The Cosmopolitans Read Online Free Page A

straight-edge lifestyle.
    “ So, do you have a young friend? ” he said. She squinted. Her nose also squinted. “Boo? Mac?” He gave secret thanks to MTV: Russia.
    She shook her head, and behind her, a man stretched a stick of gum across a city street.
    “Really?” Could he pull this off? Only in Russian. “ It’s just that you’re so cool and hot.”
    Her face turned red, and she said in a familiar male voice, no American accent at all: “ The Israeli aggressor has finally revealed its predatory —”
    And his face was set to laugh, because it was a joke, wasn’t it? She hopped up, still speaking — “ Never before has an invader — ” and slammed the door shut.
     
     
     
     
    Leonid
     
    Leonid, upon being tipsily instructed by his mother to run off and play with Milla Molochnik, found himself on an allergy- inducing carpet opposite an implacable foe. Meanwhile, his cousin Roman was probably jacking off in the TV room. That option was not open to Leonid, no, he had to be a model of excellence for all Russian boys in the tri-state area, had been ever since, and even slightly before (thanks to his SAT scores), his acceptance to Harvard seven years ago.
    He wasn’t interested in this Brezhnev-browed lump, who jerked like an epileptic every time the phone rang, displacing the Scrabble tiles; didn’t she know he could be banging a hot model right now? Or at least his group’s cute-from-behind secretary, in a few years, when he’d risen a bit more in the hierarchy, gotten his MBA? Didn’t this Milla know this was his only night off for the next five weeks? Still, he roused himself to say, “So, do you ski downhill? Ever get out to Aspen?” Most Russians only knew how to ski cross-country, only knew small hills, slow speeds. Perhaps she was different; he was open to that possibility.
    She shrugged with one shoulder. At least she was quiet. From the dining room came the voice of Yana, the hairy middle sister. “That is racist.”
    Leonid’s mother said, “ No, Yanatchka, I like the black people very much. I’ve often wished I could be merry like a black lady. ”
    Yana stomped past them and upstairs, slammed a door, and then must have turned on some rap music.
    Leonid said, “Do you like rap? Snoop Dogg?”
    “Snoop Dogg is for rapists.” Milla’s mouth twisted strangely during this sentence, as if she were in a language class. Had he heard her correctly? He’d known her since they were little, but she was acting very differently tonight. Perhaps she had developed a crush on him, and was trying to flirt, by arguing? His mother had told him that her mother had some romantic ambitions for the two of them. He turned partly away so as not to meet her glare, or stare, or whatever she thought she was doing.
    From the kitchen issued some strange Russian words being, in a manner, sung. He couldn’t understand all the words — some kind of animal, maybe a goat, or was it a nobleman, marching, banging on a drum, and the drum was made out of the goat’s or nobleman’s skin. Neither definition made complete sense for both the marching and the drum-skin. This kind of thing was exactly why he’d never taken any poetry at Harvard.
    Next, he heard some ostentatious clapping, and Mrs. Molochnik saying, “ All right, Osya. Don’t beat the table, it didn’t do anything to you. ”
    Mr. Molochnik said, “ Think, my friends, how our bards sacrificed. Alexander Galich: imprisoned, murdered. ”
    “ I think he was only exiled, ” Leonid’s father said.
    “ He died trying to fix a radio, right, Arkady? ” Alla said.
    “ You don’t think the KGB had its dirty tentacles all over that transistor? You are like children .”
    “Osya,” Mrs. Molochnik said.
    “ Forgive me, what do I know? What’s the point of arguing? He’s dead, dead, dead all the same. ”
    Mrs. Molochnik said, “ Osip Mikhailovich, what do you say about getting a little sleep? ”
    “ I understand,” Mr. Molochnik said. “ This is a