Free The Cosmopolitans by Nadia Kalman Page B

and ran to the kitchen for ice. “It doesn’t even hurt,” he said, but let her press it to his face. That was another thing he could do for Milla: let her take care of him.
     
     
     
     
    Milla
     
     
    Milla sat on an aluminum stool in the Eskimo Room and said, “My wedding,” in a perky voice. The room had been closed for several years, and most of the Eskimo dioramas were covered with tarp. In a few places, the tarp had torn, and she could glimpse a hooded head, an upraised arm. She hoped her grandmother Byata would arrive soon.
    After a few minutes, Jean Strauss speedwalked in, accompanied by a very tall man with eyebrows like slashes over electric blue eyes, wearing an embroidered robe over jeans. “Meet Dawa,” Jean said.
    Dawa stuck out his tongue.
    “That’s a traditional Tibetan greeting,” Jean said. “See?” She wiggled her own pointy tongue.
    “Nice to meet you,” Milla said, standing up.
    “Do it,” Jean said, and then, “Her tongue’s so big. Look how thick it is.”
    Dawa said, “It will bring your son great happiness.”
    “Hmm,” Jean said.
    Dawa grabbed the stools, lined them up in front of the window, produced a tiny silver stereo, inserted an old George Michael CD, and just as George was expounding on the necessity of faith, Julie appeared.
    Julie was wearing a navy bustier with diamond buttons in the shape of X’s, as if inviting someone to kiss down their length. Dawa and Jean stuck out their tongues. Milla hurried to place herself between them and Julie, saying, “It’s Tibetan.”
    “O-kay,” Julie said, a haughty, frightened Polish Valley girl. Milla made introductions.
    Julie said, “Is Johann Strauss the relative of yours?”
    “Actually, yes,” Jean said.
    Now Julie was attempting friendliness: “I and all Poland loves waltz.”
    “Huh.” Jean examined herself in the mirror. “Dawa, are my eyebrows balding?”
    Emboldened with the need to protect, Milla asked Dawa, “Can we get a stool for Julie?”
    “Dear, we have fifteen people about to come through here,” Jean said.
    “Is okay,” Julie said, and guided Milla to the stone bench in the middle of the floor.
    “But then how will you —” Julie untied the ribbons on her sandals and kicked them off, knelt on the floor before Milla. “Let me get you a pillow, at least,” Milla said. Julie pressed her leg to signal she should stay seated, reached inside her suitcase, and took out a small pillow covered in fiery poppy blossoms. The sight of Julie’s lacy thighs amidst the poppies was too much for Milla. She could not look at them again, but then, where to look? Not at Julie’s lips, not at her eyes, not her at her collarbone, certainly not at her bustier or those buttons. Milla settled for Julie’s left ear, thick and large, but then found herself wondering whether the lobe would be sensitive.
    Even though Hebrew school had made an atheist out of Milla (what kind of God would teach near-illiterate Jamie Heisenberg to make up a rhyming, four-part chant about Milla’s resemblance to a boll weevil?), she now asked God for a sign. If her long-dead grandfather were to emerge from a diorama and tell her to stop imagining Julie’s underpants, then she would have to obey.
    Instead, in came her mother, saying, “The show is on road.” Yana had gotten Stalina into a business suit, with jewelry, rather than the horrible orange dress she’d bought before. The handkerchief her mother always carried around was neatly folded in the jacket’s front pocket, and not (as Stalina had previously modeled it) tucked into the cleavage of the terrible dress.
    “Where’s Baba Byata?” Milla said.
    “Oh, yes, my mother has problem taking the train I tell her,” Stalina said in jocularly irritated tones, more in the direction of Jean than of Milla.
    As some Strauss cousins entered the room, Yana started. “I have to call the chuppah guy again and…” Scrabbling through her dirty college backpack, she exited with a