TUBE

TULA STATION, 11:31

The aisle rang with sharp, impatient voices. Passengers bundled up to their ears pushed their way through, dragging behind them fat suitcases and silent children. Olesya squeezed past them, hopped off the train, and pulled on her hat, scanning the snow-swept platform.

Local babushkas huddled by the station building, selling steaming food.

Passengers stood in a queue at the telephone booth.

But no Natasha.

Olesya walked along the platform.

She'll roll her eyes when she hears. She'll tell me it was my fault. And I'll tell her she's right. Then I'll ask her how to seduce him. She'll laugh, of course. So what. Let her. As long as—

An angry voice broke her from her thoughts.

"Hurry up, will you?"

An attendant woman ushered a man and a little girl into a car. The girl was no older than five, wearing a heavy coat. She tripped and fell.

Her father yanked her up by the arm. "Get up. Get up, I said! What a klutz."

Olesya's stomach shrunk.

The girl turned to look at her, tears rolling down her cheeks. Her father shoved her in the back, and they climbed inside.

A loudspeaker cracked to life. "Attention. The Moscow–Simferopol train is departing in three minutes. I repeat . . ."

Olesya rushed back toward her car.

"Olesya!" Natasha caught up with her. She sucked on a cigarette and blew smoke through her lips. Her fur coat was unbuttoned. Her auburn hair sparkled with snowflakes, her cheeks the perfect pink.

Olesya shivered. How does she do it?

No matter how cold it was, Natasha never wore hats. One day after ballet class—they were both thirteen—she had declared to Olesya that hair was a woman's sexiest feature. She'd read about it in a foreign magazine. A month later she had her first man, then her second, then her third.

She stopped hanging out with Olesya after that, and Olesya spent her evenings alone, dancing until her toes bled. Still, their friendship held. Natasha loved telling Olesya the details of her adventures, and Olesya loved to listen. Together they graduated from ballet school and got accepted into the Bolshoi Theatre troupe. They became soloists, went on tours. But while Olesya quietly worked, Natasha enjoyed what Olesya couldn't: Alla Borisovna's patronage, audience admiration, loving parents, and plenty of sex.

Then, in December, Dima Rumyantsev, a gifted dancer from Leningrad, joined Bolshoi, and for the first time in her life Natasha found her charms ignored.

"It's not him who doesn't want me," she told Olesya. "It's me who doesn't want him. Get it? He's just not my type."

A week later, Olesya and Dima were dating.

"Well?" Natasha asked.

Olesya watched her breath turn white. The words she had prepared evaporated. "Well, nothing."

"You're kidding me."

Olesya shook her head.

"You mean, you kicked me out of our compartment"—Natasha blew smoke in her face—"for nothing?"

Olesya looked down, cheeks burning. The pit of her stomach roiled. She froze, unable to think, to speak, to move. Whatever it was that made her feel this way could hold her in its grip for hours, sometimes for days. The only way out was to say something, anything, even if it didn't make sense. Even if it was stupid. Make a noise. Make her tongue move.