She murmurs her thanks and takes one. She crams the muffin into her mouth, glances around the commons, and then continues working. I pick at it, my appetite not exactly stellar lately.
A few minutes later, I’ve picked all of the chocolate chips off of my muffin, and Christine hands my homework back with a happy smile. “Thank you so much. Really.”
“No problem.”
She licks her lips and looks awkward for a moment. “I’m really sorry I didn’t come to your party Saturday night. My boyfriend . . .”
I wave aside her excuse. “Please. You don’t have to apologize.”
“I feel bad,” Christine says. “A-are you going to eat all of your sandwich today?”
I pull it apart and offer her half, and she immediately wolfs it down. Maybe Christine’s used to eating fast and that’s why she scarfs her food. It makes sense if she never does her homework until she sits down before class. She doesn’t have time to eat.
“So,” she asks between bites. “How was your party? Did you have fun?”
The one bite of sandwich in my mouth goes dry, and I force myself to swallow. I hate thinking about that party. “It was awful.”
Christine gives me a sympathetic look. “Didn’t turn out like you expected?”
She has no idea. Awful is the only word that springs to mind, but it doesn’t seem to encompass the emotions surrounding that night. I worked for days to get everything lined up for the party, printing up invites for Nick to hand out to his classmates, picking out my party dress, arranging decorations, and everything else I could possibly think of. It was my first chance to be a hostess, and I was excited.
When the night came, though, it was clear that my ideas of a party were as outdated as the television I watch. My prim pink party dress with the lace vest and swirly skirt was gorgeous in the store, but when girls show up in jeans and skimpy tops—like they wear in clubs—I realize I’m completely overdressed. I have been to a club, but I didn’t realize a party was the same thing. I thought parties were different. More formal.
And I made Nick overdress as well. He didn’t say anything, but he looked out of place in his tailored black suit. Handsomer than anyone else in the room, but compared to the T-shirts and jeans of the other guys, he looked as out of place as I did.
I felt terrible to see it, too. It’s as if I can handle my own awkwardness, but to bring Nick down with me? I felt loathsome and incompetent. Nick desires nothing more than to blend, to hide in plain sight, and every attempt I make seems to only make him stand out more.
To make matters worse, the girls in their tiny, backless tops flirted with him relentlessly. It didn’t matter that I was at his side, or that Nick told them we are together. They took one look at me, hiked their spangly tops down a little lower, and leaned a little closer to him.
Which makes me feel worse. Why is Nick with me—so clueless and naïve—when he could have one of those gorgeous, flirty women who ooze confidence? He could blend with them so much easier than with me. I know it’s my own lack of self-esteem whispering this in my ear. Nick loves me, and I love him beyond all reason.
There will always be flirty, too-forward girls. I will just have to learn to deal with them. Grimly, I think of the gun I had in Russia for a short period of time, and the bullet I put through Sergei’s brain. That problem had been easy to solve. Here back at home, I can’t put bullets into other women’s brains simply for looking at my man.
I decided that night that I need other weapons. So, on my phone, I have an episode of Real Housewives, purchased through iTunes. I’m going to watch it and study it, and learn how to be like these other girls.
I wonder if I need to head to the mall and find myself a spangly, backless top of my own. To blend, I tell myself, but it’s also because I want to see how Nick reacts if I wear one. I don’t want to change for anyone but my Nick, my Kolya.
“This is really good,” Christine tells me, startling me out of my thoughts.
I look over at her and notice she’s procured another one of my muffins and has taken a bite out of it. I smile, pleased. “Thank you. I’m learning how to bake. It’s a challenge sometimes, but I like it.”
“You were homeschooled and you don’t know how to bake?”
I shake my head. How to explain that the only food that went into our house on a regular basis was food that could last on a shelf for months or years? That I grew up eating canned tuna and Spam because at any time, my father might deem going to the grocery store “unsafe” and then not let me out of the house for a month? Pleasure in baking didn’t exist in my old world.