She shoots him a smile. "Besides what you've taught me, of course."
The page is becoming pretty crowded; Maya flips to the next, her pencil already lowering. "I always th--"
There are doodles in the corners and along the right side of the page: a small, sketchy head-and-shoulders drawing of a woman without real features; a quick figure of a man bending over to talk to a boy perched on a barstool; a cluster of daffodils.
It has all been drawn with the sort of skill that Maya has come to expect from Piotr, but what she sees is the pen-and-ink headshot taking up most of the page. It is a large-scale version of the little sketch of the woman, and it is unmistakably her. She's tossing a grin over her shoulder, joyful, looking on the edge of a laugh. Her eyes lack pupils and her hair -- wind-tousled and a little tangled -- falls to mid-cheek.
no subject
The page is becoming pretty crowded; Maya flips to the next, her pencil already lowering. "I always th--"
There are doodles in the corners and along the right side of the page: a small, sketchy head-and-shoulders drawing of a woman without real features; a quick figure of a man bending over to talk to a boy perched on a barstool; a cluster of daffodils.
It has all been drawn with the sort of skill that Maya has come to expect from Piotr, but what she sees is the pen-and-ink headshot taking up most of the page. It is a large-scale version of the little sketch of the woman, and it is unmistakably her. She's tossing a grin over her shoulder, joyful, looking on the edge of a laugh. Her eyes lack pupils and her hair -- wind-tousled and a little tangled -- falls to mid-cheek.
Her pencil hovers, momentarily frozen.