Leslie’s stepson, Bud, was naturally deadpan, electively Buddhist, possibly a little depressed. Even as a child, he had always been somber. By the time he was ten, he was sorting Leslie’s mail into piles: bills, junk, and personal. On this particular morning, he emerged from the basement carrying his baby girl, Chloe, on one skinny hip. Leslie looked up from his cereal.
“And there she is …,” said Leslie, opening his heavy arms. Bud handed Leslie the baby and watched with his serious face as she bobbed up and down on his stepfather’s wide knee.
“She looks so much smaller on your lap,” he observed, untying the plastic cover of a loaf of toast bread.
“Everything’s relative,” said Leslie. “Jenny still asleep?”
“No, she’s just lying there staring at the ceiling,” said Bud. “She had a rough night.”
“You look okay, though,” said Leslie, addressing the baby, who was sucking on her fist.
“Yeah, she’s great. Babies are destructive forces,” said Bud, grabbing his toast as it sprang from the toaster.
“Is she hungry?”
“She just ate,” said Bud, ripping into the toast with his teeth and slurping a mouthful of coffee. “I gotta get to work. Can you hang on to her for ten minutes till Jenny gets up here?”
“Sure,” said Leslie. “Where’s the job?”
“In Quogue. The same guy as last year, remember the addition to the pool house? He’s adding to that.”
“An addition to the addition. Always a sound idea,” said Leslie.
“I think he just likes people around. He’s an old guy.” Bud fastened his tool belt around his narrow hips, kissed his baby daughter on the head, and walked out the door.
Deirdre came in wearing a fluffy peach robe. “How long has she been up?” she asked, taking the baby.
“Bud just left. Jenny had a bad night.”
“Okay,” said Deirdre, rocking the baby and sniffing the top of her head. “We’ll watch you, won’t we, Chloe?”
Bud and his nineteen-year-old wife, Jenny, had moved in with Leslie and Deirdre weeks before the baby was born. They just needed a place to start out, Bud said. Leslie helped Bud fix up a little efficiency apartment in the basement for the newlyweds. It had everything they needed, minus light—but they spent most of their time upstairs with Leslie and Deirdre anyway, and out at the pool when the weather was fine. It was lovely having the baby around. But Jenny believed in large families. What’s more, she and Bud both had a certain passive openness about them that, Leslie surmised, might not lend itself to the regular practice of birth control. He imagined a baseball-team-sized passel of Buddhist grandkids bubbling out of that basement in the next few years. What he couldn’t quite picture was Bud supporting them all.
An hour later, Leslie was walking a slack, unconscious Chloe around on his shoulder while he talked to Vera on the phone. Little mother Jenny appeared, puffy-eyed, her hair in fraying braids, reached up and peeled her sleeping daughter from Leslie’s massive shoulder. The baby’s body kept a crescent shape, as though she’d been molded to Leslie’s arm, her legs folded up tight. Jenny laid her down gently in a little bassinet by the couch. Unfurling, eyes shut, the baby stretched, grunting and rubbing her nose. She missed Leslie’s warmth. Leslie watched as Jenny wiggled a pacifier against the baby’s lips, slipped it into the tiny mouth. His granddaughter fell asleep again, her mouth working the rubber, limbs relaxing. He poured Jenny a cup of coffee and handed it to her, the phone still clamped to his ear.
“And finally, a guy just called about a big job,” Vera announced. Her voice was nasal, no-nonsense, reassuringly abrupt. Leslie adored that voice. “Ross Coe. He has a boat he wants you to look at.” Ross Coe. It was that weirdo shipping guy in East Hampton—the one with the rubber face.
“Oh, boy,” said Leslie. “What kind of boat?”
“He says it’s vintage, but he won’t elaborate. ‘A potential masterpiece’ were his exact words.”
“That guy is an unappealing character.”
“It sounds like money, though,” said Vera. “Vintage masterpieces take time. Remember what I said about the Very Rich.”
“I better go out there,” said Leslie. “Where is the boat?”
“He’s had it towed down from Rhode Island. It hasn’t been in the water for years.”
“Hull’s gonna be cracked.”
“All the more work for you,” said Vera cheerfully. “Around two would be ideal, he said.”
Leslie sighed. “Today?”
“He said you’ve been out there before.”
“Yeah, I know where it is,” said Leslie glumly.
At the appointed hour, Leslie drove his truck over to the Coe house to have a look at that mystery yacht. He crept along the circular drive, gravel crackling beneath his tires, and parked in front of the gargantuan dwelling, which was far bigger than he had realized when he’d picked up Don and Libby on the night of the Green Fairy. It was an old-fashioned, shingled mansion, probably built in the 1920s, with quaint light green shutters pinned back against the brown shingles. Immaculately pruned roses were on parade all along the front of the house. Ross Coe himself was walking toward Leslie’s truck before he’d even turned the engine off, dressed in a pair of khaki shorts, pink polo shirt with the collar flipped up, and loafers. His wavy hair was freshly brushed, and his reconstructed face, shocking at any time of day, wore the pouty smile of a socialite. Leslie realized as he stepped down from the truck that Coe had a woman’s face. That’s what it was: he was a youngish man, with the face of an older woman who had had a lot of plastic surgery. Leslie wanted to turn around and get right back in his truck, but instead he leaned down, put out his broad hand, and shook Coe’s small, soft paw, noticing as he did so that Coe was wearing a smear of gloss on his swollen lips.
“Where’s the boat?” Leslie asked, barely able to contain his disgust.
“Just around back, in the big garage,” said Coe. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to find you.”
“How long has it been out of the water?” Leslie asked.
“Oh, I’d say three, four years,” said Coe. “The guy who was going to restore her had a fatal heart attack, and the family just left her rotting in the barn.”
He led Leslie around the house, following a strand of the driveway, until they reached a large garage, shingled to match the house. In the background, Leslie made out a long pool and a Palladian-style stone structure, with several columns and a domed roof. Coe noticed him looking.
“That’s the nymphaeum,” said Coe. “A folly of my mother’s. She was always building Greek doodads. She was Greek. I’ll show you around later,” he offered, tugging at the sliding garage door, which rolled up with a clatter. There, gleaming inside, was a large wooden motor yacht. Its black hull glowed dull in the dark of the garage. It was a broken-down beauty. Leslie’s stomach lurched at the sight of her.
“A Futura,” Leslie said. “I’ve never seen one with a black hull.”
“It’s the only one they made,” answered Coe, stroking the flank of the boat proudly. “It was custom-built for the son of a Chris-Craft dealer. Stayed in the family all this time. But it’s been neglected for years. It’s a wreck, in fact, wouldn’t you say so, Mr. Senzatimore?”
Leslie ignored the question and walked around the boat. The hull was cracked, as predicted. The teak decks were buckled in places.
“You’ll have to tow her outside for me to get a real idea of what we’re up against,” said Leslie.
“But she’s a beauty, isn’t she?” asked Coe.
“The Futura Sports Express is a great boat,” said Leslie. “They’ll last forever, if you take care of them.”
“And I intend to! I want to invest in this boat. I want her to be perfect,” said Coe, clasping his hands together, his Carol Channing face beaming up at the hulking craft. “Boats are in my blood, Mr. Senzatimore. Nothing gets me more thrilled than a beautiful boat that looks like a broken-down old woman. It’s just so thrilling, isn’t it, to bring a boat back to life?”
“Yes, it is,” said Leslie. This restoration could end up costing hundreds of man-hours. He might even be able to send Stevie to that private elementary school for the deaf if he took this on. On the other hand, he would be working for Ross Coe. And that gave him a very uneasy feeling.
“Come have something to drink while I get the boat pulled out for you.”
“I can come back tomorrow,” said Leslie.
“If you have time I would love you to look at it today. To give me a sense of what it would be.”
“I can’t give you a full estimate today.”
“That’s all right. Take as long as you need. I would rather the boat not leave the premises, though,” said Coe slyly.
“Not leave the premises?”
“No. I would like you to do the work here.”
“I can’t do that,” said Leslie. “I don’t work alone. And … my whole shop is set up for boat repair.”
“I have the space. You will have every piece of equipment you could possibly need. Everything. I will pay for every scrap of an hour you spend setting things up here.”
“I have to run my business,” said Leslie.
“It’s just …,” said Coe, looking up at the sky, as if for support, “I want the work to be done here. In my presence. I want to … see it transformed—with my own eyes. That’s why I’m spending the money.”
Leslie sighed. This man was repulsive. Taking this job was a commitment to more or less living with him for up to a year. Yet—he couldn’t turn it down.
“If you have it towed outside, I’ll have a look at it, and then we can talk about whether it’s possible to do here,” said Leslie, looking at his shoes as they followed Coe’s size fives around the side of the house and up the steps to the wraparound porch. A dark-haired man in khakis and a blue polo shirt was standing at the ready with a tray of glasses and a silver pitcher. The smell of roses was dense in the back of the house. Leslie sat down in a wicker chair. It creaked, and he rose swiftly, worried it would collapse under him.
“You’re all right,” said Coe.
The khakied man unobtrusively poured out lemonade. Leslie looked up at him.
“Thanks,” he said. The butler smiled in a self-erasing way. Leslie leaned back in the uncomfortable chair, took a reluctant sip, and glared down the length of the shimmering blue-bottomed pool. Three figures sat at the other end, in the nymphaeum. One of them was gesturing emphatically. He popped out of his seat, waving his arms around and pacing back and forth.
“That’s Derbhan Nevsky,” said Ross Coe. “You met him a few weeks ago, when you came by.”
Leslie nodded. He didn’t remember the name. Once Nevsky rose and started walking toward them, though, he recognized him. He was still talking, flanked by two very young women. One of them had a fine spray of white-blond hair, and loped along in a pair of tiny shorts, her giraffe legs unfolding and straightening with each step. The other was wearing a dress to her ankles. She had long black hair. In the rippling heat, Leslie had the sense that she was shimmering, immaterial, like a spirit. Alarm gathered in him as the young woman approached. She was looking ahead, listening to Nevsky intently. By the time she had reached the porch, Leslie was actually frightened. He had no idea why.
“Leslie Senzatimore,” Ross Coe said, “you’ve met Derbhan Nevsky. And these are my guests, Shelley Douglas and Masha …”
“White,” said Nevsky. Masha looked over at him. It was the first time she had heard her new name spoken out loud. Masha White. Masha White. She looked over at the big man holding a glass of lemonade between his fingers. He was mountainous. His bleached-out eyes looked up at her, squinting against the sun. When she approached him, he was doused in her shadow. He stood up, rising into the light like a swimmer emerging from a dark pond. She looked up at him and put out her hand, as Nevsky had told her to. The big hand felt rough. It was the first time she had shaken a strange man’s hand. The feeling of closeness was surprisingly pleasant. She left her hand in Leslie’s for a moment, a second too long.
“Good job,” whispered Nevsky. She let her hand fall from Leslie’s grip. He sat down, her shadow traveling up his body again.
“So, girls, what’s the plan for today?” asked Coe, rubbing his palms together with relish.
“We have elocution lessons for Miss White, and a trainer coming for the two of them,” said Nevsky. “Then a little lie-down. And I have to get them to Bridget’s class.”
“Surinder will drive you,” said Coe. “Will we have a late supper afterwards?”
“Don’t worry about that,” said Nevsky. Then, seeing Coe’s crestfallen expression: “I’ll send the girls straight back. I’m hoping to have a dinner date,” said Nevsky.
“Intrigue!” said Coe, pursing his lips.
Masha and Shelley followed Nevsky into a big Victorian house under renovation, just down the street from the Patchogue Boat Club. Coe happened to be turning the house into apartments, Nevsky explained. The girls would be staying in the first finished unit. They walked past several workers carrying boards and hammers, up the circular staircase, down a hall, and into the rent-free apartment. The white room was glazed with light, carved up with brilliant rectangles of sunshine, and smelled of fresh paint. A mod red couch and two black chairs cut streamlined shapes out of the back wall.
“This place is spanking new!” cried Nevsky. “No one has lived in this apartment. You’re the only tenants in the building so far.”
“Isn’t the furniture great?” exclaimed Shelley.
“Courtesy of Helga Coe. We’ll get you curtains,” said Nevsky, trotting past the girls and peeking into the bedroom, then popping his head back out. “Pretty nice, eh?”
“Yeah,” said Masha, walking past him into the spacious bedroom and peeking into the bathroom, which had one bare window with a view of the marina down the street, boats gleaming in the sun.
“You have the charm of a Victorian, with all the amenities of modern life,” Nevsky explained as she returned to the living room, his arms whipping around as he indicated the various appliances. “Washer and dryer are downstairs in the laundry room. But you got your dishwasher, garbage disposal, coffeemaker, all that’s in the kitchen. There’s gonna be Wi-Fi eventually! I got you a few groceries, and later I can take you to the store so you can pick things you like, or if you have any dietary requirements, if you’re vegetarian, or—”
“I’m not a vegetarian,” said Shelley. “I eat whatever.”
“I’m not vegetarian,” said Masha.
“I don’t know if you, ah—Masha, if you—”
Masha turned and looked at Derbhan Nevsky. He was asking if she was going to be eating kosher. “Don’t worry about me,” she said.
“Truth is,” he said, nodding, Masha thought, with approval, “you’ll be eating at the Coe house most of the time, or in the city between auditions.” Nevsky sat on the brilliant red couch, shielding his eyes from the sun. “This is going to be a very busy few months, girls. Sit down.” They each sat on a stiff black chair. Nevsky snapped the fingers of both his hands once, as if to command his own attention. Then he began.
“First off, I need to get you ready. Each as an individual. Masha, you need to tone down the accent. Shelley, you need conditioner. Just kidding, but seriously for both of you, trips to the beauty parlor. Exercise! Facials! Manicures! Shopping! I don’t just want men looking at you two on the street. I want them following you. Bridget’s class—obviously, you need to work on the technique, that’s a lifelong process. Once you have your confidence up, we start meeting casting directors. General meetings. Auditions to follow. If necessary, Bridget’s agreed to coach you on your auditions. All expenses paid. You understand?”
Shelley laughed. “I feel like I just won the grand prize in a game show,” she said.
Masha looked at Nevsky. He was wearing his floppy white tennis hat at an angle today. She wondered if he was a legitimate person. Yet, if Bridget was letting this happen, it had to be okay.
“What do you get out of it?” she asked.
Nevsky’s face brightened. “I’m glad you asked that,” he said, taking two contracts out of a battered briefcase and handing Masha a pen.
“Ten percent, that’s all. Ten percent of anything you girls make while I’m your manager. If you make nothing after six months, you owe nothing. I’m rebuilding an empire here. You’re my first two bricks.”
He took them to the grocery store. Masha chose a toothbrush, toothpaste, simple toiletries, makeup. She picked up some underwear from a sale barrel near the entrance. Then she walked down the aisles secretly looking for kosher meat products. All she could find were hot dogs. She took a couple of packets and threw them in the cart.
Nevsky dropped them off at the apartment and told them he would pick them up at five to take them to Bridget’s class. They should eat a snack, then they would have dinner later, with the Coes. Masha threw two huge kosher beef hot dogs into boiling water.
“I can lend you clothes,” said Shelley, “till you have time to get something. Unless you’re planning on going home to pick stuff up …”
“No,” said Masha. “If I go back, I’ll never get out again.” She gave a hot dog in a roll to Shelley, then, before taking a bite of her own, she whispered a blessing over it.
“What are you saying? Grace?” asked Shelley.
“Kind of. It’s a bracha. A blessing.”
“You always do that when you eat?”
“Or drink,” said Masha.
“Every sip?”
“Nah, just once, then even if you’re drinking out of a bottle of water for an hour, the bracha lasts the whole time. There’s different brachas for meat, dairy, water, wine, whatever.”
“How do you remember it all?”
Masha shrugged. “I knew most of them by the time I was five.”
“My grandparents always said grace at dinner,” said Shelley. “And my dad, I think, I don’t exactly remember.”
“Did he die?”
“No, he just relocated.” Shelley looked over at Masha. “It’s so weird how things happen,” she said. “I mean, if it wasn’t for you walking by the school, no way would you and I have ever even met. You would just—excuse me for saying this. But—you would be one of those people I stare at all the time.”
“What do you mean?” asked Masha.
“Well, I mean, the men who wear the hats and the sidelocks and the women are all covered up, with the thick stockings. Those people.”
“I always want to know why. Why do they dress like that? Why do the women wear wigs and wear long sleeves in August?”
“It’s something called tznius,” said Masha. “It’s just a kind of modesty. If people are staring at your legs or whatever, they won’t see your neshama, your soul. Who you are as a person. Those people you’re noticing are probably Hasidic, which I’m not, but it comes to almost the same thing. They’re just more … more.”
“But what if who you are is someone who likes to wear really short skirts?” asked Shelley. Masha laughed, shaking her head.
Shelley lent her a jean skirt that came down to her ankles and a baggy striped top, choosing a tartan miniskirt with a little white sweater and platforms for herself. As they walked out of their building they saw a light blue vintage Mercedes idling loudly at the curb. The back window glided down and Nevsky waved from the crack. He was on the phone. A slender man in a black suit and white turban emerged from the driver’s side and opened the door for them.
“I am Surinder Multani,” he said with a kind smile. “I am the driver of Mr. Coe.”
When they arrived at the school, Masha scurried from the car into the building. She didn’t feel safe so close to her own home. When she got inside, Hugh was standing there.
“Hey,” he said. “I hear you moved.”
“Yeah,” she said.
Hugh passed his hand over his spiky hair. “Derbhan Nevsky. He’s legit?”
“I guess so,” she said. “I couldn’t think of another way.”
After class, Bridget took Masha back to her office.
“You’ve made a break,” she rasped.
“Yeah,” said Masha. “I still can’t believe it.”
“Your mother and your sister were here asking about you.”
“They were?”
“I told them you were fine and that you would be in touch with them when you felt ready.”
“What did they say?”
“Your sister—”
“Miriam?”
“She was pretty upset with me.”
Sorry.
“I have no problem with being a buffer, but I think you should write to them.”
“I will.”
“You have every right to do this, you know. You’re an adult. Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” Masha shrugged.
“Masha. Listen. I feel responsible for you in a way. You know I hoped that you would choose this work, to try to learn the craft of this work. And now you’ve chosen to, and I’m nervous as hell that it’s going to mess you up.”
“It was my choice,” said Masha.
“I know,” said Bridget. “But … use me. Use me as a sounding board, adviser, whatever. Talk to me whenever you need to. It’s going to be a big, gradual process.”
“What is?”
“Integration. I don’t even think you are aware of how different you are.”
“I’m not that different,” said Masha.
“You don’t understand,” said Bridget, tucking in her chin and fixing Masha with a steady look. “You need to be rewired.”
Jeans: indigo, acid-washed, boot-legged, peg-legged, high-waisted, low-waisted, rhinestoned, butt-lifting. Organized into piles, crammed onto shelves, fanned out on tables; the sheer intimidating volume of them made Masha want to curl up in her long gray dress, pull it over her feet, and weep.
Shelley had several pairs draped over her arm and was efficiently checking the size of another. “You need at least two pairs,” she said. “No one has just one pair of jeans.”
Masha nodded. She had been quiet all morning. She had known this would happen, that it had to happen. If she wanted to be an actress, eventually she would have to wear pants.
The dressing room was painted fuchsia; a mirror stretched mercilessly from floor to ceiling. Masha turned from it, trying to shut the curtain completely so no crack of light showed. Her back to the mirror, she pulled up her dress, clamping it under her chin, and tugged on the first pair of jeans. As she pulled the stiff material up her legs, she felt she was being bifurcated, like a mermaid having her tail cut in two.
“How’re you doing in there?” asked Shelley from outside the curtain.
“Not sure,” said Masha, hopping up and down as she struggled with the zip.
“Can I see?” Masha opened the curtain a crack so that Shelley could sidle in.
“Wow,” said Shelley, “those look great.”
“They do?” asked Masha.
“Have you even looked at them yet?”
Masha turned and faced the mirror. There was a young woman in tight blue jeans. Nothing out of the ordinary in that. Yet how was she supposed to walk out in public like this? Her sex was right behind there at the place where her legs joined. She felt naked.
Nevsky popped into the store to pay. Then they all went out to lunch.
“Thanks for the clothes,” said Masha.
“Yeah,” said Shelley.
“Thank Ross Coe, not me,” said Nevsky, gnawing on a ham sandwich. “For him, it’s an investment.” He drummed his fingers on the table in a brief volley of nervous taps. “He’s the primary stockholder in my new management company. He wants to help me do this right.” With a jerk, he turned, hailing a passing waitress. “Excuse me, miss! Could I get a cuppa coffee here?” Then, his head snapping back to them: “You girls for coffee?”
Back in the light-smeared apartment, Masha set the crinkly bag of new clothes on the chintz bedspread and flopped down beside it, gazing up at the ceiling fan batting the air in slow rounds. She felt warm, and so alone in the silence. It was strange not to have her family talking in the next room, to know that Estie wouldn’t bust in any minute with a complaint about Ezra, or Yehudis, spouting a stream of enthusiasm about some boy she’d seen through the barrier in shul. She was so used to Pearl walking in and gently asking her if she’d like a piece of toast, or a bowl of soup, or ice cream. She wanted to go home. I’m nothing but a baby, Masha chided, tears coming to her eyes as she closed them. Shelley woke her up an hour later. Time to go. Elocution class was next on her schedule. Masha peeked inside the plastic shopping bag. There were the three pairs of jeans, folded on top of one another along with the skimpy tops, the dress, and the bras. She had to start the rewiring. She pulled on a pair of the jeans. Again, the feeling of stiff cloth between her legs felt bizarre. In the bathroom she leaned in to the mirror and lined her eyelids with black pencil, coated her lashes with mascara. Her eyes looked enormous, biblical. Shelley walked in, all bare legs and fluffy white hair, her orange platform shoes revealing bright red toenails.
“Sexy mama!” she exclaimed.
Doris van Hoff was dressed in solid beige, spectacled, and a little shaky—whether from age or a slight palsy, Masha could not tell. She had an elegant way of speaking, however. For eradicating accents, Nevsky claimed, Doris was the best in the business. Her people went back to Dutch New York. The only danger was, if you studied with her too long you could end up sounding like Cary Grant. And she had an intimate style. Right off the bat she positioned herself so close to Masha’s chair that their knees were touching. Then she tilted her head back, causing her limpid eyes to grow huge behind the thick lenses.
“Repeat this in a natural way,” said Doris carefully, her great magnified eyes fixed on Masha’s mouth. “I forgot to open the door for you.” Masha repeated the phrase.
Doris sat back and patted Masha’s knee. “It’s going to take a bit of time, dear. But we’ll get there.”
Masha tried using Doris’s sharp consonants to sever and flatten her singsong words. She rolled the glacial syllables across her tongue like marbles. It felt impossible to change the way she talked. Plus, she felt truly naked in her tight jeans and tank top. She kept moving behind a floral armchair to hide her crotch from Doris van Hoff, but the woman called her back again and again so she could look down Masha’s throat while she talked.
A high buzzing noise took Masha’s attention as she enunciated. Through the window she could see a large black boat, and a man wearing ear mufflers, passing something back and forth over its dusty flank. It was the big man she’d met the other day on the porch, the one with the woman’s name. Leslie.
Once her elocution lesson was done, Masha walked through the cool dark hallway, feeling herself drawn toward the back of the house. She felt her nipples contract and twist beneath the thin bra, goose bumps rise on the flesh of her bare arms. She rubbed her hands along her shoulders, anxious to get outside, into the sun. She wanted to talk to the man, see what he thought of her jeans.
Leslie looked up from his work as the screen door slammed and she stepped off the porch. A cordial little wave, and he went back to his work. Masha laughed at herself for thinking she would make such a big impression just because she was wearing a pair of blue jeans and a sleeveless shirt. That was all these people wore! She walked over to the black boat and leaned back on it a few feet away from Leslie, the hull nearly hot against her back. Her heart sped up as she waited. At last he looked up at her again from under his baseball cap, his deep-set pale blue eyes focused intently on her blushing face.
“What’s up, Masha?”
“Nothing,” she said. “Just kind of bored.”
“Want a job?” he asked. Her eyes widened.
“I don’t mean employment, I mean somethin’ to do,” he said.
“Sure.” There were bits of paint on the interior that needed to be sanded down by hand. He helped her into the boat. Her skin ached a little where he touched it.
“I’m going to have to strip her right down,” he called up to her. “This boat is a disaster.”
“Why?” asked Masha.
“The people that owned her didn’t take care of her.”
“I’ve never been on a boat,” said Masha, taking hold of the wide Bakelite steering wheel, swinging it left and right.
“You gotta be kidding me,” said Leslie. Masha took up her sandpaper. They worked for a while in silence. She liked watching the honey-colored wood peek out from under the shiny black paint. It made her forget her nakedness a little. She rubbed until her arm hurt. She stood up straight, the shame returning.
“I’ll get a couple of my guys out here soon,” said Leslie, taking off his cap and wiping his brow with his forearm. His face was coated in sweat. “They’ll make the work go faster. But they all have jobs they need to finish.”
“I’m thirsty,” Masha said. “You want a soda? They have Coke in bottles in the fridge.”
“I’d love a Coke in a bottle.” Leslie smiled.
Masha climbed down the ladder unaided and hurried away, hopping up the steps to the house. She couldn’t stand being this exposed anymore. Would it be too weird, she wondered, to come back wearing something else? She had a dress in her bag, to wear for class later. No, she couldn’t change entirely. She ducked into the room she’d been working in with Doris, where she had left Shelley’s hoodie flopped over the arm of the big chair, and tugged it on, zipping it with relief. Then she fetched the Cokes from the empty, staff-neatened kitchen.
What was Ross Coe up to with a beauty like that? Leslie wondered as he waited. Nothing savory, he guessed. The girl came back with the bottles, a black sweatshirt zipped up to the neck.
“Got cold in there?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said, handing him a bottle. She seemed so small beside him, he thought. Fragile. The little gap between her teeth as she took a sip, the shy, concave way she held herself, those big glittering obsidian eyes, her every sentence spoken like first steps—wobbly, hopeful, important: he found her touching, mysterious.
“How old are you?” he asked. “If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Twenty-one,” she said.
“Don’t worry, I’m not gonna card you,” he said. A confused smile flitted across her face. A moment passed.
Helga Coe marched out of the house in a zebra swimsuit. She walked straight into the pool. They both watched her as she performed a perfect breaststroke, bony arms parting the water mechanically as she swam. A staff member, clad in chinos, darted from the house to the guesthouse carrying a stack of towels.
“What’s your last name again?” Masha asked him.
“Senzatimore. It means ‘fearless’ in Italian. Senza, ‘without.’ Timore, ‘fear.’”
“You don’t look Italian.”
“Italian-Irish. What about you?”
Her eyes seemed to lose focus, her face went slack. Then she looked up at him boldly, a challenge in her gaze.
“Guess,” she said, raising her chin.
He squinted down at her. “Could be Sicilian … but no … I’m gonna go out on a limb and say Romanian.”
“Romanian! You think I’m a gypsy?”
“Not with a name like White, I guess.”
“White isn’t my real name.”
“What is?”
“I’m done with it, anyway.” She leaned back on the boat, pressing the base of the bottle into her lean belly and gazing out at the pool and the sea beyond it. Her eyes, Leslie noticed, had taken on an oddly purple cast, like an oil slick. He wondered if she was a runaway.
“You’re from the Tri-state area, anyway,” said Leslie, “whatever your forebears.”
“Four bears?”
“Forebears. Ancestors.”
“Fancy.”
“You know it.”
“I’m hoping not to sound this way soon,” she said, worrying a few pebbles with the tip of her ballet shoe.
“You sound fine to me,” he said. “If you don’t mind my asking, what’s your connection to Ross Coe?”
“Derbhan Nevsky is my manager and Ross Coe is investing in his company. Mr. Coe’s letting me and Shelley stay in one of his apartments for free till we can get acting work. Unless I don’t get any in six months, in which case I think I’m being returned.”
“Return to sender,” he said, thinking the whole arrangement seemed creepy.
“The thing is,” she went on, “I need to make some money. I left home in a rush, I paid almost everything I had for acting classes, and now I’m kind of broke. I don’t like being so … in debt. It’s like I’m a little kid.”
Leslie nodded, thoughtful. A notion to protect the girl spiked in him suddenly, like a sharp pain.
“Are your parents okay with this arrangement?” he asked.
“They don’t really know.”
“I bet they’re worried.”
“I’ll get in touch with them soon.”
“I’ll pay you minimum wage to work on the boat for a couple weeks,” he offered, regretting it immediately. The last thing he needed was a beauty queen climbing all over the boat, getting in everybody’s way.
“You will?”
“You probably wouldn’t want to do this kind of work,” he said.
“I like it,” she said.
“I’m sure you’ll be busy with … whatever it is you’ll be doing. Auditions and whatnot.”
“I guess I can only do a few hours a day.”
“If you don’t have time, no sweat.”
“Okay,” she said. “Thanks.” She smiled, small dimples appearing high in her cheeks.
Driving home that evening, Leslie thought about the girl. She seemed both guileless and cunning, her flirtatiousness ill-fitting, tentative, as if she were playing a part. He had never seen anyone blush that much. Where had she come from? He would keep an eye on her as much as he could. Maybe invite her to the house, introduce her to Deirdre. Deirdre would take care of her.
That night, I gave Leslie this dream:
A house is burning. Inside, Leslie crawls through the black smoke, blinded, feeling along the wall, breathing air through his mask, hearing its rhythmic, steady hiss. He opens a door, feels his way across the room. He feels a bed. A foot. A belly. A breast. He lifts up the body and rushes to the window. In the light, he sees her: it’s Masha. Her body is limp in his arms. Now he is on the grass outside, kneeling over her, breathing into her mouth. She opens her eyes.
I figured, when manipulating a spirit as upright as Leslie’s, it’s best to stick to the classics.