Steven Hunley
06-13-2011, 05:54 PM
Love Knows no Borders
by
Steven Hunley
Anna, what can I say about Anna? Everything.
I met her on Facebook when she introduced herself and wanted to be a “friend.” But she wasn’t Anna then, she was Vally. You know how it is, so many of your friends have so many other friends it’s hard to keep track. So being me, I accepted. The next day I got an e-mail. Now she was coming out. She was really Anna and thought I was “cute.” OK, I’m flattered. I only put my real picture on last week. Before that I was Popeye the Sailor.
Again, you know how it is.
But now I’ve got problems. She included pictures. Oh, what pictures! She’s twenty-four, a Russian college student, and from, as she puts it, “The Ural”. If ever a man can be seduced by a woman’s pictures it’s me. Blond hair, a fabulous figure and plenty of it. She’s telling me the truth she says, because she doesn’t want to “fool my head.”
Sweet. I’m ready for the truth myself and honestly admit I’m old enough to be her father. Still, I send her my best picture and state,
“I’m flattered you think I’m cute, but I have a son your age and a daughter a year younger.”
She shows Russian character and is not easily dissuaded. She e-mails back,
“…I like to try new things.. :-) What do you think about my new
pictures? ok... it's time to finish my email. I'm sending a kiss by the wind ...catch my kiss!!
BY THE WAY - I like to look on your pic...And I find you very attractive!”
Now I’m in trouble.
The pictures she sends me next time are steaming hot. No, hotter than that, molten, lava-like photos. In one she’s squinging up her cute Russian nose. In another she looks straight into the lens and engages the viewer. Her eyes are the type that cannot be denied much less ignored. The mouth is wide and expressive. Her skin is deliciously smooth like premium quality ice cream. Her shoulders are rounded just so.
I show it to my daughter.
“It’s probably spam,” she informs me.
For once in my life intend to like Spam. That night I dream of reading War and Peace while cuddling with her during long Russian winters, spending uncountable hours between the sheets whenever I’m between chapters. I also decide that Tolstoy has the right idea that novels should be as long as possible.
But still I resist. I send her a picture of my son who’s quite handsome and me and our friend Fernando. In it, my gray hair is more obvious than the first picture, and from the angle I look overweight, even though in real life I’m not.
This doesn’t deter her one bit. She e-mails me back,
“Have you heard a saying "The older the violin, the sweeter the
music"?”
No I haven’t but damn, how can I argue with Russian logic like that? What do Americans know about logic anyway?
She’s applying to a program in Moscow and filing for a visa and a work permit. She sends me a picture where she’s wearing a Santa Claus Hat and opening a basket full of Barbies. She’s telling her parents about me. She wants to come to L.A.
I try to warn her that it’s tough, that it’s dangerous. I tell her it’s different here, terribly different from where she lives, but she’s determined. She seals her next e-mail with a kiss again, undoing my buttons completely
.
I decide that because she’s young and determined that there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it. I gaze at her pictures for hours. I compare her to Catherine the Great. Anna, my brave, bold, beautiful Anna.
But what am I saying? I’m going soft. I’ve got it all wrong. This isn’t an ingenuous teenager here; it’s Mary Astor in the Maltese Falcon, that’s who it is.
It’s time to get tough. It’s time to U-turn her curvalicious butt back to Moscow where it belongs. I know right where to do it; at the airport before she gets out the door and gets smacked in the face with a hard piece of L.A.’s nasty reality, that’s where. Time to turn metal and be Bogart.
Exactly one week later I’m waiting at LAX. You can’t watch passengers disembark the plane any more, but instead wait downstairs at the foot of an escalator.
But I have a strategy this time, a tough, infallible plan.
I steel myself and fold my arms over my chest and become an impenetrable rocky citadel. I’m determined to give her the cold shoulder, bound not to waver; instead, I maintain my balance, my poise, my calm. I’m not having any of Anna. Not me.
A figure appears at the top of the escalator. It’s her, dressed in a warm fur coat and boots. I can tell by her hair, it’s like Laura’s in Doctor Shivago.
Oh my God, it’s like Laura’s! Just look at that hair! That wonderful golden hair, how soft and warm it glows. And her eyes, I can’t even deal with her eyes, they’re much too pretty.
Suddenly I notice my shoulder de-icing.
I step closer to crane my neck. She can’t see me yet, people are in the way. But there are her legs. Oh my God, just look at those legs, they’re in perfect proportion! Oh my goodness, just look at them, they’re actually better than in the pictures.
My hands drop desperately to my sides. I swoon.
Uh-oh, now she sees me and smiles, she’s half-way down. I feel a rock dislodge from my citadel and watch it turn to dust as it hits the floor. Damn, Russian smiles are sooo disarming!
Oh now, just look at that. She’s squinging up her cute little Russian nose and stepping onto the floor.
I can’t take it anymore and decide to rearrange my mind. After all, what do we have here?
Let’s see. She has an old world quality to her. She possesses the philosophy she expounds, that an old violin sounds the sweetest. In my head-book, which I’m re-writing as fast as I possibly can, she’s mature. Yes, that’s it. Mentally she’s ten or fifteen years older than she looks. That’s got to count for something.
And what about me? I’m immature as all get-out! That’s me, Mr. Immaturity. It comes from dealing with too many high-schoolers on a daily basis. Now I’m being rational. For once in my life I’m rational and suddenly enjoy being that way.
So, if you add ten or fifteen years to her, and take ten from me, we’re not so far apart as I imagined! I had this figured wrong. I was fooling my own head, that’s it.
Now she’s even closer and my arms are up and out-stretched. Her smile is beguiling. As we embrace I feel the warmth of her body under the furriness of her coat and smell her perfume and experience my first taste of Russia from her wide expressive mouth. Yummy. It’s a heaven for Cossacks.
It’s a fine-looking woman for me.
“Welcome to the U.S. Babygirl,” I whisper in her decidedly pretty Bolshevik ear, and we walk eagerly out the door hand in hand to find a hotel where we can exercise... a little entente.
We’re both dying to give each other lessons in diplomacy.
by
Steven Hunley
Anna, what can I say about Anna? Everything.
I met her on Facebook when she introduced herself and wanted to be a “friend.” But she wasn’t Anna then, she was Vally. You know how it is, so many of your friends have so many other friends it’s hard to keep track. So being me, I accepted. The next day I got an e-mail. Now she was coming out. She was really Anna and thought I was “cute.” OK, I’m flattered. I only put my real picture on last week. Before that I was Popeye the Sailor.
Again, you know how it is.
But now I’ve got problems. She included pictures. Oh, what pictures! She’s twenty-four, a Russian college student, and from, as she puts it, “The Ural”. If ever a man can be seduced by a woman’s pictures it’s me. Blond hair, a fabulous figure and plenty of it. She’s telling me the truth she says, because she doesn’t want to “fool my head.”
Sweet. I’m ready for the truth myself and honestly admit I’m old enough to be her father. Still, I send her my best picture and state,
“I’m flattered you think I’m cute, but I have a son your age and a daughter a year younger.”
She shows Russian character and is not easily dissuaded. She e-mails back,
“…I like to try new things.. :-) What do you think about my new
pictures? ok... it's time to finish my email. I'm sending a kiss by the wind ...catch my kiss!!
BY THE WAY - I like to look on your pic...And I find you very attractive!”
Now I’m in trouble.
The pictures she sends me next time are steaming hot. No, hotter than that, molten, lava-like photos. In one she’s squinging up her cute Russian nose. In another she looks straight into the lens and engages the viewer. Her eyes are the type that cannot be denied much less ignored. The mouth is wide and expressive. Her skin is deliciously smooth like premium quality ice cream. Her shoulders are rounded just so.
I show it to my daughter.
“It’s probably spam,” she informs me.
For once in my life intend to like Spam. That night I dream of reading War and Peace while cuddling with her during long Russian winters, spending uncountable hours between the sheets whenever I’m between chapters. I also decide that Tolstoy has the right idea that novels should be as long as possible.
But still I resist. I send her a picture of my son who’s quite handsome and me and our friend Fernando. In it, my gray hair is more obvious than the first picture, and from the angle I look overweight, even though in real life I’m not.
This doesn’t deter her one bit. She e-mails me back,
“Have you heard a saying "The older the violin, the sweeter the
music"?”
No I haven’t but damn, how can I argue with Russian logic like that? What do Americans know about logic anyway?
She’s applying to a program in Moscow and filing for a visa and a work permit. She sends me a picture where she’s wearing a Santa Claus Hat and opening a basket full of Barbies. She’s telling her parents about me. She wants to come to L.A.
I try to warn her that it’s tough, that it’s dangerous. I tell her it’s different here, terribly different from where she lives, but she’s determined. She seals her next e-mail with a kiss again, undoing my buttons completely
.
I decide that because she’s young and determined that there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it. I gaze at her pictures for hours. I compare her to Catherine the Great. Anna, my brave, bold, beautiful Anna.
But what am I saying? I’m going soft. I’ve got it all wrong. This isn’t an ingenuous teenager here; it’s Mary Astor in the Maltese Falcon, that’s who it is.
It’s time to get tough. It’s time to U-turn her curvalicious butt back to Moscow where it belongs. I know right where to do it; at the airport before she gets out the door and gets smacked in the face with a hard piece of L.A.’s nasty reality, that’s where. Time to turn metal and be Bogart.
Exactly one week later I’m waiting at LAX. You can’t watch passengers disembark the plane any more, but instead wait downstairs at the foot of an escalator.
But I have a strategy this time, a tough, infallible plan.
I steel myself and fold my arms over my chest and become an impenetrable rocky citadel. I’m determined to give her the cold shoulder, bound not to waver; instead, I maintain my balance, my poise, my calm. I’m not having any of Anna. Not me.
A figure appears at the top of the escalator. It’s her, dressed in a warm fur coat and boots. I can tell by her hair, it’s like Laura’s in Doctor Shivago.
Oh my God, it’s like Laura’s! Just look at that hair! That wonderful golden hair, how soft and warm it glows. And her eyes, I can’t even deal with her eyes, they’re much too pretty.
Suddenly I notice my shoulder de-icing.
I step closer to crane my neck. She can’t see me yet, people are in the way. But there are her legs. Oh my God, just look at those legs, they’re in perfect proportion! Oh my goodness, just look at them, they’re actually better than in the pictures.
My hands drop desperately to my sides. I swoon.
Uh-oh, now she sees me and smiles, she’s half-way down. I feel a rock dislodge from my citadel and watch it turn to dust as it hits the floor. Damn, Russian smiles are sooo disarming!
Oh now, just look at that. She’s squinging up her cute little Russian nose and stepping onto the floor.
I can’t take it anymore and decide to rearrange my mind. After all, what do we have here?
Let’s see. She has an old world quality to her. She possesses the philosophy she expounds, that an old violin sounds the sweetest. In my head-book, which I’m re-writing as fast as I possibly can, she’s mature. Yes, that’s it. Mentally she’s ten or fifteen years older than she looks. That’s got to count for something.
And what about me? I’m immature as all get-out! That’s me, Mr. Immaturity. It comes from dealing with too many high-schoolers on a daily basis. Now I’m being rational. For once in my life I’m rational and suddenly enjoy being that way.
So, if you add ten or fifteen years to her, and take ten from me, we’re not so far apart as I imagined! I had this figured wrong. I was fooling my own head, that’s it.
Now she’s even closer and my arms are up and out-stretched. Her smile is beguiling. As we embrace I feel the warmth of her body under the furriness of her coat and smell her perfume and experience my first taste of Russia from her wide expressive mouth. Yummy. It’s a heaven for Cossacks.
It’s a fine-looking woman for me.
“Welcome to the U.S. Babygirl,” I whisper in her decidedly pretty Bolshevik ear, and we walk eagerly out the door hand in hand to find a hotel where we can exercise... a little entente.
We’re both dying to give each other lessons in diplomacy.