At the start of the summer, Teresa made halfhearted attempts at punishment: no allowance, no partying, and an early curfew. But Justyna, being Justyna, broke all the rules, lied, whined, or just laughed at Teresa’s threats. By the time the camping trip came up, Justyna didn’t even have to beg. “Just don’t drown,” Teresa cautioned.
“Watch out, I hear there are snakes in this water.” Kowalski grins in the dark. “In fact, I think there’s one trapped in my underwear right now.”
“What kind of snake?” Justyna whispers as she glides closer to him.
“A python.”
Justyna dissolves into giggles, vodka swirling in her brain and swimming in her veins. “You sure it’s not a baby eel or something?” Kowalski grabs her hips under the water and roughly pulls her toward him. Their torsos smack against each other, slick and goose-bumpy. “Well, there’s only one sure way to find out,” he growls.
Justyna reaches for him. His dick feels slippery in her hands, thick and massive. He pulls her bikini bottom to the side but it takes him three tries before he’s inside her. The sex is uncomfortable and quick. It hurts, like Kowalski is jamming a rubber glove inside her. Justyna feels chafed and dry. And when Kowalski finally cums, Lolek can be heard roaring the chorus to “It’s My Life” again, his bellows reverberating through the woods, “Eetsma laaaaaaaaaaaf!!”
Kowalski leans his body against hers, his head against her shoulder, and he mumbles, “You let me cum inside you.”
“So?”
“So you’re not worried?” Justyna is worried, but only slightly, and only about finding a small bump on her right labia a few weeks before. It was still there yesterday, a rough, white mound, like grains of sand. It didn’t look like a pimple, and if she just gave Kowalski genital warts, she feels no guilt; he probably had them already.
“There’s no reason to worry.”
Kowalski lifts his head. “What? Like, you can’t get knocked up?”
“Like, I’m on my period, moron. You think I’d risk bringing your spawn into the world?” And with that, she swims toward the shore and starts heading into the forest. She glances back at Kowalski, who is sprawled out on the sand, like a beached animal.
She’s cold and wet and feeling slightly remorseful, but Justyna knew she’d fuck Kowalski on this trip. She had just planned on doing it in a tent. It wasn’t the first time she and Kowalski fooled around; anytime his girlfriend was out of town, Kowalski was on her, extending his cigarette for her to puff on, eyeing her silently. He was less aggressive than the others, and his fingernails were always clean—not that Justyna cared about that shit. He also had a scar that ran from the corner of his right eye down his cheek, like the scars in the portrait of the Black Madonna. There was something mysterious about him. He almost never said a word and he laughed wholeheartedly at jokes, though he never told one himself. But Kowalski was too shy to ever make a first move, unless he was very drunk, like tonight. When he grabbed Justyna’s hand and asked her to go swimming, Justyna saw Anna’s crestfallen face as they ran toward the water, but she wasn’t about to let anyone get in the way of her good time.
She stumbles past the dying cinders of the campfires. It’s all quiet, everyone is tucked back inside his or her namioty.
At their campsite, there are dozens of empty beer bottles and tin cans strewn around, the cassette player quietly playing their Lato 1996 Mix, the one Anna made, and right now, as she hears the refrain to “Jolka Jolka,” Justyna spots her tent. She doesn’t want to wake Ania, and is extra quiet as she squats down to the entrance, which is unzipped halfway. She pulls back the nylon quietly.
Lolek is on top of Anna, pumping away. His hand is over her mouth, and he is whispering in between kissing her neck. “I wanted this so fucking bad. I love you so much. I’ve loved you forever.” Anna is crying; she looks scared as shit. There is blood trickling down her cheek, from a scratch.
Justyna stares into the tent. They can’t see her. She has to intervene, but she’s no match for Lolek, and she doesn’t want to get kicked in the face. He would pummel her. Nobody messes with Lolek when he’s drunk like this: wasted, but in control of his body. At the very least Justyna should wake the others, but she knows everyone is just as drunk, if not worse. And what could Lidka Frenczyk or Kamila do? Justyna stares at Anna’s contorted face. Lolek was always Anna’s personal bodyguard, her biggest fan, and the one who ribbed her the most. His old man read the letters Anna sent to his son, and boasted to the neighbors that someday Anna Baran would be his daughter-in-law.
Maybe she wants it, thinks Justyna. She’s been going on and on about popping her cherry, but from the look on Anna’s face this is probably not how she imagined it. For reasons beyond her, Justyna quietly stands up, the world spinning for a brief moment. Somehow she finds Kamila’s tent. She pushes Kamila’s tent mate to the side and slips into the sleeping bag. She can still hear “Jolka Jolka” in the distance; someone must have set the Sanyo on replay. She closes her eyes and falls asleep.
Anna
Greenpoint, Brooklyn
Three days ago, when Ben came home from work, Anna sat him down on the couch. “I think it’s over.”
He lit a cigarette and tried to make light of the situation. “Banana split, huh?” Ben Anna split. She smiled, feeling relieved, but an hour later they were both weeping. When Ben said, “Let’s just give it one more go,” she nodded her head, but she knew she was lying. And by one A.M., instead of cuddling or consoling each other, Anna was scratching off lotto tickets in her robe and Ben was on his fourth Corona, and they didn’t say a word to each other.
Now, Anna is trying to hurry this awful lunch along while her agent and manager stare at her. She’s supposed to meet Ben in an hour at a couples counselor’s office. It was her last promise to Ben; one session before he had to move his things out of the apartment.
She takes a sip of her pinot grigio and grimaces. Dry and expensive, not what she would have chosen but the bottle was already on the table when she arrived. This was supposed to be a powwow to discuss missed opportunities, upcoming projects, and Anna’s bright future. But everything—from their concerned faces to the untouched breadbasket—screams of intervention. Anna’s last job was one episode of ER, back in August. It was supposed to be a recurring role, but the producers changed their minds. Her manager, Linda, swirls her spoon in a frothy cappuccino; Linda doesn’t drink alcohol. Jeremy, her agent, clears his throat.
“So, Annie. I want to tell you a story. Years ago, I had a client—”
“Who is now starring in a very popular sitcom,” Linda interjects. Her lipstick is smudged. “But we won’t name names.”
“Right.” Jeremy smiles. Anna likes Jeremy. He’s from the Midwest and even after decades in the city, his kindness is still intact.
“Come on, Jer, get to it.” Linda doesn’t like to waste time. She’s a shark. Her client list is small, a few soap stars, but she’s tough and relentless. From the look of her, one could never tell. She shops the sales racks at Talbots and has not just one, but an entire collection of denim vests. In the beginning, Anna thought of Linda as the Jewish aunt she never had, full of quips and world-weary insight. Linda peppered her speech with Yiddish, taught Anna one of her favorite expressions: “gehstoygen, gefloygen,” which meant “bullshit.” They used to meet up in Central Park before important auditions and Linda would run lines with Anna, giving her stellar pep talks.
“Anyhoo,” Jeremy continues, lighting a cigarette, “she was such a talent, got consistently positive feedback, but she wasn’t landing any gigs. Callback after callback but nothing ever happened. This went on for a year. And the reason was, and I’m not going to beat around the bush here, the reason was—her nose.”
“It was big. And not character actress big, but distracting big.” Linda wrinkles her own nose in distaste.
“So one day she came into my office and she was distraught. Like, this girl was at the end of her rope. I mean here she was, talented, terrific body, te
rrific face, the face of an ingénue but for this one tiny thing.”
Anna downs her wine in one gulp. “You mean, one big thing.” She grins like an idiot and eyes the focaccia, wanting to slip it into her purse for later.
“So Jeremy, being the nice person he is, the generous person he is, he delicately let her know that he would personally, out of his own pocket, pay for a procedure. And she was so grateful. They did it quietly, she recovered quickly, and in a few weeks she was booking jobs left and right and then came an Emmy nod and, well, the rest is history.”
Linda sits back, letting her shoulders relax for the first time.
“Okay. So what’s the moral of the story here, guys? You want me to get a nose job?”
Jeremy spits his wine all over the table. He frantically dabs his fancy necktie with his napkin. “No! For god’s sake, no! Your nose is perfect, so Slavic, classic nose, classic. Your face is perfect, Anna.”
It’s not her face that’s the problem. Anna knows what this is about. Perhaps in the real world, she could pass muster—wasn’t size 10 the norm? But Hollywood sells a fantasy world where even bums have white teeth and where no one ever takes a shit, unless it’s for comedic effect. Anna had never worried about her weight before. Her weight had always been fine, just this side of a size six. Now, she wants to play dumb, but it’s either sink or swim, and if she’s going to drown, then she wants to be the one to throw herself into the water. “Perfectly fat, you mean.” The word hangs in the air, like it’s written in a cartoon balloon above Anna’s head.
“You’re not fat, sweetheart,” Jeremy drawls. “You’re just—”
“Curvy?” Anna smiles, ruefully. “I know I gained some weight. It’s okay. Let’s be grown-ups here and call a spade a spade. I’ve had a rough couple of weeks, you know?”
“Yes, your friend’s husband.”
“That, and other things, Jeremy. So yes, I’ve let myself go. But what are you saying right now? Are you saying you want me to get lipo? Is my career over? I don’t get it.”
Linda arches her eyebrows. “Okay, Anna. Yes, you have gained weight. And I’m sorry for whatever it is you’ve been going through, but you can’t afford to let yourself go like this. It just doesn’t suit you. You’re much too beautiful to be a character actress, especially at this point in your career. Last year was slow, after the terrorist attacks and all, so we don’t blame you for that. But you starred in two studio pics the year you graduated. That’s something, honey. You should be very proud of that. And things are picking up again. Things are getting green-lighted left and right. But we can’t work with what you’ve got now and I know you’re not happy about it either.”
“Duh,” Anna whispers.
“Yes, duh. So we get a trainer. If you can’t afford one right now, we’ll help you out, naturally. But you need to lose it, fast and furious. The point is, we support you, we believe in you. But we must do everything to get you back to you. Starve yourself if you have to, I don’t care.”
“Now, hold on, Linda. No one is sayi—”
“I’m saying it. I’m saying it because pilot season will be upon us before we know it and you need to test for at least one. At least. And when we see you again on January second, I want you looking like you did in D’Artagnan.”
“I see.”
“We’re giving tough love here, honey, because we truly, truly think you are poised to be a huge star. Really. And it would be such a shame if fifteen pounds got in the way of that.”
“Twenty.” Linda finishes her coffee in one gulp and motions for the check.
“And if I don’t lose the weight?”
Jeremy fumbles with his credit card, and Linda folds her arms. “That is simply not an option.”
When Anna graduated from drama school, she was inundated with phone calls from agents, managers, and casting directors. At her showcase performance she did a monologue from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, the one about the no-necked monsters. She was Maggie the Cat, with her voluptuous curves and her strangled desire. In meetings her backstory read like a script itself: humble immigrant beginnings, her jailed father, her mother making ends meet by cleaning penthouses. And there was her stunning profile, her profane jokes, and her trembling confession of wanting to make it big so she could save her family.
“You’re gonna be a star,” Jeremy pronounced when she had first met with him. He said it like a diagnosis, and when Anna got in the elevator afterward, she was so giddy that she couldn’t stop laughing.
Her first job was a big one, the female lead in a studio feature called D’Artagnan. She had been lying on the sofa when Jeremy called to tell her she had landed the role. Her parents were stunned. “What do you mean?” Paulina asked, perplexed. “A real movie?”
“How much they gonna pay you?” her father blurted out.
Anna looked at him and answered slowly, “Two hundred thousand dollars.”
The bigwigs at Paramount were looking to cast an unknown, and Anna fit the bill. She flew to France, first class. It was a dream, and she made sure to bring her Canon everywhere. “They give me cash every week, Mamo, to spend on anything I want. It’s called per diem.” Two thousand dollars a week; her parents had to work a month to make that amount.
Anna loved the set; everyone was an overworked but dutiful cog in the motion picture–making machine. It felt familiar to be a part of it. She was nervous and grateful for the opportunity, but beyond that she was at peace because she knew—she knew—that this was fate.
Every morning, on the steps of her trailer, before stepping into hair and makeup, Anna enjoyed a cup of coffee and a Gauloise. It was a fairy tale and she knew it would end, but Anna wisely milked it for every last drop. She called her grandmother in Poland evey day.
“One day, Babciu, you’ll fly with me to the set. They’ll see how beautiful you are and put you in the movies!”
“Oh, Aniusia.” Babcia laughed. “I don’t want to be in movies. I just want to watch them.”
In Hollywood, a single high-profile gig causes a ripple effect, doors open like dominoes falling one after another. There is little time to think of a trajectory. In Halloo, I Love You—a romantic comedy based on Twelfth Night—Anna played Olive, a young, sensuous Manhattanite turned celibate, and her comedic, wistful performance earned her rave reviews, headlines like “A Star Is Born (in Poland).” It was a portentous beginning.
Instead of investing her earnings and buying a home or at least a car, Anna spent it on shopping sprees: cosmetics, books, cigarettes, shoes. The rest she handed away. She signed checks recklessly, proudly, with things like “gift for Mom” in the memos. She left her parents’ apartment and rented her own gorgeous loft in Brooklyn. After she met Ben, he quickly moved in. Ben was grateful. At twenty-two, she basked in financial autonomy, the kind no one in her family had ever achieved. She let everything else fall by the wayside, including her career.
Linda had urged her to move to LA. “The window you have is a small one, and it’s closing before our eyes. Anna, I know you’re in love, but sometimes that dwindles even faster than Hollywood interest, so get off your ass!” But Anna didn’t listen; she had everything she wanted.
Soon Ben and Anna had to move out of their $2,000 a month rental and settle for a cramped railroad apartment in Greenpoint. It was a steep step down, and it had happened so quickly that nothing seemed certain any longer.
At the restaurant, Anna gathers her coat, hat, and shoulder bag, stands up, and tips her chin toward the drinks.
“Thanks for lunch,” she mumbles. “I lost my footing. I just lost my footing,” and she shuffles out, tripping on the carpet and knocking into a waiter.
On the way to the subway, she wipes away angry tears. “They chew you up, they spit you back out,” her father had said when she first told him she was going to be a star. Perhaps he’d been right. Maybe she doesn’t want to do this anymore. Maybe she’s done with fads and fasts, with cattle calls and climbing the ladder. Once upon a time she’d been sure tha
t she’d stand at the Oscar podium one day. Maybe now she’ll just give it all up, marry and have babies instead. She could find Sebastian Tefilski and settle down.
By the time Anna gets to her apartment on Lorimer Street, she is sweating and fuming. There is vigor in her step. She has a plan now, hatched between the Third Avenue and Bedford subway stops. She fumbles for her keys and takes the stairwell, two steps at a time.
She yanks her apartment door open. Ben is at work. As she hurries into the bedroom, she catches a glimpse of the dirty dishes in the sink, a wet towel on the bathroom floor, it’s a total mess, her mess of a life. It takes her seven minutes to fill up her duffel bag, throwing in underwear, clothes, and books as if she has only a few moments to gather her belongings before a fire consumes everything. She has to run. This doesn’t feel like escape, it feels like survival, and Anna is comforted by the difference. Bag by her feet, she briefly settles into a chair with her notebook in hand, and the words pour out like lava, hot, quick, and full of all the secret, ugly truths. I’m going back. I’m going back to the beginning, she scrawls and quickly signs her name.
Kamila
Detroit, Michigan
In the dim light, past the white shafts of cigarette smoke, it feels as though Kamila is eyeing the man through a fog. It’s like the last scene in Casablanca, though Kamila is no Ingrid Bergman and he’s no Bogart. The bar is empty except for a few businessmen, their ties undone, and there’s a bachelorette party in a girly, tiara-clad heap at the tables in the back.
From a distance, he looks a bit like Montgomery Clift, who happens to be Kamila’s favorite. Oh, tortured, closeted Monty, with his angelic face torn in half and sewn back all wrong. It’s ironic, she suddenly realizes. I’ve been with a Monty my whole life. She laughs out loud to herself. The man looks at her. He’s probably in his forties and has a nice American face, even though his hairline is receding.
The Lullaby of Polish Girls Page 9
