Analiese
Analiese
Kseniya.
When Vasily said Kseniya would be visiting, even when he said Kseniya would agree with me, I didn’t understand that this was a person’s name. He can be extremely difficult to understand sometimes. Like, part of me wonders if the broken English was an act since he does have a ton of English books on his Kindle, but I’m almost positive he was not telling me that I should use a Kindle to tell him what sex acts I’m interested in. That would be crazy.
But then Kseniya shows up.
She is a tornado. She’d be a bombshell blonde, the envy of every girl I know, with her long legs and nipped waist and hips and boobs for days. Blue eyes, long lashes. Absolutely gorgeous. But she has even more piercings than Vasily, hers in far more visible places — obviously, as how would I know otherwise — and streaks of pink, green, and purple in that long hair. She’s dressed in black and bubble gum pink, her coat is three sizes too big and her skirt is three inches too short, and there’s an air of mania about her.
She’s also incredibly sweet.
She shows up at noon with a stack of plates from the Mexican food truck that parked out front an hour ago and has had steady traffic ever since. Igor showed up this morning with a cookbook from his wife, who was kind enough to flag her favorite easy recipes for me. They all make family-sized portions, and there was a recipe for garlic Parmesan chicken stew that I have all the ingredients for and can just live in a crock pot all day, so I went with that. It’s going to be hours before the chicken in it is cooked— and I’m not convinced it’s ever going to be edible, since I made it— but the apartment’s been smelling delicious ever since. I’m starving, and even though I’ve never had food from a truck before, it’s been taunting me for the past hour.
Also, I don’t push the issue, but I’m pretty sure Igor killed my Uncle Vito. He asked about my family when I admitted to him yesterday that I don’t know how to cook but wish I did. He suddenly blurted out Vito Rossi when I mentioned my dad and then got really quiet.
Uncle Vito used to feel me up at pool parties. He died when I was seven, and I still remember that. So I’m not going to hate on Igor if he’s the guy who chopped up Vito and tossed him to the coyotes.
“I got a little bit of everything for us!” Kseniya says without any additional introduction as she plops the stack of take-out right on the dining table. It’s all paper plates, mostly wrapped in foil, but there are also cups of beans, rice, and cheese, and something wrapped in a corn husk.
I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with the stack, so I head to the silverware drawer for forks and grab some napkins. It gives me a chance to get a better look at Kseniya and think about who she is.
Vasily has a closet half-filled with women’s clothing. Is Kseniya his girlfriend? Am I literally wearing her sweater right in front of her? Does she know why I’m here?
She’s already taking off her coat, so it’s a quick glance for me to confirm there’s no way her chest is fitting in this sweater. I’m not sure if I feel better or worse about that.
“Well then, let’s see the damage,” she practically sings as she meets me at the table and snatches my hand.
I yelp and pull away, having a half-second flash of Vasily’s men surrounding me at my pool, where I’ve spent my entire life thinking I’m safe. I shrink back, my brain running an inventory of the weapons I’ve found in the apartment since yesterday.
She takes a step back and holds her hands up. “My bad, I figured you were the girl. Ana.”
“I am Ana,” I retort, even though it sounds weird. I’m Lacey. Which is not a whore’s name. I tuck my hands under my arms as I approach hesitantly. I don’t think she meant to scare me, but I’m not ready to let her grab me again. “Who are you?”
“Kseniya. Vasya said he warned you I’d be coming. Did he not? He’s an ass.”
“Vasya?” I repeat as everything clicks slowly.
“Vasily? My brother? That’s who you’re here with, right?”
“Brother? But you’re American.”
She chuckles. “Not really.”
“You sound American.”
“I mean, yeah, but I wasn’t born here. We moved here when I was five.”
“Were you and Vasily—Vasya,” I correct to, relieved at how much more easily that rolls off the tongue, “separated when you were little? I can barely understand him.”
Kseniya chortles, the sound incredibly unladylike but endearing, which nearly cushions the blow of, “Dude, he speaks perfect English. He’s just fucking with you.”
Nearly cushions the blow. I stand up so quickly my chair falls back as I explode, “What the mmmph? That son of a birch tree!”
With one raised eyebrow from Kseniya, I suddenly see the family resemblance plain as day. “Want me to teach you some Russian stuff you can call him? I won’t give you an exact translation, so it probably won’t count as cursing.”
Also a family resemblance, although I’m not about to tell her how Vasily wants to circumvent my values.
She pulls back one of the corn husks and slides it over to me. “Here. Tamales make everything better.”
I pick my chair back up and cut into the tamale, pleased to discover it’s a sort of stuffed bun, breading on the outside and pork in a red sauce on the inside. I don’t want her to think I don’t know what this is, so instead of holding it up to my nose to smell it, I let it linger in front of my mouth a second longer than necessary and inhale. It smells delicious.
It tastes delicious. Three bites in, I’m calmed down enough to think clearly. I decide that Kseniya probably won’t be any more of a savior than I would be if Tony suddenly asked me to hang out with some random girl he’d trapped in an apartment, but I want her as a friend for now. “Why would he do that? Pretend his English is bad?”
She shrugs and slides me another item, this one also a stuffed roll but wrapped in a flour tortilla and covered in green sauce. “All my princess movies were from America. All my favorite things were American. I hadn’t started school yet. It was this super cool journey for me. And there was always the American Dream. You could be anything you wanted in America.”
That’s not the American experience I’ve lived, but I understand. The America on TV, especially the stuff I watched growing up, really did feel that way. I just knew it was fantasy because I was already here and already knew what my life would be.
“But Vasya and Artyom, that’s not where their lives were going. They were . . . damn, what’s the term in your people? Made men?”
So she knows exactly who I am. “Not quite, but I get it. They were going to eventually be in the Bratva whether they wanted it or not.”
She nods and dumps cheese on the green thing. The whole time she talks, she eats, but avoids being slovenly or uncouth. She even pulls out two sodas, the color golden like ginger ale or cream soda but the label decorated with a brown bean pod and written in Spanish. She smacks them on the edge of the table to knock the lids off and hands me one. “Yeah. And in Russia, that was a big deal. Out on the coast and in the big cities, kind of a big deal, too.”
“But they’re in Flagstaff,” I finish for her. “So no one gives a crud about them.”
She nods but adds, “It’s not about the respect, it’s the boredom. And the fact that he’s trapped here. They both are.”
I’m about to ask why she says it like that, why she isn’t also trapped here, but then I see the wedding ring on her finger. She’s definitely trapped here.
“Anyway, he hates America, hates Americans, and gets the most idiotic boner out of making himself incomprehensible even though, if he wanted to, he could pass himself off as Todd from Des Moines.”
No, I think to myself. Even if he was speaking like a Midwesterner, no one would believe he was Todd from Des Moines. I snicker at the thought as I take a bite of the messy roll, only to moan in pleasure at the taste. It’s bits of steak slathered in beans and cheese, and the seasoning on the steak is smoky and bright, but the green sauce on top is surprisingly spicy and acidic. “Oh my God, what is this? It’s delicious.”
That has Kseniya laughing so hard her hand goes to her belly. “I always heard you Mafia princesses were sheltered, but you’ve really never had a wet burrito before?”
I frown, not liking being labeled like that even though she’s not wrong. “We have a chef. She doesn’t cook anything like this.”
Kseniya points at her plate with her fork. “Well, this is really good. They always do a good job at that truck. But next time I’m over, I’ll bring my husband’s chimichangas, and they’ll knock your socks right off.”
“Your husband cooks . . . Mexican?”
Kseniya snorts. “His abuelita would tan his hide if he didn’t.”
Oh. Oh . It clicks then. Not all of us go to made men , as Kseniya described them. Some of us are used to broker agreements between rivals. My best friend, Camilla, was nearly married off to the Irish. It’s a very real concern for me now.
But it’s Vasily. Who raped me, but I have to continually remind myself that it wasn’t some nightmare because it’s so easy to turn the removal of the blindfold into a metaphorical thing. The risk that, despite what Vasily has promised, I might never return to Phoenix just doesn’t hit the same as the idea of getting married off to a rival syndicate.
I lean forward and whisper, “You were sold to a Mexican cartel?”
Kseniya snorts so hard her bean soda shoots out of her nose and she has to sop it up with the thin dispenser napkins she brought up from the food truck. “Oh my God, I can’t wait to tell Miguel you thought he was cartel. He’s the night supervisor at the Days Inn. We dated back in high school. When I came back from college, oh, two years ago now, we decided that we’d fucked around with enough other people to know we’re gonna be stuck with each other—oh honey, what’s wrong?” she asks, suddenly snapping to attention.
I didn’t realize I was showing my feelings so hard, but her story just reminds me of everything I’ve missed out on trying to ensure my best future. I never had a high school boyfriend. I never got to leave for college, so I’ll never get to come back. I’ll never get to sleep with other men— other than this mess I’m in now— or decide for myself who I’ll marry. My value may have gone down substantially, but I’ll still be part of some trade.
“Nothing,” I say, shrugging it off. No point crying over what I can’t control. If I’m lucky, this won’t have even devalued me that much. I’m just not a virgin. It’s not like I’ve done anything so horrible or had my reputation so sullied there’s no coming back.
Kseniya doesn’t push it. We finish up lunch, and while I’m clearing off the table, she opens the gigantic case she brought with her, revealing an entire portable manicure set-up.
Vasily didn’t send her here to bring me lunch or wring information out of me or torment me over how much better my life could have been. He sent her to do my nails.
He’s being kind to me. He’s caring for me.
He raped me.
And now he’s taking care of my needs in a way I couldn’t expect from my hypothetical future husband. It’s more likely I’d get chewed out for having broken nails if they were noticed at all.
The thought puts something on my face that has Kseniya giving me another concerned look. “I promise I know what I’m doing,” she says quickly. “I’ve got a license and everything. I went to art school, but this is what pays the bills until I can figure out what I want to do with my education.”
“It’s not that.” I wipe my tears away, irritated with myself. “I’ve been a bit of a mess lately, and I just really need my nails fixed, so this is . . .”
She softens at that, smiling gently as she takes my hands and examines what I’ve got going on with them. “Vasya’s a good guy. He has a lot of demons, and he’s a hard man to get close to. He’s definitely still haunted by . . . well, he doesn’t handle loss well, and we’ve all lost important people along the way, you know? But he’s loyal. He protects what’s his. He’ll take care of you.”
So then she doesn’t know how exactly I came to be here. I may have just met her, but she’s been candid enough with me that I believe what she says. Or, I know she believes it whether it’s true or not, and she knows that good guy is a tough sell when, at the end of the day, Vasily is a criminal.
But she and Igor have both said he’ll take care of me, and I’m starting to wonder if I’m in a better position than I thought I was.
I can’t decide what color nails I want. I’ve always gotten basic French tips, but before I can even ask, Kseniya says, “Don’t you dare say French. I will fuck it up out of spite.”
She has at least forty colors in her caddy. There are glittery ones and metallics, ones that change color if you look at them from different angles and ones that glow in the dark.
She waggles her eyebrows and makes a comment about how fun they are at night when you’re doing “stuff,” even putting air quotes around it, and I don’t get what she’s saying. But then my brain lurches to the topless bar, to the darkness, to Vasily guiding my hand between us so I could feel with my fingertips why his penis felt so strange.
I have no idea what those piercings look like. I haven’t seen or touched it since then, only felt it through his shorts last night while he did—
—What even was that? I’m not so naive that I don’t understand he was fingering me, but why did he do that? What was the purpose of it? He didn’t get anything out of it. In fact, I heard him masturbating in the shower afterward. So why didn’t he just have sex with me?
Not that I wanted him to, of course. I just don’t get it. I don’t get why I’m here. And now I’m thinking about what it would have looked like if I’d been able to see my nails as I felt his piercings. I even wonder if the capture balls on the piercings themselves glow in the dark.
I swallow and firmly decide against glow in the dark or anything too fancy, but she has these really pretty pastels. They seem like a good entry into the world beyond French tips.
“What are you debating between?” she asks, and I pull out a baby pink, a peach, and an ultra-soft blue, but then put the blue back.
“No, that’s too much,” I mutter, more to myself.
Kseniya pulls it right back out. “We’re gonna make this work,” she promises.
She works for two hours, and it’s worth every minute for the rhinestone-studded ombre masterpieces she creates. They’re ridiculously inappropriate for me, and I’m sad that Tony will make me get rid of them as soon as he sees them, but I’ve never felt so glamorous in my life. And she did all this while texting, getting more and more irritated as her phone blows up. Finally, she says, “Is it the pink laptop or the gray-pink laptop? His words, not mine.”
“Is that Vasily you’re texting?”
“Yeah, he’s at your place and trying to figure out what to grab. He told me not to tell you he couldn’t figure out what you were going to need for two weeks here, but how could I possibly know which laptop? Ugh, I should have just told him to grab both. Dammit.”
“Why wouldn’t he want me to know?”
“Honey, no man wants you to know how incompetent they are. They want you to find out when it’s too late and you already love their stupid asses too much to back out. Or you’ve just already learned that all men are incompetent and you’ve been rolling with it the whole time.”
She finishes up my nails, giving me little updates from the texts whenever she reacts enough to them that I have to clear my throat to remind her she’s already let me in on it.
He’s not sure which shampoo and conditioner to bring, if he should bring my shaver and if he should change the blade in it first.
He sends a picture of the stuffed animals on my bed to find out if I’ll want any of those, which has me blushing. I’ve figured out that Kseniya’s about twenty-three, not much older than I am, but she’s married and working and has just made these amazing nails for me, showing how seriously she takes this work. She doesn’t look like an adult, but I get a very mature, very not pampered princess vibe off her.
But then she shows me a photo from her Instagram feed. It’s a stuffy almost identical to one of mine but twice the size and kitted out in a Halloween style instead of my unicorn. “I’m going to make him buy you the jumbo unicorn. The jumbos are so much better. He says there’s a package on your bed, too. He promises he didn’t open it, but he did squish it a little and said it feels like a small book.” At the confused shake of my head, she types something and in another second says, “It’s from Kaiser.”
“Oh, my birth control!” I blurt out.
Kseniya types that in before I can stop her, and it’s not two seconds later that the phone rings. She cringes as she holds it to my ear.
“ Zvyozdochka , you no say birth control is pill,” Vasily says in his broken English, his accent thick as motor oil.
“You didn’t ask,” I fire back, immediately perturbed. Maybe he is a good guy, and maybe I am in absolutely no position to be anything less than thankful for the kindness he’s shown me in my captivity. I know far too well how much worse this could be, and I am thankful that I’m getting pampered with this beautiful new set of nails and not being terrorized or forced to do too many things.
But the broken English thing is ridiculous.
I hear him breathe on the other end. I don’t think he’s stomping his feet, not in anger at least, but I can hear his foot falls as he moves from the hardwood of my bedroom to the tiled bathroom. I even hear the click of the latch as he closes the door behind him. I don’t know who’s with him in my room, if it’s his men or mine, but he’s decided to make this conversation private.
And the way he says, “Zvyozdochka,” softly, even intimately, has my body warming up. I don’t know what it means or why his nickname for me has changed from whatever he called me before, but it’s mine. It’s his name for me. “You need every day, da ? You need other pill now? Next morning pill?”
There it is, my golden ticket, the thing I was desperate to ask for but scared he would get mad that I lied about being on birth control or simply refuse out of spite toward Tony. If I was pregnant with Vasily’s baby, I really would be forced to marry him. I’d be a pariah.
Kseniya is staring hard into space, like she’s giving me privacy but also totally listening in on this. The way she tells it, Vasily supported her marriage with Miguel, welcomed him into the family but not the family . She’s said Miguel wants kids but she’s not ready yet, so he was fine with her getting one of the implants Vasily no doubt thought I had. It’s probably why he didn’t think to question what birth control I have.
Tony’s always said I’ll be allowed to finish school before I marry and that he’ll make sure it’s a good match. He’ll pair me with a powerful but respectful man. He’ll make sure I’ll be taken care of. But he used me to settle a $150,000 debt, and I don’t think I can trust him again.
“It’s okay for me to miss a couple days on these pills,” I blurt out.
Immediately, I regret saying that. I should have said I’m on the placebo week or something. Now that I think about it, I’m due to get my period soon, so I don’t think there’s a big concern anyway. But I’ve already said it, and already, Kseniya is giving me a look that shows she knows I’m lying. She doesn’t look mad — which she has every right to be, considering what this says about me and my intentions for Vasily — but there’s concern.
“ Da , ok. No wait up. Late night.” Not a concern in the world for the validity of my statement, just the stupidly broken English.
And Kseniya doesn’t say anything to me about my lie.