“I’m a sponge?”
“No, I didn’t say that, I would never say you’re a sponge, I’m
not such a horrible guy, see? What I meant, what I meant was” — he
slapped himself on the head and Izzy stirred and unlatched — “what
I meant was, you don’t see yourself as a, a sexual being anymore,
you know?” Milla tried to reattach Izzy, which only woke him up
further. “Like Jelani and Theandra, you know, they’ve been together
longer than we have, and fine, they don’t have kids, so that helps,
but they have this sexual adventurousness that I think I could have,
too. We could have. I mean, you had my son. Do you know how
special that is?”
Izzy kicked Milla in the crook of her elbow, beginning his war
dance. “Izz,” she couldn’t help almost shouting. Her right arm was
covered in bruises. “Take him?”
“What — sure — what?”
“Can you sing to him or something?”
“Okay, in a sec, just let me finish. You wanted to know, so I’m
telling you.”
“He’s going to start crying.” Milla petted Izzy’s warm, sweaty
head. Once in ten times, this soothed him.
“Jelani said something, and even though I thought it was a good
idea —” Izzy murmured. Malcolm turned to face the green mirror.
“So I thought it was a good idea, but I didn’t even want to ask you,
and I think that’s really kind of pathetic, that we can’t even talk
about something like this.”
Izzy began to bawl. “I told you,” Milla said.
Malcolm took him. “Do you hear yourself? Do you hear how
vindictive you sound?” He began singing “Dock of the Bay” in his
deepest voice. Izzy quieted.
A moment later, Jean crept in, in a lacey white nightgown, to
suggest “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime,” which had always gotten
Malcolm to sleep.
Yana
The district director of social studies disliked Yana’s boots, so
she’d borrowed the lowest of her mother’s absurd heels for work,
and had gone straight to Central Park afterwards, skipping a war
protest. Milla had been silent for the entire length of their walk to
the reservoir. Yana wanted to tell her, “I don’t play,” like she’d heard
another teacher say to his class.
Milla stopped before the railings. Izzy stared through the bars
with an angry expression, like he was trying to scare someone
straight. Finally, Milla said, “You know when you have a friend, but
the friend gets really involved with stupid things, and then you have
to let her go?”
“You mean like drugs, a gang?”
Milla sighed loudly through her nose. “I don’t know anyone in
a gang, I’m a married accountant with a child.”
“Well, so-rry. You’re being really confusing, I thought maybe
this was about me leaving. Like, a sisterhood ritual, maybe we’d
light bark on fire and throw it in the water.”
“Are you crazy?”
“What? It’s a Native American tradition.” Yana wished she
could remember which Native Americans — another chunk of her
major lost.
Milla’s eyes were watering. “Don’t talk about leaving. I’m sorry,
I can’t —”
“Okay, okay,” Yana said, patting her back, and making a goggle-
eyed face at Izzy. She had wanted to explain to Milla why she was
leaving sooner than planned. Their house had become unlivable:
Katya and Roman sneaking around all the time, christening the
bathroom and possibly Yana’s own bed (a tiger-striped condom in the
wastebasket by her desk); Roman’s ghetto-speak, deeply offensive
to someone who actually worked with children from what ignorant
people called “the inner city”; Stalina and her daily commentary on
Bangladesh, always pertaining to the size either of the country or
of its inhabitants.
Milla took a tube of purple mascara out of her coat pocket.
“This reminded me of my friend, it’s her favorite.”
“What friend?” Yana said, as a unicyclist passed.
Milla shook her head, dropped the mascara into the wild, gray
water, stared. “Where are the ripples? There are supposed to be
ripples, where the fuck are the ripples?”
The sight of Milla in her working-mom flowered dress, hanging
over the edge of the railing and cursing, frightened Yana. “Mascara’s
pretty heavy,” she said. “Paraben.” A couple of pretty Korean girls
with cameras waited for the railing to become free. Izzy had fallen
asleep, and she thought about poking him, so he would cry, so Milla
would have to get down. She would give it one more minute, thirty
more seconds.…
She pulled at Milla’s shoulders. “Come on. I have to get
back.”
“I just fucking hate her. She tried to fuck things up with
Malcolm.”
“What, she hit on him?” Some women had no respect. Pratik’s
boss in Bangladesh had been making him lunch. Yana narrowed her
eyes at the Korean girls. “He didn’t do anything?”
“Of course not. You know Malcolm.”
“So, there was no problem, really. You have a great marriage.”
Telling Milla that usually calmed her down. “Should we start
heading back?”
“You can go, if you want.”
Yana couldn’t bring herself to poke a child. She could, however,
bring herself to remove a child’s hat, before replacing it so that the
wool covered one eye. Izzy awoke, complaining. “Give him his
paci,” Milla said.
“What’s a paci?” It worked. Milla climbed down. “Jesus
Christ.”
“What? I’m fine.” Milla shaded her face from sight as she fixed
Izzy’s hat.
“Milly —”
Again, her sister wouldn’t let her talk. As they walked back
through the darkening park, Milla told her that Malcolm played
Izzy songs on the piano, read aloud to her at night, called in the
afternoons to see what kind of dinner she wanted to order. When
she didn’t want to face his parents, he brought food to their room.
Osip
It was five in the morning, cold, damp. Osip remembered being
in the army, patrolling on mornings like this, only a thin uniform
covering his skinny ribs. Some boys would purposely skip breakfast,
in order to faint and, with luck, spend the rest of the day in the slightly
warmer infirmary. Osip patted the sleeves of his puffy jacket.
Yana opened the door, wearing the long green dress she’d worn
to meet Pratik’s parents, and, over it, the yellow coat she’d had since
high school. She really was leaving, then. After a short tug-of-war,
she let him carry her suitcase down the steps.
He said, “You look a little like a plant in the dress.”
“Sari.”
Even though Osip remembered what the word meant, he said,
“Sorry? You are one dressed like plant, I’m okay.”
“Is this so I don’t miss you?” She tuned the car radio to her
liberal station, on which two girls and a rapper, a soft-spoken man
who’d appeared a few times playing a by-the-books social worker
on
The Commish
, compared the President to a rubber chicken. (Or a
lover chicken? Incomprehensible, either way, but Yana laughed.)
They were still only a few blocks from home, and where, exactly,
did Yana think she was going? She had decided, of her own volition,
to go to a place where hundreds of thousands of girls her age had
drowned. “Maybe you stay here after all? I can —” He would fry
potatoes for their breakfast, hire an immigration lawyer for Pratik.
Without turning from the window, she said, “It won’t be easy
there, like it is here, but don’t you think we’ve gotten too used to
things being easy?”
It was the stupidest thing she had ever said. Osip was careful to
keep his voice low. “
I never heard my Baba Rufa complain that life
was too easy.
”
“That’s what I’m saying. Most of the world doesn’t live like us,
most of the world lives like Baba Rufa.”
Osip stopped to let a fire truck pass. “
What was wrong with
Baba Rufa’s life? She provided for her family, she had her friends
over to play cards
.
Her house was not floating away.
When products
came in, we had a line, a nice line, with people talking, not a riot
.”
Yana seemed not to have heard. “All I’m saying is, most people
don’t have four computers in their house.”
“Computers are for my work.”
“Do you know what I read last year? Americans are like people
in limousines driving through the slum. But someday, the people
in the slum are going to crawl out of their shacks and turn our limo
over and set it on fire.” Where had she read that? What limo? He
and Stalina had not been able to afford a dentist until 1987. Had
Yana ever noticed how many silver teeth her mother wore? Did she
think it was a gangster fashion? Yana said, “It’s okay if you don’t
understand. This is my thing. Pratik’s and my thing.”
He tuned the radio to a traffic report. It was easier to drive when
he was angry, although it may not have been easier for the other
drivers, who shouted at him to pick a lane, etc.
A yellow van came dangerously close to their front windshield.
Osip honked. “Look,” Yana said, pointing to the Garfield doll
suctioned to its back window. “A cat, crossing our path: we have to
turn around.”
Who’d known Yana was so superstitious? Stalina had taught her
well. The luck rising in his chest, Osip began to make his way into
the right lane.
“Dad. I was kidding. Didn’t you hear anything I said before?”
She was silent the rest of the way, and he hummed Galich in
order to sound happy. As he pulled onto the airport ramp, she said, “I
already bought my ticket, I can’t not go.” A stupid reason. Osip was
no materialist. He’d pay for her ticket, for ten tickets.