CHAPTER 2
Sasha
The dog days of summer blanket D.C. in heat, and I brace myself for a blast of soupy steam as I exit my apartment and start the short walk to work on a Thursday morning.
When I was offered an apprenticeship at the Washington Ballet, I had to decide between living rent-free at home in Glen Burnie, Maryland, about an hour’s drive from the city, or relocating to the capital. After a couple of weeks commuting, during which that hour-long drive could be stretched to two or more in rush hour traffic, my choice was simple. I moved into my first apartment on April 1 st .
It’s a basement studio, not very big or fancy, but it’s in the Georgetown area, which my dad said was safe. Plus, it’s only a twenty-minute walk to the theater. On a brisk autumn day, my walk along the Potomac River is heaven. Today, however, it’s hot, hot, hot.
As I approach the theater with a sheen of sweat on my face, I see Sayaka sitting outside, waiting for me. Ever since I invited her to escape the city heat and spend the night at my parent’s house after Sunday’s matinee, she’s become friendlier. She waits for me in the sunshine before rehearsals, and we swap subtle eye rolls over Ming and Maria-Elena’s daily dose of bitchery. It feels good to have an ally, better yet, a prospective friend.
“ Konnichiwa , Sayaka!” I call, waving to her.
“Hello, Sasha!” she replies with a smile. “How are you today?”
Her English is still halted, but it gets better every day now that she has someone to talk to.
“I’m great! Ii tenku desu ne .” It’s hot out. Any observation about the weather, Sayaka explained to me, is part of a polite greeting in Japanese.
She nods. “Yes. It is hot, Sasha. Your…Japanese. It’s good!”
“ Arigato ,” I say, hefting my bag higher on my shoulder and gesturing with my chin to the row of glass doors before us. “Ready? Rehearsal starts soon.”
She hops off the cement wall where she was sitting and falls into step beside me. “Um…Sasha…what I can…um, to bring? For weekend?”
“Bring?”
“For your mother?”
“Ohhh,” I say. “No. You don’t have to bring anything. Just yourself. And your appetite.”
“Appetite?”
“Yes. For food.”
“Oh, yes! Bring food?”
As I said, we’re becoming friends. Our conversations aren’t fluid yet.
“No. Just…just bring you.”
“You? No food?” she asks, her eyes clouding with worry as she holds open the door for us.
“You know what? Sure,” I say, with a bright smile of surrender. “Bring food. My mom will love it.”
“Yes,” she says, nodding her head like the world makes sense again. “I bring food for gift.”
We continue down the Hall of Nations to the Grand Foyer, but out of the corner of my eye, I see something move to the far left of where we’re walking. It’s Vaughn Cigno vacuuming the bright red carpeting at the other end of the room. I haven’t seen him since our exchange in my dressing room on Sunday, and I’m not surprised that my heart leaps and my stomach buzzes at the sight of him. I’ve been hoping to run into him again.
I touch Sayaka’s shoulder. “You go ahead. I’ll be there in a minute.”
She follows my gaze to Vaughn, her expression mildly disapproving. “No, Sasha. You come with me.”
“I need to—” To what? I don’t even know. But my brain is labeling it as a need , not a want. I reach out and squeeze her hand. “I’ll be right behind you. I promise.”
Her lips twitch, like she wants to say something else, then thinks better of it. She nods crisply, then continues through the door on the far right that leads to the theater.
With the massive foyer empty except for me and Vaughn, I suddenly feel nervous. Really nervous. It’s not like I have something rehearsed that I want to say to him, and I’m not an adept flirt. I’ve spent most of my twenty-one years in theaters and ballet studios, not around boys—er, men. I take a deep breath, then let it go slowly as I start across the vast room.
Morning sunlight filters through a wall of glass, dancing on the shiny brass fixtures and reflecting off a wall of floor-to-ceiling mirrors on the opposite side of the foyer. My eyes stay fixed on Vaughn.
Though he’s certainly had the opportunity, he hasn’t sought me out, which makes a shot of adrenaline prickle my skin and misgivings echo in my head. Am I about to embarrass myself by boldly approaching a man who hasn’t shown any interest in me? What are you doing, Sasha? Leave him alone! But I can’t. My feet keep moving in his direction as though they have minds of their own.
I don’t know what it is about Vaughn Cigno that so intrigues me, but I have decided that the angles of his face are fascinating, not ugly. His dark hair is shaggy and unkempt, but it’s also thick and richly-colored—maybe it just needs a cut and style. His gray eyes are so soulful, I want to know what’s going on behind them. I want to hear his gravelly voice again. I don’t know what else I want from him, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about him since Sunday. It’s like he’s a massive pile of iron, and I’m a butterfly with magnets attached to her wings. I’m pulled to him. It’s as simple as that.
My feet, in white canvas sneakers, are soundless as I cross the red carpeted floor. When I get closer, I see he’s wearing ear buds, which, coupled with the hum of the vacuum, is why he doesn’t turn around at my approach. I take advantage of this, checking him out from behind as he runs the vacuum back and forth across the plush carpet.
Since his face is so angular, I assume that his body under his too-big janitor uniform is lean and wiry as well. I don’t know if it’s muscular or not, but I imagine it is in a spare, shredded sort of way. He spends his days in constant motion—stretching and reaching, stepping and squatting—not unlike me. I fleetingly wonder if his body is as toned as a dancer’s underneath his ill-fitting clothes.
My eyes land on his backside, which is impossible to make out, but there’s a book hanging out of his back pocket which snags my attention. It’s black with white letters. Old. Dog-eared. As I get closer, I realize it reads, My Poetry , on the upper part of the cover.
My intense focus on the book in Vaughn’s back pocket means I don’t realize he’s finally noticed me, and when I look up from his bum, he’s staring down at me in amusement.
“H-Hi!” I blurt out, blinking up at him in surprise. “I wasn’t staring at your backside—your, um, butt…um, bum.”
He reaches up for his earbuds while his lips tilt up a little more, and I can see it in his eyes, the way he’s calling bullshit on this lie. Blood seeps into my already hot cheeks. I force myself not to cup them, not to draw more attention to them, though they must be cooked-lobster red.
“I swear! I was looking at your book,” I say, gesturing to his backside. Lord, Sasha. “You have a…a book in your…” My words trail off. I could die of embarrassment.
He glances over his shoulder, one hand feeling for the book and pulling it from his pocket. After glancing at the cover, he switches off the vacuum and holds it out to me.
My Poetry .
“Marina Tsvetaeva,” I murmur.
“Yes,” he says, his smile disappearing as he stares down at me in wonder. He is tall. Did I realize you were so tall? “You pronounced it right.”
“What?”
“Tsvetaeva.”
“Oh,” I say. “Sure. It’s a Russian name, isn’t it?”
He nods, scanning my face, a million questions that I can’t read and, therefore, can’t answer, lingering in his eyes.
“My mother was born in Russia,” I add. “I speak a little.”
“Say something,” he demands softly, his eyes staring deeply into mine.
I hand back the book and speak without thinking. “ Radost moya .”
“What’s that mean?” he whispers, his voice awestruck and deep.
“My joy,” I say, grinning at him as I picture my babushka ’s face. “My grandmother, Bubbie, says it all the time.”
He looks down at the book, then back up at me. “Have you read her? Tsvetaeva?”
I shake my head. “No. I’m not much for poetry.”
His face changes, his eyebrows furrowing. His tone is harsh when he scolds me. “Then you haven’t read enough.”
“Excuse me, but I’ve read poetry,” I say, my tone sassy.
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“ Whom have you read?” he asks.
“ Whomever was assigned in high school.”
“Then you haven’t read any.” He extends his arm to me, offering the book. “Read this.”
“I can’t take your—”
“Read it.”
Bossy.
I pluck the book from his hand, staring down at the plain black-and-white cover. I assume the woman on the cover of the book is Ms. Tsvetaeva. She is homely and looks angry. Not much of an advertisement for what’s inside.
“Okay. Thanks.” I smush the book into my duffel, then try smiling at him like girls do on TV, like Ming smiles at Pete. I even twist a bit at the waist and bite my lower lip for a second before letting it go. “Shall I write you a book report when I return it?”
“No.” He doesn’t react to my ridiculous attempt at flirtation, only shakes his head. “Keep it.”
“Oh, no. It’s yours. I can’t.”
Taking a deep breath, he leans his head back and stares up at the ceiling, like he’s begging God for patience. He exhales loudly, and when he looks down at me again, his eyes are blazing.
“ At the skin, my blood calls out to your heart ,” he says. “ My whole sky craves an island of tenderness. My rivers tilt toward you .”
My rivers tilt toward you.
I gasp softly, wondering where this sudden, passionate monologue has come from.
Standing before him—in a pink leotard and gray gym shorts, a tied-at-the-waist cardigan and my dark hair in a tight bun—and I am so alive , so aware , of my body and his body and my hot cheeks and his wiry hands, and the cool, crisp air-conditioned breeze kissing our skin in this vast, red-carpeted lobby.
“That was…I mean…” My words are clumsy and trip over each other. “I—I don’t know what that—”
“ She wrote that,” he says, his eyes sparkling like he’s won a small victory. “She’ll sweep you away with her words, I promise. Read it. Keep it.”
He reaches for his earbuds, and starts to raise them to his ears, ending our conversation, dismissing me, and I stand there like a fish, my lips parted. I’m not ready for our chat to end.
My rivers tilt toward you.
As he turns away, I tap him on the shoulder. “Hey!”
He pivots his whole body to face me, glancing at his shoulder and frowning at the spot where I am touching him. His eyes are wide. Surprised. Why? Because I’m touching him?
Maybe he doesn’t like to be touched.
I lift my finger and let my hand fall to my side.
“What?” he asks.
“I’m going away on Sunday,” I say. “But I’ll be back on Monday afternoon.” The ballet doesn’t rehearse or perform on Mondays. It’s our one day off every week. I gulp softly, scanning his gray eyes and deciding to take a chance. “What time do you get off work on Mondays?”
“Five.”
I’ve never asked a boy to meet me somewhere, and now that I find myself about to, my heart thrums with the boldness of it. What if he says no? What if he has no interest in me?
I glance out the windows at the fountains and garden outside. Low, concrete walls keep the water and foliage inside artful squares and give visitors to the Kennedy Center a place to sit and rest for a few minutes before or after a performance. Many times, I’ve seen couples meet there to share a cup of coffee or afternoon sandwich together. I’ve watched them wistfully, wondering if that would ever be me.
“Meet me on the plaza at five-thirty on Monday,” I say. “I’ll tell you what I think of your book.”
He gulps softly. “But I usually have dinner after—”
“I’ll bring something for you to eat,” I say in a rush. “Meet me?”
Now he looks like a fish gasping for water, and though I want to smile at him, I don’t. I’m frozen until he gives me his answer. I raise my eyebrows and wait for him to nod “yes” before my lips bloom upward. Then, I turn sharply on my heel, clutching his book to my chest as I race across the lobby to rehearsal.
***
Vaughn
Monday.
The very word is at once my torture and relief.
It is a million years until then, and yet there isn’t nearly enough time to feel ready.
I am lying on my bed late Saturday night when I hear Lottie’s footsteps coming down the stairs. Though I’m holding a book over my head, I haven’t read a word in the last ten minutes. All I can think about—with a breath-catching eagerness I barely recognize—is seeing Sasha Collins on Monday evening to discuss Marina Tsvetaeva’s poetry.
“Vonnie,” she says, clutching a set of clean sheets to her chest. “You want me to change-a the bed?”
“I can do it.” I set the book on the bedside table and sit up.
“You pay rent. I’ll do it.”
I stand up and stretch, crossing the basement to a sitting area where there’s a couch, coffee table, and rabbit-eared TV from the 1970s. Just beyond, there are two doors—one leads to my bathroom and the other leads to a small patio under the Cigno’s deck. I don’t have my own kitchen, but I’m not much of a cook, and board is included in my rent. Lottie’s the best cook I ever met, plus I like running into Dom and Lottie over breakfast and joining them sometimes for dinner. They’re the closest thing I have to family. The only thing. I’d be long gone by now if it wasn’t for them, and no one on the face of the earth would have missed me.
Lottie sets a neatly folded stack of white sheets on my bed and picks up the book I was reading. Ariel by Sylvia Plath. Turning to look at me, she holds it up, tilting her head to the side.
“Sylvia Plath. Psh. Why you read-a such dark things, Vonnie?”
I shrug. “Just do.”
She sets the book down and picks up my pillow, tugging at the case.
“You a good lookin’ boy, capisci ?”
I have no answer to this, no response. Though I sense Lottie means well, her compliment rings hollow for me. Throughout my days in foster care, my unusual face was not celebrated as “good-looking,” and more than once, I caught a fist in some part of it.
My nickname in grade school was “Lurch” after the butler in The Addams Family , who was very tall with gaunt cheeks and deep-set eyes. I looked him up on Wikipedia and after learning that Lurch’s character was based on Frankenstein’s monster, I read the original Mary Shelley novel over the course of a single weekend.
After that, the nickname didn’t bother me so much. The Creature, as the monster is termed in the book, is intelligent and articulate, outwardly ugly, but essentially gentle. He has no parents, no past, no one to love him, no one to love, and more than anything, he craves friendship and kindness.
Go ahead and compare me to Lurch , I reasoned. I’m not so different from him.
Lottie shucks off the used sheets and throws them at the foot of the stairs.
“You should-a go out more,” she advises, trudging back to the bed. “Find a nice girl. Get married. Have a couple of bambinos .” She opens the fitted sheet and shakes it out, so it billows over the bed before she reaches forward to tuck in the corners. “You’re alone too much, reading these sad books.”
Lottie’s advice comes from a good place. But I have never dared to dream of marriage, let alone children. I see my life as something to be survived, something to be endured until I can’t bear it anymore.
I change the subject. “How’s Alberto?”
Alberto is Dom and Lottie’s only biological child and the apple of their eyes. He’s ten years older than I am, and by the time I came to stay at Dom and Lottie’s, he was married with a baby on the way. He mostly ignores me when he visits, which is fine with me.
“Berto! Oh, that boy! He had-a the girls knocking down the door at your age!” she says, her voice full of pride. “And now what? He’s a father himself. Three little girls and mio Dio, sono angeli ! They’re coming in two weeks for a cookout, Vonnie. On Sunday. You come too, yeah?”
Berto’s daughters, Angelina, Sofia, and Margarita, live with him and his wife, Sharon, in Delaware, but they come home about once a month and for most major holidays to visit. As kids go, Berto’s girls aren’t the worst. I mean, they’re loud and excitable, and they chatter a lot, but they’re not rude, and they don’t throw tantrums like the kids on TV. They say “please” and “thank you,” and when Lottie demands a kiss on the cheek, they always oblige her.
“Sure,” I say, watching as she smooths the top sheet, then recovers the pillow, plumping it at the head of the bed. “How’s his job going?”
“ Mio bambino , he is a saint, working with these kids.”
By “these kids,” she means children like me, placed, by bad fortune or worse fate, into the foster care system. Berto is a clinical social worker in Wilmington, Delaware.
She pulls up the comforter and then turns to look at me. “You know…Berto and Sharon, they’re not perfect. But they got each other. That’s something, Vonnie.”
I guess it is. Something that I haven’t the slightest idea of how to obtain for myself, and even if I did, what could I offer a wife of my own? Half a twin bed in the basement of my former foster parents’ small house? I have no family, no history, no education beyond high school, no prospects. I am nothing. I have nothing.
Except…
Monday.
In the strangest twist of fate, I have Monday.
What made her suggest it?
I remember her face when I quoted a few verses by Tsvetaeva—the little gasp of air that escaped through her lips. I felt that gasp in the pit of my stomach, and though she might not have been able to tell, it knocked the wind out of me for a second, too. I think I might have flustered her a little, which makes me almost smile, because who am I—Vaughn, only Vaughn, with no people, and a borrowed surname—to discompose a goddess like her? I’d never felt a rush like that—a masculine rush, I think. Powerful. Heady. Like my words, even if I was borrowing them from someone else, could touch her, move her, affect her. I loved it.
“Lost in your head now, eh?” says Lottie, bending down to gather the sheets that she’ll take upstairs to the washing machine. “Up in the clouds.” Her feet start up the steps. “ Buona notte , Vonnie.”
“Night, Lottie,” I murmur, lying back on my freshly made bed.
The door closes upstairs. I stare at the ceiling tiles over my head until I fall asleep. And when I do, I dream of tilting rivers and beautiful ballerinas.
***
Even though I didn’t need to be at the theater until nine, I woke up six o’clock this morning, re-reading a library copy of Tsvetaeva’s poems before and on the bus to work, preparing myself to discuss them with Sasha, but ready to forgive her if she hates them.
At five o’clock on the dot, I take off my uniform and use the lone shower stall in the employee bathroom to wash up and shave. I’m so nervous and rushing myself, I end up nicking my left cheekbone, and press a tiny square of toilet paper to stop the blood. Someone’s left a half-finished bottle of Nautica Blue in the vanity over the sink, and I splash a little on my cheeks.
It’s five-twenty by the time I’ve changed into the new jeans, a white button-down shirt and a black leather belt given to me last Christmas by Dom and Lottie. I’ve been saving them in the bottom of my bureau drawer for a special occasion, and today’s the day.
Over the past few days, the one question that I’ve asked myself over and over again was why in the world would Sasha Collins ask to spend time with me. But now that I’m waiting for the elevator that’ll take me upstairs, a new question bombards my mind.
How can I make sure that today isn’t a solitary date?
Not that it’s a date -date, I quickly remind myself. No. I don’t trick myself into believing that someone like Sasha is romantically interested in me. I’m awkward and ugly. She is so far above me, with a whole lifetime of opportunity waiting to greet her, to embrace her.
But spending time with her , I think, for just a little while, would be heaven.
The elevator doors open to the main level, where there is only one performance this evening—a free six o’clock show on the Millennium Stage, which is located in the foyer and doesn’t generally attract more than a handful of attendees.
From the service elevator, I step through the coat room into the Grand Foyer, where Sasha found me vacuuming last week. The entire foyer is 630 feet long, almost the size of two football fields and as elegant as any European palace. To the far, far right I can see a couple of guys on the swing shift setting up chairs for the free concert this evening. Though we all work in janitorial services, I don’t walk over to say hello. I keep to myself, as I always do.
Ahead of me, through the windows, I glance out at the fountain, which looks cool and refreshing despite the 90-degree weather. The building shades the River Plaza at this time of day, so we can choose to sit by the fountain or by one of the copses of weeping willows. Either way, we’ll be in the shade. I look right to where a few people—likely friends of tonight’s musician—are gathered, waiting for the concert to begin, and I find myself moving to the left, outside, to the south side of the plaza, which is deserted on this hot, summer Monday.
From the Potomac River, which lies beyond the plaza, a light breeze fights through the humidity and cools my face as I stroll. I reach into my back pocket for a paperback edition of My Poetry . My hands are sweaty, but I know the moisture has nothing to do with the heat.
I’m nervous.
I’m nervous as hell.
I take a seat in the shade on a low concrete wall facing the river, watching the sunlight sparkle on the surface of the water.
Out of nowhere, I have a brief flashback. Another river. A long, long time ago.
“C’mon,” says the lady holding my hand. What does “c’mon” mean? I wonder. She’s speaking gibberish.
We walk and walk, and I realize that the zoo is on one side of a high black fence to my left, and there is a river on my right. A small river, like a trickle.
We are getting further and further away from the lions.
I don’t know where we’re going, but my attempts to ask have been met with more funny-talk. Finally we stop walking.
“Whasyername?” asks the lady, squatting in front of me, her blue eyes narrowed and somehow not as pretty as they were before.
“Whasyername?” she asks again.
I stare at her, because she speaks so strangely.
She pokes her finger into my chest and asks again, “Whasyername?”
I don’t know what she’s asking me, but I place my own finger on my own chest and say my name softly, Ivan.
“What’s that?”
“Ivan,” I whisper again, my tiny hand over my heart.
“Von?” she asks, wrinkling her forehead at me. “Vaughn? Like Vince Vaughn?”
Still holding my hand, she stands up and speaks to the man, fast gibberish flying between them.
In the distance, the far distance, I think I hear a lion roar…
“Hi.”
My neck snaps up. God only knows how long I was daydreaming.
“H-Hi,” I say, blinking up at her.
I can count on one hand the times I’ve seen Sasha out of her ballet clothes. Today makes three. She’s wearing a sundress, which is white with bright red cherries scattered all over it, and I’m certain that I’ll never pass a bag of cherries in the grocery store again without thinking about today.
The dress is shaped like a heart over her breasts, and something zings through me like a fever as my eyes land and pause on her chest for a second. When I slide my gaze to her face, I find her lips are bright red, like the cherries on her dress, and the frames of her over-sized sunglasses are white. She looks like an old-fashioned movie star, and the fact that she’s here to meet me almost brings me to my knees.
“You’re here,” she says, laughing softly like she’s surprised.
I stand up. Uncertain of what to do with my hands, I shove them into my pockets. “Where else would I be?”
She stops laughing as she pushes her sunglasses to the top of her head, but her crimson lips are still smiling.
“You said to meet you here,” I say. “Monday at five thirty. At the River Plaza.”
She sits down, placing a small picnic basket on the cement wall beside her.
“I know,” she says with a little shrug, “but people never follow through. I didn’t—”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“I know that now,” she says, tilting her head to the side as she continues to grin at me.
Her hair isn’t in a severe bun like usual. It’s in a little ponytail, and she’s tied a red ribbon around the rubber band. For no good reason, the sight of it makes my heart fist tightly, then release.
“Are you going to sit?” she asks.
I nod, untucking my hands and sitting on the other side of the basket. “What’s in here?”
“Oh! I’m so glad you asked,” she says. “I visited my family yesterday, and…” She lifts a wooden flap and reaches into the basket, pulling out a loaf of bread wrapped in cellophane. Holding it up with a bright smile, she exclaims, “Ta-da! Challah!”
“Halla?”
“Challah bread,” she says. “My grandmother’s connected. She has a close, personal relationship with the Russian baker in my hometown.” Her smile fades a touch, and she bites her bottom lip, looking uncertain. “So…um, she sent me home with an extra loaf. I thought we could share it while we talked about your poet. Russian poet? Russian bread?” When I don’t answer right away, she shrugs, lowering the loaf of bread to her lap. “Probably a dumb idea.”
“No, it’s not. It’s great. Thoughtful. I’d…like some—some halla bread. Please.”
She instantly perks up. “Oh…yeah? Good. Great.”
Looking relieved, she untwists the bright green tie holding the bag closed, and it occurs to me that maybe she’s nervous too. I mean, not as nervous as me, of course…but nervous all the same, and it makes me want to reassure her.
“It was nice,” I say. “For you to bring us something to eat.”
“It’s not much,” she says with a soft chuckle. The bag crinkles as she slides it down a little and offers the bread to me. “But I figured you’d be hungry.”
“Should I just rip off a piece?” I ask her.
“Yep. Go ahead. There’s paté, too. And some jam.”
I take some, chewing the buttery goodness as she watches me expectantly. Realizing that she’s waiting for some indication that I like her challah, I nod as I swallow. “It’s good.” So good, it doesn’t need all of that other stuff.
“I know!” She tears off a chunk and smiles back at me as she eats it. “Mmmm! The best! It tastes like home.”
“Where’s home?”
“Glen Burnie, Maryland. You?”
“Alexandria.”
“Posh.”
“Not the posh part.”
“Oh.”
She quickly drops her eyes from mine, and I realize I’ve made her feel awkward, which wasn’t my intention. Say something, Vaughn. Make it better.
“I rent a basement apartment from Dom and his wife, Lottie.”
“Dom, your sorta-dad.”
“He was my foster dad,” I tell her, “until I turned eighteen.”
“Oh,” she says, her eyebrows furrowing for a moment like someone pinched her. “I’m…” For a second, I think she’s going to say she’s sorry, but I’m relieved when she doesn’t. I don’t want her pity. I don’t want to be pitiful. “I’m glad. I’m glad you ended up with Dom. He seems nice.”
She offers me the bread again, and I tear off another piece, biting into it as a semi-cool Potomac breeze dusts our faces. Over to the far right, a guitarist starts playing Vivaldi.
Beside me, Sasha taps her palm against her knee before turning her bright eyes to me. “Do you know it?”
“Vivaldi. ‘Winter.’”
“Yes! Wow! I’m impressed. Do you like music?”
“Even if I didn’t, I work here. I wouldn’t be able to escape it.”
“But you do like it?”
“Very much.”
“Classical?”
I nod. “Sometimes.”
As the fingers of the soloist tear across the strings of his instrument in a fast, familiar melody, she stares into my eyes. It’s intimate to stare at someone like this. It feels like she can see into my soul, almost, and I wonder what she’ll find there. Her eyes are so dark brown, they’re almost black, and I am positive there are none more lovely in the whole world.
“Vaughn,” she says shyly, her lips lilting up a touch, “Your eyelashes…are longer than anyone’s.”
“What?” I murmur.
“Your eyelashes,” she says, again, “are longer than anyone’s.”
I am a stranger to compliments, especially those about my looks, which makes this one—delivered with such earnestness—the best I’ve ever received. Before I can stop myself, a million dreams are born within me—a dream for every moment I’d like to spend with this beautiful girl.
But first, I want to return the compliment—I should tell her everything that she means to me. I stare back at her, feeling overwhelmed and undone.
I falter. I fumble. I find I can’t speak.
“‘Tenderness,’” she says, with a soft chuckle. “ Your eyelashes are longer than anyone’s. It’s from the poem ‘Tenderness.’ From the book? That was my favorite poem.”
Fuck me .
And thank God, for once, I was tongue-tied.
She was only quoting the Tsvetaeva poem, “Tenderness,” not giving me a fucking compliment.
“Tenderness,” I whisper.
“I loved it.”
She opens the book I loaned to her and starts reading aloud. I pull mine out of my back pocket and follow along.
Where does this tenderness come from?
These aren’t the first curls
I’ve touched—
And lips I’ve kissed are
Darker than yours.
The night sky is
Covered in stars
(Where does this tenderness come from?)
Other eyes have risen
And set in mine.
But your words are the first
I’ve ever heard
(Where does this tenderness come from?)
Whispered while my head rests
On your chest.
Where does this tenderness come from?
And what shall I do with it? Young
Singer only passing by.
Your eyelashes—
Are longer than anyone’s.
Vivaldi’s “Winter” finishes at the same time as Sasha.
“ Your eyelashes…” she repeats, looking up from the pages. Her beautiful brown eyes slam into my gray. “…are longer than anyone’s.”
My own tenderness rises up within me, saturating the landscape of my heart like floodwaters drenching parched land. She doesn’t know it yet, but I am helpless under her gaze. I am a servant to her. I worship on my knees before her. She has saved my life in more ways than she will ever know, and my gratitude to her is boundless and eternal.
“You liked Tsvetaeva?” I ask her.
“Mostly. But that one, I loved.”
“You loved it,” I whisper. I am so relieved, it’s as though her rejection of Tsvetaeva would have, somehow, been a rejection of me.
But this girl—this kind, beautiful girl sitting beside me on a hot summer night…she doesn’t let me down.
“Yes, I do.”