Something Unbelievable

by Maria Kuznetsova

  Stas stomps around with his hands on his hips, like he has something to say. He was supposed to read over the final version of my play last night but hasn’t said anything yet. Maybe he didn’t get to it. He’s been busy as hell, ever since he moved out of our place last month to crash at the studio of a friend in Harlem who is going to be gone the rest of the summer, close to the restaurant where he’s working. I was glad Yuri and I were left alone, finally, but I missed him more than a little, though I tried to tell myself it was mostly because of the help he gave me with Tally. Still, when I asked him to come with me, I thought he was coming partly out of guilt, since I had been with Tally around the clock pretty much since he left, though Yuri’s been helping more since his summer classes ended. Anyway, it was a good thing Stas and I hadn’t been alone together much because it seemed like some of that heat, or the heat I had imagined earlier, had cooled along with the hint of fall in the late-summer air.

  But now, standing on the stage, just the two of us, I feel shaky. I’m still getting used to his short haircut, though he’s had it for a while. It makes him look, I don’t know, more respectable, less like a fuckboy, which only makes me more nervous.

  “Well?” I say.

  “Looks good,” he says, kicking the boxcar. “It really does.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “Ah,” he says, understanding. “The play wasn’t bad, Sterling. Not bad at all.”

  I feel a flood of relief. He actually fucking read it. And didn’t hate it, in spite of his high standards. But he just keeps walking around the stage without looking me in the eye.

  “But?” I say.

  He smiles. “But nothing. I just thought it was kind of funny that you left out the Orlov family. I mean, weren’t the brothers kind of the point?”

  I shrug. “It would have been too hard to pull off by myself. I started writing it with them in it and just saw how much easier it would be without them, so I went with that.”

  “Fair enough,” he says. “You think your grandmother will care that you changed the story?”

  “She’ll just want to see the best I can do,” I say.

  He makes like he’s going to take a step closer to me but he doesn’t. “All right then.”

  He’s giving me this intense look that makes me scared as hell. I know I’m being a complete idiot. I must be the only person dumb enough to be capable of flirting this much with an almost-six-month-old at home. Most moms at this stage are probably still tending to their wounded vaginas and desperately enjoying their sad date nights, yet here I am, in need of something more. I know this can’t end anywhere good, and that once the play is over, I won’t have an excuse for hanging out with Stas solo, that we’ll only hang if Yuri is around. Unless—

  We climb into the boxcar, sitting down on the one bed with a little window behind it meant to be the place where my grandmother and her sister slept. It’s dark in here, and musty. Though I cut my grandmother’s return to Kiev, I picture her in this boxcar, accepting Grandpa Misha’s proposal in an utterly perfunctory way. With Uncle Bogdan looking over her shoulder, hearing the whole thing. Then he comes toward her, speaking to her for the last time before her wedding, really, and she doesn’t know what to do, or how to tell him how she feels.

  “Do you think my grandmother should have been with Bogdan instead?” I say.

  Stas sighs and looks at the car’s ceiling. “Who is to say? What if they got together but got sick of each other after a while?”

  “You really think that would have happened?”

  “How am I supposed to know?” he says, and he sounds tired, defensive. It has been a long day. Schlepping the last of the props across the city. Sweating like crazy. Wondering what the hell is going on between us.

  “I’m not asking you to know. I’m asking for your best guess.”

  “What does it matter? What’s done is done,” he says. “For her anyway. As for us, I don’t know,” he adds.

  “Us,” I say, swallowing hard.

  I scoot away from him and then a slow smile rises on his face. He gets up, takes me by the hand, and leads me backstage and I don’t even question it. We’re standing near a cardboard mountain Slavik painted and then told me to scrap because it looked too cartoonish. But right now, I feel like I could take another step and start climbing it, like I can almost see my grandmother’s factory town in the distance. Stas pushes me against it and kisses me, hard. I feel like my legs are going to melt, that I’m just going to turn into a puddle right now and no one will ever hear from me again. I pull away and feel embarrassed and excited and confused, all at fucking once. The smoky taste of his tongue lingers in my mouth.

  “Why did you do that?” I say.

  “Why did I kiss you?”

  “No. Why did you pull me out of the boxcar?”

  He laughs. “Because I do have some limits, Sterling.”

  This makes me laugh, a little. What, he didn’t want to corrupt my grandmother’s train? There’s a sick kind of logic to it. I’m scared of the silence so I feel compelled to talk again, walking back onstage. “When I was a teenager, I’d visit my grandmother in Sevastopol during the summers, and she was always having these ‘friends’ show up—she’d leave me on the beach and go have her flings.”

  “Huh,” he says. “What about your grandfather?”

  “I’m not sure if he knew. There was only one time when I thought he might have,” I say, but it doesn’t feel like the right time to go on about my sweet grandfather, a kind, thoughtful man who seemed to genuinely care about my acting, through his silly notes. “Baba’s not sure if he knew either. Honestly, I have no idea,” I say.

  “It’s better off that way, isn’t it?”

  I get ready for a whole big conversation about what this meant, what will happen from now on, what is the meaning of a good life, how can it all mean anything, how can we even dare to suffer when we know what our grandparents and parents went through to get us to this fucking country. I’m relieved when he doesn’t say anything else, when he takes my hand and leads me back inside the boxcar, where I sigh and rest my head on his shoulder. I have questions for him—how does he really feel about me? What happened with that girl in Boston?—but they’ll just have to wait.

  What was my grandmother’s story supposed to tell me if not this? A tiny part of me wishes I could ask her what to do, but I’m not nuts, I don’t want to let her down. Besides, she’s so busy setting up her sea home that she hardly has time for me these days, not that I would trouble her with my romantic problems anyway, since I want her to think I have my shit together. Anyway, could she really tell me what to do—if this was beyond a stupid, meaningless crush? I scan the boxcar for an answer, but I just grab a thin gray blanket and cover myself with it and close my eyes, knowing that nobody, nobody in the world, can tell me what to do.

  * * *

  —

  I’m going out of my mind so I finally take Stephanie up on her offer to get shithoused at the Lair after our babies have gone to bed. She had definitely been my favorite coworker there, probably because she was also an actress, and I was devastated when she quit two years before I did because she got married to a customer who happened to work at JPMorgan and immediately had a baby with him and did the whole thing, a brownstone in Park Slope and all. Though we don’t see each other that often, she’s still the best friend I’ve got, and it feels nice, being back at the scene of the crime with her, even if it is where Yuri and I had that terrible fight. Mel’s out this time, and there are two hot twentysomethings working the bar who don’t know us, and aside from Scotty the regular, who waves at us, we are pretty anonymous and that’s how I want it to be. Yuri had to finish planning his fall classes, and I spent fourteen hours straight with Tally, and I’m just pumped to talk to someone who can actually talk back to me.

  Steph has had the same spiky black hair
since we met, is almost six feet tall, and perfectly angular. Men stare at her everywhere we go, and even now, as we drink gin and tonics, the three men at the bar keep sneaking a look at her. As she takes a big sip of her drink, she nods at the two women working the bar and says, “We were hotter.”

  “Are hotter,” I tell her. “Especially you. You, like, reverse-aged since you left this place.”

  “I don’t want to be that hot anymore,” she says. Then she gives me a wicked smile. “And your little houseguest? Is he that age?”

  “He’s twenty-eight,” I say, feeling defensive for some reason. “And he moved out a while ago.”

  “So that makes it okay to be lusting after him.”

  “Shut up,” I say, smacking her. Those were not the words I used. I told her I might have a crush.

  “This is so sick,” she says, slamming her glass against the bar for emphasis. “I love it.”

  “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Nothing,” she says. Then she narrows her eyes and moves her head closer to mine. “That is what you’re doing, right?”

  “Of course. I’m not completely nuts,” I say, though I am completely nuts, though I stayed up all night, thinking about that kiss. But I’m not going to tell her that. A full day has gone by and I haven’t heard a peep from him either.

  “Stay away from him.”

  “It’s a bit hard when he’s like a kid brother to my husband.”

  “Do your best. Just keep it in your pants, Natty.”

  “I am. I told you, I am.”

  “When I got pregnant, I didn’t feel any of the bloating or fatigue or nausea or whatever. I was just so fucking horny all the time, I was like a teenager. I wanted to fuck everything—any man who spoke to me, any woman, anything that moved,” she says, tucking a tiny strand of hair behind her ear.

  “And it went away?”

  “Basically.”

  I take another sip of my drink and ask for another round. “You miss working here?”

  “Not one bit. I know you think I’m boring as fuck but I can tell you, I’m much happier now. You know what I liked? I liked being the star of my high school plays. I liked being the star of the plays at Mason Gross, that was a real ego boost too. But then I moved out here and saw that I was up against a city of sluts who were the stars of their high school plays, and while most of them weren’t as talented as me, a number of them were, and so many of them were hotter. And I just didn’t want to prove myself against the hotter ones, or hustle to keep up with the talented ones. I hated it. I hated bartending. I hated taking a cab home at four in the morning because I got mugged twice taking the subway back to Bushwick, just me and a bunch of homeless people and a few businessmen who thought I was a prostitute—I got solicited once. I hated all of it. I just wanted to have a nice warm bed and a reasonable schedule and reasonable goals, and now I do, I’ve got my kid, I’ve got my night classes, and yes, having a rich-as-fuck husband does not hurt, but it’s a good life. I fucking love it. There’s nothing I want, you see? I just want to keep my universe from exploding. And as long as I do that, I’m good.”

  “Really and truly?”

  “Ninety-eight percent of the time, and I’m okay with that.”

  “And the other two percent?”

  “The other two percent, I’ll see a few people from college here and there on TV or on Broadway and I’m like, I’m better than them. Why didn’t I do that? Why am I spending all this time having playdates? But I’m actually not better than them, I remind myself, because I didn’t stick it out and they did—like you’re doing,” she says, squeezing my hand. “Do you really miss this place?”

  “I do, actually.”

  “So tell Yuri you want to work again.”

  I say, “Ha! He wants me to go back to school.”

  “And what do you want?”

  “To book shit again? And to work at the Lair, at least a few nights a month. Tally’s sleeping through the night now. Why the fuck not?”

  “You’ll be completely exhausted.”

  “I already am,” I say. I finish my drink and signal for another. My fucking milk finally dried up, which I must admit was a relief, not just because I don’t have to be paranoid about having more than one drink but because I feel less chained to Tally. “I mean,” I go on, “I definitely feel better than I did at the beginning, but how long did it take you to feel like yourself again?”

  She smiles. “You won’t ever feel like yourself again. At least, I didn’t. But how long did it take me to feel okay as this new person I became after having a kid? I don’t know, about a year? A little while after I got the job at the theater. That helped a lot.”

  “You always seemed like yourself.”

  “I’m an actress, remember? I just knew how to fake it,” she says, raising a glass. “You will figure it out, because you are a goddess. Really, you will.”

  I suck my drink down. “I fucking hated those long commutes home after a night at the bar. But the Lair is just down the street….I don’t know, I both hated it more than anything and miss it more than anything. I just really hope I’m not done.”

  “You’re not done. You just keep auditioning. There’s always a lull, you know that. Plus, you’ve got your show coming up. Are you all set?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Great. You focus on that, and then you make your next move.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “And in the meantime, Natty, just try to keep your universe from exploding, all right?”

  “I’m doing my best.”

  “You always are, baby girl,” she says.

  As we get the check, one of the guys at the bar finally approaches us, and I’m flattered but too tired to discourage him without being a bitch. “It’s as easy as being a woman?” he says with a sly smile. “That’s you, right?”

  “Damn right it is,” I say, cheersing him when he raises his glass, relieved that this was all he wanted.

  Stephanie cracks up as he walks away. “What happened to that company anyway?”

  “Lady Planet?” I say. “They went under. It turned out eco-friendly tampons were too expensive.”

  “Of course they were,” she says.

  Then old Scotty comes by with tequila shots, and neither of us can turn them down. I let the booze slide down my throat and it feels warm and welcoming, though I know I shouldn’t get too trashed. But I need the break, need some time away from Tally and the men in my life. And when the liquor settles in me and I stare straight ahead, it’s Stas’s fucking face I see, Stas in the boxcar, his arm around me, quiet.

  * * *

  —

  I’m more than tipsy by the time I get home. Yuri’s on the couch watching the Red Sox and when he sees me struggling to get my heel off, he smiles like he knows I overdid it and is okay with it, good man that he is. And maybe it’s because of that goodness, because he comes up to me and strokes my hair and genuinely seems pleased that I got to have a wild night out with my friend, that I feel like I just can’t hold anything in anymore.

  “We kissed,” I tell him as I finally manage to get my heels off.

  “You and Stephanie? Aren’t you a little old to get into all that again?” he says, but his smile falls halfway through and he understands me perfectly. He puts a hand to his neck, like he’s adjusting a phantom tie.

  “It was just once,” I tell him. “Yesterday. I—I don’t know what it means.”

  “What it means?” he says, backing away from me, toward the couch. He sighs. “Look, I thought you and Stas were flirting a bit, but you flirt with everybody so I didn’t really care. I didn’t realize—if you don’t know what it means, then why did you bother telling me?” He stands up.

  “I don’t flirt with everybody.”

  “Come on. You do too, but I don’t care that much.�
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  “I just wanted to be honest.”

  “No, you wanted to be selfish. You wanted to burden me with your mistake.”

  “Couldn’t it be a bit of both?” I say. “Anyway, I just—you fell in love with a hard-drinking foulmouthed actress, didn’t you? And now you just want me to change diapers all day and become a professional dog walker or whatever.”

  “That was not exactly how I put it,” he says. “And are you telling me that this is why you—”

  “I’m not blaming you. I just—he kind of, reminded me of who I was before I got knocked up.”

  He puts his head in his hands. “I still love that hard-drinking foulmouthed actress. But I also love you as a mother, all right? And I’m not trying to change you, I’m just trying to find a way to make this—new version of you happy.”

  “Keep looking, then,” I say. I sink down into the couch. “You do understand that I’ve been having a hard time, don’t you?”

  “I’m not fucking blind, Natasha. Of course I understand. I do what I can when I’m not working. But lots of people have a hard time without—fucking around.”

  “Lots of people are better at this than I am.”

  “Stop it. You can’t make me feel guilty right now, all right?”

  He shakes his head and moves even farther away from me, his back against the balcony door, which I covered in Christmas lights even though he thought it was tacky, while I insisted it was festive, and dressed up our dreary fucking place. His eyes are glazed over, like he can’t even look at me. He slides the glass door open and steps outside, and I just watch him standing there with his hands on the railing, his strong back rising and falling as he tries to get ahold of himself.