‘You sure they won’t get
back early?’ I say,
as Nicu turns the key
in his front door
and we step straight into his living room.
A kitchen runs along one of the walls.
‘Don’t worry, Jess.
Dad working
and Mum shopping to find bargains.’
The flat smells clean.
All the furniture is brown.
‘I just don’t want them going
nuts if
they find us
here,’ I say.
‘They go nuts only if
they finding us
doing sex,’
he says.
‘Idiot,’ I say,
but can’t help snorting
into my hand,
trying to muffle the sound
like there could be someone else
at home.
I follow Nicu across the room
where he
opens the fridge and hands me a cold Coke.
I peer inside,
clock a big Tupperware box
filled with what look like sausage rolls.
‘What are they?’ I ask.
He takes out the box and opens it.
‘Mum make herself.
Better than buying.’
‘Yeah, but what are they?’
‘It called sarmale. You never hear?’
‘Never.’
‘Very tasty.
I make one for you.’
He grabs a mushroom-coloured bowl from the countertop
and carefully
puts two rolls into it.
I wander away,
sit on the sofa,
stare at the coffee table
and the gleaming glass ashtray in the centre of it.
‘Your parents smoke?’ I ask.
Nicu looks over at me,
his eyes soft,
his lips pressed together.
‘Dad smoking always.
It make Mum
so annoying.’
I laugh,
consider taking out my own fags
and lighting up,
but I don’t
cos I know Nicu
wouldn’t like it.
The only other thing on the coffee table is a photo
of a girl
in a flowery headscarf,
two plaits woven with coloured ribbons
at the front of her face.
She’s pretty,
maybe our age,
maybe a bit older,
but she’s staring into the lens
like it’s a mugshot.
‘This your sister?’ I ask,
and wave the photo at him.
Nicu comes towards me holding the bowl.
He stops and stares.
‘No,’ he says,
‘she not my sister.’
He puts down the bowl,
looks at his feet.
‘Shit, she isn’t your dead girlfriend or anything, is she?’
I ask.
But he’s not laughing.
He looks at me again.
‘Is not my fault,’ he says.
‘I not choose her.’
‘What you on about, Nicu?’
‘They choose wife for me,’ he says.
‘What? Who did?’
‘Parents.
This girl in photo is name Florica.
She is the choose.’
‘Wait a minute, so you’re telling me that she’s …’
‘Florica is the wife choose.’
‘Sorry, what? Your wife?’
‘No, no. She is becoming wife after wedding.’
The rolls are steaming in the bowl.
I’m starving but
I suddenly don’t like the look of them.
‘My wedding.
They want us to getting married in nineteen days.’