Roulette (7 page)

Without realizing where I am going, I end up back at my father’s apartment. I walk up the sweeping spiral staircase, which must have been so grand when the building was originally constructed in the 1920s, before these beautiful buildings were carved up into small warrens to house The People. Despite my father’s wealth, I think he actually believed in those principles on some deep level. Of course, he had his beautiful house in Sardinia, but he always lived in this same modest apartment.

After I unlock the front door, the first thing I notice is that the hall clock is silent, no longer ticking without my father there to wind it. I set down my purse and stare around the darkening living room, then turn toward his bedroom.

I hesitate before sitting on the edge of the bed, and then I set both feet onto those worn spots on the carpet. My legs are long enough that my feet rest flat on the floor. My father and I were about the same height, nearly six feet. He was even taller when he was young and powerful and seducing my mother, but age shrank him in the usual way. I glance at his bedside table. It is more of a small chest, with five drawers. I open the top one.

It feels like snooping, until I remember he isn’t around anymore to catch me. It still feels like snooping. He was so private, so old-fashioned. His ideas of propriety and rules of behavior were from another era. The top drawer has a comb, and a shoehorn with a well-worn antler handle, and a recent ticket stub from the opera. An extra pair of reading glasses. A nail file. Blood-pressure pills. Aspirin. All neatly lined up in a drawer organizer with little areas for each thing.

The next drawer down has small containers holding a few pieces of jewelry . . . if you can even call it jewelry. Man jewelry? Some are pins from different organizations, then a couple of enamel flags, other shiny bits he used to wear on the lapel of his jacket. And then a few medals or something. Uncle Alexei will need to take those and decide what to do with them. Weird communist stuff.

The third drawer: three handguns. And boxes of bullets. I shut it quickly.

The fourth drawer has stacks of neatly folded handkerchiefs and knotted silk cuff links in small boxes lined up on either side.

The bottom drawer is the memory drawer. Pictures and a few yellowed newspaper articles. Receipts. Mementos. A few packs of matches. Random, or seemingly random, bits of his past. And it is all thrown in together. A French postcard. A theater ticket.

I pull the whole drawer out and put it on the nubby off-white bedspread next to my thigh. My fingers touch things: a piece of red ribbon, a chip from a casino in Monte Carlo. That casino. At the back and beneath the rest, I find a red leather billfold that turns out to be a case for two photographs, like something you’d carry while you travel on business.

I look up and around the room before I open it. Maybe I’m about to discover Mikhail has another family somewhere. It seems highly unlikely he fooled around with my mother in the South of France one night in the 1980s and then never had sex again. Highly unlikely.

I open the smooth, aged leather.

And stare at my gorgeous mother.

So, yeah. Right up there with my daddy issues, I am also a bundle of clichés when it comes to my mother.
The Movie Star.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen her look as beautiful as she does in this old Kodachrome snapshot that this supposedly disinterested Russian man kept in his bedside table. For his whole life. She is in a fabulous string bikini, white triangles against her tan young body. She is looking up—at him, obviously—and her smile is completely unfamiliar to me because it looks so . . . genuine.

In the facing picture, she is in some glamorous, tiny, strapless beach cover-up, and my father has her tucked into his strong, tanned arms. She has that glorious smile again, and he is gazing down at her, looking as if he’s just received the best news of his entire life.

I put everything back where I found it, except the red leather photo case, which I slip into my handbag. After a few awkward attempts, I am able to get the drawer back into the opening at the bottom of the small chest. I get up and smooth the bedspread where I wrinkled it and take one last look around my father’s bedroom.

An unexpected crack of emotion, like a single fist, pounds once against my chest. It washes through me while I stand in the doorway and stare at everything. I don’t cry or gasp; I just feel like this is the beginning of something, like I am getting my very first glimpse of my father, rather than my last.

I turn back down the hall, pick up my purse where I left it by the front door, and return to my hotel room in the nicer part of Saint Petersburg.

Sunday morning, I leave the hotel and head to the airport. It seems strange I didn’t even have to change my original flight plans. My spring holiday has run its course, and my father happened to die while I was visiting. Quite practical of him, really.

Oh, and I had hot sex with some guy I will never see again. I can check that off my bucket list. And I became the CEO of a flourishing manufacturing company. Check.

The morning flight leaves Saint Petersburg right on time. I change planes in Moscow and am back in LA by midafternoon, with plenty of time to make the dinner party at the Pearsons’. I get home, shower and change, throw in a load of laundry, and meet Landon there. It feels good to be with my friends, to put all of the craziness of the two weeks in Russia behind me. Landon gives me a firm hug when he sees me. He tells me he’s sorry about my dad and gives me an extra squeeze, but I can tell he doesn’t want me to make a big, emotional mess in our friends’ living room.

With a quick nod, I assure him there will be no hysterics, and he goes off to get me a glass of wine. My best friend, Vivian Steingarten, is also at the small party, and I fill her in on everything—well, almost everything. I leave out any talk of French billionaires.

“You’re going to what?” she asks in a stage whisper. We are standing out on the back terrace after dinner. No one else can hear us. Vivian is what is commonly known as a powerhouse. Our mothers were very close when we were growing up—both of them really successful actresses who were far less successful mothers. Vivian and I were thrown together as far back as I can remember, while our wayward guardians gallivanted. She’s a great role model: tough, confident, and, most of all, kind. Well, kind in her way—tough kind.

“I’m going to be the temporary CEO of my dad’s company.”

“What about Landon? Have you run it past him?” She’s never been a huge fan of my whole “Mrs. Doctor Clark” life plan, so I’m not sure why she’s suddenly acting concerned about his part in all this.

“It’s my life. Why do I need to run it past him?”

She raises an eyebrow and takes another sip of her wine. “No reason.”

“Of course I’ll tell Landon eventually, but it’s only temporary, and you know how he is. He’ll see this as a threat to our plan or something.” I wave my hand as if anyone can run a company on the side.

She nods and gives me another half smile. “If anyone can do it, you can.”

“It’s just temporary,” I repeat lamely.

Landon comes out of the house and cuts our conversation short, letting us know the party’s winding down and it’s time to head out.

“Lunch next week,” Vivian whispers. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

Landon and I kiss good-bye in the Pearsons’ driveway, and I feel like I’m back on track. Nosy best friend. Self-assured boyfriend. Real life resumes.

CHAPTER EIGHT

T
hat first week, I do my level best to dive into my routine. I surf and work out hard every day. Almost too hard, actually. I start taking some rougher waves and going farther out than I usually do. For most of my life, I’ve been a longboard surfer, more of an easy rider, I guess. But since I got back from Russia, since the rush of being with Rome, I feel like a bit of an addict who’s clamoring for a better buzz, picking the riskier waves and cutting in more aggressively with my shorter board. I try not to read too much into it and just enjoy the thrills where I find them, rather than pining for French pirates.

Landon and I seem good. We talk and text every day, even though we never end up getting together. All of which is totally normal for us. He’s busy. I’m busy. And we have plans to go away together for the weekend, so I’m not really worried about it. I show up on time for work; my research grant application is under review and seems to be moving forward. Even so, Alexei’s words keep echoing in my mind—about how teaching is an approximation of
real
work—and I can’t quite shake it. Well, I probably can’t shake it because his words are not just echoing but actually in my ear.

In addition to all my usual responsibilities at USC, Alexei keeps right on treating me like the CEO of Voyanovski Industries. I get about fifty emails throughout the day, and nearly that many phone calls, that either bring me in on various deals that he has going or ask a quick question about how I’d handle a certain labor dispute.

He’s a sly bastard, because of course I have opinions! And he knows that if he frames it as a “
quick question
” or “
just a little something
” he’s been meaning to ask me, of course I answer. (Under no circumstances should the foreman be given the authority to negotiate!) We also talk every night. Around ten o’clock my time, the phone rings, and even though I know I could simply let it go to voice mail, I’m getting sort of addicted to the conversations: speaking Russian, making decisions that affect hundreds of people’s lives for the better, and, I’m not ashamed to admit, making a boatload of my own money. I am reluctantly coming to realize that Alexei is a spectacular mentor.

The idea that I’m pinch-hitting for Voyanovski Industries is one that I’m holding on to by a very thin thread. Landon senses that I’m exhausted and tries to be sympathetic, but I can tell he’s not happy about all the new responsibilities I’m taking on. I keep telling myself it’s all fine. We have plans to drive up the coast on Saturday, so I tell him we’ll get to catch up properly then.

I also try to remain hopeful that sparks will fly after we’ve been apart for three weeks and I’ll simply forget about a certain sexy Frenchman. On a practical level, forgetting is becoming easier by the day; Rome hasn’t sent me a single text or left one phone message.

The realistic part of me knows he is being a normal, respectful man of the world who probably wrote the rules for this sort of thing. One night of sex in a foreign hotel room is likely in the
Dictionary of Meaningless Flings
. I try to remind myself of this on a regular basis. I make up little jokes, like:

What happens in Saint Petersburg . . .

An affair
not
to remember . . .

From Rome with love . . .

Yeah. No. That last one is
not
good, because the mention of
love
and
Rome
in the same sentence puts me right back in that limo in Nevsky Prospect, with him looking at me like he truly, deeply, et cetera, believes that I deserve the best damn life and that he somehow knows how to make that happen.

In my initial contain-the-lust plan, I didn’t expect to actually miss him so much. Not just the sex. I keep trying to
tell
myself it was just sex—to diminish it somehow—but that isn’t working, either. I have the terrible feeling, a real self-loathing doozy, that if Rome were to call, I would drop everything and . . .

So. Right. Thankfully, he never calls. After ten days of silence, I come to accept that our fling in Saint Petersburg was just that. A fling. Nothing worth wrecking my life over.

By Friday afternoon, I’m caught up on all my correspondence at USC, I’ve told Alexei I will not—under any circumstances—answer any of his emails or calls for the next forty-eight hours, and Rome is starting to seem like a vague, surreal memory. When Saturday morning rolls around and Landon pulls up in front of my place, Rome has become a dream—a sweet dream, but a dream nonetheless. Something I can shake off in the light of day, even if some pieces stay with me.

Landon picks me up in his very practical Saab convertible around nine on Saturday morning. I throw my bag in the backseat and get in the front. I lean over and kiss his cheek. I’m so hopeful, so eager for him to show me he’s the right guy for me after all. To prove that I’ve missed some critical part of him that is really spontaneous and joyful.

But he isn’t making it easy.

“You’re wearing that?”

I have on an old pair of cutoff jeans and a fitted tank top. I was cleaning up my house for a while before he arrived, and I thought we might go for a hike when we checked into our hotel in Ojai, so I didn’t bother changing. I also think I look kind of sexy in a biker-babe sort of way, with my strong, tan arms and the small tattoo behind my left shoulder showing, and my long legs all exposed for his delectation.

“As you can see.” I settle back into my seat and pull the seat belt across my chest—which is also looking pretty hot, if you ask me—slip my sunglasses down over my eyes, and look determinedly straight out the windshield.

He is wearing khaki shorts and a green polo shirt and a pair of Top-Siders. I may be slightly underdressed, but who cares? He is always so pristine.

He exhales slowly and says, “Fine.” He depresses the clutch, and I put my hand over his on the gearshift to stop him from moving the car.

“I’m sorry. Did you want to stop for lunch someplace nice or something on the way? I can change. I just thought we might get there in time for a quick hike, and I was grubby from cleaning up anyway.”

He smiles and kisses my bare shoulder. “I love you like this.” He even glances at my breasts for good measure. “Maybe I’m jealous that you can just throw on something and look like that”—his eyes slide down to my bare legs and then back to my face—“while the rest of us have to actually go to a bit of effort.”

I pat his hand and pull mine back into my lap. “You don’t need to try very hard, honey.” Landon is quintessentially handsome. Thick, light-brown hair with those sun-kissed California highlights. He’s thirty-five and looks twenty-five. Whenever someone compliments him on his youthfulness, he never disagrees; he merely replies, “Clean livin’.”

As we drive out of town, I steal the occasional glance at his handsome profile. Landon grew up in a really solid American family. His childhood feels almost magical to me. An Ohio suburb. Committed, loving parents. Two younger sisters who adore him. Ohio State. Johns Hopkins medical school. Residency at UCLA with the top cardiologists in the country. He is the genuine article. Athletic. Healthy because he loves the way it makes him feel to be healthy. He rarely drinks, never smokes, and loves running.

Why do I feel like enumerating his many assets is an exercise in trying to convince myself of something? He is everything I’ve always dreamed of: The Right Man. The one who would be a permanent remedy to the escapades and frivolity of my unstable upbringing.

Is it so wrong that I want some
tiny
thing more? Some bit of playfulness without upsetting the whole apple cart? A spark?

We are about an hour outside LA, past Oxnard, when I make my foolish suggestion. “Why don’t we pull off the road and I’ll give you a blow job?”

He swerves the car a bit, then laughs. “Very funny. We’ll be in Ojai in about an hour. Why would you suffer across the gearshift when we have an excellent bed with our name on it only a few miles up the road?” He turns to look at me to make sure I’m not crazy, then shakes his head and returns his attention to the road with a patronizing,
you’re adorable
half smile.

And then I have a horrible thought—a treacherous, evil, serpentine thought: Rome would pull off the highway right away, no hesitation. And he would turn off the engine and unbuckle his seat belt and lean across the armrest and grip the back of my neck with his hand and pull my face . . .

I get sort of hot and squirmy in my seat just thinking about it.
Damn it
. “You’re right—silly idea.”

I look out the window for a few seconds, then sense that the rusty wheels of adolescent lust must have started cranking in Landon’s brain. He seems to slowly grasp that it might have been rash to turn me down.

“I mean, we could stop if you want,” he offers.

Even the most obtuse man seems to sit up straighter when the idea of a blow job is hurled in his direction.

I turn to face him and wave him off casually. “Never mind. You were right. We’ll be in Ojai soon.”

He smiles and puts his hand on my thigh and gives it a quick squeeze. I suppose that’s a display of passion, as far as he is concerned, and I need to step up to the truth and admit that responsible, intelligent, reliable people do not pull off roads to engage in activities that are still illegal in some third-world countries.

I don’t push my luck after that. It is a fun weekend.

God, how I hate the word
fun
lately.

We have a couple of great meals at two of our favorite restaurants in town: delicious organic vegetables and fresh farm-raised chicken and sparkly white wines. The weather is spectacular, and we hike out into the mountains for hours each day and talk about our plans for the summer.

Margot, my roommate from MIT, called me earlier in the week to invite us to her last-minute wedding in June. In France, of all places. Landon and I both agree we are too busy. No crazy weekends in Europe, thank you very much. Everything back to normal. Sort of.

Until I overhear him talking to the concierge of the hotel on Sunday morning and asking questions about whether or not they host weddings and how far in advance they get booked. While we are walking after breakfast, I bring it up. “Hey, I meant to ask you, did you tell everyone at the Pearsons’ dinner party that we’re moving in together?”

Landon is walking ahead of me on the path, and he turns back to look at me over his shoulder, then looks ahead again without changing pace. “I guess I mentioned it. I thought since we were talking about it, you know, before you left. Was I wrong?”

Ouch.
Was
he wrong? Sort of. Maybe not. Everyone knows we’re headed in that direction. He probably just wanted to give an answer to a question at a dinner party. Why am I feeling cornered?

“Wrong? Of course not! Vivian just called me after because she heard you say something about it and she was mad I hadn’t told her already. You know how she is.”

Landon can’t stand Vivian. He thinks she is
the worst
. Self-satisfied. Opinionated. Bossy. Whenever he tries to elucidate her faults for my benefit, I just laugh and tell him he doesn’t like her because she’s too much like him, and that usually puts an end to his litany.

He slows down on the path and then stops and turns to face me. I am not paying attention, and I stumble into him. He takes both my upper arms in his strong grip. I think for a split second that he might ravish me in the forest after all, and I sway into him, hoping to encourage him, I guess.

Alas. No.

He shakes me and says, “Do you even want to move in with me?”

The hesitation is probably answer enough, but I make it worse. “I don’t know,” I whisper.

It just slips out! I am feeling loose and honest and foolishly think we might be able to have a forthright discussion about my unfamiliar apathy. Unfortunately, Landon isn’t feeling quite so loose and honest. He is pissed.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” He squeezes my arms harder. He’s passionate, all right, but it is not sexual passion. He is working up to a fury. “You
don’t know
?”