Operator - 01 Read Free Page B

talking.
    “Yes I did. We were roommates. We taught English on the Glasnost program. They pay your room and board, you get a small stipend and you get to learn Russian intensively while you teach English. Mel was there for two years – I lasted almost four.”
    “Four years is a long time to teach English abroad, isn’t it? Where in Russia were you?”
    “St. Petersburg. That’s probably why I stayed so long. Most kids who join end up in some tiny village in the middle of nowhere and come back after a year or two. But St. Petersburg – it was just unbelievable. Even with the mosquitoes in the summer and the dreary winters it was just an amazing place. I still miss it.”
    “When did you get back?” I ask, because I realize I have no idea how Mel spent her life after I left home. I never asked.
    “I came back about two years ago. Mel left a year before I did.” Veronica starts telling me details about the time they spent in St. Petersburg. It’s a lovely city. I went there a number of times for work. I listen to her describe her experiences and I can’t help thinking how different the Mel she knew sounds from the seventeen-year-old girl I remember.
    “What are you doing now?”
    “Ah – now I’m writing silly feature stories for the White Plains Gazette while I dream about my future job as foreign correspondent for The New York Times . And living with my parents in Greenwich,” she adds, waving her hand over her head in a southeasterly direction.
    “You drove back there last night? How far is that?” In fact I know that it is over 90 miles and on the wrong side of the Hudson.
    “No, I’m staying in a B&B in Rhinebeck for the weekend. It’s amazing how nice everything is when you get just a little further south of Conestoga,” she says off-handedly and then colors, adding, “I’m sorry,” as she realizes she’s insulted my hometown.
    “Don’t be. You’re absolutely right. Fifty years ago, Conestoga was a solid working class town. Then the mill started losing business and laying people off every year and the town shrank with it. People who held on, like my family, were living on a tightrope. A lot of them drank or gambled,” and here I think of my Dad, “and a lot of people got involved in bad things. After the mill closed,” I swallow some of the hot black coffee, which is not bad in spite of its pretentious name and inflated price, “things got worse. A lot worse, I think.” If what I’ve seen on my morning run is representative of the whole town, I’m downplaying the truth. The best sections of Conestoga now look like Newark, New Jersey, or the Compton section of Los Angeles. The houses are shabby and the yards unkempt, but there are expensive cars in some driveways. There is money in Conestoga, but it’s the wrong kind.
    “So, the guy you were,” I pause, trying to find a polite phrase, “ talking to last night – what’s his story?”
    Veronica smiles sourly. “George. Trouble. Big trouble, that’s his story. I could see it in him from the beginning, but Mel didn’t have that instinct. She trusted people, took them at their word. She was so naïve. And he was this big shot banker, very charming when he wanted to be, knew everyone in town and took her out places she couldn’t afford to go. But he was a player, you know – there were probably ten other girls besides Mel at the same time, most of them Russian with no brains, but legs up to here,” she chops her hand at her Adam’s apple, “who would do anything for a nice meal or a night out at a club. And he had a temper – almost as bad as mine.” She smiles briefly, flashing perfectly straight white teeth. “One day, about a year after they started dating, Mel came home from a weekend with a bruise on her cheek and said that she tripped and hit a doorknob. Then a few weeks later it was a broken arm – this time she fell playing tennis. Then finally she showed up with a black eye and that’s when I called her parents.