Anna K

by Jenny Lee

  When the doorman rang up, and the housekeeper answered, Kimmie explained she had Vronsky’s homework, taking a chance that he was at home recovering from his accident at the horse race. She was immediately buzzed up and she wondered if the housekeeper had announced her arrival. But when she walked into the apartment and the uniformed housekeeper was talking on her phone, Kimmie figured she was on her own.

  She found his bedroom and knocked, announcing herself through the closed door. He called out that he needed a moment, and a few moments later he opened his door, pulling on a sweatshirt over his taped up torso. Vronsky was clearly surprised to see her, and she was about to apologize for not calling first, then bit her tongue, remembering what Natalia had said about apologies being the last refuge of spineless pussies. Kimmie was no pussy, at least not today.

  Kimmie entered Vronsky’s dimly lit bedroom and flipped his desk chair around to face him as he sat on his unmade bed. Vronsky offered her a beverage and suggested they talk in the kitchen, but she refused. What she had to say to him wouldn’t take long. He gestured for her to begin and she did.

  She told him about her time in Arizona and her many exhausting therapy sessions. She told him how she had learned a lot about herself and explained that when she got back to New York after her ice dancing dreams were dashed that she never properly grieved for her loss. Her therapist’s theory was she had been suffering from low-grade depression because of it. She then told him that when he kissed her on New Year’s Eve it was the first time she had been happy since coming back to New York.

  She went on to say that she didn’t have much experience with guys and she used to be ashamed to admit this, but now she no longer cared. She was only fifteen years old, a baby really, and she now knew it was dumb to pretend she was worldlier than she was. She then told him how he had really hurt her feelings when he didn’t call her the day after they had sex for the first time, and admitted to him that she had lied about sleeping with her coach and she had been a virgin, which made their first time her “first time.”

  “Did you know?” she asked. “Did you know I was lying?”

  To his credit Vronsky admitted he’d suspected as much, but he’d ignored it. He asked if she’d felt pressured into having sex, and she told him while he didn’t pressure her physically or verbally like in a creepy way, she had felt a kind of pressure, because she was so desperate for him to like her back. She really felt like she had no choice but to give it up, so to speak. He had asked her to come back to his house, and they had sat in the living room where he made a point of saying there was no one home. Clearly, he wanted to fool around, and at the time she had wanted it, too.

  But he moved so fast, and she was shocked when he stripped her down and took off his own clothes. He had seemed so matter of fact about it all, so confident that her legs would part for him, that she followed his lead and figured that was just how these things went.

  There was no question of consent, but when she had cried out in pain, she wanted to know why he didn’t ask her if she was all right, why he didn’t ask … if it was her first time. Instead he had acted horrified and made her feel like a total fool. Maybe if he had been sweeter about it she would have found the strength to tell him the truth, and then maybe they would have decided it wasn’t a good idea. But that hadn’t happened. The fact was now that night on the couch with him would always be her very first time. And as the saying goes, you never forget your first time, even if you want to.

  She demanded again to know why he didn’t call her the next day, and he sheepishly claimed he thought he had. But Kimmie showed him the screenshots of her phone, proving not only that he didn’t call, but also that he didn’t even bother to text her. She asked him how he’d feel if someone he really liked fucked him and then never called him. She told him how she waited for him at the ice rink, but he never showed up. She reminded him how they’d texted the day of Jaylen’s party and he’d said he was excited to see her, but that clearly was a lie. She told him that she had bought a new outfit for the party because she had been delusional enough to think he was going to ask her to be his girlfriend that night. But he barely looked at her on the dance floor, busy as he was trying to find his precious Anna.

  Vronsky, face cast to the floor, started to say how sorry he was, but Kimmie said she wasn’t looking for an apology from him. She was taking full responsibility for the part she’d played in all of it. She shouldn’t have gone to his house. She should have been more vocal that she was in over her head. She had chosen to tell him the truth about how much he hurt her, and that his behavior proved he wasn’t the nice guy he pretended to be. But in a twisty, screwed-up way, she was almost fine with how it all went down, because the young woman standing before him today was stronger and much less naive than the insecure little girl he deflowered on his mother’s expensive Italian leather couch.

  She told him he didn’t need to worry because she wasn’t going to tell anyone about coming over here today. She was doing this for herself, and he no longer mattered to her in any way. She didn’t care if she ever saw him again, but given the likelihood that she would, she’d be polite and hoped he could respect her enough to do the same. Kimmie said coming over here to tell him all this was her way of moving forward, of saying good-bye to her past, of taking the sheep mask off the wolf and revealing him for what he was.

  She hoped that from now on, because of her, he would treat girls with a little more respect, because pretty girls, even if he viewed them as personal playthings, had feelings, too. She asked him if he wanted to say anything back to her now that she was done, but all he said was how sorry he was that he had hurt her feelings. He said that in the past he was guilty of being selfish, but that these days he was a changed man, though he offered no explanation.

  “A real man wouldn’t have treated sex as a sport; and a real man doesn’t go around stealing other people’s girlfriends.”

  His nostrils flared as he stood up to walk her out, but she stopped him. She was more than capable of finding her own way. As she rode down the elevator, she wasn’t sure if she felt better, but she did know she felt proud of herself for living up to her new code of not taking shit from anyone, especially not a guy.

  XIV

  Vronsky sat on his bed in silence, shell-shocked from the Kimmie bomb that had exploded in his face. He didn’t know what to do with himself, so he just lay back on his bed and stared at the ceiling, trying to absorb everything that had been said, not just by Kimmie but by Anna, who had shown up twenty minutes before Kimmie to tell him what had happened with Alexander.

  Then Anna stepped out of Vronsky’s closet, and as she did, he remembered how he’d once hid in his brother’s closet, which he considered his sexual awakening. But now it occurred to him that watching his brother have sex was what started his own sexual odyssey and was not as cool as he’d once thought it was. Maybe that was where he learned to treat women the way he did.

  Anna’s face was hard to read, but her shock and dismay were obvious. She’d had no idea that Vronsky had had sex with Kimmie and overhearing her pain about it broke her heart and left her feeling sick in the pit of her stomach. Sitting in the closet listening, she wondered if perhaps Alexander was right, that she didn’t know Vronsky as well as she thought she did. How could he have treated a sweet girl like Kimmie so cavalierly? What kind of guy would take a girl’s virginity and not even contact her the next day? Sure, she realized she was in no position to judge after what she did to Alexander, but she knew she was in the wrong over her actions and was deeply remorseful. That didn’t seem to be the case with Vronsky when it came to Kimmie.

  Anna told Vronsky she was going to do what Alexander had asked of her. She needed time to think things through and their intimacy was clouding what was left of her good judgment. Anna was particularly pained because prior to Kimmie’s intrusion, and despite the fact that she had told herself and Alexander she would refrain from having sex with Vronsky, she had been on the verge of sleeping with him
again. “I told you I made a promise to Alexander and I want to keep it,” she said in a voice so quiet he had to lean forward to hear her. “It was only two weeks that we had to wait, but still you tried to have sex with me anyway. Am I not worth waiting for?”

  Vronsky slid off his bed and got on his knees. He begged Anna not to leave him this way. He told her he was sorry, that she had to forgive him. He could hardly resist her the same way she could barely resist him. He loved her, would always love her, only her, forever. He admitted he’d treated every girl before her like dirt, and he now saw the error of his ways. She was the most precious thing to him in the world. He pleaded for a second chance.

  “You know me, Anna,” he said, pitifully, not even bothering to wipe away the tears falling down his beautiful face. “You know you do. Just like I know you.”

  “I don’t know anything anymore, Alexia,” Anna said, involuntarily reaching out to touch his face, but then stopping herself. “Actually that’s not true. I do know one thing, Kimmie’s got a right to be disappointed in you, and now I know exactly how she feels. I’m going to leave now, and please don’t contact me.”

  Anna walked home from Vronsky’s house in a daze. She was beside herself and had no idea what to do about it. How did life get to be so complicated? And how did it happen so fast? The last few days were a nightmare, but things had been insane for months now.

  Anna heard a familiar jingle and turned to see a Mister Softee truck parked up ahead. Breaking into what was probably her first smile in days, she quickened her step and went to get a cherry-dipped cone. She and Steven were obsessed with Mister Softee as kids and even put together a business plan for their father, called “Why We Need an Ice Cream Truck, and How to Get One!”

  Anna sat on a bench and took a picture of her half-eaten cone and texted it to Steven with the message: I wish we were little kids again! Life was so much easier! She watched as bubbles appeared and then her brother’s text came in: Where Are You? She texted back that she was wandering around aimlessly through Central Park. Come home, he texted.

  When Anna entered the apartment, Steven was waiting for her and without even saying hi, she beelined right toward him, clutched her brother, and cried. Steven hugged her back and told her everything would be okay. “Everything is a mess,” she said, wiping away her tears. “I don’t know who I am anymore.”

  “Welcome to my world,” her brother replied. “Maybe we should go see a Marvel movie.”

  “Which one?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, but there’s always one playing somewhere.”

  Then Anna’s mother came home and told Steven she needed to speak with Anna alone. Anna shook her head and said that anything her mother had to say, Steven could hear, too.

  Anna’s mother reluctantly agreed, then started to speak, telling them she had received a call from Anna’s school that Anna had skipped classes and that her normally perfect grades had plummeted in recent weeks. Without giving her daughter a chance to respond, she continued that she had also heard the rumors about Anna and Vronsky and Alexander and demanded to know what was going on. Anna told her mother what had been happening, leaving out the sex stuff, and admitted she was absolutely in over her head and honestly didn’t know what she should do.

  “Well, I do,” Anna’s mom replied curtly. “You’re going to stop wasting your time with that Vronsky kid and beg Alexander to forgive you. Really Anna, I don’t know exactly what went on and I don’t want to know, but I’m very disappointed in your actions. Alexander has been so good to you and he deserves far better than he got. I just hope your father doesn’t hear about it; he’d be crushed to know his precious daughter isn’t everything he thought she was.”

  Anna blinked her eyes rapidly to keep the tears of shock at bay. Her mother rarely took such a vitriolic tone with her. Telling her how disappointed her dad would be was a no-holds-barred kill shot. Anna hung her head and watched as two tears fell in tandem and soaked into the black denim of her designer jeans. She wanted to say something, but she didn’t know what.

  Anna needn’t have worried over what to say because her big brother had plenty to say in response.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Steven said, his voice trembling with fury. “Anna’s worth ten million Alexanders! Beg for that douchebag’s forgiveness? Over my dead body she will. Whatever Anna did is her own goddamn business and nobody else’s.”

  Their mother was never a fan of the clapback, but this was something else entirely. “I am the parent here and I can talk to my daughter however I please. Do you know what it’s like to walk into the salon and find out that people are whispering about your daughter? How she cheated on the favorite son of Greenwich when he was laid up with a broken leg? She’s not some regular high school girl who gets to act a slut like it doesn’t matter. She’s the daughter of this family, and she has to know her actions affect everyone, the same way yours did when you got kicked out of every school in town!”

  “You think I’m a slut?” Anna asked, unable to hide the hurt in her voice. “Mom, I was going to break up with Alexander, but then I couldn’t because who can break up with a guy who needs a bedpan? I … I … I’m not just with Vronsky for fun. We love each other!”

  “Oh Anna, grow the hell up. I’ve heard all about that boy. He’s been in love with half the girls in Manhattan, the same way his mother ‘loves’ every rich man she can lay her manicured hands on. Of course he tells you you’re special, that’s what every guy says when he wants to get into your panties.”

  Anna pulled her knees into her chest and pressed her face into her knees. What is happening? How can she talk to me this way? Isn’t a mom supposed to protect you?

  “Tell me, Mom,” Steven began, his voice no longer trembling, but extremely measured and calm. “Is that what the Dude with the Dragon Tattoo tells you when he wants to get into your panties?”

  Anna lifted her head up and gazed at her brother. She had no idea what he was talking about.

  “That’s right, Mom,” Steven continued. “I know how you spent your Valentine’s Day. Dad buys you a forty-thousand-dollar diamond necklace, but I guess you wanted a pearl … Is that how you show your respect to Dad?”

  Their mother stood up, her face blank with shock. She smoothed the wrinkles from her black pencil skirt and without saying a word grabbed her alligator Birkin bag off the table in the foyer and walked out the front door, closing it behind her.

  Anna looked at her brother in wide-eyed amazement. “What the holy hell just happened?”

  Steven sat down on the couch next to his sister and just shook his head. He opened his mouth but before he could speak, his phone started buzzing in rapid-fire succession.

  Steven pulled his phone out of his pocket and answered. “Oh my god,” he muttered. “When?”

  “What happened? Who is it?” Anna grabbed Steven’s arm. “Tell me.” Even though she was currently pissed at Vronsky, the thought of something bad happening to him filled her with terror.

  “I’ll call you right back.” Steven hung up and sat back down on the couch again.

  “You’re scaring me, Steven!” Anna cried. “What happened?

  “Dustin’s brother, Nicholas…” Steven said blankly. “Heroin overdose. He’s dead.”

  XV

  Dustin didn’t have a black suit to wear to his brother’s funeral, so Steven and Anna took him to Goodman’s Men’s and bought him one. Dustin stared at himself in the three-way mirror wearing the black Theory suit and gray shirt that Steven had picked out for him. Over his shoulder in the reflection, he saw Anna and Steven standing in the doorway behind him, each of them holding a different dark tie option. Seeing the brother and sister standing together cemented his cold new reality, and he started to sob.

  Two days later the funeral was held in the same temple where Dustin and Nicholas had been bar mitzvah’d and the place was again packed. Dustin was not a fan of public speaking, but on the morning of the service he told his parents that he wanted
to say a few words. His father said he didn’t have to, but Dustin insisted.

  Staring out at the sea of black-clad mourners, Dustin took a moment before he began his speech. This wasn’t because of his grief, though he was chock full of it, this was because he’d spotted Kimmie in the crowd sitting next to Lolly, who was sitting next to Steven and Anna. And even though Kimmie looked pale and sad and had this crazy, wild, purple hair, and even though his brother had overdosed three days ago and would be gone forever, his heart still skipped a beat for Kimmie.

  “Nicholas was my older brother by three years. Everyone who met us always commented on how different we were, not just because I’m black and adopted, but because of our personalities. But today I’m here to tell you how similar we are, too. It was my brother who instilled in me my love of cinema and for that I am eternally grateful. I saw my first R-rated movie with him when I was nine. Old School was playing on HBO and my parents had gone to some wedding, so we were alone for the entire day. I didn’t understand a lot of the movie, but we had a great laugh at the part where Luke Wilson gets drunk at his friend’s wedding after catching his wife cheating on him, and he starts to give a hilarious speech about why love sucks, but his other buddy Vince Vaughn stops him. None of this is important, but what does matter is that my brother and I spent the rest of the afternoon making up funny speeches that we would give at each other’s weddings when we grew up.

  “Nicholas told me that he’d announce I used to sleep with a fork under my pillow because I was more scared of cutting myself than having an efficient weapon against the monsters that I thought were under my bed. And I told him that I would tell everyone that he wore these green Tigger footy pajamas until his dirty toenails burst through the seams like he was the Hulk.

  “As we got older that was something we would always threaten each other with. We’d say, ‘You better watch it or I’ll tell everyone what you did when I give your wedding toast.’ I know it’s an absurd thing, the two of us so young talking about our future weddings, but it’s just something we did and it’s important for me to let all of you know my brother was more than just some junkie who OD’d in Arizona.