I Left My Heart in Moscow but My Love Waits in Pittsburgh

I stayed in the room, which I think was a bad choice because I was letting the nerves get to me, hearing Anna greet Jordan with a cloyingly sweet tone. “This is ridiculous, I just met the guy,” I chastised to myself.

“Svetlana! Jordan’s here!” I heard Anna’s voice rang out, somehow in the last three hours her voice had gotten more grating. I walked out tentatively as I saw Jordan on the sofa with Anna, in her waitress uniform, and Alicia nowhere in sight. Jordan was wearing dark jeans and a blue button up shirt with the first few buttons left open. I couldn’t help but notice how the blue of his shirt made the blue of his eyes even more intense. Let me explain something about why Anna’s a waitress, dancers don’t get paid much. Unless you’re one of the principals or a soloist, so if you’re in the corps like Anna and Alicia you have to take a second job to pay the bills.

“Umm, hi,” I say my voice barely above a whisper. Both of them turned around, with a slightly annoyed look on Anna’s face.

“Oh, hi!” Jordan said with a look of relief on his face. “Well lets go, we have to get going if we want to make our reservation!” he said tapping his watch. I can only nod as Jordan walked to the door, with me in tow.

When we got out the door the first thing Jordan said, “What took you so long?!” he must have noticed my perplexed expression, “Your roommate was talking up a storm in there. I think it was her way of flirting with me,”

“Oh well, you were early,” I replied shyly as we walked down to his car.

“Yeah, yeah. Now you’re quiet, didn’t seem that way when you yelled at that cabby,” I felt my cheeks flush a shade of light strawberry. “I guess I’ll just have to get that girl out of you tonight,” he added with a smirk. I could feel his eyes roam over me, “You look-“

“Overdone?” I suggest as I slip into the passenger seat of his car.

“No, beautiful.” He corrected as I, once again, blushed, “You’re cute when you blush,” he commentated, making me flush a deeper shade of pink.

“So where are we going?” I ask trying to change the subject.

“Oh just this little, quiet café, you don’t mind right?”

“No, not at all,” I say with a smile, the quieter the better.

“Maybe after you can meet my teammates,”

I only nodded before adding, “So you guys are kind of a big deal here?”

“Yeah, kind of,” Jordan chuckled, “How about you? Talk about yourself. The only thing I know about you is that you’re name’s Svetlana no last name, and that you share an apartment with an overly, talkative waitress.”

“Oh, well my name’s Svetlana Vasilyevna Khitrova.” I add awkwardly.

“Svetlana… Hmm how about Sveta? Can I call you Sveta?” I nod in response, I’ve only had one nickname, Lana, and he gave it to me. “Keep going, what are you here for? How do you know what’s her name? Anna?”

“Anna,” I confirmed, “I don’t really know her. I came here from Russia on an exchange program with the Bolshoi Ballet, I’m a ballerina, one of the ballerinas here goes to Russia and I come here in her place. Today’s my first day in America.” I looked over at Jordan and he nodded.

“Ballet, that’s cool I guess, you know you’re English is really good, have you lived in Russia your whole life?”

“Yeah, but my Dad’s from England and he speaks only English to me, and Mama only speaks both Russian and English to me and the instructors at the Academy spoke only Russian and French. So I’m pretty fluent in all three.”

“Keep going, any siblings?”

“No, just me. Mama was an only child and Papa too. How about you? Any siblings?” I ask eagerly trying to get the attention off of me.

“Don’t think you’ll get out of this that easy,” he must have read my mind, “But I do have siblings, three brothers, all of them play hockey, and the youngest one, Jared plays in the OHL, but the rest of us play in the NHL. I’m the second youngest.”

“That must be hard on your parents, when you play each other.”

“Not really, I mean it’s always fun to play your brother, it’s like another reason to win.” He said as the car came to halt, “We’re here. We’re continuing this conversation inside.” Jordan stated, almost demanded. Outside the window I saw exactly what Jordan described, a little Italian restaurant which by the name on the sign was called Mamma D’s, it looked like a place only a local could know.

We entered the café and seated ourselves, as a sign on the wall said, “You lied, we don’t have reservations,” I couldn’t help but tease.

“I needed to get out of there!” Jordan defended. “Your roommate talks way too much.” We ordered our food, chicken alfredo with garlic bread for me and a feast for Jordan. He must have seen my eyes widen at his long order, “Hey I’m an athlete. I was half expecting you not to order anything but salad.”

“Why? Because I’m a dancer?”

“Well, actually, yeah,”

I sighed, “We do eat, we need energy to train.”

“Okay so tell me more about yourself.”

“What is there to tell? Ballet has been my life since forever, Mama was a ballerina and Babushka was a ballerina too. Even Papa’s mama, Grandmamma, was a ballerina in the Royal Ballet. So I was in classes before I could even walk. When I was ten, I started at the Vaganova Ballet Academy. I was 17 when I graduated, then I went to the Bolshoi Academy and now here I am.”

“Sounds intense,”

“It was but I had it easier, I was a legacy. ‘How could the Bolshoi not take the daughter of Aliya Kapranova and the granddaughter of Svetlana Bessonova?’ at least that’s how most girls saw it. You know it is hard and it is intense but that is one of the reasons I love it so much.”

“You know I never noticed it before but your eyes light up when you talk about ballet. Your eyes, are they naturally that color?”

“Yeah, from Dad’s side, they’re his trademark, I guess mine too. Mama used to say that the only thing that I got from Papa was his eyes and his height. My Mama is not that tall only 5’1” but Papa is maybe just as tall as you, maybe taller.” The food came and ended our conversation, which oddly enough I didn’t want to end. We ate talking here and there, finding out all about his teammates, his brothers, and everything else important or not. While, he found out about Alicia, Sergei and some things I wouldn’t have dreamed telling someone I just met that afternoon but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him about Evgeni.

After insisting that I pay as a way to pay him back for earlier today, “I don’t think I’ve ever talked this much to anyone, ever,” I confessed, wondering where the meek, shy ballerina had went, and who this new person was who replaced her.

“You know that we haven’t really talked that much,” Jordan replied, emphasizing “that.”

“It’s probably a cultural thing.” Usually, I would have stopped there but for some reason I felt compelled to continue, I don’t know if it was the genuine interest that played in those impossibly blue orbs or if it was because I wanted- no, needed- to confide in someone, “I’ve always been a private person but in Russia your business is everyone else’s business. Being private is frowned upon, mainly because then people begin to think that you’re keeping secrets, and well secrets are bad in Russia.”

“Secrets are bad almost everywhere,” He pointed out, jokingly.

“I guess but here being quiet or private is okay. In Russia, there’s a kind of stigma, you’re immediately labeled as a loner or antisocial. Here it’s alright.” I couldn’t explain to him how I felt about or how it was so different. I found myself just sitting in the passenger seat of his car staring out the window, we were still parked but I was so frustrated with the cultural barrier between us, frustrated that he was joking while I was being so serious. “I just don’t know how to explain this to you.”

“Sveta, don’t worry, I understand.” The softness of his voice made me turn to face him, I found myself staring at those eyes again. Playfulness and curiosity weren’t there but something else, a softness, a sense of caring. ‘I understand’ those two words seemed to take a sledgehammer to the wall between us. But still I felt so caught, caught between these caring, gentle blue eyes that I find myself gazing into now and those tender, affectionate brown eyes that I’ve loved for so long.

Jordan cleared his throat and I reluctantly tore my eyes away from his and looked out the window, hoping that he wouldn’t see the crimson blush on my cheeks. “Its pretty late, do you want me to take you home?” I noticed that the clock on has dashboard read, 10:00 PM. Had four hours really gone by that fast?

“Yeah, that would be great,” What I really wanted to say was ‘No, can I meet your teammates?’ but I new that tomorrow would be my first day with the Pittsburgh Ballet Company and a late night out with hockey players wouldn’t be a prudent choice. The car ride seemed entirely too short, as it seemed within minutes we were back at my apartment building. Jordan was the perfect gentleman; he opened the door for me and walked me to the door, with Robinson in the lobby watching us.

“I’d go up with you, but that could be risky for my health,” Jordan joked, which I couldn’t help but smile at.

“No its fine, maybe we should hang out sometime, just call me or something,” I gave a quick kiss on the cheek and a hug before going inside. Not before hearing Jordan laugh about how affectionate Russians are.

“A good night?” A deep, bass voice asked. I turned finding that the voice belonged to Robinson. “Now, I know you’re new here, this being your first day and all, but don’t think I don’t you know who that guy is. That’s Jordan Staal. Be careful of him, he’s a heartbreaker and don’t forget the rules.”

“What rules?”

“You’ll find out soon enough,” was all he said as he returned to his post, this time outside.

When I had gotten back to the apartment, I was relieved that neither of the girls where back from whatever they were doing on a Sunday night. When I was washing up and getting ready for bed, I found myself staring at my reflection. With my make up washed off and in my pajamas, the girl in the reflection didn’t look any different. She had the same hair, the same nose, the same mouth, the same ey-. Wait, something in her eyes, was different. They were still golden but they had different cast to them, something unexplainable. Something that seemed almost… strong.