What if Dee’s book was devastatingly good? Could he get through it then? Would he despise her talent or learn to accept it? I have to stop being competitive, he told himself. He could handle the woman he wanted to be with forever having a minor kind of fame, instead of a failed kind like Elspeth’s. （She was a retired model-activist.） There was a knock on the door. What if it was Dee? He hopped on one leg while sliding on a convenient dirty pair of underwear and a T-shirt. “Just a minute!” Jeans were slid into and a bushel of hair eased to the side. He opened the door.
It was the Indian guy holding what looked like a rough-hewn blanket under his arm （it was actually a handcrafted area rug Senderovsky picked up in Paraty, Brazil, during a raucous literary festival）， and clothed for the weather in a very pragmatic spring jacket handed down from a rich cousin. “Excuse me, Mr. ——，” the peaceful intruder said, invoking the Actor’s beautiful last name. “Would you mind if I get a book out of your bungalow?”
The Actor nodded, resigned to being friendly. “I’m sorry, I’m awful with names, you are—”
“Vinod. I’m looking for a copy of Uncle Vanya. It’s right over there.” The man with the soft extinguished eyes knew exactly where Vanya sulked amid the colorful mass of bookshelves. Why wasn’t he given this bungalow? Perhaps the Actor could ask for a trade.
“I believe I saw you in a very avant-garde version of The Cherry Orchard in Berlin once,” Vinod said.
“Yes,” the Actor said. “When I was much younger. I played the actual orchard, if I remember correctly. Or the personification of it.”
“A very tough role, but you carried it off with aplomb.”
The Actor smiled and waved away the compliment. “I’m just a vessel. Chekhov was the genius?” He hadn’t meant it as a question.
“It must be exciting to collaborate with Sasha,” Vinod continued.
“？‘Exciting’ is not the first word that comes to mind.”
“He’s a great writer. I’ve been lucky to see him grow over the years. I even tried my own hand at writing a novel once, and he was kind enough to read it and give advice. He’s a teacher at heart.” The Actor was touched by the earnestness of Vinod’s friendship. He rarely saw the same affection among men in his own circles. “You would make a terrific Uncle Vanya, by the way,” Vinod said.
The compliments felt soothing to the Actor because they seemed to come from a place of real noncompetitiveness. Unlike Senderovsky, his friend had compliments to spare, and no need to constantly prove himself. He watched Vinod glide over to a bookshelf by the map of the Leningrad metro and pluck out the mentioned volume.
“Actually,” the Actor said, “I always wanted to play the self-entitled professor who comes to visit Vanya and his family. The one who owns the estate. Can’t remember the name offhand.”
“Serebrakoff.”
“Yes! My stay with Senderovsky might really ground me in that character.” He felt very erudite to be having this conversation.
Vinod said nothing, merely shook his head and smiled. The Actor admired the five hundred eyelashes which staffed Vinod’s tired eyes almost as lushly as did his own. “Are you reading anything interesting these days?” Vinod asked, his arm circling the rows of books imprisoning them.
“I just downloaded Dee’s book of essays.”
“I read it last year,” Vinod said.
“Oh. What did you think?”
“I think she’s trying.”
“Trying what?”
“She’s trying to figure it out.”
“Aren’t we all?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
The Actor couldn’t understand if Vinod was complimenting Dee’s book or not. For some reason, he felt the need to try to sway him away from Senderovsky and toward himself, to form what network press copy would call “an enduring but unlikely friendship.”
“Sasha tells me you lost a lung,” he said.
“Just part of a lung,” Vinod said.
“He exaggerates everything, doesn’t he?” the Actor exclaimed. But Vinod did not reply, only nodded noncommittally and bowed slightly. The Actor thought he detected a coldness. When Vinod had left the bungalow, the Actor suffered a sudden burst of loneliness, which was redirected as anger. “What do they all want from me?” he said loudly, unsure of whom he was speaking but using one of his hands to make the point. He knew he would find his own company unbearable until dinner, until he put on his finest shirt and saw her again.