Nicole sat on her bed and carefully considered the polish
on her toenails. On her big toe she had painted a rosy mauve, on the next a
peach, the middle a rusty red, the next a standard red, and on the little piggy
that cried "whee," all the way home a fashionable but startling shade
of puce. She angled her foot nearer the bedside lamp, stretching her toned leg
at an odd angle to do so, to get a better idea of which color looked best at
the moment. After what should have seemed undue consideration, she settled on
the startling puce. She removed all the polish so she could start with a fresh
canvas.
Before applying the base coat, she touched her face. The
pore-minimizing mask had dried to a crackly shell. She decided to remove it
before wet toenails made movement more difficult.
As part of the exchange program, Hotel Adria had put
Nicole up in a tiny studio at the back of the facility. The apartment consisted
of one big room that contained the bare necessities: single bed, kitchen table,
three wooden chairs, two bedside tables, one with a tiny television, and a
basic kitchen set-up. A door on the far side of the kitchen led to a miniscule
-- and unheated -- bathroom. The studio reminded her of the dorm she had lived
in her freshman year, though here she at least had it to herself. It was
scarcely bigger than her bedroom in the house she had shared with Maura and
Leese the last two years of college.
Nicole entered the bathroom. The round pedal sink
provided no space for anything but soap, so she kept her toothbrush and paste
in the toiletry bag hanging from the towel rack. The toiletry bag had been a
going-away gift from Leese. Nicole had laughed when she saw it, telling her
friend, "I'm not backpacking across Europe like you did two summers ago.
I'm just making the one move." Leese had given her a sage look.
"Trust me. When you see the European bathrooms, you'll be glad to be as
self-contained as possible." Nicole had long since emailed Leese to let
her know she'd been right.
Nicole peeled the mask from her face in several strips
then rinsed her face in cold water, as the package had suggested. She checked
the results in the mirror hanging flat against the wall. She had good skin,
smooth and pliable and with a faint olive tinge from her father. Her features
came mostly from her mother: high cheekbones, turned-up blue eyes, and bee-stung
lips. Nicole was pretty.
She was also lonely. It was Saturday night, and rather
than preparing to go out, she was simply preparing. She remembered with a
twinge of nostalgia all the times Maura had put on a "going out" cd,
and the three girls had danced around the house while performing their beauty
rituals. She thought about the bars and dance clubs they'd frequented in LoDo, Denver's
historic and now trendy district. She even remembered with a fond twinge those
sports bars and that dollar-a-drink dive Shaun always insisted they patronize.
She pictured her friends, Maura and Leese, their more casual going-out
acquaintances, Shaun and his posse before he'd broken up with her.
She sighed and looked away from the mirror, Shaun had
broken up with her shortly before their senior year of college began. He had
been honest as to the reason -- or she imagined he was honest since he'd told
her, "Pro scouts are looking at me. I'm getting invited to some exclusive
parties, and there are some really beautiful women there. I don't want to cheat
on you, but I want to ... you know." It had hardly provided the highlight
of her own senior year in college; she also had not wanted it to provide a defining
moment in her senior year. Or in her life.
Nicole's father had accused her of such when she had told
him about the work abroad program into which she had been accepted.
"Nikki, I know that punk Shaun broke your heart, but
that's no reason to move across the world."
Nicole didn't want to think about that year now beyond
the fun she'd had with her friends. No matter how much snow was on the ground,
no matter on which side of zero the thermometer hovered, the bars had been
packed any weekend they decided to indulge. Not so apparently Rovinj. Here it
was, only near the end of October, and the town had nearly sunk into
hibernation. A little chill in the air, a little drizzle, and the townsfolk
felt their best course of action lay in staying at home with the family
watching TV. That had been Matija's plan
anyway, in response to a general text for entertainment she'd sent out:
"slight fever. will stay home for tv." His had been the only
response.
To show willing to whatever omniscient entity might care
about such things, Nicole flipped through the three channels on her laptop-sized
television. Hrvatska Televizija
1
was broadcasting a political talk show. Hrvatska Televizija 2 had on a basketball game. Nova Televizija was showing a Swedish film with
Croatian subtitles. Nicole had actually watched this last for some minutes before
she realized that she not only had no idea what the plot was, she also could
not recognize which character was which; they were all tall, sandy-haired, and
androgynous. So, she'd given up on observing this apparent Croatian fall
custom.
On her way back to the bed, Nicole looked out her one
window. If she looked past a fig tree, now in its golden autumn coat, she could
make out a small portion of the path that led to the center of town. The path
was completely deserted. She supposed people could blame the cold drizzle...
She pictured Maura laughing at her freezing toes because she'd worn open-toed
clogs in a snowstorm rather than the obligatory boots. "These go better
with my outfit," she'd reasoned, which Maura agreed with despite her
amusement. In Croatia, Nicole sighed and
sat on the bed. Welcome to a resort town
in the off-season. Gone were the crowds of summer, made up mostly of
tourists and what few locals there were. Gone even were the wandering revelers
of a month ago, this time mostly locals with a few hardy tourists.
"Nikki, you're
hungover. Just because you're my daughter doesn't mean you don't have to follow
the same responsibilities as your co-workers. Here at the hotel you're just
another employee..."
"My daughter" -- Gerald Bouchard's daughter,
the "Mr. Bouchard, General Manager," of the whole East Coast branch
of the hotel chain.
"Daddy, see,
it's perfect. I get a whole bunch of experience when it's not too busy. Then,
when all the tourists come, I'll be ready to fulfill all my responsibilities."
That had been another unpleasant conversation, the one
with, "Nikki, I know that punk Shaun
broke your heart, but that's no reason to move across the world."
She had tried every reason and rationalization to explain
to her father why she wanted to join this program; however, since her
graduation would afford her a promotion at his hotel chain, the reasonings
hadn't flown. He had blamed Shaun's break-up with her. Nicole hadn't wanted to
admit how adrift she'd felt those months without him, so she'd thrown out the
other reason for feeling adrift: "Mom was Croatian."
"Third generation, and less than half."
"Still. It's like my birthright."
"With that rationale, you'd have more call to go to
France."
Nicole didn't stoop to pointing out the obvious: her
daddy was still alive. "The program's in Croatia."
Gerald Bouchard snorted. "That's because it's a poor
little country with war just a few years past -- they probably need the cheap
labor."
"It's only a year."
"It's only a year."
He shrugged. "You're a grown woman, Nikki."
Then why do I feel
like a child talking to you about this?
As if reading her thoughts, he admonished, "You will
have to live on whatever pittance they choose to pay you."
"I already live within my means." It was mostly
true; except for the occasional extravagance her daddy indulged her with, he
had insisted she live on her wages ever since she moved out for college.
"I mean it, Nikki. I won't send you any care
packages, not in the form of funds or beauty products or anything else."
"I understand, Daddy."
"And you'll have to pay your own way back if you
want to come home for Christmas."
"Daddy!"
"Welcome to the cold, cruel world, Nicole Bouchard.
I'll make sure you can make it home again at the end, but any frivolities need
to come out of your own pocket."
Frivolities. Autumn in Rovinj didn't look like it would
promise many of those.
The next morning Nicole exited her studio, passed the
golden fig tree, and walked down the path leading to the town center. Light
rain dropped on her head, but she refused to acknowledge it. She was heading
for Sax, one of the ubiquitous cafe-bars that lined the waterfront, the riva.
She carried an indulgence she had granted herself, her monthly subscription to Glamour: Britain. She had read it cover
to cover already, but she wanted to be prepared in case none of her
acquaintances were at Sax. However, when she entered the cafe-bar, she spotted
Martina and Tena, a pinch-faced, top-heavy blonde, sitting at a back table;
they were sitting with a couple Nicole didn't recognize. Martina saw her and
waved her over. Nicole's mood lightened for about ten minutes; by then she
started feeling awkward "listening" to conversation that was all in
Croatian, fast-paced so she could barely catch a word here and there. Finally
she heard -- or thought she heard -- Tena say something about Saturday night.
Nicole jumped in with English, "Oh, I know. Wasn't it boring?"
Tena rolled her eyes. "Hardly. We were at party in
Pula. We just return in Rovinj at 5:00 because that is the first bus from
Pula."
"Oh," Nicole answered. Her stomach felt empty,
with the unfamiliar sensation of having been excluded. She flicked a convulsive
look in Martina's direction.
Martina shifted in her seat. "Tena and I went for a
movie in Pula. Then we went to this party we heard about. We would invite you,
but the movie was in Croatian, then it was late and there was no more buses
from Rovinj."
Nicole's face felt hot. She thought it would have been
less awkward if Martina hadn't explained about her exclusion. Nonetheless, she
answered the apology as gracefully as she could, "Oh, no problem."
She pulled her lips into a smile. "I did a little beauty routine."
The woman of the couple spoke to Martina in Croatian.
Tena explained, "Ivan and Ivana haven't any English. Only Croatian, Deutsch, and Italian." Then she
looked past Nicole to speak to Ivan. Nicole sat there, listening to what she
didn't understand.
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