“Do you think he can?”
She tapped her red nails together. “Tough question. Maybe. Doubtful. We went on a climb this weekend and I beat him to the top, but we’ll see. I don’t like men my own age or older. So dull. A lot of them are retired. Honestly, I could not handle having a man home all the time. You wake up, there he is. You come home from work, there he is. Weekends, all day, there he is. Like slugs that you can’t get rid of with slug killer.
“Plus, a lot of them have health issues, and for some reason they think I’m going to be fascinated by their aching shoulder, their arthritis, their urinary problems. They want someone to take care of them. I don’t want to be a caregiver, I want to be a woman. I want a man who is younger than me who has stamina and vigor and is interesting and can do sexual gymnastics.”
“Wow. Sexual gymnastics.” I thought of Nick. It’s important to be nimble.
“Yes. He has to be flexible.”
“This one is a flexer, then? Like Gumby?” I linked and twisted my arms and legs together.
“I am exploding with hope. How’s your column coming along?”
“Haven’t written it yet.”
“You friggin’ kidding me? It’s due in two hours.”
“I’ll write it.”
“I’m getting out of your way. E-mail me that column in two hours or I’ll fry you alive myself.”
Living on a Tugboat, Talking About Homes
BY TONI KOZLOVSKY
I met a girl yesterday named Serenity.
Her real name, she told me, was Carole. She had been named after her grandma. “Carole didn’t seem to fit and I’m trying to find serenity, so I changed my name.”
We met in a coffee shop. I was trying to hide in the corner so I could write, and so was she. We shared the corner and started talking. I asked her about her backpack. It was green, stuffed, with two tennis shoes tied to the outside and a water bottle.
She flipped her dreadlocks back and said, “My backpack is my home.”
Serenity decided, after going to a famous East Coast prep school, that she was burned out. She graduated, and instead of heading off to college, she headed out the door.
“It blew my mother’s mind. Kaboom and boom. My father was so freaked out I didn’t want to go to college, I don’t think he closed his mouth during our entire conversation. But I had to get out. I had to figure out what I wanted to do. I don’t even know if I want to go to college, but what I do know is that I can’t live in a small and wealthy and entitled world anymore.”
I asked her where she’d been. She started off in Boston and was working her way, by bus, by train, on foot, around the country. “I’ve explored twenty states, and I’m going to explore all fifty.”
How long had she been traveling and working? “Eighteen months. I work, live cheap, then move on with my house on my back.”
“What’s in the house?” I asked her.
Surprisingly, not a lot of clothes. What Serenity cherished were her books and notebooks, the gifts that had been given to her by people she met, beaded bracelets, an owl necklace, a knitted shawl, a pair of thick socks with peacocks on them. She had a small collection of rocks from a Florida beach, a totem pole from a reservation, and earrings made of wood from a national park.
“I have a jacket, two sweatshirts, jeans, T-shirts, but what I’ve tried to do is pare down to what’s valuable to me. What I want to have around me.
“Months ago I threw out three shirts that I wore when I was battling anorexia. Now I eat when I’m hungry and don’t worry. I threw out a picture of a boyfriend who was mean to me. I don’t know why I stayed with him, but I know now I shouldn’t have. I gave the pearl earrings he gave me to a homeless girl in Baltimore. I tossed out my red tennis shoes that I wore out from so much walking, but I kept one red shoelace to remind me of my journey. Every day I wear a flowered brooch my dead grandma Carole gave me, because I love her and miss her and I feel like I’m walking with her.
“People might see junk, but it’s not junk to me.”
Serenity has pared down her home to a backpack.
When I asked her if I could write about her for this column, she flipped back her dread locks, said yes, sure, and told me to tell you all one thing, “Find your own home. Find yourself.”
So there it is, friends.
From Serenity.
* * *
I called and got a photographer to the coffee shop. He took photos of a smiling Serenity, her backpack, and her treasures.
I bought her a coffee card to take with her, and she took off. She was catching a train to Montana.
It had a lot of appeal....
* * *
I had dinner with Charles and Vanessa, spaghetti and meatballs, then we headed out to the dock when we heard Daisy singing as the sun went down, the rays casting white sparkles over the ruffles of the river. She sang “Think of Me” and “All I Ask of You” from The Phantom of the Opera.
“Her voice,” Vanessa marveled.
“Pitch perfect,” Charles said.
Lindy stood in front of her houseboat, and Jayla came out and sat in one of her chairs.
“I do not want to leave here,” Vanessa said.
“I don’t either,” I said. “The river. The animals. The blue heron. Daisy and her free concerts. You all.”
“I feel the same,” Charles said. “We have a mix. And we all get along. This is home.”
“Yes,” Vanessa said, wrapping an arm around Charles and tilting her head up at her husband. “This is home.”
Though I knew Vanessa loved their houseboat, I knew she wasn’t talking about the houseboat when she talked about home. She kissed her husband on the cheek. He smiled, gentle, sweet, the smile of a husband in love with his wife of many decades.
Nick wasn’t home. He was at work busting who knows what kind of scary, dangerous people.
Be safe, Nick. Please be careful, watch out, don’t get hurt.
Don’t die. Don’t die. Don’t die.
Daisy’s voice rose and rose ... the crystal clear notes swirling all around us, the whole dock, before they landed on the tips of the waves of the blue-gray river and were pulled toward the mysteries of an endless ocean.
No one clapped when she was done. She doesn’t like people to clap. She sat down on the dock and kicked her feet in the water as the sun went down, golden globe, swishing purple, flowing orange, dashes of pink. “Hello, whales,” she called out. “Sing to me, sing to me, whales!”
The sun continued its journey down, the rays casting white sparkles over the ruffles of the river. The whales didn’t sing.
So Daisy sang Elvis Presley’s “Hound Dog.”
* * *
I sat in my two-seater kayak that night, in the river. I rowed it out so that I was in front of my tugboat. I knew I could never have anyone else in that kayak with me.
I heard Nick’s footsteps. He saw me in my kayak and walked aboard my tugboat to my back deck.
“How are you doing, Toni?” He was concerned. He was sweet. I bet he got it from his mother.
“Better now that you’re home.” The river didn’t feel so lonely.
He smiled. I rowed back in, attached my kayak to my tugboat, and Nick leaned down, pulled me up, and gave me a cuddly bear hug.
* * *
Of all things. Marty, an oncologist, was diagnosed with bone cancer.
Cancer in his bones.
We cried as if our eyes were made of faucets turned all the way on.
We told his parents, gently. His father crumbled and had to be taken to the hospital, Marty riding in the back of the ambulance with him. He had passed out, his blood pressure sky high. His mother had a heart attack within the week. My parents, for once, were silent, tears streaming down their faces.
My sisters heard me in their heads when I said, Marty is sick. They called. They cried.
I told Dmitry. We told no one else in the family until we had to. When did we “have” to tell them? Chemo time, as Marty’s h
air would fall out like everyone else’s.
My family went into overdrive to help us and to give support to Marty’s parents, as did our church, which we had not attended for a while. They had a nightly meal rotation done within hours for us and Marty’s parents.
They did yard work for us and for Marty’s parents. They came and cleaned our homes when we were at the hospital.
They made three quilts. One for Marty, one for his parents, one for my parents.
Prayers were said in church.
I hugged Marty every day, all night. I never wanted to let go.
I have learned that what we want from life, and what we get, are often two very different things.
* * *
“Hi, Toni.”
“Valerie, hi.” I was drinking coffee on my deck. Third cup. Seven o’clock. I’d been up since five. I watched Dixie, my great blue heron, fly by. A second later, Mr. and Mrs. Quackenbusch climbed up on my deck, quacked a hello, and settled in. Was that Anonymous soaring overhead? I squinted in the sun. “How are you and how’s the trial?”
“Trial is going my way. Even the defense attorney knows. Hey, Bill Kortrand isn’t stupid. He knows his client is as guilty as a possum caught in your trash can. There’s no way out.”
“And the Barton family?”
“Let’s put it this way. Last week the judge called my team and me back to his chambers, along with the defense team, and questioned the security that had been provided for us.”
“Even the judge thinks there’s a problem.” I shivered.
“He knows he’s got a psycho on his hands, and the psycho’s DNA is sitting on the benches in his courtroom.”
“You have to be careful.”
“I am. We’re all a little freaked out, but I will not, I will not, allow this family, this killer, to intimidate me. I will do my job, which is to make sure that Tyler never, ever gets out of jail and hurts anyone else. I’ve got the families of three of the victims in the courthouse, every day, watching. I will not let them down.”
“I know you won’t, Valerie. I haven’t told you in a while that I truly admire your courage and your dedication and your hard work. You are one heckuva warrior woman.”
“Same to you from me. I love you.”
“Love you, too. Watch out, Valerie.”
* * *
The stepped-up security did not prevent the Barton family from tossing a dead cat on Kai’s truck at the grocery store. They must have known about the new security cameras at Valerie’s house and waited until Kai left home and followed him. They were following a captain on the police force. It was absolutely sick.
They were absolutely sick.
* * *
Lindy came over the next night to sit on my deck with me and drink wine and talk books.
I asked her how her day was.
“Fine. Two clients. My vagina is a little tired. The second guy is overly enthusiastic.”
“What does he do for a living?” I was always amused by her answers.
“He’s an Oregon state senator.”
“I’ll bet I can guess who it is. Chad Tucker.”
She smiled. “I never reveal my clients’ names unless you guess it right on the nail the first time.”
“I don’t like him. Sanctimonious. Always quoting God. Family values.”
“He has no family values, trust me. He’s a pig. He wants me to wear black leather all the time and do this dominatrix stuff. He has all the gear—handcuffs, a whip he makes me use, fishnets in a black briefcase he brings.”
“He can get all that stuff in there?”
“He’s an excellent packer.”
“You need a photo of that guy.”
“Oh, honey. I have better.” She paused, for dramatic effect. “I have—wait for it—videos.”
“Really?” I laughed.
“Yep. They’re on my computer, in my safety deposit box at the bank, and with my attorney.”
“And why do you have the videos?”
“For safety.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean a working girl has to do what a working girl has to do.” She would not say more, but I got it. “And how are you doing, Toni?”
I told her about work, the articles I was working on.
“What about Nick?”
I closed my eyes. I was so confused. Nick. Marty. Nick. Marty. “I’m screwed up.”
“Because you’re in love with Nick?”
“Yes. No. Trying not to. It feels wrong.”
“It’s not wrong, friend.”
“I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what I should and should not feel.”
“When I don’t know what I want, I read.”
“When I don’t know what I want, I get in my bathtub and eat junky sweets, like licorice. Last night.”
“I hope you can fix this with Nick. I do, friend. He’s a superb human being. Other men aren’t like Nick, super stud with character.”
“I’m a wreck.”
“We’re all a wreck. We’re all a mess sometimes. I like you, Toni.”
“Thank you. You too.”
“You’re honest. You’re always thinking. You have morals. You don’t judge me.”
“If I judged you, I’d have to judge myself and I’d hang myself way lower than you.”
We sat on the deck and watched the waves. I like having a friend who agrees we don’t need to talk all the time.
“Life. Darn near breaks your heart, doesn’t it?” Lindy said. “Have you read Slaughterhouse-Five? You have? Let’s discuss it while slugging down another glass of wine. I would also like your opinion on John Steinbeck.”
Another glass of wine couldn’t hurt.
* * *
Dmitry called, and we ended up talking about our father.
“We don’t always get along, but I do love him, Toni.”
“I know you do.”
He choked up. “It’s always been like this. Even as a kid, I sensed something between us. It was like a rock. And sometimes I didn’t want to be with him, I pulled away, I was scared of him. I remember hiding from him so many times.
“And then that anger, in my teens toward him. I didn’t get it. I still don’t get it. It would come out of nowhere. He was always kind to me. He came to all of my games. He was the one who bought the camera for me. He taught me how to cook in the restaurant. But why was I afraid of him? He knows, I know he knows.”
I was sure he did, too.
“Why won’t he tell me?”
“He doesn’t want you to know.”
“That’s the obvious answer, but why? In my dream last night I saw that gold locket again, but this time I opened it up, and nothing was there. It was empty.”
“No pictures?”
“No. But then the locket disappeared and I saw a knife and it slashed through the air and I saw blood. It was on me, warm, sticky. The dark shadow was there. Looming. I heard screaming.”
“Geez, Dmitry. No wonder you can’t sleep.”
“My dreams can be a problem. I wrote a poem about it. I titled it ‘Nightmares in a Locket.’ Want to hear it?”
I did. It was on his blog the next day. He played his guitar while he read the poem. People loved it, though it was dark, piercing, the arching shadow of death ever present.
The locket represented love gone forever.
17
What I learned when Marty was dying is that you discover a lot about a person’s true character when they’re on their way out.
Marty worked until two months before the end. He had the most advanced medical care the world had to offer. He had friends, specialists, all over the country, who wanted to help him. They flew in, they studied his charts, they held conferences with each other and with Marty’s doctors here.
No one could save him.
It was not to be.
They cried.
I cried.
His parents cried all the time.
Amidst the tests, treatments, proc
edures, Marty still worked at the hospital with his patients. He wanted to help them as long as he could. He lived for that job, to help others in the worst times of their lives. In some sad way, it helped that he was bald, that he was going through chemo. Marty would cry with his patients. They knew he understood them.
Now and then he would get chemo right next to them, and they would play chess or Monopoly, talk.
“I have to work, Toni, as long as I can. I cannot abandon my patients. Being a doctor was what I was born to do. Helping people is what I was born to do.”
“But, Marty, you need to rest.”
“Rest? I have not lived my life resting, and I won’t start now.” He hugged me close, then said, “Toni, there is no changing the end here. I’m an oncologist. I know. I want my life to matter to my patients, to me, so I need to work. Please, Toni. Please understand.”
He was anguished. Torn. Dying. “I understand, Marty. I do.” I did. I understood his passion, his dedication, I understood how he felt about his patients. I was not going to stand in the way of him doing what he wanted and needed to do.
“I love you, and you have a nice butt, Toni. Have I told you that lately?”
“Last night.” I sniffled.
“And your breasts, they’re so ... full. Full and seductive. See, even now, I want those breasts in my hands. Come here, sweetheart.”
I laughed through the tears.
Though he worked, Marty spent time with me, too. He always made me feel important, special. He looked at me with love and lust.
One night he sprayed whip cream and a squirt of chocolate sauce on my stomach in bed, then said as he licked it off, “You sure took a long time agreeing to date me.”
“I did.”
“I was in hell. I thought you’d meet someone else and run off to the wilds of Montana and my life would be over.”
“And here we are. Whip cream and chocolate sauce.”
“Here we are. That smile of yours. See how you’re doing that? Smiling? That turns me on.”
“Let’s see how turned on you are.”
He flipped over. He was mightily turned on. I sprayed whip cream on him.
One day we took a drive and watched the sunset. “My favorite thing to do is be with you, Toni.”