Mikhail
An hour after the last guests leave, the conservatory is nearly empty. The charity event ran long. Of course it did. People with money enjoy pretending their time is valuable while wasting everyone else’s.
I spent three hours shaking hands, listening to men lie about generosity, and watching donors compete over who could appear most moved by suffering they have never experienced.
Taylor handled herself well. She smiled when required, translated when necessary, and stood up for herself.
I wanted to see her one last time before the night ended and tell her that myself, but she seems to have disappeared before I could, which is quite unlike her.
She’s usually eager to please, usually stays later than everyone else.
I find her in a hallway, staff winding up around her as the evening winds down, dishes clattering and voices shouting down halls.
She’s sitting in a corner beside the vending machine, her heels unbuckled and half off of her feet, her formal coat folded in her lap.
In one hand a pile of silver hair pins are closed in her palm, in the other a bag.
Her eyes are distant, staring through a wall.
I stop short and consider turning around and leaving her to it, but she looks up. “Oh,” she says, dropping the pins into her lap and opening the bag loudly. “You’re still here.”
I watch as she fishes around in the packet. It crackles loudly, and she pulls out something curly and distinctly orange. “What is that?”
She glances down. “Food.”
“Are you sure?” I ask her, taking off my coat and letting it lay over my arm.
She smiles gently, popping it into her mouth and sucking on it. She takes it out of her mouth to reveal that it is now a brown color. “It’s a chip.”
“That is not a chip. That appears to be cardboard.”
She looks offended. “These are my favorite. They remind me of home. I nearly cried when I realized y’all have these too.”
“Nothing about that appears natural.”
“It isn’t,” she says with a grin. “Pure junk food. The American way. Not everything needs to be pickled or covered in dill.”
“Russian food is strong. Russian food is made to get you through winter.”
“You make it sound so appealing.”
“It is not supposed to be appealing. It is nourishment.”
“See, that’s the difference between Russians and Americans. We eat for enjoyment. Fritos are made—”
“I am sorry—Fritos? Those abominations are called Fritos?” I sit down across from her, pulling my leg into a crisscross position the best that I can, though she is more flexible than I am.
“Yes.” Her eyes scan over me for a moment, and then she grins and leans forward. “I like the way you say it. Fritos.” She tries to say it in my accent.
“Careful.”
Her grin remains, and she holds one under my nose. “They’re made to get you through nothing at all. They’re for mindless eating.”
“Mindless eating does sound American, yes.”
“My mother used to keep these in the car,” she says.
“When I was little. She’d buy the big boxes from the warehouse store because they were cheap, and she always had some in her purse or glove compartment.
If we got stuck somewhere, she’d hand me a pack.
” Her thumb rubs across the edge of the silver wrapper.
“There. Now it’s emotionally significant.
You can’t insult them anymore.” She holds the packet out. “Try one.”
“That is a dirty trick.”
“Yes. I watched you tonight. You’re familiar with those.”
I take the packet from her and look at the writing on the packet. Honey BBQ Flavor Twists. The label is in English, imported and overpriced, and from what I can tell the contents are worthless. No nutritional value whatsoever. I give it back to her. “No.”
“Why not? You can’t know you don’t like it if you haven’t tried it.”
“I do not need to try roofing material to know I will not like it. I read the nutritional content. I do not want it.”
“I dare you.”
“You dare me?”
“You’re scared you’ll like it,” she teases, popping one into her mouth and closing her eyes like it’s a piece of heaven.
I scoff at her. “I will not like it.”
“Then prove it.”
“This is a childish tactic.”
“Is it working?”
“No.”
She waits. I take the…Frito. Her smile becomes unbearable, her eyebrows lifting so high I think they might fly off her head. It leaves an orange residue on my fingers. I curl my lip in disgust, and Taylor giggles. “Do you need me to feed it to you?”
I shake my head and put one between my lips.
I bite into it. The first thing I notice is it is too dry.
The corn sticks immediately to the roof of my mouth.
Salt arrives first, followed by a sweetness so artificial it tastes engineered in a laboratory.
The honey flavor is not real, nor the barbecue, nor the salt.
None of it is quite what I recognize as the flavors that I know.
Taylor watches me with intense interest. “Well?”
I chew. “It is terrible.”
Her eyes narrow. “You’re lying. You took another bite.”
I narrow my eyes back at her. “That was necessary to confirm the first impression.”
“Of course.”
I finish it and reach for the packet. She pulls it away. “What are you doing?”
“Confirming the second impression.”
“You said they were terrible.”
“They are.”
“Then you don’t need another.”
“I need a larger sample.”
She hugs the packet to her chest. “These are imported. They’re expensive here.”
“I will buy you more.”
Her glare returns, but it’s weaker now. I hold out my hand. After a moment, she gives me another. I eat it while she watches. “This means you like them,” she says.
“It means nothing like that. You said these remind you of home? Your mother let you eat these as a child? And your country allowed that?”
She smiles serenely as she watches me eat them.
“Mhm, and I used to eat them all the time during late-night study sessions back home.” She tips her head back against the wall.
“Late nights cramming for exams and eating trash. Once I saw we have them in the vending machine at work, I started having a bag almost every day for lunch at work.”
I widen my eyes. “Taylor, these cannot be your lunch. Every day? For how long?”
She sits up suddenly. “You ate fish eggs and sour cream on pancakes tonight! You don’t get to judge me.”
“Blinis? You are comparing caviar on crepes to this…poison?”
She laughs sharply, and her eyebrows shoot up behind her dirty-blond bangs.
“Poison you finished! You love them, don’t you?
” I look down at the bag in my lap and realize with horror that she is right.
I have finished the entire thing. “Look at you mindlessly eating. We might have to get you a gun next.”
I almost answer, but the joke catches somewhere before it reaches my mouth.
A bag almost every day. I know how little money she has.
I know she sent two hundred dollars home anyway.
I know how little remained afterward, and suddenly the imported packet in her hand is considerably less amusing.
I cannot say any of that without reminding her exactly how I know.
“These are in the vending machines at work?” I ask, looking up at the vending machine beside us. She nods with a triumphant look. “Then I must have the machine removed.”
Her mouth falls open. She stares at me for two seconds, then begins to laugh. “You wouldn’t.”
It’s not the careful laugh she uses at public events. It’s the unguarded one, bright and sudden, her shoulders curling forward as though the sound catches her by surprise. I want to hear that laugh again.
The realization comes without warning and settles inside me with the weight of a threat. I have wanted women before. Their bodies. Their attention. Their silence. This is different.
I want to know what makes Taylor laugh when she’s tired.
I want to collect every stupid argument that brings that brightness into her face.
I want to remove every reason she has to sound strained when she speaks to her mother.
I want to fill the kitchen with every terrible American food she remembers and insult each one until she laughs at me again.
These are not safe desires.
Taylor is still smiling when she looks back at me, and for a moment neither of us says anything. Her eyes drop to my mouth and then lift again. I know that look. I have seen it before, but there is hesitation beneath it now that was not there before.
Four days ago, I frightened her.
The thought should be enough to stop me. Instead, I lift one hand and brush my thumb over the corner of her mouth, wiping away a streak of orange seasoning. She goes very still. “You missed some,” I say.
“I was saving it for later.”
I should move my hand. I don’t. Her face is warm beneath my fingers.
Taylor looks at me for another second, then leans forward and kisses me.
It’s brief and soft, nothing like the kisses we have shared before.
There is no demand in it. No argument. No locked door.
No struggle for control. Just her mouth against mine for a few quiet seconds before she begins to pull away.
I catch the back of her neck and kiss her again, still gently. When we separate, she stays close enough that I can feel her breath against my mouth.
“You taste like Fritos,” she whispers and laughs again. She points at the vending machine. “I won’t tell anyone that you like them if you buy us another bag.”
“Because I don’t,” I say, standing.
“Obviously. You’re buying it for me.”
“Exactly.” I tap my card against the reader and look down at Taylor, watching her slide her heels completely off her feet to get comfortable.
Because despite everything, that’s what she can still be when she’s with me.
Comfortable. Whether she should be or not.