Still Here (3 page)

“Vicusha, you demand too much. That's your problem,” her mother used to say to her all the time. She worked as a nurse in a small town on the Azov Sea. She had a quiet drunkard of a husband, a dog, and a crooked apple tree in her backyard. She didn't demand more. Vica's two sisters didn't demand anything either. One was older than Vica by fourteen years and the other by twelve. She had always thought of them as her mean, dumb aunts rather than as sisters.

But how could you help but want things, demand things? Especially if there were so many riches around you and life was so shockingly short? There was so little time to make the most of it! Vica spent her working hours performing sonograms, peering at the computer screen, where the signs of disease lurked in the gray mess of inner organs. “Relax, relax,” Vica would say while moving her slippery stick over somebody's stomach or chest. Everything would seem to be fine on the outside and yet on the screen there would be a jagged dark spot, or a white speck, or a luminous stain. And then she would see a bunch of printouts on the desk. Like a bunch of postcards from Death.

“That's good champagne!” Sergey said.

Bob grinned.

“Bobik loves it!” Regina said and kissed Bob on the ear, which was a weird way to show affection. Bobik was the number one name for a dog in Russia. Vica wondered if Bob knew that. But how could he know that? His only knowledge of Russia came from the words of his wife, who told him that she came from a famous and very cultured Russian family. Her great-grandfather was a renowned artist, her grandparents were persecuted under Stalin, her mother once went on a date with Brodsky. All of that was true to a certain degree, just not entirely true. Vica couldn't disprove the story about Brodsky, but she knew for a fact that the artist great-grandfather couldn't have been that famous. Otherwise, he would have been mentioned in the Soviet encyclopedia, and he wasn't—Vica had checked.

Vica had once told Sergey that she knew why Bob married Regina. It was really simple. After he had gotten rich, he had developed an old-fashioned American desire to invest in some old-country culture and a philanthropic cause. Regina seemed to provide him with both.

“You're so mean!” Sergey had said.

A shrill persistent ringing came from the vicinity of Vadik's crotch.

“Bossa nova?” Sergey asked.

“Osso buco!” Vica corrected once more.

“Sejun!” Vadik said and answered his phone quickly. His face immediately broke into a bright idiotic smile. He whispered something into the phone, then pressed it to his ear, then whispered something again.

“Guys, say hi to Sejun,” he said, turning the phone toward them.

A fuzzy but obviously pretty woman whose face filled the entire screen said: “Hi.” She sounded rather indifferent.

They all greeted her.

Vadik turned the phone away from them and whispered something to the screen. Sejun whispered something back. They kept whispering until the tone of their voices changed from intimate to mildly annoyed to angry, and their whispering turned into hissing.

“I'm switching to the iPad,” Vadik said, “better image there.”

He went into the bedroom, dropped the phone on the bed, picked up the iPad, and dialed.

A larger, prettier Sejun appeared on the iPad screen.

“What now?” she asked.

Vadik headed toward the bathroom.

“Hey, where are you carrying me?” she protested. “You know I don't like it when you move me around!”

“I have to show you my new shower curtain!” Vadik carried Sejun into the bathroom and closed the door behind him.

“He didn't show us the curtain,” Regina said, yawning.

“I'm pretty sure he's gonna show her something else,” Sergey said.

Regina sighed, but Bob started to laugh like crazy. Disgusting, Vica thought.

Something buzzed again. The sound was coming from the phone on Vadik's bed. Sergey rushed toward the bedroom.

“Don't answer it,” Vica said, “it's private!”

“What if it's a text from osso buco?” Sergey said, checking the number.

“Osso buco!” Vica said, even though this time Sergey was right and there was no need to correct him.

“The caller ID says ‘KitchenDude.' What do I do?”

“Just open the message!” Vica said.

“Okay. It says: ‘Your food is ready, dude.' ”

“Did it say ‘dude'?” Bob asked.

“It did! It said ‘dude'!”

Vica snatched the phone from Sergey and headed toward the bathroom.

“Hey, don't!” Sergey said. “Don't disturb them!”

But Vica was already pounding on the bathroom door.

“What?” Vadik asked.

“What do we do about the osso buco?”

“Take care of it! Check the app!”

Vadik's kitchen did have a futuristic-lab feel. To Vica, it looked positively scary. There were all kinds of gadgets, all of them high-tech, gleaming, and enormous.

The stove was empty, as was the pressure cooker, as was a strange machine to the right of the pressure cooker. The only thing that seemed alive and working was a square plastic box that looked like an oversize microwave with a cockpitlike panel on it. Was that the immersion cooker? The red light on top of it was blinking.

Vica tried to open it to check on what was inside, but she couldn't find any part that would detach from the rest of it.

“I can't open it!” she yelled.

“Easy,” Bob said.

Vica turned away from the immersion cooker to face Bob. He was standing in the doorway with a full glass of champagne in his hand. He came closer and handed it to Vica. The glass had the imprint of Bob's fingers on it. Vica took it and sipped.

“Drink up,” Bob said.

She did. There was something about Bob that made her listen to him. His eyes were blue. Very small. Very bright. Slightly bloodshot. He was standing too close to her. She could feel the heat emanating from his body through his expensive shirt. She took a step back but the counter was behind her.

“You're a very delicate woman, Vica. Very delicate. Very unusual. You're a very special woman, Vica. You know that?”

Vica felt dizzy. Nobody had ever called her delicate. Nobody saw that in her. Why the fuck couldn't they see it? She was delicate!

Bob moved closer. If he continued to move forward, he would crush her against Vadik's counter.

She was overcome by the intense smell of meat. She couldn't decide if it was emanating from the immersion cooker or from Bob.

She was about to faint when she heard voices in the living room. Sergey and Regina must have come back from the terrace.

“Osso buco,” she said. “What do we do about the osso buco, Bob?”

He chuckled. “Don't worry about the osso buco,” he said, briskly stepping away from her. “I'll take care of it.”

Vica hurried into the guest bathroom. It was tiny and dark, not nearly as nice as the bathroom adjacent to the bedroom. The memories of Bob's smell, Bob's heat, and Bob's desire for her were so intense that she had trouble peeing. How strange that they had met so many times before and he never seemed to notice her. Well, he noticed her now. Would he want to have an affair with her? He must! She peered at her reflection in the mirror. She had a tight curvy body (“curvy” didn't mean fat, did it? She wasn't fat), full lips, catlike eyes. Vica blew a wisp of reddish hair off her face, admiring the gentle slope of her forehead. Her eyelids were a bit too heavy, but that gave her a “bedroom eyes” effect—she'd read about that in
Cosmo.
Bob simply had to fall in love with her! They would meet in posh hotels that had bathrobes and slippers and little pillows on the bed. They would have dinners in the best restaurants that served butter in little silver dishes. She would finally try foie gras and chocolate soufflé, and maybe even have one of those omakase meals at a Japanese place. And he would buy her that La Perla slip she'd seen in the window of a shop on West Broadway. And then Bob would leave Regina and marry her. She deserved somebody like Bob so much more than Regina! She could pretend to be cultured just as well as Regina could. She could even invent a grandfather who had perished under Stalin's regime and a grandmother who had dated Stravinsky or Balanchine. Bob was getting tired of Regina anyway. Who wouldn't? Would it be too much to ask Bob to pay for her graduate school? Definitely not! But what about Eric? Oh, Eric would be fine. Bob would pay for a private school and take him skiing in the Italian Alps. They usually skied in the Poconos, and Eric complained about how icy and crowded the slopes were. He would like the Italian Alps so much better. And then tennis camp for the summer. Somewhere beautiful instead of that shitty camp in the Catskills where the kids spent their time playing videogames in a dingy clubhouse. What about Sergey, though? She imagined him all alone in their moldy basement littered with Eric's old toys and discarded household items. Sitting in his favorite chair in the dark, his face wet, his shoulders trembling. A rush of affection for Sergey cut through her like a sharp pain. Vica washed her hands, splashed some water onto her neck, and went out of the bathroom.

It had gotten darker outside, and the living room was now bathed in the soft light of the floor lamp. Vadik wasn't back yet, and Bob must have been still busy with the osso buco. Sergey and Regina were alone in the room. Taking dishes out of the cabinet and setting them on the coffee table. Talking. The coziness of the scene made Vica so sick that she considered going back into the bathroom.

In the light of Vadik's lamp, Regina did look a little bit like Julia Roberts. Except, of course, for the toes. But then who knew what kind of toes Julia Roberts had.

“I also enjoy
Frasier,
” Sergey was saying. “It's kind, you know? A kind show about kind people. Sometimes that's what you want. A little bit of kindness.”

“Yes, I know exactly what you mean. It's soothing.”

Vica wiped her damp forehead with her sleeve.

“Excuse me!” Bob said, squeezing past her with a huge plate in his hands. “The osso buco is here. Now where is our host?”

And just then Vadik came out from the bathroom with his iPad.

They ate dinner balancing the heavy plates on their knees. Vica, Regina, and Sergey were sitting on the couch, and Vadik and Bob were on the two large leather puffs across from them. There wasn't any place to put the wineglasses, so they kept them on the floor by their feet.

Vadik insisted that Sejun should join them for the meal, so he propped the iPad in the middle of the coffee table right next to the platter with the osso buco.

“Isn't it insanely hot in New York?” Sejun asked.

“It is!” Sergey rushed to confirm.

“And you're eating roasted meat?” Sejun asked.

“The A/C is on full blast,” Vadik said.

After they were finished, Vadik cleared the plates and brought out large bowls of salad. “Kale and peach,” he announced.

Vica found the salad disgusting. The kale was so tough that it felt like she was chewing on the sleeve of a leather jacket, and the peaches were overripe and slimy. And anyway, what an idea to serve salad after the meat! She kept throwing glances in Bob's direction, but he behaved as if he had forgotten all about their encounter. Oh well, she thought, fuck you, Bob. His face acquired that tranquil pinkish hue, which signified that he might be just drunk enough and ready for the pitch. Vica shot a look at Sergey, but his attention was apparently focused on removing a piece of kale from between his teeth.

“Where is Sejun?” Bob asked. “I don't see her.” He tapped on the screen and called for her as if she were hiding. “Sejun?” Vadik called.

Sejun sighed with a little too much exasperation and said that she was going to the library.

“It's ten p.m.!” Vadik protested.

“It's seven here,” Sejun said, “and I'm kind of tired of watching you guys eat.”

“Sejun!” Vadik said, but the screen went blank.

Vadik put the iPad back on the table. He was visibly upset.

“I love your apartment, Vadik!” Regina said, attempting to change the subject. “It's a little strange, you know, but maybe that's why it fits you so well.”

Bob nodded in agreement, then drained yet another wineglass. One more drink and he would become unpitchable. Vica wanted to tap Sergey on the shoulder, but she couldn't reach across Regina.

“She's right, man,” Sergey said, turning to Vadik. “Really cool place. It's not that big, but you can actually breathe in here. It's the suburbs that make you suffocate.”

Vadik stared into his glass for a long time, then sighed. “Did you know that I wanted to kill myself, when I lived out in Jersey?”

Not the bike story again, Vica thought. She had heard it three or four times before. As had Sergey. As had Regina. But they all looked at Vadik attentively. Even Bob did.

“Yeah, that's right. I wanted to kill myself. It happened eight years ago when I first came here. I lived in Carteret first, then in Avenel. Avenel had Mom's Diner. Carteret had a view of the Staten Island dump. In Avenel, I rented a two-bedroom. I had just come from Istanbul and I had a two-bedroom there, so I thought that that was what I wanted. But in Istanbul, I had furniture, and here there were three enormous rooms, perfectly empty. I put the bed in the master bedroom. I put the TV and the exercise bike in the living room, but there was nothing left for the second bedroom. The emptiness scared me. I tried to avoid it, but I kept wandering in. So I decided to put the exercise bike in the middle of the second bedroom. It looked small in all that empty space. I got on it and started pushing the pedals. I was pushing and pushing, but then I caught my reflection in one of the windows. I was perched on that bike, pushing the pedals, inside of that huge white box. I looked like a lab rat strapped to some piece of equipment. I got off the bike, went to the bathroom, and grabbed a bottle of Tazepam. I didn't know how many pills I'd need to kill myself. Ten? Twenty? Thirty just to be sure? I unscrewed the bottle and there were three. Just three. I remember thinking how pathetic that was. Well, I took those three and went to sleep. I slept for fourteen hours. When I woke up, I packed up my things—a suitcase, a computer bag, and two boxes of books—and escaped to the city.”