Cliff Ryder - Black Widow

"I do," Ajza said. His name was there at the tip of her tongue. He'd been one of Ilyas's friends. They had played sports together from childhood through their college years.

"Razool."

"Of course." Ajza smiled a little when she heard his name and realized it fit. Still, paranoia crept into her mind and stayed there. She hadn't seen Razool in a long time. The part of her that remained ever vigilant wondered what he was doing here now. "It has been a while," she said.

"It has. I've been away. Boston." Razool hesitated. "That's in the United States."

"I know where Boston is."

"Of course you do. You were always so smart. I remember that about you. I also remember how I always saw you sweeping the floor here before and after school."

Ajza had gotten lost in that remembering, as well. Her parents had worked hard to buy the shop in Haymarket Centre because of the location, and they'd worked the family even harder to make the business successful. She'd never really dreaded the work when she was younger, and now she was surprised at the solace it offered. It was simple work, comfortable and familiar. She didn't have to decide to trust the floor before she swept it. Nor did she have to lie to it.

The aisles and refrigeration units offered her a familiar world that promised never to change. Only it did, of course. Ilyas would never again walk through the doors and complain about their father's to-do list; even when they'd come to visit, they were expected to help with the work.

"I don't think I swept the floors all the time," Ajza protested.

Razool cocked an eyebrow. "You swept the floors a lot. I used to watch you."

The statement was meant to be flirtatious. Ajza enjoyed it for a moment, and the events of only a few days ago seemed even farther away.

"Now I remember you even better," she said. "You were one of the layabouts my father had to run off from the store so often."

Razool covered his heart with his energy drink. "You wound me."

"I doubt that. So now you're laying about in Boston?"

"I'm a professor, actually. Computer science."

"Helping design space launches?"

"Teaching college students to design video games. That's all they want to learn these days."

In spite of the tension caused by her brother's absence hanging over the shop, Ajza laughed. "You came back to play football?"

"No. I came back because my mother had heart bypass surgery."

That sobered Ajza. So many of the faces she remembered from her childhood were older these days. And too many of them were missing. "Is your mother well?"

"On the mend. Thank you. She'll outlive me, and through it all she'll continue to harangue me for grandchildren. Of course, she would like to see me married first, but I'm beginning to think that might be negotiable. So what about you? What are you doing?"

"I'm a translator for an international investments broker. Financial documents." That was the cover MI-6 had provided her, and she worked at that job enough to keep it bulletproof.

Razool grimaced. "Oh, and I acted the proper world-traveling lout, didn't I?"

She grinned good-naturedly at his embarrassment. "Most of my work is in London. But I get out now and again."

"Good. You should see the world while you're young." Razool looked over Ajza's shoulder and lowered his voice. "That's your father at the counter, isn't it?"

Ajza checked the circular mirror in the corner of the store. Her father was a compact man with nut-brown skin. A fringe of gray hair framed his head. Glasses covered hazel eyes. He rarely smiled even on good days, but he was always courteous.

"Yes," Ajza replied.

"He's giving me one of those looks."

"And what kind of look would that be?"

"The kind that tells me he doesn't like me talking to his daughter."

Ajza laughed. Her father had cowed all the young men who had taken an interest in her when she was growing up. That ability had often left her irritated with him because few of the young men had been brave enough to ask her out. And Ilyas had chased away most of those.

"My father hasn't changed much," she said.

"I suppose not." Razool looked at her. "I'm going to be in town for another couple of weeks. To make sure my mother gets squared away properly."

"That's very thoughtful."

"It's going to be misery, I promise you. But maybe you could help."

"Me?"

"Mum's doing astonishingly well. If I told her I was having tea with a pretty young woman, it would do her heart good."

"I'm flattered, but…"

"It would also give me an excuse to get away from her for a short time. As I said, she's doing absolutely brill." Razool glanced over Ajza's shoulder again. "Besides, I think going out to tea with me might just flummox your father. If you're not too grown up for that."

You're good, Ajza thought. I'll bet you do just fine for yourself in Boston.

"Let me give you a card." Razool took a business card from his pocket and scrawled a phone number across the back. "That's my mum's phone number. If you'd like tea — when you get through sweeping."

Aware that her father was watching her with the same disapproval he'd shown in her childhood, grateful that she could somehow feel like a rebellious teen again, Ajza accepted the card.

"This doesn't mean I'll call," she cautioned.

"Then I'll come by again. Ciao." Razool waved at her and walked to the counter. "Good morning, Mr. Manaev. How are you?"

Her father scowled at Razool and quoted the price. Razool grinned, thanked him, nodded to Ajza and left the shop. The bell over the door rang.

Her father snorted in displeasure and folded his arms across his thin chest. "He is still a wastrel and a no-account."

"He's a college professor," Ajza replied, and instantly couldn't believe how quickly she'd stepped back into that old battle of wills. Her father was a good man. She wouldn't allow anyone to ever say otherwise. But he could be controlling, too.

"Then why isn't he working?" her father demanded.

"He works in Boston." Ajza swept the debris she'd collected into a dustpan. "He's here because his mother just had surgery."

"He left his mother here while he moved away?" Her father shook his head in disapproval. "What kind of son is that?"

Ajza knew better than to touch that. The fact that Ilyas didn't show any inclination to take over the shop had bothered their father. After all, he had worked hard to provide the business for them.

"I think he's very handsome." Ajza's mother put fresh bread out on the racks. Over the years, she'd gained a little weight and was now bigger than her skinny husband. She wore a nice dress and scarf to cover her head, a nod toward traditional dress.

Ajza didn't hold with cultural attire. That was another sore point between her and her father. And her mother didn't insist that Ajza wear any of it. Her father waved away the comment. "Handsome. You don't want a handsome man. You want a man who will work. That's what you want."

"At this point," her mother said, "I would be pleased to see her taking an interest in any man. Even a wastrel and a no-account. At least then I would know there was a chance for grandchildren before I am dead."

For a moment Ajza wondered why she'd bothered to take leave and come back for a visit. She had known what the time here would be like. Her father would worry about the business, her mother would worry about Ajza's lack of a man in her life, and no one would say anything about Ilyas.

But the earlier events had gotten too close. Every time she came out of a deep-cover assignment, she always felt the need to go home again. There was nowhere else she could go that would allow her to be herself again.

She carried the broom and dustpan to the back room. While she was there, she looked at the small space and thought of all the hurried and secret conversations she'd had with Ilyas when they'd conspired against their parents to go out on dates or to school parties. She missed her brother.