“Tamara, I’m begging you. Just sit there and smile.”
Gennady straightened his tie in the hallway mirror, and Tamara noticed that the knot was crooked. But she kept quiet. After all, he asked her to.
“They’re serious people, you know? Please, no comments—not about the weather, not the coffee, not anything. Just look nice.”
Tamara Vasilievna Krechetova, fifty-four years old, PhD in Economics, and head of a logistics department for fourteen years at a company Gennady never managed to pronounce correctly. But that was long ago. Now, according to her husband, she’s just Tamara. The woman likely to say something inappropriate.
“Gena, it’s hardly my first time around people.”
“Exactly. Not the first. That’s why I’m asking.”
He looked at her as if she might mess up at any moment. Tamara sighed, picked up her purse, and headed out to the car.
In the elevator, Gennady checked his phone again, read something in a messenger app, and gave a satisfied nod.
“The partners will be here by two. There’ll be five of us—me, you, Valery Palych from our department, and two on their side. A Mr. Strizhov and his deputy.”
“Strizhov?”
“Yes. From the company ‘TransLogik.’ I’ve been corresponding with them for three months now.”
Tamara almost choked but regained her composure quickly. ‘TransLogik.’ The name stirred a memory, but she didn’t have time to figure it out because Gennady was already explaining the parking situation.
The Meridian business center smelled of fresh paint and other people’s ambition. At reception, a girl with a perfect fringe handed Tamara a blue lanyard with a ‘GUEST’ badge.
“You want meeting room 4B. Third floor, left down the corridor.”
Gennady walked ahead, Tamara followed with her badge around her neck, feeling like a student on a field trip. The corridor smelled of coffee from the vending machine and the plastic of new chairs.
The meeting room was small: oval table, six chairs, a projector on the ceiling that no one turned on. On the table, there were cardboard coffee cups with a café logo, and Tamara thought that back when she led meetings, secretary Lidochka always used porcelain. Because ‘a partner should feel respected.’ But porcelain cups belonged to another life.
Valery Palych was already there. Small, balding, with a folder embossed in gold with their company name. The folder itself looked more expensive than anything inside it.
“Gennady Sergeich! And this is…? Your wife?”
“Yes, yes, Tamara. She’s with me, just here to sit.”
Just here to sit. Tamara took a seat in the corner chair, placed her hands on her knees and prepared to be furniture. She was good at it. In twenty-seven years of marriage, this was her most polished skill.
Valery Palych offered a sympathetic smile. He’d known Tamara for ages and remembered when she used to negotiate with suppliers from four countries at once. But Valery Palych was a tactful man, so he just slid a cup of coffee toward her.
“Latte. Though it’s barely warm.”
“Thank you, Valery Palych.”
Gennady shot her a look. The word ‘Don’t speak’ was written in that look so clearly you could put it on a billboard.
The partners were eleven minutes late. In that time, Gennady managed to check his teeth in his phone’s reflection twice and move his folder back and forth a few times.
The door opened. First to enter was a tall man, around forty-five years old, dressed in a sharp suit with thin-rimmed glasses. A younger guy, maybe thirty, walked in behind him—skinny, a bit red-haired, a tablet tucked under his arm.
“Strizhov, Alexey Petrovich,” introduced the tall man, shaking hands with Gennady. Then with Valery Palych. He glanced briefly at Tamara and nodded.
“This is my wife,” Gennady said quickly. “She… just.”
Just. Again with the “just.” Tamara thought that if Gennady said “just” one more time tonight, she would start counting how many times he repeated it. For the sake of statistics.
The red-haired guy—the deputy—sat down across from them, opened his tablet, and became completely absorbed in the screen. He didn’t even look at Tamara.
“Denis, my deputy,” nodded Strizhov.
Denis looked up, flashed a professional smile, and went right back to his screen.
The negotiations began. Gennady spoke confidently, but just a bit louder than necessary. Tamara knew this trick of his. When he didn’t fully grasp the topic, he’d turn up the volume and use more gestures. As if extra decibels could make up for missing arguments.
“We offer full support of the logistics chain from the warehouse to the final destination,” Gennady said, flipping through his laptop presentation. “Here you can see how we’ve optimized the routes.”
Tamara looked at the screen. The routes were optimized about as well as Gennady managed the household budget: with enthusiasm, but without a calculator. She pressed her lips together.
Strizhov listened politely, asking questions. Gennady answered, sometimes mixing up terms, and then Valery Palych would quietly correct him, eyes staying on his golden folder.
“Who handles your customs documentation?” Strizhov inquired.
“We handle everything single-handedly,” Gennady said proudly. “A fully integrated approach.”
Tamara blinked. In Gennady’s world, a “fully integrated approach” meant he hadn’t hired a specialist yet and hoped things would work out somehow.
About forty minutes passed. The coffee went completely cold. Valery Palych doodled in the margins of his notepad. Denis tapped away on his tablet.
Suddenly, Strizhov, who had spent the whole time looking only at Gennady, turned to Tamara. It seemed accidental—he reached for his cup, glanced across her face, and froze.
He didn’t look away. Didn’t nod. Just froze.
Tamara caught this in her peripheral vision. She sat as quietly as before, hands on her lap, in her gray jacket with a “GUEST” badge hanging around her neck.
Strizhov slowly set his cup down. Then he removed his glasses, cleaned them, put them back on. He looked at Tamara again.
Meanwhile, Gennady was passionately talking about warehouse capacity, oblivious to everything else.
“Excuse me,” Strizhov interrupted quietly.
Gennady stopped mid-sentence.
“Sorry, Gennady Sergeevich. May I ask an off-topic question?”
Gennady looked confused. Valery Palych lifted his head from his notepad.
“Is your wife’s name Tamara Vasilievna?”
A pause. Tamara felt something click inside her. Like a switch that had been off for a long time was suddenly flipped on.
“Yes,” Gennady replied cautiously. “Why?”
Strizhov turned to Tamara. There was something in his expression that Gennady just couldn’t decode. It wasn’t flirting. It wasn’t the recognition of an old friend. It was something else entirely. Something that looked a bit like respect, mixed with a hint of nervousness.
“Tamara Vasilievna Krechetova? ‘StroyTransGroup’, logistics department?”
Tamara stayed silent for exactly three seconds. Not because she didn’t know what to say, but because she was savoring the moment. Three seconds of blissful silence in which, for the first time that evening, Gennady had no idea what was happening.
“Yes,” she said. “Hello, Alyosha.”
Alyosha. Strizhov Alexei Petrovich. She remembered him as a twenty-five-year-old grad who came to intern with her back in 2005, terrified to even walk into her office without knocking for the first two weeks. She taught him how to fill out route sheets. She checked his first reports. When he made a mistake with a shipment to Novorossiysk, she didn’t fire him—she made him fix everything himself. Later, he said that incident had taught him more than all his years at university.
Strizhov stood up. He actually got to his feet at the meeting table, though there was no reason to stand up right then.
“Tamara Vasilievna. My goodness. I didn’t recognize you at first… You’ve changed, but your eyes are the same.”
He walked around the table and held out his hand to her—not for a handshake, but for that gesture where you take someone’s hand in both of yours and bow your head slightly.
“I owe you so much, it feels awkward to even start listing it all in front of everyone.”
Tamara smiled. Calmly, without any sense of triumph.
“Alyosha, come on now. Sit down. You’ve grown up.”
“I have,” Strizhov agreed, blushing a little for some reason, as if he was twenty-five again, standing in front of his boss.
Denis, the red-haired deputy, looked up from his tablet and stared at his boss as if he’d just started speaking Swahili.
Valery Palych quietly closed his notebook.
And Gennady… Gennady just sat there motionless, his mouth open just enough for it to look more like shock than rudeness.
What happened next was nothing Tamara had planned. Mainly because she hadn’t planned anything at all. She was just going to keep quiet. Just as she’d been asked.
But Strizhov sat back down, looked at Gennady’s laptop screen displaying the presentation, and said:
“Gennady Sergeevich, who put together your routes?”
Gennady cleared his throat.
“We… all collaborated. Teamwork.”
“It’s just—I’m looking at this northwest route, and it goes through Vyshny Volochyok. There’s been an axle load restriction there since last year, trucks won’t make it through. Tamara Vasilievna, do you remember we had a similar issue back in 2012 going toward Tver?”
Everyone turned to look at Tamara.
Gennady looked, too. And now there was something new in his eyes. Not “don’t talk.” More like, “please, say something smart, because I just messed up.”
Tamara picked up a cup of cold latte. She took a sip. Set it back down.
“I remember, Alyosha. Back then, we rerouted through Bologoye with a transfer in Okulovka. It cost four percent more, but we saved two days on timing. Vyshny Volochyok was already a bottleneck back then.”
Strizhov nodded.
“Exactly. What if we went via Klin instead?”
— The route through Klin is longer, but there’s an intermediate warehouse there, if we can make a deal with Balt-Service. Are they still in business?
— Yes, they’re still operating. In fact, they’ve even expanded.
Gennady’s eyes darted back and forth between them, like a tennis spectator who was supposed to be in the match but found himself in the stands.
Valery Palych let out a quiet, nearly silent chuckle into his notebook.
Denis stopped tapping on his tablet and started taking notes.
— Tamara Vasilievna, — Strizhov said, — I have a rather bold question for you. Are you currently working?
There was a pause.
Tamara looked at Gennady. He was staring at the table.
— No, Alyosha. I’m retired now, — she said with a hint of irony that even made Denis raise an eyebrow.
— That’s a pity, — Strizhov replied in all seriousness. — I really need a consultant like you for my Northwest project. But that’s for later. Let’s get back to the contract.
They discussed the contract for another hour. But something in the room had changed. The air felt different. Strizhov now addressed Tamara almost as often as Gennady, and each time she answered, Denis made more notes on his tablet.
Gennady spoke less and less. Not because anyone was cutting him off, but because the conversation had shifted to an area where volume and gestures weren’t enough. Now it was about routes, standards, contracts with carriers, customs transit details. This was Tamara’s world. The very world Gennady had once pulled her away from with the words, “why work, I’m the breadwinner.”
At one point, Strizhov said:
— Tamara Vasilievna, do you remember Borzenko? Vitaly Igorevich, who could never get the customs codes right?
Tamara laughed. Quietly and briefly.
— Borzenko! Once he shipped a batch of tiles labeled as “live plants.” Customs spent two days thinking we were joking.
— Exactly! — Strizhov laughed too. — And then you made him memorize the entire classification list by heart.
— Did he learn it?
— He did. Now he’s my deputy director for foreign trade. And to this day, whenever he sees code 6907, he turns pale.
Everyone laughed. Denis smiled, not quite understanding but sensing how real the moment was. Valery Palych smiled too, fully in on the joke.
And Gennady sat watching his wife as if he was seeing her for the first time. No, not the first time. As if he remembered something he’d worked hard to forget for the last ten years.
By four o’clock, it was all over. Strizhov stood up and buttoned his jacket.
— Gennady Sergeyevich, we’ll consider it. The proposal is interesting, but the routes need recalculating. I’d recommend bringing in a logistics expert. You do have someone, right?
He looked at Tamara and smiled. No subtext, no sarcasm. Just the smile of someone who knows the value of what he’s seeing.
— Thank you for the honor, Tamara Vasilievna.
He shook her hand with both of his. Denis followed, nodding and holding his tablet to his chest.
They left. The door closed behind them.
The meeting room fell silent. It was the kind of quiet that follows when someone accidentally drops something heavy. Everyone heard it, and now everyone’s looking at the floor.
Valery Palych was the first to gather his papers.
— I’ll be heading out. Gennady Sergeyevich, I’ll have the routes recalculated by Monday.
He stood up, nodded to Tamara, and in that nod there was more than in all of Gennady’s words that entire day. Respect. Pure and untainted.
The door closed behind him.
Gennady and Tamara were left alone.
Gennady was silent. He sat with his fingers interlaced on the table, staring at an empty coffee cup. The cup had the café’s logo—a little steaming mug. The steam had long vanished.
Tamara began packing her purse. She put her phone away and zipped it up.
“Tamar.”
She lifted her head.
“Why didn’t you say you knew him?”
The question was asked quietly. There was no accusation, just the bewilderment of someone who’s gotten into the wrong elevator and ended up on the wrong floor.
Tamara looked at him. For a long time. Calmly.
“You asked me to keep quiet, Gena. So I did.”
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
“But this… This is different.”
“What’s different?”
“Well, you could have told me you know Strizhov. That’s a business contact. That’s important.”
Tamara stood up. She adjusted her badge on her neck, then took it off and placed it on the table in front of Gennady. The blue lanyard landed next to his folder.
“Gena, you asked me not to say a word. Not about the weather, not about the coffee, nothing. Your words. I followed them.”
She picked up her purse and headed toward the door.
“Tamar!”
“What?”
“Were you… really the boss over there?”
Tamara turned around. A smile appeared on her face—not a victorious or spiteful one. The very smile that Strizhov must have remembered for twenty years, because that’s the one she would use to tell interns: “It’s okay, we’ll figure it out, this isn’t our first time.”
“Not the boss, Gena. Just a specialist.”
She left.
Gennady remained sitting in the empty meeting room. In front of him was a cooled coffee, the golden folder Valery Palych had left behind, and a blue badge labeled ‘GUEST.’
He picked up the badge and turned it over in his hands.
Then he took out his phone, opened a search engine, and typed: “Krechetova T. V. StroyTransGroup.”
The first link led to an article in a 2014 industry magazine—”Best Logistics Specialist of the Northwest Region.” The photo was of his wife. Younger, sterner, in a business suit. But the same eyes.
Gennady put the phone aside, leaned back in his chair, and stared at the ceiling where an unused projector hung.
From the hallway came the measured sound of Tamara’s heels. They were fading away, calm and unhurried. No faster or slower than usual.
She wasn’t rushing. There was no need. She hadn’t rushed for twenty years and could go another twenty without hurrying. Because people who know their worth never run.
At the reception desk, a girl with bangs looked up.
“Goodbye! You can leave your badge on the counter.”
“I left it for my husband,” Tamara replied. “I think he needs it more.”
And she stepped outside into the air that smelled of wet asphalt and October, while her phone buzzed in her pocket. Strizhov was calling. He still had her number from all those years ago.
Tamara glanced at the screen, smiled and answered the call.
“Alyosha, I told you—I’m retired now.”
“Tamara Vasilievna, I’ve got a contract for fourteen regions. I need someone who can tell a live plant from a tile floor. Even part-time?”
She laughed. Truly laughed, in a way she hadn’t for a long time.
“Send me the terms. I’ll take a look.”
She put away her phone. Stopped at the edge of the sidewalk and lifted her face to the wind.
Meanwhile, on the third floor in meeting room 4B, Gennady Sergeyevich was still sitting at the oval table, reading an article about the top logistics manager in the Northwest region.
His tie was still crooked.