Let Me Explain You (41 page)

“Hemp.”

“Never hemp, hemp leaves fibers. Nothing coated in wax, not polyester. Linen—that's the only kind of butcher's twine you want.” She showed her how to use the hole in the pot to dispense the twine. Stavroula wrapped it around the ribs at the base, cleaning up the meat. July tugged the twine, hard, the muscle in her bare upper arm blinking.

Stavroula said, “We just frenched.”

It got her a laugh.

They made a paste of olive oil, coriander, garlic, black pepper, thyme, salt.

From her bag, Stavroula removed the final instrument, a Bundt mold. She instructed: Tie the ribs of each rack together with the twine. Now curve the two racks around the middle to make a semicircle and wind the twine three times around. That's it, see how simple? They took turns rubbing the paste on the meat. They placed it in the oven at 130 degrees.

“Lamb lacks internal fat,” Stavroula said. “The way you mess it up is to cook it too high too fast. It demands patience.”

Stavroula said, “My father taught me that.”

They watched the oven. July took off the green apron. She wore a sleeveless yellow shirt with a low neckline, which Stavroula couldn't help but think she had put on because she was coming over. There were many bangles around her arm and layers of gold necklaces hanging at her throat. It was a throat like a very pretty glass pitcher that Stavroula, in her childhood, knew not to reach for.

July brought them glasses of orange juice. The juice was cold, sweet, and sharp. Stavroula drank hers and asked for more.

Stavroula said, “What was it like when you lost your mom?”

July, searching for words. “Afterward, you're a different person.”

“That feels true already.”

July nodded. “They'll find him.”

Stavroula was no help to the police, because she could not accurately describe her father. Her father's eyes were brown, but the brown of hazelnut or the brown of liver? His hair was black and streaked with gray, but was it really as short as she said? Was his nickname Steve? Was there actually another nickname that better described him, that he had never been able to share with his children? Only the inoculation scar on his arm, only that was definite in her mind. She could trace it with her finger in the air and make it appear just like that. The same ridges, the same circular outline as a bottle cap. The police would find her father immediately if they could just go around matching the scar in her mind to the scar on his arm.

She was not going to use the word
suicide
, not even with July. That wasn't what happened. One thing was true, it was her father who had taught her about resilience.

She could not face the thought of him dying alone.

They sat together at the counter, drinking juice and watching the minutes on the timer. “I'm sorry,” Stavroula said, “about the menu. Sometimes I forget I'm just like him.”

“Stevie, you're not like anyone.”

Stavroula shook her head. “I can't help what I cook, it just comes to me. I can't water it down. I'm sorry if I embarrassed you.” What came to mind was an expression, handed down by her father—Εφαγα τονκόδμο να δε βρω.
I ate the whole world to find you. I've been searching everywhere for you.

July smiled, kindly, but as if maybe she had been embarrassed. Then she reached up and rubbed the edges of Stavroula's hair where it was shortest. “It's funny,” she said. “It was like seeing a reflection of yourself, only in food.”

Stavroula surprised herself by leaning into July's hand, into the hospitality of it. What was so unexpected, delightful, was that July's palm opened. Stavroula closed her eyes, and the faint whirring of the oven sounded like it was coming from the touch. July's hand moved across her hair to just below her earlobe, grazing her neck with a single nail. “You're good at what you do, Stevie.”

She was a sucker for flattery. Just like her father. She opened her eyes.

July took back her hand. “You're the only zealot I've ever been fond of.”

“I want everyone to see the real you. The one I see.”

July stood eye to eye with Stavroula, the oven beeping and neither of them moving to check it. “The one you see.”

Stavroula nodded. Fond was good. Fond was a start.

July perched her arms on Stavroula's shoulders, she pulled her close. The hard, cool jewelry, July's slim neck the smoothness of wax paper, her solid arms. Stavroula was expecting something delicate, like the body of a game hen, and got something even more delicate, a quail. Except for those arms, which both drew her in and kept her out.

Then the overwhelming feeling: this was kindness. A friend, giving her shelter.

Tomorrow, she would be on her own. Would have to face her loneliness, once again.

Would go back to the menu, start from scratch until she got it right.

Stavroula pulled herself from July, began poaching the eggs.

Some minutes later, they were dipping crusty bread into the drippings and licking their fingers.

Stavroula pulled up to the diner. It was five in the morning, still dark. Just a few hours before her father's funeral, which they had all agreed to observe. The wet pavement glowed pink from the Gala's neon sign. Someone was standing across the street. Stavroula could tell who: Litza, nocturnal as usual. Her arms were crossed, and her hand trembling a cigarette. A blinking amber streetlight lit up only part of her face, as if the darkness were protecting the rest. Litza crossed, leaned into Stavroula's driver's-side window. She had been crying and the crying had made her angry—not the other way around.

Still, Stavroula said, “You want to get in?”

They sat in the chilly darkness with the windows down, Litza taking puffs of a second cigarette every now and then. Her eyes glassy. “I need coffee.”

“Know a good diner?”

This made Litza snort. Then, “Let's get away from this fucking place.”

They drove.

“Nothing's open.”

Stavroula stopped in the middle of an empty intersection and reached back for the paper plate covered in tinfoil. Litza picked off some of the lamb. She nodded in appreciation. “You got really good. He taught you right.”

“Thanks.”

She lit another cigarette and closed her eyes. “At least one of us learned something.” She meant it, she wasn't
Digging around your palm with a spoon
, as their father would say. For the first time in a long time, she didn't sound bitter.

They went to the playground where their father had taken them a couple times when they were young. On both occasions, he sat on the bench for fifteen minutes while they played, him all bunched shoulders and coat, smoking a Saratoga. He told them
No, push each other on the swings, first one and then the other. It can't be both at once.
The first outing they just sat there waiting, but he never got up. The second time, Stavroula pushed Litza and Litza pushed her back. They never got very high before one had to slide off the seat, take a turn at pushing. Still, they sang
eeska deeska bella
, and having to get down did not deter them. Their father, he didn't understand the bastardized Greek rhyme. It was like a secret between the two sisters.

Litza said, “When I have a daughter, I'm going to take her to the park every day. I'm going to teach her things we never learned. And give her everything we never got.”

“You want a girl?”

“It's not about want. I can feel her pushing to come out. She's fighting her way to life.”

Stavroula found herself admiring this. Though Litza would be a terrible mother.

They drove on. Litza took a drag with her eyes shut.

Without intending to, Stavroula took them to their father's first diner. The Gala 0. She slowed but did not park. There was nothing to see. It was not a diner anymore, not even a salt shed. Just paved over. Extra parking for the car dealership next door. The salt shed had been here when they were young, but by then it was a pulled-pork joint. Small as they had been, they thought the building so tiny. That didn't stop them from feeling awe: this was the place where their father first dreamed of bringing them home.

Stavroula put the car in park in the middle of the road. They stared at the lot. Every few minutes, the traffic light ahead changed from green to red.

“Stavroula. He's dead.”

“We don't know that.”

Litza turned her face to where a tattered yellow tape, tied to a post, was flapping in the wind. Stavroula put her hand on Litza's leg. She had not done that maybe ever. She saw something else come over Litza's face, a flicker. Too jagged and abrupt to be a smile.

They ended up at the airport in long-term parking and watched the sun rise. This was how their father had entered the country, and where they entered too. He came with three hundred dollars in his pocket, a beard, and a wife. Was he leaving with more, or less? At least a bright cloudless day, a pink sky. It brought the girls out of the car, though it was cold, and they perched on the hood and tracked the planes that approached from varying distances.

In the promising daylight, Litza was already shrinking back into herself; another shitty cigarette in her shaky hand. She was crying.

They had been doomed from the start. It had always been Stavroula's task to carry her sister, but Litza was gallons and gallons of water, and all Stavroula could use was her hands. So she kept losing Litza, kept scooping her up, kept losing. She could cup her hands and hold her close, but what good would that do? She could never have carried enough of Litza to make a difference.

Suddenly, a plane rushed overhead so close it loomed like the belly of a shark. And where was he? Where was he? Stavroula began to scream. She was shaking and swearing. None of this could be heard because of the shriek of the plane. Was she weeping for him? Weeping for her sister? She wouldn't go back for Litza. She'd go forward, just as she had all her life. Because, if they made her, she would do it all over again: she would save herself first. Still.

Litza yelled something over the roar of the plane.

Stavroula shook her head. The roar was dying down.

Litza said, “You hate him, too?”

Stavroula laughed. She wiped her face on an old napkin and passed it to Litza, who also wiped her face.

“Stevie,” Litza said, “it was me. I broke your window. I shouldn't have, but I did it.”

Stavroula slid off the hood. “I know. Let's go.”

They ended up at the diner, of course. Instead of smashing the bakery case, they opened it with a tiny silver key from the register. They pulled two stools up to the counter and surrounded themselves with trays of dessert, and Stavroula made coffee. She sweetened Litza's for her and left her own black and strong. They went down the line of cakes, all looking more like costumes than food. They used forks, not plates, and left tracks in the frosting. Litza picked up an untouched sheet cake and took a bite of one of the corners. White and pink clumped to her chin. Stavroula wiped it off for her with her arm, and frosting stuck to her shirt. She slid the sheet cake back into the bakery case and said, “That one's yours.” Meaning she wouldn't touch it, and neither would anyone else, and it would stay there, imperfect, through the memorial.

They were becoming dangerously full.

“Chocolate cheesecake, to Dad.”

“Lemon meringue. To Dad.”

“Carrot cake: to Dad.”

“Strawberry shortcake, Ruby's favorite—to Dad.”

Then Litza, taking a bowl from behind the counter, poured some cornflakes. She spooned chocolate cake on top, and then she covered it with powdered hot chocolate, poured milk over it, and then put it in the microwave for a minute. “Toast: to us.”

Toast was disgusting: like eating a sweet swamp. They went back to cake.

Then Stavroula reached for a lined notepad, the kind the waitresses used, and said, “To Dad.” Litza clapped. They began the letter,
Dear Dad.

Let
We
explain
You
something.

Writing, it is not satisfying. It does not get close enough to what must be said.

We write one draft that blames You for everything; We write another draft that saves You of everything. We absolve You, saying to Ourselves that We do not begrudge You Your Mistakes.

But that is not true, either.

How can We say exactly what We mean?

We say it over and over.

If Marina does, it means death. It means that Stavros Stavros, a man voyaging between two worlds, will no longer be reached. Doing what Marina has been asked to do means: Marina will be shoving Stavros Stavros off on his last boat, shrouded in dark water with light fading fast, and light growing, too.

Granting a man his final wish means closing his coffin door.