I'm sitting at the dinner table in my aunt Anna's big house in Staten Island, all executed in Versace style. I never really understood that weird Russian immigrants' obsession with brands, but it is what it is. After my tiny Brighton apartment that would all fit in one of my aunt's bathrooms, it seemed very chic and upscale.
- Well, we are planning to open this night club in a month or so, so it would be perfect for you and your friend to work there. What do you say?
- That would be great of course!
- And Ari would look after you two, right, Ari?
Ari winks at me and says:
- Oh I will look after my little baby sister all right.
I'm getting a text that says "I want to take you to California Hotel". It's from Ari of course. Aunt Anna feeds us with all kinds of Russian food and homemade salads that I missed already.
- Don't even worry about a thing, honey. You are in our family now and we'll take very good care of you.
We all drink tea at the huge living room and watch Russian television. When my aunt doesn’t see it, Ari touches my hip and moves his hand under my skirt. He drives me crazy just sitting next to me. At the same time I know it’s wrong and my mom would have killed me, but it feels too right at the moment and my primary instincts take over my mind like it will happen several times again in the future.
Julie texts me: “Are you coming home tonite?” It’s already late but I’m too shy to ask if I’m staying overnight.
- Ari, why don’t you take Tonya for a walk?
Tonya is a huge black Italian mastiff with quite an unstable attitude towards almost everybody as I found out later.
- Ok, mom. Get dressed, we’re going for a walk, puppy, - he winks at me again and all I can think about is to stay with him one on one.
It’s a pitch black night and we are walking towards a big park right next to their house. No lights at the point where we climb over a little fence.
- Aren’t we supposed to stay outside? I thought they close it for a night.
- They do, of course. But that’s always the coolest part, when you break the rules, don’t you think?
- I guess…
I can’t even see Ari, all I hear is the chain rattling as he unleashes Tonya and she runs free.
- Aren’t you afraid she’ll run away?
- Girls don’t run away from me.
He pulls me close and kisses me. I thought I would die of happiness. All I thought at that moment is how lucky I was to find my estranged family in the face of the hottest boy in New York. And that boy wants me! Me, unsecure, shy girl with a bunch of daddy issues and guesses why I couldn’t find a man who would love me the way I deserved. And this handsome American boy now wants me to be with him! And that’s when I fell in love with him, crazy, deeply and unconditionally.
We come back home and Ari tells my aunt that I’ll be sleeping in his bedroom tonight as I’m afraid to sleep alone in a big new house. She agrees of course. He closes the door, goes to the closet and picks out one of his T-shirts.
- It gets chilly at night when the air conditioner kicks in.
I nod, take the T-shirt and go to the bathroom to wash my face and use the mouthwash. I stare at myself in the mirror for a second and think: “Ok, what do I do now? What do I do?” But my panic attack disappears as soon as I smell his perfume on the T-shirt I’m putting on. All I know is that I’m open to the bright, happy future with the boy I’m in love with. And I open the door to his bedroom.
Chapter 3
Several days later we went to the club that Ari and my aunt Anna were talking about. I went with Julie since Ari had “some stuff to take care of” and promised to meet us there. Ari was very excited about the whole club thing since it was his first business project after he graduated from college. His father’s business projects with heroin trafficking from Europe to New York made him go away for a little four year vacation somewhere in Colorado and while he was learning his mistakes in prison, Ari was supposed to take care of the family.
- You’ll see how much money we’re going to make there, babe! Doctor Weinstein knows everything about the club business and he’s going to teach me everything! He’ll be the big boss and I’ll be the manager. And you’ll be a cocktail waitress, so we’ll be seeing each other every day here…and every night at home, if you are a good girl, - he winks at me and I melt with a stupid smile on my face.
Julie and I sit on the second floor of a three floor club under renovation and wait for the other members of staff to show up. Dr. Weinstein, a very sneaky looking fifty-something-year-old Jewish man, finds us looking at the new bar.
- Are you girls pole dancers? – his first question leaves us speechless for some time.
- No! – I’m genuinely offended. – We’re cocktail waitresses, we are friends of Ari’s.
- Oh I’m sorry, - he smiles at us and shakes our hands. – You are very beautiful girls and I got confused.
Julie gives me one of her “where-the-hell-did-you-bring-me” looks and purses her lips. “Oh, whatever!”- I think and roll my eyes. At this point when we are almost out of money for food, I wouldn’t be so picky. Yes, I am pissed too for being called a pole dancer, but for God’s sake, stop being such a nun and be grateful that I’m trying to get us a job.
Dr. Weinstein gathers all the staff members around him and explains us the whole deal. They are planning to open in two weeks and we all should be ready by then. He discusses some questions concerning the bar with the future bartender, who reminds me much of Nicole Sherzinger; discusses the bartender license with quite gay looking Michael, the second bartender, and then explains our responsibilities to me, Julie and the other girl.
- The day before the opening you all have to come here again and we’ll have the final meeting. And I’ll bring you, girls, your uniform.
- What’s the uniform? – Julie tenses up.
- The uniform is going to be a corset and a mini-skirt. We have to show some skin to sell the drinks, and to get good tips, right? – he winks at us. Julie looks grumpier and grumpier. – And high heels, of course. You have to look like supermodels.
_______________
- I’m not gonna wear a corset! Are you serious right now? I didn’t come to this country to walk around looking like a whore!
We are sitting at the Starbacks not far from the club and drinking coffee that is too expensive for us at this point.
- Listen, I didn’t come to this country to walk around looking like a whore either! But we need a job to pay the bills, our rent is coming up, what are we supposed to do? Sleep on the street?
- My parents will send me money, but they will never allow me to work in such a place wearing such an outfit!
- Well, my mom and my grandma won’t be too happy about me working in the night club either, but all I know is that we have to somehow survive and take care of ourselves.
- If you want to do it, you do it, Mila. I’ll find something else.
That’s how our first big fight in seven years ended, leaving me frustrated and pissed big time at Julie, who didn’t seem to understand that we are on our own now and we can no longer afford the principles and pride we had back in Russia.
“Shall we wait for you here? What time are you coming? I really have to talk to someone.” – I’m texting Ari.
“Don’t wait for me, I have to go to the gym and then take care of some of mom’s appointments, have to show couple of apartments to some douchebags lol”.
Great. Looks like I’m not going to Staten Island today. After those several times when they were taking me home and I had warm homemade food, TV and doggie walks in the park, coming back to my tiny dirty apartment with the only window facing the brick wall made me feel like a dog myself, a dog that was dumped by the side of the road, in the rain, with no place to go. Sad little girl with the severe case of the separation anxiety inside of me reminds me that she’s never been gone for too long. Maybe hiding in the furthest corner of my mind, kept there by a bunch of antid
epressants I was taking when the feeling of greyish emptiness inside became too dominant over all other feelings.
The sound of sirens outside brought me back to reality and surprisingly sunny and bright New York pushed all the dark clouds out of my sight and once again reminded me that even if I fall seven times, I’ll have to get up eight. I finish my coffee and look at Julie “the Grumpy Cat”.
- Let’s go.
In the subway I put my headphones on and play my then favorite song, “New York” by Jay Z. “And since I made it here, I can make it anywhere”, - I repeat these words like a mantra and the feeling that I will make it too starts spreading through my whole body and I smile at the goose bumps on my arms. My battle has only began, I don’t know where it’s going to take me, but for the first time I got the meaning of the tattoo I got a year prior to coming to the States, a roaring lion on my back. I am a fighter, I am a roaring lion and I will die but I won’t give up. My battle has only began.
_______________
While my aunt Anna left to Miami to resolve some issues with her tenants and Ari had to take care of her real estate agent duties here in New York and I didn’t really see him for two weeks, Julie and I started to explore our neighborhood little by little. For the first time we took a walk from Brighton Beach to Sheepshead Bay, and since we didn’t really know where to go, we just followed the train tracks on top. When we finally reached Sheepshead Bay Rd, we rewarded ourselves with nice and cold Dunkin Coffee. The bad news was that I got a message from Nicole Sherzinger look-alike bartender, who informed us that the opening of the club is delaying for a couple more weeks because of some unfinished construction works and delivery issues. Great. Just what I wanted to hear! We had to pay another month rent and the school tuition leave alone the food expenses. This job was our only chance and we just lost it. I felt crashed for a minute but then decided to put myself together and try to find the way out of this situation.
- Rustam was talking about some bar where waitresses wear bikinis as a uniform… - I knew that Julie would go nuts as soon as she would hear it, so I was just mostly thinking aloud.
- Don’t even go there! I’m not even considering this as an option! I’ll better go back to Russia and stay there, but I’m not serving nobody wearing bikinis!
Of course she went ballistic.
- Julie, going back to Russia is not an option too! This way we are just going to give up on our dream, on what we always wanted to accomplish, and you are just going to give up on that?
- I don’t want to leave New York either, but we don’t have any more money! We have no choice!
The only thought of going back to Moscow started to give me depression I always had there. Shitty government that doesn’t care about its people, corruption, complete disorder in all spheres of life… And what am I going to be there? A university professor with a two hundred dollars salary? I’d better off be back selling fur coats just like I used to while still being a student. At least I was making good money and was an official model for that store. And then the fall will come and I’ll be taking antidepressants for six months, trying to put myself into the state of a zombie, who walks, talks and does things, but whose brain is dead, or in my case, drugged out so it doesn’t feel the everyday pain from waking up and seeing the same scenario behind the window, the same life day by day, grey, empty, with no reason to be lived.
- I’m not going back there, - at that point I realized for the first time that despite the gravity of any situation there will be no turning back. – We’ll have to ask our parents for money, just for the next month, just to pay the rent and tuition, for a couple more weeks, until the club is open. Then we’ll give it all back to them.
_______________
Little did I know that Dr. Weinstein was never going to open the club with Ari and took his money leaving him out just like us. With no documents and no work permission, we soon found ourselves in a tiny dirty room in Bensonhurst, rented to us by a Chinese man with a teenage son, both barely speaking English. Our neighbors from across the hall were so nice that they gave us a mattress to sleep on and let us use their bathroom since we didn’t have our own. At that point I realized that we really hit the rock bottom and the option of borrowing more money from our parents didn’t seem good either. They didn’t have anything more to give since my mom already borrowed money from my Godmother to help me out. I had one last option I could try and since I had nothing to lose, I decided to call my father.
My father. The source of my insecurities and all the roaches in my head. The man who was supposed to protect me but who broke me instead. Father is the first daughter’s love they say, but in my case it turned out to be the biggest disappointment of my life. The man who would hurt me more every time after I would forgive him. No, there was no physical abuse towards me or my mother, but he would hurt us with his actions way worse than that. He promised and he never did. He was absent when he was needed the most. He didn’t care when I was in trouble. He wouldn’t celebrate with me when I accomplished something. He liked it the best when he wasn’t bothered and when he was just left alone in his apartment, the further from me the better. All my life I was trying so hard to make him proud, to make him love me, but he would never acknowledge any of my achievements. Neither my high school diploma or my bachelor’s degree, nor my driver’s license or my new job. He simply didn’t care. I was trying so hard to keep faith that he loves me, but he’s just so busy working that he doesn’t have time for me…until I finally gave up on him sometime in the last course of my university and admitted the bitter fact that he simply didn’t love me. And after twenty years of my unconditional and hopeless daughter’s love, I stopped loving him too. I crossed him out of my life and decided to move on, hoping that one day I will meet the man who will make me feel loved like I deserve it. And to that man I will give all my heart and soul.
Standing by the payphone somewhere in the New Utrecht area in Bensonhurst, I felt quite uneasy. Julie was by my side, trying to support me, but I already felt that familiar twisting in the stomach that appeared every time I was thinking of my father. I already knew that he wouldn’t help me and I didn’t want to humiliate myself begging for his money, even though he had more than enough to help me out, but I just knew that he wouldn’t even want to bother. I took a deep breath and dialed his number.
- Hi, Dad, - it was weird to hear his voice after not talking to him for so long. He knew that I was going to America for good and he never came to my little family “goodbye” party we had before I left. I wasn’t surprised.
- Dad, I need your help here. Julie and I have some financial problems, we live in a real shithole with some Chinese people, we sleep on a mattress on the floor and can only afford food from the dollar menu from McDonalds. We have no money to pay for our school and they can cancel our visas and send us back to Russia.
- Did you speak to your mother? Why doesn’t she do anything?
I’m starting to feel the anger growing inside. It’s so him, always trying to get out of solving a problem by accusing the others and telling stories about his own nonexistent troubles.
- Dad, she already paid for my whole trip here, for the plane tickets, for my rent, for my school and food. She already borrowed the money from my Godmother to help us with the rent and school for this month, but we have to pay for the next month soon and if we don’t, we’ll have to sleep in the street. We’ll be homeless. We don’t ask for much, several hundred dollars would really help right now…we are trying to find a job and as soon as we do I’ll pay it all back to you, I promise.
- Honey, I would love to help you, but I just finished the renovation in the apartment and I also had to buy a new computer for work, so it just sucked all the money out of me.
I expected him to say something like that.
- Ok, dad. Could you borrow it from somebody or take a bank loan? It’s a really bad situation right now and I just want you to understand the whole gravity of it. I’m alone in the completely different
country and I can become homeless soon. I’m not talking about food, we almost don’t eat anything at this point.
- I’m sorry, honey, I can’t take any bank loans, first of all I don’t want them to have all my information and second, they are giving such crazy fees. Why won’t your mother take a bank loan?
- She already did to send me here and pay for my school. Never mind, dad, don’t bother. And don’t worry, I won’t call you anymore. Goodbye.
I hung up and the familiar feeling of disappointment filled me up again. But it felt good at the same time. I finally said my last goodbye to him and knowing that he will never hurt me again was liberating. The last hope that someone will come to my rescue just vanished, replaced by the bitter-sweet, almost physical sensation of freedom spreading throughout my whole body. I felt cold on a hot June day; that was it, I was on my own now. And it was time to do something.
Julie was hungry and we went to some cheap Mexican pizzeria nearby. She got a dollar pizza slice, I didn’t get anything. I got used to not eating since my teenage eating disorder years, so hunger doesn’t really bother me. I even like being hungry, I like how a little bit suicidal it is. But unlike then, back in Russia, it felt different this time. I knew that I just had to suffer through it and when Ari comes back from Russia where he went trying to set up some business contacts, everything will settle down.
While Julie is eating, I’m thinking of possible ways to get money.
- Rustam had a friend named Martin, right? – I ask Julie.
- Yes, I think so. Why?
- He was saying something about Martin’s new business he was going to open.
- Yes, I remember something like that. But what do we have to do with that?
- Maybe he needs a secretary, or a cleaning lady, you never know. Let’s just call him.
We got really lucky. Rustam’s friend Martin was opening a little law firm specializing in foreclosures and mortgage settlements. And lucky for us, he needed assistants who would be calling up potential customers, telling them about our services and inviting them to the office to handle them over to the lawyers who would deal with their situations. And we would get a percentage from each case, plus a salary every week. I started seeing the light at the end of the tunnel after all.
The New York Doll Page 2