The Language of Sisters

  My father’s brothers, Yuri and Sasho, started to plan, too. None of us were allowed to simply leave the Soviet Union. Uncle Vladan was offering to help and sponsor us from the States, where his landscaping company could offer them jobs. They all begged my uncle Leonid to leave the Soviet Union immediately. He resisted everyone’s entreaties. He wanted to change life from within, to help the people.

  My parents told me, never tell what you hear here around this table, Antonia.

  I never did. But someone did, and the tentacles started to reach for us in the dark, waiting for the perfect time to wrap themselves around our family, and strangle us.

  8

  “Too many clients.”

  “Gee, Lindy. I can see why that would be a problem.”

  “I’m raising my rates. They don’t like it, they can go.”

  “Supply and demand.”

  “They demand me, they can supply more money.”

  Lindy, high-priced call girl, said Nick never came to her place. She said he was polite to her but did not try to initiate conversations. “He knows what I do. He’s not stupid. He’s known since the week I moved in three years ago, I could tell. But we’re neighbors, and he’s a smart guy. He’s DEA. He’s after the big guns. The drug dealers. The murderers. Some woman, with no pimp, who is keeping all the money for herself to sleep with men with whom she has made a business transaction? Eh.”

  It was surprising to me when I first moved in that no one complained about Lindy’s business, although her place was a little off of our dock, so we didn’t see much, plus she has only two customers a day, weekends and holidays off. It wasn’t like there were strange men in and out, twelve a day, all hours.

  Her white Queen Anne home was charming with pots of flowers and that wraparound purple wisteria. Plus, Lindy’s kind. She takes Daisy to the grocery store once a week. She was an English major, so she helps Vanessa grade her students’ papers, and she, Jayla, and Beth do yoga together on her back deck. Lindy and I are friends and love talking about books. It’s Portland. It’s Oregon. Live, let live, don’t get uptight.

  “How’s your job, Toni?”

  “I hate it.” She asked more questions, she listened. Lindy is interested in other people, and she’s an excellent friend. Her clients feel the same way. She says she has many clients who buy two hours of her time. “One hour and forty five minutes of talking and eating lunch together. Fifteen minutes of woo-woo, and that’s it.”

  “And how are the wedding plans going for your sister?”

  I groaned. “Well, my mother can’t stand that he’s a nonrusseman.”

  “Nonrusseman?” Her brow furrowed. “Is that one word?”

  “Yes, she made it up. She wanted to be efficient.”

  Daisy knocked on Lindy’s door, then opened it up.

  “Hello, hooker, hello, kayak lady,” she said to us, smiling, happy. She was wearing a blue coat with yellow daisies, red pants, and yellow daisy cowgirl boots. I recognized the brand. Her sons spare no expense for their mother to make sure her feet are warm and safe.

  “Hello, Daisy.” Lindy smiled and stood up, led her to the couch.

  “I brought you two girls a cake. Champagne cake, pink peppermint cream icing. I made one for the black and white couple, and for the lesbians, and I brought that sexy man a cake, too, and made a heart out of red hots for him on the top. He has a pistol in his pants. Cannonballs. You would know, Toni. Sits in the kayak on her deck. Not crying today, right?”

  “No, I’m fine today, thanks, Daisy. I like your boots.”

  Daisy’s face scrunched up, then the tears ran. “It makes me sad to see you cry.”

  “Daisy ...” I hugged her, and in a few minutes she was better.

  “Let’s have cake together,” Lindy said. “I made coffee.”

  “Thank you, hooker Lindy.”

  We chatted with Daisy, ate her cake, which was so delicious I could eat it every day, and then she left. “Time for the Daisy concert. I have to sing now.”

  We heard her singing at the end of the dock. She sang songs by Neil Diamond, Elton John, and Liza Minnelli.

  “It’s like being at a concert,” Lindy said.

  “She’s fading. Seems like every week I see her mind shutting down a little more.”

  “She’ll hate a nursing home. She walks everywhere. She loves the woods down by the river, loves the city. Hates to be confined. When I met her three years ago she said she was claustrophobic. Her father used to lock her in a closet when he went on drinking benders, and she hates when she’s in small places.”

  “That would explain her houseboat. No walls.”

  “She had all the walls taken down for that exact reason. It’s also why she lives on the river. She said she has to have a view, to not feel locked in, trapped.”

  “A nursing home will kill her,” I said. “She’ll feel locked in and trapped. She can’t do it. She’ll be totally miserable.”

  “Skippy and Georgie know it, too, so that’s why they’re trying to let her stay here as long as they can. Skippy was over here. He tips really well, and he cries about his mother. Did you know he worries about her feet getting cold? When he was a kid she always had cold feet. Anyhow, later on she had him weeding her daisy planters on her deck, then sweeping it, then I heard the vacuum running. He came outside in an apron. I asked him what he was doing, and he said he was cooking pasta primavera and bread with his mother because she likes to cook with him.”

  We listened to Daisy sing a love song.

  “That song makes me feel romantic,” Lindy said.

  “It makes me want to cry.”

  Lindy stretched out her hand and I took it.

  “It’s too bad we’re not gay, Toni.”

  I laughed. “Yes, it is.” I thought about Nick.

  “You’re thinking about the man with the pistol in his pants, aren’t you?”

  Lindy reads minds.

  We laughed.

  * * *

  My stories on the family who had saved their kid from a gang and the women’s shelter had gone to print. They’d been received well. I had recently won an award for a story I had written on meth. I had highlighted two addicts and an addict who was currently sober, but only because he had been arrested and jailed. I had statistics and numbers, interviews with two meth dealers, doctors on the front lines, rehab people, law enforcement, etc.

  Normally the award would have made me happy, but now I simply wanted out of the gruesome details of some people’s sordid and sad lives.

  I had my resignation letter up on e-mail. I had entered all the addresses to all of the people who would receive it. Today was the day. The letter was polite, succinct, thanking them for the job, blah blah blah. I did not mention that I felt a nervous breakdown coming on like a freight train off its tracks.

  “Toni, how are ya?”

  “Ricki. Great. Fine. How are you?” I pushed my chair away from my desk and stood up. Ricki had been a reporter at the Oregon Standard for thirty years. Knew everyone in the newsroom, knew everyone in town, knew the names of their pets. And she knew secrets. Tons of them.

  Ricki could drink anyone under the table. She often won at a once-a-month Oregon Standard poker game and smoked cigars. If you smelled a cigar, it was Ricki, sneaking one in.

  “How am I? I think I’m drying up down there. Something to do with menopause. Other than that I’m doing well. You got the friggin’ job, Toni.”

  Relief, sweet and warm, rushed through my body. I would not have to quit. I would not be jobless. I would possibly not have a nervous breakdown. “I did?”

  “Yes. Surprised you applied.”

  “Had enough blood and carnage for the time being.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, you’ve had more than your fair share. I’ve hired Kim to be the garden writer. Shantay and Zoe to work as copy editors. Penny and Jessie for graphics and design. A bucket of other people.” She waved a hand. “You for homes and home décor, occasional garden if it hits you in the gut
. You walk by one and think, ‘That’s going to blow my mind off,’ then you do it. Otherwise, stick to homes.

  “Congratulations on your latest award, by the way. Is this going to be exciting enough for you? I’ve always seen you as a gal who would wear a holster and gun and would swing a sword if it were legal.”

  “I don’t like guns. I can see myself with a sword.”

  “Swords are powerful, aren’t they? I’d like one myself. We’re having a meeting today down at Butch’s Bar. Three o’clock. We’ll talk shop.” She crossed her arms. “You know that a lot of the boring stuff has already been decided, right? Here’s the history of the magazine up to date. It’s so exciting your estrogen levels will shoot up. Homes and Gardens of Oregon started with a committee. I hate committees—they make me drink whiskey—but it had to be done. Shantay and I and a bunch of upstairs drivel mongers talked a lot. We talked to the newsroom people, marketing, circulation, those irritating people in advertising. Met for several months in more brain-bouncing meetings to explore the viability.” She tapped her red nails together.

  “What should Homes and Gardens of Oregon look like? That was the first question. We decided it had to be local homes and gardens. Local, useful, entertaining, educating, beautiful. I wanted there to be a section at the end where men could see my dating profile and call it in, but that’s not going to work.”

  I laughed.

  “Anyhow, the focus groups are done, they loved it, got a kick to their butts about it. Another group thought the prototype was finer than sherry wine on a sweet autumn day. Had a huge survey that we sent to advertisers asking if they would advertise in it. Most of them said yes or maybe. Publisher had to decide, and she said yes, and the prigs on the top floor said yes, too. Boom boom boom, we were a go. So now we gotta get this magazine up and shooting from the hip.”

  “I’m ready to shoot from the hip.” I was so happy. I thought I was going to have to quit the paper, but now I wouldn’t have to. I could write about homes. No one would die or be shot.

  “Everyone’s got to get copy in freakin’ pronto. I’ve been planning this for months longer than I can possibly stand, I can feel my womanhood drying up like the Sahara desert, but now we’re launching Homes and Gardens of Oregon and you are our home lady. Remodels. Renovations. Redecorations. Remarkable crap, stuff like that.”

  “Thank you, Ricki.” Whew.

  “Hell, no. Thank you. Soon as I had your application in my ever-lovin’ hands I knew I was going to hire you, but I had to get through all the bull, giving everyone a fair shot, blow blow blow. Anyhow, finish up whatever wreaking havoc stories you’re working on by the end of the week, and we’re all moving to the west side of the building, in the corner, third floor, lots of windows so we don’t lose our flippin’ minds.”

  “Can’t wait. Police scanners, crime, racing out of the house at two in the morning have lost their shiny luster.”

  “You and I have been in the trenches for too long. We need to do something else. See you at three. I know you’re Russian, so you know how to drink vodka.” She turned away, then turned back. “That’s a stereotype. I hate stereotypes. Sorry. I’ll assume that you’re deleting that resignation letter that’s on your computer screen?”

  I smiled. “You’re quick.”

  “You have no idea.” She winked, teetered out on those heels.

  “How do you walk in those?”

  “I walk like I mean it, as all women should, that’s how I walk in these suckers. Walk like you mean it, Toni.”

  * * *

  I left Butch’s that night feeling a heck of a lot better. I walked like I meant it out to the curb.

  Ricki and I and the other Hooters of Homes and Gobblers of Gardens, as we nicknamed ourselves, brainstormed story ideas for the magazine. It was not going to be a large magazine at first—we’d need ad revenue to drive it—but we would feature at least one home a week.

  I told them my ideas: beach houses, city condos, houses from across the state, mountain retreats, tiny houses on wheels, houses decorated on a budget, high-end homes, homes filled with do-it-yourself types of projects, odd and original décor, etc.

  We would also feature artists and writers in their homes, their studios, and offices. We would have themes—how to decorate a master bedroom, how to redecorate a room with before and after shots, bathroom and kitchen remodels, kid friendly family rooms, etc. We would feature how-to stuff—how to decorate a porch for fall, how to decorate a home for Christmas, how to fix a dull patio, etc.

  People seemed to like my ideas, and we clinked our glasses together.

  Ricki asked me to write a column for the last page of the magazine each week, too. “Write something about homes. Make it personal, about you or another homeowner. Try not to be a sap. Try not to be cold. We want some bleepin’ heart and soul in this rag. Don’t yakkety-yak your mouth. God help me if you do. Six hundred words. Tops.”

  “I’m never a sap. I think I’m cold sometimes so I’ll have to tone it down. I’ll find my soul and dump it in. I won’t yak my mouth.”

  “I like you, Toni. You’re a kick buttocks reporter and I like your heels. You’re tough. I’ve seen you rip apart sanctimonious editors with a computer mouse stuck up their yin yang and stand up to arrogant, ego-driven men and their glass balls. Glad you’re here fighting in the fort with me.”

  “Thank you.” I was so happy. My nervous breakdown was inching away, I could feel it. “Seen the same with you. And I like you, too.”

  “Now you’re getting sappy.”

  “You started it, Ricki. Let’s see if you’re a real woman. Another vodka?”

  She was a real woman. We took cabs home after I walked like I meant it to the curb. Lucky I didn’t fall in the river off my dock. That would have been embarrassing, to haul myself up off the dock like a drowned rat.

  * * *

  I told Nick I got the job later that night. I had told him exactly why I wanted the job and what I was going to do—quit and become a hippie beach bum—if I didn’t get it.

  “You got the job?”

  “Yes.” I was so thrilled I almost clicked my heels together like a Russian American Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.

  Nick picked me up, hugged me, and spun me around. “Congratulations, baby. That’s great.”

  I kissed him, he kissed me back, and we had a celebratory romp in his bedroom.

  The next day there was a huge vase of flowers—irises, daffodils, roses—by my front door, a box of chocolates, and a stack of three new books I’d told him I was going to read next. One was a book we had planned to read together.

  That man.

  He knows me. And that is so romantic.

  * * *

  About two months after I moved into my tugboat, Nick and I met in the parking lot one night, about one o’clock in the morning. I’d had a long evening. There was an attack in northeast Portland and I’d covered it. Nick was getting out of his truck. He had a bruise under his eye.

  “Hi, Toni. Late night.”

  “For you, too.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you have a nice evening?”

  “I wouldn’t call it nice,” he drawled, and flashed me that grin that was invitational and yet ... kind. “And you?”

  “I wouldn’t call it nice, either.” I told him about the call.

  “Hard job you have.”

  “I’m not the one who comes home with bruises and cuts.” It made me feel sad, and worried, that he had been hit. Then it made me sad and worried that I was sad and worried. More chaos in my emotional department.

  “True. I hope you never do. I would find that upsetting if you did.”

  “You would?” That was interesting.

  “Yes.”

  “What happened to your cheek?”

  “Had a slight altercation with a drug dealer who didn’t want to go to prison.”

  “Darn them. They won’t agree to consequences, will they? How rude.”

  “Yes, rude.”
>
  Under the moon we smiled at each other. He was tall like a tree. A tight and muscled redwood.

  “Come on, I’ll walk you home.”

  I smiled. I liked his humor. “I’ll take you up on your offer.”

  He took my elbow when we headed down the stairs to the dock, as it had rained earlier and he didn’t want me to slip. Marty always did protective things like that, too.

  We chatted. He was circumspect about his work, but he did tell me they were running surveillance on a drug ring here in town.

  We stopped in front of my tugboat. “Thanks for walking me home.”

  “Anytime. Next time you’re coming in late, call me and I’ll walk you in.”

  “That’s chivalrous. Will you gallop in on a white horse?”

  “I think the white horse would bust through the dock, but I’ll be there. I’ll be the white horse.”

  “Thanks.” Maybe I would ride that white horse. What? Why did I think that?

  “Take my number down. And please call me, especially if you’re coming in late at night. The parking lot is deserted. Not safe.”

  “Okay.” He told me his number and I put it into my phone. Nick was so masculine. I’ve always liked men who are men. I liked his light blue eyes, the way he focused on me. And those cheekbones, slanted, sort of harsh, I wanted to ... no, I didn’t want to kiss them. I couldn’t. But that mouth ... I wanted to ... no, I couldn’t. It was easy, in a way, to miss his mouth, because the rest of his face was so compelling, but that lower lip, I wanted to ... no!

  As I was embarrassing myself, grinning like a lusty fool, Nick leaned in and kissed me. First on the cheek, his hand light on my waist. I didn’t move, but I took a deep breath. His mouth was warm. He smelled delicious. I felt protected.

  It was on instinct. Utter instinct and utter desire boinging about. I turned my head, put my hand on his shoulder, and that man needed no other encouragement. His lips came down on mine, both arms went around me, and he pulled me close into that wide and hard chest. It was like being cuddled and set on fire at the same darn time.

  I could hardly breathe. Seduction had whirled and twirled and landed.