“Mister Email?” she asks.
I nod. “We were sort of seeing each other,” I say. “But not anymore.”
“Why not? He is make baby with somebody else? Like Scott?”
“No, no,” I say. “Nothing like that.”
Olga reaches out and takes my hands in hers. She closes her eyes and wraps her hands over mine. I sit uncomfortably, frozen but looking around.Does nobody else think this is weird?I wonder.
“She is sad. She make mistake. She is regret,” Olga proclaims.
Mrs. A claps joyfully. “Olga is studying to be mystic,” she says. “First, engineer. Build buildings! Now mystic, seeing future! She is good, no?”
I laugh aloud, then dial it back so as not to appear rude. “Yes, she’s very good,” I say.
“Why you are sad? Why you are regret?” Mrs. A asks.
I decide it can’t hurt to tell them the truth. I have nowhere to go, nothing else to do on this cloudy spring day. So, I begin at the beginning, with freshman science class and the nickname. Then, I talk about the secret admirer notes, and how I used to daydream about Colin when I was beholden to Ronald. I share about my writing, and about Scott, and about using my high school yearbook to create characters for a story thatcould have greatly advanced my net worth. I tell them about Ilana and the baby, my downward spiral into self-loathing and panic, my drunken email to Colin of not even two weeks ago. I spill the details of our brief affair like a child spills milk on the carpet, with innocence and honesty that overwhelms me with catharsis and anguish all at once. I explain about Lindsay, how he called her Elle and how that got us into a tangled mess that ended with the obliteration of my income potential. I end the story with our phone call last night, the awful way I hit below the belt during our fight, the nasty things I said that I can’t take back. “I was angry,” I explain. “I was hurt. Now, I’ve lost everything.”
When I’m done, Olga says, “No.”
“No?” I ask.
“No. You can fix.”
“How?” I wonder.
“You are writer, yes? You write for money?”
I nod.
“So, you write this story down in paper.”
“Itisinteresting story, Gracie,” Mrs. A says. “It reminds me ofTbilisi Nights. Is Georgian soap opera aboutdevushkanamed Yelena who is schoolteacher by day and exotic dancer by night.”
“How does that relate to my story at all?” I laugh.
“Because she is paying money for sex, yes?”
“I think you meanbeingpaid,” I say.
“And she is falling in love for one man, but she is teaching his child in school, and he is seeing her in club at night. She is wearing wig—fake hair, yes?—so he does not know she is same schoolteacher for his little boy.”
Olga nods her head vehemently. “This isbigshow back home,” she agrees.
“Yelena is Yelena in school but in club she is Viktoriya. So the man,Nikolai, he falls in love for Viktoriya but can never be with her because she is exotic dancer and he is noble doctor, important in town.” Mrs. A continues.
“Is he married?” I ask.
“Oh, no. His wife is dead from snow avalanche.”
“Of course,” I say.
“You should watch it. Is very good. You will understand, is just like your story,” Mrs. A says.
Olga nods. “You write this all down. Make book from this.”
“I don’t know,” I say.
