Free Vaclav & Lena by Haley Tanner Page A

lunch. Vaclav and his mother were very happy about this plan, both of them knowing that Vaclav would have a new friend, and both of them knowing that they were doing something nice for Lena. They could not know that many bad things would come from this day along with the good things. They did not know that the good things would happen and interact with the bad things like chemicals and make them worse, and the other way around as well. They did not know that Vaclav and Lena would wander past the famous Coney Island Sideshow and see magic tricks and Heather Holliday and her golden fringed bikini for the first time. They could not know that this would be the beginning of everything.
    DING DONG HELLO

…
    E katerina walked Lena right up to the front door of Vaclav’s house, and Lena felt very bad and confused because she didn’t want the Aunt to leave her there, but she also didn’t want anyone to see the Aunt with her makeup still on for work. Unfortunately, there was nothing Lena could do. The Aunt held her wrist very tightly, and a little too high up in the air, so that Lena had to twist her body to keep her shoulder from hurting, and they stood and rang the bell. As soon as the bell chimed, Lena could hear movement behind the door.
    On the other side of the door, Vaclav and his mother were both sitting on the big couch, with everything in the apartment clean and the TV off, not talking about how excited they were. When the doorbell rang, Vaclav and his mother both stood up, and Vaclav ran off to his room, pretending to suddenly need something, overcome with excitement and nervousness and not wanting to seem as if he was just sitting and waiting for Lena to come.
    Rasia opened the door and stared at Ekaterina, who as the door was opening was pressing the doorbell a second time. Ekaterina had hair that started out dark brown at the scalp and became orange for a moment and then a glowing white-blond, stretched back tightly into a ponytail that started at the top of her head. She wore one of those fuzzy pink matching jumpsuits that all the young mothers were wearing, which made Rasia feel as though there was a club that she did not belong to, and on her feet she had big, high stiletto heels made out of clear plastic. Everything on her face was painted on as if she started with nothing there: big black eyebrows that did not match any of the hair that grew on her head, and thick, dark lines around her eyes, and thick pink lines around her lips, and even a thick line where her face ended at her jaw and did not blend into her neck.
    Rasia looked at Ekaterina and then looked at Lena, who was gripping Ekaterina’s hand and looking terrified, and her heart broke just a little bit at first because she had no daughter, and then a moment later because of what she had heard about the story of Lena’s life and the rumors she had heard about Ekaterina’s job, and she wanted to scoop up the little girl and feed her and hold her and make her safe.
    “Zdravstvuite,” said the Aunt.
    “ Zdravstvuite , nice to meet you,” said Rasia, switching to English. The Aunt glared at her.
    “I have to go now. I pick her up in the evening,” said the Aunt.
    “Yes, of course,” said Rasia, embarrassed to realize that she had been imagining that Ekaterina would sit down, that she would serve her the tea that was already steeping in the kitchen, that Lena would run off to play with Vaclav, and that she and Ekaterina would discuss Lena and Vaclav, and parenthood, and the neighborhood, and the challenges of finding good after-school child care and the challenges of being in this country, and become unlikely friends. Rasia was surprised and embarrassed to feel so very lonely. This had happened before, a few times: loneliness that snuck up on her at the grocery store or on the bus and caught her off guard.
    “Do svidaniya,” said Lena’s aunt Ekaterina, turning to walk away on the crumbling, buckling sidewalk in her plastic high-heeled shoes