Mikhail and Joanne sped off in a direction she would never remember. Minutes later, they arrived on a block lined with small, similar doorways, far from the center of the city. The rain had eased for a moment, but the streets were still wet and slick. Mikhail killed the engine, and Joanne pushed off the bike. She pulled the helmet up off her head, and shook her hair loose. Mikhail took her hand, “Yes! Sexy!”
She let him lead her. “Mikhail, you say everything is sexy.”
“Yes, yes.” He turned to her as they crossed the street. “So. You talk with Rainer. He is sexy too, yes?”
“Mikhail…”
“He is big, he works out. Excellent body.” Mikhail curled his arm, and touched the biceps.
“And you know this, how?”
“Kolya, he is a good friend with Rainer. They lift weights.”
“Mikhail,” she held him back. “I met him at your party. We talked. That’s all. Oh, and I gave him a condom.” She laughed. “By accident.”
“You are fantastic! Okay, okay. This party, we go now.”
Right, she thought, I just gave a condom to a man I just met. Classy. Hot embarrassment tingled up her neck. All those pockets and compartments in her handbag. Everything happened so fast. She tried to shake off the sticky picture in her mind.
Mikhail was speaking into an intercom, and a door buzzed open. They walked through a vestibule to a small courtyard surrounded by trees and dark green shrubbery, an oasis beyond the drab concrete entrance. A two-storied apartment on the far side of the garden was lined with windows, top and bottom, its inhabitants in a fishbowl. They stepped into a smoke-filled room, and Joanne looked around to see a dozen men drinking and talking. The only woman in the room stood off in a corner of the kitchen. Everyone was speaking French. Surfboards and snowboards hung precariously from the ceiling, and long-haired young men lounged everywhere. They looked like they stepped out of an American, pseudo-slacker, fashion advertisement, except that they had cigarettes dangling from their hands.
Joanne shook her head through the haze, disoriented. “Mikhail, this party is better?”
He paid no attention to her. “Joanne. Come.”
They made their way up rickety stairs where they stashed the helmets and jackets. Mikhail turned to make a beeline back down the stairs to the woman in the kitchen. It occurred to Joanne that Mikhail may have come to this party with the intention of seeing this lone woman. That made sense. He was like that. She remembered how he always seemed to know exactly the woman he wanted at any given time. She admired his tenacity, his forthrightness, his flat-out gutsiness.
She couldn’t recall the last time she acted on an initial attraction to a man. Although she had grown to find comfort in solitude, there were times when it was necessary to participate in a social function, whether required for work, or at the behest of a friend. And she knew, though she kept it to herself, that when she scanned the crowd, however small or large, middling or diverse, she would find the most attractive man in the room, in her opinion anyway, and although she would not lock onto an eye stream or stare, she knew. She sensed something and yet, she lacked the temerity to act on it. Conversation sufficed. No, she said to herself, she had cash and her phone, and would make her way home, safe, and alone. Unless some fellow, emboldened by drink and witty banter, since she preferred to believe that the banter was indeed witty, made the first move. Men do make passes at girls who wear glasses, she knew firsthand.
Mikhail reached for Joanne’s hand, breaking her reverie.
“Joanne, this is Noah. Very good friend. You talk to him, yes? I go there.” He pointed downstairs toward the kitchen.
“Mikhail, get me a glass of wine?”
She looked at Noah, and mentally took a deep breath. Cocktail conversation.
“So you’re Joanne Hallisey, the woman Mikhail has been telling us all about.”
“Excuse me?” Her eyebrows arched over the top rim of her glasses.
“He had one of his famous vodka parties at his flat. Last night. He was talking about you. Quite a lot, actually.”
“The party, yes,” Joanne agreed. “We cleaned all that up this morning.”
“Nooooo…,” Noah elongated the vowel.
“It was ugly. God, what a mess. And no kitchen sink.” She stopped. “Wait a minute. You don’t sound French.”
She rubbed her left temple, the wine was getting to her. So was the smoke. Noah’s voice cut through the noise of the French surround-sound. She felt a tug on her shirt from behind and looked back to see Mikhail.
“Joanne. Here, wine.”
He turned back down the stairs.
“Mikhail, wait…”
He was out of earshot. She shook her head, wondering what was going on. What had he told these people? Or was he just being, well, Mikhail?
Noah smiled, “No, I’m not French.”
Joanne nodded. She couldn’t place his accent precisely, but he sounded maybe Australian, the longer vowels sounding un-British.
“He wanted to make sure that we met.”
“You and me?”
“All of us.”
“Okay,” she turned his words over in her wine-addled brain.
“Let’s go downstairs. More wine?”
She followed him, placing one foot carefully after the other. The risers felt uneven, she held the railing for support.
Back at ground level, Noah whispered into Joanne’s ear, “Everyone is baked. They have been smoking ‘shit’ all day.” He made it sound like “sheet.” He continued, “Shit is hashish mixed with tobacco that they roll into cigarettes. This way, the smoker gets high, but not too high, and can stay this way for hours.” He drew out the vowel in “hours.”
“The second hand smoke is wiping me out, Noah. The cigarette smoke.”
Joanne looked over to Mikhail, she saw that his eyelids were at half-mast, he looked asleep on his feet, a bad sign. He could fall dead asleep anywhere, even standing. The smoke in the confined space depleted the available oxygen, whether it was marijuana, hashish, or shit. Mikhail was listing, leaning, almost falling over. Joanne needed him straight, or at any rate, straight enough to get them back to his apartment, god-only-knew-where.
“Mikhail! Are you dying? Can we leave?” She realized he probably couldn't hear her, so she pantomimed, pointing first to him, then to the door.
Mikhail squinted, then nodded.
“Noah,” she said. “Mikhail and I need to get out of here. Now. Or we’ll wind up as road kill.”
She gathered their belongings and corralled Mikhail into the courtyard. Noah followed them out. Joanne paused to look at him. The persistent lure of the younger man, she noted. This one was too young, she suspected. His look reminded her of her brother, Frederick. He had the same square jaw line, the same high cheekbones, fair skin, and light eyes. His eyes were blue, his unruly, curly hair light brown, and he had full lips. Noah reached out and embraced Joanne, kissing her on both cheeks.
“We will I see you again? he asked. "I’ll phone Mikhail.”
“Okay,” she felt like she lost her center. She stumbled out into the rain and onto the back of the motorcycle.
She wrapped her arms around Mikhail’s waist, and yelled at the back of his helmet, “Are you okay?”
He nodded and revved the engine. She squeezed her eyes shut and kept her head down. They were wasted. Mikhail sped, took risks. Joanne couldn’t bear to look, she sensed the streets flashing by in her peripheral vision. She concentrated on leaning into the turns, synchronizing her movements with his. If they went down, she rationalized, she could use his body to cushion the force of the fall.
“One more block, Joanne!” he yelled, or so she thought. She couldn’t hear right through the helmet.
As they leaned in to their left, the back tire skidded out, and in that split second, Joanne thought that they would come crashing down. She braced herself. Except that in the next second, they didn’t. Where he got the strength, she couldn’t figure, it happened in a flash. Somehow, Mikhail muscled the machine back upright, and they cruised the last several yards to his front door. At first, neither moved, their hearts banging inside their chests. When they extricated themselves, Joanne stood shaking, and looked at the bike. That was close.
Mikhail exhaled, “Fuck.”