by M?ta Smith
I grew up around money. I’ve spent countless summers at the Inkwell on Martha’s Vineyard and a few at the Hamptons, and I’ve seen some pretty great yachts, but Mikhail’s ship is phenomenal. This is no weekender or cruiser; this is a mega-yacht. But it isn’t the size that makes it so breathtaking, it’s the details. Even from a distance, I can see that there are rich details that make the yacht ultra luxe. He’s put a lot of time and money into the ship; he’s proud as hell and it’s written all over his face.
I stare at the ship. The railings look like they’re made of gold, not brass like most ships. And everything is so fucking shiny! It just screams, “I’m rich, bitch!” I can’t wait to get on board and inspect things.
“Hello, Ms. Bobbi,” Mikhail says, greeting me with a hug and a kiss on both cheeks.
“Hi, Mikey,” I tease him.
“So you’re jealous of Misty, aren’t you?” he asks.
“No way! I just thought it was funny,” I say.
“Sure,” he says and leads me toward the magnificent vessel.
“Welcome aboard Krizia,” he says, opening his arms dramatically as we walk aboard the most beautiful ship I’ve ever seen.
“Daaaaaaaayum!” I drawl as I twirl around on the ship’s deck. “How big is this thing?” I ask.
“Only two hundred and eighty feet,” Mikhail says. “Come, I will take you on a tour.”
Mikhail leads me through Krizia, which has eighteen staterooms and an onboard crew of thirty-six, including a masseuse, a personal trainer, and a nurse. There’s everything imaginable on this ship. There’s a play area for children that has swings, a sandbox, and a jungle gym. There’s a beauty salon and spa where a Swedish esthetician and a British hairdresser are on call. The workout room rivals any Bally’s and it even has a swimming pool if dipping in the ocean isn’t your thing. But if the ocean is your thing, there are Jet Skis, wave runners, water skis, scuba gear, and a sailing dinghy. Krizia even has a business center for those who need to work and play—complete with an executive assistant if you need one.
But the pièce de résistance is Mikhail’s quarters. This guy has got to get a ton of pussy, because the master suite is resplendent. There’s a bedroom with a California king-sized bed, a huge plasma screen television, and panoramic views that Mikhail reveals by pressing a remote control button that draws back the heavy silk curtains. There’s a separate sitting area, decorated in a warm, earthy palette composed of creamy beiges, lustrous golds, and rich browns. The shiny wood floors are covered with fabulous rugs that look like they’re handmade, and Indian or Moroccan. There’s even a baby grand piano. The sofa, loveseat, chair, and ottoman are crafted in suede the color of hot chocolate. I know it’s suede and not ultrasuede because I rub the upholstery just to make sure. I know that’s kind of ghetto, but I can’t help myself! When I was growing up I used to touch the fur coats of the women in church to see if they were real too, mainly because it drove my mother bananas when she saw me do it; my “no class” behavior reminded her of when women would find reasons to pat and rub the lustrous furs draping her shoulders during conversation. She was convinced that people were inspecting their quality and authenticity and she was so insulted that someone would even dare think she’d wear faux fur.
I sit down at the piano and tickle the ivories. “This is a great piano. It’s in absolutely perfect pitch,” I tell Mikhail as I play a few bars of Alicia Keys’s “Fallin’.” “And it’s so responsive.”
“Thank you. It is a handcrafted Steinberg, made from the finest wood in Europe. It is rumored that the soundboard is made of wood from the same forest that Strativari hand cut for his violins,” he tells me.
“Uh, okay,” I say, and continue to play. Mikhail sounds like a piano salesman.
“I didn’t know you could play the piano,” he says as he strolls toward me.
“How could you?” I ask him.
“Oh, I have my ways of finding things out,” he says chuckling.
“Is that right?” I ask, arching my eyebrow in suspicion. I have the feeling that Mikhail gets off on making people think he’s some mysterious tough guy one minute and a perfect gentleman the next. I can dig it though; it’s always good to keep people guessing.
“You remind me of a Russian Donald Trump,” I tell him. I can see that he doesn’t take that as a compliment by the way he twists his face up.
“You think I’m that tacky?” he asks.
“No,” I say quickly. But this boat, the car, the hanging out with porn stars . . . it just screams that he’s trying to get attention and be noticed. He wants people to bow down and kiss his ring, but I won’t be the one. I’ll tell him what he wants to hear so I can seal this gig, but that’s it. I’m not going to be sloppy seconds to a porn star or some on-demand pussy for this guy just because he’s rich. My family has money—though not this much by any means—and it isn’t my first time at the ball.
“No, you’re not tacky,” I tell him. “But you are flashy. Not gaudy either—I mean, everything you have here is really very nice, but you’re so obvious,” I say. “You’re screaming.”
“I thought it was all about the bling-bling these days,” he says and I crack up.
“First of all, no one even says bling-bling anymore,” I manage to say through my laughter. Mikhail doesn’t think it’s so funny—at least, he’s not laughing.
“Well, what do they say now?” he asks.
“Just bling, or shine I guess, or floss, something, just not bling-bling. Never mind. It’s not that important and I know what you mean. You just remind me of a rapper or something. Like you’ve been hanging with Diddy too much.”
“What’s wrong with that?” he asks. “Diddy’s a great guy.”
“Nothing’s wrong with him,” I say and continue to play the piano. I play a classical-sounding version of “Mo Money, Mo Problems.”
“You’re good,” he says.
“Yep,” I tell him. “My mom made me take lessons all my life.” I pound out some Beethoven with a very serious expression and dramatic aplomb. “I always knew I wanted to do something in music ever since I was a little girl. I wanted to go to school to learn recording engineering and sound for films, but my parents weren’t having it. The only acceptable musical career in Mother’s eyes would have been concert pianist, but that’s not exactly my style. I’ve always wanted to be a rock star, but I have the worst voice on earth. Ain’t that a bitch? I mean, it’s so bad I couldn’t even sing punk! I’d get booed off the stage,” I say laughing. “But if I could sing, Alicia Keys, eat your heart out!”
I stop playing the piano and look up at Mikhail. He’s smiling at me and shaking his head. He walks over and sits on the bench beside me. Then, out of nowhere, he grabs the back of my head and kisses me hard. I don’t know if I should kiss him back or slap him, because after all, we’re supposed to be strictly business. I pull away but he holds my face in his hands. I feel uncomfortable under his penetrating stare but I can’t look away.
“You are an amazing woman, Bobbi,” he says. “You’re better than any rock star.” I can’t help but blush even though I know it’s game.
“I bet you say that to all the girls,” I tease.
“No, I don’t,” Mikhail says. There’s an awkward silence as we sit on the piano bench looking at each other. The silence is broken by the sound of his cell phone ringing. He leaves me hanging and stands up to answer it.
“Da?” Mikhail says some things in Russian that I can’t understand and hangs up the phone. He turns to me. “Are you ready to eat?” he asks.
“I could nibble on something,” I say, then giggle because my mind is surely in the gutter. Food is the last thing I want to nibble on.
“Great. Let’s join my friends on deck. Come,” he says. I follow him up a spiral staircase to the deck where breakfast is being served. Actually, breakfast is an understatement. There are two huge buffet tables lined up along the side of the deck and covered with all kinds of food, from your standard American
breakfast fare such as waffles and sausage to carved roast beef, ahi tuna, and salmon filets. There’s also a large dining table, elaborately set with fine china, crystal, and flatware and decorated with a massive centerpiece that consists of a candle in a hurricane holder surrounded by a spray of tropical flowers.
Seated at the table is a couple: a very tall, muscular man with the same wavy hair and verdant eyes as Mikhail, and a woman so gorgeous and glamorous that I immediately feel ugly. So you know she’s fine!
“Ms. Bobbi, I would like you to meet my cousin and business partner, Dimitri Yurkovic, and his girlfriend, Amara de Laurenti.” Mikhail presents the striking couple to me.
“Ah, finally I get to meet the famous Ms. Bobbi,” Dimitri says, smiling as he shakes my hand vigorously. “You are even more beautiful than your picture or my cousin give you credit for.” Then Dimitri kisses my hand and looks me over from head to toe.
“I am sooo not famous,” I tell him, and I wish that I was just being humble rather than telling the truth. “I just know a couple of people and I’m good at what I do.”
“Maybe you’re not famous yet, but you will be one day,” Mikhail says and gives me a wink.
Amara rises from her chair, all six feet of her. Since I only stand at five feet four inches, she makes me feel like a midget. And although I am curvy and thick in all the right places, Amara makes me look like a twelve-year-old boy. She’s the type of woman that my father refers to as a stallion or a brickhouse. She’s absolutely beautiful, her skin is the color of caramel, she has hazel eyes, and her long silky hair perfectly frames her gorgeous face.
“Ay, Ms. Bobbi, baby,” Amara screeches in a high-pitched voice, grabbing me firmly by the shoulders and kissing me on both cheeks. “You are my favorite DJ! Mikhail and Dimitri play your, how do you say again, oh yes, your mix tape all the time. I loved it when I heard it, and when they showed me your picture and I saw that you were a beautiful woman, I said to myself, ‘Amara, baby, this Ms. Bobbi is your new favorite.’ I am so happy to meet you, baby,” she rambles a mile a minute. I can barely understand her because of her thick accent.
“Thanks, Amara. It’s nice to meet you,” I tell her. I can’t really think of anything else to say. Amara links her arm through mine and guides me to the buffet. Mikhail waves at us, then he and Dimitri disappear around a corner. I shoot daggers at his back with my eyes. I think it’s pretty rude to invite someone to breakfast and then not even bother to entertain them. I don’t appreciate being dumped off on one of his friends I don’t even know. Besides, how can I get what I want if he’s not around?
“Come, I will fix you a plate, Ms. Bobbi,” she says, snapping me out of my thoughts. She picks up a plate and begins to pile on mounds of ripe, juicy cantaloupe, watermelon, and honeydew.
“You don’t have to do that,” I say, attempting to take the plate away from her. “And please, just call me Bobbi.”
“I insist, Bobbi,” she says.
“This certainly is a lot of food,” I tell her, hoping that she will get the hint and stop piling it on. “When Mikhail invited me to breakfast he didn’t mention that he was going to offer lunch, dinner, and dessert.”
“Don’t you know why he did all this, baby?” Amara asks. Then she winks and tosses the shiny, heavy hair that drapes her face and says, “It’s because he didn’t know what kind of food you liked, so he had them cook a bit of everything. He wanted to make you happy, baby. Someone’s got his sights set on you.” She laughs and snaps her fingers, dancing about and singing, “Someone’s got his sights set on you, on you.” Amara is a bizarre woman, but amusing. She continues to load my plate with all kinds of things. Not even a Sumo wrestler would eat so much food! A part of me wants to scream, Don’t you know there are millions of starving people in the world? You do realize that this is enough to feed a small country, don’t you? But another part of me is sickly flattered by the display if it is for my benefit.
When one plate gets full, Amara just hands it to a butler named Fabio, of all things, who lines the plates up on the long banquet table. So when Amara finally feels that she’s sufficiently provided me with all the food there is to offer, she takes me over to a bar that has not only every spirit known to mankind, but a wine rack and a refrigerator filled to the brim with fine wines and champagnes.
“Your champagne, baby? We have it all. Brut? Sec? Demisec?” she asks allowing me to choose my poison.
“Got any Krug?” I ask. Since Mikhail seems to be in a “waste not, want not” mood, I think to myself, Why not go for the gold?
“We’ve got Clos du Mesnil, 1995,” she says. “It’s the best.”
Amara fills two champagne glasses with bubbly, then raises hers toward the sun.
“Here’s to you Ms. . . . I mean Bobbi,” she winks at me and tilts her head back, gulping the contents of her champagne glass all at once. “Finally someone who is not such an utter bore around here. Mikhail has the worst taste in female companionship.” I wonder just how many companions Mikhail has brought around. I wonder even more how many he’s lured here under the guise of taking care of business. Amara refills her glass and pulls out our seats.
To call Amara eccentric would be an understatement. She talks to me nonstop about people I don’t know and then asks me what I think; before I can answer, she’s on to the next thing. She punctuates her sentences with finger snaps and flamenco claps and spontaneously breaks out into the samba. She’s very touchy-feely; she has no problem with hugging me, kissing me on the cheek, clasping my hand, all things I really have to know someone to let them get away with doing. But I can tell that she’s really just trying to be nice, so I don’t say anything or pull away like I usually would with someone so in my grill.
Amara calls me baby practically every other word, and she flips her hair so much I’m afraid that her neck is going to snap off at any minute. She does all this while nibbling off my plate and downing Krug like it’s water. We are on the second bottle within twenty minutes, and I know that it runs around $800 a pop. I also know that I shouldn’t be drinking so much considering that it isn’t even noon, but that’s never stopped me before, and I think it’s rude to turn down champagne, especially such a good year. Furthermore, it is probably very hard to be subjected to too much direct and focused contact with Amara de Laurenti without first numbing the senses with some kind of mind-altering substance.
“So are you going to Greece with us?” Amara asks.
“Uh, not that I know of,” I tell her.
“I thought Mikhail was bringing you. Oh shit!” she says, pronouncing the word shit like sheet. “Did I let the cat out of the bag? He was supposed to ask you, baby,” she informs me.
“Mikhail and I are supposed to talk about me spinning at Babylon, not going to Greece,” I say.
“But I know he is planning to invite you. I heard the whole thing with my own ears. Granted I was eavesdropping, but I distinctly heard Mikhail say to Dimitri that he was going to bring the lady DJ with him on the cruise. We always go to Greece in the summer. Everyone’s going to be there; you have to come.”
“Maybe he hasn’t gotten around to it yet because he’s nowhere to be found. It doesn’t matter though. I’m not here to talk about any vacation; I’m here to discuss my career,” I tell Amara.
“He’s just shy, baby. He really likes you. I know he’s going to ask. You should come, baby. It will definitely be good for your career if you do. It’s going to be so fabulous, baby,” she says. Before I can ask Amara what she means by “good for my career,” she’s on her feet and screeching.
“Ah, here they are now. Mikhail, you cretin! How dare you ignore this fascinating creature and walk around with boring Dimitri, baby, ah?” Amara scolds Mikhail and playfully slaps him on the arm.
“Amara, be good,” Dimitri says, swatting her on the bottom.
“Baby, I am always good,” Amara says with a toss of her luxurious, sun-streaked hair. “Anyway, Mikhail, are you bringing Bobbi with us to Greece? You said she
was coming, but you never asked her. I thought you were going to ask her. I am so bored of you two boys. I need a friend here,” Amara says with no room for anyone to get a word in edgewise. She puts her hands on her hips and taps her foot looking from Dimitri to Mikhail.
“Amara, have you been eavesdropping again?” Dimitri asks her.
“Yes, baby,” she says. “It was an accident. If I had a friend around, I would have better things to do than to listen in on your boring conversations.”
“Ah, Mikhail, I thought you were going to bring her, no?” Dimitri says to Mikhail. “We will party, party, party!” he exclaims, smiling at me. “Have you been abroad before?” Dimitri starts dancing and Amara joins him.
“Yes,” I tell them, looking at them as if they’ve lost their minds. I’ve been to London and to Paris but those were both school-sponsored activities, nothing sophisticated or anything. I had fun staying in hostels and meeting lots of young and fun-loving people, but I never met anyone like them. Dimitri and Amara are disco dancing to a groove of their own, moving and shaking as if there is actually music playing. Hell, they are on a planet all their own.
“Ah yes, Mikhail, baby! She is the perfect person to come with us, no? Did you show her the sound system? The disco? Baby, have you seen the disco?” Amara asks as she and Dimitri switch to what I think is supposed to be the tango. What the hell kind of circus is this? I sit there unsure of what to say or how to react. Mikhail steps in and saves me.
“Bobbi, why don’t you step into the business center with me? We have an important matter to discuss.” It’s about time! I look over my shoulder as I follow Mikhail, and Amara winks at me. “Say yes, baby,” she shouts before Dimitri picks her up and twirls her around in a circle.
“YOUR FRIENDS ARE INTERESTING,” I TELL MIKHAIL.
“Ah yes, my young cousin’s girlfriend has a real passion for life,” he says, adding, “and a very big mouth.”