International Fragment (1 of 3)

She stood in the back of the store, aware of her sister and mother’s voices, staring blankly at long, plastic necklaces painted shiny to look like gold, feeling suspicious under the cashier’s observation, waiting. Suddenly she heard a man’s voice, then a young girl’s, both coming closer. The girl was whining, asking for something; the man was responding, annoyed, asking what it was for… heat searing upward from the center of her stomach, she realized the man had an accent. Helplessly, she let her burning face droop towards the floor; without turning around, without even thinking, she had placed it and was now trying to find an unobtrusive path to the door. They were still approaching; the bratty little girl was practically crying now over some piece of plastic, dear God… she looked up involuntarily and glimpsed the man’s face just as he glimpsed her. Shit! Russian, just as she’d thought. Run!