I met Роман (Roman) in early September, when he was the only man out of the 10 or so students in my Monday/Wednesday morning class. He always wore a trim little fedora-like hat, small round glasses, blue sweatshirt, and jeans. He’s compact, in both movement and stature, and gels his short blonde hair into a point in the middle.

I teach him and Катя (Katya, another student from the class) privately now, at his apartment in Отрадое (a few stops north on the gray line, where Blueberry used to live). It’s a hike—I leave at 8 to make it there by 9:30. His apartment, on the 13th floor overlooking a power plant, is a tad smaller than the one I shared with Plum. You go in the entryway, and straight ahead is the kitchen, and on the left is the bedroomlivingroomstudy. It looks like all the other Moscow apartments that haven’t changed since they were built in the mid-20th century.

Роман spends most nights away from home, working as an event host. He was busy constantly in December, emceeing corporate parties and New Years bashes. He gets a lot of wedding receptions, and the occasional ten-year-old birthday party. He’s showed me the DVD he distributes to promote himself—people playing party games and having a hilarious time, him saying a few words on behalf of the host. He also has a glossy album of studio photos of himself (posing as a magician with a big top hat, or a rock star with an electric guitar, always with the trademark hair-point). He enjoys what he’s doing for now, but his dream is to open a bakery/sex shop. I’m not sure if that’s one store or two.

The first time I came over I met his boyfriend Виталий (Vitaly), introduced to me as his “good friend,” which made me wonder how he learned that that’s what you say in English so that people who want to get it will and people who don’t won’t. Виталий works for a pharmaceutical company and is definitely the more prosaic of the two. Роман showed me an album of their vacation photos from Greece (apparently all taken by Виталий, half of them Роман posing in an electric blue speedo). James, I showed him the Italy photos you put on Facebook, and Ash, he said just by looking at you he could tell you were a genuinely kind person.

He and Катя and I finish the lesson, and I usually stay for a cup of coffee and half-English/half-Russian chat. He seems kind of lonely, in that way of people who are outgoing and constantly around others, but always expected to perform and rarely able to let go and express themselves how they want. Perhaps ironically, for sure annoyingly, when we’re together because of how we know each other that feeling just shifts towards me.