American Gypsy (17 page)

I tried to keep in touch, but I never could find where she stayed because she moved all over the USSR, crashing with friends instead of her strict Roma family. We never saw each other again, but every time I felt uncertain about making my voice heard, I thought of her.

I missed those days, and I might've enjoyed Dad's new house if it weren't a reminder of everything that had gone wrong in mine. Living with Mom was like holding a sputtering firecracker. Not a glorious sparkly one, but the kind that blows up in your hands unprovoked. I couldn't seem to stop her from self-destructing. Now she was the one hiding the wallet from me.

 

THE MAVERICK

The thing I remember with most clarity about that April is the rain: the raindrops on the backs of my legs as I ran the three blocks from the bus stop to the school, the misty air opening my lungs with restoring breaths, the way it transformed Hollywood into a fairy-tale kingdom of fog, sunlight, and bobbing umbrellas.

On one of these magnificent days Cruz cornered me in the hallway between ELS and choir.

“For you,” he said, holding out a red rose. I instantly forgot my squishy shoes and the fact that, yet again, he'd caught me fresh from the downpour outside.

“Why?” I said.

“Do I need to have a reason?”

I shrugged.

He took one step closer, hair dripping from the rain, the bottoms of his jeans soaked. “A late Valentine's Day present. How about that?”

“Surely you jest.” I must've picked that one up from
King's Man
, my latest Harlequin.

“You offend me,” he said with one hand over his heart.

Now we both sounded like transplants from a romance novel.

He had the most expressive face, but I'd always been wary of people who seemed like they had nothing to hide. “Never trust anyone” was the motto my Roma family lived by.

I can't count the times I had to endure my father's lectures on the myth of sincerity. Every time I made a new friend, or raved about a teacher, he'd sigh and shake his head. “Most people will betray you the first chance they get.” Mom would say loud enough for him to hear, “Distrust, Oksana, is as much a part of Roma character as stubbornness. Smart people utilize both in moderation.” This usually produced an argument that was broadcast to the entire neighborhood.

“Sorry,” I said to Cruz. “In my country we don't celebrate Valentine's Day.”

“I'm very loud when I cry, and I tend to get down on my knees and beg if that doesn't work. Come on. Be nice.”

Everything he said frustrated me because he didn't react in the logical way. Anybody else would've been offended by my hostility. Instead, he looked amused. I was dumbfounded by his behavior. You didn't just walk up to somebody and say, “Hey. I know you might mash my self-esteem into a pulp, but I have to tell you that I really, really, I mean REALLY like you. What about you? Here's a mallet in case you say no.”

I glanced around, then back to him. “Why? We don't even talk.”

“Maybe we would if you didn't act like a blowfish every time I came near you.”

What was the harm?

“It's just a rose. I'm not asking for your soul.”

Really? “Fine. I'll take it.”

“Good.” He handed me the flower, ignoring my bad manners, and shrugged out of his jacket. “Because I have one more thing for you.”

“Two gifts?”

He draped it around my shoulders. “Not a gift. I definitely want it back, but you can't run around like that. I can see through your shirt.”

I jerked the jacket tighter around me. Could he see my bra this entire time?

“Maybe I'll get you an umbrella for Easter.”

“I shall not accept it, thank you very much.”

*   *   *

The more romance novels I read, the faster my English vocabulary expanded. They didn't disappoint; quite the opposite. Something about the predictability of the happy endings brought me comfort and, as silly as it seems, hope. But there were still gaps in my comprehension, and I wasn't shy about asking for help. Usually it came from strangers; neither Mom nor Dad took advantage of the free English classes offered by the Russian Immigrant Outreach Program. They had more pressing things on their minds.

Meadow, the horn-rimmed salesgirl at the bookshop off Highland Avenue, kept a stack of fresh historical novels for me to salivate over. Once a week I pleaded with Mom or Dad, depending on my coordinates, for five dollars. Funds acquired, I stopped after school and stayed for hours, reading on the floor in the corner where other kids my age gave each other hickeys. I could buy only one book at a time, and it tormented me to have to pick. Covers, or rather the male models on them, played a key role in the selection process. On this particular day I faced a dilemma between two men so remarkable that my heart sang “Heaven” by Warrant just looking at their flowing locks. I flipped through the first one, decided that I fancied Highlanders over Vikings, and grabbed the other, turning to a random paragraph. I sensed that something incredible was occurring behind phrases such as “burning loins” and “aching bulge,” and I hunted for an explanation in my dictionary. A literal translation produced “flaming pork chops” and “painful protuberance.”

After she finished ringing up a Chinese couple who purchased multiple copies of maps to the stars' homes, Meadow explained this mysterious combination of words.

“This is juicy,” she said, burgundy lips suspended in a wicked grin. “Nothing like the Harlequins you've been reading, right? X-rated stuff.”

“I don't know what that means.”

“Sex,” she exclaimed. “In Harlequins they kiss, but here, oh man, this is like soft porn. Cool shit. But what's the problem? Didn't your parents talk to you about sex?”

Unimaginable. But I knew a little something about porn.

Adult films, yet another thing that's illegal in the USSR, couldn't be purchased in stores. But some people managed to set up clandestine bootlegged showings to satisfy the demand. After eavesdropping on a conversation between Zhanna and me about her crush on our neighbor's twenty-year-old son, Esmeralda, Zhanna's half sister, decided the time was ripe to teach us about sex.

“You're both thirteen,” she told us. “At your age there are Romani girls who've already had their first kid. Not that I approve, but still. Men are not like us, and you need to know how they're different so they don't take advantage of you. This is especially important for you, Oksana, because in America, erotic education is a subject taught in schools. If you ever get there, you don't want those people to think we're primitive, do you?”

“I know about men.” Speaking from experience. Ruslan and I had had a couple of secret dates by then. When we kissed, our mouths stayed shut like the portcullis of a castle, the same way they did in the love scenes of all the Russian movies. By Roma standards, Ruslan was too old to be a virgin at sixteen. The other band members teased him endlessly and sent prostitutes to his hotel rooms with notes of instruction tucked between their breasts. This irked me. I didn't know precisely the steps to losing one's virginity, but I was sure I didn't want Ruslan to take them without me. Stepan once joked, “After you get the hang of it, it'll be like dipping your finger in a rainbow.” Ruslan's answer sent the rest of the men into a roaring fit. “A dip might be fine for an elderly goat like you, Stepan, but I won't do it until I can dive in headfirst.”

Esmeralda came up with a proposal. We would either watch her with one of her boyfriends through a peephole in her closet or see an educational film. In our culture, parents don't talk about sex until the wedding night, and even then it's often just a reluctant instruction on how to lie down when your husband takes you. Esmeralda was determined that we be more prepared than she had been.

The makeshift movie theater was hidden in the basement of a seven-story apartment building down the street where two guys took money at the bottom of the stairs with urgency in their speedy fingers. We joined a slowly moving line of men and teenage boys whose nervous footwork gave them away.

The room was wide and had linoleum floors, disco-era wood paneling, and ceilings veined with coughing pipes. Several rows of folding metal chairs had been arranged in front of a large bedsheet hanging from a clothesline. In the back of the room, a man loaded a film reel onto the arm of a rusted projector.

Zhanna and I scuttled to the last row near the wall, our eyes everywhere but on the other people filing into the room. Esmeralda took her seat next to us and crossed one leg over the other under her stylish black skirt, her shoulders shaking from laughter at our behavior. Her wavy hair hung past her waist, shiny and soft: once a week she soaked it in olive oil. Her complexion was dewy, eyes coquettish and bright. A few men tried to get her attention with winks and nods. I remember unfolding myself in my seat and trying to mimic Esmeralda's effortless poise. Might as well learn something.

The film was poorly dubbed and not easy to follow, but from what I gathered, the two main characters really liked each other and took off their clothes to prove it. Their only hindrance was the lack of suitable places to get naked.

“Now pay attention to the missionary position,” Esmeralda whispered. “As a rule this is the best one for the first time.”

Zhanna leaned over to me. “They have rules for this stuff?”

I stared in fascination at the man on the couch, the bedsheet screen sending ripples through the image. His white dress shirt was unbuttoned to his waist, one shirttail carelessly slung over the top of his black dress pants. His eyes were at half-mast, and his fingers drummed a slow rhythm on his glass of bourbon.

“Hike up your skirt,” he orders the woman perched on the edge of the ottoman with her legs spread wide.

“Yes.” She complies. Centimeter by centimeter. The higher the hem travels, the closer to her he tips, as if an invisible string attached from her skirt to his head pulls him onward. She halts only when her thighs and the shadows between are exposed. The man exhales and rubs a shaking hand across his lips. He points at the shadows accusingly. “That, right there, is what rules the world.”

“Wasn't that great?” Esmeralda asked as we walked home that night. “Kind of artsy, and didn't feel the least bit amateur. And the acting! Usually these types of movies don't have good stories, but this one really surprised me.”

“I bet it's against the law to get naked in public,” Zhanna said.

“Half the things they were doing are against the law,” I said. “Why do you think we had to sneak into a basement to watch them?”

“Please,” Esmeralda said. “That means every Soviet over the age of sixteen is a criminal. This is natural and beautiful. Especially between a husband and wife.”

“But you're not married,” I said.

“Well, no. One can only wait so long.”

Zhanna and I were still getting over the fact that we'd left our innocence back in the room fitted with disco paneling.

The next time I mentioned the neighbor's son, Zhanna threw her hands up in the air. “So over him.”

“But why?”

“I'm not ready for the natural and the beautiful.”

 

AT THE DELI

Months after I last saw Uncle Arsen and my cousins, Mom came home very late one night. I was waiting for her outside by the mailboxes, but knowing I'd get in trouble for snooping, I had hunkered down in a spot shy of the security lights. This way I could sneak back inside unnoticed.

She wasn't alone as she stumbled out of a car—my uncle's car. I didn't know why she'd gone to see him; perhaps to make up? Or not. Walking together toward the building, they looked as irritated with each other as the last time. Mom swayed and Uncle caught her by the elbow and shoved her through the gate. They began to argue. I was too far away to discern their words, but knowing Mom, she was probably insulting him. Then she swung at him and lost her balance, nearly falling onto the metal gate's decorative spear points. She caught herself in time, but when she straightened I saw a dark splotch on her left cheek. I forgot all about hiding, and when Uncle saw me shuffling toward them down the concrete walkway in my slippers, he jumped into his car and took off.

Back at our place I helped Mom onto her cot, fully dressed minus her pumps, and pulled a tissue from a box nearby. Next to us my sister lay sprawled over her blankets, mouth open over a round spot of drool on her pillow. I covered Mom with a sheet. The smell of vodka and blood invaded my nostrils. I'd never be able to forget this combination.

Mom's lids shuddered. “You're so strong. I never worry about you.”

“That's great, Mom.” I wanted to clean off the blood, but I was too scared to see it spread to the edges of the tissue like a living thing, to have the scent cling to me.

“Not worried about Roxy, either,” she mumbled heavily. “I wish I was her. Too young to understand anything.”

But I think she was wrong about that.

*   *   *

When we first got kicked out of Uncle Arsen's house, I wrote a note on the back of the phone directory I found under the kitchen sink of our new apartment:

We are a broken bottle, jagged edges rising from what used to be whole.

I was not really sure why I didn't write those lines in my journal. After I finished, I ripped out the scrap of paper and flushed it down the toilet. When Roxy walked in on me hovering over the toilet bowl as if I held a grudge against the L.A. sewer system, she wrapped her fingers around my wrist. “Why are you always so sad?” she asked. “Makes me wanna be sad, too.” I didn't answer, as had become my habit. I must've made her feel invisible countless times, so involved was I in my own world. An older me often thinks about the inaccuracy of that note. I still had a family to preserve: my sister. Instead, we started to ever so slowly drift apart.