Foreign Exposure

by Lauren Mechling

  My magical Russian prince,

  SOS!

  Am trapped in castle with reggae-playing cuckoo clocks and wickedest of witches. Please rescue ASAP. Will see you in Terminal 3 at 3. I’ll be the cowgirl in arrivals.

  Moo & Xox

  Mimi

  I realized, obviously, that Boris couldn’t possibly rescue me. He was off to spend a summer in a dacha outside of Saint Petersburg with his high-living, non-English-speaking grandparents. Boris had his own all-Slavic social scene there, and his father was a certifiable psychopath. Still, it did sound absurdly romantic, a summer on the wide-open steppes of Russia with my towering towheaded boyfriend.

  After writing Boris, I quickly scrolled through my new messages. My friends’ reports were pretty much the same. Pia was still living it up in Lake Como, playing tennis by day and hanging out in overpriced restaurants with the spawn of internationally known socialites by night. Jess was falling out of love with banking (and Trevor, her coworker) but not with her writing course; Viv was cruising around Oregon in a five-star tour bus.

  Mom entered the kitchen and suggested I wait for the Meyerson-Cullens outside, but I just nodded vaguely and didn’t move. I was reading a fascinating note from Lily, and nothing could pry me away from it. She was fully established in the “ridiculously huge and disorganized mansion” of her mother’s old friends in London. She’d written,

  By the way, the Foxes love to have young people around, and they’ve extended an open invitation to ANY of my friends who want to shack up here with me this summer. After hearing about your Serge Z. exploits, Phillipa (the mom—a.k.a. Miss Hot Shit Social Connection) said what a shame you weren’t here—she could land you an internship at her friend’s magazine (this woman knows everyone—the prime minister included!). The magazine’s called the Muckraker and it’s like the Bugle—if the Bugle were about old politicians who keep getting caught with their pants down. You’d love it! Think it over, seriously.

  Before I could consider this most seductive of offers, a succession of honks sounded from outside and my mom brayed my name. “MIMI! The Meyerson-Cullens are outside. Picking you up was way out of their way, so hop to it!”

  When I got into the Meyerson-Cullens’ minivan—the clunkiest vehicle in all of Europe—I was pleased to see Alan behind the wheel and no sign of Debbie. Alan was much nicer than his wife; perhaps he’d understand the urgency of my situation this afternoon, particularly after letting me down the night before. After listening to him detail Debbie’s plans to load up on junipers at a discount garden-supply store in the suburbs, I explained that I had to be at the airport at three o’clock sharp.

  Instead of shaking his head, or admitting his complete powerlessness, Alan actually volunteered to drive me out there. “I’ll swing by for you at two-fifteen,” he said. “That should give us plenty of time.”

  My eyes teared up in gratitude to poor Alan, who hadn’t exactly lucked out in the wife-and-children department. “Thank you,” I said. Then, under my breath, “You’re a good man.”

  But by two-forty-five that afternoon, I was feeling less charitable toward him. The Meyerson-Cullens still hadn’t returned from the plant nursery. How dare they prioritize a plant-buying expedition over the most important event of my entire summer? Joshua and Nathaniel were sprawled on the living room floor, one doing a prism worksheet and the other an acrostic. I lay between them, too tired to do anything with the logic games book they’d given me except drool all over it. It was like hell, only worse.

  I tried to reach my mother, but she and Maurice were evidently out enjoying the unseasonably cool afternoon, and it went straight to voice mail. Then I called the Meyerson-Cullens’ cell phones, but neither of them picked up either. When Debbie and Alan finally strolled back into the house, it was almost three-thirty. The twins leaped off the floor and ambushed their mother with hugs.

  “All right, kiddo,” Alan said to me. “I know we’re a little pressed for time, but hold up for a sec. I gotta take some Rolaids.”

  As he stepped into the bathroom, I couldn’t stop myself from crying out, “It’s three-thirty already and you promised you’d be on time!”

  But Alan had turned on the bathroom fan and was humming to himself as I raged and fumed on the other side of the door. I guess total obliviousness really was the only way to survive his marriage.

  I was already buckled up into the passenger seat when Alan sauntered casually out of the house, in no apparent hurry. As I sat there inhaling and exhaling, looking again and again at my watch, Alan took his sweet time transporting batch after batch of miniature pots of greens from the back seat of the car to the open garage. When he finally got behind the wheel, he regarded me with surprise. “Don’t you worry, Mimi. Berlin has such efficient highways, you’d need to bring your own Krazy Glue to get stuck in traffic.” He revved up the engine and pulled out of the driveway, still without having apologized for his tardiness. “You look a little beat,” Alan said lightly. “What say we stop somewhere and grab a coffee?”

  I just barely refrained from screaming, What is wrong with you? Shut up and drive, you selfish lunatic! Instead, I pointedly glanced at my watch and said through gritted teeth, “Thanks, but I think we should just get going.”

  “You’re not catching a plane. There’s this place right down the—”

  “I’m fine,” I snapped. “I’ll get something at the airport. Can we just hurry?”

  “Okaaaaaay.” Alan sounded hurt, but in the emotionally dense tradition of his family, he soon got over it. “Say,” he said pleasantly, “I was thinking maybe, if Debbie can spare you, you could swing by the institute tomorrow morning. I’m running a panel on the intersection of technology and personal lives, with a focus on text messaging and trauma and all that jazz. I’m expecting a lot of students, maybe some . . .” He took a short, thirsty breath. “There might be people closer to your age. You could drop by.”

  “Sounds really great,” I said, unable to contain my sarcasm. “I hear cell phones are the wave of the future.” I was trying very hard not to let on the degree of my stress, or observe too closely the car’s grindingly slow progress along the clogged feeder road. Outside the window, the scenery alternated between the same discount supermarket and the same blackened industrial plant. My time with Boris was shrinking and shrinking, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. It wasn’t until we passed a sign with a picture of an airplane that I eased back into my seat and stretched out my legs, the better to view the coarse brown hairs scattered across my shins. If nothing else, I certainly was adapting to local fashion.

  “No fretting allowed,” Alan said after missing the lane for terminal three a second time. “The customs officials here are thorough to a fault. Last time I waited in line, I read an entire issue of Popular Science and reprogrammed my PDA. Scout’s honor—your friend won’t be out in arrivals until five.”

  “You really think so?”

  “At the earliest—I guarantee it. Oh, and before you run away, here.” Alan reached into his pocket and pulled out a fifty-euro bill. “For snacks,” he said.

  I gaped, unable to decide if I was furious or overjoyed. Was this all the Meyerson-Cullens planned on paying me for the last two weeks? Or was this just an under-the-table tip?

  When I looked at Alan, he answered my unspoken questions with a wink. “Promise you won’t tell Debs,” he said.

  I thanked him profusely, failing to conceal my all-out astonishment.

  At four-fifteen, when I stepped into the glowing white womb of terminal three and found no spiky-haired Russian giant awaiting me, I began breathing normally again, soothed by the certainty that I’d beaten him there. I ordered a cheese strudel stick and settled into the closest café. And I waited. At five, I bought a copy of the International Herald Tribune and occupied myself until five-thirty. By six, when Boris still hadn’t appeared, I felt my chest constrict about four hundred times. The arrivals monitor indicated that his plane had landed on time, the departures mon
itor that his flight to Saint Petersburg was still scheduled for a seven-forty departure. Where else could he be?

  I combed the concourse, but it was too crowded; I could barely see three inches ahead of me. As I elbowed my way through the mob, I bumped into women in turbans, vendors on their cigarette breaks, waxy-haired businessmen. And then, just as I was about to give up, I saw a promising sign over the sea of heads. My heart gave a little leap. It wasn’t Boris, but a man in black holding a placard that said “Potassnick.”

  “Potasnik! Potasnik!” I cried, pushing toward the cab driver.

  The mustached man smiled at me, then thrust a carbon-copy receipt into my hands. All the words were in German, but I could read the two that mattered: “Agatha Potassnick.” Unless Boris and his father were traveling with a long-lost third cousin, there was no Agatha in their party. I closed my eyes, but the room kept on spinning; the background noise rose and fell in my ear like the slide of a trombone. Somehow, I lowered myself into a chair and, hunching forward, pulled my legs tight against my chest. Now that Boris wouldn’t be seeing them, who cared how furry they were?

  How to Go from Crazy to Craziest in Sixty Minutes

  TOO DRAINED TO NAVIGATE BERLIN’S BYZANTINE public transportation system, I did the spoiled-brat thing and took a taxi all the way back to Dahlem. Alan’s gift just covered the fare back to Mom and Maurice’s ridiculous gingerbread house. But instead of retreating upstairs to my room, I simply crumpled on the living room couch and began crying. The anticipation of Boris’s brief visit had sustained me since landing in the Fatherland, and now—poof!—I had nothing. I brought a cushion to my mouth and chomped on its corner to muffle my sobs.

  Not five minutes after I got back, the front door opened and in walked Mom and Maurice, who were too busy arguing about a German-language movie they’d just seen to notice the bawling teenager on the couch. Evidently, the film hadn’t had any subtitles, and neither of them could figure out the plot.

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Doodles,” Mom said, employing yet another new nickname for her paramour, “but there is no way in Hades they were brother and sister. How would the bicycle scene have worked out? They were obviously strangers.”

  “OK, whatever you say,” Maurice grumbled condescendingly. “They weren’t brother and sister and it wasn’t a sci-fi movie.” He let off a chuckle and padded into the kitchen. Mom followed close on his heels, still defending her theory.

  “Maurice, I hate to break it to you, but you dozed through the pivotal plot point.”

  “It was just for one minute, and I did not doze! I was resting my eyes. Besides, even if I was dozing—which I most certainly was not—who could blame me? These mattresses here are made of pebbles—they’re killing my lower back.”

  “I know, our bed is a bit Soviet,” I heard Mom say, then: “Have you tried Ariel’s? It’s practically Posturepedic. Maybe you should give it a whirl tonight.”

  My eyes bugged out. Did Mom really just suggest that Maurice give Ariel’s bed, the bed five inches away from mine, a whirl? I nearly projectile-vomited my cheese strudel stick across the room.

  When, a few dazed minutes later, the phone rang, I jumped. I knew it was Boris, calling to explain the mix-up. Maybe he’d missed the flight; maybe we could still meet up tomorrow. But when Mom exclaimed, “Well, guten Nacht, Debbie!” I felt nauseated again. The few glimmers of hope I still had made a beeline for the exit door. “How are—what is it? What happened? She didn’t . . . Oh my. Hold on a minute, Debbie. Let’s see if I can locate her.”

  I looked up to see my mom marching toward me. She was nodding, flinching, and murmuring, “Uh-huh, mm-hmm” all the while. “I’m very sorry about this, Debbie, but I think it’d be better if you resolved the issue directly with her. She’s right here—hang tight.”

  And then, though I was vigorously shaking my head, mouthing “NO! NO!” my mom handed me the phone and trotted right back into the kitchen.

  “Hell—” I said, and before I got to the “o,” Debbie unleashed the torrent.

  “Have you not listened to a single thing I’ve told you?” was her opening salvo, followed by a tirade of insults and accusations about my “inexcusable behavior” that the boys had only just brought to her attention. My crime: Beating the boys? Nein. Starving them and making them massage my feet all day long? Double nein. Taking the boys for a ten-minute stroll to the St. Annen-Kirche? Bingo.

  “B-but,” I broke in weakly, “Joshua said you took them there all the time!”

  My feeble self-defense only ignited Debbie’s fury. “I understand you’re not a parent, Mimi, but what I don’t understand is why you’d do something this disrespectful and potentially destructive. We’re just trying to protect our only children,” she added somberly. “It may sound trivial to you, but very unsalubrious characters loiter around that church—I simply cannot believe you would permit our boys to roam there unsupervised!”

  Then, with no warning, Debbie started to moan, a low, plaintive sound that a dying cow might make.

  “Debbie, listen, please, I had no idea. I never would’ve done something I thought you—”

  “I’m sure you wouldn’t,” she said harshly. “You’ve made it clear from day one that your heart isn’t in this.” She then proceeded to charge me with various crimes of personality. I was too passive. I wasn’t playful. I wasn’t creative. And then came the real deal breaker: I wasn’t kind.

  By this point in the conversation, tears were streaming down my face. I’d never doubted Debbie’s insanity, but I’d underestimated her capacity for cruelty.

  She was still berating me when the clock struck eight and the strains of Peter Tosh’s “Legalize It” echoed through the house. Rather than provide welcome comic relief, the digitalized reggae anthem only underscored how intolerable my situation had become. If I stayed in Dahlem, I’d very likely lose my mind. My family would have to lock me up in a state institution, and I’d spend the rest of my life shuffling around in terry-cloth slippers and playing solitaire on wicker lawn furniture.

  The second I managed to get a word in, I told Debbie we should talk later, when she was less emotional, and then hung up the phone without waiting for her response. Once I’d stopped crying, I teetered up the stairs and tapped on the door of the master bedroom, where Mom and Maurice had retreated. They were lying over the covers, watching a German home improvement show.

  “Mom,” I said, all cool and in control, “do you have a second to talk?”

  The phone started to ring. “Will you grab that, Mimi?” she asked me without looking up.

  Reluctantly, I picked up the receiver and stood still as Debbie Meyerson-Cullen lobbed insults at me. When I could no longer take it, I pretended that somebody had dialed a wrong number and hung up, and I knew with great certainty that I would never see the Meyerson-Cullens again. I felt a little bad about leaving poor Alan in the lurch, but not that bad. If I stuck around any longer, Amnesty International might need to get involved.

  “Mom, please come downstairs with me,” I said. “We need to have this conversation in private, just the two of us.”

  “I don’t think now is a good time. It’s crystal clear what’s going on here, Mimi. You’re upset with Debbie and you’re taking it out on me. Ever hear of transference?”

  “MOM, if you don’t come downstairs RIGHT NOW, I swear to God you’ll never see me again!”

  “If you’re going to address me like that, I think I’ll pass, thanks.”

  Was she serious? Was anyone that dense? At my limit, I hurled the phone across the room. It grazed the top of Maurice’s bureau and sent several of his pill bottles flying. One of the vials opened midflight, and blue tablets sprayed all over the rug.

  Mom raised her left eyebrow and said, in a kindergarten teacher voice, “Now, you know I’ve never discouraged self-expression, but aren’t there more positive ways of pursuing it?”

  “You’re right,” I replied, and charged downstairs to execute my escape plan.

 
Part one went without a hitch: I picked up the phone and called Lily, who answered on the first ring. “Mimi!” she cried. “How funny—I was just telling Pippa here about you and the hyperallergenic boys. How’s the pollen?”

  “Lily,” I said, gnawing down on my lip. “I need to get out of here. You have to help me.”

  Lily promised to work on it. “I think I can manage something,” she said. “I’ll get back to you right away.”

  I assumed “right away” meant tomorrow if I was lucky, but Lily wasn’t the only daughter of a self-made home-decorating tycoon for nothing. Ten minutes later, she called back to inform me that I had a job interview Tuesday morning, and a bedroom for as long as I needed it. “I’ve never seen the Foxes this psyched,” she said. “They seem to think they’re saving you from child slavery, and I guess they want to brag about it to their friends. Everything’s ready and waiting for you—bed, food, employment. All you need is a ticket. You can book a flight online. Some of the sketchier airlines charge, like, ten dollars.”

  “But wait,” I said, “What about money for everything else? I think I have twelve dollars to my name.”

  “Oh, don’t even think about it. I’ll lend you whatever you need to tide you over before your first paycheck.”

  “Paycheck?”

  “Trust me, when you’re a friend of the Foxes, the world is good to you. At least London is.”

  As promised, U-GoJet’s flights were affordable in the extreme. It cost over a hundred dollars to fly to London’s Heathrow Airport, but flights to the smaller, more out-of-the-way Stansted Airport were dirt-cheap—about the price of a medium latte. I grabbed Maurice’s wallet from the kitchen counter and took out his Visa. He’d undoubtedly notice the charge, but by then it’d be too late: I’d be long gone. The contents of my stomach swirled as I clicked on an itinerary and checked my e-mail while the program searched for an available seat. That was when I read this disturbing message: