Chapter 18 #2
“Are you a guru too?”
I try not to laugh at the question, which is asked so innocently. “No, I don’t think so.”
“There’s nothing you’re an expert on?”
I’m certainly no relationship guru. I think about the fact that Aleksandr still hasn’t replied to my text or returned my call after I left him a voice mail earlier this afternoon.
I thought we had something, that we were building something.
Here I was thinking how much I didn’t want to go to LA because I just wanted to stay here with him and Stella, and obviously that was very one-sided.
“Well, I’m kind of an expert on event planning.” My shoulder ticks up in a small shrug.
“What’s that?” she asks through the huge bite she just took of her burrito, food threatening to fall out of her mouth.
“My job is to plan big events, like parties and weddings and retreats. People hire me to organize all the details and make sure that the event is a success.”
“Is it fun?”
“Sometimes. But the point of work isn’t that it’s fun, it’s that it’s fulfilling.”
“What’s fuf-filling?”
“If something is fulfilling, it means that you’re using your talents in a way that helps other people and also makes you happy. For me, getting to plan these kinds of events makes me feel that way.”
“Are you a guru in anything else?”
I think about the show I’m about to start filming.
“Well, I’m also really good at talking to people.
At getting to understand their story, and when necessary, giving them advice to help them.
” My friends have always come to me for advice because I don’t hold back or sugarcoat it.
That may not be everyone’s preferred method of “help,” but they know that they are getting honest feedback.
“I think you’re really good at helping people,” Stella says.
For some reason, this makes me feel worse instead of better.
Yes, I’ve helped her. I made sure she didn’t get the evil Irina as a nanny, and I even gave up two weeks of my life to stay here with her (though that hasn’t exactly felt like a sacrifice).
I made sure that little asshole Jason stopped tormenting her at school by teaching her how to stand up for herself, and I helped find her a new nanny who I’m sure she’s going to love. But . . .
But what? You’ve done more to help this little girl than anyone could reasonably expect.
But I haven’t figured out a solution to help Aleksandr adopt her. I know we’re supposed to meet with the lawyer Friday afternoon after he’s back from Philadelphia, and I’m really hoping she has some ideas.
“And I think you’ve helped Dyadya more than anyone else,” she continues.
This has my head snapping up to look at her across the table. “What do you mean?”
“He never smiled until you started staying with us,” she shrugs. “I think you make him happy. He likes having you here and so do I,” she beams at me.
I smile at her and mumble “Thanks,” though my stomach is twisting itself into a knot around the small amount of dinner I’ve consumed.
I want to believe I make him happy and if she’d said this yesterday or even this morning, I’d have agreed.
But I don’t know what to make of this nearly full-day of silence or the eerie feeling that I’m watching him cut me out of his life like he did so many years ago.
It feels like history repeating itself, except now we have the kind of relationship I’d always dreamed we would—I was starting to see us as partners, which is what I thought he wanted, and the sex was amazing too.
“Are you finished eating?” I ask, nodding at the skeletal remains of a burrito on her plate.
“I’m too full to finish.”
“Okay, why don’t you go take your shower and get your PJ’s on so we can watch the game. I’ll clean up.”
“Can we wear our jerseys like when we went to the game?”
“Sure, just wear it over your pajamas.”
“And you’ll wear yours too?”
“Uh huh.” I can’t say no to her request, even though right now putting his last name across my back feels a whole lot different than it did on Sunday night.
Half an hour later, we’re watching the pregame show when Stella asks me to take a picture of us.
We pose for a selfie together and when I look at the resulting photo, I’m shocked at how much we look alike.
The same dark brown curly hair, the same ivory skin and high cheekbones, the same shaped eyes, though hers are brown where mine are blue.
“Will you send that to Dyadya?” she asks. “I want him to print it out so I can have it in my room.”
“Sure,” I say, noncommittally, because there’s no way I’m texting him a photo of us right before the game starts, especially when he seems to have been avoiding me all day. How desperate would that seem?
“Let’s send it now,” she says.
“He won’t have his phone on him,” I tell her. “He’s already warming up, see?” I point to the screen where, behind the commentators, you can see the hockey players going through their warm-up drills like miniature figures skating across the ice.
“But if we send it to him now, he’ll see it right after the game,” she says.
Yes, exactly what I don’t want to happen.
“Here,” she holds out her hand. “Will you show me how to send a photo?” Her big brown eyes are huge and pleading. “I know it will make him smile when he sees it.”
I’m very afraid that she’s wrong about that, but there’s no way to tell her no without giving her a reason, and I don’t have one I can share with her. She has Aleksandr’s best interests at heart, and she just wants him to have a little piece of “home” while he’s on the road.
As I hand her the phone and show her how to send the picture, it dawns on me that even though I’m the adult, I am absolutely not in control in this situation. Stella is one hundred percent running this show.