The Widow's Gift

Levi wiped his sweaty palms on his faded jeans then rang the doorbell.

He was nervous and hated that he felt that way. If there was a dictionary definition for a completely safe, non-threatening interaction with another human being--and Levi wasn't entirely sold on the idea--this would be it.

He fervently wished that he had taken an Ativan before coming here but that was the problem. Levi was beginning to wish he had taken the little five-sided anti-anxiety pills whenever he left the house and building a physical dependence on Lorazepam was the last thing he wanted to do.

"I am coming. Who is there?"

The voice that came from within the large Laketown home was feminine, strongly accented and musical in quality. Ms Alina Makarova was audibly Eastern European. Often sounding like a coloratura soprano from a Hungarian operetta with the way her carefully articulated English rolled off her tongue, exotically laced with a lyrical lilt.

"I-It's only me, Ms Makarova." He answered timidly then felt a bit stupid, "I mean, it's me. Levi Millard."

He shuffled his feet and took a few deep breaths to center himself.

Levi knew on an intellectual level that the skittish tension he was experiencing was irrational. He understood that the twist in his guts were the result of an unfortunate cocktail of misfiring neurochemicals flooding the limbic system in his brain.

But no amount of book learning, online research and, let's be honest,

underwhelming

College counseling sessions helped.

"Levi!" He flinched back as the huge double doors flew open, "I am pleasured to see you again, Darling"

Alina appeared genuinely excited to see him, as she always did. Levi was never sure why exactly, he knew that he was nothing impressive. Not like his gorgeous older neighbor with her thick, wavy blanket of golden hair touched up with hints of autumn and faultless, timeless allure...

The mature foreign beauty looked like she was barely pushing thirty rather than the forty some years she consistently claimed. Her face was regal, fine featured with soft plump lips, a perfectly pert nose and those magnetic gray-green eyes that Slavic women seemed to monopolize.

Alina's dazzling visage was supremely smooth and expressive, her radiant smile could illuminate ten city blocks though not a single line marred her blemishless cheeks or brow. A person could be fooled into thinking she wore artfully applied makeup but Levi never spotted a sign of it as she swooped in close to embrace him... again.

"Ummm... Hi, Ms Makarova." He mumbled awkwardly as she pressed his flushing face into her pillowy bosom.

"Levi, how many times?" She scolded gently, rubbing the back of his head as he tried to politely disengage from her overly familiar touch. "You must call me Alina...

Al-ee-na."

"Hnnnmph...

Yes, Ms Makarova." He said, finally pulling away. "What chores can I help you with today?"

Despite her gregarious disposition, one thing Levi genuinely appreciated about Alina Makarova was that she did not outwardly flaunt her feminine wiles...

Jeezus, did he really just use the term 'feminine wiles?' How old was he, nineteen going on Amish?

But it was true, Levi's down-the-street neighbor was decidedly reserved in her manner of dress.

Alina heavily favored baggy figure obscuring clothing, like loose fitting sweatpants and over-sized wool knit sweaters. The most revealing outfit he had ever caught her wearing was some workman's jeans and a fluffy pink hoodie which she had practically been swimming in.

While many Illinois residents were taking advantage of the warm spring sunshine to shuck off the shackles of winter fashion, Alina was dressed in an old fashioned house coat buttoned tightly at her slender neck and draping formlessly to her ankles.

She was certainly hiding

something

under the dense layers of cotton fabric, The generous swell of her breasts and other subtle hints Levi had caught left no doubt on that point. But given his nervous disposition around women, he was honestly grateful for her old-school sense of modesty.

"Levi, no..." She pouted and the puckering of those kissable strawberry lips threatened to make the young man break out in a fop sweat. "You Americans are far too busy. Always rushing with the

'GoGoGo'.

Come inside me, please and keep a lonely old lady company for a spell."

That was another thing.

Sometimes Alina's otherwise excellent grasp on the language...

slipped

in embarrassing ways. Levi knew he should probably correct her but that would probably be fatally mortifying for at least one party involved.

"Okay but... but just for a few minutes." He stammered looking down at his sneakers. "Then we need to get to work. I have exams coming up and..."

"Круто!" Alisa lapsed back into her native tongue briefly as she clapped her hands excitedly. "I will make us coffee. You will like my coffee I think, Darling."

The way Alina always said "Darling" came out sounding more like

"darlink".

She reached for his hand but Levi winced and sharply jerked away as she tried to pull him further into her extravagant suburban home. Extending his arm had made his freshly strained shoulder flare up painfully.

She looked back at him with worry burning bright in those large, mesmerizing gray-green eyes. "Levi, something is wrong. You are hurt. What is this thing?"

"It-It's nothing." Levi could feel the all-too-familiar heat of humiliation dust his cheeks. "Please, Ms Makarova... I don't want to talk about it."

Alina frowned and her expression soured suspiciously before relaxing into one of almost motherly concern. She stepped up to him, getting in close. Too close, really, and laying an elegant hand on his chest as she looked compassionately down at Levi. Alina was a tall, striking picture of noble consternation as she affectionately caressed his cheek.

"We will drink coffee and we will talk, Darling." She said quietly, but there were hints of steel in her usually melodic voice. "You will tell your dear, dear friend Alisa what ails you and we will see what is to do."

Levi didn't know what his neighbor thought she could do to help. Moreover, he

really

didn't want to go into any of it. Not with

anyone

but he could see the hardened resolve in her enchanting gaze and his defenses shattered.

Those eyes were suddenly cold and gunmetal gray. Alisa kept them locked onto his own, even as she calmly guided him towards the kitchen.

________________

"Heya Mill-tard. You better have those class notes for me."

Levi trembled but tried his best to hide it as he hurriedly spun towards his approaching tormentor.

Or more accurately;

tormentors...

plural.

The University of Illinois Springfield was located six miles southeast of Springfield, occupying 740 acres of easily navigable higher learning, adjacent to Lake Springfield. Levi had been trying to cross the colonnade, simply another face in the faceless crowd of countless other students, and still they found him.

They

always

found him.

Britney, Carmen and Kimmy.

Three youthful specimens of ripening womanhood with visages of angels and the souls drawn directly from the seventh ring of hell as Dante described it.

"Please, Britney... I was going to finish listening to the recorded lecture over lunch." Levi pleaded. "If you would just give me your email, I could send them directly--"

"Email? What a fucking nerd." Britney sneered, flipping back her long golden curls in disgust.

She was the quintessential college cheerleader. Devastatingly attractive in that all-American homegrown hottie style. The teen beauty queen face, a frankly ridiculous combination of athletically lean and imminently busty figure, perfectly blonde, perfectly

everything

really.

And a raging bitch to boot.

Levi shrank back but soon realized the three coeds had corralled him against one of the towering white columns with no way to escape. Like they had been waiting for him and timed it that way.

They probably had. It fit well with their general

modus operandi.

Levi didn't know why history insisted on repeatedly beating him up by proxy through girls like these but it was the story of his life. From elementary school to the present, the mean girls seemed to hone in on him like a goddamn beacon and go out of their way to turn him into their punching bag in every possible sense of the word.

It was as though they took one glance at his small build, his soft hands and lanky hair and thought "Oh, there's Levi Millard. He's a cowardly scarecrow that practices piano instead of football and likes to read books about history. We should abuse the shit out of him and make his life hell. We're hot, he's not and who's going to believe him anyway?"

...and so far, they had been right. Regrettably so.

"Nobody uses email anymore, Mill-tard." Carmen mocked.

She was a stunning Latina scholarship athlete who had led the UIS girls soccer team to victory in the last three inter-college matches. With her long dark hair, smokey eyes and take-no-prisoners attitude to game fouls. She packed the stands at every game with drooling male fans, thanks to her aggressive play style and rock hard butt, toned hips and muscular thighs.

"I don't think the loser knows what DMs are." Kimmy sniffed, not deigning to look at him as she tapped away at the latest iteration of whatever fruit inspired smartphone was currently in vogue. "What would his profiles even look like?"

Weirdly, Kimmy rankled Levi the most out of the three of his beautiful, dreadful oppressors.

Like, what was she even doing with the other two? She was an academic overachiever hanging out with what were essentially two female jocks. Surely, out of the three of them, the delicately pretty Korean freshman should have some empathy towards his plight.

Bookworms 4 life...

or something like that.

No such luck.

The petite Asian ice queen had zero compunctions about standing back in her calculatedly short, pleated miniskirts and perfectly pressed white blouses that hugged her shapely upturned breasts like a second skin. Looking like some undercover k-pop starlet touching up her makeup while her thuggish friends extracted their daily pound of flesh from Levi's skinny ass.

He was certain she got her cut by some existentially pleasing means, though he had no idea what she could possibly want from the likes of him.

"I'm nobody." Levi wanted to weep at the unfairness of his eternal dilemma. "I don't know what you want from me."

"I want my class notes, you little bitch." Britney hissed, jabbing him painfully in his skinny chest with a long painted nail. "I'm not going to let my GPA score drop and get kicked off the cheer squad because you were busy trying on your mommy's dresses all night instead of studying."

"I'm not even in PSC 201, I'm a communications major..."

Carmen stepped up and in one fluid movement, grabbed his wrist and twisted Levi around until his nose was mashed against the cold cement of the column. His breath escaped him in a painful wheeze and she yanked his scrawny arm up behind his back until his shoulder joint nearly popped out of the socket.

"You'll do as you are told, you dickless anglo

puta."

She whispered hotly into his ear. She sounded excited. "Otherwise everything we have asked of you before now will feel like foreplay. Nod if you understand me."

Levi nodded rapidly, silent tears running down his cheeks. He felt so powerless and unmanned in Carmen's strong grip.

"So glad we sorted that out." Britney drawled, inspecting her manicured nails. "I'll expect to see you waiting with my notes in the cafeteria by noon. Don't make me come find you."

"Yes, Britney." Levi sobbed.

His legs were about to give out under him and not one person seemed willing to look in their direction. It was as though nobody cared.

"Good. We'll see you soon, Mill-tard.

Byyyeee~"

All three girls laughed as they strolled away together, shoulder to shoulder, in conspiratorial cahoots like the tyrannical triumvirate of heartless shrews they truly were.

________________

"That is horrible, Levi!" Alina gasped, covering her pretty mouth with her hands. "These... I do not know the English word...

сука

treat you this way often?"

Levi stared bleakly down into his coffee and nodded wordlessly. It was strong, dark and extremely bitter. He was at least one of those three things.

Somehow it was worse, more shameful because they were girls. If they had sicked their boyfriends or male admirers on him it might have been different. Better in some way but...

"This is not how young ladies should act towards a fine man such as you." Alina declared, "It is a terrible thing they are doing."

They were seated together on the dark leather chesterfield in her lavish parlor and she reached over to take one of his hands in both of hers. Her grip was firm though her fingers were warm as hugged his hand to her large chest.

"Do they not have eyes, these foolish girls? Can they not see what a good and sensitive young man you are?" She fussed with Levi's digits, positioning them over her heart through the thick cotton gown. "I say that they do not have hearts but cold flint in their breasts."

Speaking of breasts, Levi was becoming extremely aware of where Alina was pressing his palm and his racing pulse dropped into high gear at the feel of her pillowy softness.

"Aaah, I... ummm--" He began but she shushed him by placing a single long fingertip over his lips.

"I know what to do now, Darling. You have been so kind and you helped this poor widow turn her house into a home. You will do so again today, yes?" She was staring at him so intently with her brilliant green eyes that Levi could only nod mutely. "This is good. Today you will organize the garage and I will bake you a special treat. Come, come..."

Rising, Alina led Levi towards the rear of her grandiose home.

It was a tall stately residence, far larger than any of the other brick and weatherboard single story homes in the neighborhood. It had been designed and built by an investment banker who wanted a luxury home on the water without paying the exorbitant property prices in the fancier suburbs like Lake Pointe.

That was the year the credit crisis had blown the markets all to hell and the owner, a man Levi had never met, defaulted on the mortgage and loans just as construction was completed.

So the wide-ranging waterfront home--with its wrap-around driveway, huge in-ground swimming pool and private dock--sat dead on the market until three months ago when the mysterious and reclusive Ms Makarova appeared out of nowhere with a small fleet of removalist trucks and moved into the neighborhood.

Alina often giggled and professed that she had stolen the house from the bank. Levi figured that meant she purchased the foreclosure for rock-bottom price. There was plenty of that going around.

"When I move to America, after my beloved husband passed, I say to myself, 'Alina, this is a new start. Put aside your old life and lock it away.'" Alina said, leading Levi through the long, airy corridors and spacious rooms of her home. "This is for the best, yes."

"You mentioned you moved here from Stalingrad?" Levi asked politely, drawing on his love of world history and geography. "On the Volga river in Russia?"

"That is Volgograd, Darling. The name was changed many years ago, even before the fall of the Soviet Union. Much changed in those years." Alina mused, sounding a bit wistful. "But no, I was born far to the east in Vladivostok on the shores of the Sea of Japan. I lived there all my life until I was married."

"You must have been very happy, Ms Makarova." Levi said politely, feeling a bit out of his depth.

Alina was usually more interested in talking about any subject

other

than herself. Asking Levi about his studies, what his interests were and which books he was reading as he helped the young widow settle into her massive new home.

That part had been Levi's mother's idea. Helping their new mysterious neighbor a few times a week as a way to get his nose out of a book and into the real world where he would have to come to grips with his social anxiety. Like some kind of soft-core exposure therapy.

Whether it was working or not, Levi didn't know. Nor did he mind as he soon discovered he actually enjoyed the company of the beautiful, if mildly eccentric Ms Makarova. Even if she still gave him nervous tummy butterflies from time to time.

"Happy? Yes and no. My husband was a great man. A brilliant scientist who achieved much in his research for the Russian Federation." Alina stopped in front of a door and reached into her house coat to produce a key. "But great men are rarely good men. Without him, I would not be the woman I am today and I loved him desperately but I think many important people were frightened of him."

Frightened? Levi's skin prickled with unease as Alina paused with the key in the lock. Her usually bright, open expression was replaced with a pensive, thousand yard stare.

Then he blinked and Alina was blazing warm sunshine back at him again, as though she didn't have a care in the world.

"You are a good man, Levi. I know this to be true." She said, unlocking and opening the door before reaching in to flick on the interior light. "I tell myself 'Alina, trust your Darling Levi, he only wishes to help. Such a handsome and worthy man' and all my silly worries disappear.

Poof...

like smoke."

She stepped aside and hung back as Levi wandered into the huge three car garage.

He had seen much of the house and grounds in the past weeks of doing odd jobs for Alina. The place had six bedrooms and four bathrooms which was a lot for a single person to furnish, decorate and maintain. The full sized pool needed cleaning and the long drive wanted regular blowering but the garage had remained shut up tight.

Despite her obvious means, Alina did not own a car, much less three. So the garage was principally a large empty space for the most part, lit by evenly spaced fluorescent tubes set into the high, angled ceiling.

A pile of cardboard moving boxes, old suitcases and some furniture under dust covers were stacked haphazardly in one corner. It looked as though the removalists had carelessly dumped it all in a heap and left it there. Otherwise the vast space was featureless, save for a long stretch of mounted steel shelving and workbenches that took up the back wall of the garage.

"Ummm... what do you want me to do here, Ms Makarova?" Levi asked and his voice almost echoed in the cavernous room.

Alina hadn't moved from the adjoining doorway, as though reluctant to enter.

"There in the corner, Darling. Those boxes and bags contain memories of my life in the old country. Some are mine but many were my husbands. They can be... a painful reminder. I myself do not like pain so I think 'Alina, Levi is such a pleasant and obliging young man. If you ask him nicely, he will do this thing for you.'"

She was staring at him again with an odd expression on her flawless face and somehow the top two buttons of her drab house coat had come unfastened revealing just the barest hint of bulging cleavage.

Levi gulped.

What was she asking him to do?

"But listen to me rambling like a dithering old lady. What must you think of me?" Alina squeaked, cupping both her blushing cheeks in her hands and shyly turning away. "Please, Darling... Simply unpack the boxes onto the shelves where they will be safe and out of the way."

"Aaah...

sure thing Ms Makarova. That sounds fairly straightforward."

"Alina, Darling. You must call me Alina." She insisted, patting at the air with her hands. "Now I shall go cook for my most helpful young man and Levi..."