The Cosmopolitans (10 page)

The only unafflicted person in the house was Pratik, who,
having been asked to keep track of invitations and food selections,
had created a computerized, color-coded matrix incomprehensible
to anyone but himself, in front of which he sat like the Buddha
(Yes, Yana knew he was Muslim, but he sat with that air of sated
sleepiness, familiar from a bronze figurine in her former lover’s
office. “Former lover’s office” — it sounded so mature, she wished
for an opportunity to say it. “Former lover’s office” — so breezy, it
couldn’t possible come from someone who had moved back in with
her parents so that her mother would stop her from calling him.)

Now, as the Molochniks and Strausses faced off over table
seating, Pratik gave her a look of particular smugness, as if to say,
“If my database cannot bring peace to this household, nothing can.”
The table’s mirrored surface multiplied everyone’s mouths and chins
and noses; there were entirely too many fleshy human parts involved
in the discussion.

Yana was trying to keep everyone in line using classroom
management techniques she’d learned in graduate school. “Milla will
be down in a minute,” she said, “but guys? Guys?” She raised one
hand in the hair and counted backward to one with her fingers. This
was what her professors called a non-intrusive prompt. “Guys!”

Jean Strauss looked at Yana’s upraised arm and Yana felt as
though it were suddenly too long, and sat down, and apologized.
“Milla and Malcolm said before that they want all their cousins
to get to know each other, so they wanted them, sort of, mixed.”
Her own uncertain eyes glanced back from the tabletop. She sat up
straight and looked at Pratik. He smiled, as she imagined herself
someday smiling at some of the children in her class. He looked
as if he wanted to tell her that she just learned differently from the
others, not worse.

In jolly tones, Jean Strauss said, “The kids want a cousins’
table,” and then murmured something in her husband’s ear.

Osip said, “Cousins together — very nice, as long as they don’t
get marry.”

Yana forced out a laugh.

Bobby Strauss lifted a forefinger and said, “It’s certainly an
idea,” beginning a measured disquisition on the subject of Strauss
cousins, long separated, who would be wretched to find themselves
at different tables with cousins not their own.

Only two tables had been planned so far and it was already
nine, and the caterer had said she need the seating chart at least ten
business days in advance. Yana’s stomach hurt at the thought, and
she excused herself to go check on her sister. She had been giving
the Strausses excuses for Milla’s absence since they’d arrived, and
now, at Yana’s prediction that Milla must be “almost done” with her
“work project,” Jean didn’t even bother to say “hmm.”

Milla was sitting in front of the mirror, veil in hand, frowning.
She looked as if she were in a commercial for something, that
in a moment she would confess her wedding dilemma to a giant
deodorant bottle. Instead, she had only Yana, and when Yana asked
what was wrong, Milla said, “I just want my hair to be perfect.”
She’d been saying that all day.

“Is it Malcolm?” If her sister said it was Malcolm, Yana would
say, “There’s something imperialistic about that guy.” But her sister
said nothing. Yana said, “If you can’t even go downstairs and finish
planning your wedding, you should seriously just cancel it.”

Milla stood, bent over the mirror, moved a curl from one side of
her forehead to the other, and sat back down.

“Are you crazy?” Yana said. She decided to try for a light tone.
“Come on, no one cares about your stupid hair.” Actually, Jean
would probably make some remark. Milla blinked at herself.

Perhaps it would help to explain the larger social justice
principles involved. “Do you want people at your wedding to be
segregated? That’s the Strauss plan, basically.” Yana’s voice was
going to that embarrassing register it had visited many times in high
school, trying to get Milla to sign up with her for some extracurricular
social justice or blood donation, with the never-forgotten (by Milla)
rallying-yelp: “Someday, you’ll be bleeding to death, and then
you’ll feel really bad.” Yana had been shy, fearful of the beautiful
bohemians of Amnesty International, the upscale elderly of the Red
Cross. Milla had always had work, somewhere boring and awful
like the supermarket. To this day Yana couldn’t understand why
Milla would choose that.

Now, Milla said, “People will change their seats anyway.”

Yana took a cleansing breath. She imagined Milla as a twelve-
year-old student, no, an eight-year-old student. You couldn’t be
angry at an eight-year-old. You definitely couldn’t be angry at a six-
year-old. “Okay, look,” she said. “It’s okay to be scared of marriage.
You’re pretty young, and it
is
an oppressive construct.”

“‘Oppressive construct.’ I’m not you. I don’t care about that.”

“If you don’t care, I won’t care either,” Yana said, and walked
out, slamming the door as an indication of the seriousness of the
issue, and then waited in the hall.

Milla

Hearing Yana leave, Milla twisted her hair into a roll and wound
it around the top of her head. If she lowered her face so that only
her eyes were visible above the mirror’s bottom edge, the mirror
reflected a flying saucer.

Milla’s thoughts were slow in unfurling, like scrolls, and rhymed,
like yearbook poetry. She

Was in love

As of five days ago

With a woman

who was herself

Quite hetero

Julie was a receptionist at the Stamford accounting firm where
Milla worked. Only for now, she reminded herself. In just a few
weeks, she’d be starting her new job in New York, and she’d forget
Julie. New York City was a very exciting place.

But last Tuesday, Milla had been pulling out of the parking lot
when she saw Julie lighting a cigarette, and Julie’s face, reflecting
the flame — Milla accelerated to an unprecedented parking-lot speed
of forty miles per hour, leapt over the speed bump and into the traffic
circle, trying to drive away from the truth of her love.

For the next few days, she was careful to treat Julie the same
as she had before — to be friendly, to be businesslike, assistant
accountant to receptionist.

On Friday, Julie appeared at Milla’s desk and Milla stopped
breathing. Through the ringing in her ears, she heard Julie say that
the others were throwing a surprise Bon Voyage party for her. “I
know you like to look like natural. But in photos, natural looks like
fish reject.”

Milla floated up from her creaking chair and shadowed Julie
into the empty conference room. Julie had Milla sit on the table.
She’d brought a metal suitcase that, when unfolded, resembled a
terrifying robotic butterfly. She stood between Milla’s legs, and,
humming a little, began. Julie’s arm pressed against Milla’s breast
as she applied the lipstick. When it was time for the eyeliner, Milla
had to close her eyes, and that made her aware of Julie’s chocolaty
breath, her tar shampoo. In that moment, she thought Julie might
kiss her, but she didn’t, of course.

When Julie had used all the colors in the case, she unpacked a
final surprise — an expanding mirror — and held it up to Milla’s face.
Immediately, Milla was reminded of a glasnost-era movie about a
hard-currency prostitute she’d seen with her parents. She looked, not
like the prostitute-heroine, but like the heroine’s hapless Moldavian
friend, Glasha, who was trying to move up to hard-currency work
after a stint on the streets. Each of her cheeks bore a red triangle. Her
lips were red, too, the shiny, bloody red of a recently sated cannibal.
Her eyes were almost invisible beneath heavy, downward-sloping
purple lashes.

“I love it,” she had said. “Can you do it for my wedding, too?”

Julie was Polish, not gay, not wealthy, not even Jewish, not even
educated. If Malcolm’s parents found out! “Going off with a low-
rent Pole, are you?” she imagined Jean saying. Milla would sock
Jean right in the mouth (but those pointy teeth), the side of the head,
then. Yes, she’d clock her good, grab Julie’s hand, and run away
to New York City. Not to the Upper West Side, where Malcolm’s
parents lived, but a more bohemian place: the Village. If Milla’s
own parents found out —

These thoughts would go away once she was married. At no
time previous to this had she been a lesbian. Obviously, lesbianism
was one of those things that mysteriously came and went, like a
sunspot (Julie’s hair in the sun!) or a wart.

She rolled her chair backwards, away from the mirror, so that
more of her was visible. A lumpy-nosed vampire, she was lucky, very
lucky, to have Malcolm Strauss for a fiancé. “Malcolm Strauss,” she
said aloud. “My husband is Malcolm Strauss.” Then she tried, “My
name is Malcolm Strauss,” but it sounded all wrong, so she couldn’t
be a lesbian, or else she’d think it sounded fantastic, wouldn’t she?

Her phone rang. It was Malcolm, who had just finished his job
interview at an advertising agency whose owner was friends with
his mother. “How’s the welding coming along?” He called their
wedding a welding, because their families were so different.

“Welding is hard work.” They were meant to be: they were
already becoming an annoying couple. “When are you getting
back?”

“I’m meeting Ravi and Jason, so I don’t know. One?”

Milla couldn’t help sighing into the phone. It was not so easy
to live with her fiancé and her parents at once. Her mother would
notice how late he’d come back. She couldn’t wait until they were
married and alone in New York.

“What’s that for?” he said. She’d made him feel trapped and
defensive, which you were
never ever to do
, all the women’s
magazines agreed, it was like feeding a Gremlin. “You’re not even
doing that much, are you? My mom said you just go around saying
everything’s okay with you.”