The Cosmopolitans (32 page)

The handkerchief said, “
Tell her you never expected to hear
such curses from your angelic, soft-spoken daughter.
”

“
I never expected to hear such curses from my angelic, soft-
spoken daughter.
”

“
Soft-spoken?
I was just scared to talk, my whole life —”

Osip, carrying his oatmeal bowl, pushed open the door.
“Katyenok?
Nu, what is this
?” Wide-eyed, he patted her back.

Theandra

Theandra had been Southern when she met Jelani, she’d never
listened to any non-mainstream music, taken any drugs, or had a
colonic. Listening to him recount these early deprivations, she
wished she could go off somewhere and sketch, but she’d have to
wait until tomorrow, when the Strausses would finally leave.

Jelani came to one of his punch lines, “I said, ‘You dress like
a les-bi-an.’” Theandra glared at Milla Strauss, who giggled with
her hand to her mouth. Messing around with white couples was
annoying from beginning to end. The women were so eager to eat
her out, as if to say, “Isn’t this much nicer than when we were all
lynching each other?”

After fifteen more minutes of giggling, she took Milla Strauss’
hand and led her to the bedroom. For a few minutes, she would be
the expert. Little as she might know about acid jazz or accounting,
she knew much more than this or that bi-weekly bi-curiosity about
what would happen next.

This one kissed her as soon as they got into the bedroom, using
her tongue and pushing back Theandra’s jacket, which wasn’t how
it was supposed to happen. “Hey,” Theandra said. She’d made
that jacket herself, and anyway, they were both supposed to get
undressed, turn on some music, and massage each other until the
boys were ready.

“Sorry,” Milla Strauss said, but didn’t stop. Probably con-
gratulating herself on her jungle passion.

“Hold up here.” Theandra backed away, checked the jacket,
which seemed fine, and put it on the hanger. “There’s plenty of time
for that. See —”

Milla Strauss drew Theandra’s lips inside her own. “Wait,”
Theandra mouthed, pulling Milla’s acrylic accountant sweater from
her shoulders. “Just. Hold. Up.”

A few minutes passed. As a child, Theandra had watched
afternoon movies with her grandmother, and now she saw, not what
was happening, but how those movies might have hinted at it: oil
pouring from a glass tumbler, a champagne bottle uncorking.

At first, she didn’t recognize Jelani’s voice. “Looks like they’ve
started without us,” he said, sounding not quite as pleased as one
might expect. “All right, then, man, who you want first?”

“Uh…” Malcolm Strauss stammered at this unexpected etiquette
dilemma. “They’re both looking good to me right now, I guess.”

Milla Strauss dropped her head back onto the bed. Theandra
went back to what she had been doing.

“See, what we have here,” Jelani said quickly, “Sometimes, it’s
more like a freaky peep-show type of situation.”

The men leaned against the wall. The men cracked some jokes.
Milla Strauss held Theandra’s hands in hers and kissed down the
nape of her neck.

Milla

Neither of Malcolm’s parents could operate their DVD projector,
so Malcolm usually had to get the film started, and then stayed
behind to watch it with them in the study. Tonight, Izzy was calm,
so Milla had been able to bring him in to watch, too.

The brick-colored walls made the room seem even smaller. On
the small marble table that partially blocked their view sat a framed
photograph from Milla and Malcolm’s wedding, in which Milla,
looking particularly lumpy-cheeked, was embracing or accosting
Malcolm from behind.

Jean paused
Jezebel
at the ballroom scene and pointed the
remote control at Malcolm. “Are you like Pres?”

“I don’t know,” Malcolm said, flipping forward another page
in his old biology textbook. (He was considering applying to a
Ph.D. program.) Milla leaned against his arm. Malcolm would
never publicly humiliate her like Pres had Julie. No, if Milla wore
something slutty, like Julie’s dress, he would be proud.

“Don’t you think he’s an asshole?” Jean said.

“Language,” Bobby said from the high-backed chair he’d placed
within a nose of the screen, waving his hand in the direction of Izzy,
who sat in Jean’s small, upright lap, clutching at her beige skirt.

“Oh, he has no clue,” she said, rocking her pointy knees back
and forth.

“Freeze,” Izzy said. He had learned it from watching television
with Milla’s father.

“You’re so demanding.” Jean stilled her knees and re-started
the movie, only to stop it a minute later, to tell them about her new
client, a Broadway actor suing for paternity rights, who refused to
believe Jean was a grandmother. “Isn’t that ridiculous?”

Bobby said she still looked like a coed. Jean waved her free
hand, as she did whenever anyone complimented her.

Izzy said, “Abc, abc, abc.”

“Does he know the alphabet yet?” Jean said.

“He said ‘asbestos’,” said Bobby, who was working on an
asbestos case.

Malcolm smiled. See how happy he was now: all he’d wanted
was to try new things, things that were fun for her, too. It was all
right that Milla thought about Theandra once in a while, wasn’t it?
Yes.

Jean paused the film again. “I would have slapped him harder.”

Malcolm said, “Stop wasting my time.”

Katya

Roman and Katya took the bus downtown, past all the stores
that had sprung up around the Swiss bank, through streets filled with
apartment buildings rising like totems between aluminum-sided
houses. She’d told her mother she was leaving, but she hadn’t told
her father, because he was refusing to speak to her. “I’m glad I’m
getting out of there,” she said, and took Roman’s hand. He smiled
slightly, no dimples, but still, a smile.

Yana chose that moment to call and ask whether she was sure
about “the whole marriage caboodle.” Katya had to take one step
away from Roman so he wouldn’t hear, which, of course, made him
suspicious. Yana yammered on about how she herself, who was
three important years older than Katya, had been very nervous when
she’d gotten married, and her marriage had been to someone she’d
known for years, and she’d been right to be nervous. “I’ve known
Roman for years,” Katya wanted to say, but she didn’t want him to
hear his name. Thankfully, the connection broke.

As they carried their bags past a calligraphied sign, “Augustine
Manor:
Semper
,” Roman explained in a whisper that somehow,
using “hustler’s tricks,” his friend Chino had gotten a subsidized
apartment there, and offered to share. Katya hadn’t known they
would be living with anyone.

Chino was a blonde guy who looked as if he should have been
coaching a sailing team, but instead was watching a cartoon squirrel
spray machine-gun fire through a forest.

“We can pull out couch to sleep here,” Roman said, pushing
their bags against the wall. “Queen-sized bed.”

It was shaky, so Katya borrowed Roman’s screwdriver and set
to work. “I need you to watch, make sure I’m doing this right,” she
said, but Roman looked mostly at the television. Chino told Roman
that he’d met with an army recruiter, that he was going to be a civil
affairs officer in Germany, because he was smooth and German girls
were crazy.

Asking Roman whether he felt okay would set him off, and of
course he was okay, look at him. She kissed him (“Where’s mine?”
Chino said.) and left to meet Milla in the mall.

Milla cried the entire time about their father not letting her go
to Katya’s wedding. “I’ll buy you a dress, at least,” she kept saying,
and trying to steer her towards Saks. Katya found something okay,
and cheap, at The Limited. As Katya put her on the train, Milla tried
to explain something about marriage to her, that if Roman wanted
to — she should —

When Katya returned to the room, Roman was alone, sitting on
the floor, a glass of beer in his hand, his eyes half-closed. She told
herself again that, if there was ever an occasion to relax straight-
edge rules, it was the death of a parent. It was just a beer. She put her
arms around him, and he let her. He was getting better.

The air smelled burnt. She tried not to ask, got through almost
an entire talk show about parenting an overweight adult child. “Does
Chino smoke up?”

“Who?”

How dumb, to bring up something trivial like that. So what if
Chino did? It didn’t mean Roman would. “It’s just really sad,” she
said, “your mother…” Brigitte, her friend from carpentry class, had
said she should try to get Roman to talk.

“For Chaikins, yes.
Who’ll be the family blyad’?
”

“
What’s that word —
”

He waved the question away. “
You’re not the lord of this
house
.”

A few minutes later, he sniffed the air, and leaped to his feet, and
tried to run out of the apartment, crying when she blocked the door.
“
Why did you bring the bomb, why? You know I can’t hit a girl.
”

He only calmed down when she promised to leave, and he
wouldn’t let her take her keys. She sat against the outside of the
door. Little kids came from a nearby apartment and tried to sell her
candy.