Effortless

by Marina Raydun

  The purr of my phone peeled me off of the door where I’d been standing for a period of time unmarked by any clock after Veronika left. I answered it without looking to see who it was, anxious to put someone else’s words on top of the ones that continued to ring in my head, thanks to Veronika. That bitter aftertaste needed to be chased with something different, even if it wouldn’t be particularly better, or sweet.

  “Helen of London!” Jessica greeted when I croaked a hello.

  “Hey, Jess,” I sighed, collapsing onto my bed.

  “So, screwed your Turk yet?” she inquired, almost academically. “Because you sure sound exhausted!”

  “Portuguese-Turk, as I know you have reported to Javier, only God knows why,” I corrected.

  “Well, excuse me—”

  “And, yes,” I spat out as I closed my eyes against the clinical white of the ceiling above me.

  “Oh.”

  It was a breathless “oh.” Like she wasn’t sure if she should cheer or reprimand.

  “He isn’t married. Not anymore, anyway. He just wears a ring to keep teenage girls at bay,” I clarified to help her make a decision.

  “Considerate of him,” Jess scoffed without missing a beat.

  She could have it.

  “Right….”

  “Well, I don’t care one way or the other. Was it good? Did you have a good time? That’s all that matters! Well, that and the fact that you had yourself a chaser,” Jess remarked, unnervingly evenly.

  “A chaser?” I asked as I reluctantly opened my eyes and sat up.

  “Yeah. Now you won’t have to walk around for a year knowing that George was the last man—”

  “Eww,” I shrieked.

  It felt wrong to feel my thighs grow heavy at the mere memory of Jamie’s face swaying over mine when I now knew that a student was assaulted down the hall (or at least at the same hotel—I couldn’t remember what room Sophie was in).

  “What? It’s true!” she laughed her infectious laughter. It never seemed to come from anywhere but her belly. I imagined her rubbing it now, her baby growing as if yeast were involved in the process. “We all need a good chaser after a breakup. Helps with closure and whatnot. Though, if we’re being honest, I feel pretty damn bad for Javier.”

  “Is that why you decided to help him along and tell him about Jamie sharing a room with me?”

  “Facts, my less attractive friend. They are called ‘facts,’” she groaned in defense. “You used them both in an alarmingly similar fashion, after all, so I deemed it only fair.”

  Having resumed trying to zip up my overflowing suitcase, realizing too late that I never really folded anything, I rolled my eyes.

  “Used?”

  “Now Helen, don’t get all worked up, but you must see there is a pattern!”

  “A pattern?”

  “A pattern, indeed! You can’t be alone, ever! You need your hand held to help you appear independent and in control…does that make sense? Well, it’s irrelevant even if it doesn’t, because it’s true, whether you choose to acknowledge it or not,” she continued to giggle gingerly, in entirely too good a mood all of a sudden.

  “So, how is it the same with Javier and Jamie?”

  “Besides the fact that their names both start with a ‘J,’ at least in English?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “You really don’t see any similarities? For a history teacher, you are slow to see how history tends to repeat itself, I see, so I’m not going to solve this for you—you have to figure this one out all by yourself. May do you some good.”

  This summation came out too smoothly, almost rehearsed. She must’ve put some thought into this, I realized. I tried not to breathe too hard as, still seated, I heaved my suitcase off the bed and onto the floor.

  “Well, you’re in awfully good spirits,” I sighed a sigh that was resolute in its purpose, which was to help me let this pregnant woman off the hook, just this once; we could pick this up within weeks, when I wouldn’t have to worry about sending her into early labor. I did my best to ignore the fact that my ears were burning and that my heart was already busy throwing itself against my ribcage with every pump of blood. She couldn’t be serious anyway, I hoped.

  Jessica said nothing, but I heard the hydraulics of her chair. She was obviously at work. It was still the middle of the night in New York, but she did like those nightshifts (they allowed her to pick up her children after school).

  “Look, I’m sorry, I know these calls are expensive, but I just had to tell you that Max is back. He came to my sonogram, saw our princess in 3D…. Anyway, I shouldn’t have told you anything in the first place. That was…what? Like, hasty, you’d say? I was just mad at him then, and I don’t want you to think poorly of him now.”

  My pulse propelled me into an upright position, my socks slipping on something on the floor—my stupid yellow underwear. Before I could pick it up to throw into the makeshift laundry bag that was really my entire suitcase, I realized that this was the parting image of London that I must’ve sloppily imparted on my star pupil earlier.

  “He’s been cheating on you, Jess,” I began, treading carefully. “While you’re pregnant….”

  A sigh.

  “This is what I mean—I shouldn’t have told you. But I forgive him. Everybody makes mistakes. It was like a momentary lapse of judgment or whatever you call it. He promised it will never happen again—”

  I’ve been here before.

  “And you believe him?” I shrieked, louder than I meant to. My suitcase closed for good this time, I took to the drawers to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything (even though I didn’t remember ever really unpacking).

  “Helen, what choice do I have? Not all of us have the luxury of living as we damn well please, let alone encourage a whole younger generation to do the same for a living. Some of us have children, responsibilities…. Jesus, why can’t you just let me be happy?”

  I was grateful for the knock on my door before I could be expected to contest this.

  “Look, umm, I have to go.”

  “Fine, whatever, go! You’re so important, always on the run,” she ridiculed. “I beat you at Words with Friends, by the way,” she added before the line went dead.

  It was a relief to see Jamie at my threshold, his socked feet hesitant on the carpet.

  “I believe you still have my shoes,” he explained with a smile too endearing not to prompt one to appear on my face, too. In an act of sheer hopelessness, I latched on to his narrow chest, squeezing his ribs too tight. Surely we were too new for this level of intimacy, this level of open desperation. I didn’t even care to check if anyone could see us.

  It took a few fractions of a second for his flowered arm to respond—to descend on me; when it did, it enveloped me (along with its bare counterpart), promising safety inside.

  “The bus is downstairs,” I felt his lips report into my scalp. “Abbott just called me from the lobby.”

  “Great,” I groaned, hoping my sarcasm wasn’t too muffled by his t-shirt.

  “No idea where I’m going after we land, though,” Jamie muttered as he walked me backward inside my room.

  “Neither do I!” I exclaimed, pulling away from him with a tap on his chest. “Well, I do, but I don’t want to go there.”

  “Where is that again? Your fiancé’s?” he asked under his breath as he bent down to put on his shoes.

  “Oh God, no,” I laughed, my voice cracking in spite of myself. “No, I’m going to my parents’ for a while.”

  I felt my stomach burn. Watching Jamie sit on my bed, lacing up his shoes, his hair loose and swaying, I grew dizzy.

  “Well, my folks are quite a plane ride away from New York now, so that’s not an option for me. And living in Florida is not something I’m eager to do. A buddy of mine is keeping my shit for me, but I have to find my own place, fast. I was thinking to start looking as early as tomorrow. Want to join me?” He said all this without looking up from the floor.

/>   I coughed in surprise, my chest abuzz.

  “I’m sorry, do you want me to come look with you or are you asking if I want to room with you?”

  Slowly, Jamie stood up to full height, towering over me. He tucked his hair behind his ears before taking my fingers in his hands to give them a squeeze. To do so, of course, he had to remove them from my face, where they were trying to discreetly pick at my chin.

  “One day at a time,” he said with that winning smile.

  Chapter Thirty-Four: Spanish

  Foreheads pressed against the sweating glass of the bus windows greeted us when we boarded. The levity with which we waddled the long way to JFK only ten days prior was long gone. My cold, on the other hand, as it seemed, was insisting on returning home with me. In addition to that, I was coming back richer by way of anxieties. I, too, would succumb to the tempting slouch if it weren’t for the prospect of going apartment hunting with Jamie as early as the next morning.

  “Spring chicken! About damn time! Lost all track of time there, did we?” Abbott welcomed with a wink, a peppermint cloud emanating from his outstretched lips. It numbed me with its chill. I looked for Nicole, but just as suddenly as she had come into our lives back at the Louvre, she was gone. For all I knew, there was a new group of Americans she was due to greet at some airport.

  I forced the stingiest of smiles onto my tired face, ignoring my phone’s insistent buzzing. Looking back, I can safely say that never had it ever worked as hard as it did that day.

  “We need to talk,” I whispered to Abbott, barely hearing myself against the rumble of the bus’s engine. I didn’t see her, but I felt Veronika’s eyes on me.

  “Of course we do, sweet Levit!” he nodded eagerly, his voice well projected, unlike mine. “You want to come get your stuff tomorrow? With the wonder of jetlag, I’m sure we’ll be up at like five in the morning, anyway. I’ll have to take Stephanie home in the evening, but the afternoon is all yours—I’ll help you lug your boxes wherever you need them to go. Unless you want to stay, that is.”

  Jamie’s fingers touched the small of my back just in time to save me from having to mutely croak, unable to produce more than syllables on the spot. A generous handful of my students stared up at me curiously, their eyes at once less sleepy.

  “I think we can arrange something when we’re back on American soil,” Jamie answered for me. The words flew out of his mouth decisively; they were flawlessly formed and articulated, all sounds complete, much like the time I heard him sing back in Paris.

  I’d told Jamie fractions of what I, myself, knew about Abbott, which, to be honest, still wasn’t much: an accusation by an eighteen going on thirty-eight year-old girl (known by everyone to be one hell of an actress), retold by an empathetic girl, and potentially projected onto another set of fragile shoulders. Was I really ready to end a man’s career without any sort of corroboration? What was to stop any disgruntled student from accusing any of us of impropriety in the face of a bad grade, after all? Some of us learned to play dirty early; some of us had to.

  “Hey, Sophie,” I called without moving past Abbott. “Are you excited about going back home? Done with your homework, like I’m sure Veronika is? Any French homework for Mr. Abbott, by the way?” I asked, speaking rapidly, ignoring my speeding heart as I leaned into a left turn, oblivious as to when the bus actually began moving. “What grade do you think you’re going for?”

  Necks turned as Sophie “ummed” helplessly, her hazel eyes batting at me as if not fully comprehending the betrayal.

  “Probably a seventy-five. But Paz has been tutoring me, so now I’m shooting for an eighty-five. At least.”

  A lump of saliva went down my throat less than willingly, my esophagus constricting around it as if I were trying to swallow rocks.

  Jamie’s nails scratched my back—that narrow sliver of skin peeking out between my pants and where my hoodie rode up with the weight of my bag on my shoulder.

  Veronika sucked on her teeth.

  “What about you, Veronika?” Jamie asked, quietly.

  “What about me, Mr. Sola?” she shot back, her eyes likely angrier than mine. “I’m taking Spanish.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five: Effort

  The Heathrow’s shops put JFK’s to shame.

  Having promised to keep an eye on everyone’s belongings, I sat on the floor, curled my back into a stretch, and watched as everyone filled their shopping baskets with Cadbury chocolates and duty-free cosmetics as if they hadn’t just spent a solid forty percent of their vacation shopping as it was. I heard Sage giggle as she stomped into a pair of leather boots, I saw Andrew smile as he tried on a watch. Cold and achy, my fever most likely back, I tried not to groan out loud.

  Jamie’s face, seemingly eternally half engulfed by shadow, regardless of whether or not he’d shaved any particular morning, stood out among the blander looking assortment of passengers at the Starbuck’s counter directly in front of me. Looking at his profile, I couldn’t help but smile again, guilty as it made me feel, remembering that tongue on me. I shuddered, hoping there were no mind readers around who could see what I was busy picturing. A middle-aged woman sitting across from me on a bench arched a curious brow; I nodded in acknowledgment, hoping she wasn’t boarding our flight.

  Trying to pay the nosy woman no mind, I attempted to focus on the logistics of looking for an apartment together with Jamie while living with my parents. I’d still go to New Jersey, as planned, of course…. Well, probably. Maybe he could come with me? And then, the next day, we would start our search. Though, we’d have to go and get my boxes from Abbott’s place on Staten Island….

  With a cleansing sigh, I took out my phone. Doing my best to avoid looking at the number of missed calls and messages, keeping life at arm’s length, I went straight to my Words with Friends, instead. What waited for me across the ocean needed to stay at bay just a little longer. For as long as possible, really.

  Javier beat me again (by 159 points). I was used to this by now, barely putting up any real fight anymore: I was cheating half-assedly and I’d always sucked at strategy. Maybe beating me at this game enough times would make him like me a little less. Maybe it’d restore some dignity. It was really an act of charity—to lose.

  I started a new game, “efforts” being my first word. It wasn’t a smart move; a strategist would’ve saved that “e” and that “s” for later.

  Jessica also beat me, just as she’d reported earlier. Only 36 points between us. I started a new game there, too, playing the word “chase,” surely wasting an “a,” an “s,” and an “e” too early.

  In need of another distraction, I refreshed the screen. Though nothing happened, I repeated the fruitless action over and over, hoping for a swift play from anyone at all, aching to busy my mind and fingers, if only for minutes at a time.

  The hum of conversations around me had a hypnotizing effect. I could feel my body almost begin to sway as my thumb restlessly pulled the screen down again and again. When my mom’s reluctantly posed photo suddenly materialized in my hands, I immediately swiped to answer.

  “I’ve been calling you for hours. And your brother, too. And George’s mother. Even Alla! Everyone has been trying to get ahold of you! Why haven’t you picked up all this time? Honestly, what’s the point of having a cell phone if you never answer it?!”

  That may very well have been the first time my mother had ever started a conversation with me in English. It was unnatural. Her delivery, though her vocabulary appropriate and her sentence structure proper, sounded full of unnecessary labor.

  “Mom, these are expensive—”

  “George has been in ICU for hours. He did it—he finally tried to kill himself.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Marina Raydun’s published works of fiction include a compilation of novellas One Year in Berlin/Foreign Bride, as well as a suspense novel entitled Joe After Maya. Born in the former Soviet Union, Marina grew up in Brooklyn, NY. She holds a J.D. from New York Law Schoo
l and a B.A. in history from Pace University.

  Table of Contents

  New York

  Paris

  London