Not exactly fighting words.
But I rallied, keeping my thoughts clean even as he moved around my kitchen like he lived there. It felt so good I had to talk myself down. It’s not him. It’s because you’re lonely. You want someone to share your life with. You want this kind of closeness with someone. You like taking care of people, and he seems to need it. Don’t confuse that for anything else.
During breakfast, I’d been okay as long as we didn’t make eye contact. Because every time we did, I felt like I unwittingly gave away a little piece of my secret. It was unnerving, the effect he had on me. I’d never experienced anything like it.
Sunglasses. That would help.
I reached for a pair on the back hall shelf and slipped them on. “Ready to go?”
“Yes,” he said, showing me the screen of his phone. “Here’s the address.”
I cringed a little at the thought of an apartment in that area, but to Maxim Hollywood probably sounded like the most glamorous address in California. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. “Got it.”
On the way there, I asked him what his plan was.
“My plan for what?”
I glanced his way. He looked completely unconcerned, even though he had nothing but a phone, a bag of dirty clothes, and a notebook to his name. “For living here. You must have made a plan before you came, right? What you’ll do, how you’ll live.”
“Oh.” He was quiet for a moment. “In Russia, we say, ‘Yesli khochesh' rassmeshit' Boga, rasskazhi yemu o svoikh planakh.’ It means ‘If you want to make God laugh, tell Him about your plans.’”
I rolled my eyes. “God’s not asking you. I am. And I’m pretty sure God’s a planner, anyway.”
“Well, I have the apartment. I paid my first month already.”
“And it’s nice enough?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen it.”
I frowned. “What do you mean you’ve never seen it? You said you paid rent already.”
“I had to, in order to make sure I would get it. Jake—that’s the guy who was supposed to pick me up—says there aren’t a lot of places for what I can pay in rent when I’m starting out.”
“You paid for a place you’ve never even seen?” I was shocked, but Maxim didn’t seem too bothered.
“Yeah,” he said with a shrug. “But other than that, I really don’t have a plan. Because even though I’ve wanted to move here for a few years, the decision to actually do it was sort of… I can’t think of the word. You know like when you do something without really thinking first what will happen afterward?” He looked at me for help.
“Impulsive?”
“Yes—impulsive. My decision to come here was impulsive. I didn’t really think or talk about it too much.”
“That’s a pretty big decision to make impulsively.”
“It was. But I think if you plan everything in your life, you might be so focused on the plan, you don’t notice all the other possibilities. You might ignore gut instincts. And I like to go with my gut. I think if you do that, you always make the right decision.”
I wasn’t too sure about that. I was a man who liked a plan and didn’t always trust my gut to act in my best interest. Gut instincts could be useful, but they were still instincts—based on innate compulsion, not on reason or fact. And I had some pretty frightening innate compulsions.
But I didn’t want to get into that with Maxim. This was about his life, not mine. “Okay, but let’s think practically for a moment. How will you eat?” I looked over my shoulder before changing lanes. “Do you have money saved up or will you try to work?”
“Eventually, I will have to work, but for now, my mother is wiring my savings to me. It shouldn’t take too long.”
“Like how long?”
“Just a couple days.”
“A couple days?” I looked at him. “You can’t go a couple days without eating, Maxim.”
“I won’t. The guy who’s renting me the apartment has some jobs for cash for me.”
That sounded sketchy to me. “Doing what?”
“I don’t know. But don’t worry about me, really. You’ve done enough.” He reached over like he might touch my arm or something, but then pulled back. “My mother asked if you were a movie star.”
That made me laugh. “Really?”
“Yes. In her mind, Hollywood is crawling with movie stars. They’re on every corner. She also thinks all Americans love guns and eat McDonald’s every day.”
“Uh, no and no. Not this American, anyway.” I thought for a moment. “But I can’t really blame her. All I know about Russians are stereotypes, not that you fit any of them.”
“You mean that we’re all cold and unfriendly and never smile? We sit around drinking vodka and frowning about life?”
“Actually, yes.”
“Russians smile, we just don’t do it as often as Americans, or as randomly, and we definitely don’t smile at strangers. We’re not as open and friendly right away with people we don’t know.”
“You are.”
He shrugged. “I’m learning to adapt.”
“So what are Russians really like?”
“Hmmm. Warm after we know you. Generous. Resilient and resourceful, because we’ve had to be. Oh, and we are totally superstitious.”
I liked the way he said “totally.” He pronounced the second t the same as the first one, whereas an American would turn it into a d. “Yeah? About what?”
“Pretty much everything. For instance, I realized I forgot my phone charger on the way to the airport in Kiev, but going back for it would have been bad luck. Russians believe you should never return home for forgotten items.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes, and if you do go back for something, you have to look in a mirror before you go out again.”
I shook my head, but I was laughing. “That is fucking absurd.”
“Here’s another one,” he said. “You should never use hand gestures on yourself or anyone else when describing something negative. Like if you were talking about a terrible scar on someone’s face, never gesture toward your own face as the example. And if you do it by accident, you need to wipe the bad energy off your face and throw it away.”
“Ridiculous. My God, no wonder you and Ellen clicked. You’re both crazy.” But they both made me laugh, too. And they were both fearless and spontaneous and completely confident that no matter what life threw at them, they could handle it. Deep down, I envied that. I had strength and tenacity, but sometimes I wondered if I’d have made different choices if I’d had some of Ellen’s free spiritedness. Or cared less what other people thought of me.
“Your sister was telling me last night about twelve-year life cycles,” Maxim went on, “and how every cycle should start in a new place so it’s good thing I came here right after turning twenty-four.”
“Be careful. Next thing you know, she’ll have you at one of her crazy dream analysis sessions or take you to get a psychic reading. Total bullshit.”