From the car, Alexandra spotted Pavel and almost asked the driver to keep going.
Her ex-husband was standing by the restaurant entrance, surrounded by three classmates, waving his car remote as if the reunion hosts were giving out a prize to the first person who spotted the logo.
“At first I wanted the previous model,” he was telling Sergey Krylov. “But then I thought, why? You only live once. So I got this one. It’s almost the top trim level.”
Alexandra lingered by the car for a few seconds, adjusted the strap on her small bag, and finally made her way to the entrance.
It definitely wasn’t Pavel who’d made her avoid reunions for the last fifteen years.
Tonight felt different for her. The school was celebrating its 60th anniversary, with not just her class but also teachers and alumni from various years invited. The principal himself had called Alexandra months ago to personally ask her to come.
She’d promised she would.
But nobody had warned her about Pavel being there.
“Sasha!”
He was the first to notice her.
He still spoke so loudly that people at the neighboring table turned to look, even when he was only addressing one person.
“Wow! You haven’t changed at all.”
But that wasn’t true.
In the last fifteen years, Alexandra had moved twice, buried her father, endured a few serious business setbacks, learned to fire people she cared about, and to turn down deals that only looked good in presentations.
At forty-eight, she was definitely not the same as she was at thirty-three.
But explaining all that to Pavel by the coat check seemed like it would take forever.
“You’ve held up pretty well yourself,” she said.
“Work keeps me in shape.”
He immediately shared that he now headed the sales department at a major dealership.
Then for some reason he added:
“Thank God the salary’s fine. I recently got a new car.”
“I noticed.”
Sergey turned away, hiding a smile.
Pavel didn’t notice.
He was studying Alexandra.
A simple, dark dress. Hardly any jewelry. A small bag. None of the obvious signs of success that Pavel considered proof of having made it.
“So how about you?” he asked. “Still working on projects?”
“I am.”
“At the same place?”
Alexandra paused for a moment.
Technically, answering “yes” was completely accurate.
“Still there.”
Pavel nodded knowingly.
That nod was something Alexandra remembered well, too.
It was the same nod he’d given fifteen years ago when he was sure she was making the biggest mistake of her life.
Back then, Alexandra was head of the project department at a big construction company. The pay was great, health insurance, bonuses, business trips, an office downtown.
Still, every Sunday after lunch she started thinking about Monday.
Not because she disliked her job.
Quite the opposite.
She loved design work. Loved the moment when dozens of calculations, diagrams, and requirements would come together into a real structure that would actually get built.
What she didn’t love was something else.
Three levels of approval just to buy a software program. Five meetings for a question that could’ve been answered in one email. Managers who wouldn’t check in on a project for a whole week, only to suddenly demand half the decisions be changed twenty minutes before a client meeting.
That year, two engineers she knew—Andrey Sokolov and Roman Lebedev—suggested they start their own firm.
They planned to launch it together, just the three of them.
No investors involved.
No wealthy relatives to back them up.
All they had was a rented 24-square-meter office, three computers, and their first client, who had promised work but didn’t sign a contract until two months later.
Pavel wasn’t impressed with the idea.
“Are you seriously going to leave a good position for a room with three desks?”
“With four! We do need an accountant sometimes.”
“Well, that changes everything.”
Back then, Alexandra even laughed.
Six months later, it was harder to find reasons to laugh.
Their first big order was delayed. The second client negotiated every single line on the budget. Alexandra personally visited job sites, answered calls in the evenings, and once in November discovered she had made less that month than her previous bonus used to be.
Pavel waited.
Not even for them to fail.
He was waiting for the moment he’d be proven right.
“No big deal,” he would say. “You got your taste of entrepreneurship, now it’s enough. Call your old company back before someone else takes your spot.”
Alexandra never called them.
A year later, they divorced.
Not just because of the company. It would have been too convenient to blame a five-year marriage on a single decision.
It’s just that everything else became clear in the shadow of the firm.
Pavel wanted a wife whose decisions he understood. Alexandra slowly realized she no longer wanted to ask for permission to have her own life.
After the divorce, the firm stayed with her, Andrey, and Roman.
That was the period Pavel seemed to remember best.
At the restaurant, everyone was finding their seats.
At their long table, Alexandra ended up between their old class leader Irina and Sergey Krylov. Pavel took the seat right across from her.
The first half hour went by peacefully.
They reminisced about their teachers.
It turned out Galina Mikhailovna, the dean, was still working at the school—even though at graduation she swore, “This class will drive me into early retirement.”
“Looks like we actually kept her young,” Sergey joked.
“Especially you,” Irina reminded him. “Who was it who brought firecrackers to shop class?”
“The investigation never proved anything.”
Pavel shared that he’d recently seen their former PE teacher.
Then the conversation gradually shifted to work.
Some had become doctors, some were teaching at universities, and Irina had started a small chain of flower shops.
That’s when Pavel perked up.
“Now that’s impressive, Ira. Clearly, you had an entrepreneurial streak even back in school.”
“What streak?” Irina laughed. “I worked as a merchandiser until I was thirty-eight.”
“Still, it takes character,” Pavel replied.
Alexandra could already see where the conversation was headed.
There was no mistake.
Pavel looked at her:
“But Sasha was always our dreamer.”
“Why ‘was’?” Alexandra asked. “I still dream sometimes.”
“I mean something else. Remember when you started your own company?”
“Of course I remember.”
“I told her even then: business isn’t just about being good with numbers.”
Irina raised her eyebrows:
“What else is it, then?”
Character. The ability to push through. To take risks. To work with people.
Alexandra took a sip of water.
“Pasha, how do you know so much about my character? We haven’t lived together for fifteen years.”
“People don’t really change much.”
“That’s a convenient theory.”
The waiter came over with the wine list.
Pavel grabbed it first.
“Let me choose. You really need to know your way around this.”
He flipped through the pages confidently until the waiter pointed out an option toward the end.
“This is a fine dry wine; I can recommend it.”
Pavel looked at the price.
Then looked again.
“You know what?” he said. “We’re here for a get-together, not a wine tasting. Let’s all have mineral water. We have work tomorrow.”
Irina looked down at her plate.
Alexandra stared out the window.
She didn’t want to laugh.
Especially not out loud.
Meanwhile, Pavel switched the subject back to cars.
“I never mind paying for a good car. Comfort is either there or it isn’t. Now, I can finally afford not to look at the price.”
Sergey coughed.
“For the car?”
“For anything, really.”
Alexandra caught Irina’s gaze.
Irina quickly pressed her finger to her lips.
After a while, Olga Samoilova, who used to sit behind Alexandra in school, approached the table.
Olga worked as chief accountant and, in twenty-five years, hadn’t changed in at least one thing: she could always ask an uncomfortable question and genuinely wouldn’t understand why everyone suddenly got quiet.
“Sasha, you left that big company, didn’t you? Have you ever regretted it?”
Alexandra put down her fork.
“At first…”
“Nothing to regret!”
Pavel burst out laughing before she could finish.
A few people turned to him.
“You were a nobody, still are!” he continued. “All these years, still working on the same old projects. Only before, you at least had a decent salary.”
The table fell silent.
Not in a dramatic way.
Sergey simply stopped chewing. Irina put her phone face-down. Olga frowned.
Alexandra looked at Pavel.
She actually felt curious.
“Pasha, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Why, after fifteen years, do you care so much about my career?”
He shrugged.
“I don’t actually care. I’m just speaking the truth.”
“Oh.”
“What? I just don’t like when people pretend to be successful.”
“Who’s pretending to be successful here?”
Pavel paused for a second.
“Well, you’re just sitting there, all…”
“All what?”
Now Sergey laughed.
Pavel shot him an annoyed look.
“Come on. Everyone gets it.”
“I don’t get it,” Irina said. “Sasha has only mentioned her job twice all evening.”
“Exactly,” Olga chimed in. “You made up the rest yourself.”
Pavel waved dismissively.
“Oh please, we’re all adults. Can’t even make a joke anymore.”
Alexandra nodded:
“Then let’s say it was funny.”
The conversation was just about to shift towards school cafeterias and mysterious meat patties, when the host appeared on the small stage.
“Dear friends, please take your seats. We’re starting the official program.”
Pavel leaned back in his chair.
“I hope this doesn’t last long. I couldn’t stand these solemn speeches even back in school.”
Alexandra checked the time.
She knew the official part would last about forty minutes.
She received the program in advance.
First, the school’s principal, Viktor Andreevich, took the stage.
He didn’t speak for long: he thanked the teachers, reminisced about the alumni, and shared that over the past year, the assembly hall and two classrooms had been renovated.
Then photos of the new engineering lab appeared on the screen.
Alexandra immediately noticed that the equipment on one of the tables was set up differently than it was in the plans.
She made a mental note to write to the contractor about it tomorrow.
“And now,” the principal continued, “I want to tell you about a project we’ve been waiting almost four years for.”
The lab was shown in full on the screen: workstations, computers, robotics kits, measuring devices, and a small display for student engineering projects.
Sergey let out a whistle:
“Wow. The most we had was a soldering iron.”
“And that was one for the whole class,” Irina added.
The principal explained that a significant part of the renovations and equipment was funded by the company owned by a former student.
Pavel leaned over to Sergey at once:
“I wonder who it is. Maybe that guy who started the construction company.”
Sergey just shrugged.
“We’ll find out soon enough.”
The host returned to the stage.
“Today we have many honored guests. But there’s one person, thanks to whom this entire project became possible, whom I’d like to invite separately.”
Alexandra had already pushed back her chair.
“The CEO of Meridian Project Engineering, and a graduate of our school, Alexandra Melnikova.”
Pavel stopped smiling.
The host continued to talk about projects in several regions, nearly two hundred employees, and the company’s partnerships with various industrial enterprises.
Alexandra wasn’t listening anymore.
She stood up.
Irina quietly said:
“Sasha…”
“Later.”
Alexandra walked between the tables toward the stage.
The principal met her at the steps.
“Thank you for coming.”
“I promised I would.”
He shook her hand.
The applause was louder than Alexandra expected.
She never liked speaking at these kinds of events.
Negotiating a hundred-million deal hasn’t fazed her in a long time.
But having to talk on stage about her own good deeds always felt a bit uncomfortable.
That’s why she kept her speech short.
“I didn’t give this lab to the school,” Alexandra said. “I gave it to myself in the past.”
The room erupted in laughter.
“Because back when we were students, we were dying to take things apart, put them together, and test everything ourselves. After some of our experiments, though, our shop teacher certainly wanted something different.”
Somewhere at a table in the back, an elderly man raised his hand.
“I still remember!”
The crowd burst into laughter again.
That was Nikolai Petrovich, the former physics teacher.
He was the one who called Alexandra a year ago.
At first, he just asked her to help find a supplier for the equipment.
Then their conversation went on.
The school had been trying for several years to raise money for an engineering class—part of the funds came from the city, part from the board of trustees, but it was never quite enough.
Alexandra looked over the budget and offered to cover the missing amount through her company.
It was a significant sum, but for Meridian Project, it was entirely manageable by now.
She set just one condition.
No enormous wall-sized banners with her photo this time.
And definitely no speeches about being an ‘outstanding philanthropist.’
“Let the kids do the work,” she told the director. “That’s the best kind of publicity.”
The organizers almost followed her wishes.
They didn’t hang her photo on the wall.
But she was still named the guest of honor.
When Alexandra returned to the table, she found quite an interesting scene.
Sergey was smiling.
Irina was beaming as well.
Olga looked like she was genuinely having fun.
And Pavel was studying the menu with such intense focus, it was like he had a test on it the next day.
For about three minutes, no one said a word.
Then Sergey couldn’t hold it in any longer:
“Sasha, almost two hundred people?”
“One hundred eighty-seven last week.”
“Do you know all of them?”
“No, thank goodness. Otherwise I’d have to remember one hundred eighty-seven birthdays.”
Irina burst out laughing.
“So, where’s the office?”
“The main one is here. We have two small branches in the regions.”
“And what do you guys design?”
“Mostly industrial projects. Engineering systems, renovations. Sometimes public buildings.”
Pavel turned to the next page of the menu.
Then another one.
Finally, he put it down on the table.
“Listen, Sasha.”
“Mm?”
“Why didn’t you just say so from the start?”
Alexandra was genuinely puzzled:
“Say what, exactly?”
“You know… what you became.”
“You never asked.”
“I asked about your job.”
“I answered. I do project work.”
Sergey coughed into his napkin.
Pavel winced:
“But you got what I meant.”
“Not really.”
“You could’ve just said: I have a company, two hundred people.”
Alexandra looked at him.
“Pasha, you spent forty minutes explaining to everyone that I’m a nobody. It seemed rude to interrupt someone so convinced about their info.”
Irina was the first to burst out laughing.
Then Olga joined in.
A moment later, Sergey was laughing too.
Even two classmates from the other end of the table, who hadn’t heard the beginning, asked what was so funny.
Pavel blushed.
“Alright, fine. My mistake.”
“It happens.”
“For the record, I always knew you were capable.”
Alexandra turned her head.
“Now, that does interest me.”
“Come on, drop it.”
“No, keep going.”
“I actually backed your idea, you know.”
Irina quietly said:
“Pasha, don’t.”
But Pavel was already talking:
“Maybe not right away. But I knew you had potential.”
Alexandra smiled.
“You said: ‘In six months, you’ll be begging to come back to the office.’”
Pavel moved his lips.
“I only said that because I cared.”
“You also told me to sell my computer before it lost more value.”
Sergey turned away again.
“Alright,” Pavel said. “It’s been fifteen years. Who brings up the past…”
“That’s exactly why I never did.”
He fell silent.
And this time, it lasted a while.
After that, the evening started to go unexpectedly well.
People mingled around, took photos with teachers, reminisced about graduation.
Nikolai Petrovich caught Alexandra near the stage.
“I’ll send you a photo of the lab after the first Olympiad.”
“It’d be better if you sent a list of what else is needed.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
“Too late now.”
He laughed.
“Always the same.”
“No, Nikolai Petrovich. It’s just that now we have more money for our experiments.”
“That’s especially scary.”
By eleven o’clock, people started heading out.
Alexandra said goodbye to Irina, made plans to meet her separately, and was just about to call a car when Pavel appeared by the coat check again.
This time, he was alone.
And without the key fob in his hand.
“Sasha, can I have a minute?”
“Go ahead.”
He hesitated for a moment.
“I really didn’t know.”
“I understand.”
“Sergey later showed me your company’s website.”
“Why?”
“Well, I got curious.”
Alexandra put on her coat.
For the first time that evening, Pavel looked like someone who hadn’t planned his next line in advance.
“Listen, I have a friend who’s launching a big project right now. An industrial complex. They need designers.”
“It happens.”
“Maybe you could give me your business card?”
Alexandra took out her phone.
“Here’s the number for our commercial department. Jot it down.”
Pavel looked surprised:
“What about yours?”
“Why would he need my number?”
“Well… to reach out directly.”
“Pasha, if it’s a serious project, he needs the commercial department. They’ll look at the proposal, the documents, the timeline. If it’s our kind of project, we’ll take it. If not, they’ll tell him honestly.”
He wrote the number down.
“Got it.”
Pavel stopped by the door.
“Sasha.”
She turned around.
“You really did an awesome job.”
For once, his voice was free of mockery and condescension.
Alexandra nodded:
“Thank you.”
“Back then, I honestly thought you’d only last six months.”
“I know.”
“I was wrong.”
“It happens to everyone.”
He grinned.
“Pretty badly, too.”
Alexandra glanced through the glass door at the parking lot.
Somewhere among the cars stood the very one whose price about forty people had learned today.
“Not quite,” she said. “You were right about one thing, though.”
“About what?”
“A small company really doesn’t last long.”
Pavel frowned.
Alexandra opened the door.
“It stopped being small pretty quickly.”
It was chilly outside.
Her phone buzzed with a message from the school principal: Nikolay Petrovich had already thought of three more things that were “absolutely necessary” to buy for the lab.
Alexandra read through the list and laughed.
Now, that was far more dangerous than Pavel.
Because Nikolay Petrovich had been able to talk her into things ever since the eighth grade.
