Still Here by Lara Vapnyar

Author:Lara Vapnyar [Vapnyar, Lara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crown/Archetype
Published: 2016-08-02T00:00:00+00:00

To add insult to injury, by the time they emerged from the house, the largest goat had eaten all of Vica’s strawberries and about half of her hat. Vica picked up her bag and the remains of her hat and decided to go home without waiting for the food.

Vica’s other botched attempt to make a friend at work was with Christine, another radiology technician. Christine was older than Vica, but not by much. She was a tall woman with rolls of fat pushing against her scrubs in expected and unexpected places. Her skin was of a perfect chestnut color, and her hair, black with a touch of gray, was done in gleaming cornrows. It was Christine who made the first move, back when Vica started working at Bing Ruskin. She offered some friendly advice, which Vica gladly accepted. They started having lunch together and chatting whenever they had a chance. In addition to professional advice, Christine gave Vica a lot of pointers on child-rearing, pie baking, ordering swimsuits online (you had to order Speedo at least three sizes too large), and American ways in general. Christine’s manner had always been good-natured and caring, if a little patronizing. “Oh, so you have your cool black friend now?” Vadik would tease. “Shut up, Vadik,” Vica would answer. But then things changed. The problem was that Christine took Vica for a struggling immigrant single mother. There was a picture of Eric clipped to Vica’s locker, but she never talked about Sergey. Then one day somebody mentioned a cousin applying for a job at Gray Bank, and Vica said that her husband worked there too. “Oh, yeah?” Christine asked. “What does he do?” “He’s a financial analyst,” Vica said. “Oh, yeah?” Christine said again, and just like that, the friendship was over. Christine’s husband worked as a mechanic, Leslie’s husband was a bus driver, Sheena’s husband worked as a security guard there at Bing Ruskin, Rachel and John were divorced, Michael’s wife held the exact same position as he did but at Weil Cornell, and the youngest technician Liliana was single—she was all about dates and parties and fun. Having a husband at Gray Bank instantly turned Vica into this fanciful white lady who chose this job for some bizarre reason. Vica remembered what Bob’s daughter, Becky, said about about her job at McDonald’s. She worked there when she was a junior in high school. Bob thought it was important for her to experience a “real job.” She told them how the other employees hated her, how they all gathered to stare at her getting into Bob’s new Volvo after work, and how the nicer she was to them, the more they hated her. So that was how Christine saw Vica now? A spoiled rich brat who didn’t really have to earn her living, who took this job just for the experience? But who in her right mind would choose to work at a cancer hospital, at a job that was both physically and

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