“Hello? Maria?”
“Yes, Papa.”
“I said, do you need me to come pick you up?”
“No. I mean, not yet.”
My dad pauses, then asks, in Russian, “What aren’t you telling me?”
There are lots of untranslatable words that describe my dad. Shlimazclass="underline" Yiddish for a chronically unlucky person. Or Won, a Korean word for the reluctance on a person’s part to let go of an illusion. The fact that he still thinks either of my or Anna’s lives could be in his control requires more stubbornness and reluctance than I can imagine.
“Trust me, Papa. You don’t want to know.”
“Bozhe moy.” With a sigh, he hangs up the phone. My screen alerts me to four missed calls from him during the night and a text from Rose: I crashed at a friend’s, her message says—code for she went home with a guy she is casually seeing. At work till 5, help yourself to anything in the fridge.
Relief floods over me; I am starving, and I get very grumpy when I don’t eat. On top of that, I’m still groggy from the long flight. I get up to explore what’s in the kitchen.
Groggy is another fun word, etymologically. It originated in the eighteenth century with a British sailor nicknamed Old Grog, on account of his weatherproof coat, made from a material called “grogram,” a mixture of silk and wool. In 1740 he declared that his sailors start drinking their rum diluted with water; this drink became known as Grog. The feeling experienced when drinking too much of this, they called “groggy.” So really, it originated as another word for drunk, but now people use it more for waking up under the weather or having jetlag. Despite only consuming one vodka-soda last night, then sleeping for nearly eleven hours, I happen to feel all of these things.
Coffee, I think then. Where is the coffee? I ask the kitchen. I dig through Rose’s old pine cabinets and find a bag of Fuel Café beans, grind them up, and pour the grounds into a French press sitting on the counter. If I was Orthodox, like some of David’s family is, I’d have to do my morning prayers now. But I’ve found it more than enough to merely take a moment to breathe and appreciate the morning, the fact that I’ve lived to see another day. Many people went to sleep last night and didn’t wake up. We shouldn’t take these things for granted.
While I wait for water to boil, I check the fridge, my stomach growling in anticipation. But I am disappointed to find that though I am welcome to help myself to anything, all that lives inside the fridge is a jar of Vegenaise and a very old apple. I close the fridge and look through the cupboards again. Not even a box of cereal. Plenty of ketchup packets and Splenda, but no food.
I sigh and settle for the old apple, cutting the bruised parts off. It almost doesn’t even seem worth mumbling through the prayer for food, but I do it anyway. I’ll have to get breakfast after this whole thing is over.
It’s strange, being here. My old house, my old dishes; it’s almost like jumping into a time portal. It even smells the same; like American Spirits and sandalwood incense. I’m surprised to feel no angst, or flashback of any kind. In fact, the feeling of dread that has hung over me since my arrival has begun to dissipate. Maybe it’s because I got some sleep. Or that I may have already found exactly what I was looking for, which means I can go home. Sure, I hope to be wrong. The thought of my sister as a conniving thief makes me sick to my stomach. But it’s better than her going missing, isn’t it? In this neighborhood, there are far worse things that could happen to a person than to be caught stealing. As long as Anastasia is safe and unharmed, I could forgive her this mistake.
Once I drink a cup of coffee and finish the apple, I’m digging through a crate of old shoes, looking for some gym clothes—I’d feel ten times better if I could get a run in later—when the doorbell starts ringing. Already I have my suspicions it won’t be Anastasia. She’s never been early for anything, and it’s not ten a.m. yet.
It’s also possible I was only projecting when I saw that police photo. Similarly possible is that Liam’s friend was wrong about her getting involved with a sketchy thief, or that Rose was wrong about his addictions. Maybe I was too quick to assume how easily Anastasia could turn to drugs for some sort of solace. It’s not like addiction runs in the family, besides maybe smoking. Sure they like to drink at parties. (What can you expect from a language with more than ten words for hungover and even more for drinking, but no present-tense word for “to be?”) But my grandparents have been alive a pretty long time, all things considered. Anna barely even snuck a taste of wine at our house, when it would have been easy to do so. She was a kid then, but still. She couldn’t have changed that much, right?
By the time I open the door, I’ve worked myself up into such a state I don’t know what I will say if it’s Anastasia standing there. But it doesn’t matter. Because it’s not her face at the door; it’s a man’s.
MASHA
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CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Tristan—if this is Tristan—is old. He’s older than me, for sure; maybe closer to thirty than twenty. I’m surprised by this; I don’t know why. He is also tall, like everyone mentioned; but what they failed to mention was that his hair is bright blue, and so long it passes his shoulders. He also has blue eyes and is skinny enough to be a model, if not for the acne pockets around the chin and cheeks, along with a pretty effective above-it-all attitude. If he’s supposed to be pretending to be a student, he is doing a pretty poor job of it. His jeans aren’t torn to shreds or Carharrts, like all the crust punks in Riverwest, but they’re still pretty faded. Plus, he’s got tiny wrinkles near his eyes; challenging to detect, typically, but it’s so bright out I can see them. Probably because under all that blue dye he’s a redhead. Freckles pool in dark circles around his nose and forehead.
Tristan clears his throat. He looks equally as confused to see my face there. “You’re not Chinese,” he says.
“And you’re not a woman,” I say.
He narrows his eyes at me. “What made you think I was?”
I pause, thinking. There’s no great way to answer that question. And if this is Tristan, and not some random person, he might have some information to help me, so I can’t go scaring him off right away. I hadn’t even considered the option of someone else showing up, and I expend a lot of effort trying not to panic. I remind myself this isn’t my house, these aren’t my things, that none of it is of any value anyway. “Are you coming in?” I ask, eventually. I try to relax my body language into a laissez-faire sluggishness instead of standing up straight like I usually do these days.
He hesitates, looking around the street, then at me; I can tell that in his mind, he is labeling me as a non-threat. I start up the stairs, and not long after, I hear his steps following mine. Once we’re inside, I reach into my pack of cigarettes and offer him one. He looks a little thrown back but takes it anyway. “Oh, thanks.”
“So. You want me to show you around? For the… uh, cleaning thing?” I ask, then without a response start the tour. I want to get it over with. Quickly, I show him the messy kitchen, its windows framed with large, overflowing plants; the living room’s assorted secondhand couches. Even Rose’s bike, a purple Schwinn with a metal basket, both its wheels flat, isn’t worth anything. It’s almost sad. Rose is a couple years older than me. At twenty-seven, you want to be able to afford a few valuable things, don’t you? Otherwise, what’s the point of working at all?