Operation Green Card Page 3

  It was just after five now, so early in the morning for her. Normally he would wait a bit to give her a chance to coffee up, but the anytime gave him the fidgets. He logged in to Skype and watched the call go unanswered, lit a cigarette, then tried again. Now she answered, bleary-eyed, definitely pre-coffee. She put a finger to her lips, and the blur behind her told him she was walking with her phone. Probably trying not to wake Anna.

  “Hey,” she said, when the kitchen cabinets appeared behind her. “Did you just get home?”

  “About half an hour ago, but I just saw your email.” His stomach was coiled in a complicated knot of hope and trepidation. “Any news?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. I had this idea. But it might be a little too wild, even for us.” She grinned, and the coil slid firmly toward hope.

  “I’m listening.”

  She tugged at her hair for a moment, then said in a rush, “There’s a guy at work who may be willing to marry you for a green card in exchange for money.” She took a deep breath.

  Arkady blinked. “What?”

  “Think about it, Kashka. It’s legal here, now. It would be the perfect solution. You can come for a vacation, meet the guy; if he rubs you the wrong way, you fly back, nothing lost.”

  He took a breath to reply, but she cut in.

  “I’ll pay for the ticket. If you decide to stay, you can get married, file your papers, and have all the time in the world to find a job. It’ll be so much easier than trying to find one long-distance.”

  This time she paused, clearly waiting for an answer. He didn’t have one. The green card marriage was hardly a new idea, of course. For a woman. He tried to push through the tangle of preconceptions in his head. Regardless of gender, it had always struck him as a desperate solution. So many unknowns of helplessness and dependencies. Was he that desperate? Today? Maybe.

  “What’s he like, this guy at work?”

  Tasha let out a long breath. “He seems like a decent guy. Ex-soldier, works security on set. He lost a leg in . . .” She frowned. “I don’t actually know where, and I probably should have asked. Anyway, a veteran. He’s been hustling for more work, and not getting any, so he needs money.”

  Suspicion was like a shark fin slicing through the waters of his musings. “What for?”

  Again the frown. “Nothing illegal.”

  “You don’t know.”

  “No, I don’t. But I believe him. Look, I don’t know the guy all that well, but my gut says to trust him. And my gut isn’t all that generous that way.”

  He huffed a laugh. That was an understatement if he’d ever heard one. Where Natalya Nikolayevna trusted, he was inclined to follow. Still . . .

  “What the hell did you do to your face?”

  He’d been sitting with his left side away from the light, but must have shifted. Shit. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Nothing? You look like you got into a fight. Did you?”

  “No, nothing that dramatic. I ran into a rock, but it was a craven, half-assed thing, and it’s over now. There’s nothing you can do, so stop worrying, okay?”

  “Khuinya. I know there’s a big part of you that doesn’t want to leave. And I know it’s a weird thing to suggest—”

  “I mean, what sort of a man marries for money?”

  “Think about it at least? I have to wait to hear back from him anyway. He hasn’t said yes yet. But he hasn’t said no either.” She stared past her phone screen for a second, then looked back at him. “I prefer that to someone jumping at the chance.”

  He blew a smoke ring. “I guess.”

  “I’m not asking you to sign any vows right now, Arkady. Just come and meet the guy. Then make up your mind. Besides, I wouldn’t mind seeing you.” Her voice had grown soft on the last words, making his throat tight.

  “I miss you too. How are things with you and Anna?”

  “Good. Really good.” Her wide, happy smile was easily the best thing he’d seen all day. They chatted for a few minutes longer, then logged off. Arkady sat staring at her name on the screen until his stomach growled and the cigarette burned his fingers.

  He stubbed it out, put the kettle on, and threw a pack of Rollton noodles into a bowl with soy sauce and hot sauce.

  Marry a stranger for a green card? He wasn’t seriously thinking about that, was he? And an ex-soldier? He shook his head to silence Mitja’s voice warning him off. He’d never be rid of that voice. They’d gone to school together, and discovering they were both gay had thrown them together, despite their differences. They’d learned together, haunted the cafés and later bars together. They’d shared pretty much everything except a bed. It hadn’t been that kind of a relationship. They’d been too different. Mitja had been loud and proud, where Arkady was contemplative and careful.

  They’d been so stupid when they were drafted. They believed in a modern Russia, a changing Russia, and they were eighteen and invulnerable. He could still hear Mitja’s enthusiastic remarks about this guy’s ass and how the lieutenant would look better out of uniform.

  They’d come for Mitja on a snowy Monday morning about 4 a.m., the day before Arkady’s nineteenth birthday, and had dragged him out of his bunk. Arkady would have gone after them, except for Pasha holding him in a bear hug that had broken two of his ribs because he’d struggled against it until he couldn’t breathe anymore.

  The kettle whistled, making him jump and bang his knuckles against the counter. He sucked on his fist while pouring the hot water over the noodles. A can of sliced mushrooms and a generous dollop of sour cream completed his dinner. He took the bowl over to the couch and opened his tattered and heavily annotated copy of Catch-22, but put it down again when he caught himself staring into space after only five lines. Not the right book to take his mind off Mitja.

  When Pasha had finally let him go, Arkady had found that he’d broken the big guy’s nose with the back of his head. It had taken him years to acknowledge that there was nothing he could have done. Pasha had probably saved his life. At the point he’d admitted that to himself, he’d been unable to track the man down to apologize.

  His stomach roiled at the flood of memories, and he set his noodles back on the table, only half-eaten. Instead, he opened the new bottle of vodka he’d saved for an emergency and proceeded to quietly and determinedly get drunk. So drunk, he could stop thinking about the mess his life was, in a country where he’d never have a family and kids. Even if by some miracle he found a tough guy who did turn out to be the family type. So drunk, he could stop thinking about leaving his home and his family, and whether he wanted to marry a stranger to do it.

  He was still banging his brain against that question through his hangover the next morning, and through the rest of the week until Tasha called him back on Saturday.

  “He said yes,” she announced without preamble.

  “What?” Arkady knew what she meant, of course, but his mind felt stupid and sluggish and raw. He was no closer to a decision than he’d been three days ago.

  “Jason. The guy at work. He agreed to meet you.” She paused.

  “He did?” Arkady asked, just to fill the silence.

  “He did. And the money isn’t for anything illegal.”

  “He says?”

  “Yeah, well. Like I said, check him out, make up your own mind.”

  “Is he gay?”

  “Jesus Christ. Men. What the hell does that have to do with it? Do you want to fuck the guy or get your papers?”

  “No. Yeah. You’re right. Perfectly.”

  “Arkady?”

  He squeezed his eyes shut. Wanted to tell her, Never mind. Or change the topic. Talk of something else.

  “Where’s your sense of adventure, Kashka?”

  Died in an army barracks ten years ago. But he didn’t say that. Mainly because as he opened his mouth, he knew with sudden, blinding clarity that if he said no now, he would beat himself up over his cowardice for the rest of his life.

  “Plotting exit strategi
es,” he said instead.

  Her voice turned instantly jubilant. “You’ll come? When?”

  He mentally reviewed how long it would take him to wrap up his life. “How about summer? There are things I have to take care of.”

  “Okay.” Her impatience cut the word short. “Keep me posted?”

  “Always. I’ll probably send you some of my stuff. That okay?”

  “Stupid question. Sure it is. Anytime. You know that.”

  He wanted to hug her, but he also wanted to log off and get started. Having made the decision flooded him with unexpected energy that had nowhere to go.

  “I do. Gotta run. Talk to you soon.”

  Misha took one look at him when he showed up at work on Monday, and raised both eyebrows in an unspoken query.

  Arkady ignored it. If anyone asked questions or interrogated his friends and family when he was gone, he didn’t want Misha to have to lie. On the other hand, he couldn’t just disappear and leave Misha in the lurch. A compromise, then.

  “Tasha sends her love,” he said, while dealing with his paperwork from Friday.

  “How is she?”

  “Pretty happy. But she says she misses me. I might visit her for a couple of weeks this summer.”

  He didn’t turn to look at his cousin, but the silence behind him spoke eloquently of Misha’s putting two and two together.

  “A couple of weeks, huh?”

  “Yeah.” Arkady kept his voice level. “Think you can spare me for maybe two or three weeks?”

  “Sure.” There was a brief pause, then Misha said, “Might have to hire someone.”

  He’d apparently come up with four. His cousin had always been good at math.

  “Might have to.”

  That was all they said about it. All they needed to say.

  Arkady packed up his best-loved books and some personal items and sent his sister a handful of packages, judiciously spaced out over the next few weeks.

  He’d sent her his savings for safekeeping when the university fired him, and been sending whatever money he didn’t need for rent or food ever since, even though the security job hadn’t panned out. Because he’d known for a long time that he needed to leave. Didn’t mean he had to like it.

  At the end of May, he went to visit his parents and tell them of his upcoming vacation. They seemed happy for him and gave him messages of love for Natalya, but when he left, his father hugged him goodbye hard, and his mother laid her hand on his head like a blessing. They knew.

  Tasha booked him on a Lufthansa flight via Frankfurt to Seattle for the end of June, and sent him his return-ticket confirmation and a written invitation for his visa application. Misha wrote him a letter of employment.

  Arkady didn’t dare to terminate his lease. For one thing, it might give away his intentions, for another, he might be coming back. He paid his rent for July. At that point he’d know, one way or another whether he’d still need his apartment.

  He itched to read up on the rules concerning a marriage and what it took to turn it into a green card, but was too paranoid to leave a potential electronic trail. He already regretted that he’d talked about it openly on Skype. Research would have to wait until he got there. It wasn’t like he’d have anything else to do.

  He threw himself into work as he waited for his visa to come through, both to make it up a bit to Misha, and to keep himself from worrying too much. About what was waiting for him on the other side. What kind of man he would meet. Whether it would work out in the end. He tried not to think about returning here if it didn’t. Tasha had assured him that same-sex marriage was legal where she lived, but he was pretty sure that gaming the system wasn’t. And being sent back here as a criminal was . . . He could not go to prison in Russia. He couldn’t go to prison, period.

  If they tried it and failed, he’d return in a much worse position than he was in now. The possibility of prison oozed into his nightmares, though he mostly managed to banish those thoughts during daylight hours.

  Of course, a thousand things could go wrong even before that. He and this Jason might take one look at each other and change their minds, or they might get to know each other and decide it was a bad idea. Hell, he might not get the fucking visa to visit the States in the first place. What was taking the embassy so long?

  It wasn’t the first time Arkady had been on a plane, but this was a far cry from a military transport. And it was the first time he was traveling beyond the borders of the old USSR. Because technically he might have been outside of Russia during the Second Chechen War, but he’d never really been outside its zone of influence.

  The plane and personnel were German, but everyone spoke English with ease, which was a relief and made his connection in Frankfurt less stressful than he had feared. Even the uniforms were polite and friendly here.

  Most of the other passengers watched a movie on the small screen in front of them during the long Atlantic crossing, but Arkady didn’t get bored staring at clouds and the water below, though he was superstitiously careful not to look backward. Excitement and trepidation skittered through his veins and lungs and built in his stomach with every mile.

  The attitude of the border guards in the Seattle airport was more familiar—self-important and suspicious: if you smile, it’s because you’re trying to hide something or because you’re secretly apologizing. So Arkady kept his head down and didn’t smile. He said Yes, Sir and No, Sir, and didn’t fidget when he presented his passport and visa.

  They waved him through to the baggage area, where he went straight into the men’s restroom and threw up.

  The mundane task of brushing his teeth afterward did a lot toward calming his shaking hands, and by the time he’d collected his suitcase and carried it through customs, he felt almost normal again.

  They had picked him out to open his bag and suitcase, but he wasn’t worried about his luggage, only about his papers. He took a deep breath when he finally stepped through to the main arrivals area. For now the worst was over.

  He was scanning the crowd for Tasha’s blond head when she cannonballed into his chest and wrapped her arms around his waist. Then she stood in front of him and touched his face, his arms, his hands, as if she needed to make sure that he was really here. He knew how she felt. He couldn’t believe it either.

  “You made it.”

  “I sure did.” He thought the grin might split his cheeks.

  She looked good. Glowing, healthy, a little tired maybe. But, then, if she’d been half as excited as he was, she wouldn’t have slept much last night.

  They just stood and stared at each other for a second, then Tasha’s gaze became more intent when she said, “Of course my car wouldn’t start this morning of all mornings, and Anna had a production meeting, so a friend from work was kind enough to give me a ride.”

  He winked at her to let her know he understood. I came to visit my sister, then fell for her friend at the airport.

  “Arkady, meet Jason Cooley.”

  He didn’t have to fake being struck. His mental image of a grizzled veteran with a cane disintegrated in light of a muscle-packed, rugged powerhouse of a man with a short beard and keen eyes that didn’t seem to miss a thing.

  Arkady’s first thought was, Christ, he’s my age, if that. The second one, He’s fucking hot. Then he was done thinking.

  Cooley held out his hand. “Good to finally meet you. Natalya can’t stop talking about you.”

  That double bass voice raised goose bumps on Arkady’s skin. The firm, brief handshake intensified them. Was it possible to have goose bumps on the inside of your skin? His tough-guy alert blared on every frequency. What was the protocol on fucking your potential fiancé of convenience? And why had Tasha never answered his question whether the man was gay?

  Fuck, he was so, so very screwed.

  Jason hadn’t had a clear image of Arkady in mind, but from the way Natalya had been talking about him, he’d vaguely expected someone boyish. The man who shook his hand at the airp
ort was anything but.

  At first glance, the siblings had the same coloring, though the similarity ended there. Arkady was as tall as Natalya was small. Lithe and long-limbed, he stood at easy eye level with Jason’s six foot two.

  At second glance, his hair was a darker blond than his sister’s, and where her eyes were tempered steel, his were a dreamy robin-egg blue, deep set, fringed with long, dark-blond lashes. Curved, sensual lips, and blond scruff completed the picture. A melancholy face capable of producing a blindingly sunny smile. His jacket was as old as his boots, but his luggage was new.

  As a child he’d probably looked quite . . . angelic was the word that dusted itself off in Jason’s mind. But a number of little details derailed that connotation. The decidedly chiseled jaw for one, a scar under the lower lip and one just below the cheekbone, the nose that had for sure been broken at some point. And he moved like a man who knew himself well. Jason had seen the same subconscious assurance in seasoned soldiers. Tried and not broken. Definitely a guy worth getting to know better.

  He hung back to give the siblings space to talk and hug and generally get caught up on each other’s lives. Not that he understood the Russian exchange anyway.

  They both sat in the back of the car, Natalya with an apologetic shrug in his direction. He nodded at her. He got it. Sort of, anyway. He’d known enough people who had connections like that.

  Natalya invited him inside when they got to her place and, switching to English, broke out the tequila, but they didn’t linger over it. Arkady, while clearly willing, was fading fast, and Jason, of course, still had to drive home.

  When he got up, Arkady did as well.

  “I’m afraid, I’m going to have to crash,” he said. His throaty h made Jason smile. “I am jet-lagged and getting drunk fast. But tomorrow night my friend Jason and I,” eyes on his sister, he put an arm around Jason and lightly closed his fingers around Jason’s shoulder, “are going to go to a pub. Maybe get a little drunk, maybe not.”

  He turned his head to look at Jason. “We need to talk. Yes?”