by Kalman Nadia
“I said us, Osya, not you, us,” she said.
Jean
You had to send in the wedding announcement at least two months in advance, was what Bobby’s sisters had said. If you were a rapper or a famous banker, like Bobby’s cousin Paul, you could get away with five weeks, but that was it. It was now four weeks and five days before the wedding, and no announcement in sight. Part of her wanted only to tell the kids about the deadline and to say, “There’s no use now.” Another part of her thought Malcolm might still change his mind, so why announce anything? However, she was determined that if Malcolm did break it off, he would have no grounds to blame her. She would proceed with good faith, as Bobby had advised.
“So, have you sent in your Times announcement yet?” she asked Malcolm and Milla over take-out Portuguese.
Milla looked at Malcolm, as Jean had known she would. Wouldn’t anyone save Pauline from Peril, in the guise of a simple yes/no question?
“Why don’t we write it now?” Jean said. “Won’t that be fun?” She got a pad and her Waterman pen from her briefcase (Briefly, she wondered about the Waterman Malcolm had received as a graduation gift: had he lost it? She never saw him using it.) “How shall we start? How about, ‘Malcolm Philippe Strauss, the son of Jean and Robert Strauss, was wed —” It was difficult to finish the sentence; it made it all seem so real. Now she understood why Malcolm hadn’t wanted to write the announcement. “Milla, what’s your middle name?”
Milla looked up, seemingly surprised, and pointed to her own masticating mouth. A few seconds later, she said, “Russian people don’t really have a middle name? It’s the patronymic? So mine is Osipovna.”
“So you do have one. ‘Milla Osipovna Molochnik, daughter of Osip and Stalina Molochnik, in the Great Hall of the American Museum of Natural History.’ Okay?” They nodded.
Now, Jean had a brief respite from Milla, as she and Malcolm filled in information about his family, Yale, (“Weren’t you at least cum laude?” she asked. She couldn’t believe he hadn’t been any laude at all; music was an easy major, wasn’t it? At least he’d rowed crew.) his internship with Harold Krasner, and, at his insistence, his “abiding interest in Klezmer music.” She needed a few more sips of wine before resuming with Milla. “An accountant’s assistant —”
“— Assistant accountant,” Milla said. “I mean, sorry, that’s my official title.”
“Oh, I didn’t know that was important. What do you want me to write again?”
“It’s not so important.…” A little shrug.
“What should I write?”
“Assistant accountant.”
“Isn’t that what I had? Oh well, ‘assistant accountant at Lazar Partners, a Big Ten firm in New York. She graduated magna cum laude.’” She had remembered; Milla should be flattered. “From Southern Connecticut State,” Malcolm added.
“I don’t think I have to put that,” Jean said. “If I just say she graduated, right after I talk about you, people might think: Yale.”
Milla was widening her eyes at Malcolm. What message was this inept Russian spy transmitting now? She didn’t like prestige?
Malcolm said, “Southern Conn is a great school for accounting. Everyone knows that.”
Milla gazed wetly at Malcolm. Pauline had been rescued.
“Trust me,” Jean said. “I’m more experienced —”
“More experienced?” Malcolm said.
“Not like that, you child. I have more experience in the world than you do, and thinking Milla may possibly have gone to Yale will give her that je ne sais quoi in people’s eyes. Milla, you know what I mean, don’t you?”
Milla pointed at her mouth again, as it were too full to speak, but it didn’t look all that full to Jean.
Malcolm said, “Aren’t we supposed to put in something about you, and something about Milla’s parents?”
“How did you know that?”
Malcolm reached for the last prawn and put the whole thing in his mouth, even the disgusting tail. “I read Sunday Styles sometimes.”
“I thought only homos did that.” Jean loved to tease him about being a homo, because he so clearly was not one, although he was not as muscular as she would have liked. “But anyway, I can write that without you. Your father, founder of a law firm, Harvard magna cum laude, blah blah, me, maybe I’ll put in that I represented Michael Landon — do you think I should put that in? Do you think anyone would care?”
“Sure, put it in, why not?” he said.
“I don’t want it to take up space if no one cares. Do you kids even know who Michael Landon is? Milla, do you know?”
Malcolm said, “Put it in, Mom, it doesn’t matter.”
“Fine. I’ll leave it out.” Malcolm sighed and sprawled his legs outwards, as if he were sitting on an exercise ball at the gym, rather than a century-old Louis XV style dining chair, complete with claw feet, that Jean had discovered at an auction in (of all places) Truro, Massachusetts.
Yana
The wedding was in eight days. Milla combed her hair a different way every half hour and stuck a veil on it, stared at herself in the bedroom mirror, refused to emerge. She was becoming a vainer, dumber version of Uncle Lev, not that telling her that made any difference.
From an undisclosed location in Santa Barbara, Katya tortured their mother with her indecision about attending the wedding, bringing Stalina to such a state that she had staggered back from the mall that afternoon cradling a strapless orange prom dress some commissioned witch told her was perfect for a hot M.O.B. Now, the dress lay in wait in its plastic bag at the bottom of Stalina’s closet, where she’d let it fall — a very uncharacteristic gesture, alarming in itself — while describing to Yana a dream in which Katya had been a bird playing the piano.
Publicly and politely, as she had done for months, Stalina argued with Jean over expenses, offering to pay for any item Jean happened to mention, be it tuxedo alterations, the rabbi’s fee, the entire catering bill (which Yana knew they couldn’t afford), or Jean’s pedicure.
Privately, less politely, and with a great many more of what Stalina called jokes, she fought — also with Jean, in her mind, but actually with Yana, who was there, over the senselessness of Jean’s insistence that the couple be married at the Museum of Natural History, just because a Strauss cousin sat on the board. “How can you marry young people in the midst of all that death?” Stalina asked Yana, who felt herself absent during those times, a Jean-protoplasm undulating over her body.
Malcolm fought with his parents over whether he would apply to law school. Yana and Milla fought over whether Milla was a zombie. No one, except for Osip, talked to anyone else unless it was necessary; and no one, except for Yana, laughed at Osip’s jokes.
The only unafflicted person in the house was Pratik, who, having been asked to keep track of invitations and food selections, had created a computerized, color-coded matrix incomprehensible to anyone but himself, in front of which he sat like the Buddha (Yes, Yana knew he was Muslim, but he sat with that air of sated sleepiness, familiar from a bronze figurine in her former lover’s office. “Former lover’s office” — it sounded so mature, she wished for an opportunity to say it. “Former lover’s office” — so breezy, it couldn’t possible come from someone who had moved back in with her parents so that her mother would stop her from calling him.)
Now, as the Molochniks and Strausses faced off over table seating, Pratik gave her a look of particular smugness, as if to say, “If my database cannot bring peace to this household, nothing can.” The table’s mirrored surface multiplied everyone’s mouths and chins and noses; there were entirely too many fleshy human parts involved in the discussion.
Yana was trying to keep everyone in line using classroom management techniques she’d learned in graduate school. “Milla will be down in a minute,” she said, “but guys? Guys?” She raised one hand in the hair and counted backward to one with her fingers. This was what her professors called a non-intrusive prompt. “Guys!”
Jean Strauss looked at Yana’s upraised arm and Yana felt as though it were suddenly too long, and sat down, and apologized. “Milla and Malcolm said before that they want all their cousins to get to know each other, so they wanted them, sort of, mixed.” Her own uncertain eyes glanced back from the tabletop. She sat up straight and looked at Pratik. He smiled, as she imagined herself someday smiling at some of the children in her class. He looked as if he wanted to tell her that she just learned differently from the others, not worse.
In jolly tones, Jean Strauss said, “The kids want a cousins’ table,” and then murmured something in her husband’s ear.
Osip said, “Cousins together — very nice, as long as they don’t get marry.”
Yana forced out a laugh.
Bobby Strauss lifted a forefinger and said, “It’s certainly an idea,” beginning a measured disquisition on the subject of Strauss cousins, long separated, who would be wretched to find themselves at different tables with cousins not their own.
Only two tables had been planned so far and it was already nine, and the caterer had said she need the seating chart at least ten business days in advance. Yana’s stomach hurt at the thought, and she excused herself to go check on her sister. She had been giving the Strausses excuses for Milla’s absence since they’d arrived, and now, at Yana’s prediction that Milla must be “almost done” with her “work project,” Jean didn’t even bother to say “hmm.”
Milla was sitting in front of the mirror, veil in hand, frowning. She looked as if she were in a commercial for something, that in a moment she would confess her wedding dilemma to a giant deodorant bottle. Instead, she had only Yana, and when Yana asked what was wrong, Milla said, “I just want my hair to be perfect.” She’d been saying that all day.
“Is it Malcolm?” If her sister said it was Malcolm, Yana would say, “There’s something imperialistic about that guy.” But her sister said nothing. Yana said, “If you can’t even go downstairs and finish planning your wedding, you should seriously just cancel it.”
Milla stood, bent over the mirror, moved a curl from one side of her forehead to the other, and sat back down.
“Are you crazy?” Yana said. She decided to try for a light tone. “Come on, no one cares about your stupid hair.” Actually, Jean would probably make some remark. Milla blinked at herself.
Perhaps it would help to explain the larger social justice principles involved. “Do you want people at your wedding to be segregated? That’s the Strauss plan, basically.” Yana’s voice was going to that embarrassing register it had visited many times in high school, trying to get Milla to sign up with her for some extracurricular social justice or blood donation, with the never-forgotten (by Milla) rallying-yelp: “Someday, you’ll be bleeding to death, and then you’ll feel really bad.” Yana had been shy, fearful of the beautiful bohemians of Amnesty International, the upscale elderly of the Red Cross. Milla had always had work, somewhere boring and awful like the supermarket. To this day Yana couldn’t understand why Milla would choose that.
Now, Milla said, “People will change their seats anyway.”
Yana took a cleansing breath. She imagined Milla as a twelve-year-old student, no, an eight-year-old student. You couldn’t be angry at an eight-year-old. You definitely couldn’t be angry at a six-year-old. “Okay, look,” she said. “It’s okay to be scared of marriage. You’re pretty young, and it is an oppressive construct.”
“‘Oppressive construct.’ I’m not you. I don’t care about that.”
“If you don’t care, I won’t care either,” Yana said, and walked out, slamming the door as an indication of the seriousness of the issue, and then waited in the hall.
Milla
Hearing Yana leave, Milla twisted her hair into a roll and wound it around the top of her head. If she lowered her face so that only her eyes were visible above the mirror’s bottom edge, the mirror reflected a flying saucer.
Milla’s thoughts were slow in unfurling, like scrolls, and rhymed, like yearbook poetry. She
Was in love
As of five days ago
With a woman
who was herself
Quite hetero
Julie was a receptionist at the Stamford accounting firm where Milla worked. Only for now, she reminded herself. In just a few weeks, she’d be starting her new job in New York, and she’d forget Julie. New York City was a very exciting place.
But last Tuesday, Milla had been pulling out of the parking lot when she saw Julie lighting a cigarette, and Julie’s face, reflecting the flame — Milla accelerated to an unprecedented parking-lot speed of forty miles per hour, leapt over the speed bump and into the traffic circle, trying to drive away from the truth of her love.
For the next few days, she was careful to treat Julie the same as she had before — to be friendly, to be businesslike, assistant accountant to receptionist.
On Friday, Julie appeared at Milla’s desk and Milla stopped breathing. Through the ringing in her ears, she heard Julie say that the others were throwing a surprise Bon Voyage party for her. “I know you like to look like natural. But in photos, natural looks like fish reject.”
Milla floated up from her creaking chair and shadowed Julie into the empty conference room. Julie had Milla sit on the table. She’d brought a metal suitcase that, when unfolded, resembled a terrifying robotic butterfly. She stood between Milla’s legs, and, humming a little, began. Julie’s arm pressed against Milla’s breast as she applied the lipstick. When it was time for the eyeliner, Milla had to close her eyes, and that made her aware of Julie’s chocolaty breath, her tar shampoo. In that moment, she thought Julie might kiss her, but she didn’t, of course.
When Julie had used all the colors in the case, she unpacked a final surprise — an expanding mirror — and held it up to Milla’s face. Immediately, Milla was reminded of a glasnost-era movie about a hard-currency prostitute she’d seen with her parents. She looked, not like the prostitute-heroine, but like the heroine’s hapless Moldavian friend, Glasha, who was trying to move up to hard-currency work after a stint on the streets. Each of her cheeks bore a red triangle. Her lips were red, too, the shiny, bloody red of a recently sated cannibal. Her eyes were almost invisible beneath heavy, downward-sloping purple lashes.
“I love it,” she had said. “Can you do it for my wedding, too?”
Julie was Polish, not gay, not wealthy, not even Jewish, not even educated. If Malcolm’s parents found out! “Going off with a low-rent Pole, are you?” she imagined Jean saying. Milla would sock Jean right in the mouth (but those pointy teeth), the side of the head, then. Yes, she’d clock her good, grab Julie’s hand, and run away to New York City. Not to the Upper West Side, where Malcolm’s parents lived, but a more bohemian place: the Village. If Milla’s own parents found out —
These thoughts would go away once she was married. At no time previous to this had she been a lesbian. Obviously, lesbianism was one of those things that mysteriously came and went, like a sunspot (Julie’s hair in the sun!) or a wart.
She rolled her chair backwards, away from the mirror, so that more of her was visible. A lumpy-nosed vampire, she was lucky, very lucky, to have Malcolm Strauss for a fiancé. “Malcolm Strauss,” she said aloud. “My husband is Malcolm Strauss.” Then she tried, “My name is Malcolm Strauss,” but it sounded all wrong, so she couldn’t be a lesbian, or else she’d think it sounded fantastic, wouldn’t she?
Her phone rang. It was Malcolm, who had just finished his job interview at an advertising agency whose owner was friends with his mother. “How’s the welding coming along?” He called their wedding a welding, because their families were so different.
“Welding is hard work.” They were meant to be: they were already becoming an annoying couple. “When are you getting back?”
“I’m meeting Ravi and Jason, so I don’t know. One?”
Milla couldn’t help sighing into the phone. It was not so easy to live with her fiancé and her parents at once. Her
mother would notice how late he’d come back. She couldn’t wait until they were married and alone in New York.
“What’s that for?” he said. She’d made him feel trapped and defensive, which you were never ever to do, all the women’s magazines agreed, it was like feeding a Gremlin. “You’re not even doing that much, are you? My mom said you just go around saying everything’s okay with you.”
“I’m sorry. I guess I’m not enough of a sosh for you,” Milla said and surprised herself by beginning to cry. She felt like a character in The Outsiders. Not like a specific character, but like all of them combined: The Outsider.
“What’s all this?” he said, and it was hard for Milla not to tell him. He was her sami rodnoy, her closest person. Instead, she listened as he said, “What’s going on?” and, “Milla,” and then, as she calmed down, “This is just wedding stuff, right?” and still later, “You think I want a socialist?”
Katya
Katya was living with a guy named Matt, or maybe a couple of guys, she wasn’t sure because his friends came over a lot. You have to know what your energy is about. You have to know what your energy is about. Say it fifty times as you breathe out. She breathed out onto the half-open window. There was a time when she would have drawn something in the condensation, an anarchy sign, the mark of the beast, a tulip, but now she looked at it and knew there was no way she could lift her hand and point a finger and make anything recognizable.
Her energy was about the supermarket circular she’d found and reading parts of it aloud to her mother over the phone to convince her she was eating. Katya would have eaten for real, because Matt didn’t like her skinny, but the combination of things she was taking — the things it took — made her throw up too often for eating to be worth her time.