Hello, Privet! #1: Hello/Привет

Chapter 33

ANTON

Before Kirill goes home to Russia, he tells me, "Be nice, Antosha."

"Hmm? I am nice all the time."

"No. You know who I'm talking about. I like her, okay? So you be nice now."

"Okay. Then I will just avoid her so I don't do anything bad, huh?"

"Do that if you must."

But I can't help the way I am.

On the plane to LA (this time we have a ride in a private jet with the boy band who are going to have a concert in LA), I don't speak to her, except to give her the socks that Aliya gave me. I tell her to keep them for me and to remind me to wear them for my first match. She takes the socks and then looks at me strangely and I think she thinks this is funny but she does not say anything. She is thinking about something serious and important, and I know this because she is staring at something ahead, but she is not looking, and her shoulders are hunched together and she is frowning.

She has the same expression on her face when she walks to me after practice the next day. We are in UCLA, where the tournament is. Here we have the press launch and we have some pictures and the media comes to cover us and talk to us. Now, Zoran Matijevic and I are eating a snack of pasta, sandwiches and coffee in the lounge in one of the buildings in the school.

"Hi," she says to us.

"This is Zoran Matijevic."

She nods at him. "Hey, Zoran. I'm such a huge fan. I'm Sophie Rosenbaum." She shakes his hand very fast and Zoran thanks her, telling her he is happy that she is a fan. I know she never even knew about Zoran until she met me. Now she is talking to him as if they are old friends, and Zoran is enjoying it.

"What is it?" I ask her, when once she stops talking to catch her breath.

The devochka looks at her notebook. "I was just wondering where Henry is."

"He went away to meet his friends. Lunch."

"Oh." She puts her notebook away. "Do you think we can write the blog now?"

Zoran turns to me. "You're writing the ATP blog this week?"

I look at the devochka. "She is." Then I speak to her, "I have to practice again in thirty minutes. I have to go to the courts now."

"It'll just take a few minutes."

"Can we do it after?"

"No, Jane is expecting it today. And I told you I'm going out."

"You are going out? Where?" I think she will say she will go to Disneyland. I myself, I have never the time to go there.

"Downtown. Henry also wanted to see a movie."

"Shto?"

"It's a Buster Keaton Festival. We were talking about it last night," she says to explain it. "And there's a Hokusai exhibit at the LACMA that I've been wanting to check out," she finally admits.

"Shto?"

"A Japanese artist. You know, The Great Wave?"

"Huh?"

She stares at me, like she cannot believe that I do not know this. "You wouldn't like it."

Of course the devochka will find something weird to see while she's in LA. "Who is going with you?"

"Henry. I'm going with Henry." She then takes out a digital camera and takes our picture. She smiles at Zoran. "We might use it for the blog." Then she tells me she's going to get a drink and then we can do the blog before I practice. "Ten minutes," she says to me.