Blueberry was originally named after the obnoxious girl from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory who turns into a blueberry and floats away. Blueberry, I take it all back, you're a lovely person and your namesake is delicious and versatile.

Blueberry arrived in June, after quitting her job at an English law firm and spending a month at a teacher-training program in Prague (the same as mine in Krakow). She's unguardedly nice and normal, which makes her a bit of an expat anomaly. The lack of mental baggage that sets her apart from a lot of expats (and enables her to relate pleasantly to all of them), I think, makes her immune to Moscow's pull. The city's cold and dirty, the people are unfriendly, everything's expensive, and she misses her boyfriend. She doesn't need the bright lights and distractions, the attention people give Westerners, or the ready-made (versus self-created) interestingness of life. She'll probably go home for good at Christmas (so will I, unless a newspaper can give me enough financial and visa support that I can cut ties with the language school).

She's much less forgiving of the Western male shenanigans than I am. (Maybe it's because she's been involved with Aubergine, who seems much less a victim-of-circumstance than Artichoke.) Last week, we were standing on a chilly balcony outside a house party where Aubergine was DJing. She was having a cigarette and I was wrapped in a Tibetan shawl trying to stay warm. We were idly looking through the plate-glass window, back in on the party inside, at American guy who I had been on a couple dates with the week before making out with an utterly wasted British girl (let's call her Orange...lay off the self-tanner, honey. Rawr!)

Hmm, that's a shame, I thought, but no hard feelings because nothing between us had really progressed and I wasn't convinced I was into him anyway. Blueberry went a bit through the roof and thought he was being really rude to me. I didn't feel slighted, I just felt like I had got a useful piece of information about his personality.

We started talking more generally about the expat guys here, and I told her I felt kind of bad for the ones who need what Moscow offers and who for some reason feel like they can't go home. Blueberry, on the other hand, has zero sympathy and says they made their bed, they can fucking lie in it.

I took a cab home soon after that (something I don't like to do by myself, but I didn't want to wait until the metro opened at 5:30).

Epilogue 1: The convoluted soap opera. Orange, Blueberry, the aforementioned American guy, and a few others went back to Aubergine's soon after I went home. As things were winding down (Blueberry reports), Orange was all over Aubergine, who shed her long enough to tell Blueberry he'd get rid of Orange if she stayed. Not surprisingly, Blueberry (who's slept with him before) just shook her head, snapped something, and left him with Orange. (Blueberry and Orange have both kept it quiet--thanks to Starfruit, it's me the rumor mill associates with Aubergine, as I was surprised to learn when I got back from Tibet. If you're having trouble following all this, so am I.)

Epilogue 2: The American guy who I had been out with then had seen snog (great British word) Orange left yesterday morning. He gave me a weirdly rib-crushing hug, cheerfully said he'd see me in hell, and that was that.

Epilogue 3: This morning we had a "Welcome to [Language School]" meeting for all first-year teachers, meaning everybody but Pineapple, Artichoke, and the administration. It was basically Aubergine at the whiteboard with a marker presenting stuff that anyone with half a brain figured out after the first two weeks of teaching (What levels do we teach? What books do we use? What do we write on the attendance sheets?), then telling us how lucky we were to have mandatory unpaid professional-development workshops for a profession most of us are leaving in a few months anyway. While I sat there and doodled on my newspaper that I would have felt a bit too cheeky to read, and hoped they would end it soon, Blueberry was humorously but pointedly calling Aubergine and Pear on the bullshitness of it all. She used to work for an employment-law firm, and really knows the ins and outs of how (British) companies should treat their employees.

It reminded me of the balcony episode. I say fine, expat boys, pull that shit, just don't expect me to date you as far as I can throw you; fine, Language School, pull that shit, just don't expect me to pass up the first opportunity to jump ship. Blueberry says wait, this isn't okay. I withdraw from situations and selfishly cling to the freedom of my thoughts, while Blueberry takes a stand and enters the mix. I admire her confidence and faith in her ideas, and I wonder if it can be earned without sacrificing depth of observation of different points of view.

Also, I've dumped Artichoke for her as my laundry date.