Chapter 1 #2
She gave him a disappointed frown, then bitterly pushed it toward me. Vodka. Switching liquors now was just poor judgment.
“Konstantinov is no fun,” Andrei said and tapped the glass, looking meaningfully at Ana to fetch another. “Katya, are you fun?”
“I can be,” I said, and side-eyed Vitali, who was pitilessly looking at me.
I badly wanted those words to be true, but I grew up in a household built on discipline and good grades.
My mama would have had a heart attack if she knew where I was, despite my being twenty-three.
She reasoned that you earned your dignity when you brought her the offering of a firstborn.
No dictator is more ruthless than a Russian mama wanting grandkids.
Was I fun? I tried to be. Elena was far more fun than I.
She was blonde, outgoing, and charming enough to always get what she wanted.
My best friend had been raised similarly, but acclimated to the new ways of Russia much faster than I.
She kept the company of the ‘New Russians,’ the kind of people who came by a lot of money after Communism fell.
No one else had an extra kopek (smart of me to gamble, but in my defense—the gin), and we survived on very little in this new world that the corrupted government and widespread crime were erecting on the ruins of what our country used to be.
But Elena was charismatic enough to hide the fact that her family of five lived in a two-bedroom apartment in a bad district.
Before some guy bought her perfume, she used to dilute rose oil with vodka and dab it on her wrists, regularly hemmed her dresses to be shorter, and always wiped off the bright red lipstick before she went home.
That’s what I wore that day—one of Elena’s short dresses and her lipstick. That’s why when Vitali placed a hand on my knee, it was on bare skin.
“Let’s see how fun,” Ana teased. “You and I, let’s go take another shot and go dancing.”
I didn’t notice that I already switched to vodka—so said the empty glass in front of me. Might as well.
I searched for Elena, but Ana had already come up behind me and grabbed my hand, adamant on leading me away from the table. Vitali glanced over, but said nothing as she took me to the middle of the living room, where a couple of girls were already dancing to Ace of Base’s ‘All That She Wants.’
Everyone smelled like vodka, gin, and sweat-diluted perfume. Beautiful women, some of whom I knew, crowded the space—each trying to be the apex of sex appeal on the dance floor between the TV and the heavy rug hung up on the opposite wall.
Ana took me to the outskirts, where my knees bumped against the couch. That bitch.
I was in ballet until I finished university, but that didn’t help when it came to Swedish club songs.
Still, the alcohol did its job, and I found myself running my fingers through my hair and moving in a way I’d seen women do in music videos.
At least I hoped that’s how it appeared.
Distantly, I thought of how horrified I’d be the next morning when I remembered this night, but that wasn’t tonight, and it would be the future Katya’s problem.
As it turned out, the future Katya would have a lot of problems. But that was later.
Elena appeared beside me, and to my great relief, Ana was nowhere to be found.
“Katya, I saw you talking to the gorgeous man,” Elena stage-whispered over the music as she spun me into more natural movements. God bless this being of social grace. “Dima says he’s mixed up with the mafia.”
“What?” I laughed, but still glanced in his direction. He was deep in conversation with two men who’d taken up the unoccupied seats. “Don’t be ridiculous, you always do this—normal people aren’t in the mafia.”
They weren’t. The burly guys in suits hanging out in the back rooms of clubs were in the mafia, not some curfew-having adults crammed into an apartment to celebrate someone’s birthday.
“No, no, my uncle on the other side of the family does some things with helicopter engines in China. It’s not that uncommon,” she insisted. “It doesn’t even matter who you are. But who cares. What’s his deal? Some girl he works with brought him, but no one else knows who he is.”
“Some girl…” I frowned, and Elena’s face lit up.
“Oh, you like him. Well, the good news is I don’t think they’re together. Do you want me to ask?”
The thought of it being Ana flashed through my head because that was the worst-case scenario. But I didn’t want Elena to ask either.
“Dima and his friend want to go to a club after,” Elena said, eyes sparking with determination to get me in trouble. “If you want to meet him, you might like him too. There are choices. Up to you.”
Choices sounded exhausting, and I already knew the second we stepped out into the frigid late fall night, I’d sober up enough to be done and be mad about accepting her invitation.
“I think I’m going home soon,” I told her.
Although ‘home’ wasn’t really home. One of Elena’s New Russian friends owned a one-room flat in the center of the city, and a bunch of girls used it when they wanted to sneak out and needed to give their parents an excuse.
It was small, and the wallpaper was peeling, and the bathroom had a lot of exposed pipes with no tub, but there were two beds side by side and a small stove where you could make coffee in the morning.
All a girl needs after stumbling in at 2:00 AM.
“Oh come on!” She laughed, spinning me again as her hips moved in an easy way the other girls could only dream of replicating. “We have all night!”
I considered it for a moment, but before I could answer, Elena gaped at something behind me, and I felt a hard tap on my shoulder.
I spun, ending up face-to-face with Vitali, who nodded toward the hallway leading to the outside door.
Everything in me went cold despite the overwhelming heat of bodies stuffed into a finite space with only one open window.
But before I could think of what to say, Elena shoved me toward him, and it was too late.
He lightly moved people aside as he led me through the apartment, although he didn’t have to because they weren’t keen on being in his way. Vitali was taller in the same way Americans are taller. Not one girl there could match his height, even in her tallest heels.
The reinforced door shut behind us, completely muffling the noise, and just like that, we were alone on the concrete landing with only one dim, flickering light, and the company of at least two giant phalluses drawn in markers on the wall.
He leaned against the endless graffiti and took out a pack of Marlboros. A Western brand. “You smoke?”
I nodded, even though I hadn’t touched a cigarette since Elena and I tried them in seventh grade.
Something about his bright, hooded eyes made a liar out of me just to have an excuse to stay near for the second time that night.
Maybe if I talked to him—proved to myself that he was no good—then I could go home and have no regrets from the evening.
I’d know that my knight in shining armor was a fraud.
He took out one cigarette and pressed it between his lips, the muscles in his jaw becoming pronounced as the metallic lighter flicked and lit with a half-second whoosh.
The sharp shadows it created danced across his green irises, momentarily painting him in a different light.
The tip caught, and he took a step toward me, so close that I absolutely could smell his cologne now.
The thin paper burned, and his eyes rested on my mouth as he took it out and placed the filter against my parted lips.
“Inhale slowly,” he instructed, to my utter horror of being caught in the lie again.
I obeyed as he took a step back and tapped the pack to get his own. The lighter sparked again, and something about the sight of him in that moment made my head spin. He observed the first drag.
“That’s it,” he said. “Take it all in, let it settle.”
The way he said those words immediately put a hole in my brain and I forgot his instructions. The sudden punch to my lungs burst out in a cough. He watched me as I tried to cover my shame in my sleeve, and took another drag.
“It’s not for everyone,” he said evenly, then took it from my trembling fingers and flicked it, crushing it with his expensive, Italian-made shoe. “How old are you, Katya?”
“Twenty-three,” I wheezed.
“You live alone?”
“No, with my family.”
He nodded in fascination, granting me the relief of feeling like the most interesting person in the room… hallway… stair landing.
“Brothers and sisters?”
“One brother,” I said.
He looked away from me, taking another drag. “I remember the bus.”
My heart jumped… to some very unlikely conclusions. At least he remembered me.
“You want a jacket?” he asked, and in the same moment, thinking better of it, he separated from the wall and walked past me, disappearing inside.
Only a few heartbeats passed before he emerged with a thick leather jacket, silently draped it over my shoulders, and took his place again.
I gripped the lining to keep it from slipping.
“You remember the bus,” I reminded him.
He still wasn’t looking at me, but he nodded, and that was all.
Somehow, this was the best and still the most awkward conversation of my life.
Disjointed and giving me nothing but the smallest talk, but I couldn’t figure out a better subject right then.
He seemed okay with this, and I was the one struggling, which should have been the opposite because only one of us was drunk.
“What about you?” I asked. “Do you have brothers and sisters?”
“A sister,” he said. “Just entered the third grade.”
“What’s her name?”
“Dasha. Who brought you here?”
“It’s my best friend’s cousin’s place,” I said, the abrasive subject changes getting on my nerves.
“Your blond friend?”
“Yeah, Elena.”
He hmm’d. Nothing about the interaction said he wanted to get in my pants. I had gotten more out of fruit stand cashiers.