by Alina Adams
“Isn’t that what these parties are for? Everyone tries to come up with the better song, the best poem. I knew you wouldn’t have anything prepared like you’re supposed to. Your family would be so disappointed, you’d never hear the end of it. I thought I’d help you out. Get everyone talking about how great the Rozengurts’ granddaughter was, earn you a ton of Brownie points. Honestly, you could stand to be a little grateful, too.”
How can somebody be so right—because Alex is totally right about everything—and yet so wrong at the same time?
“And I certainly didn’t expect you to bring another date.”
Alex sighs. Not for his sake, but for Zoe’s. He feels sad for her, making such an avoidable mistake, choosing an obvious outsider over an ideal candidate like him. Doesn’t Zoe realize what she’s setting herself up for? The hysteria from family, the gossip from neighbors, the censure from kids she grew up with, the community cold shoulder. He knows she’ll come to regret it. He tried to save Zoe from herself. She was just too foolish to listen.
Except Zoe knows something Alex doesn’t. If Mama could survive it, so can Zoe. Because it’s the right thing to do.
At the same time, Zoe realizes why Alex was ever interested in her. It’s not the financing. Financing, he can get anywhere. It’s because dating an on-paper ideal candidate like Zoe made his life easier, too. She wonders how many times a day his mother texts him about not letting Zoe slip through his fingers.
“Sorry you came all the way out here,” is the closest Zoe will get to apologizing.
Alex shrugs. “It’s cool.”
Zoe believes him. Alex won’t hold a grudge. Not against her, not against Gideon. To hold a grudge, you’d have to care.
Just before he takes off, Zoe taps her phone against Alex’s. “That’s my friend Lacy’s number. You should give her a call. You guys will really hit it off.” Zoe pictures them being optimistic about everything. Even Lacy’s mother regaling Alex’s parents with how great socialism is. “Tell her I said so.”
Alex salutes two fingers against his hairline and melts into the crowd. Like he belongs there.
Zoe realizes Gideon hasn’t said anything. She realizes he trusted her to handle Alex. And he isn’t haranguing her about doing it wrong. Zoe meets his eyes. “What happened in there? Why did my grandmother—”
“Let’s go outside,” Gideon says.
On the boardwalk, they are instantly surrounded by shirtless guys zipping around on bikes; polyglot families wrapped in towels with clumps of sand clinging to their butts; couples clutching cheap trinkets won on Coney Island; Russian-speaking pamphlet wielders insisting Jesus was the Jewish messiah; and electric organs, guitars, and drum sets erected without permits to blast amateur compositions and wring coins from softhearted visitors. Also dozens of elderly couples strolling, arm in arm—women, men, long-marrieds, and lifetime friends. Some have gone native, making their evening appearances in tracksuits and windbreakers. Others stick to the old ways, dressing up for a promenade, skirts, hose, silk scarves, salon-styled hair tucked under jaunty berets, heels, and makeup. Children pedal alongside on miniature BMWs and Mercedes, the girls with huge bows in their hair and the boys in vintage Red Army caps their great-grandfathers died to earn, which now can be bought on every Brighton corner.
Zoe and Gideon walk over to the metal barriers keeping the beach from the boardwalk. The air smells of the sea. It’s why so many love it here. “Like Odessa,” Deda says.
Zoe and Gideon sit on a wooden bench, looking both ahead and at each other.
Gideon says, “You told me your grandmother didn’t want an anniversary party. She offer any hint why?”
“Beyond general disdain for anything and everything, no.”
“Forty-fifth, right?”
“Right. Sapphire, Exodus, you heard Alex.”
“When your grandfather visited our office, we talked about a programming language he once used. Ratfor. He said he dabbled in it before he got married.”
“So?”
“Ratfor was invented in 1975. Forty-four years ago.”
Zoe sees what he’s getting at, but . . . “Isn’t it possible he just got the year wrong?”
“Of course. It’s also possible that your grandparents got married in 1975, not 1974. Which would make your mother . . .”
“A touch illegitimate.”
Zoe realizes she should feel shocked. And she does. But not in a bad way. She’s actually kind of tickled at the idea of Baba, who just a few minutes ago described Deda not as something she wanted but as something she needed, so overwhelmed by passion that she’d break the ultimate good-Komsomolniks-don’t-engage-in-such-activities taboo, and that Zoe’s very righteous Mama was the result of it. Of course, Zoe could be the naive romantic of the moment. The actual situation could have been more prosaic. Baba could have been bored, or scared she’d end up an old maid at the ancient age of twentysomething, or a whole host of other reasons to which Zoe would never be privy. But whatever Baba’s motives, it led to Mama, which led to Zoe, which led to sitting here now. With Gideon. As Baba mused: “What happened is what happened, no going back for anyone. What’s the point of combing through the past? That’s not the direction time moves in.”
Gideon speculates, “I figured your grandma didn’t want to deal with your mother finding out. Not to mention the rest of Brighton Beach.”
“But that’s . . . so . . . stupid.”
“To you and me, sure. Around here, though, sounds like a pretty good reason not to want to draw attention to your wedding anniversary, doesn’t it?”
“So you dummied up that ketubah.”
“I thought your grandma would like concrete proof of the date she’s been lying about for forty-four years.”
Now Zoe wants to kiss Gideon on the cheek and call him a lovely boy.
“Funniest part is, Alex and I were on the same track to show off for you; we just went about it in different ways.”
A lovely boy kiss on the cheek isn’t enough. Not for Zoe, not now. She leans in and kisses Gideon on the lips. She’s not expecting him to pull away this time. She’s actively hoping he won’t.
He doesn’t. He kisses her back like this is the kiss Gideon’s been expecting Zoe to initiate all along. Like he’s been waiting patiently. And like it’s been worth the wait. He kisses her like he doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with what they’re doing, like he can’t imagine anyone finding anything wrong with what they’re doing, and, if they do, how sad that will be for them. He kisses Zoe like he never intends to stop.
Then there’s a tap on their shoulders.
Balissa is standing there, leaning on Baba for support. It’s several yards from the restaurant to their bench, so it couldn’t have been easy for her to navigate. But when Zoe’s great-grandmother has something to say, nothing can impede her. And Balissa has quite a bit to say to Zoe and Gideon.
Thanks to Alex’s earlier sigh and Zoe’s understanding of what it meant, she braces herself for the tirade that must follow, especially when Zoe spies Mama in hot pursuit of the runaway pair. But it’s Baba who speaks first.
“You have never listened to me, my Zoyenka.”
She’s speaking English, so Gideon can comprehend her disapproval. Will Baba open with the general inappropriateness of Zoe making out with a near-stranger in public (lovely boy aside), or will she zero in on who exactly the near-stranger is? What he is. Which will come first, stories of how Mama was treated in school by those hooligans, or the time a mamzer ripped Balissa’s purse off her shoulder and skateboarded away? Maybe Baba will trend political. African revolutions. Savages, that’s what those people are. Not because of the bloodshed, but for thinking Communism could be the solution to anything. Not merely savages, fools, too. Then again, Baba might settle for highlighting what people will say about Zoe. Doesn’t Zoe care what people might say about her?
“Listen to me now. Please.” Baba points to Gideon. “This is very good boy.”
Perhaps
Baba took the ketubah incident into account, after all. But as Balissa lectured, “No such thing as good man. Only man in a good time.” Zoe presumes that applies to good boys, too. And now is definitely not a good time for a good boy like Gideon to be standing next to a could-always-be-better girl like Zoe. Now is the time for Baba’s compliment to be followed by “but not here, not now.”
“Good, yes, so important,” Mama echoes.
“Especially when life not so good,” Baba struggles to explain. “The Alex boy, he is . . . he is . . .” She makes a shape with her hands like she’s encircling a balloon. “He is empty. He flies high; he flies away. He has many big dreams, and that is where he will always be first. This boy”—she pats Gideon on the shoulder—“this boy stays on ground.”
In America, land of “give a child wings so he can fly,” her metaphor would be an insult. But to Zoe’s family, dubbing someone strong enough to tether you to the ground so that you don’t disappear in the middle of the night into a Chaika limousine is the height of compliments.
“My Boris,” Baba tells Gideon, “is man who does no fly away. He like you. He sees problem, he fixes. I not smart enough, too stubborn, too proud, to ask for help; he fixes anyway. And he does not, at the end, say I told you so. Can you believe this? Not once does he say this to me. That is what real man is, yes?”
Zoe realizes Mama is the only one on this stretch of boardwalk oblivious to the problem Gideon fixed for Baba. Zoe realizes they all intend to keep it that way.
“Zoya’s papa,” Baba, after knowing Gideon a few minutes, fills him in on family history Zoe pried out of her only the other day, “if born in USSR, what he do with his little deceits, it would be necessary. He like Balissa’s stepfather, man who can do favors, get favors. In America, is not time and place for these things, we do not need same. Time and place, my mama tell me, they matter when it come to what man is good and what man is bad. She is right. I realize this after too long.”
Zoe sneaks a peek at Mama to check how she’s responding to Baba’s declaration. Mama’s face remains neutral. It’s not the time or place to push.
“I no have choices when I am younger. I no can choose job, I no can choose man, I no can choose life.” Baba turns her attention to Zoe. “But like Balissa also say, sometimes no choice is best choice. No choice gives me Deda, and he is what I need. You, Zoyenka, you are not like me. You have many choices. So many choices in America. You will to make wise one, yes?”
“You trust me to make wise choices?” Zoe double-checks. “On my own? Without your input?”
Gideon says, “Listen to your grandmother, Zo-yay-enka.”
His attempt to pronounce her nickname the Russian way makes everyone laugh.
“And you will be brave, yes? You will not look at outside of person.” Baba rubs Gideon’s arm appreciatively. “You will look at inside. Inside yourself, too. Look honestly, see what is really there, not what you wish to be there.”
Hearing Baba echo the words Zoe’s babbled at Lacy how many times over the past few weeks brings Zoe up short. The idea of Baba understanding something Zoe assumed was unique to her is disconcerting. She thinks back to the day she first realized there might be more to her family than she previously believed. Between the fudged wedding date and now this, Zoe’s oblivion is starting to feel embarrassing.
But then Baba continues issuing instruction on how Zoe should live her life, and she’s back on familiar ground. “You must to look that other person will give you what you really need. Even if you not know what you really need and ask for nonsense you think you want. Do you to see this?”
Zoe smiles at Gideon. Zoe smiles at Baba. Zoe says, “I to see this.”
“Good.” Baba leans back, studying them both happily. “You will be better than me. Braver than me. Smarter than me. Better and braver and smarter than all of us.” And then, of course, she has to add, “Do not make fun of my English. When you are old woman, we will listen how you speak language you must to learn as adult.”
Balissa nudges Baba. The rise of her eyebrows reminds Baba of why they came out in the first place. And it wasn’t so Baba could chastise Zoe. Baba takes the plate Balissa is holding in her hands and offers it to Gideon. “My mother, she was to be worried you leave party with no food. She bringing this for you.”
On the plate is a little bit of everything from the buffet. Including a potato.
Acknowledgments
This book—not to mention every other aspect of my life—would not have been possible if my parents, Genrikh and Nelly Sivorinovsky, hadn’t decided to leave the Soviet Union in 1976.
I thank them for bringing me to America and for understanding when I wanted to be a writer—and not a computer programmer.
Thanks to them and to the Khait family for their stories, many of which appear in this book. Any errors are my own.
Thank you to my brother, Martin, who speaks my language, and to his wife, Rachel, who doesn’t mind when we do—endlessly.
Thank you to my in-laws, who opened my eyes to a whole new America.
Thank you to my agent, Allison Hunter, who said, “You obviously know how to write, so go ahead and just write this story.”
Thank you to my editor, Sarah Stein, who took that writing and made it readable.
Thank you to my children, Adam, Gregory, and Aries, who contained their emergencies to when I wasn’t writing.
And thank you to my husband, Scott, who is the answer to the question, “How can a woman have it all?”
About the Author
Alina Adams is the New York Times bestselling author of soap opera tie-ins, romance novels, and figure skating mysteries. She has worked as a creative content producer for As the World Turns and Guiding Light; was part of the All My Children and One Life to Live reboot; and has been a writer, producer, and skating researcher for ABC, NBC, TNT, ESPN, and Lifetime TV. Alina immigrated to the United States with her family from Odessa, USSR, in 1977. She lives in New York City with her husband, Scott, and their three children. Visit her online at www.AlinaAdams.com.
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Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
the nesting dolls. Copyright © 2020 by Alina Sivorinovsky. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
first edition
Cover design by Milan Bozic
Cover photographs © ClassicStock/Alamy Stock Photo (family); © Tomas Rodriguez/Getty Images (girl, right); © Mindstyle/iStock/Getty Images (forest); © Sergey Kucherov/Getty Images (city); © Vsevolod Vlasenko/Getty Images (beach); © ultramarinfoto/iStock/Getty Images (wood)
Photograph by OrkiCu/Shutterstock, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
Digital Edition JULY 2020 ISBN: 978-0-06-291096-7
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-291094-3
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