Liberty

by Andrea Portes

  When they turn to look, which they do because they have the collective IQ of a stick, I resort to the art of Muay Thai.

  Also, in case you’re keeping tabs, I start seeing all of this from above me again. These high-stakes moments really do bring out the need to disassociate. It’s okay, though. If I get pummeled here the best part is it’s not really me. It’s that other me. That I happen to be wrapped in.

  The thing about Muay Thai is, it’s known as the “art of the eight limbs.” What that means is . . . even the hard things, like elbows, knees, and shins are involved. As a discipline it’s basically a bone crusher, and it’s not for the faint of heart. It’s the kind of thing you only to resort to in an alley in Moscow. And these guys both look like they could lift a truck. Maybe two. So, you see, I have no choice.

  Katerina does not hesitate for a second. I mean, like an effing bobcat, she is in motion and the two of us are basically double-teaming these three hundred pounds of dimwitted muscle for the next two minutes. I will spare you the boring details, other than an exemplary flying kick and cobra punch my dojo master would be proud of, which sends meathead number two into the concrete. Fun fact: Katerina’s meathead is already on the ground. If I ever thought I was good, it would seem Katerina is better.

  The destructor in me salutes the destructor in her. Because if I’m a black belt she’s a Death Star belt.

  I bet you’re curious as to what Uri is doing at this time. I know I am.

  Welp, he’s basically standing there a little bit like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. He’s observing. In a doltish kind of way. Silent. Shoulders hunched. Head cocked to one side.

  I practically expect him to recite extremely hard calculus equations before asking for Jell-O and Judge Wapner.

  The good thing about these guys both being the size of Mount Everest is that they are slow as snails. I mean it. They’re on, like, Alabama time.

  Don’t tell me you’ve never asked for directions in Alabama. Oh, you haven’t? Okay, let me just explain. If you’ve ever asked for directions in Alabama . . . you would still be listening now. And now. And now. And for the next five years.

  But Katerina is on lightning speed. And I am at least holding up my end.

  Now, finally, at the end of this romantic dance, blond meatface one and two are down for the count. Neither of them are exactly looking at each other because I think they’re both pretty embarrassed they just got their asses kicked by a girl. Two girls.

  I’d say this feels satisfying but, remember, I’m a pacifist.

  “You are Charlie’s Angels?”

  Uri smiles. Katerina is whisking him down the alley, and I am following along, looking back to make sure the meat stays on the pavement.

  It’s about two blocks till Katerina hails a taxi and throws us in.

  “Where do you never go?”

  This is for Uri.

  “What?”

  “Where is place that you never go?”

  “Church?”

  “Okay. We go to church.”

  20

  Saint Clement’s Church, if it were anywhere else on Earth, except possibly Rome, would be the landmark everybody in town would travel from near and far to see. But, because it’s in Moscow and everybody is obsessed with Saint Basil’s Cathedral on Red Square, it really doesn’t get the credit it deserves. I know you know Saint Basil’s—it’s the red one with all those colorful bobble towers on the top everybody always puts in movies to show you are in Moscow. Like the Empire State Building for New York. Or the Eiffel Tower for Paris. Saint Basil’s is the establishing shot for Moscow. Here. Now you are in Moscow. See? There’s that red church with all the bobbles in Red Square!

  But Saint Clement’s is nothing to sneeze at. Not that you go around sneezing at churches. What are you, a satanist?

  The entire thing is red, almost an orange red. With white pillars and domes everywhere. And blue onion domes, called cupolas. The blue is for Mary. And then in the middle, a cupola of gold, for God. It all hails from the Byzantine Russian Orthodox tradition, some say influenced by Persia. Which means it has the feeling of everybody just going up to it and putting more and more stuff on it until it is not only beautiful but kind of insane. And I love it. There’s something so happy about it. Happy yet elegant yet shocking.

  Right now, our little squad sits on a bench across the square facing out on Saint Clement’s. Uri, Katerina, and me. There’s a kind of post-roller-coaster-ride rush we are all feeling. Or have you ever gone bungee jumping? Afterward, you just laugh manically and feel like you have somehow cheated death. Yeah. That’s what we feel like now.

  I’m the first one to talk.

  “Um . . . does anybody know what just happened?”

  But Katerina changes the subject.

  “How you know how to fight like this, American Paige?”

  I shrug and try to laugh it off.

  “My mom. She was sort of paranoid and wanted me to be able to defend myself.”

  “Defend yourself from what, nuclear bomb?” Uri scoffs.

  Katerina keeps her eyes on me, not really buying it.

  “While we’re playing twenty questions, what’s with the gun?”

  “What you mean?” Katerina asks.

  “You know. The death stick you are holding in your hand.”

  She shrugs. “I have to defend myself.”

  “Seriously? Here, let me see it.”

  Katerina hands over her gun. It’s a Glock. The kind cops use. Totally unoriginal.

  “Oh, cool.”

  This is what I say before I walk down the steps and throw it into the storm drain.

  Down, down, down—plop. Never to be seen again.

  “What the fuck?!” Katerina cannot believe I just did that. I don’t blame her—I can’t believe I just did that.

  “Guns are for macho losers who don’t know how to fight. And you don’t need one. Clearly.”

  Uri and Katerina contemplate this. But I can tell they’re both a bit perplexed.

  “Back in the States, ninety people are killed by guns every DAY.”

  Katerina shrugs. Either because she fails to understand or cares not about the import of my most recent statement. Or, you know, she wasn’t that invested in said gun. Which is interesting. Those things are expensive. Maybe someone gave it to her . . . ? If it was your own property, you would be mightily pissed.

  “And, a follow-up question, if I may: when exactly were you going to tell me that you were Jackie Chan?”

  Katerina gives me that same knowing smile.

  “When you tell me you are, what is his name? Chuck Norris. I like to keep secrets. I find it best for surprise.”

  “Well, I find it best for surprise, too, but it makes me wonder. Maybe I should be asking you if you are a spy.”

  “For who? Putin?”

  Katerina actually spits on the sidewalk.

  “Your expectorance leads me to believe you are not a fan.”

  Katerina looks around her, the walls have ears.

  “Of course I am fan!” she says a little too loudly. “Why do you think I get calendar?”

  Okay, we are getting somewhere. Katerina is a superhot badass who really doesn’t like Putin but also carries a gun. Check.

  The church gleams in front of us, lit up against the Moscow sky. Uri gets a text.

  “Ah!” He texts back.

  “So does anybody want to tell me what just happened back there?”

  Uri looks up. “Yes, American Paige who throws guns in gutter without asking. I tell.”

  Katerina takes out a bottle of vodka from her pocket, in preparation.

  “Again with the vodka! Do they just issue those to you when you’re born?”

  Katerina smirks.

  “Okay, Paige.” Uri leans in, whispers, “My dad is important man. And . . . sometime important man have enemies. And sometime enemy want to be important man, too.”

  “Sounds totally on the up-and-up.”

  Uri cracks a smil
e. “Ha! Paige, you are not anymore in Kansas, no?”

  “I was never in Kansas.”

  “But, you see, they have to get me, too. Not just Dad. They have to get father and son. Both. You understand? Otherwise they cannot be important.”

  “So, you mean to tell me that my first week in Moscow I got stuck in the middle of a failed hostile takeover of Moscow’s biggest kingpin?”

  “Correct.”

  “Can I tweet that?”

  “No!” Katerina and Uri simultaneously and most emphatically declare.

  “Relax. I wasn’t going to.” The three of us sit there, on the bench, taking in the gilded beauty of the church.

  “Tell me, Uri. I’m serious. What is it like to be the son of an infamous bad guy?”

  “I don’t like. I want to be in America. Rap star.”

  Katerina and I share a look. Even she doesn’t have the heart to tell him his rap artist dreams may not be coming true.

  “What about you, Katerina? Is your dad a notorious kingpin, too?”

  “No, my dad is dead asshole who beat us.”

  Whoa.

  “I’m really sorry. I mean, that’s horrible.”

  “You want to know why I have black belt? There you go. Don’t worry. We do not have to talk about. We are Russian. We do not talk about feelings all the time and no one has shrink.”

  “I think you all have a shrink. And I think the shrink’s name is vodka.”

  This gets a smile out of both of them.

  Katerina turns to me.

  “What about you, American Paige? Do your parents live in a house in suburb with little white picket fence and fluffy dog?”

  “No. My parents got kidnapped in Syria and may at this moment be dead.”

  This lands with a thud.

  Silence.

  The three of us stare straight ahead. I can feel Katerina and Uri exchange a look. I think they really did assume I was some girl from the suburbs with Bieber posters all over my wall and a few American Girl dolls in my closet for sentimental value.

  Somehow saying this out loud, about my parents, makes everything worse. Maybe it is better to bury your feelings in a tsunami of booze. Before I know it, my eyes start to well up, as I look across and up toward heaven at the gold-and-blue spires with crosses on the top.

  Katerina and Uri, on each side of me, put their arms around me. I sit there for a second, sandwiched between my two Moscow hosts as a tear makes it down my face. We stay this way for a while.

  It’s not fake. Or forced. Or claustrophobic the way I usually feel when confronted with emotion.

  This is probably the most I’ve felt in a while. Maybe years.

  I better stop.

  Uri hands me the bottle and I scoff.

  “Crying over vodka. Am I Russian now?”

  “No. You are still lightweight,” Katerina says.

  Uri nudges me. “But don’t worry, Paige in book. Before long, we make you heavyweight.”

  21

  Congratulations!

  You’ve made it to Operation Make Raynes Fall in Love With Me, Part Two: Electric Boogaloo.

  For the record, I would like to admit that my stalking isn’t working very well. I’ve been back to Café Treplev about five times, and not one of those times has Sean Raynes appeared.

  If you’re wondering whether Madden is getting impatient with me, the answer is yes. If you’re wondering whether I sort of lost my red Beats headphones, the answer is also yes. I’ve lost them under my bed, on purpose.

  Look, is it my fault he seems to have gone sour on Café Treplev? No. It is not.

  I’ve actually been to about four different cafés in the general vicinity and, in every case, I’ve come up bust.

  Today I’m trying a new café, Hlavnaq, pronounced “Glavnaya,” which means home in Russian.

  And it does feel like home. If, when I was at home, I was casually stalking America’s number one enemy/patriot. There are mustard-colored sofas and a few plaid armchairs, table lamps. It’s not a bad place. Although you never know who sits in these armchairs. And for how long. Kind of like the Starbucks armchairs back home. When you think about who might have been sitting there, and what transmittable diseases they might have, that comfy-looking cushion just starts to strongly resemble a petri dish. Or a flea factory. Or a lice hotel.

  I’m on my third espresso, and I’d say my heart rate is somewhere between nervous fourth grader at a spelling bee and tooth-deprived Mississippi meth-head.

  This café is a bust.

  Which, actually? I am surprised. I had convinced myself that there was some outside force guiding me to this place. You know, like my feet were just kind of leading, and here it was, and somehow this was all going to manifest itself into success. Like, the Force was with me. But I guess my Jedi training is incomplete. All I’ve managed to manifest is a slight hungover ache compliments of Katerina’s never-ending vodka march of death.

  Speaking of hangovers. Everybody knows that the only real cure is a grilled cheese, french fries, and a Coke.

  Don’t judge me. These are desperate circumstances. I am hungover in a foreign land on a failed fact-finding mission. I need comfort food, and you and I both know we passed a diner on the way over here.

  Okay. Frendy’s American Diner it is!

  Just setting foot in this place I feel a sense of relief. I truly hate to be this blatantly American, but I guess I am, on a kind of molecular level.

  There’s black-and-white checkered floors, booths, a jukebox, records hung on the ceiling. Someone has decided to play Elvis. Fine with me.

  Love me tender, love me true, all my dreams fulfilled . . .

  I am pretty sure Elvis was not talking about his dreams being fulfilled by french fries and a Coke, but you never know. We are talking about Elvis here.

  I sit at one of the booths and order a grilled cheese, french fries, a Coke, a root beer float, and apple pie.

  And, yes, the waiter does give me a look.

  She’s an older waitress in a red apron kind of thing and a white-and-red hat. The whole thing is very kitschy. I would compliment her on it, but she doesn’t really seem to like me.

  (No one in Russia ever seems to like you. It’s how they do.)

  “I’m ordering for two,” I say, clutching my belly. But she doesn’t get the joke. It doesn’t really translate.

  There are little mini jukeboxes at every table, and I catch my reflection, briefly, before looking away.

  I am an impostor. A sham. It’s pretty clear that I was really not the person to do this job. I mean, someone like Katerina? Definitely. But me? Weird, socially awkward, never-met-a-tangent-she-didn’t-follow me? I honestly think Madden overestimated me. They all did.

  It’s okay. Root beer float, you understand me.

  I disappear into an American-comfort-food vortex, where all my thoughts and worries and fears are turned into a magical smorgasbord of grease. Then I pay the bill. I am getting up to leave, feeling sorry for myself. I am pretty sure my waitress is feeling sorry for me, too.

  I can practically hear her thoughts:

  Poor American girl. So fat, ignorant, and alone.

  I’m just about to shuffle out of there in a fit of shame when it happens.

  There. Walking in and taking a seat at the bar.

  There.

  All alone.

  Sean Raynes.

  22

  Ho. LEE. Crap.

  I see Sean Raynes in the moment when I am halfway out the door, but, when I see him, my left leg stops and tries to turn around. But my right leg is stubbornly continuing forward. So basically half of me is leaving and half of me is turned sideways, perpendicular to myself. And I’m frozen.

  If you are wondering if I look cool in this moment, the answer is a most definite no. In all honesty, I kind of look mentally deranged or like a first grader who is struck by a sudden and intense urge to pee. The waitress looks at me frozen in spazdom and raises an eyebrow.

  But Sean Rayne
s does not—thank you, Jesus.

  Instead, Sean Raynes sits at the counter, picks up a menu, and orders french fries.

  Ladies and gentlemen, America’s most notorious hero/traitor is eating french fries.

  See, it’s not just me. You really can’t be out of the States too long before you start missing what normally you would consider lame, plebeian, and ordinary. No matter how erudite you consider yourself to be.

  I can see bodyguard and possible Dark Lord, Oleg, out the window keeping watch. I guess Raynes must have wanted some space.

  The question is . . . what the hell do I do now?

  If I leave, then there’s absolutely no point to this random, fortuitous encounter, which I can only consider a gift from the gods. If I stay, when I was clearly out the door, I might look like a stalker or even blow my cover.

  I know! I’ll go to the ladies’ room.

  See, that is what is called taking lemons and making lemonade. It looks like I have to pee, so now I am using that to my advantage. I am brilliant!

  I make a beeline for the bathroom before he can see me. Again, the waitress gives me a look. Wow. She is so not into me.

  The bathroom in here is red, white, and blue. So much ’murica! I take this opportunity to make myself look vaguely presentable after my food bender.

  If I let my hair down, pinch my cheeks, and put on natural-blush-shade Burt’s Bees chapstick, which is all I have, I don’t look entirely horrible.

  And I am talking to myself.

  “Think, Paige, think. C’mon. What do I say? What do I do? How do I not make it obvious?”

  I have a really cool plan to saunter back in and say something extremely pithy about kitsch, which is exactly what I do in my imagination. But what happens in reality is . . . as I pass by Raynes I slip on what I can only imagine is a discarded french fry on the black-and-white checkered floor and actually trip.

  Into Sean Raynes.

  You see, I am supercool. It’s really hard to be this suave, so don’t be intimidated.

  Once again, the waitress is sizing me up. Is she smirking? I get the feeling she’s going to go home tonight and tell her boyfriend about me: There was weird girl at place today. Almost like circus freak.

  You’ve really never lived until you’ve slipped on a french fry and plowed into an enemy of the state. I do it all the time. Really.