CHAPTER 4
Sasha
I watch him trudge away and clench my eyes shut, feeling the full weight of my misstep.
I’ve probably wrecked everything that was blooming between us, which makes my eyes water and stomach knot. The moment I said the words, I saw the hurt on his face, the confusion, the disappointment.
And it was almost unbearable that I’d put it there.
We’re becoming friends, aren’t we?
And then I got flustered and made it worse:
Friends don’t stand each other up.
And then I tried to change focus…to the bread, to the Pasternak poem, to anything just to get over the speed bump of unintentionally friend-zoning him.
I know I convinced myself last week that keeping things platonic between me and Vaughn was for the best, but the moment I saw him tonight, standing there at the railing looking out at the river? My heart a jeté in my chest and I knew. What I feel for him is embryonic, sure, but it’s definitely not platonic.
What a mess.
I sigh heavily, looking at the shot of vodka in my cup, but I’m small, and I can feel the effects of what I’ve already drunk. I don’t need more right now.
The musicians on the Millennium Stage start a new piece with a bolero beat.
I laugh ruefully, a bitter sound, as I recognize the old Frank and Nancy Sinatra song, “Somethin’ Stupid.” It’s one of Bubbie’s favorites and couldn’t be more timely, considering my recent blunder.
After looking furtively at the doors through which Vaughn disappeared, I toe off my sneakers and stand up in bare feet, assuming first position on the mostly empty plaza. There is nothing on earth that dancing can’t make better.
I chassé , spin and jump in a divertissement of my own creation as a pretty decent vocalist sings about a woman who moves too fast and ruins a brand-new relationship by declaring her love too soon. It’s the ultimate foot-in-mouth anthem, and having recently felt the kick of my ankle against my molars, I can relate.
Brisé vole…glissade…brisé…
“And then I go and spoil it all…
Third…fourth… jeté…
“…by sayin’ somethin’ stupid…
Sissonne …fifth… demi-plié …
“… like I love you ,” I sing softly, holding á la seconde while the instrumentalists take over for the bridge and chorus.
From behind, and much closer than the audience inside the lobby, I hear someone clapping and turn around to find Vaughn leaning against the glass of one of the foyer windows. He watches me with his arms crossed over his chest and a very, very small smile.
“You caught me!” I say, offering him a deep curtsy.
His grin widens for a split second before he forces it away, straightening his lips and lifting his chin. “I guess I did.”
“What can I say? I’m a dancer.” One shoulder brushes my ear in a little shrug. “Besides, who can resist a bolero?”
“You’re a great dancer,” he says softly, his eyes intense and direct.
“How do you know?” I ask, still barefooted before him.
He pushes away from the window and heads back to the blanket under the weeping willow. I do a petite fouetté to follow his movements.
“Well,” he says, “aside from your obvious bolero skills, I’ve seen you dance on stage. Many times.”
I shift from first to second to third position and hold it.
“You watch me—I…I mean, us ?”
“ You .” He nods. “Sometimes.”
You. I don’t know if he can see from a few feet away, but goose bumps pepper my arms as a little shiver of pleasure chases down my spine. Relevé. I rise up on my toes for a moment, like my body is so elated by this news, it can’t stay grounded.
“You like ballet?”
He gives me a look. “Show me a man who doesn’t want to watch beautiful women leap around in tights.”
“Ha! There’s more to it than that.” I say, lowering my heels a terré and putting my hands on my hips as I approach him. Standing in front of him, in the shadow of the weeping willow, I waggle my finger at him in gentle censure. “It’s a lot of work.”
“I know,” he says. His cheeks flare with a touch of pink, and it’s so appealing, I have to clasp my hands together to keep them from reaching out and tracing the strong line of his cheekbone with my fingertip. “I’m just teasing.”
That makes me smile. “I don’t think you’ve teased me before, Vaughn Cigno.”
Are we flirting? I wonder breathlessly. I think we are. How did that happen?
“You like being teased, Sasha Collins?”
“ Da ,” I say, feeling suddenly breathless. “You can tease me all you want.”
“Do friends tease friends?” he asks softly, his eyes narrowing a little. There’s a chilly undertone in his voice. “I want to play by the rules.”
“I…I guess?” I shrug. “I don’t know. I—Vaughn, I’m not…I mean, my whole life has been about ballet. I don’t have much experience with…I mean—I…I’m not an expert on teasing…or, um, or rules—or…how to talk to boys.”
Now my cheeks are red, and I’m feeling like an idiot. Not to mention, he just gave me the perfect opportunity to backtrack on my “friend zone” maneuver, and I mucked it all up. Again.
Gah. Smooth, Sasha. Real smooth.
“I’m not either,” he says, uncrossing his arms and tossing back his second vodka shot. When he looks up at me, he asks, “Since neither of us are experts, how about we just make it up as we go along?”
“Yeah,” I say, backing up to the blanket and joining him on the wall. “Yeah. Okay.”
He grins at me—just a little pop of happiness—and I smile back, and suddenly, somehow, it’s better.
It’s not all better, of course. We’re still stuck at “friends,” and I’m still mad at myself for altering a dynamic of our fledgling relationship that I didn’t intend to change. But at the same time, I have this feeling that we’re both feeling around in the dark. Neither one of us is particularly experienced nor smooth with the opposite sex. We’re both a little awkward. And I realize that’s something I really like about Vaughn—that the playing field is level between us, and it’s up to us what we want to do with that.
“So…which Pasternak poem were you talking about before?” he asks, picking up his book. “You said it was sad…”
“Oh.” I open my book and turn to the third of three dog-eared pages. “In the Wood.”
“One of my favorites.” His eyes slip to my lips, and an unexpected heat pools in my stomach. When his eyes slide up to meet mine, his eyes are darker. They’re thunderclouds before a storm. They’re a vast ocean of deep blue-gray, and I can’t look away. “ Happy people do not watch the clocks ,” he whispers. “ It seems they only lie in pairs and sleep .”
Without any warning, my brain conjures an image of me and Vaughn, on a blanket under a weeping willow, curled up together, asleep. A muscled, wiry arm is thrown over my waist, and he buries his face in the back of my neck. I can almost feel his heartbeat against my back.
It’s such a lovely image, I’m instantly filled with longing. A sigh bubbles up from the depths of my throat, and I’m helpless to stop it.
“Do you watch clocks, Sasha?”
“Sometimes, I guess. Do you?”
“Always,” he says, turning away from me to rip off a chunk of challah and bring it to his lips.
My eyebrows furrow, and my heart clenches. “You’re unhappy?”
He chews slowly, looking out at the river. Finally, he turns to face me.
“Not right this minute.”
This makes me smile and eases the tension between us.
“Did you know,” I ask him, taking a chance, “that Boris Pasternak wrote Dr. Zhivago ?”
“ Da .”
“Have you ever seen it?”
“Of course.”
“Oh.”
“But I’d see it again,” he adds.
“It’s playing at the West End Cinema this week,” I say, gulping nervously.
He grins at me, his expression surprised. And soft. Wonderfully soft, because I’ve caught him off-guard. “Is it?”
“ Da.”
For a moment, we’re both quiet, and I have the feeling he’s decided not to make this easy for me, which, considering the whole friend-zone debacle, is fair. Either I ask him out this time, or we won’t be meeting up again. And frankly, the idea of not seeing him again—one-on-one—pinches my heart so painfully, it steals my breath and makes my eyes start to burn.
“I—I think we should go see it. Together,” I say in a soft rush. I feel awkward, of course, but even if he declines, I’ll know I did everything possible to fix my mistake.
“You do?”
“I mean…in the interest of our mutual love of all things Russian.” I gulp. “We could…”
“Go to the movies.”
I nod, crossing my arms over my chest as my nervous energy builds. I fight the urge to jump up and dance away from our conversation.
“I love the movies,” he says softly.
“Me, too.”
“When are you free?” he asks.
Relief makes me dizzy. Today isn’t the end.
“I’m not dancing in the Wednesday matinee,” I say, with a smile I can’t contain. I feel it take over my entire face, and I don’t care. I don’t try to force it away. “Can you get the afternoon off?”
He stares at me hard before answering my smile with one of his own.
“ Da. Absolutely.”
***
Vaughn
We agreed to meet in front of the movie theater at 12:45 p.m., but I’m there at noon just in case she’s early. Across the tree-lined street there’s a café called the Orange Spoon, so I cross over, order a cup of coffee, and sit outside, taking advantage of the shade afforded by the office building that rises up over the restaurant.
All day yesterday I split my thoughts between an analysis of Monday night and a sort of jumpy eagerness for today—for now —to arrive.
I’ve had time to think it over, and I’ve decided it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to be friends with Sasha if that’s where we finally land. I mean, it doesn’t change the way I feel. I can’t help the way my heart swells when I see her or that my dreams, both waking and sleeping, include her. My feelings are romantic, whether she wants them or not. But I’ve never really had a friend, and I can’t deny the attraction of finally having one.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a loner, someone for whom the-knowing-of-people presented myriad challenges I didn’t know how to meet.
Being rejected by at least two mothers in my early childhood has always made me feel a certain way about myself, like maybe I wasn’t worth knowing, let alone liking or loving. I guess I’ve never really felt comfortable recommending myself to anyone.
I’ve never had a friend.
God, that’s fucking pathetic.
Getting to know Sasha like I am?
It might be a fluke.
A sweet, sweet fluke, but fleeting all the same. There’s no telling how long it will last or if it will last at all.
So maybe just be grateful for whatever you get.
If I hadn’t decided to gift myself one last, up-close glimpse of her before killing myself, I never would have walked into her dressing room that afternoon. And if I hadn’t, she wouldn’t have talked to me. And if she hadn’t, I never would’ve spoken to her. It was the dumb luck of a dying man who had enough gas in the tank for one last run.
I’m not enough of a dreamer to call it fate, but someone who liked himself more might call it that.
Whatever it was—gamble or grace—it ended up saving my life.
And I’m grateful.
Fuck.
Sitting here at the Orange Spoon, waiting for my Russian ballerina angel to meet me for a movie about doomed love, I realize I’m… grateful .
I mean, maybe life didn’t seem worth living a few weeks ago…but today? After meeting up with Sasha twice to discuss poetry? Sitting here now, waiting for her to arrive to see a movie she suggested? Knowing that I’m about to sit beside her agile, precious body in a dark theater for the next three and a half hours?
Fuck, yes.
I’m grateful.
I’m grateful to know her.
I’m grateful to be alive.
So, okay. If she wants to be friends, we can be friends. Not that I’ve had much experience with friendship, but I can do this. For her. I want this. With her. More than almost anything.
I take another sip of my coffee and pull the book from my pocket . Welcome to the Monkey House . No, it’s not poetry, but I’ve always been a fan of Kurt Vonnegut’s clean, clear prose. I’m on page three of my favorite short story, “The Long Walk To Forever,” when I hear her say my name:
“Vaughn!”
I look up from the pages of my book to see the face I treasure more than any other in the world. She stands across the street, her long, dark hair braided down her back, wearing jeans and a gray T-shirt, a sweater draped across her arm and backpack straps on her shoulders. I take in these details, of course, but what I notice the most is her smile. One hand cups her mouth, and the other is up in a wave hello. Her eyes shine and her smile— oh, my fucking heart —is all for me.
Friends. Friends. Friends.
She sprints across the street and stands beside my table.
“Hi!” she says, gesturing to the paper cup in front of me. “We had the same idea. Caffeine before a long movie! Isn’t this place the sweetest?”
No. You’re the sweetest.
Her breasts heave slightly from the exertion of walking to the theater and then running to me. I notice them without staring at them, swallowing the saliva that’s watering my mouth before speaking.
“You, uh, want one? A coffee?”
“Yeah. But I can get it.”
“Sit,” I say, gesturing to the empty chair she’s standing behind. “Black?”
“No,” she says, wrinkling her nose as she takes off her backpack and sits down. “Almond milk and honey, please.”
“Almond milk, huh?”
She nods. “I’m allergic to cow’s milk.”
“You’re lactose intolerant?”
“Nope. I’m allergic . The full nine yards. Anaphylaxis and EpiPen allergic.”
Shit. My whole body reacts to this information, stiffening as I think of all the foods that could hurt her and summarily cutting them out of my own diet too. I think about what I’ve seen her eating and freeze when I remember the challah bread we’ve shared.
“Doesn’t bread have milk?”
“Some is safe…like challah, obviously.”
“How do they make it safe?”
“There’s no dairy in challah. Ever.” She grins. “It’s parve . Um, kosher? It can’t have dairy in it because it’s served at seder . Dairy and meat can’t mix. It’s a rule.”
“Are you Jewish?”
“Technically, yes. My maternal grandparents are Jewish, which means my mother and I are Jewish, too. That’s how it works. But my father’s Irish-Catholic, so we celebrate both Jewish and Christian holidays. And I wasn’t baptized or bat mitvah’d . Neither were my brothers.”
“Uh-huh,” I say, downloading all of this new and important information.
“Hey.” She raises her chin, her smile dimming just a touch. “Is that a problem? My being half Jewish?”
I dart my eyes to hers. “Huh?”
“Do you have a problem with my ethnicity?” she asks, crossing her arms over her chest, her eyes cool and wary.
Shit. What just happened?
“What? No! Why—why would I have a problem?”
“Oh. Sorry,” she says, a pink blush coloring her cheeks. It makes her look a little sheepish. She uncrosses her arms and rests her elbows on the table. “I just…sometimes you get quiet, and I don’t know what it means.”
“I was processing everything you just told me,” I say. “You’re allergic to milk and milk products. You’re not allergic to challah bread, but probably to many others. You’re half Russian-Jewish and half Irish-Catholic…” I tilt my head to the side. “And I think you might be a little defensive about your Jewish roots.”
Her brown eyes widen. “Accurate.”
“Why are you defensive? About being Jewish?”
“I’ll tell you after you grab me a coffee,” she says, folding her sweater on top of her backpack.
I hurry into the little café, anxious to hear more. They give me the container of almond milk to take outside to her, and I grab a packet of honey on my way out.
She’s still resting her elbows on the table, but she’s put her white-rimmed sunglasses on, and her face is tilted up to the midday sun when I place everything before her. I sit down across from her.
“I’m defensive,” she says, without moving anything but her lips, “because people can be jerks. You’d think that eighty years after World War II, antisemitism would be long gone. But it’s not. It lingers. Everywhere.” She pushes her glasses on top of her head as she opens the lid of her coffee cup and pours a dollop of almond milk into it. “So, yeah. I guess I’m a little sensitive about it.”
I hear the hurt in her voice, and it’s like a dagger in my heart. I don’t know many people , let alone many Jewish people, but I care so deeply for her, her fight is immediately my fight.
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” she says, bringing the coffee to her lips and taking a sip. “I worry my Bubbie’s going to have a heart attack watching the news one of these days.”
“Your…”
“Bubbie,” she says, her grin returning like sunshine from behind a cloud. “Babushka is Russian for ‘grandmother.’ ‘Bubbie’ is the diminutive.”
“You’re close to her.”
She nods, her sadness and anger traded for a soft, loving look that I envy.
“Very. She and my Gramps live around the corner from my parents’ house. You’ve got to meet her sometime, Vaughn. She’s incredible.”
“I’d like that,” I say, though meeting new people isn’t my favorite thing.
“She’ll like you,” says Sasha, tilting her head to the side. “You’re quiet and smart, and you only talk when you have something good to say.”
I have such little experience with true kindness, her words, delivered with such breezy authenticity, are almost painful to me. She thinks I’m smart. If a car runs me down while we’re crossing the street to enter the theater, I’ll die a happy man.
“Wow! Look at that. A rare glimpse of Vaughn Cigno’s teeth,” she teases, smiling at me over the rim of her cup before taking another sip. “I like your grins, but you should smile more often.”
My teeth are crooked because I never had braces. They’re nothing to write home about. I give her a look. “Sure.”
“No, really! Smiling makes you look…” Her eyes are bright and sweet as they look into mine. “I don’t know. Maybe a little less…um…angry?”
“Do I usually look angry?”
“Yeah. Sometimes,” she says, tilting her head to the side as she regards me. “But more, I guess, you look like you’re stewing. You know, brooding.”
“Brooding?”
“Agonizing over something,” she says. Her eyebrows furrow. “Hey. I’m not offending you, am I? I wouldn’t—I mean—”
“No. Not at all. I have a mirror. I know what I look like.” I tell her. “I’m…angular.”
“You mean your cheekbones?” she asks, reaching up to dust a fingertip along the much softer lines of her own.
I nod, looking away from her, knowing how ugly, how Lurch-like, I am.
“You could make millions modeling,” she says, two patches of pink instantly coloring her cheeks.
There isn’t a touch of irony in her voice, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t kidding. I mean, she must be kidding, right? I try to be a good sport about the joke, to play it off.
“Yeah, right.” I scoff.
“No, really,” she insists without a hint of teasing.
Now it’s starting to bother me because this has got to be a set up. One I’ve experienced before.
She’ll insist I could model. And me, dumb fucking me, will wonder if somehow—on God’s green earth—she’s telling the truth. And then she’ll burst into gales of laughter about how gullible I am and say she was “just kidding,” like she didn’t just betray my trust and humiliate me.
Except Sasha? My Sasha? I hadn’t expected this of her. My heart races with fear. I need to get to the bottom of this.
I look up and lock my eyes with hers, gazing deeply.
What I don’t see there? Mockery or cruelty. All I can see is kindness. Sweetness. Honesty. Holy shit, I think she’s being genuine.
“I guess you’ve heard that before,” she says, her blush deepening.
I squint, leaning forward just a little, my eyes staring into hers without blinking.
“Sasha,” I say plainly, “I’m ugly.”
“No,” she answers back quickly, her eyes wide and surprised. “You’re not. Not at all. Your look is unique, not ugly. Modeling agencies don’t look for pretty . They look for interesting .”
“Sasha.”
“Vaughn,” she says, “it’s a compliment. Just take it. Please.”
She is obviously telling me what she believes in the truth and is getting so annoyed with me for arguing about it, that her expression is one of pure exasperation.
And the pure wonder of it makes me…laugh. Joyfully. With abandon. For the first time in years. It bubbles up from my stomach, from some cobwebbed, primeval place inside of me and bursts from my mouth in a low, raspy chuckle.
“Are you… laughing at me?” she demands.
“Yes,” I say, getting control of myself, even as I sputter through my answer. “Yes, I am. Because n-never—not in my entire life—has anyone called me anything c-close to attractive. I have no idea what to do with it.”
“Sorry,” she says. She lifts her cup, clears her throat and breaks eye contact with me. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
Fuck. Me.
“Oh, no!” I say. “No. You…” I reach my hand across the table and tap two fingers on the back of hers. “Sasha.” She looks up. “I’m not uncomfortable. I mean, I am but not in a bad way. I’m in awe. I’m flummoxed. I’m…I’m grateful.”
She traces my face with her eyes, starting with my chin, pausing at my lips, then following my cheekbones to my eyes. “You are attractive, Vaughn. It’s the truth.”
I stare back at her, shocked at what I’m seeing in her eyes.
Wait a second. Is she…is she attracted to me?
She bites her bottom lip for a second, then pulls her hand away. “I need the bathroom. Be right back.”
Did I actually see that? Or did I just want to?
No. No. I didn’t make it up. Fuck me, but it was there. It was. I know it was. I’m not mistaken.
I may not know much, but I know what heat looks like. From age nine to age thirteen, I couldn’t escape from it. Whenever I looked up, it was staring back at me—seedy and unwanted, terrifying and inescapable. I know exactly what heat looks like in a woman’s eyes.
But unlike then, my body doesn’t recoil with horror and fury at the sight. In fact, I want to see it again, see more of it, watch as it dilates her pupils and colors the delicate skin of her cheeks. She won’t taste like stale cigarettes and cheap vodka, and I won’t beg her to stop touching me. For the first time in my life, I want to lean into that look instead of running away from it. And it’s accompanied by another revelation that almost knocks me on my ass.
Sasha Collins is attracted to me.
My mind slides quickly back to Monday night’s conversation—to Sasha calling us friends. Huh . She may not want to be attracted to me, but she is, all the same, and it feels amazing.
“Sorry about all of that,” she says, sitting back down across from me. “I really need to learn when to shut up.”
“No,” I say. “Don’t do that.”
“I embarrassed you.”
“No. You surprised me.”
“I didn’t mean to embarr—surprise you. You called yourself angular and ugly, and I—I can’t let you do that. Because it’s not true. It’s not true, Vaughn.” She gulps softly. Her voice is a whisper when she adds, “You’re not…ugly. Not to me. Not at all.”
I feel a sob rise up from the depths of my soul.
It catches in my throat, transforming into a massive lump and making it impossible to speak or swallow.
And man, I don’t want to shame myself by crying, but my eyes are burning like I’ve been cutting onions for hours. My hands are flat on the table, and I drop my head to look down at them. I focus on them, willing myself not to cry.
I don’t notice when she moves, but her hand—elegant, small, and white—slides over one of mine, covering it gently.
“It’s okay,” she says softly, her voice soothing and sweet. “It’s okay, Vaughn.”
I close my eyes and take a deep breath, maneuvering my thumb so that it crosses over hers, binding our hands together, however loosely.
And that’s how we sit, in bright orange chairs, under the warm summer sun, until it’s time for the movie to begin.