The Language of Sisters (5 page)

4

On Thursday I went shopping. I don't call it retail therapy. I call it Keeping The Monsters At Bay: Shopping Defensive Strategies. I found an emerald-green wrap dress with a low V neckline; three lacy bras made by Lace, Satin, and Baubles, my favorite lingerie company; and a red leather coat with a belt at the waist.

I love clothes.

I love knee-high boots and skirts with slits. I love lace and ruffles and clean lines. I love tight jeans and shiny silver dresses. I love red high heels and sandals with bling. I love silky scarves, dangling earrings, and bracelets that jangle.

My love of fashion is not based—much—in vanity or self-absorption. It goes back to Moscow. I shop to remind myself that I am not living in poverty anymore, that I am not doing things I wished I didn't have to do, that I am not poor, scared, hungry, and desperate. I am not a street urchin.

I shop for that warm coat that will take away the memories of that ceaseless snow in Moscow. For that thick cable-knit sweater to keep the freezing rain from Red Square out of my mind. For warm boots that chase away the thoughts of ice hanging from our apartment windows—on the inside.

My love of clothes is also related to being an immigrant, knowing no English, scared in a new country, a new state, a new school, and not fitting in at all.

When we arrived in Oregon, my sisters and I wore our long black hair in braids wrapped around the tops of our head with a fluffy bow on top.

We were stared at, and the kids giggled behind our backs. Several of the kids pulled on our braids. No one in my class had long braids wrapped around their heads like the Kozlovsky girls. We wore uniforms in Moscow, and though my parents were happy that we were not wearing uniforms here, that didn't mean they would let us wear pants or anything casual to school.

We had to wear dresses. Flowers. High collars. Prim. A little lace. My mother sewed us our dresses. We looked like overgrown dolls with an overabundance of weird braids.

Not only did the kids make fun of our clothes, they made fun of us because we were Russian and didn't speak English. Not all the kids. Many of the kids were nice, and we're still friends with them, but when you are young and scared you remember the kids who made you feel like nothing, a freak, the most.

On a sunny afternoon, two weeks after starting school, at home in Uncle Vladan and Aunt Holly's basement, I chopped off about a foot from each of my braids, then brushed my hair out. It was thick and shiny. I loved it. When Valerie saw me, she insisted I do hers, too, as did Ellie.

When our parents arrived home that evening, from their jobs with Uncle Vladan's landscaping business, their mouths dropped open at the changes in their daughters. Then we threw them another shock. We told them, “At school our names are Toni, Valerie, and Ellie now, not Antonia, Valeria, and Elvira.”

The kids had made fun of our names, too. They called me “An-TOE-nya,” or “Toe.” They called Valeria “Valeria Malaria,” and they called Elvira “Virus.”

My father swayed. My mother sank into a chair. Our parents spoke to us in Russian, though we would all soon be trying to always “speaky the English” to each other, as my father said.

“Who cut your hair?” my mother asked.

“I did.”

Their eyes bugged out. “You cut it, Antonia?” my father said.

I nodded, scared.

They stared at us. They stared at each other. They sighed. They reached for each other's hand.

“Girls,” my mother started.

We all flinched. Tensed. We were ready for our punishment, but it could not be as bad as what the kids at school were dealing out.

“Daughters,” my father said.

Our parents exchanged another look, then they both sat straighter and tilted their chins up.

My father cleared his throat. “Your hair is pretty.”

“We Kozlovskys are proud of our hair,” my mother said. “I am impressed with your hair-cutting skills, Antonia.”

What?
We were not in trouble for cutting our braids off?

“And we are not wearing dresses again,” Valerie announced, though tentatively, not wanting to hurt our mother's feelings. She had stayed up, late at night, sewing those dresses. “No one wears flowered dresses here, Mama, I'm sorry.”

My mother's face ... Oh, that hurt. I saw my father pat my mother's hand. My sisters and I had to bite our lips not to cry out.

But then ... my mother smiled. “Your uncle Vladan said that he is bringing us clothes for you all tonight. A collection from the church was taken. Perhaps there will be clothes in there that you like. As soon as we have a little money, we will take you to get new American clothes.” She raised a finger. “Not expensive.”

“Really?” I said, breathless.

“Yes.”

“Yes. Okay-dokay,” my father said, then laughed, and went back to Russian. “That's a new phrase I learned today. You can dress like American girls. This is my final word.”

“We are proud Americans, from Russia, and you can dress how the girls do here,” my mother said. “Thank you, Jesus, he brought us here safely. May all the people who hurt us in the Soviet Union find that their feet are infected, their tongues flattened, their hearing dying.” She smiled so sweetly at us, then flung out her arms for a hug. “Praise Mary, mother of God.”

“Praise Mary, mother of God,” my sisters and I said, hugging her close. She was the best.

And that was it. My parents were smart enough, open-minded enough, not to force the old ways on us here in this country.

We found jeans in the pile of clothes that night. Tennis shoes. T-shirts. Sweatshirts. The next day we went to school in American clothes, our hair brushed straight down. We changed our names. When the kids made fun of us, we punched them.

I loved clothes from then on out. Fashion, for me, allowed me to blend in at school, blend into America.

Clothes helped me then, and now, to fake confidence. To fake that I'm strong and brave, when often I feel neither. To fake that I know what I'm doing at work when sometimes I don't. To fake that I am an insider when I don't feel that I am. I've lived here for over twenty five years, but old insecurities cling like crimes.

I always search for bargains and sales, I always pay cash, and if there's a coupon, it's in my hand. My parents are strict savers, and it was drilled into all of us that we should save money. One of the Kozlovsky favorite family mottos: “Save your money so you will not starve to death.”

It's a helpful motto, and I do save.

Another helpful motto, this one from my mother? Always put on lipstick and earrings before you leave the house, unless the house is on fire.

Clothes are my armor.

There was only one time when my love of clothes fell apart and I didn't care anymore.

That was when everything tumbled into hell.

* * *

He called late the next night.

“How are you?”

“Fine.”

“Where are you?”

“Mexico. I needed to move on from India.”

He had been volunteering in an orphanage in India for months. “On the beach now?”

“Yes. I'm volunteering in a local school and talking to people.”

“Sleeping?”

“No.” He laughed, but it was sad, too close to the edge. “Currently I'm being followed by the vegetable garden again.”

I would laugh, but it wasn't funny. He was haunted by a vegetable garden.

“I'm also being followed by someone scary. I wake up all the time to this black, lurking presence and screams. Not my screams, a woman's screams. I don't get it. Why is all this getting worse these last months? Why am I seeing all these things more lately?”

Maybe it's because you know you've been lied to all these years, you're twenty-eight, and you're searching for the truth and I am a disloyal sister.
“Are the memories making any sense?”

“Not much, but I can feel my mind opening up. I'm getting snatches of memories here and there. I keep seeing a rocking horse that's rocking on its own, no one on him. It's creepy.”

I shivered. A rocking horse that rocks alone. A blue ceramic box with a fancy lady on it, and a red and purple butterfly that flies toward scary woods.

No wonder he thought he was losing his mind.

“I think it's all from my childhood, but it's the blood that's the worst, Toni. I see it on my hands in my dreams. It's driving me straight out of my mind. Why do I have blood on my hands? How did it get there? Was it mine? Was it someone else's? Was it hers? Or is it all in my imagination?”

“It's not in your imagination.”
I remembered the blood.

“They know more than they're telling me,” he said.

“Yes, I think they do.”

“I need them to talk to me.”

“I know. They will.”

“I miss you.”

“I miss you, too.”

* * *

When the moon was high in the sky, I walked over to his craftsman-styled houseboat. I brought a bottle of wine. “Tired, Nick?” I asked when he opened the door.

“Not for you. Come on in, baby.”

Nick Sanchez's houseboat was modern and streamlined. Wood plank floors, darker wood kitchen cabinets, quartz counters, open shelving, and an island in the middle. It had one open room downstairs, and then his bedroom, a guest bedroom, and an office upstairs, which was lined with books. It was a manly-man houseboat.

Nick had made manicotti and a salad and heated up bread. He is a thoughtful person, kind, even though he often resembles a blond criminal, depending on where he's working at the moment.

We ate in bed, then we had sex, then I went home.

He sighed as I let myself into my tugboat.

“I heard that, Nick.”

“I heard it, too. Come back if you change your mind.”

“I won't change my mind.”

“I'm always up for a night in your tugboat.”

“I know.”

“I'll keep you warm.”

“I have heat.”

“Not personal heat.”

“Not tonight.”

“A night soon?”

“Nick—”

He held up a hand. “I won't push. But I'll miss you. My bed is way too big without you in it.”

“Your bed is way too big, period.”

He laughed.

I shut the door to my tugboat. I do not spend the night at Nick's, and I don't allow him to spend the night at my place, either. The answer is no. What I am doing is already bad enough.

* * *

Nick said hello to me on the dock when I first moved in.

“Hello,” I said, then froze. Nick was an intimidating giant. He has blond hair and light blue eyes, and those eyes stayed on me, full attention. The blonde and blue eyed part makes him sound pretty, but there wasn't a pretty bone on him. His hair was down to his shoulders, and he had a mustache and a goatee.

He was all man, rugged, tough, pretty serious. He had a faded scar on his left cheek and a faded scar on his right temple. He had nice teeth. I don't know why I noticed his teeth.

“I'm Nick Sanchez.”

“Toni Kozlovsky.” When he shook my hand, I felt that my hand was going to be permanently lost in the size of his.

“Moving in?”

“Yes.” He had on a black T-shirt, jeans, and black boots. It appeared that he might have a criminal history of slamming heads together.

“Welcome. I hope you like it here.”

“I think I will.”

“I live right there.” He nodded toward his houseboat.

“I love your home.”

“Thank you. I love your tugboat. Creative way to live. If you have to, you can probably haul my home down the river.”

“Probably. It's a retired tugboat, though, so to speak. It's tired. It doesn't want to work anymore.”

“I feel the same way sometimes.”

I laughed. “Me too.”

“I like the yellow paint and the red trim.”

“Thank you. It's ... it's been remodeled on the inside. I'm not living in a real tugboat. Well, it's real. But not real in a ... tug-boatty type of way.”

He smiled. I caught my breath.
Wow
. I remember thinking.
Wow.
Full lips. Not so scary when he smiled.

“I bet it's interesting to live in. A lot of river history there.”

“Yes, it is.” That would have been the moment to invite him in, but I couldn't. The words wouldn't come out of my mouth. What to say to a man like that? How could I invite another man into my home, anyhow? I couldn't do that.

“Are you from around here?” he asked.

“Yes. We live, well, I lived, I sold our house.” Simple question, complicated answer. “It's about thirty minutes from here.”

“Ah.” Something flashed in his eyes, covered up quick. He caught my confusion. He wondered about the true answer behind it all.

“Yes. So now ... here I am at the tugboat. I'm here.” I decided to study the deck. I had lost confidence in the last long months. I had been humbled to the floor. I had been gutted. I was not myself. I didn't think I'd be myself again.

“I see you have a kayak. I love kayaking. There are a lot of animals and birds right here, but if you kayak that way”—he turned and pointed downriver—“it gets quieter near the curve and there are even more.”

“I'll go that way.” No, I wouldn't. I would not get in my kayak and do that. I glanced down again as his eyes were seeing too much of me and I was not up to handling someone tall and studly like Nick. “Thank you.”