Chapter 20
Ten missed calls. All Stevie. No doubt he’s up bright and early, ready to serve me a helping of humble pie with an ice-cold scoop of recrimination before I’ve even had my coffee.
He can wait.
I throw my phone down on the bedside table. I don’t need my bassistto tell me what I already know. I’m crazy to have believed I was in love with a man I knew for less than forty-eight hours.I feel dirty, and not just because I haven’t had a shower. My eyes are caked in mascara, and I’ve left streaks of last night’s makeup smeared across my pillow.
I stagger into the bathroom to wash off the thin film of humiliation that’s settled on top of my skin. Vadim doesn’t feel the same way. Stevie was right. I’m an idiot.
I haven’t found the hook yet, but doesn’t heartbreak make for the best albums? I’m sure I can crowbar some hits out of the wreckage of last night’s meeting once I’ve figured out what Vadim means by making me disappear. That’s if he’s planning on keeping me and Nadia alive.
I pick up my bag and scrabble through the notebooks, lipsticks, and pens for the singular Nokia handset I took from Vadim, but there are no messages. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. If he’s planning to kill us, at least he hasn’t scheduled it for early this morning. There’s still time for coffee.
It’s a grim thought, and I wish I could tell myself it’s entirely unrealistic, but the last few hours have really hammered home that I don’t know the man who fathered my child. Those hours in Moscow were etched so brightly into my memories, but they don’t mean what I thought they did.
I’m pouring coffee for myself when Nona enters the kitchen. She hip-checks me as she walks past and pushes me into a seat. Our nanny hums a Russian folksong as she pulls out the pastries she made last night.
“Eat.” She slides a plate of sticky honey-and-pistachio-laced baklava in front of me. “Too thin.”
“You’re the only one who thinks so.” I look up at her, sipping my coffee and licking a crumb of honey-laced pastry off my thumb. I don’t usually tuck into her sweet treats, but if there was ever a morning to comfort myself with sugar, it’s today.
Nona shakes her head at me. I hired Nona, but she’s more like a mother to me and Nadia than an employee. Less drama, more fabulous cooking.
“Yesterday. Good night? Stevie...he find his girl? I like him.” Nona’s English is broken, but she gets her point across. She’s been hinting that I should pair up with Stevie for years.
I look down at the flakes of pastry, wishing it were that easy, but if the chemistry’s not there, you can’t fake it. I love the guy, but there’s no part of me that wants to climb him like a tree. And men get frustrated when they know you don’t want them. Then they take it out on you. God knows I lived through it once with Jimmy producing my albums. I wanted to hold out for the kind of love I wrote about in my songs.
I laugh to myself, and Nona looks over at me with her eyebrows raised in question.
“Stevie’s girl is too young for him. I think that’s a wash. But I found the man I’ve been looking for.”
Nona watches me over the table. She’s got no idea what I’m talking about. Last night is still so vivid that I almost feel like I shouldn’t have to explain. There ought to be a neon sign flashing over my head.
“Nadia’s father was there,” I say.
Nona’s lips turn down in a grimace. She scowls at me, her face pulled out of its usual smile. “He no good man?” she asks shrewdly.
“How did you know? That’s what he said.”
There’s a crash from outside the kitchen and then the patter of footsteps as Nadia comes bowling into the kitchen, her long hair wafting around her head. She’s still in pajamas and she’s carrying a brush.
“I need braids, Mom. Nona has to do the Wednesday hair for me.” She throws the brush down on the table. We haven’t even hit the teen years, and already every other thing is a challenge.
“Wednesday hair? It’s Friday.” I pick up the brush and turn to her.
“No, Mom. You are so . . . duh.”
She doesn’t even have the words for what I am, and her eyes roll so fast they could knock over bowling pins. Her expression reminds me of last night, when I told her father he had a daughter, but I still pull her into my lap and inhale her toasted-bread smell.
She slings her leg over mine and snuggles into my neck, her words muffled as I squeeze her tighter and rain down kisses on her hair. “Wednesday Addams. Not the day of the week. Don’t you know anything?”
Apparently not, I think to myself, if last night is anything to go by.
My stomach twists when I consider how the reality of meeting Vadim will square with the stories I’ve told Nadia about her father. That she was conceived in love. That the man who helped create her made me feel protected and cherished, even if he lived in a country far away.
Was it a fairy tale or more like telling children about Santa, making them believe in the magic of life before all the golden things get tarnished by time?
Nadia picks up the brush and jumps off my lap. “Nona does better braids than you.” She walks over to Nona and hands the brush to her. “My eyes don’t go with the look. Can I get black contacts?”
“What? No. You can’t. And you can’t be Wednesday either. She hates her mom.” I stick out my tongue at Nadia.
She pulls a face back. “I don’t hate you, Mom. I just think you’re embarrassing.”
“Okay. Get Nona to do your hair, then go get dressed. We’ve got twenty minutes to get out the door, and you haven’t eaten anything.” I stand on weary legs and get ready for the walk to school.
That’s the joy of New York—you can walk everywhere. I promised myself that if I was in town, I’d be the one to take Nadia to school myself, even if the bitchy throngs of moms at the school gate offer a cold welcome and Nadia would prefer to be driven in a town car like the cool kids. It’s hard to give your kid any sense of the real world when you have money and staff, but not being chauffeured to school is a start.
I’m pulling on my shoes when Nadia walks out with perfect braids, and I point her to the sensible flat school shoes when she tries to pick up the Wednesday Addams style clunky platforms. Walking keeps your feet on the ground.
As I’m heading out the door with Nadia, Nona puts her hand on my arm. “You come back. We talk.”
The walk to school is a blur. Nadia’s chattering away about how Wednesday Addams doesn’t care about what people think and why she needs to dye her hair black if she and her friends are going to form a detective club. Her braids bob as I walk behind her.
How much of the way she bounces on her feet is me and how much is Vadim? With her blue eyes, she looks so much like her father. I’m almost tempted to invest in a pair of black contacts for her as she ambles through the school gates, talking to a bunch of kids I don’t know. The days when I had a grip on her friendships are drawing to a close. She doesn’t look back as she walks through the wide oak doors, and I turn toward home.
I’m saved from further dark thoughts when the phone rings.
“Stevie. Did you get home okay?”
There’s a dark laugh as I walk past the deli and a string of coffee shops. “Yeah, no thanks to lover boy. Kept going on about how he knows I want to sleep with you. His goons manhandled me out of the club.” He sighs. “What are you going to do now? Does he want to play a role in Nadia’s life? When are you going to tell her?”
I just hold the phone to my ear as I walk past the commuters on their way to work, the moms in their lululemon, and the occasional clubber coming back from a night out. I wonder how many of them had their lives upended last night.
“What’s the plan?” He keeps firing questions like bullets as I wait for the lights to change. Red, yellow, green.
“I don’t know, Stevie. I don’t think he wants to play an active role in Nadia’s life,” I say, stalling.
“Well, that’s good, right? Nothing needs to change.”
“What?” I splutter. “How is it good that Nadia’s father doesn’t want to get to know her? On what planet is that good news?”
“Well...” There’s a pause as Stevie breathes heavily. “He could be suing you for custody or asking you guys to move so that he has more access. He could be all up in your business.”
I think about the burner phone which sits in silent reproach in my purse. I don’t tell him that Vadim will probably be so up in my business he’ll turn my life upside down. Just not in a good way. And he’s not even offering a relationship with Nadia.
I nod at our doorman as I walk to the elevator, head bowed. “I’ll call you later, okay? We need to talk about the court case. Jimmy is suing me for libel, saying he loved me like a daughter and never laid a finger on me. I could use some moral support right about now. I don’t need another lecture.”
“Kay.” Stevie has known me long enough to know when I’ve reached the end of my rope, and I’m right down to the frayed edges this morning.
I let myself in and pad past the kitchen. I have a meeting with the lawyers later today. It’s a whole parade of assholes with no letup, and I’m about to put on a suit and my battle-armor makeup when Nona steps in front of me. As if she knows what’s going on, she holds her arms wide and pulls me into them. I sink against her round shoulders and soft chest. Nona is all soft curves, and she smells of honey and pistachio.
“Devuchka.” She uses the Russian for little girl. “Now, we talk.”
“I’ve got to get ready.” I pull away from her, but she follows me into the bedroom and sits on the bed. It’s like when Nadia was little and Nona had to follow us into every room in the house to make sure comfort was always on hand.
“This man. Nadia’s father. I know men like him. Back in Moscow.” She reaches for my hand and pulls me to sit next to her, stroking my arm for comfort. “If he find you. Probably trouble. You tell me what he say.”
I pull out the burner phone and hand it to her. It sits in her hands like a bomb that’s engaged to explode. “He gave me this. He tried to give me one for Nadia too, but I wouldn’t take it.”
Nona just watches me. Waiting.
“He wants us to disappear.” I search her face as she nods. “What does that mean?”
“In Moscow, when I was refugee and I needed work. I work for men like them. He want you to disappear?” She regards me with dark, solemn eyes. “It means he in big trouble. Means you and Nadia in big trouble too.”
A text lights up the phone, and we both look down.
7pm. Be Ready.
Nona goes to the closet and starts pulling out bags and laying clothes on the bed. I don’t know what it all means. Or maybe I do, but I don’t want to admit it. But she’s in motion like she’s done this before, opening my bedside drawers and pulling out medication and phone chargers.
A second text comes in. There’s no emotion. Nothing to soften the words.
Nadia too.