The Language of Sisters

  “What do we do, Toni?” Skippy said, holding his head in my tugboat living room after that particular incident. “We can’t put Momma in a nursin’ home for the rest of her life. She loves her home here. She’s been here more than thirty freakin’ years, and this blippin’ river, all her friends are here, including all her animal friends. She’s got names for all the”—he swirled his hands around toward the sky—“birds and shit.”

  “If we take her home away, she’ll kill us,” Georgie said, wiping his eyes. “Don’t think she won’t. She will take aim and fire away.”

  “She does like her guns,” I mused. “She walks up and down the dock with a rifle sometimes. To her credit, she does tell everyone who passes that she won’t ever shoot animals.”

  “Heck, no. She wouldn’t,” Skippy assured me, aghast. “She’s an animal lover. She thinks they understand what she says.” He ran a hand over his bald head. “She says they understand her, too. Especially the whales.” He moaned, stood up, and started pacing.

  “The amount of money she makes us give away to her favorite animal shelters is ...” Georgie shook his head.

  “It’s embarrassin’ to say.” Skippy coughed. “Because of our ... uh ... business. Can’t be, like, softies. You know. Like we care about meowin’ cats or dogs or ...” He paused, exasperated. “Goats. She likes homeless goats. Who worries about homeless goats? But we gotta write a check to this animal place for homeless goats.”

  “And monkeys. Where are the damn monkeys again, Skippy?”

  “Africa. That’s where monkeys live. We sent 50K to monkeys in Africa last year. F-ing monkeys.”

  “But the gun thing,” I said. “Maybe she shouldn’t have guns?”

  “Even if she pulled the trigger, nothin’ would happen,” Georgie said. “We’ve taken all the bullets out of the house.”

  That was a relief. A clever move. “She’s fine right here for now. She’s happy. She loves everyone. Plus, her voice. Did she train to be in the opera?” Daisy’s voice was truly, utterly remarkable.

  “No. She trained as a take no prisoners bar owner who regularly beat up men who twisted her day in the wrong direction,” Georgie said.

  “I would rather die than put Momma in a nursin’ home,” Skippy said. “Beat me up, tie me with rope in a sack, add forty pounds of rocks, and throw me in the river.”

  Whew! He sure knew what to do.

  “She’s a hell of a woman. Hell of.” Skippy was a true admirer of his mother. “But we worry about her feet gettin’ cold. She’s little. When we were younger, her feet would get cold. Like ice.”

  “Icy,” Georgie said. “That’s why we buy her warm boots and lots of socks. For her cold feet.”

  “We all have your numbers and e-mails,” I said. “You come all the time to visit. If there’s a problem, if things get worse, then you might have to make another decision. But she eats, she bakes for everyone all the time, she’s clean, she’s comfortable ... let her stay for now.”

  I received a huge bouquet of flowers from Skippy (Slugger Episcopo) and a gift certificate for a fancy dinner from Georgie (Slash Episcopo).

  So Daisy is in houseboat number five. She sings at the edge of the dock—show tunes, opera, rock, drinking songs—and her voice is one of the best I’ve heard.

  But that sixth houseboat? The one next to Daisy’s? The manly, craftsman type with a black door and a wood deck all around at the end? The one with a boat named Sanchez One?

  That’s Nick Sanchez’s houseboat. Studly Nick.

  Marty.

  Nick.

  Marty.

  Marty.

  What a mess.

  * * *

  Nick Sanchez works for the Drug Enforcement Agency. He speaks fluent Spanish, learned from his father, and Italian, learned from his mother.

  Nick was adopted out of the Los Angeles child welfare system when he was a baby, hence the blond hair even though his father’s family is from Mexico. His father traces his lineage to Southern California back hundreds of years, when that part of America was Mexico. His mother’s family is from Italy, ironically, given my mother’s fits about Gino. Her family immigrated in 1950.

  Nick said to me one time, “My father is a tall, proud Mexican American who wears a cowboy hat and boots. My mother is clearly Italian, with a lot of black hair. She tries to feed anyone within ten feet of her. And I’m blond. We look like an advertisement for the United Nations.”

  His parents own the family’s cattle ranch in California, so Nick grew up roping cattle, riding horses, branding, taking care of other animals, hauling hay, and driving tractors and other farm equipment.

  Nick was undercover when I first met him, which explained why his blondish hair was to his shoulders and why he had a mustache and a goatee. At six five, he looked like a man who was the head of a drug ring, who’d been in his share of fights, and always won, someone you would be scared of. I was certainly scared of him.

  Then that undercover case wrapped up and he had his hair cut shorter, but not short, and he shaved off the goatee and mustache. When he went back undercover on a new case he shaved the hair off his head entirely and grew a beard and stuck an earring through his left ear. He looked, once again, scary.

  I would sometimes see him on the dock, pacing, on his phone. He would walk to the end of the dock, then back, head back out. He’d leave for days, or weeks, at a time.

  Before we got together, when I knew he was home and out on his back deck, I’d sneak below the window line of my bedroom, grab my binoculars, and spy on him. Yes, I’d spy on him with my binoculars. I am utterly embarrassed to say that I did. Pathetic.

  He never brought women home, which was divine, because I would have wanted to push them into the water. Which would be rude.

  Nick’s hair was longish now, no beard or goatee. Totally sex goddish.

  I tried not to think about what he did undercover, who he had to talk to, what he had to do, how dangerous it was, the threat to his life and safety. I couldn’t think about it.

  But it was always there, and I asked myself often if I could possibly ever marry a man who had such a dangerous job, even if I ever wanted to marry again, which I did not and would not. But why get emotionally involved with someone who was courting danger and death all the time?

  I tried extremely hard not to get emotionally involved with Nick.

  There were other reasons I tried hard not to get emotionally involved, which included my ever present avalanche of guilt.

  * * *

  It was Kozlovsky Cousins Night Out.

  Ellie and Valerie came and met me at my tugboat. Their eyes traveled up and down, head to foot, and they said, together, semi-aghast, as if I’d grown a second head, “You’re wearing that?”

  “What’s wrong with it?” But I knew. I so knew. It was old blue jeans and a blue T-shirt. “I don’t want to get dressed up.”

  Ellie said, “You’re a clothes horse. You gallop in clothes. You love them.”

  “Only for work, not for going out.” I didn’t go out much anymore, except for required family events. And certainly not to bars.

  “You cannot go in that,” Valerie said, her black blunt cut swinging around her ears. She was wearing a shimmery purple, low-cut shirt and a short black skirt. “What? Are you planning on gardening afterward? Maybe painting a house? Do you want to mop floors when we return?”

  “It’s not that bad.” It was.

  “Yes, it is bad.” Again, together.

  “Up you go, Toni,” Ellie said. She was in a blue wraparound dress and knee-high black boots.

  Ellie pushed me, none too gently, toward my stairs, and we all trooped up together to my closet. I envisioned the crew members in bunks who used to sleep there. I bet no one ever bugged them about their clothes.

  “I don’t want to get dressed up.” My tone was belligerent. I wanted to scold my own self for it.

  “Why not, Toni?” Ellie said, standing next to me in the crew quarters/my closet. “You wear pre
tty clothes to work. You haven’t wanted to go out and have fun for so long and then when we make you, when you can’t wiggle out, you don’t want to wear any of your pretty clothes.”

  “No reason,” I lied. I knew they knew I was lying.

  “There’s a reason,” they both said.

  “It’s that ...” I swallowed. “I don’t really want to go out.”

  “Toni, just this once,” Valerie said.

  “You know it’s not just this once.”

  “You’re right.” Valerie smiled. “It’ll be many times, hopefully.”

  “Everyone’s going,” Ellie said. “We want all the Kozlovskys to be together. We want you there.”

  I leaned against a wall and decided to tell them the truth. “I don’t know if I’m ready to have fun. I don’t know if I remember how. I don’t know if I should have fun. I don’t know if I deserve to have fun.”

  “You should have fun, you deserve fun,” Valerie said, those eyes pleading.

  “You’ll remember how to have fun, Toni,” Ellie said, her eyes filling up.

  They wrapped their arms around me and gave me a squeeze.

  “Hug tight!” Valerie said.

  “I’m hugging tight!” Ellie said.

  We talked a bit more, we cried a few tears, they unceremoniously yanked off my clothes, and I ended up in tight jeans; a red, flowing shirt; and high black heels. Ellie did my hair. She took it out of its messy ponytail, grabbed the dryer and a curling iron, and went to work. Valerie shoved a few chunky bracelets up my arm and dangly earrings.

  “Now you’re ready, hot stuff,” Valerie said.

  I studied myself in the mirror and wrestled with all my insecurities as they popped out and roared at me. There was me, all poofed and glammed up. The me I used to be. Before. “I don’t think I can do this.”

  “You can, Toni,” Valerie said. “Kick some butt. For you, not for anyone else. You.”

  “Try,” Ellie said, gentle. “Try it for one night.”

  “And you are so gorgeous.” Valerie crossed her arms. “Actually, get in your frumpy dumpy dull clothes. All the men will be after your tight tail.”

  That made me feel sick. I did not want any men after my tight tail. But ... I tilted my head and stared at myself in my full-length mirror. I had missed my high black heels. I had missed my necklaces with all the charms. It’s shallow. It’s silly. But I had missed getting dressed up for a night out. “Okay. I will try.” I took a shaky breath. “I can do this.” I shook my hands to get the nerves out. “I think.” I bent over, hands on knees, and my sisters bent over with me.

  You can do it, Toni.

  “I heard that, Ellie.”

  We’ll be with you the whole time, Toni.

  “I heard that, too, Valerie.”

  She grinned. “Let’s go.

  * * *

  On our way down the dock, laughing, we saw Nick.

  “There’s the Jolly Green Giant Sex God,” Valerie whispered. “Look at those hips. I’m a hip woman. I like a man who has hips I can grip. Like Kai’s. I like a man whose hips are enough to make me feel like a woman and he ... wow. He’s a hip man.”

  “You said he’s a DEA agent, right, Toni?” Ellie said. “I think I might want him to arrest me.”

  “If I wasn’t married, I would leap on him like a cheetah in heat,” Valerie said. “I see him and I want to salivate. Do I have any salivation on my chin?”

  I didn’t even search for salivation. “Shhh!”

  “I don’t think I can shhh,” Valerie said. “I want to moan and groan.”

  We walked a few more steps and Valerie called out, “Hi, Nick!” Under her breath, she said, “I think I could orgasm if I stared at him long enough, and I adore Kai.”

  “Hello, Nick!” Ellie said. Under her breath she said, “How have you been able to resist him, Toni?”

  I didn’t answer. Ellie turned to me, quick as a hot snake, and whispered, “Ohhhh. You didn’t tell us ...”

  “Hello,” Nick said. “Nice to see you again, Ellie, Valerie.”

  He stopped, smiled, shook hands. I didn’t know what to do with him. Shake hands? Flash him my boobs? No. Not appropriate. I smiled and said, “Hey, Nick.”

  “Toni.” He smiled at me, and I saw that familiar heat in those light blue eyes. “Going out?”

  “Yes,” I said. I remembered our last position in his bed. I am glad I am so flexible, but it made meeting those blue eyes difficult.

  “You look beautiful.”

  Dang. I wanted to stay home now. I wanted to stay home at Nick’s home and show off my flexibility.

  “She does, doesn’t she?” Valerie said, her voice a tad high pitched. “She didn’t want to get all fluffed up, but we stripped her down and shoved her jeans on and a bra and—oh shoot. I didn’t mean to say the bra part. I meant, we shoved her in jeans and a shirt.”

  I turned toward Valerie. What in the world?

  “But a bra under the shirt,” Valerie explained.

  What the heck?

  “Not over the shirt.”

  “What is wrong with you, Valerie?” I asked.

  “Nothing. Not at all.” She was starting to sweat. Mrs. Prosecutor was flustered. It was Nick. I wondered if she having her orgasm. “I was clarifying.”

  “There’s no clarifying needed, Valerie,” I said.

  “No,” Ellie said, “It’s a given. The bra part. Red.”

  I turned to Ellie. I was beginning to feel like I was being whipsawed. “Have you lost your mind?”

  “No. Still here.” She tapped her head.

  “Let’s go,” I said. “Bye, Nick.”

  “Bye, Toni. Have fun.” He smiled. Now I really wanted to stay home with him. At least I wasn’t Valerie or Ellie, gaping at Nick and talking about red bras.

  I grabbed Ellie’s elbow as Nick walked away and dragged her up the dock, my black heels tapping. I stopped. Turned back around.

  “Are you coming?” I hissed.

  “What?” Valerie asked, taking her gaze away from Nick.

  “Are you coming?” I hissed, once again.

  “My God, Toni. Not now!” Valerie snapped, then realized what I was talking about. “Ah. Yes. I’m coming ... up the dock, to the stairs. Not the other coming. Right-o.”

  “Get your tongues back in your mouths,” I told them as we climbed the stairs to the parking lot.

  “I think I almost orgasmed,” Valerie said.

  “I almost forgot I was engaged,” Ellie said. “Gall. Anxiety attack. That word. Engaged.” She dug in her purse, brought out the brown bag, and blew into it.

  “You should date him,” Valerie said. “Why aren’t you? Then you could tell us everything so we could live vicariously through you.”

  I climbed the stairs, hurried to my car. Ellie panted into the bag, wobbling across the parking lot. Valerie gasped.

  “You are!” Valerie said, toddling after me on her high heels. “Oh my goodness and badness and craziness, Toni Kozlovsky, you are sleeping with the Jolly Green Giant Sex God. I am so happy for you and why didn’t you tell us?”

  “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to talk about it.”

  “Well, that notion is over,” Valerie said. “I want to hear all about it.”

  Ellie pulled the bag away from her mouth and leaned against my car. “Well done, sister. You have bagged a stud. Get it? I’m breathing into a bag and you have bagged a stud.”

  “Please, I’ll tell you, but don’t tell Mama and Papa. They’ll name a special after him at the restaurant. It’ll probably be called ‘Welcome To The Family, Nick.’ Or they’ll make an announcement in church, or start calling him their future son-in-law...”

  “They’d do all that and more,” Valerie said. “Mama would be talking to the minister at the church to reserve a date.”

  “She’d be at Aunt Polina’s florist shop that afternoon picking out roses,” I said.

  “And she’d probably start ordering the invitations all by herself,” E
llie said. “Oh no. Just thinking about invitations ...” The bag deflated, inflated.

  “Yes. All that. Can’t get her hopes up,” I said.

  I felt guilty. It felt like a black blanket around me. Two reasons. One from the past and one because I was sleeping with Nick, and here I was, all dressed up with heels and hair and we were definitely “going out,” and I hadn’t invited Nick, although Valerie’s husband and Ellie’s fiance would be there.

  But as Valerie drove toward downtown Portland and my sisters and I chatted and chortled and Ellie put down the paper bag, it felt right, too. The windows were open, we were laughing, I could see the stars, I would be with my crazy cousins soon, and finally, finally I felt like living. For one night.

  “Give us all the salacious and juicy details,” Valerie said.

  “It’s been over three months for Nick and me... .” I said.

  They cackled and we high-fived each other and they told me I needed to talk to Zoya and Tati about new lingerie, then they pried for more details, few of which I gave, and we laughed some more.

  * * *

  The Kozlovskys went to a place called Dolly Ann’s. It was famous in Portland. Dolly Ann was a man who dressed as a woman, and he sang down the house every night. Dolly Ann wore sparkling dresses on his six foot two frame, with a towering blond wig; a matching, golden, gem-stoned headdress; and glittery makeup. It was rumored that he was on stage in New York for years.

  It was rumored that no one knew his real name.

  It was rumored he was gay and had a husband.

  It was rumored that he worked as a female model for years.

  None of that was true. How do I know? I know because I’m a reporter and we know. The dull truth?

  Dolly Ann’s name was Johnny Ohlsson. Johnny had a wife named Margie. Margie was a high school biology teacher. They had five children. They’ve been married twenty years. They lived in the suburbs in a sprawling white house with a picket fence, no kidding, and a huge yard for the kids to run around on. Oftentimes truth is dull.

  My cousins already had a table waiting for us. We had wine, clinked our glasses together, and shouted out, as we always do, “To family. To the Kozlovskys!”