Still Here (23 page)

Throughout the day, Sergey debated if he should tell Vadik about Sejun's call. But when Vadik finally came home, he was in such a bad mood that Sergey decided to wait. Vadik barely looked at Sergey, and instead of cooking dinner for them, he fixed himself a ham sandwich—a slab of ham on a slice of bread—and plopped on the couch in front of the TV. He watched CNN for about an hour, then made himself another sandwich and put on
The Wolverine
. Sergey had always hated fantasy, but he decided to keep Vadik company. He made himself a sandwich too—he put a few slices of onion on his—and sat down in Sejun's whimsical embroidered chair that stood next to the sofa. He thought it would be nice to sit like this, watch a movie together, eat their sandwiches. But Vadik wouldn't even look at him, wouldn't even register his presence except to wince whenever Sergey took a crunchy bite. Sergey had to admit that he hadn't felt that comfortable or that welcome at Vadik's for a while. Vadik had taken him in with such eagerness and warmth, but Sergey hadn't expected anything less, because he would've done the same for Vadik. In fact, he had done the same for Vadik. All those times when Vadik would suddenly discover that he couldn't spend a second more in a particular apartment, or with a girl he was seeing, he would come and stay at Sergey's. Not for long, just a couple of days, a week at most, until he found something new. Sergey was always happy to house Vadik, and Vica was just as eager to welcome him. Too eager, in fact. There was one time when Sergey thought that something might have happened between them, but the thought was too scary and upsetting to take any further.

Now it felt as if Vadik was getting increasingly disappointed in his company. And there was the question of money. Sergey couldn't possibly offer him any. You don't offer money to your best friend when he takes you in. Plus, Vadik knew that Sergey was sending most of his unemployment checks to Vica so that she could pay the mortgage. Sergey did try to buy groceries at least. But Vadik just wouldn't accept that. His first week at Vadik's, Sergey went shopping and came back loaded with the food that he usually bought for Vica. Every single item annoyed the hell out of Vadik.

No, he didn't eat McIntosh apples. And yes, there was a huge difference between organic and nonorganic yogurt. And nobody in his right mind would buy meat loaded with antibiotics and hormones. And Starbucks coffee wasn't even drinkable!

So, yes, it was clear, Vadik didn't like his shopping for food. So Sergey stopped doing it. But then there was the issue of toilet paper. Sergey had asked Vadik to buy the ultra-strength kind. The same brand—it wasn't more expensive, just stronger. And it wasn't like there was something wrong with Sergey's ass that it required special treatment; ultra-strong was simply better. Vadik had grudgingly agreed. But the last time he went shopping, Vadik came home with twelve rolls of something called Tenderlicious, some new brand that literally dissolved in your fingers before you even brought it to your ass. “It was on sale” was all the explanation he offered.

And what about those few times when they went out together? Sergey would reach for his wallet, but Vadik would stop him and say that he would pay for the meal. It was as if the sight of Sergey's scratched credit card embarrassed him. The worst thing was that after the meal Vadik would barely talk to Sergey and hang around the apartment with the sulky expression of somebody who had just been manipulated into doing something he didn't want to do. Lately, he wore that expression pretty much all the time.

They'd barely watched an hour of
The Wolverine
when Vadik announced that he was tired and was going to bed. He turned the TV off and left the room without bothering to ask Sergey if he wanted to continue watching.

It was all Vadik's fault that Sergey didn't tell him about Sejun. He simply didn't give him the chance.

Two days later, Sergey called Sejun to ask a few questions about the design for his app. This time he called her from his own Skype account. Sejun told him that she loved the logic and organization of the frames but hated the visual presentation. “A graveyard with tiny ghosts peeking from behind the stones? Seriously?” She found it both creepy and boring, like Walmart Halloween decorations.

This embarrassed Sergey so much that his voice went higher. He tried to explain that he didn't mean for the ghosts to be in the actual design but thought they were okay for a proto. Sejun seemed to be touched by his embarrassment. She then offered a few simple solutions to make the visuals work and suggested a good website with graphic templates.

The next time Sergey called Sejun he asked her if Virtual Grave was a good name for his app.

She said that it was morbid but biting, and biting was the most important quality for the name. Her use of the word
biting
stirred Sergey so much that he blushed. She said that when his prototype was ready, she would introduce him to her investor friend.

The calls were becoming more frequent. They would start talking about the app but would inevitably swerve someplace else, someplace personal. Sejun asked Sergey how he'd come up with the idea. He told her about the posthumous letter from his father, how he had sat in the basement reading it over and over again, trying to find some last piece of advice. He saw Sejun remove her glasses and wipe her eyes with the corner of her sleeve.

She told him that her own father never, ever talked to her. He spoke to her, he said things to her, he asked questions, he gave instructions, but they never really “talked,” not when she was a child and not now. It was as if he found the idea of a conversation with his daughter incomprehensible. She said that one of the reasons she decided to move to the United States was to escape this condescending attitude that Asian men displayed to women. She wanted a Western man so that he would treat her as an equal. But here she found that the Western men who wanted to date Asian women were attracted to the idea of their servility.

“But not Vadik though?” Sergey asked. Sejun looked away from the screen. Sergey was afraid that he had made a faux pas. He shouldn't have mentioned Vadik; he should've pretended to have forgotten the fact that Sejun used to be Vadik's girlfriend.

Then she looked up at Sergey. “No,” she said, “with Vadik it was different.”

He wasn't misogynistic at all. But he liked her because she was strange to him. Not exotic, but strange. He knew that he would never truly understand her or she him. And that was exactly what he wanted. To be able to project whatever he wanted on to her and to be able to imagine that in her eyes he was whatever he wanted to be at the moment. And she was so lonely and weak that she almost agreed to become that for him.

One morning Sergey was sick with flu and he called Sejun from bed.

“Are you in bed?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“I love that lattice headboard. I was the one who picked this bed, did you know that?”

Sergey started to cough.

“Oh, poor Sergey!” she said. “I wish I was there with you, I would give you some tea.”

“No, you wouldn't. You wouldn't want to appear servile.”

“That's true,” Sejun said. “But I could sit down on the edge of your bed and stroke your hair.”

“I would give anything to feel your hand on my forehead right now,” Sergey said.

Sejun smiled. Her glasses slipped down her nose when she was staring down, and she pushed them back with her index finger. She was sitting cross-legged on her couch. He could see her entire body, so her laptop must have been away, on the coffee table. She was wearing a loose black T-shirt and some sort of lounge pants. No socks, no bra. He searched for her nipples lost in the folds of her T-shirt.

“I would've tapped my fingertips on your forehead,” she said, “and then I would run them down your cheeks, all the way to your mouth.”

Sergey suppressed the urge to moan. “And I would have caught your finger with my teeth and pressed on it ever so gently,” he said.

That first time they had sex discreetly. Sejun brought her laptop closer so that everything below her neck was hidden from view. Sergey did the same. He tried to masturbate as quietly as possible. He was hoping that Sejun was masturbating too, but he couldn't be completely sure. They kept talking the entire time.

“Oh, fuck!” Sergey finally cried, making his computer screen shake.

Sejun laughed. “Did you come?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “What about you?”

“Oh, I came a little while ago. I was just embarrassed to tell you.”

Afterward, Sergey felt feverish but insanely happy.

He went to the bathroom and aimed a perfect pale gold current into Vadik's toilet.

“Is vigorous,” he said to the pearly gray tiles above the toilet. “Is brilliant. Is persistent. Is strong.”

Each time they became bolder and more intimate. They would put their computers farther away to have a full view of each other's bodies, and they would wear ear- and mouthpieces to hear each other better. Her breasts turned out to be smaller than he'd thought, her hips wider. He couldn't imagine anything sexier than Sejun wearing nothing but a mouthpiece and headphones. Everything about her was endlessly exciting. Sometimes, hours after their call was over, Sergey would see his headphones lying on the table where he'd left them and just the sight of them would get him hard. She told him how smart he was, how imaginative, how handsome. She said that he looked like that actor from Truffaut's films. What was his name? Jean-Pierre Léaud? She asked him if he liked Truffaut. He said that he did. He loved Truffaut, had always preferred him to Godard. She had too, she said. She had always hated Godard.

Sergey walked around in a dazed painful state, the rest of his concerns—Vica, Eric, Virtual Grave, unemployment, Rachel, Vadik, especially Vadik—concealed from him by the smog of panic and excitement. He managed to disregard the fact that Sejun used to be Vadik's girlfriend, that they had broken up a mere two months ago, and the morality of Skype-fucking her was questionable at best. Once after Sejun's call, Sergey stayed frozen on the couch for hours, the MacBook in his lap, not doing anything, just thinking, or rather daydreaming, clinging to the details of what had just happened, as if trying to catch them all and lock them up. He was roused from his reverie by an angry call from Rachel. Apparently, they had scheduled a date and Sergey had forgotten about it. “What happened? Are you sick?” Rachel kept asking him, but there was no concern in her voice, just fury. And it was easier to address her fury than her concern. He said that he had met someone else.

The next morning Sejun didn't answer his Skype call. He left her several messages. She didn't reply. Three days later Sergey sent her a text: “Are you okay? I'm worried.” He got a reply the next day. She wrote that she was fine but feeling “weirded out” by their relationship. “Do you want us to stop?” he asked. This time she answered right away: “Yes!”

It was very difficult to work after that, very difficult to make himself focus, but Sergey knew that his work was actually his way to salvation, so he recommitted himself with even more intensity.

Then, about a week after their virtual affair ended, the time for retribution came. One night, as Sergey was perusing the contents of Vadik's nearly empty fridge, Vadik appeared in the kitchen doorway with the iPhone in his hands. He looked confused rather than angry, but Sergey had a panicky premonition that this was going to be about Sejun.

It was.

“Look,” Vadik said. “It says here that I talked to Sejun on December 18. I didn't talk to her. Was it you?”

Vadik was clearly anticipating some sort of crazy explanation. There wasn't any.

“Yes, we talked,” Sergey said. “She called to ask you if her brother could stay here. I'm sorry, I forgot to tell you.”

“Her brother staying here? Staying with me? Or should I vacate my own apartment to accommodate him? That girl has some nerve!”

Sergey took out a wilted lettuce and a couple of tomatoes and cucumbers. “I'm making a salad, do you want some?”

Vadik nodded. He sat down on a flimsy bar stool that looked as if it were about to collapse and put his phone down.

Sergey took a cutting board out and started slicing tomatoes. Never an easy task, and especially difficult under Vadik's stare.

“You should halve the tomatoes first,” Vadik said, “and better use a serrated knife.”

Sergey found the serrated knife.

“Not the cucumbers though. Never use a serrated knife on cucumbers. But you still have to halve them.”

Sergey answered him with a glare and Vadik went back to playing with his phone. He looked really stupid in that tiny kitchen, perched on that tiny chair. In his white sweater with his shock of blond hair, he looked like a huge dumb parrot in a cage. If there was one thing Sergey couldn't stand, it was somebody's presence while he was cooking. Vica would always leave the kitchen when he cooked. Not that he cooked that often. But he could make cucumber and tomato salad, and a spectacular omelet. His secret ingredients were leftover cold cuts from MyEurope. A prosciutto and salami combination worked the best. He would make it for Vica, and she would always ask for seconds and proclaim it the most delicious dish in the world. “Seriously,” she would say, “we should enter your omelet in contests.” Too bad Vadik didn't have any leftovers. Or any eggs. Sergey felt a momentary pang of longing for Vica, but then he thought of Sejun and felt a pang of longing for her too.

“No, no, that's rosemary-scented oil. It won't do. Use the big bottle.”

Sergey put the rosemary-scented oil back and reached for the big bottle.

“Wait,” Vadik said, and Sergey felt like throwing the big bottle at his head. “Wait. It says here that the duration of the call was two hours and eight minutes. You couldn't have been discussing Sejun's brother for two hours, could you?”