“Please?” he says. “Just one dance? I love to dance at weddings.”
“I'm not really much of a dancer.”
Beside her, Martin gives her a nudge — actually, less a nudge than a poke in the ribs, sharper and more forceful than she would've expected.
“Go ahead, dear,” he says. “Who knows how long it'll be until Leda and I get married again?” He pushes her in the direction of Michael Thomas's skinny arms. She relents. Michael Thomas takes her hand and bows an exaggerated introduction. The two of them step and swirl, paired and clasped. She was right about him: he has technique. People head to the edges of the room, making room for them. He spins and dips her, and by the time the song finishes, she's breathless and grateful not to have been injured.
When Michael Thomas bows and retreats, Nick comes over and hands her a drink. “Impressive moves,” he says.
“It was all Michael Thomas,” she tells him.
Together they watch him scouring the room for other partners. Leda and Martin are dancing together now, cheek to cheek, eyes closed in rapture, swaying only the slightest bit. Nathalie sips her champagne and observes the happy couple. Next to her, Nick smells of cologne and sweat and shrimp canapés and wine; the rhythm of his breath as familiar as her own. She knows the two of them won't dance tonight. They'll stand side by side, as if on guard, waiting until the others are through.
Land of the Midnight Sun
Maxine was the good child; her little brother was the problem. When he kept getting in trouble at school, their parents conferred and took drastic steps. The doorbell rang one Saturday afternoon when Maxine was home alone, doing her trig homework. Her mother was working at the hospital and her brother was wherever he went when he left the house. Nobody knew what he did with his time. Maxine opened the door, and there was a boy standing on the porch; she'd never seen him before. On the street behind him, a horn honked and a car drove away.
“Can I help you?” she said.
“I am Yuri,” said the boy, and just stood there. He was thin and dark-haired, pale-skinned, with high, prominent cheekbones. Despite the warm October weather he was wearing a wool sweater. Dark circles under his eyes made it hard to guess his age.
“Is your parents at home?”
“No.”
Maxine noticed a black suitcase on the ground, bound by a leather strap. Yuri looked to the left and the right, as if checking the truth of her story. Finally he looked back at her. “I am exchange student,” he said. “I live in your house one year.”
“What?” she said.
“Then, if you like, you may come to Soviet Union and live in my house one year. But only if you like,” he continued. “It is no obligation.” His accent was halting and twisted, like nothing she had ever heard.
“I know nothing about this,” Maxine said.
“It is glasnost program.”
“It's like nobody tells me anything,” she said.
“You have a brother,” Yuri stated flatly, and fished a piece of paper out of his jeans. “His name is Brian. He is for me the exchange host.”
“Nobody calls him Brian,” Maxine told him. “We call him Bat.”
Yuri gazed at her with his exhausted eyes. He reached into his jeans pocket again and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, then sat down on the porch and lit one, throwing his match onto the rock lawn.
“Because his room is like a cave,” Maxine said.
Yuri nodded. “You are talking of the mouse with wings.”
“Yes, exactly.” She left the house and sat down next to him and waited until he was done smoking. Then she picked up his suitcase and led him to Bat's room. It was pitch black in there and smelled like an armpit. She usually avoided it.
“Well, here's your new home,” she said. “You can watch TV if you want.”
Maxine's mother made enchiladas that night and they all ate dinner together, in the dining room. This was such an unusual occurrence that Maxine and Bat stood in the kitchen beforehand, momentarily baffled, until their mother gestured to the chairs around the table. In their house people tended to be preoccupied by individual activities — work, school, juvenile delinquency, as the case may be. They rarely ate meals together, were rarely even home at the same time. Maxine enjoyed this setup as a rule, especially when it freed her own days from scrutiny, but she liked it less when Russians started showing up on the doorstep unannounced. She sat down across from Yuri, who had taken a nap that afternoon but still looked tired.
“Yuri, these are enchiladas,” her mother said. “A local specialty. It's Mexican. We are very close to Mexico, I guess you know that.”
“Ah, yes,” he murmured, looking out the back window as if he might see Mexico right there. Maxine followed his gaze: there was nothing to look at, just some faded rosebushes blooming into the alley, then the square backs of other houses, all the same-looking houses in Carlsbad, New Mexico.
“I didn't make them too spicy, because I thought you might not be used to it. But if you do like hot food, you can put the salsa on it. Salsa comes from the chile pepper. Do you have chile peppers in Russia?”
“Chiles are a New World crop, Mom,” Maxine put in.
“Oh, shut up, Max,” Bat said, and Yuri looked at him. Bat was slumped in his chair, hair falling over his eyes. He also looked exhausted. Last year he'd been suspended for selling speed out of his locker; school administrators took it away from him, and since then he had had no energy. Their parents thought this could all be traced to their divorce.
Yuri lifted some enchilada with his fork. Strings of cheese stretched down to the plate. He chewed carefully, swallowed, and smiled. “This is delicious, Mrs. Watson.”
Maxine's mother beamed at him. “Why, thank you, honey,” she said.
On Sunday, as always, Maxine and Bat had dinner with their father at Furr's Cafeteria.
“Ah, the Russian's here. Welcome,” he said to Yuri, extending his hand. “We're real happy to have you.”
“Thank you,” said Yuri.
They picked up the wet plastic trays and pushed them along the metal counter, past the salads and Jell-O. Yuri watched Bat carefully, Maxine saw, and said to each counter person, “The same as him, the same as him.” He wound up with a plate full of starches, macaroni and cheese and fried potatoes, but seemed satisfied. At the table he gulped down two glasses of Coke, then went back with Bat for coconut cream pie.
“So, Yuri, what part of Russia are you from?” their father said.
“Like you know any part of Russia,” Bat said.
“I live in the very far north,” Yuri said. “I like the weather here.”
“Okay, I seen this on the TV,” their father said. “That's the land of the midnight sun. In the winter it stays dark, but in the summer, the sun shines all the time, right? Way into the night.”
“Yes,” said Yuri. He took a fork to his pie and tried it. When he smiled, the chocolate sprinkles caught between his teeth were as dark as dirt.
Yuri stuck next to Bat all the time. There was one other exchange student that year, a Swede who was living in Happy Valley and called Yuri on the telephone a few times, almost singing his name in his lilting accent, but Yuri discouraged his advances. He explained at the dinner table that he had come to America to meet Americans, not Swedes. At school Maxine sometimes saw Yuri and Bat drifting down the hallway together, or smoking cigarettes in the parking lot. Bat said he thought that Yuri was a spy, a Soviet agent brought over by their parents to watch his movements. “We're living in a police state,” he whispered.
“You are like paranoid,” Maxine said.