La Vie en Rose
Dubai: Friday, 10:35am, September 9th. Michelle is on business travel but is spending her morning at the hotel before catching her flight back home.
While an older man swims his morning laps, a server places a cocktail on a small table next to his wife who is flipping through the pages of a local society magazine. Michelle sips her Americano. In the corner of the pool in front of her a girl in a Baywatch-red swimsuit pouts and snaps selfies, readjusting her position to find the ideal light to stroke her damp hair, to highlight its highlights. After several poses, she spins around and shouts something in Russian as she climbs the pool steps. A lithe teenager responds to the call, her bare feet padding the tile as she hurries past Michelle. The girl wears a pale pink bikini with velour ruffles. She has an easy beauty and is creamy-skinned youth at its best: a rose.
Rose steps off the last step and flounders a moment when her foot fails to touch the bottom. There’s no shallow end in this pool. Keeping her head afloat, she doggy paddles back to the stairs where Baywatch is crouched cat-like at the top, ready start a photo shoot.
Rose climbs two steps and smiles sweetly for the photo. Baywatch gives an instruction in Russian, and Rose turns around and hikes her bikini bottom into her tiny ass, making an impromptu thong. Standing with her back arched, she freezes. Eventually, she hazards a shy glance over her shoulder. How was that? A nod.
More photos follow and more sexy poses. The girls take turns as Michelle imagines a seedy website that advertises to potential clients. She hopes the stereotypes aren’t true, that youth and beauty aren’t their only cards to play. She thinks of her own daughters in Arizona, studying hard to get college degrees and land good-paying jobs. Her daughters have options; they have a good family and passports that guarantee a world wide open to their hopes and dreams. These poor Russian girls; sex is all they have to offer. She looks away, thankful her own daughters are safe.
Phoenix: Thursday, 11:45pm, 8 September. Evelyna is on business travel and is having a drink before heading to the airport to return home.
She watches eager students flood the sidewalks as she sips a glass of wine at a bar off the Arizona State campus. One of her colleagues said classes resumed over a month ago, but no one would spot it from the feverish vibe in the air. Groups of boys clad in t-shirts and shorts hustle by, loud with laughter and liquor. Groups of girls teeter by in barely-there clothes and high heels, giggling as they make their way to whatever party they’ll be attending that night.
Through the crowd she spots two girls alone. One leans against a street sign, fanning the heat from her face, while the other jacks up her skirt several centimeters and rolls it down at the top before peeling off her t-shirt. Evelyna watches the girl in the black push-up bra, and for an instant she puffs with pride: Russian girls are much sexier. But then her smile drops away as a man stops to talk to them. She takes another sip of her wine. Are the girls students or hookers? It’s hard to tell. American girls give everything for free.
She considers her own daughters on vacation in Dubai at a 5-star hotel. Her phone chimes and she clicks open Whatsapp to see their latest photos. They’re posing by the pool. Sexy girls, her daughters. Look at these Americans, so badly dressed, so poor. She looks away, proud of the life she provides for her daughters, thankful they are safe.
