“Of course, she does not hold a candle to you as a child,” I say, but I see her making a face, that her patience on this subject is wearing thin. Still, I see her as the beautiful young girl dancing by the water, reciting lines from her latest school production. “How’s work, darling? How was your audition?” I say.
She laughs a mean, dark laugh. “It was pointless,” she says. “But I have another one in a few days—kind of.”
“Oh? Something interesting?”
“Sure, Baba. Something interesting,” she says.
“Good for you, darling,” I say, but I sign off feeling uneasy, like there’s something she isn’t telling me. Then again, why should I be surprised? There are plenty of things I have kept from her.
My screen is frozen on the image of my exhausted granddaughter blowing me a kiss, and for a moment, stuck in place, she resembles her former gorgeous self, it is something unbelievable. In all my years I have never seen such beauty, and it nearly gives me enough pride to die on, even if we share few physical characteristics. My poor, darling granddaughter. The girl deserves so much more than the world is giving her, even based on looks alone. It must be said that I speak with the utmost objectivity. Anyone who saw Natasha in her former glory would agree. Not even my idiot sister was so beautiful.
Natasha
“So are you a prostitute this time, or a spy?” Stas says as I check my hair in the mirror once more.
“Actually, neither.”
“Making moves, Sterling.”
Though I didn’t get called back for the Pen & Sword role, my agent sent me a consolation: an audition for a horror movie called Sinister Sister about a girl who was separated at birth from her twin sister when her sister was adopted by Americans, leaving her behind to be abused at a Ukrainian orphanage. When Ukrainian twin me grows up, her now-American sister tracks her down and gets her to come to the States, but when the girl arrives, it becomes clear that something is wrong with her. She’s out for blood, on a mission to kill or maim all the creepy men in L.A.,where her sister lives, and there are plenty of them. In the end, she realizes her sister’s husband is abusing her and decides to kill him and leave her sister for good.
I knew it wasn’t exactly Citizen Kane, but the important thing was just to keep going, and besides, all I had to do for this one was send in a video of myself. Stas would film me while Tally slept in her crib, which she has been getting better at, thanks to Baba’s recommendation. Baba who traveled halfway to Siberia on a train and nearly starved to death—whose problems make my disaster of a career seem like a hangnail. And how about old Tonya, whose sad story is coming into focus, who seems to be smirking at me from her photo today, what would she say if she knew her great-great-granddaughter made it to America, where she spent her days trying to book a role as a hooker or murderer to solve her problems? When I try to explain the role to Stas, he just laughs at me.
“So you’re still playing someone from Ukraine, but you’re a killer now?”
“I only kill the men who deserve to die. It’s empowering!”
“If you say so,” he says, snorting. “Have you ever tried to audition for a role for something that wasn’t Russian or Jewish?”
“With this nose?”
“Your nose is fine.”
“I was on three episodes of My Husband the Mobster, until I got strangled. And I got close to a speaking role in My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, but that’s about it. Look, my agent mostly sends me to auditions for Russian parts because that’s where I have the best chance. I can’t just make up the parts I want to play. I mean, look at the Borsch Babies, putting on a play about fucking Chernobyl, as if anyone would give a shit about that! It was, like, thirty years ago. Where is that going to get them, exactly?”
“That depends on where you want to go, I suppose.”
Now he’s just pissing me off, acting like a naïve idiot. “I’m tired of playing all those suffering Jews. I mean, my grandmother wasn’t Jewish but she fucking suffered, and if I’m going to play some old Soviet person who suffered, then I might as well play her.”
He claps his hands. “That’s not such a terrible idea, Sterling.”
I nearly trip over the cat when I see he’s being serious. “You’re crazy,” I tell him.
“Why not go for it? It’s a good story. So far anyway.”
I roll my eyes. I need to get ready to be this killer instead of talking nonsense. “And who would play all the other parts, genius? Where would I put it on?”
He shrugs. “That would be for you to figure out.”
“Can we not? I need to focus.”
“Fair enough. And so, Sinister Sister.”
I don’t like the little smirk on his face. “What?” I say.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You don’t have to.”
Stas acts all pure about his supposed writing, but it’s hard to take him seriously. Like most artist-waiters, he seems more waiter than poet, and he never shows me a word of whatever he’s been furtively scribbling in his little notebook, reminding me of how I would rant in my diary about Mama only to slam the book in her face when she walked by. When I asked if I could see a poem of his the other day, he just said, “I don’t share my work until it’s ready. And it’s never ready.”
“I’d rather die having lived purely than having whored myself out,” he says.
“Good for you. You’re a coward.”
“For not putting my work out there? I’m not like you. I want to improve as a poet for myself, not so the world—or let’s face it, with poetry, so the eighty people who still read—give a shit. I don’t think there’s anything cowardly about that.”
“Suit yourself.”
“Don’t mind if I do. You ready to be this killer?”
“Of course I am.” I settle in my chair, feeling all frazzled, but try to shake it off.
He picks up his phone to start filming, but then it rings.
“Shit,” he says, turning it off. “Sorry.”
“Your—sister?” I say, nearly asking if it’s his mysterious ex.
“Yeah.”
I don’t think he’s lying, but I’m getting more and more curious about the woman he left in Boston. Yuri claims to know nothing about it. I’ll get it out of him eventually, but not today.
He’s furiously tapping into his phone, and old Sharik jumps on my lap and I scratch him under his chin. The big guy is twenty years old, the last of all my pets—I had two other cats, Elvis and Yanina, along with a parakeet, seven tropical fish, a guinea pig, two rabbits, and a snake named Igor, all my treasured beauties from over the years that I took to the vet and sang to and fed lovingly and mourned when the time came. Only Sharik remains, and though I love my sweet boy, he does have a defect: he loves sucking his own dick more than anything. I knew he was that way when I found him at the pound—I was told his mother died in childbirth and he was found sucking on the dead thing’s teats and never recovered from the need to suck for comfort. Who could turn down such a pathetic creature? Though today he’s being a good boy, and I am grateful for that.
Stas puts his phone down and meets my gaze and I can tell he doesn’t want to talk about the sister anymore, but I can’t help myself.
“Why don’t you talk to your sister, then?”
“I’ll catch her later.”
“If you love her so much, why don’t you go back to Boston to see her?”
He sighs and looks at the phone again. “Because I’d rather die than see my mom.”