One working day in the books

Well, the Troika were exhausted last night at midnight when I picked them up after their first shift waiting tables at the Afghan Cuisine...but very, very happy. I gave in to their pleas and we headed over to the Russian Bear to say thank you to Ayát for finding the job for them, and, of course, to give the girls the chance to buy their very own oliviér salad and their very own varyéniki with their very own money -- to run up their very own bill, and to pay it with their very own money earned with their very own hands, and to leave their very own tip for the handsome, usually tongue-tied, dark-haired teenaged Russian waiter whom at least one of them intends to make her very own, unless I miss my guess. ("L'un parle bien; l'autre se tait; et c'est l'autre que je préfère, il n'a rien dit, mais il me plaît...") Ayat came over to congratulate them and couldn't help but observe to me, "Safsyém drugíye!" -- that is, "They're completely different girls!" Which was no less than the truth.

But tragedy struck. [This is comic overstatement; so don't get nervous.] Kristina had taken a fall on the stairs on Wednesday and it appears that the inside of her chest took a nasty bruise from getting clobbered by her rib, if that makes sense -- a painful though not dangerous internal bruise. She's on a mild prescription painkiller that keeps it from hurting when she breathes.

But it's not strong enough to keep it from hurting when she giggles. And, alas, she was in a very good mood...and of course I like seeing her smile, and as the joy has slowly come back into my life I've gotten into the habit of teasing smiles and giggles out of her whenever I see an opening. So, just a couple of minutes after we had settled into the circular corner booth that we and all the staff at the Bear now know is the Troika's table -- I strongly suspect that Ayat has given instructions to the staff to save it for them whenever the Bear isn't at capacity, or else that Vitálik and tall, blond Dróma are exercising some handsome-young-man personal initiative; at any rate, it's always available and the girls head straight for it without asking. At any rate, we settle in, and the girls take time off from batting their eyes at Vitalik long enough to get their orders placed, and then I settle in across from Kinya to await my tea.

I don't remember what it was I said that started it, but Kinya was caught off guard and started to giggle, and then she winced and grabbed her rib cage, but couldn't stop laughing. I apologized...but this just made it worse. It began to be borne in upon me that she was in the pitiable condition of the person who feels the overpowering urge to giggle in the middle of a funeral, an urge which, as we all know, simply becomes more overwhelming the harder one tries to resist. Now, I know that feeling all too well; so now I felt really bad about making her laugh, and I started to apologize again:

"Oh, man, Kinya, I'm really..." and then I feel my lips trembling as, to my horror, I realize it's happening to me. "...I'm sorry, I..." I'm fighting to control it, but the smallest of snickers escapes me -- and Kinya lets out an indescribable high-pitched squeal of mingled agony and hilarity and desperately spins around to turn her back to me. And that's it for me: I'm lost, too.

For the next two or three minutes Kinya and I try desperately, but hopelessly, not to catch each other's eyes -- not that it does any good, since even when we are looking someplace else, we are intensely conscious of not looking at the other one, and we can hear the other's smothered giggles, and that's all it takes to send us off again. Anya is looking at us each with deep disdain, and Natasha is just shaking her head.

And just when I'm thinking it can't get worse, I turn to Natasha to try to distract myself by talking to her, and when I start to say whatever nice-weather-we're-having conversational fluff I've come up with, my voice trembles because I'm still trying to suppress the giggles...and Natasha's lips start quivering. "No, no, don't--" I start to cry, but it is too late; Natasha loses it as well. Another of those high-pitched squeals emanates from the part of the table I'm carefully not looking at, and down goes Papa.

[takes a deep breath and slowly releases it]

We did eventually make it out of the Russian Bear and safely home. This morning I woke Kristina up to check on how she was feeling and to read our Sunday-morning chapter of Matthew. She was sleeping on the futon in the living room, which she finds is less uncomfortable in her current state than is her own bed, and so I sat down on the edge of the futon next to where she was lying on her side. I laid a hand gently on the side of her head and said quietly, "Kínyechka, honey, it's time to wake up." (This is not a girl who appreciates being shaken awake by the shoulders, nor being awakened by a hearty banging of pots and a cheerful "Bring out your dead!" and therefore an alternative approach has been worked out between us.) She stirred without opening her eyes and curled herself up into a slightly more fetal position, which is her standard procedure in the mornings when I come in to wake her up for school. I proceeded on with the conversation, knowing that she was now actually awake and would understand me: "Kinyechka, how are you feeling this morning? Does it hurt as much as before?"

She opened an eye and looked up at me...and suddenly her lips started to quiver, and then she began to giggle, and then in desperation she pulled the pillow over her head -- and in equal desperation I said, "Oh, no, no, no, we're not doing that again," and fled the room with indecorous haste.

[sigh] Good times. Even if my stomach muscles still do hurt a bit this morning.