23

Grandmother let me in as she stood at the doorway wearing a coat and a bag in her hand. Evidently, she was going to the market for some groceries to the wake table. I declined her invitation to go with her for all I needed was to stay home alone at that moment.

As soon as the door closed on her I rushed into her bedroom; I wanted to find her phone book with a black cover - it might contain Shurik’s home phone number.

It took a while to find the phone book. Starting at every little noise outside, I hectically searched it through. There were a lot of different phone numbers; but how was I to figure out the one I needed? There was not a single mark like “Tolya”, “Kruglovo” etc I could have identified it by.

“So she just hasn’t got his number…” I thought with frustration, putting the book back.

I was completely out of options. It was no use to ask Tanya for Shurik’s phone number: she didn’t know it either, and Sergey wouldn’t have given it to me out of spite.

“Shoot, what do I do?” thought I, scratching my head.

The ringing of the phone interrupted my reflections. The call was from a strange number - my grandmother like everybody else in the end of the nineties, had a telephone with a caller display. I reluctantly picked up.

“May I speak to Zoya Alexandrovna?” said a male voice on the other end.

“She’s not at home” I answered, “Any message for her?”

“Please, tell her Milyaev the neighbor was calling about the garage”.

The blood drained from my heart.

“From Kruglovo?” I asked.

“Yes, from Kruglovo”.

Oops! Speak of the devil. I hung up and the caller display showed his number for half a minute. I didn’t know what buttons to press for finding out the history of calls in the phone so I needed to hurry and write down the number right here. But, as ill luck would have it, there was neither a pen, nor a piece of paper around.

“Five-o-one, o-eight, four-one…” I repeated as I ran around the rooms in search of a pen.

Another phone call distracted me. This time it was Sue.

“Five-o-one, o-eight, four-one!” I cried out in one breath, picking up the phone.

“What?” she was actually shocked, “Are you nuts?”

“Shut up, don’t confuse me! Five-o-one, o-eight… and something-one… F**k, you’ve messed me up! I forgot the phone number because of you!”

“Can you just tell me what’s going on? What the hell phone number? Whose?”

“Three guesses whose number it is!” I answered angrily.

“Ah, it’s your Shurick the hick’s…”

“He’s not a hick!” I yelled.

“Okay, okay, just calm down” said Sue, “We already know the six figures. Six-o-one, o-eight and one.”

“Five-o-one…”

“So much the better,” she said, “So, according to the law of probability we have ten per cent of hitting the point. And probably even more…”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked in confusion.

“Look. Let’s put the missing figures in the gap. Does one fit?”

“Eleven in the end? Definitely not!”

“Well, that narrows it down. Does nine fit?”

“Not either.”

“Not either. So… So we’ve got only five options left. Twenty one, thirty one, forty one, fifty one and sixty one. Twenty per cent hitting the point…”

“Man, you are a genius! How do you know all that stuff - per cents, the law of probability? We haven’t even learned it at school!”

“Well, we have. Can’t you remember my grandad pushing me around to study math on holiday? Okay, screw that rubbish… When are you gonna call him?”

I got this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“F**k, I don’t know… It’s so embarrassing…”

“Oh come on!”

“What do I tell him anyway? Maybe he won’t even talk to me…”

“Oh my gosh! I can call him if you want me to!”

“You? So what are you gonna say to him?”

“What do people say in such occasions? Hi, how are you…”

“But I won’t be able to eavesdrop from here”

“Let’s meet at Leshka’s tomorrow, and call him together…”