The Language of Sisters

by Cathy Lamb

  “Get out!” Daisy yelled. “Lindy’s home is clean and immaculate and clean. She doesn’t want your urine in here!”

  He backed out, his chest heaving in fear, and Daisy followed him. She pulled something out of her robe. I saw the glint of the blade. She thrust her arm back, and I knew she was going to throw the knife. So did he.

  That hulking man turned and ran ... right into the river. Daisy waited until his head appeared, his arms flapping about, obviously not a swimmer, then yelled, “I’m going to shoot your dick off.” His face collapsed into horror. How would he know that Daisy’s sons had removed all the bullets?

  The gargoyle started dog-paddling the wrong way down the dock, toward the river. Daisy followed him, then threw the knife. It landed a foot from his face, and he sputtered and struggled. “Lady, stop it, please, she’s just a hooker—”

  “She’s not just a hooker! She’s my friend, Lindy! I’m going to shoot your butt off ... I’m going to shoot your nose off ... I’m going to shoot your flipper off ...” He kept dog-paddling and gasping to the end of the dock and into the river. When he was beyond the dock, Daisy took out another knife and threw it. Landed a foot in front of him again. He screamed. Excellent aim, as I knew she wasn’t trying to kill him.

  When he was gone, the police sirens piercing the air, we hurried back to Lindy’s.

  “Don’t you worry,” Daisy told Lindy. “I’ll tell my sons about this tinsel-toothed warthog and he won’t bother you again. What was his name?”

  Lindy told Daisy.

  “He’ll be in the river being eaten by my whale friend soon.” She called Skippy. It was a short call. “All done. Skippy is angry.”

  I got an ice pack for Lindy’s face and a dish towel for the blood and cradled her in my arms. I was trembling, and so was she. “I wish you’d quit.”

  “I think I might.” She held my hand, her hand shaking hard. “Thank you, Toni. Thank you, Daisy.”

  “No problem. I’m glad I had my gun”—Daisy spread her robe open—“and my knife robe.”

  There were four different knife pockets. Each pocket was made of fabric with daisies on it.

  “A knife robe comes in handy. I’ll make you two girls one to protect yourselves.”

  “Thank you,” we said.

  Lindy nodded and then semi-passed out. I hugged her and her bleeding head close to me as the paramedics rushed in the door.

  * * *

  The police went out in their boats and found the man who beat Lindy climbing up a bank. They arrested him. He had a long record of assaults against women. It was also strike three for him. He was going to the slammer, so Daisy’s boys wouldn’t have to kill him after all. The police interviewed Daisy and me after the paramedics took Lindy to the hospital.

  “You pointed a gun at him?” an officer asked Daisy.

  “Yes. I had to. He was trying to eat my friend, Lindy.”

  “And you threw a knife at him?”

  “Yes. Two.”

  “Two?”

  “She has excellent aim,” I said. “She missed on purpose.”

  And later, “Do you know what Lindy does for a living?”

  “Yes,” Daisy said.

  “What?” the officer asked.

  “What does that matter?” Daisy hit him on the knee. “A man shouldn’t be able to beat up a woman no matter what she does.”

  “No, no, absolutely not,” the policeman said, backing way off. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “But I know what Lindy does for a living.”

  “What?” the policeman asked.

  “She reads books,” Daisy whispered. “She loves the smell of them.”

  * * *

  I told the police officers that I didn’t know what Lindy did for a living when they asked, but I also said it was irrelevant. I knew they didn’t believe me, but one of the officers was Sammy Cho. He was a regular with his family at Svetlana’s. I knew him from high school. On the way out he said, “Last week I had the rolled crepes with ahi. There was cabbage salad on the side. I didn’t even think I liked cabbage until I had it. Your mama called it “Alexei Happy Husband.” Do you know if it’s on the specials for this week, too?”

  I told him I’d let him know later.

  I called my mother. “Tell Sammy I make it for him special. Tell him I say, bring your mother.”

  I told Sammy. He could not hide his delight. “Tell her I’m coming tonight. Bringing my parents with me. Thanks, Toni.”

  * * *

  Lindy spent a night in the hospital with a concussion.

  I stayed with her for hours and read her the first chapters of Shgun by James Clavell, at her request. Jayla and Beth visited during their breaks. Charles and Vanessa brought her home. We took turns making her dinner.

  She cancelled all her clients. Daisy went over every night and sang lullabies until Lindy went to sleep.

  Or pretended she was asleep.

  Daisy’s sons, Georgie and Skippy, aka Slash and Slugger, sent Lindy an enormous bouquet of flowers and paid for an in-home nurse for a week. Lindy loved her. When she was better, the nurse and she reorganized her book collection. It took hours.

  * * *

  Daisy made Lindy and me soft, comfy knife robes. Mine was red with yellow daisy pockets inside. Lindy’s was pink with white daisy pockets inside. Daisy made Lindy’s first. “The hooker needs more protection than you do, widow. You’re honky-tonking with Nick, the man with a pistol in his pants, I wish he would honky-tonk me, and he can protect a woman from Godzilla, but Lindy needs the knife robe now.”

  I didn’t want to tell Daisy that I was no longer sleeping with the honky-tonk man. I was afraid it would upset her.

  * * *

  Nick and I left for work at the same time on a Thursday morning. There was a wind meandering in off the river, like an invisible ribbon, swaying, curling. Mr. and Mrs. Quackenbusch had settled in on my deck, and even Maxie, the golden eagle, had made a flighty appearance. It should have been a happy morning for me.

  “Toni.” Nick didn’t smile. His hair was shorter, he had a goatee. He was positively eatable.

  “Hi, Nick.” Whew. We were back to his being intimidating.

  I hadn’t planned on seeing Nick, and I was dressed in my current sloppy style—jeans and a T-shirt and tennis shoes. Yes, this was what I was wearing to work. My coworkers hadn’t said a thing, but I’d seen the quick glances. Certainly wasn’t my usual style, but I had no energy for my usual style.

  I also hadn’t washed my hair. Again. Too much hair to wash, so it was stripped back into a ponytail. I paused. How long had it been since Valerie and Ellie had washed my hair? There was nothing I could do about the circles under my eyes.

  “How are you, Toni?”

  Dying. Lonely. Alone. Miss you. I smiled—bright and cheery. “I’m fine. How are you?” I fell into step beside him up the dock.

  “Fine.”

  “How’s work?” Can I hug you? Can I kiss you?

  “It’s busy. People want to sell drugs so they can make money off of other people’s misery and addictions, and we don’t want them to do that, so there’s a clash. It’s the usual.”

  He had a black jacket on. I could still see the gun. “Be careful.”

  “I am. How’s your job? I saw the house out in eastern Oregon with that view of the mountains that you wrote about. I liked the article.”

  “Thanks. Writing about houses is more pleasant than writing about crime.” I think about you all the time. I can’t get you out of my head. I want you, Nick.

  “What are you working on next?”

  “I’m going down to the beach tomorrow to write about a house that was built by the owner’s grandfather. The family has remodeled it.” What kind of house would I have with you, Nick, if we were together?

  “It’s supposed to be sunny tomorrow. Perfect beach weather.”

  I wanted to say, “Want to come?” but I didn’t. He would have said no, and then my heart would have felt as if it
had been dropkicked. We had climbed the stairs from the dock and were at our cars.

  “Okay. Well, nice to see you, Toni.”

  “Nice to see you, too, Nick.” The formality crushed me. The lack of intimacy. The coldness, the distance in Nick’s eyes. I smiled again, bright and cheery, so I wouldn’t crack.

  He pulled out of the parking lot first, in his black truck. I waited, pretended to follow, then when he was off, I parked, laid my forehead against the steering wheel, and let the waves of pain in my body rush on through.

  When the destruction was done, I drove to work and shoved my emotions down hard and fast so they wouldn’t come up and throttle me.

  * * *

  I drove to the beach the next day to interview the family that had gutted and remodeled their grandfather’s beach house. The captain’s wheel of his old boat—which had sustained irreparable damage in a storm—was in the family room by the window. They’d taken the deck of the boat and nailed it up as a hearth for the fireplace. The anchor was leaning against a corner, and a thick rope from the boat hung on a wall.

  After the interview, I sat on the sand.

  I needed the ocean. Needed the waves, the view, the sunset that I stayed to watch as the colors danced off the water. I missed Nick.

  And yet. I couldn’t get myself to walk down the dock, tell him I was sorry, tell him I could be in a relationship with him, that I would trust and love and be with him forever. There was a wall between him and me. The wall was made of Marty, a kayak, a wedding ring, a hospital bed, chemotherapy, a last kiss, and a coffin.

  I was trying to be brave, but I was immobilized. I was frozen. I was in an emotional morgue where I’d buried one man and didn’t want to betray that man and then bury another who had a dangerous job. I was stuck.

  The waves rolled in. The seagulls dove. The burgundy, golden yellows, azure blues, and purples stretched across the sky until it was dark, the sun down, only the white foam of the waves visible.

  How long are you going to live like this? I asked myself. How long?

  22

  It was Pavel’s night.

  Our whole family went to his school’s musical, Bennie and the Music. I went from work straight to the theatre. I was in jeans, a T-shirt, and boots. No makeup. No earrings. I had forgotten about the play, or else I would have dressed up more. My mother would have a fit. I braced myself.

  My father hugged me and said, “I no see you for a week. Start with Monday. What you do?”

  Before I could answer, my mother, resplendent in a black dress and black heels, eyeballed me in the lobby of the high school, frowned, and dragged me off to the bathroom with JJ behind her, who saw me and rolled her eyes.

  “I brush this rat in the nest,” my mother said, digging in her purse for a brush after manhandling me in front of the mirror. “I say to you, many times, Antonia, always put on the lipstick and earrings before you leave the house unless the house on fire. Your boat on fire? No? Then why you look like that?”

  “I’ll do it, Mama.”

  “No. I do.” She held the brush up and away from me. “You stand still, Antonia.”

  I had finally told her and my father about Nick because they were upset and confused about why I was upset. My mama cried with me, but that was no excuse to have a “rat in the nest,” in her eyes.

  “Here, Aunt Svetlana, it’s my job.” JJ took the brush.

  “No, don’t, JJ,” I said. “My hair is fine. I’ll do it.”

  “It is not fine.” JJ kneed me—not gently—so I was up against the counter. “Stand still. What did you do, electrify yourself?”

  Zoya and Tati burst through the door, laughing and chatting. I’m sure my father told them where we were. They were both in lacy bustiers, silky shirts, tight pants, heels, hair all floofed up.

  “What happened?” Zoya said, hand to throat.

  “What the heck?” Tati said, hands on hips.

  “What is wrong with your hair, Toni?” they said together.

  “Nothing is wrong with it.” I fought for the brush. I grabbed it from JJ, she grabbed it back.

  “Stop it, Toni!”

  “You be still, Antonia!” my mother said, shaking her finger at me and swearing in French. “You let JJ fix the rat in the nest.”

  “I’m not seven, I’ll brush my own hair.” I grabbed the brush again.

  JJ wrapped one arm around my waist and with the other hand struggled to get the brush. “You don’t. You won’t. I’ll do it. I have a curling iron in my bag.” JJ was panting. She lifted me up with a Tarzan/Jane yell.

  “Put me down!”

  “No. Not until you give me the brush and agree that I can brush your hair!”

  I could not believe she was lifting me up like she did when we were kids. I put my foot against the counter of the sink and pushed. She slipped. She was wearing four-inch heels, and I fell right down on her.

  We rolled on that bathroom floor. I grabbed the brush and held it high over my head as she lay on top of me. I was ticked. This was all stubborn, bossy, aggressive JJ’s fault. “Get off of me, JJ!”

  Ellie walked in. Her black hair was curled and clean, and she continued to breathe without a bag. “Ah. I see we’re having a family fight.”

  Valerie was behind her. “Who’s winning? Hard to tell.”

  “I think it’s Toni,” Zoya said. “Wow. She’s really mad.”

  “No, JJ’s winning,” Tati said. “No, Toni. They’re noisy!”

  “What’s the problem?” Valerie asked.

  “I can brush my own hair!” I shrieked.

  “No, she can’t. She doesn’t,” JJ gasped. “It’s a disgrace. It’s been weeks, maybe years.”

  “She’s right, Toni,” Ellie said. “Your hair is a disgrace. When was the last time you washed it?”

  “JJ, fix the hairs,” my mother announced. “Antonia! You lie flat and let her give you a quickie. The brushing be all done soon.” My mother peered down at me, on the floor of the bathroom. “You feel good when she done.”

  Anya walked in and gasped as if she had just come up for air after nearly drowning. She slapped her hands to her cheeks. “This isn’t happening.” She reached for both of us. “Get up, get up right now. There’s bacteria and viruses and feces and urine on a bathroom floor. I’m going to be sick, sick, sick right here unless you two get up.”

  She put one high-heeled foot on either side of us and tried to yank us apart. JJ took a furious swipe at her with her foot, and Anya tumbled on top of us. “Oh no!” Anya howled, hands in the air so she wouldn’t touch the floor “Germs! Germs!”

  Because Anya would not push herself off the floor with her hands (bacteria, viruses), she lay on top of JJ and me, like a cross, my ears suffering from her high-pitched howls.

  “If this is as entertaining as tonight gets, I’m going to be happy,” Ellie said.

  “I haven’t seen JJ and Toni roll around on the ground for a long time,” Valerie said. “Ouch! Toni, you should say you’re sorry. I think you kicked JJ in her personal flower.”

  “This is making me think we should get into making outfits for the women’s mud wrestling business,” Tati said.

  “Tati!” Zoya clapped her hands. “What an idea!”

  “... also on a bathroom floor is old vomit,” Anya said, anguished, still teetering on top of us, hands toward the ceiling. “Remnants of animal defecation brought in by people’s shoes—”

  “I had enough!” My mother swatted all three of us, then wrenched the brush out of my hand. JJ and I struggled up, panting, JJ’s hair now a mess. Anya had to be helped up, complaining vociferously.

  “Antonia!” my mother reprimanded me, smacking me on the butt with the brush. “You let JJ do it to you. She fix that.” She circled her hand around my hair.

  JJ and I were both sweating.

  “Fine!” I shouted, wiping my brow. “Fine!”

  “If you had given in from the start, we wouldn’t have had to go rolling around on a bathroom floor.” JJ pu
shed me toward the mirror, ripped out the rubber band holding my hair in a ponytail, and brushed it.

  “Ouch! JJ, not so hard!”

  “It smells, Toni. Wash it tonight.” She dug in her voluminous bag, plugged a curling iron in, then sprayed my hair with something that smelled yummy. I sagged, defeated.

  “Put a couple of those long, skinny braids in it, JJ,” Valerie said. “I love that style on her.”

  “Stop squiggling, Toni,” Ellie said. “Be still.”

  JJ brushed my hair, then added a couple of skinny braids on each side. “There, better.”

  It was better, up in some doopty-doo design. Not so rat’s nesty. I would not admit it. “Done, JJ? Happy now, Mama?”

  “You are hair talented, JJ,” Zoya gushed.

  “And you are beautiful, Toni,” Tati said. “Sorry about Nick.”

  “Me too,” Zoya said.

  “I will have to immediately wash all the viruses and bacteria out of my clothes... .” Anya muttered, hot water blasting on her hands.

  My mother took out her lipstick and pointed it at me. “Hold the lips still!”

  “Mama, I can do it.”

  “No! I do.” She swung the lipstick back like a spear. I gave in, furious, knowing if I moved, she’d wipe that lipstick all over my face, or JJ and my sisters would jump me and hold me down.

  My mother dug in her purse and stuck earrings in my ears. They were red feather earrings. Four inches long. “Your papa, he like those.” She winked at me. “Turn the men on.”

  Tati whispered to me, “That’ll teach you to remember to put earrings in your ears. Never leave your home without earrings and lipstick unless your home is on fire or you’ll end up wearing red feathers.”

  I sighed in defeat.

  We Kozlovskys stood in front of the mirror, straightened our clothes, patted our hair, checked our lipstick, and walked out as if nothing untoward or frighteningly odd had just happened.

  JJ slung her arm around my shoulder. “Love you, Toni.”

  “Love you, too, JJ. Sorry about that.”

  “No problem. I understand. Sorry about Nick. I know I already said that a few weeks ago, but I’m saying it again: I’m sorry about Nick. You’ve had it rough, cousin, I get it.”