The Guest Room(94)

I decided I was going to like Eve when she gave me a heavy coat and some boots and walked me to the edge of hospital parking lot and handed me a cigarette. I no longer had any tubes in me, not even the one in my right arm, but I was very sore and had to take baby steps. I was happy to have on more than little hospital gown and little hospital slippers. Eve said she did not approve of smoking, but I was getting desperate and cranky, and she wanted me to be able to “focus on my options.” It had gotten cold and I could see her breath.

She took me to a corner of the parking lot where there would be no reporters. She said there were reporters and TV guys who wanted to talk to me, but I didn’t have to talk to them and probably shouldn’t until I had met with some lawyer lady she works with. She said from now on my life should be just that: my life.

…

Options. Such a word. Such an idea. Try having options when you have never had options before. Very difficult.

I figured when I got out I would go to Los Angeles, which was Sonja’s plan. Find a Bachelor. Find Kim. I knew I couldn’t go home to Yerevan—not with Vasily. Not with so many cue-ball-head babies. But then Eve told me instead I could go to halfway house if I wanted. I told her that I still had all my money. (No one had stolen it, which seemed even bigger miracle than miracle I was alive.) But Eve thought I should live with other girls for a while in a place in Brooklyn. She said halfway house was not called that, when I asked, because it was halfway between two places or because it was half a house. It was a place where I could live with other girls and learn to be normal girl. I could even go back to dancing, if I wanted.

“It’s been too many years. You can’t just pick up and be Velvet Bird,” I mumbled.

“I didn’t say you’d be preparing for the New York City Ballet. I only said you could go back to dancing. It might be…fun.”

When she said I would be living with other girls, I grew suspicious. Maybe this Eve was actually like Inga or Catherine, and she had just been nice to me for a couple of days because she was worming her way into my life like Vasily. I would never forget how it had been dance that had turned me into sex slave in the first place.

“So, I live with other girls like courtesan?” I asked. “I thought you didn’t want me to be courtesan. I thought I had options.”

But Eve said it would be nothing like that. It was for girls like me who did not want to be sex slaves and whores. The next morning, she brought in a girl for me to meet who lived there right now. Girl was from Kiev. She used to dance, too. Now she was taking lessons at studio again. She said there was a full moon coming, and she was going to be dancing in a little Brooklyn show where they had built a stage by windows in old factory so the ballet would have actual full moon as backdrop.

I asked her more about this halfway house, and she made it sound okay. Not perfect. But not scary either. And I would have to go somewhere.

…

And then there was this. When I read about Richard’s funeral in the newspaper and saw the things that people on TV were saying about me, I asked Eve to please tell Richard’s wife how I knew it was all my fault and I was so sorry. So very sorry. I asked her to please thank the lady so much for saving my life. And Eve said, “Maybe you should thank her yourself. Would you like that?” It seems telling her myself was all part of having options.

My hospital room looked out at trees and a thin river, and was maybe only two miles from Richard’s house. I guess it was near the cemetery, too.

The day after the funeral, Eve made phone calls and got phone calls back. She said if this worked out, if Richard’s wife came to hospital, it would just be our secret. It was nothing police guys ever had to know. No way. So, I understood she was breaking some rule, but so much of my life was breaking rules and she was doing me big favor, I didn’t care. I wanted to do one nice thing and tell this widow that her husband was good man and she was good lady.

Eve talked on her phone in the hallway outside my hospital room a couple of times. Then she came back in and said, “She’s on her way here. Right now. She’s bringing her daughter.”

…

I wanted to put on makeup and lipstick, but I had none and Eve would not lend me hers. She said it didn’t matter how I looked. I must have been fretting like crazy girl, so Eve said—lying maybe—that I looked fine.

And then there they were. In my hospital room. A mom and her little girl. A widow, like my mom. A girl with no dad, like me.

“I’m Kristin,” the lady said, her voice wobbly. “And this is Melissa.”

The girl looked at me with wide eyes, but said nothing. She stood right beside her mom at the edge of the hospital bed. She was wearing a pink puffer coat. Lots of down in the puffs. Kristin had on the same navy coat she’d been wearing the day we saw each other for the first time, and I got shot and Richard got killed. She was pale and looked very tired. Maybe sickly.

“I’m Alexandra.”

Eve looked at me and said, “You can tell them your real name. If you want.”

“I’m Anahit.”

“Armenian, right?” asked Richard’s wife. Her voice was very soft. I had to listen carefully to hear.

I nodded. Then I said, “Thank you. You saved my life.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I bet lots of women would have let me die.”

“No. I hope that’s not true.” Then she said, “I don’t know how much my husband told you about us. Melissa here is nine.” The girl nodded. She was wearing very colorful stockings on her legs. Looked like raining books. “She wanted to come, too.”