Still Here (29 page)

Vica put twenty-five dollars under her plate, then left the restaurant and started to walk away. It was hard not to run. After a few blocks, she realized that she was going in the opposite direction from the bus stop. She was drained of strength. She couldn't walk anymore. She stopped at the nearest town house and sat down on the stoop. Her phone beeped. For a second, Vica was terrified that it was Sergey, that he had seen her after all and had seen her run, but it was only Franc. He just got her message and would be happy to meet up. Vica thought that she had never been more uninterested in a man than she was in Franc at that moment. She texted that she was already at home. She thought about taking a taxi to the bus stop, then taking the bus home, but she couldn't bear the thought of spending the night on her own. A man and a woman passed her by. They didn't even look in her direction. She was completely alone here. On this stoop, in this city, in this country. Her phone beeped again. She thought it was another text from Franc and was briefly annoyed, but it was an activity Facebook notification. Vadim Kalugin commented on her photo: “Could be worse indeed!”

Vadik! she thought. She dialed his number. He answered right away. “Vadik, are you alone?” she asked. He said that he was. She made him promise that there wouldn't be any questions, then asked if she could spend the night. A long pause ensued. Vica worried that he'd turn her down, but he said, “Of course! Absolutely!” Vica got up from the stoop to look for a taxi.

Half an hour later, she knocked on Vadik's door. “Come on in, it's open,” he yelled, and she entered an empty apartment. She walked in and stopped in the middle of Vadik's elegant living room, not knowing what to do. There was a collection of bottles on the top shelf by the window and she went to inspect it: whiskey, brandy, vodka, a strange little jar whose handmade label read “For a broken heart.” How perfect, Vica thought and tried to unscrew the lid. Vadik emerged from the bathroom, wearing a nice shirt, his hair damp and freshly combed. He saw the jar in Vica's hands and said, “No, not that! That's some shit left over from DJ Toma.”

He took the jar away from her and poured her some brandy. Vica drank it in thirsty gulps as if it was a glass of juice. She suddenly thought about Ethan Grail. Ethan Grail died today! Seeing Sergey made her forget about it. She put her glass down and started to cry.

Vadik walked closer and took her in his arms. He had an erection. How stupid the human body is, Vica thought and moved away.

“Are you hungry?” Vadik asked. “Should we order something?”

Vica shook her head. She said she wanted to watch TV.

Doctor Who
? Vadik asked.

Vica said she didn't care.

They watched a couple of episodes of
Doctor Who,
then went to bed, Vadik in his room, and Vica in what used to be Sergey's room.

She woke up in the middle of the night burning with the worst panic she had ever experienced. She was in desperate need of comfort; she felt that if she wasn't comforted right then, she would die. She got up and walked the short distance to Vadik's room. His door was ajar, and the room was half lit by some feeble streetlights from the outside. Vadik was lying on his back, his mouth half open. Vica slipped under the covers and moved closer to him. He was so warm and so tall. His body took up a lot of space in bed. She hugged him and he hugged her back. They rolled over together so that she was underneath him now. He felt like the warmest, largest, most wonderful blanket. And so what if the blanket had a stiff dick, and so what if that dick was entering her? They were done in minutes, and Vica fell back to sleep immediately.

In the morning she felt much better, but nauseous with hunger. She went into the kitchen, cut herself a piece of cantaloupe, ate it, and went to shower. As she lathered herself with Vadik's stinging body wash, she had a perfect Scarlett O'Hara moment. Tomorrow was another day, and today was tomorrow, and her goal was simple and clear—she had to get Sergey back.

No, Vadik wasn't alarmed when he woke up and didn't find Vica there. He was disappointed but not alarmed; he knew that she had to leave early to make it to work on time. The bathroom was still misty and fragrant after her shower and he found her freshly washed underpants hanging on the edge of the sink. The mere sight of them gave him a huge hard-on.

The kitchen had some traces of Vica's presence as well. Some coffee left for him in the coffeemaker, a recently washed coffee mug and a spoon in the rack, a dollop of yogurt on the floor by the counter. He texted her: “How are you?” She replied almost right away: “Great! Thank you so much!”

Was she thanking him for fucking her? Or choosing to ignore the fucking and thanking him for letting her spend the night?

Both versions were disconcerting and painful.

He asked if he could see her. She texted that it was crazy at work, sending him into an agony of frustration. But then an hour later she offered to see him at lunch if he could come up there. He drank his coffee and went to his office in Dumbo, which seemed especially hideous that day.

Bob's idea had been to furnish the office in an anti-Google way. He wanted conspicuously adult furniture with a cool modern feel. He adored Herman Miller pieces, which were elegant, sturdy, and expensive to the sight and touch.

Vadik sat down in his Aeron chair, thinking how much his ass hated the subtle curves of its seat, put his elbows on his glass-top desk, and started massaging his head. When he raised his eyes, he saw two flies moving across his computer screen. He made an instinctive movement to swat at them, but then remembered that they were part of the beautiful graphic design for their new project. They were deep into their work on the Dancing Drosophilae app. The new designer they hired offered to use the images of mating drosophilae just for fun. “Or, you know, whenever you find your genetic match, there would be a fly ‘hovering' over your profile.” Both Bob and Laszlo thought this was brilliant. Now Vadik was in charge of embedding the flies' movements into his script. The designer, whose name was Kieran, loved to make his life difficult. “Here, I made this little animation with the two flies tap-dancing together, let's make sure it fits.” Making flies dance meant two more days of pointless idiotic work.

“Giddy-up, kids!” Laszlo yelled from his office. With Bob gone for a few weeks, Laszlo was in charge. Actually, Bob's sudden departure was bizarre. He said that he had some urgent family business in Russia, that he was going there with his wife. Vadik had called and texted Regina several times, but she wouldn't respond save for a brief note to let him know she was okay. They had never had a break in communication before. Regina'd acted so strangely at that team dinner back in February. He hoped she wasn't having a nervous breakdown.

“Time to buckle down, pal!” Laszlo yelled to Vadik from his desk. Vadik made an effort to smile and peered into his screen with an expression of great concentration. Laszlo's idea of leadership was to shower his employees with American idioms on the subject of hard work and devotion like “buckle down” or “dig in your heels” or “paddle your own canoe” that seemed to have been lifted from some out-of-date management manual. Vadik found himself unable to buckle down and just sat there staring into his screen and counting the minutes until he had to go meet Vica at a coffee shop on Fifty-third Street.

He arrived early and sat down on one of the squishy, slippery bar stools by the window. There she was, walking fast, almost running, crossing the street on the yellow light, waving to him, then opening the heavy door of the coffee shop. Panting, puffy-eyed, but radiant.

Vadik slid off the stool to give her a proper hug, but she squeezed past him and was up on her stool before he had a chance. They did kiss, and it was her kiss that told Vadik everything. Hurried and tense and trying so hard to pass for something friendly. He found everything about her embarrassingly stirring—her damp forehead, her forced smile, her sharp hospital smell—while she obviously didn't want him at all, not even a little bit, and that was stirring too. It was over, whatever romantic history they had had together was over now, and it was as clear as day to Vadik, although not yet as clear to his dick. Oh, give up, will you! Vadik thought, addressing his inapt erection.

“So, how are you?” Vadik asked after they got their coffee and sandwiches.

“Much, much better!” Vica answered with her mouth full, then said that she had left her panties in Vadik's bathroom. They hadn't been dry and she had planned to stuff them into her bag, but she'd forgotten. She gave him an embarrassed smile that made him squirm.

She must have noticed his disappointment, so she started talking very fast, how she had been distraught last night and acting crazy, how she hoped that he wasn't upset with her and that what had happened wouldn't spoil their friendship.

Vadik rushed to assure her that he wasn't upset in the least.

“Really?” Vica asked. “Good!”

She soon swerved to her favorite conversation topic: Sergey. Now she said that she had a plan to get him back and implored Vadik to listen carefully, because it was important for her to get a male perspective.

Is she really that insensitive? Vadik wondered. Or is this her way of telling me that we are back in the depths of the friend zone? This can't be her revenge, can it? Because back then after their tryst on her Staten Island couch, it was Vadik who said that this was clearly a mistake. But no, he didn't think so. Vica was tough, but she wasn't malicious. It looked like she truly didn't realize how much she was hurting him. He remembered how Sergey used to complain that Vica was emotionally obtuse.

“So I'm thinking something like this,” she was saying. “He comes to drop off Eric, right? And here I am, in my hottest outfit, but not like party-hot, more like casual-hot, or better yet homey-hot. A T-shirt and yoga pants? And I'll have something on the stove, right? Warm, pleasant, homey atmosphere. And I'll be kind and attentive to him. And hot. Like the best version of me, right?”

There was nothing Vadik could do but nod his head in support. Nod and nod and nod.

Luckily, Vica had only twenty minutes before she had to get back to the clinic.

Vadik endured the rest of the day in the office. Did all that was required of him. Fixed some lines of code. Wrote some new ones. Answered an e-mail from Bob. Discussed a few issues with Dev. Discussed a few issues with Laszlo. Said “Yes, sir!” to yet another “Buckle up.” Fixed some more lines of code. So what was he to do now? He didn't know, but, fuck, how he wanted to swat those stupid flies on his screen! And God help them, if they started to dance, God help them then!

It took an eternity for the working day to be over. Vadik went home to his empty apartment, He was looking forward to a few ammonia-soaked seconds of inner peace that the act of peeing never failed to grant him, but the first thing he saw in his bathroom were Vica's underpants hanging on the shower curtain rod. They were dry and stiff. He shoved them behind his large laundry hamper and peed quickly and without any pleasure.

He made himself a light dinner and ate it while browsing through Hello, Love! offerings.

There were some very attractive new faces. He went ahead and scheduled four dates in the next three days.

His best date was with a woman named Serena who worked as an adjunct professor at NYU. “What do you teach?” Vadik asked. “English,” she said with a shy smile, as if this was a frivolous and slightly embarrassing choice of profession. That smile made Vadik like her right away. He wasn't that attracted to Serena, but she was nice and she seemed to get his jokes.

Later at home he studied her profile once more. Yep, it was witty and smart and brief, a bit too brief. He wanted to know more about her. He looked her up on Facebook. Her posts were mostly shares of op-eds from the
New York Times, Salon,
and
Slate.
She rarely commented on them, only if one of her friends asked her a specific question. Vadik looked at her photos. There were countless cityscapes, autumn leaves, and spring flowers. He skipped over them, hunting for actual photos of Serena. There she was in bulky skiing garb, red cheeks, wet bangs. And there she was at a party, adorably drunk. Serena in a Halloween costume—fake dark braids, short black dress with a white collar, chalk-white face. Vadik tried to guess who she was supposed to be. A schoolgirl with cancer? A schoolgirl who studied too hard? Nope, no clue. Not getting cultural references was his secret shame. You could pretend to fit in all you wanted, but you couldn't truly fit in unless you understood Halloween costumes.

There was a nice photo from five years ago—Serena and two more girls posing on a white cliff overlooking a bright blue lake: “Lake Minnewaska reunion.” It was the same Lake Minnewaska where the sane Sofia had a membership to swim laps. Vadik smiled at the coincidence. All three girls in the photograph wore knitted hats and Windbreakers. Nice colors. Serena was in a yellow Windbreaker and a blue hat, the girl next to her all in green, and the last girl in a red Windbreaker and an orange hat—her light brown hair was sticking out from under the hat. There was something vaguely familiar about her face. He moved the mouse closer to her face to read the Facebook name tag. Rachel Meer. No, that didn't ring a bell, he decided. Until suddenly it did. It rang a deafening bell. Rachel! The girl in the picture was Rachel. His Rachel. The one and only Rachel I.

He wanted to switch to Rachel's page but was terrified to let go of that photo as if it were a mirage about to disappear. Rachel Meer. After years of searching, to stumble upon her just like that. It couldn't be real, could it? He had to force himself to go to her page; his heart was beating wildly and his hands shook so badly that he missed the Enter button.

And finally there she was. Rachel Meer. Big black-and-white profile photo. Still so lovely. He braced himself before looking at her About page. He was almost sure she'd be married, but there was nothing about her relationship status. Well, that didn't confirm or disprove his fears—not everyone shared details of their private lives on Facebook. She'd graduated from the CUNY Graduate Center and was working at Our City Books as a senior editor. How old was she now? Thirty? Thirty-two? Senior editor was impressive. Other than that her Facebook page told him nothing about Rachel's life. Apparently, she only used it to push the books by Our City's authors. She posted good reviews, press releases, and invitations to readings. There was a reading scheduled for this coming Friday. John Garmash would present his deeply haunting novel
The Frozen Train.
Rachel insisted that this would be a fun event—780 people were invited, 23 had confirmed that they would attend. The invite was public, which meant that she was inviting everybody, absolutely everybody, everybody including him. That's how easy it was. All Vadik had to do was go to KGB Bar on the corner of Second Avenue and East Fourth Street at 7:00 
P.M.
this Friday, and he would see Rachel.

In the following days more and more reasons for anxiety accumulated, legitimate and not (Rachel could be married, her husband could be there, Rachel could be mad at him, he might not be able to summon up the courage to talk to her), until all of them were drowned out by his biggest fear—that Rachel wouldn't recognize him, wouldn't remember who he was. She would look at him and give him a blank stare, a polite, uncomprehending smile that would demolish the entire myth of the great love of his life. He wouldn't be able to bear that. All Vadik's efforts became focused on making it impossible for her not to recognize him. He would do his best to look exactly like he had that day. He found some photos of his first months in the U.S. There were a couple that Angie had taken, a waitress in Avenel. In most of them, he was wearing that horrible pretentious tweed jacket over ill-fitting jeans that he had bought in Istanbul. He had been wearing that jacket when he met Rachel, he was sure of it. The problem was that he no longer owned it. It was Sejun's fault, because she had made fun of that jacket every time she had seen him in it. When he thought about it, Sejun had robbed him of many things dear to his heart—to name just a few: his jacket, his futon, and his best friend. The hell with Sejun! He went and bought himself a very similar tweed jacket in a great secondhand store on Bedford Avenue. He tried it on—it looked perfect, just as ridiculous as in that photo. His body and his face hadn't changed that much in eight years. He hadn't gained much weight. He was starting to calm down when a new panicky thought hit him. His beard! He went through so many beard/no-beard periods that he couldn't remember if he had had one back when he first came to the U.S. In that Avenel picture he had had a beard, but a very closely trimmed one. It could have been a new one that he'd decided to grow, or it could have been the mutilated remains of an old one. He looked in the mirror—he had a nice lush beard now, but it might make him unrecognizable. Vadik sat down and closed his eyes, trying to focus and remember if he had had a beard on his first day in the United States. For the life of him, he couldn't remember. There were only two people who would possibly remember that: Sergey and Vica. Well, he wasn't speaking to Sergey and he really didn't want to ask Vica. He finally decided that he would have a compromise beard. He went to a barber and asked him to trim his beard as closely as possible. The nudity of the face that met Vadik in the mirror after the barber was done filled him with a new wave of anxiety, but what was done was done.