CHAPTER 9
Five Years Later
Ivan
“Happy Birthday, little brother!”
I can’t hear Mikhail over the thump-thump-thump of the house music, but I gather from his hand gesture that the woman with her face in my lap has been paid for services about to be rendered. The ecstasy I took half an hour ago kicks in. My zipper is pulled down. My cock is suddenly enveloped in warm wetness.
I lean my head against the back of the purple velvet banquette. There are mirrors over my head, so I can see the woman’s blonde head bobbing up and down, which is sexy as fuck. I smile at my reflection, my teeth perfectly white and straight, so different from how they used to be. My cheeks are still high and angular, but some very expensive laser treatments got rid of the acne scars. My hair is thick and wavy, styled to perfection, and dark brown stubble highlights my strong jawline.
You’re fucking hot, Ivan.
Yeah, I am.
I put my hand on the back of the escort’s head, and she pauses in her sucking for a second, then gets back to the task at hand. I mean, what’s she gonna do? Stop? Not fucking likely. She’s already been paid.
SPANK! by HiTech booms into the room, and I open my eyes and lean up because I know that Mikhail will grab whatever piece of ass walks by and smack her booty to the beat of the song. And because we’re in the VIP section of this particular club, probably bankrolling the whole fucking place for tonight, she’ll let him.
A waitress wearing a blue bobbed wig, black leather lingerie and silver stilettos walks by at the perfect moment. He snatches the empty beverage tray from her hands, gives it to his sidekick, Dimitri, and bends her over his knee. Smack, smack, smack. If she doesn’t like it, she doesn’t let it show. She mashes her ass against his groin in response, and Mikhail grabs her hips and thrusts forward against her black panties a few times. Then he yanks her back up, tucks a hundred euros in her bra strap, hands her the tray, and waves her away.
I come in the blonde’s mouth.
She leans up, wipes her lips, blinks at me innocently and grins.
I zip up, then look away from her. I’m not interested in her company.
Mikhail slaps another hundred euro note in her hand as she stands up and struts away from our table. He plops down next to me, putting his arm around my shoulders and kissing me loudly on the cheek.
“ Было ли это хорошо ?” Was it good?
“ Да . Спасибо .” Yeah. Thanks.
My face isn’t the only thing that’s improved over the last five years. My Russian isn’t half bad either.
Mikhail checks out the $15 million Patek Philippe watch on his wrist, making a big show when he looks back up at me.
“Holy Shit! It’s midnight! My little brother is thirty!” he yells in English, leaning forward to take a massive, half-finished bottle of Grey Goose from a bed of ice and pour each of us a shot. “ С днем рождения, ублюдок !”
Happy Birthday, you bastard!
We toast each other and throw back the shots, then he takes my hand and leads me to the dance floor. A crystal ball spins. The lights change from blue to red to pink to white. Half-naked women gyrate against us. We dance the night away.
***
“Wake up!”
My head is pounding and something close—way too close—smells sour and noxious, like— fuck —like vomit.
“I’m gonna be sick,” I mutter.
“Sit up.”
“Can’t.”
“Sit up. Now.”
Mustering whatever meager energy I have, I push myself into a sitting position but keep my eyes closed.
“Sofia, get Anya. Ivan needs sheets changed and bag packed.”
The annoying click-clack of high heels tells me that my sister is leaving my bedroom in search of one of the housemaids.
“You stink,” says Irina. “You throw up in bed. In hair. In face. You need shower.”
I open my eyes to find my mother standing by my bedside, impeccably dressed, her expression somewhere between indulgent and disgusted.
I yawn, throwing my arms over my head and stretching.
“My beautiful boy. Why you drink so much?”
“I was having fun,” I tell her. “It was a birthday celebration. With Mikhail.”
“Mikhail, Mikhail, Mikhail,” she mutters. “My punishment.”
There is no love lost between my mother and my brother. They have always disliked and resented each other. Mikhail blamed Irina for the destruction of his parents’ marriage. Irina blamed Mikhail, more than anyone else, for my kidnapping. Mikhail, claims Irina, drove his father to an early grave, so she withheld Mikhail’s inheritance from him for five years, until the Russian courts forced her to hand over the money and properties his father had designated for him. Since then, they’ve kept their distance.
“Get in shower,” she says. “Anya will pack your bag for St. Tropez. We leave in two hours.”
With a heavy sigh, I swing my legs over the side of the bed, narrowly avoiding the puddle of vomit by my pillow. I stand up, completely naked, and my mother laughs.
“You are bad boy!” she exclaims, slapping my butt cheek. “Such a bad, bad boy!”
I grin at her, then saunter into my bathroom just as the nervous click-clack of Sofia’s heels signal her return. When I get out of the shower, the smell of throw up will be long gone, my bed will be made up perfectly, and my bag will be packed for this weekend’s birthday festivities.
I run the hot water and step under the rainforest shower head, letting it douse me in warmth.
We’re headed to my mother’s villa in the South of France this morning. She’s planned a lavish birthday celebration that’s supposed to last for days—one to which all of my siblings, except Mikhail, are invited. Even Nina, who lives in St. Petersburg with her husband and two children, is expected to be there. Irina, Galina, Sofia, and I will travel from Moscow via our jet as soon as I am out of the shower and packed.
Since I turned twenty-five two weeks after I returned to Moscow with Irina, this is my sixth birthday as an adult member of the Stepanov family. Mine tend to be bigger and splashier than my siblings. Irina says it’s because she’s making up for all the birthdays she missed.
After the party in St. Tropez, I’m headed to London to meet up with Mikhail and his friends. He’s financing a new restaurant and promises two months of non-stop fun. And since Irina and my sisters will return to the house in Moscow after St. Tropez, I’ll have the London flat all to myself. I’ll stay in London through November, then return to Moscow for the holidays. Of all the places we have homes, I like London best. Although my Russian has improved, I still consider English my first language.
That, and I get a kick out of the London tabloids. They love snapping pics of me and Mikhail leaving nightclubs and writing lines like: Manic Mikey Continues Corrupting L’il Bro Ivan!
The headlines are ridiculous and hilarious.
As I’m rinsing shampoo from my hair, there’s a knock on the bathroom door.
“ Da ?”
The door opens.
“ Свежие полотенца ,” says Anya leaving me fresh towels.
“ Спасибо ,” I call to her, listening for her soft giggle as she closes the door.
Irina tried to get me to stop saying “thank you” to the house staff when I arrived five years ago, but I can’t seem to break the habit. And besides, they love me for it. They grin and giggle and call me their favorite.
Stepping out of the shower, I wrap a warm, plush towel around my waist, shave my face, trim my beard, moisturize my skin, and style my hair. It took me a while to get used to this routine, but I love the way I look now.
I dry off my body, leave the bathroom and head to my closet, where I choose designer jeans, leather mocs, a matching leather belt and a white button-down shirt. I have several watches to choose from, but I’m still not accustomed to wearing them, so I usually don’t.
Anya has left my suitcase mostly packed, but still open, in the center of my bed, just in case I want to pack something else. There’s only one thing I bring with me everywhere, and like saying “thank you” to service workers, it’s a habit I can’t seem to break.
I grab the small, leather-bound book from the back of my bedside table drawer. The title, Russian Poems, is only embossed now. The gold that once filled the letters is long gone.
I stuff it in the bottom of the suitcase.
Then I zip it up and roll it to the elevator.
***
I’m relieved to board the family jet to London a few days later.
The three-day birthday celebration at our villa in St. Tropez was just as over the top as I thought it would be. With live performances by Katy Perry one night and Rihanna the other, lavish meals, and cruises on Nina and Mishka’s yacht, it was a non-stop party weekend spent with my mother, my three sisters, and a hundred other people—friends of my family—that I don’t know very well.
Lots of pictures were taken of us over the weekend—of Irina, the proud matriarch, Ivan, her only son, her daughter Sofia, and stepdaughters, Galina and Nina. I stare at one such picture on my phone as the plane takes off from Marseille.
At a glance, it’s impossible to tell that I was the kidnapped Stepanov child who spent fourteen years in the American foster system, and another six living with my final placement family.
All five of us bear a family resemblance. I favor Irina the most, but my sister Sofia and I share similar coloring. Sofia, Nina and Galina could almost be triplets, but for Sofia’s much darker hair. They are all the same height and weight. They have the same measured smiles. They are polished and stylish, cool and elegant—socialites who know their worth and are worth a great deal.
And amazingly, at a glance, I appear to fit in. I don’t look out of place with my mother and sisters.
On the outside, I’ve learned to project a new version of myself, steeped in fairytale-style sparkle. I’m Ivan Stepanov, the lost son of Irina Danielova Stepanova, now back in the family fold. Tall, handsome Ivan Stepanov, dressed impeccably and sought after by eligible bachelorettes worldwide. Ivan Stepanov, who survived kidnapping, baby-selling, foster care, and the indignities of manual labor. Ivan Stepanov, who has learned passable Russian and has the jawline of a tsar.
But deep inside, in a place I’ve tried very hard to bury and forget, there still exists an ugly, lanky, freakish, misfit version of me named Vaughn Cigno. An adoptive father calls him creepy, and he is abandoned. A lady with cigarette breath, who is supposed to care for him, touches him in ways she shouldn’t. His fingernails are dirty, and his skin is pock-marked. His teeth are crooked, and his nickname is Lurch. He lives in a basement and empties garbage cans for a living.
He is liked by few and loved by no one.
He has no past, and he has no future.
No matter how much I want to leave Vaughn Cigno in the past, he haunts me. Nothing will ever change the fact that he was kidnapped, sold, abused, and marginalized. The memories of what he endured shame me. I am desperate to forget about Vaughn Cigno. I am embarrassed I was ever him. I hate him. I revile his ugliness and weakness and bad luck. Only in my nightmares am I ever Vaughn Cigno again.
You are Ivan Stepanov , I remind myself. You always were. You just didn’t know it.
Here and now, in the present, I’m Ivan Stepanov, on a jet bound for London where I will, no doubt, spend the next two months with my older brother, enjoying a non-stop party the likes and scale of which most humans will never, ever know. Since the moment I learned of my true identity, I’ve tried to fit in with the Stepanovs, act like a Stepanov , be a Stepanov.
But the truth—the terrible, awful, painful truth that no amount of vodka or cocaine or blowjobs or beautiful clothes or luxurious homes can change—is that my life has not been a contiguous journey. My life has had two distinct timelines, and they are not compatible with one another. I have no bridge between my past and my present—between Vaughn Cigno and Ivan Stepanov—which leaves my future just as shadowy as it ever was.
Once upon a time, I was a swan’s egg that rolled into a duck’s nest.
It’s twenty-six years later.
And I still don’t know who I am.
***
Sasha
It’s not your fault.
It could’ve happened to anyone.
Don’t worry! You’ll heal.
It’s all true.
It wasn’t my fault that an Uber driver, who’d been up for forty consecutive hours charging double over a holiday weekend, fell asleep at the wheel of his car on New Year’s Day and plowed into a sidewalk filled with people, me included. It certainly wasn’t my fault that a large, metal garbage receptacle smashed into my hip and crushed it so completely, it needed to be replaced.
And yes, it could’ve happened to anyone. In fact, four people died that day, in addition to the six of us who had serious or life-threatening injuries. As the highest-profile victim of the accident, media outlets homed in on my story especially. Newspapers called me “one of the lucky ones,” with a bit of irony. For a professional ballet dancer, who’d recently been promoted to soloist, having her hip crushed by a trash can hardly felt lucky.
But yes, I will heal.
Since that terrible day, it’s been my only focus, my only mission in life; eight months of healing and intense physical therapy with only one goal in mind—to perform Dew Drop in my sixth season of The Nutcracker .
Tears well in my eyes, and I try to blink them away. There’s no place for them in professional ballet. I fold my hands on the shiny wood conference table and lift my eyes to the duo across from me.
“Please,” I beg. “Please don’t do this.”
“We are very sorry, Sasha, but you’re just not there yet,” says Samantha, the Resident Choreographer of the MBT. “Maybe next—”
“Sam,” I say, “I can get there by November. You know I can.”
“Can she?” asks Phillip, the Company Director.
Samantha shakes her head. “No. I mean, listen, I’ve never seen anyone work as hard as Sasha to get back on top, but the reality is that she can’t do it. ‘The Waltz of the Flowers’ begins with the series of fouettés that cover the stage, Phillip. It’s intense, and I just—”
“Watch me!” I cry. “I can do it, Sam! I’ve been practicing.”
Samantha sits back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest. The expression on her face tells me she takes zero pleasure in this conversation, which I grudgingly appreciate.
“I did,” she says softly. “I was watching you practice from the wings last night.”
Last night, upon finding the theater empty, I tried to do the series of fouettés across the Lincoln Center stage, but the quick, repetitive whipping motion of the turns was challenging for me. I stopped and started several times, unable to get across the stage fluidly.
My face falls. “You…were there?”
“You got close a few times,” Samantha says gently. “But you’re not there yet.”
Phillip closes the leather binder he’s had open during our meeting. “We will hold your position as soloist until after the new year. That should be enough time to prove that you’re ready to come back to work.”
“I agree,” says Samantha. “Keep up the physical therapy and practice. We need a Hungarian Princess for Swan Lake in the spring. You’d be perfect.”
I sit back in my chair as Samantha leaves the room. I feel numb. After months and months of work and hope, I won’t be dancing as a soloist this fall and winter. It’s a terrible blow.
“—think? Sasha? Sasha?”
I look up at Phillip and realize he’s speaking to me.
“Sorry. I zoned out.” I take a deep breath and try to swallow past my disappointment. “What’s up?”
“Are you okay?”
Phillip stands up and makes his way around the table to sit beside me.
We slept together once, in my third year at the MBT, after a donor cocktail party. I was very drunk and feeling flirty. He was being solicitous and flattering. Waking up in his bed, however, felt all wrong, and I left quickly, anxious to leave the incident in the past. And while he hasn’t gone out of his way to make things weird since, he occasionally hints, without actually crossing a line, that he’d be open for round two.
I fear such an overture may be imminent.
He pulls out the chair to my left and sits down, his forearm brushing against mine. I slide my arm away and scratch it, pretending I have an itch.
“Hey, I know it’s disappointing,” he says.
“She’s right,” I confess. “I want to be soloist material right this minute, but I could use the extra time to get stronger.”
“Dew Drop’s not going anywhere,” he teases. “She’s been around since 1892.”
“That’s true.”
He smiles at me, and it makes his eyes crinkle. He’s handsome for his age. Phillip’s in his mid-50s, but like most retired dancers, he’s stayed in excellent shape since leaving the stage. I wish I was more attracted to him, or that we were closer in age. New York can be very lonely, and having someone special in my life—the right someone—would be welcome.
“I have a proposition for you,” he says.
…but Phillip isn’t the right someone.
That said, he’s the head of the entire company. He wields a lot of power. Whatever he wants, I really don’t want to turn him down. I want to stay on his good side.
“Oh, yeah?” I say, forcing a grin.
He takes a look at my face, tilts his head to the side and chuckles humorlessly. “Was it that bad?”
I play innocent. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not trying to get you back into bed, Sasha.”
“Oh! I know that!” I say, hoping I don’t sound too relieved.
He huffs out a short breath. “It really is a great opportunity. I told them I didn’t have anyone to recommend, but it occurs to me that you’re the perfect person.”
“I’m sorry…what are you talking about?”
“You didn’t hear me before, but the Royal Academy of Ballet in London has asked if we can suggest someone to act as Creative Artist-in-Residence this fall. They’re looking for someone to consult from the beginning of October until the end of December.”
“Consult on…?”
“ The Nutcracker .”
“The Royal Aca—Wait! You mean the high school ? The ballet high school ?”
He nods, picking a non-existent piece of lint from his blazer sleeve. “The feeder school to the Royal Ballet, yes.”
I can’t control the horror in my voice. “You want me to teach ballet?”
“Not teach. Consult. Attend rehearsals. Give pointers. Work with the teachers and the students. No one does Balanchine’s Nutcracker like New York, and you know the dances inside and out.”
I give him a look. Teaching is for forty-year-olds who’ve danced principal for ten years and decided to retire. I’m only twenty-six, and it feels like he’s putting me out to pasture.
“Sasha! It’s an opportunity, not a punishment,” he says. “You can do physical therapy in London just as easily as you can in New York. The housing and stipend are excellent. But most importantly, by consulting at the feeder school for the Royal Ballet, you’ll meet people, you’ll network. It’s a good thing.”
“But you’re saving my spot here, right? As a soloist? In New York?”
“I am,” he says. “But there are newer, younger ballerinas auditioning for the MBT every year. It doesn’t hurt to have options. And friends.”
I’m trying to read between the lines of what Phillip is saying, but I’m not good at subterfuge and subtext. I lean toward him.
“Phillip, be straight with me. Are you really saving my spot? As a soloist with the MBT?”
“Yes.”
My shoulders lower with relief.
“You were a dancer,” I say, scanning his face, desperately trying to read his expression. “Would you go to London, Phillip? If you were me?”
“Yes,” he says firmly. “Without question.”
I take a deep breath and sit back in my seat.
“I’m tempted to say yes. Do I have anything to worry about?”
“Do you get airsick?”
“I’ve never flown to Europe,” I tell him.
“I’ll let them know you’ve accepted?” he asks.
“Yes.” I nod. “Let them know I’m coming.”
***
A week later, I’m sitting in premium economy on a plane to London.
Sailing through the clouds after a bracing Bloody Mary, I recall my mother’s words before I left. “Make the most of it. Don’t let your disappointment about Dew Drop be what you remember from three months in London. You’re a survivor…in every single way that really counts. London is yours for the taking.”
Being unable to dance in The Nutcracker this year hurt more than I can say, but I really have chosen to make the most of this three-month paid sojourn in London. I’m going to work my hip until it can withstand anything. And whenever called upon, I’ll be happy to advise the RAB on how best to triumph over Balanchine’s masterpiece.
I grab my phone from the seat pocket and open my photos.
My mother wasn’t the only one who met me at Newark Airport to say goodbye. My whole family surprised me by showing up at the British Airways terminal to bid me farewell, a gesture all the more meaningful because Baltimore, MD, to Newark, NJ, is a three-hour drive. But there they were, in a big group, by the check-in counter—Mom and Dad. Danny, June and their almost five-year-old daughter, Claire. Greg, Sayaka, and their two-year-old son, Kenji, whom we all call Kenny. And Bubbie. I’m still not used to seeing her all alone, even though Gramps has been gone for over a year.
My grandmother cupped my face and said, “ Дорогая, будь сильной и хорошей .” Darling, be strong and be good.
I promised her I would be.
After all, why do anything if you’re not doing it with strength and goodness?
The minute I decided to take the three-month consulting position at RAB, I promised myself I would do everything in my power to be sure that those young, promising dancers nailed every aspect of The Nutcracker , that their performance weekend in December would bring London to its knees. And then…only then, will I return to New York in glory, ready to dance my way through the spring as an official soloist of the MBT.
That’s my plan, anyway.
But as I well know, mortals love to make plans…and God loves a laugh.
I put my phone away and lean back against my seat, the hollowed face and stormy gray eyes of Vaughn Cigno flitting through my brain, as they sometimes do.
An old conversation echoes in my brain.
I’ve never even been to Europe.
You will go! Someday! The Paris Opera Ballet. The Royal Ballet.
Well, he was right about that , I guess. Here I am, headed to London.
But he was wrong about everything else , I think to myself, remembering back to five years ago when I left for New York and Vaughn left for Moscow.
I’ll be back soon , he’d said. I’ll come and find you in New York. In two weeks. Three tops.
But I knew. Even then—in the terrible whirlwind of the moment—I knew the chance of my seeing him again soon was a long shot at best.
In fairness, we tried to say in touch. For the first few weeks, we texted and called when we could. But the time change, my rigorous rehearsal schedule, and his introduction to his family’s jet-setting life made consistency impossible.
Daily texts became weekly. Then monthly. Then almost never.
Vaughn called me sporadically after that, almost always drunk or high, at 3 a.m. his time, which was 7 p.m. mine. After a night of partying, with slurred, uneven speech, he’d cry and rage at turns, apologizing for the women he’d been with, and complaining about the fucked-up dynamics of his family. He’d end most of the calls or voice mails hanging up abruptly or weeping pitifully.
The few times I forgot to silence my phone and picked up, I would tell him to come home, but he’d rant about finally having a family. He’d accuse me of taking my own family for granted, since I’d always had one. He’d yell at me for not understanding and hang up.
And I’d be left breathless and devastated, totally distracted thirty minutes before going on stage. I’d stay up late after my performances, worried about him. I’d text him in the morning, asking if he was okay, but he rarely answered my messages.
My sister-in-law, June, was the one who told me that I’d become Vaughn’s designated “drunk ‘n dial,”—the person he called in the last stages of drunkenness just before passing out. She said that it was likely he had strong feelings for me (once, or maybe even, still), but at this point, he was just using me as a touchstone to help him through an emotional time. Using me , with no loving reciprocation or wish for a healthy, functional, long-distance relationship. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I didn’t want to be used. I didn’t want to know about the women he was with or be yelled at by him.
I didn’t like the role he’d given me. I hadn’t auditioned for it and didn’t want it.
So, I did what I had to do. I stopped picking up the phone. Then, I stopped listening to his messages. And then, several months into our separation, as spring promised sunny days and warm evenings in New York City, I blocked his number.
I had to.
He gave me no choice.
I channeled my sadness into work. That spring, dancing corps in Romeo and Juliet, Giselle and Manon , I was noticed by Phillip, who said he’d never seen anyone dance with such passion and intensity. Little did he know, he was watching the breaking of my heart.
A flight attendant stops beside my seat. “Can I get you anything?”
So much , I think to myself. My hip back. My career back. The chance to dance soloist, then principal. Someone to love who loves me, too. There’s so much I want, and so many unknowns in my immediate future.
“Yes,” I say, lifting my chin. There will always be unknowns. One thing in my life is certain. I’m headed to London, right this minute, to consult for the Royal Academy of Ballet. And right here, right now, that needs to be enough. “Tea, please.”
After all, tea’s what they drink in London, right?