“Spierdalaj!”
It was all I knew. He turned around, laughing. “The mouth you have.”
I smiled at him.
“Didn’t your mother teach you better?”
I shook my head no, coyly.
“Come here, Anya.”
I walked real slow. Counted each step. I made him wait.
When I came up to him he took off his sunglasses and he smiled at me and he didn’t look so bad anymore.
“What do you do, Lev?”
“What you mean?”
“What are these?” I held up his fingers gently and we looked at the rings tattooed on.
He squeezed my hand and pulled it away. “If you were Russian I could tell you.”
He winked at me.
“Lev!”
He turned around and the thin man from before was standing there. He started speaking in hurried Russian and Lev started moving, leaving me in the alley. Then he stopped and turned around and came back.
“Anya, I’ll come for you tomorrow.”
I nodded.
He left quickly and I began to panic.
When tomorrow? Where tomorrow? I stood in the alley for a long time. Hoping he would come back and tell me that it wasn’t going to happen. He was rushed. He wasn’t thinking. I wouldn’t have to go through anything. Why did I nod? I was ill prepared for any kind of evening with him. A truck rolled by with a flat bed full of broken down cardboard boxes. They stared at me, slowed and whistled, then said something in Spanish, whistled. I scowled and began to move. I would have to prepare. I would have to start with my undergarments.
I remember the first time I saw my grandmother’s bra hanging in the shower in her apartment. It was large and sturdy. It was peach colored or off-white or maybe just discolored. One side was slapped over the top of the bar and the other hung down, limp and dripping. I touched it, pressed in the fabric. It was thick, synthetic feeling. Like it was made from something that was supposed to pass for satin. The cups were terrifyingly huge. I had hoped that I would never fill in like that. She was “full figured.” She had blossomed early. I would have to enhance my blossoming.
I was going to get a bra today, but Miracle Bras were too expensive. I would have to go for the imitations. The imitations didn’t have the same gel-like quality to them. The firmness and “realness.” The pads of the cheap ones were stiff, curved, but only $14.99. The best I could get. I walked into the dressing room of the discount store and saw the sallow faces of the red-shirted women sifting through the bring backs. The mountain was growing as people kept tossing the items that did not work onto the pile and walking out. I waited my turn. The woman took my bras and counted them. Took a blue placard with the number eight written in white and shoved it on the hook on the door. She tried to untangle the plastic hangers from one another as she put them in the dressing room for me. It wasn’t working. The straps were impossibly tangled. She gave up and tossed them onto the bench, weaved around me, and shut the door. I stared at myself in the mirror. The lighting was bright and crass. My makeup was smudged. My skin pale. I wondered if a trip to the tanning salon might not be a bad idea. I took off my shirt and bra. I still had tan lines from the previous summer. It didn’t make sense but I went with it. The first bra was black and simple. Too small. I thought purchasing an A cup would make me look like the girls in the Victoria Secret ads. “The cup runneth over.” My breasts just flooded out on the sides and underneath my armpits. I would have to go back to my size. I was losing circulation. The room was getting hot and it was small and I was having a hard time moving my arms. I took off my pants to get a general overview of what I was working with. My ass had a flabbiness that prevented me from feeling comfortable in thong underwear. I felt too exposed, too free-flowing. I opted for a full-bottomed brief to go with the padded bra. My breasts heaved over the line of the cup of my next choice. I wondered if it was too much. I would take my chance. I slid a tank top over the cups. The fabric stretched to cover the new size, the new shape. Two melons affixed to my chest. If this didn’t work I would invest in those silicone breast enhancers that cancer patients purchased. I would have to check the price on those.
I stepped out of the car and onto the street with my new swollen-looking chest, barely masked by a low-cut tank top that showed off my cavernous cleavage. The shading and shadow between the two lumps intrigued me to no end. The Ukrainian man from across the street let his eyes rest on me a while longer. The crocheted curtain moved a bit and I heard a sharp knock, his wife watching, no doubt.
He continued hosing down the bushes and turned around. Men were predictable. Breasts never failed. Round and pert were best and that is what I had now. My eyes were kohled and my bra was making my breasts supple. A lot for two in the afternoon. A lot for an audience of one aging Ukrainian man.
I needed to fix my roots next. I couldn’t go back to the salon. She had ruined it anyway and if I did I would have to send a bad check to the Department of Water and Power for the month.
I purchased a box of Herbal Essences hair color. The shade was #57 — Brown, Cool and Collected. The girl on the box looked pretty and her hair looked dark. On the back of the box was a “Moxie Meter.” It asked me if I had ever given a piece of my mind to my boss. Or if I had ever flirted with a policeman. It said I could do either of those things and then blame it on the color. It seemed like the right choice. I dyed my hair and then my scalp and around the roots and my forehead and I tried to scrape and bleach my skin and get the color off. I should have followed the directions and rubbed Vaseline on my forehead to protect it from the dye. But I didn’t. I hoped and prayed that by tomorrow the stain, the evidence, would be gone and I would be big-busted and dark-haired and exotic again.
It was dark and late and no one was at my window. I tried to sleep but couldn’t, so I listened to the birds again. They stayed up all night with me. They tangled themselves together in the ivy and they gurgled and cooed and I thought of Lev and I thought of what we would do together. I wouldn’t get drunk. I would go into the Twin Palms and be on his arm. I would do that willingly. I tried to visualize the Twin Palms while I lay there. What was inside. If the waiters wore tuxedos. How big it was. If it had secret entrances. If it spilled into the other buildings. Where you stood and where you sat. What you ate.
I tried but I couldn’t even imagine it.
~ ~ ~
HE NEVER CAME.
I sat there and waited for hours. I sat on the couch. I crossed my legs and uncrossed them. I tried to look as if I was engrossed in what was on television. I stood up, sat down. Stood up again and poured myself a glass of wine. Then another and then another. White. Not red. I didn’t want my lips or teeth to turn black. To give the hint that I had been waiting. I checked my breath six times. I rinsed with Scope. I flossed because I thought there had been some bread stuck in between my teeth. I ate bread because I didn’t want to ruin my appetite but I didn’t want to be drunk. Then I had another glass.
I washed my glass to keep myself from finishing the bottle. My sponge smelled. I needed to buy a new one. I smelled my hands and they smelled stale. That smell of old food and old cellulose. I was furious with myself and went to the bathroom and washed my hands again. I rubbed lotion on them. Expensive and perfumed. I smelled them again and could still smell the sponge. I went back to the living room and opened the sliding glass door. I went back and sat down on the sofa and changed the channel. I flipped between Channel 2 and 4 and waited for the commercials to be over.