I pulled away only when the vague, distant part of my brain knew that I was going to rip off my clothes in front of my tugboat’s door in about thirty seconds.
I couldn’t even meet his eyes, so I looked down, his arms still around me, my hands and my forehead on his chest. I could feel his heart thunking, mine racing at full speed.
“That was the best kiss of my entire life,” Nick said.
I started to laugh. I couldn’t help it.
“And that’s the absolute best thing you could have said to me, Nick.”
“It’s true.”
With all my willpower, as I wanted to do a naked straddle with him, I turned and opened the door.
“Now will you go out with me?” I heard the laughter in his voice.
“Maybe.” I turned and smiled at him.
“Please?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“How about Friday?”
“I’ll call you. I have your number.”
I shut the door, then leaned against it. Whew. He was going to be impossible to handle.
Maybe you shouldn’t try to handle him then, a voice inside my head said. Just let go.
After that kiss, though I fought it, I started to really like Nick Sanchez.
Rancher. Cowboy. DEA man. Neighbor.
And he liked books.
I was done for, and I knew it.
* * *
The next day I gently told William Lopez, the man who hired me years ago, that I was going to work at Homes and Gardens of Oregon.
“The hell you are,” he said, jabbing a finger at me.
“I can’t do it anymore, William.”
“The hell you can’t.” He leaned back in his chair. We had a staring war. He sighed. “Will you come back when you get bored writing about kitchen faucets and fancy ovens and”—he waved a hand in the air—“other mundane and useless homemaker trivia?”
“I will.”
He sighed again. “You’re my favorite reporter, Kozlovsky.”
“I can still be your favorite reporter.”
“No. Now you’re on my bad side.”
I smiled. “I’ve loved working for you.”
“You’re making me emotional, Kozlovsky. Get out. Right now.”
I gave him a hug. I pretended not to hear him sniffle.
* * *
“When are you coming home?” I asked him, holding the phone in my hand. I was up in the wheelhouse, on the bench, the pillows from all over the world crowded around me, soft and silky.
“I’ll be back for the wedding.”
“And then?”
“Travel. Wandering. Walking.”
“Will you ever stop?” It was dark out, the stars hidden, the clouds churning.
“When I can get her, and the blood, and the blood in her hair, out of my head. When I know what happened and when I know if my memories are real or if I’m losing my mind. When I know where I’m from. When I’m at peace. When I’m done.”
“Are you anywhere near peace?”
“No. It’s further away than ever. I’m seeing the white dog again.”
Shoot. White Dog flashback was back again. I leaned my head back on my deck chair, feeling unbearably sad for him. White Dog flashback was upsetting.
“I heard that scream. I saw the dog crash into a wall. He’s dead. I think it might be me screaming, but I don’t know, I don’t know who did it, I think it was him. That shadow, that man. Maybe my father ... I don’t know.” He stopped. I knew he was fighting for control. “I don’t know if it’s real or if it’s my imagination.”
“I think it’s real, I do.”
“What are they hiding from me? I know there’s something.”
“I don’t know.”
We talked for another half hour. He wanted to know how I really was. “Tell me the truth,” he said, so I told him.
“I can’t wait to see you.”
“You, too. Night, Toni. I love you.”
“Love you, too.” When I hung up I felt the guilt again, brick hard, lying on my chest, stomping on me like a thousand Communist boots.
The lie started when I was ten. Right before we left Moscow. I lied to him by omission. By not telling him what I knew.
My parents told him they adopted him from an orphanage in Moscow the night before we left.
It’s a lie.
I know it because of the blood.
* * *
I popped in on Valerie’s murder trial. I sat with Ellie, two rows behind Valerie, stern and authoritative in her blue suit and white blouse. She did have on some women-power high blue heels. Shamira Connell, my colleague from the Oregon Standard, was writing about the trial. She was one of my favorites. Shamira wasn’t that friendly. She wasn’t that social. She took herself, and her work, seriously, and she was an awesome reporter.
We studied the Barton family gang. Valerie was right. They hated her. Their attention on her so intense, the way they wouldn’t stop glaring at her, how they shifted when she spoke, was positively frightening.
I felt that chill again, like a warning.
“They want to kill her,” Ellie said.
“They do. They would if they could get away with it.”
She nodded. “Listen for her carefully.”
Yes. I would listen for the Sabonis family gift, completely scientifically inexplicable, but there. I would listen for Valerie in my head.
I actually shivered, the snake back, cruising up and down my spine, the gun-toting, weasel-trapping, tobacco-spitting Barton family reverberating with hate and violence.
Ellie squeezed my hand. “I have a feeling we’re going to hear from her.”
“Me too.”
“Good God,” Ellie murmured.
* * *
Ellie and I went to Valerie’s house for dinner, at her invitation. “I need my sisters,” she told us. I could see why after the Barton family freak show.
Valerie’s house is like a rainbow. Color everywhere. Stuff everywhere.
We walked in, pulled out the wine and flowers we brought, and Kai and the kids arrived with pizza.
“We ordered your favorites, Aunt Toni and Aunt Ellie,” Ailani said, her braids flying as she ran in.
“Pep e zonni,” Koa said, jumping up and down. He was wearing a monster hat with red horns. It’s fun to be three years old. “And we got big salamis.”
“You got us some big salamis?” I asked.
“Yes!” Koa jumped again. “I got a big salami! Daddy got a big salami. See?” He pointed at the salami on the pizza. “We got big salamis.”
Kai grinned. He was wearing a red flowered Hawaiian shirt. I was always struck by the difference to his captain’s uniform. “Why does this kid tell all my secrets?” He pulled Valerie straight into his arms and kissed her. “Want to see my big salami, sweetheart?”
Koa clapped his hands. “You eat the big salami, Momma, eat it!”
Too, too funny.
“Yum,” my sister said. “This big salami is delicious.” Kai laughed and kissed her again.
We poured wine and milk and we all clinked our glasses together. “To Family,” we cheered. “To the Kozlovskys.” Bottoms up.
During dinner Ailani whined to Ellie and me, “Mom said I can’t come to watch her trial.”
“That’s something you can skip,” I said. “It’s boring. Plus, you have school.” What I was really thinking was, Heck, no. You are not going anywhere near the Barton family. They do not need to know Valerie has a kid.
Ailani sighed and flipped back her black braids, so dramatic. Then she fiddled with her widow’s peak, like her mother does. “But school is boring. Math. Reading. Writing. I want to learn about forensics.”
Forensics? From any other ten-year-old kid, that would be an impressive word, but I wasn’t surprised with Ailani.
“I am also working on an important project,” she said.
“What is your project?” Ellie asked.
Ailani opened a blue folder. “I’
m taking the fingerprints of every kid in the fifth grade. See? The fingerprints are right there, and Mom gave me a camera. Old camera. You snap the picture and out comes the photo. After I do their fingerprints, I put their picture above it.” She scowled. “Some of these kids, like Caleb, see, he didn’t take the picture part seriously. That’s why he’s making a funny face.” She turned the page and her face scowled further. “And see this girl, Annalise? I don’t like her. She had to brush her hair and put on lipstick before I took her picture. People should take crimes seriously. It’s not a beauty competition.”
“But your friends haven’t committed a crime, have they?” Ellie asked.
“No, not yet,” she stressed, contemplating that boring fact. “But they could in the future, and that’s why I need them to be serious when I take their picture for the mug shot.”
“This kid looks serious.” I tapped a boy’s picture.
“That’s Alex!” She stomped her foot. So irritating! “He’s always smiling and laughing, and when he made a frowny face for his picture everyone thought it was funny. It’s not funny. Crime isn’t funny.”
“I think you’re going to make an excellent detective or attorney or forensic scientist, Ailani,” Ellie said.
“Me too,” she said. “And I take crime seriously!” She made a humph sound. “I need to take your fingerprints, Aunt Toni. You too, Aunt Ellie. Anyone can be pushed to commit a crime at any time. You never know. Squish your fingers into the ink... .”
We let her take our fingerprints and our photos. Ellie and I did our best to take our crime seriously. Later that night, when everyone else was in bed, Valerie, Ellie, and I sat on the back deck, on the stairs, together. We held hands.
Listen for me.
“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.”