Riverside Park. Laura Wormer Van
retriever, was overjoyed to see them. Amanda dismissed the house sitter, got her parents settled in their room and made sure Madame Moliere had her eye on the children. Then Miklov climbed into the front seat and Amanda drove him home to the Waterbury housing complex where the league had put him up. They talked a little bit about the tournament that started tomorrow. A lot of the children were away for the holidays so Emily and Teddy would probably play their whole games, which was great since Amanda wanted her parents to watch them in action.
“How are you getting on, Miklov?” Amanda asked him. She had been surprised when Miklov had accepted Howard’s offer of a bus ticket to join them for Thanksgiving dinner. Emily had not been, though. (“He’s all alone, Mommy, oh, so very, very alone!”)
“I miss my family,” he admitted, brushing his hair out of his eyes.
“Of course you do,” she said. “And I’m sure they must miss you.”
“My mother.”
She glanced over at him.
“My mother meeses me.”
“Will you go and see her? For a visit, I mean.”
“Not yet,” he said, turning to look out his window.
He probably couldn’t afford it yet. Maybe she and Howard could find some other parents who would engage him for private lessons.
While they drove through downtown Waterbury Miklov suddenly said, “This is a very happy day.” When he smiled he was very handsome, although his teeth needed some work. She had no doubt that would come in time. Perfect-looking teeth was still a very American thing.
When she pulled up in front of the dreadful-looking building where he lived she said, “Here we are.” She kept her foot on the brake, waiting for him to get out. She needed to pick up some milk on the way home. Her parents now only drank soy milk. What store would be open on Thanksgiving that would carry soy milk?
Mickey-Luck undid his seat belt and shifted to face Amanda, making the leather creak. “I will tell my mother about my American Thanksgeeving. I haf—”He looked down a moment and then raised his head to meet her eyes directly. “I say how kind you are.”
“Our family is very fond of you, Miklov. You’ve made a big difference in our children’s lives.” Because out here they miss their father terribly. So do I.
Miklov’s eyes traveled down to Amanda’s mouth for just a second and then he turned away, searching for the door handle. When he found it he stopped again and turned around. “You understand how beautiful you are, yes?”
Amanda’s eyes widened. And then she laughed a little. “Why, thank you.”
He made a fist and pounded his heart twice. “I feel it there. For you. You are so beautiful.”
Oh, save it, Mickey-Luck! she thought. It is being American that you think is beautiful, our money is beautiful, this ridiculously expensive truck is beautiful, having a family is beautiful!
“See you tomorrow,” she told him.
He looked disappointed as he got out. Then he turned around, ducking his head back into the truck. “People think I am a peasant but I am not,” he said in a rush. “My great-grandfather was a great general. My father went to school, he was a teacher. I am not a peasant, Mrs. Stewart!”
Somewhat startled, Amanda said, “Everyone knows you are a champion soccer player, Miklov, and an excellent teacher. And in America that is all that matters.”
Miklov was searching her eyes and it made Amanda uncomfortable. But then his dark mood seemed to lift and he smiled, closed the door and walked away from the truck. He did not look back.
Amanda took a deep breath and regripped the steering wheel. Miklov was very attractive.
She set out to find soy milk.
4
Celia Cavanaugh
IT SUCKED BIG-TIME that she had to work. This was the first time in four years that Celia had the apartment to herself over a holiday weekend. But she did have to work, three until eleven tonight, three until two Friday and Saturday, and then three until ten on Sunday. Normally she cleaned up in tips over the weekend but on Thanksgiving? It might be okay today but she knew it would be dead over the weekend. To meet December’s rent she was going to need an extra shift this week.
Celia and Rachel had been assigned as roommates in a freshman dorm at Columbia University. Celia did not have many Jewish friends in the Connecticut suburb she had grown up in, and Rachel did not have many white Anglo-Saxon Protestant friends in the New Jersey suburb she had grown up in, but they had hit it off in a big way and learned a lot from each other. For example, Rachel introduced Celia to lox and bagels, while Celia, Rachel joked, had introduced her to margarine and instant mashed potatoes. Both girls came from affluent families, had parents still married to each other, and had done well in their suburban training in piano, tennis, skiing and keeping secrets.
Celia’s father was a partner at a Wall Street law firm, while Rachel’s last name was synonymous with the largest independent truck leasing company in the world. Her father was really, really rich. So rich, in fact, that he had bought a two and a half bedroom apartment on Riverside Drive so his daughter could move out of the dorm her sophomore year. Celia was welcomed to move in with Rachel as along as she paid sixteen hundred dollars a month toward expenses. Celia’s father asked why the heck should they pay sixteen hundred dollars a month to let her run wild when Celia could stay in the dorm for six hundred dollars a month and let her mother sleep at night. The girls put their heads together and figured out if they could just find someone who’d pay Celia’s rent for the full-size bedroom, Celia could pay Rachel six hundred dollars a month and cram herself into the tiny maid’s room off the kitchen, and then Rachel would have extra cash her father didn’t need to know about.
They advertised in the Spectator and the son of a country-western star was happy to pay sixteen hundred dollars to live in such a nice apartment. After Celia’s mother checked it out and the building and the neighborhood, she told Celia’s father she had no objection to Celia moving in. If Celia wanted to live in a closet that was her business, but the Riverside Park neighborhood was now very in, Mrs. Cavanaugh told her husband.
They moved into the apartment in August and it was really great. Celia’s father built her a loft bed so she could turn around in the maid’s room. Then, on their third night in the apartment, Celia and the-son-of-a-country-western-star shared a couple of bottles of wine, one thing led to another and Celia never slept in the maid’s room again. The next thing she knew, she was smoking cigarettes like the-son-of-a-country-western-star (Rachel put a huge standing fan in the hall to blow smoke back into their bedroom), and suddenly it was November and Rachel was calling Celia at the country-western star’s palatial home outside of Nashville to say that if Celia didn’t withdraw from their English class she was going to get an F because of her absences. Celia wasn’t going to be able to make the time up, the teacher was an asshole. So Celia called the university from Nashville and withdrew from the class. Later when her parents saw the I on her report card she said she had actually gotten a B but the teacher had handed in the grades late.
The lies came easier and more often. Celia and the-son-of-a-country-western-star were drinking a lot and smoking a lot of pot. Rachel said after this school year that was it, Celia was out. Celia said that was fine, they were going to get their own place anyway. In February the-son-of-a-country-western-star wanted to take Celia to Aspen where his country-western-star parent had a place, but Celia explained she had a huge test coming up in history and couldn’t go. But as she watched the-son-of-a-country-western-star packing his bags she changed her mind and went with him, deciding she’d just figure out what to do about her classes later. The solution she came up with was to call the school from Aspen and explain that she had broken her leg in three places skiing, was being forced to stay for medical treatment and could they please tell her what portion of her tuition could be applied to the following year since it looked like she would have to withdraw from school.
“Oh,