Boris Fishman - A Replacement Life

“I’m taking you out,” she said. “You need to drink and forget.”

“Like I needed to visualize victory?” Slava said. “I got half of Brooklyn going out to buy the issue.”

She looked down.

“No, no,” Slava said, waving his hands. “I’m sorry.”

“What you wrote was lovely,” she said. “But what did it have to do with Fred Duncan? They liked it! But that wasn’t the assignment.”

Instinctively, he looked around to see who could hear. “You saw that as soon as you read it this morning,” he said. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“I’m not an editor,” she said. “The meeting was in an hour.”

“You went for a walk instead.”

“You would’ve listened to me?” she said. “I doubt it. You would have looked at me and thought, She has no idea what she’s talking about.”

He looked away.

“You have two options,” she said. “Poetry reading.” She counted out on the fingers of one hand: “Bad poems, bad booze, somehow it all works. Personally, I think a little slow for tonight. Number two.” The fingers on the other hand: “Band, bar, music, booze. Door prize if you can spot what the two have in common.”

“Poetry?” he said.

“Poetry, poetry.”

“Do you write poetry?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe. Let’s go to the bar. You need a drink.”

“Honestly, Arianna,” he said. “No charity required.”

“Slava,” she said. She came closer, so close he looked away. She waited until his gaze returned to her. “There will be other chances.”

“Thanks,” he said feebly.

She leaned over Slava’s desk, giving him a temporary view of her rear end, and wrote something on his legal pad. “Address,” she said, turning back to him, his eyes rising to meet hers a moment too late. “Have a good night.” As she walked away, he peered at the scribble. “Bar Kabul. Little Darlings. 361 East Fifth.”

Slava surveyed the office. You couldn’t give the other Juniors money to look in his direction right now, so he looked freely. How many evenings he had spent staying after all of them had left. There was no printer or fax at his apartment, and here the legal pads were free. As Consuela (Honduras), Piotr (Poland), and Ginger (St. Kitts) vacuumed up the day’s traces of editorial life, restoring the office to the errorlessness with which it greeted everyone in the morning, Slava tapped and scrolled, searching out story ideas. He chased them down on the weekends, or mornings when he could invent a doctor’s appointment. (“You are the least hale member of Junior Staff, Mr. Gelman,” Mr. Grayson, no triathlete himself, apprised him one afternoon.) Slava had lied and lied.

What if, indeed, he went to Bar Kabul? Might Kate Tadaka shudder in disappointment at his lack of diligence? Might Arch Dyson shake his head regretfully as he strode past Slava’s empty work chair? Would Beau Reasons howl at his dashed hopes for Slava Gelman, that promising boy on Junior Staff? Slava wanted to dangle each of them off the terrace adjoining Beau’s office. Then they would notice.

He sprang from his chair and hurtled after Arianna, colliding with Avi Liss, who was striding contemplatively past the Junior Staff pen, his mouth cheek-deep in a green apple. Avi nearly toppled to the floor, a wounded expression in his eyes. “Sorry,” Slava muttered, trying to help him up. Avi’s teeth remained sunk in the apple throughout the ordeal. By the time Slava burst into the vestibule, the doors of the elevator were closing with an unperturbed ding.

Bar Kabul had imported from Afghanistan nothing more than the name: a dive with brightly painted, uneven walls, and a small stage backed by heavy velour shades. Blissfully, there were no kilim rugs on the floor or kebabs on the menu.

Outside, two whittled young men smoked rolled cigarettes. One wore jean cutoffs, a holey undershirt, and a pair of boots, the other wing tips that didn’t match and tight black jeans with a zipper from the shin to the ankle. Slava nodded. They raised their cigarettes.

“Little Darlings?” Slava said expertly.

“Little Darlings.” Skinny Jeans nodded, a triangle of hair falling into his eye. “Nice jacket.” Risking terminal lateness, Slava had detoured to his apartment and thrown on the outfit he had cribbed from Arch Dyson. It had sat in his closet since the ignominious day, unused and resented.

“Nice jeans,” Slava said, to say something.

“Thrift store,” Skinny said. “Seventy-Seventh and Third.”

“I live nearby,” Slava said.

“Stop by,” Cutoffs chimed in. He kicked the asphalt with the lip of his boots. “Get you some Clarks. Some of the Earthkeepers they have are pretty badass, too. Practically out of the box.”

“People there have nice clothes they get rid of after two wearings,” Skinny said. He sang “Score!” and the two exchanged a high five.

“Thirty-four?” Skinny said, eyeing Slava’s groin.

“Say what,” Slava said, stepping back.

“Your waist.”

“Oh,” Slava said defensively. “No.”

He frowned. “I hate when I’m off.”

Slava moved toward the window. It didn’t take long to pick Arianna out of the bodies mashed on the dance floor; the place was small, smaller than it had seemed online. She was right by the stage, the bun of her hair loose, her shoulders swaying. The band had a keyboard; a tuba; and a snare drum belted around one of the players. A small circle opened as Arianna and a tall, thin consumptive in a fedora danced with each other. He tried to insert his knees between her legs, but she pushed him away and slimmed back into the crowd, pleasing Slava.

“What’s she look like?” Cutoffs said. His hand was on the door handle, Skinny behind him. “We’ll keep an eye for you.”

Slava smirked. “I don’t think she needs any help,” he said. “The one with long black hair by the front. In the gray—”

“That’s a Balenciaga,” Skinny said reverently.

“Don’t say you saw me,” Slava said.

He watched them go in and stomp the floor. Skinny’s dancing style involved a perennial look of surprise, his mouth in an oval. The duo worked its way toward some women and cornered them with acrobatic moves.

Slava stood around, trying to look busy, but this got more taxing than simply going inside. She saw him quickly, the eyes betraying no surprise. She wove her way through the crowd and embraced him, her breasts pushing into his chest. It was more touch than they’d ever racked up. Apparently, they would get to make new rules of engagement here, outside the office. He sniffed at her neck: perfume, shampoo, sweat that was recently vodka.

“What the hell are you wearing?” she said.

He colored: She didn’t remember the day he had gotten dressed up. Even then, she had said nothing about it. For a moment, he regretted coming. “You changed, too,” he said defensively.

She pulled him toward the dance floor, pausing at the bar to feed him a tall glass of vodka with lemons, generously dispensed because she knew the bartender. Skinny and Cutoffs held up their thumbs.

Little Darlings consisted of four skinny young men in tight jeans and T-shirts, all black save for the pink bows around their necks — they were little darlings — and heads shaved on one side. They performed a kind of rock and roll that was difficult to dance to, though Slava gave it his all, trying to remember the dance moves Grandfather exhibited on the dance platforms of the Russian restaurants where Slava used to accompany him. In the Soviet Navy at the tail end of the war, Grandfather had served with the full panoply of Soviet nationalities, had learned the Ukrainian kazachok , the Georgian lezginka, the all-Soviet chechetka . Sometimes, to emphasize a point, he would break into one, just because. On the paltry square of the Kabul dance floor, Slava twitched in mental approximation. Arianna swayed and pumped with exasperating grace.