The Language of Sisters

  As soon as he knew I was a crime and justice reporter, he read my articles and chatted with me about them. Because he was a DEA agent, we had a lot in common with our work. He told me once that he became a DEA agent because one of his cousins died from an overdose of cocaine. The cousin had been trying to get clean, but the drug dealer was relentless. “My family, truly, has never recovered from losing Casey.”

  He was in college when it happened and decided then that he would do what he could to help prevent any other family from going through what his had been through. Nick often had to leave in the middle of the night for work. Holidays. Sundays. Erratic hours. Long days and weeks and months. “Drug busts don’t adhere to a nine-to-five schedule,” he’d said.

  He was wise, measured, calm, compassionate. He sympathized when I told him about the sad stories I was writing about and seemed genuinely upset for the families affected by crime.

  He asked about my parents, who he had met that first day, and said he had been to Svetlana’s Kitchen many times and he loved it. I instantly pictured him going on a date there, and I also instantly didn’t like his vapid, shallow date.

  As if that man could read my mind, he said, “I have a bunch of buddies from college in the area, so we meet there about once a month.”

  I learned that he liked to make his own pizza. I told him that I liked making white coconut cake. We talked about traveling, which he wished, as I wished, that we had done more. We talked about books. That was a clincher for me. A man who likes to read.

  About a month after I moved in, despite my inability to hold a decent conversation, he asked if I wanted to go to dinner at Pepper’s Grill. Pepper’s Grill is an expensive restaurant with a view over the river downtown. I said, no, thank you.

  He smiled and said, Another time?

  And I said, Maybe. Not now.

  Those light blue eyes were gentle, but it felt as if he were looking right into me, exploring around.

  I couldn’t date. Couldn’t go out with him or anyone else. I was struggling. One step from going over the edge of my own life.

  Nick and I went back to general chitchat. In that first three months he was gone for a few days, even a couple of weeks, at a time. He always told me when he was going out of town. I started to miss him. I didn’t want to miss him.

  One time he came back with a bruise on the left side of his face. I said, “Were you in a fight?” and he said, “Yes.”

  “With who?” I felt my stomach clench up.

  “Someone who didn’t want to follow the law.”

  “Did you win?” His injury made me feel sick.

  “Yes.”

  “And where is that person now?” Why did someone hurt him?

  “Jail.”

  “Ah. That’s an unpleasant place.” I’m in an unpleasant place. I don’t want to see this, and I don’t want to feel this.

  “It is.”

  “Glad you’ve made it back home to the dock,” I said. I was more than glad. I was relieved. I wanted to cry.

  He grinned. “Are you?”

  “Yes. Of course.” I was going to cry. I needed to leave.

  “I have steaks. Want one?”

  I hesitated that time. He was beat up and I was so attracted to him, but I couldn’t. I shouldn’t. It was wrong. “No, thanks.”

  “I won’t burn yours.”

  “I’m sure you won’t.”

  He smiled. “Okay, Toni. Some other time?”

  “Maybe.” I felt like a smashed ant. He was hurt, he wanted company. I wanted to eat steak with him. I wanted to go to Pepper’s Grill with him. I wanted to go out on his boat, Sanchez One, with him. But if I went out with Nick I would drown in guilt and betrayal, and I was already drowning. I turned away, a vision of that bruise stuck in my miserable head.

  “Night, Toni.”

  “Night, Nick.”

  * * *

  My husband, Marty Romanowsky, was born in America, though both parents were from Leningrad, now St. Petersburg. His given name was Makar, but in kindergarten he apparently changed his name himself. Five years old, and he announces that he’s Marty.

  I met him at church one Sunday when I was twenty-four. Usually I could escape going to church—organized religion is not for me—but my mother had been pestering me for a long time and I gave in when she promised to make me her Russian pancakes with whip cream and her homemade strawberry jam afterward.

  On the way there, my parents, once again, regaled me with information about Marty Romanowsky.

  “Remember, he Russian,” my mother said, with a full and rolling R. “He a doctor. He kind. Look like a ... What that bird called I think of, Alexei?”

  “Blue heron.”

  “Yes. The blue heron. Marty like that. Graceful. Long on the arms. Long on the legs. Listening. He a listening bird. Gentle. But, important now, what I next say: He Russian.” She again emphasized the hard “R” with gusto. “I tell you that already?”

  “Many times. He’s a Russian blue heron,” I drawled. “I’ve always wanted to date a bird.”

  Tall, brown curls, thin, lanky, glasses. Marty was an oncologist. Thirty-two. Never married. He had been out of state for med school, his internship, and residency. Now he was home. He had a smile that was friendly and inviting. His mother, Raina, loved him; his father, Zakhar, was so proud he could burst. His father was a doctor in the Soviet Union, but here they own hardware stores. Raina is the CEO.

  Marty was an only child. Our parents were friends.

  Which is exactly why I did not date him, nor was I particularly friendly that Sunday, but our parents were determined.

  My parents would sneak Marty and his parents over, springing them on poor, unsuspecting me when I arrived for Sunday dinner. “That nice doctor boy, Marty, he coming too, with his mother and father,” my mother would say to me as they walked up the driveway. “You be polite, Toni.” She would threaten me with a wooden spoon. “I choose this man for you. Your papa wants him for you, too. Don’t upset your papa.”

  My father agreed. “Antonia, this man, Marty, listen to him. Open your heart. I tell you, I know him, he is right for you. I love you, I am your papa, I want what’s best, and Marty is best.”

  I would move to scuttle out the back door, but my mother would stand firmly in front of me, arms crossed over her bosom, and glower. I’d sigh and stay.

  Marty was kind. He asked me questions about my work and my life. He seemed interested in me as a person, as a woman. He kept smiling at me, that Russian blue heron.

  I avoided him because I was twenty-four, out on my own, working at an alternative newspaper, with a loft downtown, and I didn’t need my parents dictating my life. I was also dating a fellow reporter who was free spirited, gorgeous, and not too bright.

  Marty was already too settled, I thought. He was a doctor, with a home, and a pair of glasses. He liked reading and going to plays. He loved his parents. His hair was receding. Too dull. Too old. Too conservative.

  I kept running around, bar hopping with my sisters, my crazy cousins, and my girlfriends. I kept traveling. I kept shopping. I dumped the not too bright reporter because he wanted to spend too much time with me, then started dating a man who worked in the governor’s office. Zack was quick, ambitious, focused, and supersmart politically. I broke up with him at lunch one day and I didn’t even know I was going to do it, but I did and felt better.

  Zack stalked me for two months after that, and I had to get the police involved. One time he stalked me to the door of my loft downtown when Marty was there. Marty had come by to say hello. He arrived with a huge bunch of red and yellow gladiolas

  Zack took immediate offense to Marty and his gladiolas. Zack yelled, threatened, and swung a fist, right at Marty’s face. I didn’t know that Marty had a black belt. Zack crashed to the floor of my loft like a squished and shocked fish, sputtering.

  Marty helped Zack up, peered into his eyes with a small flashlight attached to his key chain, had Zack tell him how many fingers he
was holding up, checked him out like a doctor would, then told Zack, calmly, that if he bothered me again he was going to break his teeth away from his gums. I never saw Zack again.

  It was then that I started to see Marty differently. I started seeing him as tougher than I thought. Stronger. Protective. Even ... sexy.

  He smiled and handed me the gladiolas.

  I smiled back at him.

  7

  Three nights later my mother called at six. I had left the Oregon Standard after finishing a story on a man who had been locked up for twenty years for being a low- to mid-range drug dealer when he was nineteen years old. “I’m thirty-nine,” he told me. “I earned two degrees in prison. It’s been twenty years. Is that not long enough?” The rest of the story was about the excessive length of sentences given for nonviolent drug crimes, and how black men were statistically proven to go to jail for far longer than their white counterparts who had committed the same crime.

  “I need you to come and waitress tonight, my Antonia. We are handed on the short.”

  I did love the way my mother used American phrases and turned them around.

  “Party coming for fifty. Please. I call Elvira. Valeria can’t come. She going to get that killer, you know.”

  The truth is that my parents don’t ask my sisters and me to waitress often. They know we have other jobs, but sometimes they need us, so we go in. Valerie, a prosecuting attorney; me, a reporter; and my sister, who owns a pillow business. And there we were, trays high in the air, just like in high school and college.

  Svetlana’s Kitchen is not a quiet restaurant, and when people come to party, especially the Russian community, it’s a party. Songs, toasts, vodka, my mother’s dinners, which people come from near and far to eat. Ellie and I made a pile in tips. We visited with Ralph, who saluted us, and Charlie, who played Rachmaninoff in our honor.

  The only bad thing was that the special that night, borscht beet soup, was named “Valeria Get The Killer.”

  “Valeria Get The Killer” was popular, especially among the Russian community. When my sister found out about the name of the soup, as someone called her and told her it was one of our mama’s best specials ever, she had her rename “Valeria Get The Killer” immediately. My mother huffed and puffed, but she did it.

  New name? “Valeria: Don’t Tell Mama What To Do.”

  Valerie then received calls and e-mails admonishing her not to tell her mother what to do.

  I fell into bed that night.

  It’s hard to have your family’s private life up on the Specials board of a restaurant.

  * * *

  “How’s the trial going, Valerie?” Pillow Talk had begun at Ellie’s house, surrounded by stacks of her fabrics. We’d had tostadas and beer, then chocolate pecan pie.

  I had finished the tree pillow with the leaves made from fabric from all over the world, and now I was sewing a pillow for a teenage boy. The blue-and-white-striped background was done, and I was piecing together a skateboard for the center.

  “We’re almost done picking the jury.” Valerie was making a pillow for a little girl. All pink, two layers of white lace around the edge, and a huge rose in the center where she was going to embroider “Girl Power.”

  “How’s Tyler Barton’s family?” Ellie asked.

  “Still sitting in the first two rows, and they hate me. Would like to see me flattened by one of the trailers they live in, or shot by one of their many guns, or trapped in one of the traps they use to catch their food. Like possums.”

  “That bad?” Ellie put her pillow down. She was making a pillow for a teenage girl. The pillow was made from a white cable knit sweater and would have six red buttons down two sides.

  “Yes. It’s a violent sickness that runs through the whole family. I’m putting their beloved son/brother/cousin in jail for a long time. They’re missing teeth, they come in dirty, the men have long, straggly hair, and the women look like they’ve been through a meat grinder.”

  I felt that chill inside again. A chilly snake wrapping around my spine. Valerie was scared, I could tell. She never gets scared of criminals. She likes to smash them.

  “I’m sure they won’t do anything... .” Her voice trailed off, and she fiddled with her widow’s peak, which is what she does when she’s worried. “But the rat face hatred comes at me in waves.”

  “Family members of criminals have hated you before,” Ellie said.

  “Yes. Definitely. And I understand why. The weird thing is that sometimes the family members don’t hate me. They were the criminal’s first victims and they’re actually there to make sure he goes to jail. But this case is ...” She hesitated. “Different.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “They’re creepy, dangerous, uncontrolled people who have no morals or ethics. They think and act instinctively, with violence.”

  “Any outstanding warrants on any of them?” I asked.

  “No, we checked. They have criminal records, but they’ve served their time. They have a right to be there. Tyler is one sick monster. The creep knocked off four women, at least. The defense attorney didn’t want all four victims in one trial, but he lost. Anyhow”—she took a deep breath—“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

  “You’re an excellent prosecutor, Valerie,” Ellie said.

  “Maybe. But I’m not an excellent mother.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “The kids aren’t happy.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m gone all the time. I work all the time. The other day Ailani told me that she wished I could be like the other moms who drive carpools and plan the class parties.” She put her pillow down. “She did say that she likes our conversations.”

  “What do you talk to Ailani about?” Ellie giggled, then stopped herself and put on a serious expression, as if she didn’t know.

  Valerie squirmed.

  “Yes, do tell, Valerie.” I leaned toward her and had to stop myself from cackling. I knew what she talked to Ailani about.

  “I am trying to educate my child.” Valerie sat up straight. So pious! Sanctimonious!

  Ellie and I could not contain our laughter.

  “There’s nothing wrong with teaching your daughter about depositions, grand juries, admitted evidence, and all the vocabulary of a courtroom.” So righteous! Superior in her mommy skills!

  “And?” Ellie giggled, then stopped again and tried to arrange her face into that serious expression.

  “Hmmm, what else could there be?” I mused.

  “Let’s talk about something else,” Valerie muttered.

  “No. You talk to your ten-year-old daughter about how to run a murder trial, admit it,” I said.

  “You can’t sneak out of this one,” Ellie said. “Remember that paper in school that Ailani wrote last month? She detailed, at length, what would happen if someone murdered someone else and everything that detectives do to comb through the crime scene to find the identity of the killer.”

  Valerie rolled her eyes. “I had to go in and talk to the teacher about that one... .”

  “I’m sure you did,” I said. “She talked about blood splatters. She talked about DNA and various weapons and point blank range. I believe she mentioned a .45 and how bullets match a gun.”

  Valerie wriggled. “She’s precocious. She asks me about my work and I tell her. I don’t tell her the details—”

  “She knows an awful lot about serial killers and compromised crime scenes,” I said.

  “She took one of the books I like to read and read it. When I found it, I took it.” Valerie ran her hand over the rose pattern on her pillow. “Perhaps I might be accused of being a wee mite tiny too graphic with her.”

  “A tad,” Ellie agreed, chortling. “You have a ten-year-old with more than a basic grasp of criminal activity, criminal analysis, prosecution, and punishment.”

  “Motherhood is a difficult balance.” Grumpy now! “I have done my best.” Holier than thou defensive!
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  Ellie and I cackled. Poor Valerie.

  “Where’s the wine, Ellie?” She groaned.

  * * *

  Work the next day was the usual. I listened to the police scanner. The news was grim and grimmer. The scanner never announces that we have had a bounty crop of tulips this year, the sun is still shining, the beach is particularly pleasant today. No, it’s the blood and guts, rage and tragedy, of some people’s real lives.

  My other stories were almost done—the story about the family who had one kid in a gang and how they’d turned him around, and another story about a woman who runs a women’s shelter. I’d interviewed a number of the women in it, first names only, so they couldn’t be tracked by psycho ex-husbands and boyfriends.

  I was in edits with William, who again pointed at me and told me I was quitting over his “dead kidneys.” When they were done, photos taken, stories printed, I’d hand in my notice before I crumbled like a stale, old cookie. William would have to deal with his dead kidneys.

  I listened to a police report, heard what had happened, grabbed my purse and my notebook, and headed out of the building.

  * * *

  I stopped my car at the curb, the white bungalow in southeast Portland surrounded by police, crowd control in place. Shoot. I wished I’d gotten here earlier. I grabbed my notebook and bag and scrambled out of the car. I scooted toward the house to be closer to the action, trying to avoid detection.

  “Hey, Toni,” an officer name Mikey said to me. Mikey is friends with Kai. They were partners for years. “Nice to see ya. No, no, no. You know you can’t do that. Don’t go any nearer. Anything happens to you, and your mama would never let me come for dinner at Svetlana’s again and Kai and Valerie would kill me.”

  “Toni, hi,” an officer named Laura Hart said. “Saw your sister, Valerie, the other day at the courthouse. She’s going after a sick son of a gun, isn’t she? That guy, Barton, he’s a psycho, and his family looks like they’ve come up from a swamp.”

  “I’ve been hearing that.”

  “Your sister, man, she gets men’s balls in a sling,” Mikey said, slapping his hands together. “I’ve seen her go after those criminals. It’s like watching a human ball crusher.”