"Do you remember me?"
Peter Dovzhenko turned from his seat in the sand, where he'd spent the last hour watching the waves rolling onto the beach, when he heard the smoky, Slavic-accented voice of a young woman behind him. He found her standing 5'3", with dirty blonde, shoulder-length hair, her body lithe and fit like a gymnast's, her tiny, turquoise bikini covering pert little A-cup breasts just big enough to hold. She was 18, and while her body looked younger her blue eyes held a depth of experience far exceeding her age. She smiled, but just barely; in his 21 years, Peter had never known the Russian side of his family to indulge in excess displays of emotion.
"Do I get a hint?" Peter asked, standing in his swim trunks to face his young interrogator.
"No," she replied. "If you do not know I will be very sad," she added. Peter read a sense of playfulness seeping through her halting monotone.
All day Peter found himself staring at beautiful women he didn't know, only to keep reminding himself that this was a family reunion, and just because he'd never seen these women didn't mean he should be having the thoughts he was having. Peter's parents immigrated to the United States just before giving birth to him, and in their zeal to make sure they had an "American child" they overcompensated, not even teaching him their mother tongue. It was a decision all three quickly came to regret, as it left Peter isolated from the rest of his extended family, who remained back in Russia.
Not that Peter ever had a lot of interaction with his extended family to begin with. There wasn't anyone on his father's side, his father having been an orphan, but the large roster of relatives on his mother's end more than made up the difference. They had never come to the States before now, and the only time Peter and his parents visited Russia was that one summer when he was eight. Peter felt alone, with his parents and all the adults speaking in a language he couldn't comprehend. The only saving grace of that trip was his first cousin, Katya Ivanovna, his mother's brother's daughter. Like the adults, she couldn't speak English either, but with her it didn't matter; they became fast friends in spite of the language barrier, and over the three months Peter stayed there they grew inseparable. Despite Peter's being older it was almost like Katya took guardianship over him, realizing he was in an unfamiliar place and wanting to be a good host and protect him. She was three years younger than him, short and thin then, too, with blonde hair and blue eyes.
"Katya," Peter answered, smiling.
"It is good to see you, cousin," Katya beamed, her smile growing almost American in its size and lack of guardedness. She leapt into his arms and he spun her around; she was so light as to be almost weightless, her tiny feet sailing through the air with abandon. When Peter finally set his cousin back down on the sand she was grinning.
"I wondered if you would be here," Peter told his cousin. He paused, considering whether to continue, before adding, "To be honest, you were the only person I was hoping to see turn up."
"I hoped to see you too, cousin," Katya replied. She spoke the English she knew quite well, Peter thought, and her lack of all the extraneous words English harbored made her answers less florid and more direct. Peter wasn't sure what to say next. He never felt right about the last time they saw each other, but in his shame he also didn't want to be the one to bring it up.
"You are not talking to anyone," Katya observed.
"Well, I wouldn't really know what to say to them, would I?" Peter joked.
"Da," Katya laughed. "You would not."
"You're not talking to them either," Peter countered.
"I see them all time," Katya said. "This whole thing is for your parents. They are ones who miss family, and have money to bring family to them." Peter couldn't argue with that summation.
"I have something we could not do when children," Katya offered, retrieving an unopened 1.75L bottle of vodka from the sand that Peter hadn't previously seen lying there. "At risk of being forward, I have missed my friend. I want to know him again." Peter looked his young cousin over; the sincerity in her eyes was killing him, and it made him feel both guiltier about the way things had ended and nostalgic for the three idyllic months—three of the best of his life—leading up to that unfortunate moment.
"I've missed you too," Peter confessed.
"We were best friends once," Katya said, "but that was long time ago. By end of bottle, we will be again." She unscrewed the top of the bottle and took a swig before holding it out for Peter.
"I'll drink to that," Peter said as he accepted the bottle and took a swig of his own.
"Back home we played in woods, with no one around," Katya said. "There are no woods here." That was true enough—the beaches stretched as far as the eye could see. Farther inland the beaches were lined with palm trees but, if one ventured beyond that, it was all urban development. "But farther that way," Katya pointed, "beach is empty, of tourists and family. We should head that way."