Boris Fishman - Don't Let My Baby Do Rodeo

And so it goes until it has gone so far one has to pretend otherwise. Alex passes many nights mashing his pillow as he tosses and thinks about Dima. What was brazen then is timorous now. But somehow he holds on, powering blindly from he doesn’t know what reserve. He alternates between avoiding Dima’s phone calls and not letting Dima alone until Dima will allow himself to be treated to dinner (out, not with Alex at the stove), though when they are finally seated Alex is surly and distracted. Because Alex can’t leave Maya alone, he can’t leave Dima alone. His friend laughs — Alex has not wanted to see so much of him since they saw each other every day in junior high school.

In the mornings, Alex makes commitments; he will exert discipline and refrain from contacting Maya. Some days his resolve makes it all the way into evening. He’s furious with himself; in college, he could make himself sit with schoolwork night after night, but that willpower has vanished. Maya doesn’t help him because she doesn’t say no. What was insolent then is solicitous now. Yes, she can come visit him for lunch at the investment office where he works. They go to a nearby park with sandwiches and a milk bottle that contains watermelon juice mixed with vodka, and push pins up and down a game board. Alex has always found board games asinine — until now. So this is how you fill the tyrannical hours: You play board games with the person you like (love?). This is what happens when Maya comes around — her presence kneads the unease inside him until it shapes into insight. His brain, formerly lake, turns to river.

He does not return to the office until three, four. He weathers the eyes of his supervisor, tastes spiked watermelon on his tongue, squints at his desktop. And where is Dima right now? he wants to ask Maya before they say good-bye at the park. He does not. He wants to kiss her. He does not. And even though she was first to confess some kind of interest— I want to see you, you idiot —she does not, either. In this department, Maya remains old-fashioned. In fact, she remains with Dima. If she is interested in Alex, why won’t she break up with Dima? It follows that she’s not really interested in Alex, merely drags him along for amusement — she’s not solicitous, after all, but insolent like before, and cruel, too. He’s drunk. Alex experiences hours-long bouts during which Maya is a subject of resentment, anger, derision. Then he calls her.

Alex and Maya are in Battery Park. Only three weeks remain until her return to Kiev, where the first flowers are coming in according to her impatient mother. Alex has volunteered to show Maya a corner of his city he himself does not know. It’s May, the sailboats and weekend cruises are out on the rippling brown felt of the Hudson, yellow-beaked birds seen only in the coastal parts of the city wander about, the spring’s last wind rustles the line of lindens flanking the water, and the season’s progress is marked by the diminution of clothes on the wearers.

“This is New York,” Maya sighs. She is participating in the diminution: a sleeveless dress, white with blue flowers, cinched together by a tan belt the width of a finger. It sits on her stork frame like a wall hanging. And yet, he desperately wishes to reach out and touch the sharp hip that sometimes comes through the fabric. His chest rattles: three weeks. Will they really leave each other without remarking on what’s happened between them? Because something has happened, hasn’t it? For Alex, life after college — adulthood — can be summed up as: knowing less every day. So if someone were to take him by the hand and gently explain that it was all some kind of misunderstanding, he would be surprised, but not very surprised. A part of him craves the humiliation. He will return to his corner — with clarity now, without illusions. Safe in having volunteered but not been called up.

Alex fears Maya. He wants her to leave Dima, but doesn’t that mean she would leave him if someone else came along? Isn’t the very thing that Alex loves about Maya — a year out of college, Alex was beginning to sink into a slumber he couldn’t understand, though he knows it has to do with his parents, the life that awaits him, himself — the thing that is going to take her away from him when the next adventure appears? To be reassured that Maya consists not only of impulse but bedrock, mustn’t she remain Dima’s girlfriend? He recalls with jealousy the condolence he felt for her during their first encounter. In the cramped kitchen, agitated with cooking, cigarettes, and cold air, Maya would say something strange and Alex would pity her. (His parents, as always, his invisible audience: “Would you listen to her?”) That reaction to Maya seems unimaginable now, like a language lost over the years. But the years have lasted only three months. His mind refuses to work itself into a pattern.

“You like it here,” he says finally, trying to release his shoulders, trying to make himself stop.

“I miss my family,” she says. “But once you’ve seen this, it’s hard to long for Kiev.”

“And what’s this?”

“Energy. Movement. Possibility.”

They wander in silence. Maya has taught Alex to love silence. Confronted by it, he had used to rush to say something. Now, he relishes silence as much as his pride at relishing silence.

“What happened that night?” Alex says. Maya has never brought up the dinner that took place the day that they met, Alex assumes because it was a failure; otherwise, would Maya be leaving? Alex has resisted his curiosity about the details, not wanting to embarrass her, and feeling proud of his self-control. Then he wonders if the reason all along was that he hasn’t wanted to hear what a charmer Dima was at the table. And Maya would say so. Maya speaks as if she hasn’t bothered to consider how the information might feel to the hearer. It’s one of the things about her that Alex finds frightening. Alex says, “It’s cold outside,” and everyone Alex knows says: “Sure.” Maya says: “No, it’s warm.” Why does he love this person? Does he love this person?

“The guy said he would invest if I slept with him,” Maya says.

Alex stops in place.

“Take it easy, Alex,” she says, biting her lip. “I’m joking.” However, there is no play in her face. Slowly, his shoulders ease up, a look of tight-lipped embarrassment replacing his anger.

“I guess I’m grateful he came,” Maya says. “His name was Truman — like the president. He drank the vodka and ate the food — he put away everything, the plates were empty. He talked nonstop. About this restaurant and that restaurant, and June — the woman chef. They’d had an affair. She was the only not-beautiful woman he’d slept with, because she was that good, meaning in the kitchen. He said these words at my table. No one else spoke except Dima. He and Dima, he and Dima — just shouting at each other in this happy, drunk way. At first, I was happy because I thought Dima was warming him up, but soon I realized they’d both completely forgotten why we were there. They kept pouring glasses for each other, but not for anyone else. The rest of us just sat there. I lost my appetite. The guy got so drunk we had to load him into a taxi. I had to — because Dima was like a block of stone on the sofa, drunk himself. I never heard from him again, Truman, I mean. I was too embarrassed to call June. I’m glad I didn’t. This entire idea — I’m embarrassed to think of it. You’re the only nice thing that came out of that day, Alex.”

Now Alex is livid at himself for not asking about the dinner a month, two, three months ago. Maya’s story makes him want to ask so many questions, issue so many apologies, direct toward himself so many chidings, that he makes the heroic decision to do none of it. He doesn’t think, he acts. He is dizzy with fear because his hand is reaching out to touch Maya’s hip. Because as it lands there, he feels under his fingers and the flimsy ply of her dress the outline of her underwear and how tightly it presses into her skin. And he imagines the pink grooves left on the skin. And he imagines the skin.