I'm Every Woman
Katya smiled kindly and I picked up her bag – curiously, I noticed, she only had one old, battered bag. Did she know this was a permanent position? Where were all her possessions? I opened my mouth to make some smart comment, but looking into her face again I felt a sudden wave of shyness. She was so cool, so collected, so beautiful, and who was I? Some random child who couldn’t string two words together. I shut my mouth again, hoping she wouldn’t clock my self-deprecating blush. I meekly nodded my head in the direction of her room and she smiled kindly again, though I couldn’t help wondering if it was in the same way someone smiles at an adorable dog, or a child. When we’d been walking in heavy silence for around thirty seconds, Katya turned to me.
“So, Beatrice…” she started, but I must have shown disgust on my face as she used the outdated name my mother called me. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Oh, nothing… just. I hate that name. Beatrice.” I replied, unable to stop myself. She tilted her head and crinkled her eyes in a relaxed grin.
“Oh? What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s so old-fashioned and… bleugh. I like to be called Trixie,” I gabbled. It felt so good to tell Katya my preferred name that I started to relax around her.
“Trixie…” she experimented, rolling the word round in her mouth. “As you wish, красивая девушка.” I started at the unexpected foreign language. After blinking for a few seconds, I managed to stutter out a sentence.
“That sounds incredibly American first, Russian second,” I shyly quipped. For a second I was terrified I’d crossed a line - the playful remark had just slipped out of me - but I heard a cackle beside me and turned to look in bewilderment. Katya’s mouth was open so wide I could see every one of her perfect teeth and a wheezing chuckle was issuing out of her at such an alarming rate I was scared she was going to have a coughing fit.
“Oh, doll, you found me out! I am a filthy Russian first! Are you gonna tell your Momma on me?” she posed it as a joke, but I could hear the hints of a pointed question underneath the light-heartedness.
“No. I’m not,” I replied, and she visibly relaxed. “I’ve already hauled your bag this far, and who can be bothered to take it all the way back to the front door?”
She cackled again. “Thank you, милая. Now, you’ve found out my first big secret, you have to figure out my second.” She said it regally, with a teasing veil of importance. I put on a big performance of thinking hard, finger tapping my chin, while in reality racking my brains as to what it could be.
“Well, we’ve reached your room. You’ll have to tell me while making your bed,” I told her, pushing open the door. It was only a simple room, with a basic bed, basin and chest of drawers, but Katya seemed in awe of it.
“Wow, look at this place! Look at that window! I can catch the perfect morning light!” she marvelled, rushing over to the window, hauling it open and perching herself on the windowsill, gazing out longingly. I placed her bag on the bed and went to stand next to her.
“If you’re up that early in the morning. I’m never up before ten if I can help it,” I remarked. She gazed at me.
“How?! I’m always up with the morning lark, five o’clock most days. Nothing can ever compare to strolling through a field at sunrise, just you and the birds and the dew in the grass. Pure heaven.” She sighed dreamily. I really liked seeing her like this.
“In the early morning breeze…” I gently sang some Dolly Parton. I’d recently bought her album Jolene and had listened to it non-stop for months. Katya widened her eyes when I sang.
“You have a beautiful voice! Is that your song?” she asked. I shook my head, smiling.
“I wish! No, it’s a Dolly Parton. You know her?” She shook her head and I widened my eyes, mock-offended.
“Anyway, you still haven’t told me this big secret! I must hear it straight away.” Her eyes clouded with forgetfulness for a second, then brightened.
“Oh yeah! I’m not a gardener. I don’t know the first thing about gardens.” She declared. I boggled.
“You… don’t…” I stuttered.
“I don’t know anything about gardens, yeah. I don’t belong to an agency that sends out gardeners to rich folks. I just happened to be in an office one day when I overheard some people discussing something about a guy who’d broken his leg and couldn’t go to a gardening job. I kinda sorta didn’t have a job or a place to live at that point so I said I’d do it and here we are!” she said all this so cheerfully that I started to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation. My mother was expecting a gardener who could trim her bushes into fancy topiary and bloom hothouse roses by the dozen. She looked quizzically at my laughter, but every time she did it sent me into further giggles and soon I was letting out my hideous scream laugh. We both collapsed into hopeless peals of laughter, Katya reaching to grab my arm and my leg, with bolts of electricity tingling me every time she did. I half expected a ‘zzz’ noise to sound every time she touched me.
“Oh, Trixie,” she gasped through her laughter. “I think I’m going to like it here.”