The Faces Of Strangers. Pia Padukone
he knew it, he met Ivy and she was encouraging him to run for city office. Which he’s doing now. Or at least he’s trying to.
He feels a cold chill run through his entire body, as though he’s sitting on a roller coaster and it has just peaked at the top of its parabolic climb and is about to tip over. Is this what his sister Nora wanted to talk to him about a few months ago? That must have been it. Unlike him, Nora has stayed close to Paavo. Their bond—once created when Paavo had first come to New York those eleven years ago—has strengthened over the years, and Nico is ashamed to admit that she now knows more about Paavo’s life than Nico does of his own exchange partner. Nora knew, and despite the code of therapist-patient ethics to which she usually steadfastly adheres, she had suggested rather intently that Nico reach out to Paavo and Mari. Until now, Nico had no idea as to why.
But he’d tried, hadn’t he? He’d emailed and called. He’d even gone to Estonia to meet with Paavo face-to-face and when Paavo hadn’t been there, Nico had returned to New York City and thrown himself headfirst into schmoozing with politicos and potential donors. He got too busy mobilizing field organizers and wooing supporters to follow up. He’s been too busy cozying up with Ivy in trendy restaurants with overpriced cocktails. He’s been too busy choosing his bespoke suits and neckties.
He stares at his suit where it hangs on the rack, looking shameful and despondent. It, along with the other beautiful garments in various shades of gray that he’d had to learn upon their purchase—charcoal, ash, smoke, birch—has cost hundreds of dollars. It feels like such a waste, like everything else he has worked toward: the campaigning, the speeches, the countless hours he has spent on his public image. It is all about to come crashing down. He clutches the phone to his ear and nods, concentrating on a spot on the floor. If he can carry the farce on a little longer on the phone, he can buy some time before he’s forced to face Ivy. If he continues pretending that nothing is wrong, maybe he can start believing his own lie.
But he can’t deny what happened in Estonia all those years ago. He can’t help but catapult his mind back to his junior year of high school when he stepped off a plane onto a sliver of land half the size of the state of Maine. It had been an experience, as he told his mother it would be when he had signed up for the exchange program. But apparently this experience has stretched far beyond the year that the program was supposed to take place. Nothing could have prepared him for how the Hallström student exchange program would change his life.
HEADLOCK12 would like to chat. Accept?
HEADLOCK12: Hi...is this Paavo?
EESTIRIDDLER723: Yes. Is this Nico?
HEADLOCK12: It’s actually Nicholas.
EESTIRIDDLER723: In Estonia, the name is Nico.
HEADLOCK12: I kind of prefer Nicholas. Anyway, Ms. Rothenberg sent me your screen name, so I thought I’d say hi. How’s it going?
EESTIRIDDLER723: Hi, it is nice to talk to you. I look forward to coming to New York.
HEADLOCK12: Same. And I’m excited about Tallinn.
EESTIRIDDLER723: So you are a wrestler?
HEADLOCK12: Yep, I’m on the team at school. I’ve won my division a few times. But mostly it’s just nice to be a part of a team.
HEADLOCK12: What about you? Do you play any sports?
EESTIRIDDLER723: No. I am more intellectual.
HEADLOCK12: Ouch.
EESTIRIDDLER723: Oh, I did not mean to offend you. Perhaps I should say that I am not much of an athlete.
HEADLOCK12: Gotcha.
EESTIRIDDLER723: I’m actually quite poor at sports. My father was always trying to get me to play football—what you call soccer. And I was always trying to be the goalie so that I didn’t have to run. I’m more into riddles.
HEADLOCK12: What, like, why did the chicken cross the road?
EESTIRIDDLER723: That’s a joke. I mean brainteasers. Like, when you see me, you don’t see anybody. When you see everybody, you can’t see me. What am I?
HEADLOCK12: I give up. What?
EESTIRIDDLER723: Fog.
HEADLOCK12: Ah, I get it.
EESTIRIDDLER723: I’m as big as a house, as light as a feather. What am I?
HEADLOCK12: I’m not very good at these. What?
EESTIRIDDLER723: Smoke.
EESTIRIDDLER723: So is New York like it is in the movies?
HEADLOCK12: I guess that depends on the movie. But it is the best city in the world. No offense.
EESTIRIDDLER723: None taken. I can hardly compare the likes of Tallinn to a bustling metropolis like New York.
HEADLOCK12: Your English is very good.
EESTIRIDDLER723: Thank you. In Estonia, we take lessons since the first standard. It’s compulsory in all schools here. I have been reading English books all summer.
HEADLOCK12: You really are a bookworm. :) It’s cool that you read in English too.
EESTIRIDDLER723: I am fluent in Russian as well. It was compulsory until 1991 but I speak it because my father’s parents are originally from Russia. They don’t speak Estonian.
HEADLOCK12: This might be a stupid question, but is Estonian hard to learn?
EESTIRIDDLER723: I don’t really know. I grew up speaking it. But I will help you. You will take a class while you’re here.
HEADLOCK12: Cool. Hey I gotta run, but I guess I’ll see you at orientation?
EESTIRIDDLER723: A free trip to Berlin. No complaints from me.
HEADLOCK12: Yeah, totally. See you then.
HEADLOCK12 signed off.
EESTIRIDDLER723 signed off.
New York City
September 2002
The morning that Nicholas Grand set off for a semester in Estonia was like every other. At the table, his father, Arthur, chugged coffee in an effort to use the bathroom as the first step in his morning ablutions. His mother bounced around the kitchen like a pinball, pocketing a ring of keys, absently fingering the same gold-starred studs in her ears that she wore every day as she sorted through a stack of bills. His sister, Nora, pulled at a stray thread in the tablecloth, mussed and unsettled by the anticipation of the first meeting of a support group for other people just like her.
Although it was only eight o’clock, the air was already hazy and hot—an unseasonable September morning. Nicholas could feel perspiration collecting in his armpits as he sat slumped in a chair like the melted butter that was pooling in the dish on the table. Stella swooped in and collected the butter crock, depositing it in the fridge.
“Mo-om,” Nora bleated, her tone echoing a pair of bellows fanning a fire. “I kept that out on purpose. I hate hard butter. My toast always tears.”
“That butter was Dali-esque—practically drinkable,” Stella admonished. “Nicholas, did you eat? It’s a long flight.”
“There’ll be food on the plane, Mom.” It took effort just to speak. Nicholas felt as if he was talking through a bowl of tepid soup; the humidity had already risen to unspeakable levels. One of the few comforts of going to a place as random and as far north as Estonia was that the country scarcely appeared to even have a summer at all.
Stella paused in her undulations to place a maternal hand on Nicholas’s shoulder. Her hand hung like a wet mop against his damp T-shirt. “Are you sure you don’t