Russian Girls

A weekend in Connecticut

We all jumped in the creek’s current and let it sweep us away. The water is fresh and cool but not cold and just warm enough this late in the season. We climb out of the Connecticut water half-naked and can see the full-ish moon. He looks towards the falls, jawline perfect, “We’re so young.”

Whitman would be proud. It’s dusk and the embers of our cigarettes go out and we scale out of the ravine to the car. One of us tosses the butts in the bin we’re greeted by a beady-eyed raccoon. We were missing a sixth this weekend so the more the merrier.

At the cabin I heat up the wood-fired jacuzzi and she heats up the sauna. One of us starts on the salad and the other starts the grill. Red caviar on toast. Cucumber salad smothered in dill. Marinated steak and chicken from a Russian deli in Brighton Beach. It was perfect. We were perfect.

We’re all in the hot tub and the moon’s peaking through the trees. It’s one of those summer nights completely slack and tensionless, curiously relaxed and wonderful, perhaps a gift from the moon. The chardonnay is warm and someone’s massaging my toes and we giggle with utter abandon.

I burn myself fixing the heat and I don’t care. It was Talented Mr. Ripley without Mr. Ripley. It’s Less than Zero but we care and we’re plotless. After dinner a love triangle is in the tub. “Can you pee on me?” he asks the girl. I’m looking at the sky. Brett Easton Ellis would be proud.

We run naked to the banya and back to the tub and back again. Wilde Whitman Wordsworth. Truth or dare. Sauvignon Blanc. “You just have to get out of the city.” After months in Europe was I back at home? The ecstasy of familiarity, abandon, and the getaway is my thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Upper and downers. I love my Russian girls.

I awake to a golden sun. Some of us cuddled last night. I’m submerged between six different pillows. Secrets are hidden in tomes littered around the house. Debrief with a coffee on the patio. Nothing to debrief. Flea market. Coffee. Sausage egg and cheese. Clean the cabin. Red caviar on toast. I love my Russian girls.

We drive to a blueberry patch at the back of a school. It’s too late in the season. We sprint to the red barn and back. It’s been a while since I’ve seen such rolling hills, vast lawns, back in the North American forest. Should we hike to the nearby cave? There’s wining and protest, but no one really cares. It feels good to move our bodies and upon the cave with its primordial water source trickling from above, its intrigue is lost upon us.

We’re just happy to be away and to be together with another sixth, the afternoon sun cutting through the foliage painting the grass a hue we don’t have a name for. Solarpunk. I’m not there. I’ve retreated into the “we," grabbing coffees before we get on our spaceship back to the city. Kerouac. Ginsberg. I love my Russian girls. I’ve never felt more alive because I was taken away.