Beautiful Bad

by Annie Ward

  I was shocked to see Joanna ignore Ian’s obviously miserable disposition and wrap her arms around him in a very playful hug. His darkness seemed to lift, and he gave her a kiss on the crown of her shiny brown hair.

  I walked to the bar and ordered a shot of vodka.

  “Oh let me get that for you,” Ian said pleasantly over my shoulder. It was another thing Joanna had told me she liked about the British bodyguards. They would not let you buy your own drinks. Such gentlemen.

  “I’m fine, thanks,” I answered, seeing again that image of him lowering those perfect lips to her hair. Our conversation played again in my head: What did you do today? Nothing really. Must be nice.

  After a few rounds and several orders of a mayonnaise-laden Eastern European version of loaded potato skins, Joanna said, “Oh look! Eddie’s here.”

  “Who’s Eddie?” Ian asked, looking sideways.

  “He’s my Albanian connection for pillowcases and sanitary napkins. I’ll be right back.” She blew us a little kiss as she grabbed her wine and scurried into the back, yelling, “Eddieeee!”

  “She knows bloody everyone, doesn’t she?” Ian asked, his eyes following her as she hugged a swarthy man at the far end of the bar.

  “It’s called networking.”

  Ian looked at me and asked, point-blank, “Are they just friends, do you think?”

  “None of your business! For God’s sake!”

  He appeared to disapprove of my answer. He looked down at his phone and began to text. This didn’t stop him from continuing to talk. “She’s buying stuff off the black market and she’s offering bribes to police officers. Doesn’t that sound dangerous to you?”

  “She’s taking care of refugees who have nothing.”

  “Okay. So I’m the only one concerned for her.” He gave me a very frank and challenging look.

  “I’m her best friend,” I said. “I think she’s fine.”

  “Forget it,” he said, treating me to one last dismissive frown.

  The other bodyguards had dispersed around the pub, and I was left alone with Ian, who from then on ignored me and texted at manic speed under the table. I, in turn, treated him to my own extreme nonchalance. Until ten minutes later when his fingers were still flying and I could no longer help myself.

  I cleared my throat. “Are you texting someone instructions on how to dismantle a ticking bomb?” I asked.

  “No,” he answered immediately, as if I’d asked a perfectly reasonable question. “That was yesterday.” Then he broke into a grin.

  He went back to his phone. “Bollocks,” he said, shaking his head and finally slipping it away into his pocket. He glanced over at Joanna, who was now doing shots with a group of men dressed mainly in leather. After a moment he turned to me and looked me squarely in the eyes for what seemed like a long time. I looked back.

  Eventually he broke the silence by saying politely, “I don’t believe I know where you’re from.”

  “The United States. Kansas.”

  “Kansas?” he repeated loudly. He looked taken aback, as if I had just told him my daddy was also my grandfather and that I had been raised in a giant prairie dog den.

  “Yes. Kansas.”

  “Isn’t that the place with the tornadoes and the wicked witch?”

  “The Wizard of Oz.”

  “That’s it! And the pretty girl. With the little white socks and the braids?”

  “Dorothy.”

  “You and Joanna always wear those trousers and clunky boots. I’m not saying it’s bad. Not at all. But you’d look awfully nice in a smart little dress like Dorothy’s.”

  Not sure how to respond, I started walking away toward Jo, who seemed to be having a much better time with the Albanian black market sanitary napkin king in the back.

  “Wait!” he called after me. “I’m sorry! Look, I saw The Wizard of Oz when I was, like, seven, so it was completely age appropriate for me to have had a crush on Dorothy. And you certainly don’t need a blue dress or little socks.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Maybe just the braids.”

  I stopped and turned back, gaping at him. He was giggling and smiling that lopsided smile. There was something about him. The dimple. The wink. “Sit back down,” he said, patting the seat I had just vacated. “I’m going to buy you a nice big glass of that awful Macedonian wine you like, and you’re going to tell me a little bit about where you’re from. This Wizard of Oz place. Okay?”

  * * *

  Two glasses of wine later, I leaned forward and admitted, “To tell you the truth, I was dying to get out of Meadowlark.”

  “Were you?”

  “Dying. I’d done some traveling with my grandmother so I knew what I was missing out on. I actually founded our school’s international exchange club so that I could spend six months in Spain.”

  Ian laughed loudly, and I caught Joanna’s head spin swiftly from her conversation in the back toward us. “We lived really far south of Kansas City way out in the sticks. At a certain point you just wake up one day and realize you’re tired of all the same faces at school year after year, 4-H, cow-tipping, field parties and the four-step.”

  Ian tapped his chin. “I know what a field party is and I am vaguely acquainted with the idea of school, but the rest is just baffling.”

  “Four-H is an agricultural, livestock, folk and crafts club with annual membership perks such as the 4-H fair. The fair is advertised as this wholesome, family-themed carnival, but it is really a very smelly gathering of all types of livestock eating and crapping for days on end in their stalls.”

  “What’s not to like?”

  “Right? And inside these toxic tents, boys and girls dressed in Stetson hats, Lee jeans, cowboy boots and plaid shirts hose the crap off each other’s animals.”

  “Kinky! Was this festival entirely crap-themed then?”

  “Not entirely, no. There are contests, too. Most outstanding ear of corn. Biggest turnip. Heifer of the Year.”

  “Oh. I feel quite bad for the girl who won that.”

  “A heifer is a cow.”

  “I know,” he said. “I was teasing.”

  “I can assure you, it was taken very seriously.”

  “I apologize for my earlier comments. I had no idea Kansas was so sophisticated. If I’d known from the get-go that you were so posh, I probably would never have taken a fancy to you at all.”

  “Ha,” I replied flippantly. “As opposed to now?”

  “Yes,” Ian said gently, reaching over to take the clasp of my necklace and move it back behind my neck. I shivered and instinctively bent my head toward his hand. “As opposed to now.”

  Joanna startled us by clapping her hand down on Ian’s shoulder. “I’m bored. Why don’t we all go back to my place?”

  This idea was greeted by the other bodyguards with unanimous approval. Jo and I walked ahead of the men as we followed the winding, climbing road that led from the city to her little white bungalow. I glanced back at Ian, who was trailing behind us. He was busy. I couldn’t believe it. He was texting again.

  We were already pouring wine into glasses in Jo’s kitchen when Ian appeared in the hallway.

  “You left your front door wide open,” he barked at Jo, pointing toward the foyer accusingly. “Wide open. An invitation to get murdered.”

  “Sorry!”

  “Jo!” he shouted, and I cringed. “What are you thinking? Isn’t it dangerous enough for you here already? Christ!” He then marched through the room and scowled as Jo walked breezily past him. “Is it just wine then?” he called after her. “Or do you have any vodka?”

  “Hmm. I’m torn between, ‘Go help yourself’ and, ‘Go fuck yourself.’”

  “I’m a bodyguard, Jo. I can’t help it.”

  “Your bottle of vodka is in the freezer.”

&n
bsp; Your? Your bottle of vodka? I gave Joanna a questioning look, which she completely ignored. Certainly I’d misheard.

  Panda, Jo’s black-and-white former street cat, came to greet me in the kitchen and did figure eights between my legs. I scratched all around her neck and back for a minute as Joanna and the other men settled on the patio off the living room. Ian and I were the last ones in the house and as I walked out of the kitchen with my wine to join the others, he was silently pouring his vodka.

  Twenty minutes later I went inside to the pantry to get some chips. Jo’s bungalow had a second, tiny outdoor area behind the kitchen. Through the window I could see the burning ash at the tip of Ian’s cigarette. I hesitated, but then knocked on the glass before sliding open the door and stepping outside. He was sitting in one of Joanna’s rickety white plastic patio chairs.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey.”

  “So do you have, like, your own drawer now? A place to put your toothbrush?”

  He looked up at me sharply. “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve got your own bottle of vodka in the freezer.”

  “Oh that,” he said, going back to his phone. “She had a party. I left it.”

  “Oh.”

  He quickly slipped his cell phone into his pocket. He looked sad.

  “Are you all right?” I asked. It was the wrong thing to say.

  “I want five minutes of peace and quiet and there’s something wrong with me?”

  “Never mind. I’m going.”

  “No. I’m an arse. Don’t mind me. You don’t have to leave.”

  “No, no. Take your five minutes.”

  “Stay, will you?”

  I stood there awkwardly for a moment until finally I laughed and sat in the patio chair across from him.

  “What?” he said.

  “You seem, I don’t know. Tightly wound.”

  “You might be right about that.”

  “It’s okay. Anyone who does what you do would have to be a little on edge.”

  Ian looked to the side and made a tsk noise.

  “What? You disagree?”

  “No. I’m a far more miserable twat than most.”

  “Exactly. Even though you clearly have a pleasant side, there’s definitely a sort of sinister bastard brooding in the background.”

  Ian feigned surprise. “Really? Is he here now? Maybe the moody sod can fetch me another vodka if he’s not up to anything else?”

  “At least you still have a sense of humor.”

  “I try.” He held up his empty cup. “Seriously, though. Are you making drinks, elf-lady?”

  “Elf-lady?”

  “Yeah. You’ve got those Leeloo eyes. Noticed them the night we met. The feast of crap and throat.”

  I smiled. “From the The Fifth Element? Thank you.”

  “Christ, woman, you’re full of surprises, aren’t you? Come here.”

  I got up, walked over slowly and stood in front of him. He looked at my lips and bit his own. His phone vibrated in his pocket, but neither of us moved. I exhaled.

  A shadow passed over his face. Someone had moved into the window frame, blocking the light. I glanced toward the house. Jo was watching us, her eyes bright, the vein in her forehead visible like a divining rod. My stomach did a little flip and I started to raise my hand, but she’d already turned her back on us.

  I stood there for a second, and then without a word I left Ian and went back inside the house. The other bodyguards were all on the other patio, but Joanna wasn’t with them.

  I waited. I played hostess. Eventually I sent them all home. As it turned out, she’d gone up to bed without saying good-night.

  MADDIE

  2001

  Home in Sofia, my glass-enclosed balcony in the city center faced north, looking out over gray apartment blocks dripping in urban vegetation. The dirty, white, splayed petals of satellite dishes clung to every balcony. Cables like climbing vines traversed the dingy concrete facades. Antennas poked from nooks and crannies facing the sky. Below me was a depressing square where children from the ground-floor nursery played. An iron fence protected them from the feral dogs pacing the perimeter, panting greedily as they gaped at the children as if they were potential meals.

  My horizon, however, was breathtaking. When I paused in my writing, I kept my eyes lifted to the mountain in the distance that towered over Sofia. Quaint red-roofed villas meandered this way and that up the side of Vitosha until the mountain gave way to solid, verdant green. I knew from many hikes that at this time of year Vitosha’s wide sloping lawns would be covered in alpine flowers.

  I felt satisfied. I had completed a quarter of my work in a month. It was too easy. I even had free time to visit Jo. And Ian, a little voice whispered. I tried to silence it but my imagination had always been torturously active. I pictured them running into one another at the Irish Pub and him bringing her a drink. I saw her thanking him with a hug. Maybe even a kiss. The nights were getting hotter. Joanna’s shoulders and arms were always bare. If Ian so much as touched her, it was likely to be her warm skin.

  In the weeks I’d been away, the tension between the Muslim rebels and the Macedonian military had escalated even further. There’d been several bombings in the city center, not just in the mountain villages. My parents had made me promise them I wouldn’t visit Joanna. But they were far away, and they would never know. In any case, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to go.

  * * *

  By this point, the border guards were beyond baffled by my repeated visits to the pit of hell.

  “Why now you come in Macedonia?” the potbellied border guard asked me angrily, as he unzipped my backpack and began to scrounge around in the pockets. “Why so many times? Don’t you know it’s not safe here?”

  I had grown accustomed to a long and tedious customs clearance when crossing the border, but this trip was the worst. Previously, the customs officials had been looking for illegal liquor, cigarettes and fuel. Now they were expecting something more sinister, like weapons from the Middle East bound for the Muslim rebel camps.

  Normally, I rode the bus from Bulgaria with a chattering gaggle of female smugglers who were busy trafficking black-market perfume, cigarettes and brassieres between the two countries. This time, the heavily made-up, gum-chewing gossips with their frosted hair and penciled-in eyebrows were nowhere to be seen. It was just me and a few shifty-eyed young men in wash-worn tracksuits.

  He handed my passport to his skeletal colleague with hollow eyes who flipped through my pages of Macedonian, Bulgarian, Turkish and Greek stamps. He shrugged and sneered as he handed it back. The two of them bickered for a moment, and I interrupted them.

  “Mnogo mi haresva Makedonia,” I said loudly, feeling stupid as I looked around at several heaps of fuming garbage and a gang of slobbering, starving, black-toothed stray dogs. I like Macedonia very much.

  Potbelly narrowed his eyes and nodded, sucking on a candy that popped in and out from the inside of his lip while he looked me up and down. “Where you stay?”

  “In Skopje. With my friend.”

  “Good friend?”

  “Yes,” I said, returning his salacious smile. “Very good friend.”

  “Ahh,” he said, rolling his eyes and shrugging as in, Why not tell me sooner about this Balkan lover and save all this interrogation? “Okay then.” He winked.

  * * *

  From the bus station I took a taxi into the center and met Jo after her nightly swim at the municipal pool.

  She and I walked to dinner at Pizza Maria. The pizzeria overlooked the main square in Skopje, which was unparalleled for people-watching. Jo and I usually split a salad, a pizza, a bottle of wine and her favorite dessert, the strawberry crepe with fresh cream but no walnuts due to her tree-nut allergy. Our check was always less than fifteen dollars. We had b
egun to lose interest in cooking at home.

  I looked up from the menu to find Peter and Ian standing next to our table.

  “Fancy seeing you here!” said Peter, by far the most agreeable of all the bodyguards, with his soft farm-boy curls and devotion to his wife and little daughter back home.

  Ian looked slightly uncomfortable. I mumbled a greeting and tried to smile. My heart was racing, and I didn’t trust myself to speak. Joanna was also uncharacteristically silent. Eventually Peter said, “Shall we join you then?”

  Joanna answered, “Why, but of course!” in a sarcastic way that suggested she was a member of the British royal family.

  Ian frowned, but Peter happily pulled out a chair and sat. “Simon will be joining us shortly,” he said brightly. “You know Simon.”

  “Yes, I do,” Joanna replied, terse yet polite.

  “So!” Ian awkwardly scooted his chair closer to Peter. “We were told that this place has excellent food and waitresses in very short skirts.” Joanna looked at him. “But I doubt that’s what brought you ladies here tonight.”

  “We like the toilets,” said Jo, deadpan.

  Ian nodded. “I hear they’re spotless.”

  I noticed that underneath the table, one of her legs was in a spasm, jittering up and down on her toes. Concerned, I touched her knee.

  She mouthed, “I’m fine,” and began to massage her calf with one hand.

  At that moment, big bald Simon showed up and shouted his hellos. The first thing he did was order a bottle of vodka for the table.

  * * *

  Two hours later I tumbled out of an illegally over-packed cab behind Jo, Simon, Peter, Ian and Nina, one of the Pizza Maria waitresses. We were at Club Lipstick. During the ride from the restaurant to the disco I discovered a few interesting things: Simon had a yin and yang tattoo on the inside of his lower lip where I did not even realize you could have a tattoo, and Peter had been a hairdresser before he joined the military. Lastly, Nina was wearing faux-leather crotchless panties of which she was quite proud.