excerpt

“Who knows?”
Paul and Jennifer locked stares. “You still want to do this, don’t you?” she asked him.
“Yes,” he nodded. A minute passed.
Finally David spoke. “So Paul, if you’re really going to leave, can I have your leather jacket?”
★
Breakfast was chaotic. At first, Ivan Nikolaevich announced to the diners that their departure would be delayed while they awaited the delivery of food supplies. Almost immediately following his speech, the riverboat moved away from the dock and waiters appeared with an adequate spread of hard-boiled eggs, bread and sausages for the buffet table. Ivan Nikolaevich appeared untroubled by this contradiction, and after fourteen days in the Soviet Union, the guests also treated it as normal. Jennifer, Paul and David helped themselves to the breakfast and sat together, saying little, distracted by their thoughts. There was no doubt in Jennifer’s mind that Paul would do what he wanted. Apart from anything else, she realized how much she would miss him—and not just for his jacket, like David.
The jacket. Huh. It’s very distinctive, thought Jennifer. She visualized the maroon and white leather college jacket with the appliqued letters “UV” for University of Vancouver on the sleeves. Her thoughts were already leaping ahead to the day that she and the others would have to cover up the fact that Paul had left the group. If someone else were to wear that jacket—someone, for instance, like that American, Frank, there—with the same haircut and height, he could be mistaken for Paul from the back. David glanced up at that moment, caught Jennifer’s look and also stared at the young man from Tennessee. Thoughts swirled, cascaded, in Jennifer’s consciousness: the jacket, the view of the haircut, something she had to remember, something she had promised in a dream. What was it?
“You know,” David spoke, his mouth full of toast, “that pretty boy from Tennessee is a real nice guy. I think he’s got his eye on you, Jennifer.”
She silenced him with a glare and went on with her breakfast.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562892

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763246