The Language of Sisters (15 page)

“We will,” Ellie and I told Valerie.

* * *

A week later the Hooters of Homes and Gobblers of Gardens team moved to a corner of the building, third floor, wraparound windows. We put a long table in the center, where many of us worked together, our desks around the edges. The light was better, it was quieter, we laughed a lot. We put a table out for coffee, tea, treats. We added plants and flowers, and the area was soon taken up with photos of homes and gardens, the pages of the magazine, paperwork, and the rest of the mess one makes when working for a newspaper.

I liked it.

For the first time in a long time I felt happy about going to work.

* * *

I resisted going out with my husband, Marty, at first, even after he karate chopped my stalker, but he was getting increasingly irresistible.

Marty read my work in the alternative newspaper, then he read my work in the
Oregon Standard
when I changed papers. He commented on it. Asked me questions. Told me about his work, his patients. He was funny. I always, always laughed with Marty.

About a foot taller than me, he made me feel dwarfed, but not in an intimidating way. As my mother said, there was some resemblance to a blue heron in his strength, confidence, and elegance.

When he asked me to go with him to a play, I said no.

A concert? No again.

Dinner? Lunch?

No, no.

A hike?

Nope.

A kayak ride?

He got me there.

I said yes.

Marty loved kayaking. He had kayaked all over the country. It was his one hobby. I had never kayaked. We went on a tame kayak ride in the Willamette River. I was scared. He was confident. I fretted. He smiled. I told him I didn't think I could do it. He said, I bet you can. I said, I'm afraid I'll drown like a rat. He said, that's what the life jacket's for. I said, I'm afraid I'll end up alone, downriver. He said, I'll be right beside you. I said, this boat wobbles. He said, let me show you how to paddle.

I loved it. I loved being in the water.

That first day we pulled our kayaks ashore, laughing, and had a picnic. I had tipped mine over only once, right after we'd pushed off. I was soaked, and he was soaked, as he'd done what he'd said he would do and he'd jumped in and helped me.

At the picnic, he made me laugh. I made him laugh. We talked and talked.

He kept smiling that smile at me, and I smiled right back.

* * *

After our first kayaking date, Marty sent a bouquet of flowers with a small kayak stuck in the middle. We went kayaking again. And again.

I know now that one of the reasons I pushed Marty away was because my self-esteem was somewhere around floor level. I had anger, grief, and fear issues trailing after me like an axe-wielding ghost from Moscow. I saw myself as someone who still didn't fit in, a Russian immigrant, so I faked it behind my armor of stylish clothes and my career. I didn't like myself a whole lot and I continued to make mistakes, in particular with partying and men, which kept my self-esteem at floor level.

Marty was, in my mind, so much better than me. He had been born in the United States, in Oregon, and he had always felt like he fit in. He had gone to a prestigious college and med school. He was an oncologist. He was gregarious and funny. Everyone liked him.

I was quieter, and I liked to be alone to think, to wrestle with the ghost from Moscow. Too many people around for too long, too much noise, and I had to back away and hide. I had a rougher edge. I was sarcastic and would not back down from a fight.

But Marty made me feel special. He made me think I was an equal to him, when I didn't feel that way at all. He made me laugh. He made me put aside that rampant toughness. I learned to trust him. I didn't see him anymore as an intimidating, dedicated, and brilliant doctor, though I knew he was. I saw him as Marty.

I said, “I think you're too smart for me.”

He said, “I was thinking the same about you, for me. Not sure if I can keep up with you, Toni. I read everything you write. Your last story on those kids whose parents were arrested and their journey through foster care was one of the best articles I have read in my life. Probably the best. It made me cry.”

I said, “I don't go to church willingly. Only when my parents guilt me into going.”

He said, “I find God in nature. I think God can be found in how we treat other people. How we live, how we give. Right now I would like to give you a date where we could go to dinner.”

I said, “I'm moody. I need my space.”

He said, “I like people with emotions. I like complicated people. I'll give you space. I like your independence. Just don't get so independent you don't want to go kayaking with me.”

I said, “I don't trust people easily.”

He said, “Give me time, Toni. Please. I am trustworthy, and I will earn your trust, if you let me.”

I said, finally, “A lot happened in Russia to us. I still think about it. It's hard to get past.”

He said, “You've made it clear that you don't want to talk about it, but I'd like to hear about it when you want to tell me. I would like to help you get past it.”

“I'm not a kind person like you.”

He laughed. “You are one of the kindest people I know. I see kindness in how you treat your parents. I see kindness in your friendship with your sisters. I see kindness in your writing. I see kindness when you let me hang out with you. Which, I hope, will be more often. Do you take chocolate bribes?”

It was then that I thought ... yes. Yes to Marty.

9

“I take a platter off the wall when I need it for dinner.”

I looked around Bevvie Kearns's home. I was featuring it for
Homes and Gardens of Oregon
because of her extensive collection of painted, ceramic platters. The home was about 1,500 square feet and had been built in 1940.

There was a distinct and charming resemblance to Snow White's house, only the roof was not thatched and there were no dwarves. There was an arc separating the dining and family room, built-in shelves, a built-in desk, wide white trim, stained glass windows on either side of the brick fireplace, and old wood floors that had felt many generations of feet.

Bevvie was about fifty. She'd told me she was half Japanese and half African American, “with a smattering of Dutch.” Glasses. Smart.

“You take the ceramic platters off the wall,” I clarified, “use them to serve meals, then you hang them back up.” I knew the photographer from
Homes and Gardens of Oregon
would have a field day. The platters were hand-painted with English villages, elegant gardens, Scottish clansmen in kilts, landscapes, farms, charming cottages, bridges and rivers, bouquets, etc. So refined. So genteel.

“Yes. As you can see I have a tiny obsession here.”

“Not obsessive.” The platters were floor to ceiling in some places. “Okay, I'll agree. But it's an attractive obsession.”

Bevvie then began to regale me with stories about each platter. Where she got it, who painted it, how old it was, etc. I was so filled with platter information, my brain was combusting as my hand flew across my notebook.

“You have to keep a hand out, don't you?” Bevvie asked.

“I'm sorry?”

“We keep a hand out to help others. That's why we had Da here.”

“Da?” We were off topic. Had I missed something under the deluge of platter information?

“Yes, this platter”—Bevvie stood and took a platter off the wall—“was given to me by a woman who ran the international medical foster care program at the local hospital. She knew I loved platters from other countries. This one is of a village in Vietnam.

“My husband and I are international medical foster parents. Kids come here from all over the world to get treatment. We volunteer to take care of them when they're in and out of the hospital, take them to their appointments to see the doctors, then help them recover and recuperate after the operations. Da was from Vietnam. A land mine blew the lower half of his right leg clear off. I'm sure he was within an inch of death. He was here to get a new prosthetic at the hospital on the hill.”

“How old was Da?”

“Eight. A precious and precocious child. Here's a photo of him with my husband and me.”

I saw a smiling Vietnamese child. Bevvie blinked her eyes and two tears fell on the photo, which she brushed away quickly. “Silly me. Getting so upset still.”

“He's a handsome boy.”

“Yes, he is. So sweet.” Her hands tightened on the photo. “Who does things like this? Who manufactures land mines? Who lays them out? They know the mines will blow people apart. Pure evil. Billions made every year on weapons designed to kill people. So many people, making money blowing off the legs of children like Da.”

“It's tragic. It's hard to even get your mind around it, isn't it?”

“Oh, I can't. I know what a child who is missing half a leg looks like. I know their struggles.”

“How long was Da here?”

“Six months. He had an infection, so he ended up here longer. We loved Da.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Da loved the platters. He wanted to draw them so he could remember us, so we bought him three drawing pads and he drew every day. He drew most of the platters that I have, one on each sheet of paper. That child never complained about his life.

“He asked to live with us forever. I will tell you, Toni, it broke my heart when we had to return him. We gave him three platters to take home. He had the platters in front of him, clutched in his little hands when he left. I'll never forget his tears hitting the platters. Plink, plink, plink, that's how it went.

“When the kids are here, getting their treatment, every night, they can choose which platter to take off the wall to eat off of. Believe it or not, they love it.”

“I'm sure they do.” I dabbed at my eyes with a napkin. I am a sap.

“These platters have so many memories for me.”

She reached out and held my hand and we studied her platters, together, as she thought of the kids she'd held out a hand to. Undoubtedly, they had held her hand as firmly as she was now holding mine.

* * *

Ricki called me later that night after I'd e-mailed her the story. “Read the story on Da. Shoot and blither blather. Made me cry. Why do you do stuff like that?”

“I like to smear your makeup.”

“You're doing it.” She hung up after a honking sniffle.

* * *

“You are now the hosting ... the hosty ... what the word? I forget. Wait. I know it!” My mother snapped her fingers. “You are the ho.” She pulled out red and yellow mixing bowls from her kitchen cabinets. “You are the bossy of Elvira's bridal bath shower. I don't want no shower at all, but if there is one, you do it, Antonia. You the ho.”

“I'm the what?” I'm the ho? I had to push my laughter down to my toes. My mother does not like to be laughed at when she uses the wrong English words.

I picked up my coffee mug off the train station table. Whew. Strong enough to dissolve my intestines, but delicious. I popped a miniature chocolate fudge cookie into my mouth. My mother always serves coffee with her chocolate fudge cookies. She does this at the restaurant, too. People love it. They sit at the bar and instead of ordering martinis and vodka tonics they order “Svetlana's Bitter Russian Coffee and Sweet Chocolate Cookies.”

“You have the shower party,” my mother said, pointing at me. She turned and grabbed flour and brown sugar from her blue armoire. “For Elvira. For the family and the friends. The womens only. I cannot believe this.” She crossed herself. “Mary, mother of God, who did not get enough credit for her sacrifice, how this happen? My daughter, she be marrying a nonrusseman. You remember I make that word up myself?”

“I remember. Mama, about the bridal shower. You know Aunt Holly and Aunt Polina don't like each other currently.”

“Yes. I know this. I live it. It is like keeping two, how you say it, dragons apart. Dragons. With too many hormonies. In them. Hormonies.”

“They do have hormones.”

“Menopausie. They have it. They both sweat like this.” She mimicked rain running down her face. “Night time they tell me, sleeping in a pool of the sweat. I never have that because your papa and I ...” She banged her fists together. “You see, if you have lots of that love make then you don't have the hormonies and the hottie flashes.”

“I don't need to hear about you and Papa, Mama.” I ate another chocolate fudge cookie in one bite.

“What? Not wrong have the love make with your husband. All the time you can do it, God says so. In the Bible, He says it. I tell Holly and Polina when they say they have the hormonies, go home and do the bang bang with your husband more and get rid of it. See here.” She swept her hand down her body, from the white streak down to her legs. “He cannot stay away and I have no menopausie.”

“And Anya and JJ aren't speaking. Again.”

“Ack. What now, I ask. What problem is there? But no!” She put both hands up. “Don't tell me. I no want to know.”

I wouldn't tell her that Anya was mad at JJ for trying to “take over the bridal shower in her pushy, shovy way. Like a disease,” and JJ was mad at Anya for “thinking she could do Ellie's bridal shower. What are we going to do if Anya does it? Play Trivial Pursuit—the hypochondriac's version? Maybe we could talk about strange African sicknesses? Will we have to sanitize the cake with hand sanitizer?”

Tati and Zoya were so mad at JJ and Anya for wanting to do the bridal shower, they said they would never give them lingerie again. That was a low blow, we all agreed.

“Mama, you want me to have the bridal shower on my tugboat?”

“Yes. You do it. You have wide deck. Ladies get too upset, they can jump in river. Or I shove them. Like this.” She mimed a shove. “I know, my honey, this hard for you.” She took hold of my face and kissed both cheeks. “I kiss your cheekies with my love. Please? For your Mama. Then, all the fighty stop.”

“Okay, Mama. I'll do it.” My heart twisted up, tight and lonely. I tried to block out another memory.

“It hurts you, I see this, but you see, Elvira, your Ellie, she love you, and Valeria, your Valerie, two kids, and she not ... uh uh uh. She not right woman to plan bridal bath shower. You know. She take out wallet, say meet at this bar, and I buy the drinkies and food. No!” My mother made the sign with both hands that all umpires make when a player is safe. “We use china. Silver. Proper bridal bath shower for my Elvira, even though he a nonrusseman.”

“Silver. China. Sounds like Ellie.”

“She no want any wild stuff. She not like that Zoya and Tati, bless them God, wearing lingerie for the shirties. No bars. No loud parties, no strip man. That no. And no drunk peoples. You are best friend to Elvira, so you do it, you hear her in your head, her words and the thoughts, then there peace.”

“I'm happy to do it.” I loved Ellie. “I'll make it perfect.”

“Yes, I know. You be the ho at the party. That not right word, I think. The hosty. Everyone love you in the family. When it time, I see your invitation to the Elvira party by the mail, not the e-mail, not classy that e-mail, by the paper mail where the postman, he brings it to you. I not happy about that nonrusseman but I help you with food. And I like game.”

“Game?”

“Yes. I at bridal bath shower for Linda's daughter, Abigail.” My mother clapped her hands. “We play silly game. With prizes. Me, I won apron with flowers. That right for my cooking. See? I wear it now. So game at the party bridal. A lot of game. And the prizes. You do this, Antonia.” She hugged me close. “You my angel, Antonia. You always been my angel. We been through the bad times together, bad times.” Her eyes flooded with tears, so mine did, too. We both knew what she was talking about, but we didn't talk about it. “You and I, daughter and mother, we have our love.”

“I know, Mama.”

“Now. You not cry.” She wiped my tears. “My brave girl. My dear and courage wolf girl. No, not wolf girl. Werewolves, I tell you about those werewolves in the Soviet Union.”

“Human werewolves.”

“Yes. Them. From the prison.” Her expression changed, softness to hellfire in a second. “I hope they rot for what they did to my Alexei, my love.”

“Yes, Mama, me too.”

She inhaled, a full breath, bosom rising and falling. “I leave those bad werewolves in the past. The past is past. We not talk about it.” She waved a hand,
swish swish,
Moscow go away. “Your papa home soon. You stay for dinner.”

I had dinner with my parents that night. My father hugged me tight. “Tell me everything, Antonia. I have not seen you for a week. So, you start on Thursday. What you do at work on Thursday... okay, now Friday? You went out to
The Barber of Seville
? With Boris? Beautiful opera. He steal car on way home? No. I like hear that. No need you in the jail. Now, Saturday. What you do?”

My parents listened intently, day by day. My father once said, “No detail in my daughters' lives is too small for me to hear.” I asked them about their lives, too, repeatedly. They always turned it back to me.

“And what about that scary man on the dock?” my mother said. “You know, I think he sell the drugs.”

“I told you, he doesn't sell drugs, Mama. I've told you that he arrests people who sell drugs. He does not do drugs.”

“He not scary,” my father said, patting my mother's hand. “I talk to him. I like him.”

“He rough man. I know. I live in Soviet Union.”

“Svetlana, I tell you,” my father said. “I like Nick Sanchez. I know the men. How they are here.” He tapped his head. “And here.” He tapped his heart. “And he the winner. He a man. Man for you, Antonia?”

I about choked on yet another chocolate fudge cookie.

Before I could answer, my mother reached across the table and held my hand. “I believe my Alexei. He so smart. Don't be scared, Antonia. We here for you always.”

“I'm not scared.”
Oh, yes, I was. Many things scared me.

“No. You not scared,” my parents said together.

“I'm fine.”
Sure I am.

“Yes, yes, you fine,” my parents said again, reassuring. “You fine.”

I wasn't so fine and they knew it. That's why they gave me extra-long hugs and my mother sent me home with a box of leftovers and a bag of her chocolate fudge cookies, which I ate later in my bathtub. If she didn't, in her mind, the possibility of my starving to death by noon tomorrow was high.

* * *

Later that night I went out to my deck, slung my feet over the side, and watched my blue heron take off. I rarely see her at night. Dixie was alone.

“
You the ho!
” I said out loud. I had to laugh. I am the bridal shower ho. What an honor.

* * *

“Stay the night, Toni.”

I snuggled back in, naked back to Nick's naked chest in his king-sized bed. Tempting. It was Saturday night. I could sleep in here.

“Five minutes,” I told him, my voice quiet in the darkness of his bedroom, the river hugging his houseboat.