Kseniya had always fancied a pool

and one of those old Citizen Kane-style

mansions shielded from the Boulevard,

should she be so lucky some oligarch

sweep her off her Pretty Woman feet

one fine day. Zhenya can come with.

Zhenya

rests one middle finger on the wheel,

as Kseniya looks out through 1950s

shades at residences of the well-

to-do. “Stop right there, kid!” she barks sharply

and takes a snap of the pharmacist’s.

“Let’s drive on up the hill,” Zhenya grumbles

but obeys her friend. The old car grunts

up the steep secluded private hill-

side drive in too high a gear. The tires crunch

over the gravel forecourt.

Kseniya

steps out headscarved and takes another snap

of the old place. Zhenya sits arms crossed

and stares tediously out through the wind-

screen and the haze of chemical smog

draped over the tinsel town horizon

like a poorly executed fake

eyebrow under the scorching LA sun.

*

“Are you the girls from casting?” booms out

the voice of an overweight African-

American security guard.

“Yes, we are!” Kseniya pipes up, lowering

her shades and fluttering her eyelids,

as Zhenya firmly barks out “No!”

Kseniya’s

heels stumble on the steps leading up

to the dream house. The heavy oak front door

eases ajar. A portly old care-

worn man’s balding head looks out after her,

in wine-stained opened dress shirt, grinning

through bad drooling teeth, and beckons her in.

Photo by Cedric Letsch on Unsplash