Lights All Night Long - Lydia Fitzpatrick Page 0,1

unison, their tongues tripping over the silent “v.”

The older girl stared at the poster as if it had betrayed her. “Did we spell your name wrong?” she said.

“I’m Cam Mason,” the man said, “but you can call me Papa Cam.”

“And I’m Mama Jamie,” the woman said. Her hair was very yellow and cut in a banged bob, a style that Ilya had only ever seen on prostitutes and small children. They introduced the girls—Marilee and Molly—and as they waited for him to say something, their faces were so wide open, so vulnerable with hope. He knew the expression because he had imagined them having it, when he was vulnerable with hope too. But now Vladimir was in prison, and Ilya hadn’t imagined the guilt these strange, smiling faces would call up in him. His throat narrowed, and because English felt like too much of a betrayal he said, in Russian, “I’m Ilya.”

* * *

—

The airport doors parted with a sucking sound, and the heat rushed through them. It was wet, heavy, something to be reckoned with. Ilya’s lungs could barely expand, and he imagined them sticking, their pumping slowing to a twitch and then stopping. He was momentarily terrified, but the Masons were unfazed. The girls each took one of his hands and led him across a parking lot. Papa Cam and Mama Jamie dropped back, whispering, Ilya guessed, about his lack of English.

Halfway across the lot, Papa Cam hit a button on his key ring, and a car honked in enthusiastic response. It looked like something an oligarch would own—black, with aggressive tires and tinted windows and enough rows that they could each occupy one. It was spotless except for a bumper sticker that read, LOVE, GROW, SERVE, GO!, the senselessness of which reminded Ilya of the Young Pioneers slogans that his mother and her friends would recite when they were drunk and feeling cynical and nostalgic. They all climbed inside and again the girls sandwiched Ilya. Papa Cam put on a pair of sunglasses that wrapped around his head and gave it the look of an egg that’s been cracked by a spoon. He adjusted the rearview mirror until it was centered on Ilya’s face.

“We’re two hours from Baton Rouge, three hours from New Orleans, and a whole lot happier for it,” he said.

As they sailed down the highway, the girls told Ilya their favorite colors, favorite foods, and favorite sports. Molly told him that she was seven and three-quarters, and Marilee told him that she was eleven, and he pretended not to understand a word. When they’d exhausted the topic of themselves, they took turns asking him what he ate for various meals in Russia and what sounds animals made in Russian and whether American Idol played in Russia. He nodded vaguely.

“Mama,” Molly said, tugging on Mama Jamie’s seat belt from behind, “you said he’d speak English.”

“I know I did, sugar pie,” she said. She twisted in her seat and reached out and touched Ilya’s knee. “Did you take English in school?”

Ilya shrugged.

“He doesn’t know a word,” Marilee said.

“Shhhh,” Molly said.

“Why?” Marilee said. “It’s not like he can understand us.”

He wanted to slap the girl, and he could feel the urge showing on his face, so he brought his hands up and hid his eyes in the cave of his palms.

“He might be tired,” Mama Jamie said, “or shy.” And when Ilya let his hands fall, she was giving him this huge and forceful smile, as though her smile alone might be powerful enough to drag him from his shell.

“He looks old. Like twenty. Or there could be something wrong with him.” Marilee leaned forward and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Like from Chernobyl?”

It took Ilya a moment to understand her pronunciation of “Chernobyl,” to feel its sting.

“Hey now.” Papa Cam braked and flashed his eyes in the rearview. “Let’s give him some peace and quiet, girls. He’s traveled a ways to be with us.”

“Life is hard there,” Mama Jamie said.

“The life expectancy is only sixty-one,” Marilee said.

Molly tapped his thigh with her pointer finger. She had become his favorite by default. “What about a rooster?” she said softly. “Do roosters in Russia go cock-a-doodle-do?”

Her eyes were dancing over his face, the sort of eyes that hid nothing. For a second, she reminded him of Vladimir, and he wanted to answer her, to give in to her the way he’d always given in to Vladimir, but the second passed, and Papa Cam turned the radio on