The front door clicks open and Bill steps into the living room. Olga
forces herself to turn and smile. She mustn't let Bill think she's not
happy! Bill grins widely and says, "hi, honey!" God almighty, Bill
thinks. He hasn't been on 2 dates in 20 years, and here's this slim,
sexy young girl, standing in his living room putting her arms around
him, mashing her breasts against his chest as he kisses her deeply
and squeezes her tight, firm butt. This can't be real. Trying to ignore
a throbbing erection, he goes into the bedroom and kicks off his
shoes and changes clothes, dropping his Dockers in a pile on the floor.
Bill drags his hand across Olga's butt as he walks into the kitchen.
Suddenly he stops and stares at the stove, with a concerned, worried
look. "You mean THIS is SUPPER? A pan of SPINACH?" Olga
turns away in pain, sighing heavily. Oh, God, here we go again. Bill
sees this and steps over to her, grabbing her shoulders and turning
her around.
"Hey, honey, that's all right, we'll just cook something else, don't
worry about it. But you know, you need to learn how to cook; we
can't live on spinach and salami 7 days a week. " Olga looked at
the floor and nodded in submission. She felt like such a stupid
idiot, but of course she didn't dare say anything. "Hey," Bill
belched, "tell you what... this weekend, we'll get out one of my
mom's recipe books and I'll start teaching you how to cook some
of this American stuff, OK?
" Yeah, sure, I'm a brainless
idiot who can't even cook for her husband, and YOU'RE going to
"teach me how." Wonderful, she thinks. I feel better already.
Olga shrugs. Bill's supposed to be her friend, her husband, not
her teacher or father, and she gets exasperated from him talking to her
as if she were a child, and constantly expecting her to agree with
everything he says. But she doesn't want to disappoint him. After
all, SHE is the "odd" one here, with everything to learn, not Bill.
Glancing out the window, she sees the neighbor's teenage girl
drive off in a minivan. Her mother walks out the sidewalk, picks
up the newspaper and sits on the front porch reading it.
Oh! Olga remembers. The phone call! She steps up to Bill
to announce this important information. "Bill, a man called today
and said he had some important information about your bank
account." Bill glared at her angrily: "Really? What did he say?"
Olga replied intensely, "it was something about 'credit insurance'."
Of course, she had no concept of "credit insurance," but she
knew it was important.
She proudly said, in her best English, "I got his phone number
right here, and he wants you to call him as soon as impossible.
He said it was VERY important."
Olga stood silently, proud of herself, and waited for his
reaction.
Bill threw up his arms and shook his head, bellowing loudly,
"Oh, s**t, Olga! That was just some idiot trying to sell us
something. When you get a call like that, just hang up the
phone, don't waste time talking to those stupid people!"
Bill, still staring at the pan of lukewarm spinach,
looked at the ceiling and shook his head back and forth in
exasperation, exhaling noisily. He farted.
Olga clenched her teeth. She was beginning to understand
what one RW meant when she said, "in America, I am forced
to be stupid." She stared at Bill's back with her blood turning
to ice.
As Bill ignored her and rummaged through the refrigerator
looking for something to eat, Olga wondered what to do
next. He sat at the table with a bowl of spinach and some
cold cuts and a can of beer, gulping it down. She sat by
him and tried to make some conversation, feeling lonely from
being in the silent house all day. "Bill," she said, "how was your
day?" She tried valiantly to break the ice between them.
"Oh, you know, same old thing," he barked.
Olga smiled and looked out the window at the empty flower
pots on the porch. Russians love flowers. "Bill,
when you finish, can we go buy some flowers?" She'd been
cooped up in the house all day, and it would be nice for them
to get out and do something together. She thought about
how nice some pretty red flowers would look on that porch.
In Russia, she could never afford such things. For the price
of a batch of flowers, you could buy a week's supply of
potatos.
Bill winced and bobbed his head. "Honey, I'm tired, I just
got home from work, I don't want to turn around and go
back out the door. Besides, there's a game on tonight, it
starts in 30 minutes. No way I'm gonna go anywhere, it's
the Packers and the Raiders. Man! Lemma tell ya about those
Packers! They got a new running back, see, and..."
Olga sighed and gazed into empty space. Bill said, "hey, listen,
I'm trying to talk to you. Don't ignore me when I'm trying to
talk to you, OK? You do that all the time, you know? God,
man, I'm just a guy trying to talk to his wife, you know?"
Olga replied tensely, "I'm not ignoring you, I just don't
know anything about football; it's just not important to
me, and you know, the porch would look so much nicer
with some flowers..."
