Everything’s Coming Up Josey (11 page)

“Hey, c'mon! I'm just trying to help!”

Pain shoots up my arm as I claw toward consciousness. My eyes feel like sand, and my body has refused to join reality as Chase vanishes.

“You're Josey, right?”

I hear the words, but all I see is a window painted with gold trim, a lace curtain, a wilted African violet. A breeze is pushing around the edge of the curtain, and brings in the smell of dust, exhaust.

I stare at it, by brain whirring, my eyes wide. Okay, excuse me but
where exactly am I?

“Josey?”

I want to turn and look, I do, but my body feels as if it's been at the bottom of a mosh pit and all I can do is groan. So the voice behind me does the moving and I see hair first—glorious, long roan-red hair—then the face, hazel-green eyes, lots of lips. “Hi. I'm Tracey.”

Tracey? And—
who is Tracey?

I can nearly hear the gears clicking as my brain races through time to the present. Then, with a body-slamming
whump,
truth T-bones me.
Russia.
Tracey, my roomie from Ohio?

“Hi,” I manage and disentangle my body from the web of fatigue. I roll over, and Tracey straightens for all her glory. Oh, boy. If she's from Ohio, I'm Charlize Theron. Five-foot-bazillion, and wearing a clingy short black skirt and a top that might fit my right thigh, she's got the body of an Amazon and a tan to match.

Good thing I'm a missionary or I might be jealous.

I sit up and casually wipe a line of drool from my face. What is she doing here, in my room? And so what if my hair is, well, mussed. At least it is clean. Sorta.

“I'm sorry to wake you,” says Tracey the Ten. “But you have to stay awake or you'll be up all night pacing and you'll never break the jet-lag cycle.” She smiles again—wow! she must have had years of ortho work—and holds out her hand. “C'mon, get dressed. We're going out.”

Out? The only place I'm going is back to Chase, who is still standing in the middle of the sidewalk. What if he ran all this way to declare his undying love?

Then again, I'm not completely ready to jump forever into his arms, am I?

“I'm tired,” I mumble. I don't reach for her hand. She grabs my wrist and I do an imitation of a noodley nonviolent protestor. She puts some muscle into it and pulls me to a sitting position.

“I know you're tired. But you gotta trust me. Hurry up and change. Rick is picking us up in thirty.”

Wait—
what?
Rick?

I put my feet on the floor, and the cold radiates up my legs and zings my brain. What am I doing here? “I don't want to go out.”

“Yes, you do. I promise, you'll have fun. And, tomorrow you'll wake up refreshed, a new woman.”

A new woman? Hmm, that has a happy ring to it. Would that also include a thinner, wiser woman?

I'm game. Until I stand, and sway. She grabs my shoulders and laughs. Propels me toward the bathroom, turns on the shower. “You're in luck. Today we have hot water.”

Today? I hold my hand into the spray, feeling a vague sense of recollection.

“I'll loan you my hairdryer. I could smell yours from the hallway.”

Oh, yeah, flames and sparks. I make a wry smile. “I thought you were from Ohio.”

She tosses me a towel, backs out. “Sorta. My mom lives in Ohio. My dad, Chicago. I try and maintain a safe distance from the east coast, or better, from across an ocean. Hurry up.”

I get into the shower, then remember I have jammies on and leave them in a sopping pile in the tub floor. I feel like I've consumed a pint of strawberry schnapps, my head spinning, my body sluggish. And yes, that's an actual memory, one I'm not too fond to relive. Still, I manage to stay vertical and imagine myself in a spa with a mineral shower rich with herbs and other exotic spices. In fact, maybe if I just sink down, under the spray I can actually be there, in that warm exotic—

“Josey, we have ten minutes! Rick's taking us to the Gray Pony, and I promise you don't want to miss it!”

My new tour guide. I climb out of the tub, pretty sure God is laughing. I mean, please, He knows my insecurities. Why, oh why then the match-up with Buffy, take two?

Everything I own is wrinkled or smells of shampoo. I pull out a pair of boot-cut jeans and wiggle into them, add a black peasant shirt and dig out my black closed-toe slides. Ten minutes later, I emerge from my room, my hair still wet, but wearing makeup and blinking back the Visine I found at the bottom of my first-aid kit.

“Good recovery,” says Tracey, who is perched on our black leather sofa, painting her fingernails. “Hair dryer is on my bed.” She nods toward her room, but I'm transfixed. She's wearing…a leopard. A wrap dress that hits her midthigh, low cut and long sleeved, she looks like Sexy Sheena of the Jungle, especially with that wild, tossed, roan-red hair, glossy lips and French-manicured fingernails.

I feel like her poor relative from war-torn Bosnia. No, worse, feelings of jealousy bubble up. Bad Josey! I'm a missionary!

I head into her room, and am not surprised at all to find clothes strewn on the bed, and perfume lined up on the window ledge. A spider plant hangs from the corner, adding to the jungle aura. I glimpse a black-and-brown tiger print bedspread under the piles of silk and fur and over the bed, a long mirror gilded with gold. The blow dryer is laying atop of red silk…jammies? Uh, mine are cotton, with a large beast—well, you know. I pick up the dryer with two fingers and slink out of the room.

I'm drying my hair (upside down, which doesn't help the schnapps spinning thing) when the buzzer rings. I see Tracey do an orangutan waddle across the room (she's moved on to her pedicure) and then hear a male voice.

At least I'm dry, if not fashionable. I emerge and—Ooops! Didn't need to see that. Roomie draped around…Rick? I avert my eyes and they laugh.

“Josey, meet Rick,” Tracey says and disentangles herself, going back to the sofa. His gaze follows her, then—Uh-oh!—lands on me. Yep, that's me, the dowdy missionary from Minnesota.

“Hi,” I say. Rick's gaze passes over me, and I can see curiosity in his eyes.

“Tracey says you're here to teach English?” He is wearing all black, and it gives him an exotic gangster look. Black dress shoes, black pants, black silk shirt, black leather coat. Black hair, dark eyes. Oh my! I've just met Neo! He looks at me without a smile.

“Yeah, for Moscow Bible Church.”

He gives a little snort. “Yeah, well, good luck.”

I raise one eyebrow, but Tracey breezes past me. Wow. She's wearing ten-inch open-toe black spikes and I'm wondering if she needs oxygen at that altitude. I slink out behind them, a nondescript shadow of fatigue, hearing my bed whimper as I close the door.

I don't remember much of my apartment building on the way in, but now, it looks like one of those Bosnian documentaries, with the chipped, graffittied walls, and the smell of cigarette smoke seasoned with animal droppings embedding the halls. Dusty light angles from filthy rectangular windows. I follow Tracey and Rick into the elevator and hold onto the wall as it shudders down four flights.

Rick owns a black Mercedes. Figures. He clicks off the alarm and we slide in—me in back—as he unlocks his “club” from the steering wheel. I notice the car swims in his cologne. As if I needed any help with the head spinning. He pulls away from the curb and out onto the Moscow streets.

I should cut away here and mention that most of what I've seen of Moscow hasn't been pretty, but I attribute that to first, fatigue and stomach distractions, and second, daylight.

I feel like it should be midnight, but the streets are bright, the sun shining. I glimpse darkened stores, some boarded, some simply gated. People with heads tucked against a swirling wind hustle down sidewalks, their hands shoved into the pockets of their leather coats. It's August, right? Why the jackets?

I lean forward to ask, when suddenly we hit a pothole. My head explodes against the roof of the car. “Be careful,” Rick says, but I'm not sure to whom.

“Is Moscow always this light?” I ask.

Tracey turns around. “Have you ever heard the song, Moscow days and Moscow nights?”

Do I look like a connoisseur of Russian folk tunes? I shake my head.

“It's a pop hit from the sixties. Moscow is so far north that it gets dark pretty early around here in the winter, but in the summer, it can stay light until eleven p.m.”

“What time is it?”

Tracey checks her watch. Oh sure, it's a Cartier. “Ten.”

My bedtime, for sure. Just how late does she want me to stay up? And, when will I receive my next set of instructions from Matthew?

We cut a right, weave between two squatty buildings and pull up to a long, low building distinguished by a sign of deformed stallion in midrear. “The Gray Pony?” I ask.

Tracey nods.

I'm not sure how to read Tracey. So far, I find her pushy, exotic, intriguing and maybe friendly. And way too pretty for Neo/Rick. He has his hand on the small of her back, proprietary as we walk into the…what is this place?

Uh-oh. I'm pretty sure Matthew isn't going to like this. My mother might call it a night club. Dwight would call it a den of sin.

I slouch in, and suddenly my headache erupts with a roar, the pulsating beat keeping rhythm with the thud in my brain.

“Want something to drink?” Tracey yells as we slide onto high-top stools. My gaze is caught on the couple in the middle of the dance floor. She's wearing red leather and he's wearing John Travolta black stretch pants and a frilly shirt, and guess what? Disco hasn't died, it's moved to Moscow! A silver disco ball dangles above the floor, and I just know the next song is going to be “Night Fever.” I can't help but smile.

“No, thanks,” I say. She shakes her head at Rick, who slips away. Yeah!

Tracey leans over the table. “I know that you missionary types don't hang out in these kind of places, but I thought you needed something loud to keep you awake.”

Oh. Yes. Loud would be the operative word. But I appreciate her sentiment.

“So, you work with Rick?” My voice echoes a couple times in my head.

“Yeah,” she hollers back. “Actually, he's my boss. We run an anti-trafficking program, dealing in the trade of women. We offer grants to organizations who offer training and employment alternatives to the flesh-for-sale profession.”

I blink at her, trying to catch all the words as the tune changes to a Donna Summer song. “What kind of things do you teach them?”

“Aside from business and computer classes, we also have classes on self-esteem. We want them to see themselves as more than a commodity, but a person of value.”

I know all about that kind of teaching, and I can't help but smile. She is speaking my language, well except for the…“Did you say Rick is your boss?”

She blushes slightly. “Yeah.”

“But, well, are you…dating him?”

Her smile dims. “He's nice once you get to know him.”

Oh, I'll be looking forward to that. But, her boss? Even I can hear the sirens.

Rick returns with my nothing and what looks like a gin and tonic for Sheena. The music rolls over me, soothing in its own raucous way. I don't have to think, I can just let the sounds, the smells, the colors wash over me. Lull me. I lay my head down on the table. Rick and Tracey aren't paying attention to me anyway.

And there's Chase. Where have you been? I ask as he slides up to me and puts his arm around my shoulder. I don't lift my head. “I'm stuck in this bar—”

“If it isn't Josey the Missionary!”

I jerk awake, clawing my way to reality.
Where am—

“I never expected to see you here. Trying to stay awake?”

Grunge Boy! I want to hug him. He is smiling broadly, and holding what I think is a Coke. He's dressed up for his night out in a pair of cargo pants, flip flops and a WWJD T-shirt.

“Caleb,” I say, pretty proud I can remember his name. “I lost you at the airport.”

He offers me his drink, and yes, it's soda. “That's why I travel light. No baggage claim for me.” He eyes Tracey. “Who is Safari girl?”

I glance over at Tracey and Rick, who definitely have no problem with any employer-employee taboos. “She's my roomie. Works for an NGO.” (I'm pretty excited to use that word, but unfortunately, Caleb doesn't notice.)

“She talked you into going out,” he says without question in his voice, which assuages my guilty conscience for being a missionary in a bar. “It's an unspoken ex-pat pledge to help all newbies over the jet-lag initiation.”

“I'd rather be pacing at two a.m.,” I mumble. He laughs. He has really pretty hazel eyes, and now, his smile makes me produce one, also.

“Let me take you home. I'll give you your first subway lesson.”