Sonja Franeta: My Pink Road to Russia

A year later, at O’Neal’s, Patty motioned me. “Come over here and sit down. I want to tell you something.”

She led me to an empty table. We sat across from each other with our beer mugs. She was cheerful, flinging her hair behind her right ear and giving a deep laugh that rose gradually to a high girlish squeak. The bar was as dark as a movie theater. I couldn’t make out the beautiful features I knew so well—her attentive eyes, the unstraying strokes of her eyebrows, her smooth unblemished skin, her confident mouth.

“I want to tell you something before you hear it from someone else,” she spoke seriously. “You’re actually the first person I’m telling. To make a long story short, Bill and I are getting engaged.”

I felt like a bucket of water had just been dumped on me, or like the loud Jefferson Airplane song playing in the bar had suddenly stopped, or like I was a child lost in the woods who couldn’t find her mother. It took me a while to respond. What was I going to say? Maybe I would never see her again.

“That’s great,” I said weakly.

She talked on about what Bill said when he asked her and what they were planning to do, how excited they were, etc. My mind limped—I’d known this would happen eventually, but not now, not so fast. I felt so alone.

“I’m really happy for you, Patty,” I offered, my eyes tearing. I reached out and found her hand on the table. It stayed for a moment under mine, then jerked up to flip back her hair. Didn’t she hear the shaking in my voice?

I wrenched myself out of my sorrow. That was all. Everything was changing. Bill came first. They would get married. Then maybe I would get married, and that would be the end of it. We’d go our separate ways. I didn’t even want to get married. The thought of arguing with a man for the rest of my life or dealing with a drunk or someone who worked all the time—what a life! Maybe I’d imagined something more hopeful when I became friends with Patty. What, specifically, I didn’t know, but something on a higher level, something more equal.

“I’m going to miss you,” I looked down and we sat there for a few minutes in silence. She was going to have a perfect life and I—who knows?

Vinny’s voice yelled out from the bar. “Hey, you two, c’mere. I wanna buy yous a drink.” Why couldn’t he leave us talking by ourselves? I didn’t want this intimate moment to end. Didn’t we have more to say?

“Be right there,” Patty called out. And to me, “We’ll still see each other. We’ll always be friends. I hope… Why are you staring at me like that? We better go. I just wanted you to be the first to know.”

I went up to the bar a few minutes later, but I just couldn’t get into the fun again. That night I went home with Richy, a guy who once tried to go out with Patty, but she was loyal to Bill after they started going steady and she never gave anyone else a chance.

What was so great about Bill anyway? He was on the basketball team, tall and popular. I knew his sister, Mary, but to watch them at school you wouldn’t think they even lived in the same house. She was a bookworm, and he didn’t associate with her. The average girl at St. Paul’s thought he was cute, but I didn’t think he was anything special.

At the bar Richy asked to walk me home. I said, “Okay, but I have to be home by midnight.”

“Sure, I’ll get you there,” he promised, and to the bartender, “Hey, Charlie, gimme another one.” He guzzled down the beer, and we said goodbye to our friends. It made me feel special to go home with a guy. It was important to an image girls had to have.

My heart skipped a beat when I saw Patty at the door waiting to say goodnight. “I’ll call you,” she said. Our eyes locked.

It was a warm spring night, the streets were quiet. Gangly next to Richy, who was slightly shorter than me, I was also self-conscious about my glasses. Last year one of the senior boys yelled out, “Hi, Four-eyes!” as I passed through the park. The rest of his crowd burst out laughing. My hair was long—it was the sixties—but otherwise, I didn’t feel very “with it.”

We stopped on the bridge and looked out at the gray river. It smelled dank and fishy. Richy put his arm around me and drew me to him, kissing me. His breath was beery and smoky but that was part of the deal. He was walking me home. His lips closed around mine and circled methodically. His eyes were closed, and mine were too at first, but then I opened them.

I thought about Patty, wondering if Bill would show up late to pick up his bride-to-be. I wished she and I could hang out more on these nights, but we had to give the guys their attention. I pictured myself congratulating Bill when I saw him. He’d thank me politely. Then he’d put his arm around Patty possessively and I’d feel left out.

Richy stopped kissing me and opened his eyes. I realized his dick was now a hot pole against me. I was nervous about getting home on time. How long would this go on?

“I think we better go. I really have to be home by midnight.” I hugged him hurriedly. I was pinned against a rail. “Let’s go, Richy, I mean it.”

“Aw, come on, a few more minutes won’t hurt,” he pleaded.

“No, I have to go,” I said firmly. “Plus, don’t you have stage crew tomorrow morning?” I didn’t want him to think I was a prude. He knew my father was strict about how late I stayed out. Besides, I didn’t want to be doing all this kissing tonight anyway. I was still thinking about Patty.

Richy and I started walking again. He was slightly drunk and stumbled at first. He talked about how he never wanted to turn forty. He was only eighteen, why on earth was he worrying about forty?

“I wanna stay young,” he said as if he wasn’t talking to anyone in particular. “I’m going to kill myself if I ever make it to forty.”

Was I supposed to comfort him? His face was very red. He had his arm around me. I didn’t know what to say. He looked depressed. Maybe I could get by without saying anything. How did I end up kissing someone I couldn’t even relate to?

When we finally reached my house, all the lights were out except the one in the vestibule. I was almost home free. My father usually couldn’t stay up past nine so he gave my mother orders to make sure I was in before midnight. My mother fell asleep when she wanted to, hoping he wouldn’t discover she’d fallen down on the job. I was an expert at being very quiet as I entered the house. Richy and I whispered in the doorway. He took me by the shoulders, then by the waist, and held me tight against his dick, which was still hot. Then he did the circles on my lips again. I just waited for it to be over. He mumbled, “Goodnight, Sonja. See you around.”

“Yeah, bye, Richy.” I squeezed his hand and let go. “And don’t kill yourself yet.” I didn’t think he heard me.

Sometimes I went to Inwood to hang out with my other close friend, Maria who lived on Dyckman Street. She went to St. Paul’s while most of her neighborhood friends went to Sacred Heart in Manhattan. Maria’s family was Italian. In many ways I felt closer to her than to the girls at St. Paul’s, except for Patty and another friend. I don’t know why, maybe it was the food our mothers cooked or the fact that our families spoke a different language. Anyway, we were close.

Maria liked to play tricks on the nuns in class. I liked her rebellious side even though I was more of a goody-two-shoes. I got good grades and loved to read. Maria and I began to depend on each other. We talked deeply about things like what we would do with our lives after school or how we felt about our families—my father and her mother especially. A firmer and firmer bond grew between us. Besides Maria, only Patty could understand these things about me.