Smoke Signals

by Catherine Gayle

  “And it was me who had to see that my little boy wasn’t a little boy anymore, but might as well be a man. At least in some ways. The ways a mother should never have to see with her own two eyes.”

  “It’s not like my dick was the first you ever saw.”

  “And thank God for that.”

  “You sure do know how to stroke my ego.”

  “That’s what a mother’s for. That and coming to the rescue when you get in over your head with a woman. Which is why I called.”

  How did she know I was in over my head with Tori? I hadn’t said a word to my mother about anything to do with my marriage since asking for advice about Tori’s pain during intercourse, and that had been a good while. “I’m not following.”

  “You don’t remember you asked me to come for a visit? Hmm. I guess you forgot all about that right around the same time you forgot to tell me you got married.”

  “You’re coming?” Just like that, I started to breathe easier. Whatever was going on with Tori, whatever had her fight-or-flight instinct turned all the way to flight, I knew Mom could help me figure it out.

  “Flying in next Friday. I checked the team’s schedule. Figured I could come in for the season opener on Sunday and stick around for a week or so, until you head out on the road. Can you pick me up at the airport, or will you forget all about that, too?”

  “I’m not going to forget about you.”

  “Mm-hmm. So how’s the whole painful sex thing going? Did you get her to a doctor?”

  “We’re working on it. We’re getting it sorted out.”

  She made a sound that I couldn’t quite interpret. This was one of those times I really wished I could see her face so I could have a clue what was going on in her head.

  “What?” I asked when she didn’t expound.

  “I’m just proud of you, Ray.”

  Proud of me? I married a porn star, and my mother was telling me she was proud of me. How many sons had a relationship like this with their mothers? Probably not many. I couldn’t stop the grin from forming. My mom was one of a kind, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because you said we. We’re working on it. We’re sorting it out. You’re not leaving it all to her. You’re acting like it’s your problem, your responsibility, as much as it’s hers.”

  “Well, that’s because it is.” Tori was my wife, for fuck’s sake. If she couldn’t handle sex…

  “Times like this,” Mom said, “you make me think I did all right with you.”

  “You did more than all right with me. You were the best mom a guy could ever hope to have.”

  “A lot of people wouldn’t agree with that, you know.”

  “Well, a lot of people can go take a fucking leap off a cliff, then. They don’t know. They don’t get it.”

  “I’m really glad Tori has you, Ray. And I can’t wait to meet her.”

  I couldn’t wait for them to meet, either.

  The garage door opened, which meant Tori was home and all my worries had been for naught. At least this time.

  “I’ve gotta go, Mom. Text me your flight details, okay?”

  “Got it. And Ray?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Should I bring condoms for you to keep in your wallet? I mean, I know you’re married and all…”

  “Oh my God, Mom. I’m a grown man. I’m perfectly capable of wrapping my shit up when it needs to be wrapped up.”

  “Just checking. Love you.”

  “Love you, too.”

  I disconnected the call and headed out to the living room. Tori glanced over when she heard me, smiling from ear to ear. She had too many grocery bags in her hands, so I hurried over to help her with them.

  “Did you have a good day?” I asked, taking a few of the bags.

  “Best day,” she said. “Blisters on my feet, and toes hurt like crazy, but doesn’t matter.”

  The smile that had started when I was talking to Mom only grew. I’d only seen Tori this excited about anything once before. When we’d been at the ballet. “Why doesn’t it matter?” I asked.

  “Because Devin Shreeve came to studio. Came to Tulsa just to see me dance. Katie sent him after Portland. He asked me to be in his production. Video for band.” She dropped everything—purse, groceries, and gym bag—on the counter and turned to me, her eyes glowing with exhilaration. “Can I? Is it all right?”

  “Of course it’s all right.”

  The second the words left my lips, she flung herself into my arms.

  If she was this excited about dancing with Devin Shreeve, whoever the hell he was, then at least I shouldn’t have to worry about her trying to run off any time soon. Maybe it would buy us enough time to get to the root of her fears.

  I’D BEEN THROUGH a lot in my life, but I could honestly say I’d never felt as much internal turmoil as I was experiencing now.

  When Papa had insisted I leave Russia and go to America, yes, there had been a great deal of conflict and confusion in both my head and my heart. I didn’t want to leave him. I was scared to go somewhere alone, especially when I had never been there before and my knowledge of the language was as bare-bones as possible. But I’d gone, because staying in Russia was no longer an option. If I had stayed, I would have been taken by the Tambovs, the same as Mama was, and I would likely now either be dead or held in some form of slavery.

  Leaving him, leaving my home, had been necessary for survival. This was something I’d understood, even if it had ripped out my heart to go through with it.

  When I’d found out Papa was dead, there had been even more confusion. I knew I couldn’t go back to Russia, but I also knew I couldn’t stay in America and keep going to school without the money he would have sent. Did I want to strip for money? Of course not. Did I want to sell my body for sex, to make porn movies? Absolutely not.

  But again, it had been a question of survival. I’d told myself that I would only have to do it until I finished school, and then I would be able to get work with a ballet company in the States, and everything would be all right.

  Things hadn’t worked out that way in the end, but nothing I’d experienced in my life had come close to preparing me for what I was feeling in the present.

  I’d screwed up when I’d let myself fall in love with Razor. Everyone I loved was taken from me. This was simply how my life worked. So now, I was waiting for the moment when he was taken from me. Or perhaps, more accurately, when I would be taken from him.

  Tonight was the Thunderbirds’ final preseason home game. I hadn’t come to any of the others, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to come to this one. As it was, I hardly knew any of the other players’ wives besides Tallie, and some of them might have been the women at Jamie and Katie’s wedding who’d made their feelings about me clear. But Tallie talked me into going with her.

  “Screw those bitches,” she’d said while we got our pedicures a few days before the game. “Half of them think they’re better than me because I used to compete in beauty pageants. I don’t care. If they can’t look past what I’ve done in the past to see who I am in the present, I don’t need them. So what if they don’t like you? That just means you don’t need to waste your time on trying to get to know them. They aren’t worth it. But a few are…and besides, you can play with Harper.”

  The lure of getting baby time was what convinced me to go along with her in the end. I’d never been around babies much, but every time I was around Harper, she latched on to my fingers and blinked her big eyes at me, and she absolutely won me over. Between that and Razor’s reminder that we needed to prove to the immigration people that we were both integrating ourselves into one another’s lives, I knew I had to go.

  So here I was, sitting with Tallie and Harper in the wives’ room before the game while other women and children came and went. We would go down to seats in the arena during the game, but before and after, the women all gathered here to socialize and make plans for charity events.
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  Tallie introduced me to Dana Zellinger, who was the team captain’s wife and who had her hands full with three children. I recognized her from the wedding over the summer. Dana only talked with us for a few minutes before she had to get up and chase after her toddlers. She seemed nice enough, and she didn’t look down her nose at me with disgust. I chose to take that as a good sign.

  Then Arianne Duclair came and sat with us for a few minutes, claiming a turn with the baby. “Patrice and I keep trying,” she said, “but no luck yet.” She rubbed noses with Harper, and both of them smiled.

  Tallie grinned. “Any time you want to babysit, or just come over and get a snuggle in, you just say the word. And changing a few diapers might cure you. It’s worth a try.” She winked.

  I was having a difficult time focusing on the conversation with these two. My attention kept being claimed by a group of women in the opposite corner of the room, who had their heads together and kept tossing nasty looks in my direction.

  I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be sitting with Tallie and her baby, because now those other women would associate Tallie with their assumptions about me.

  I was just about to say as much when an older woman stopped to speak with them for a few minutes before she turned and stared at me. She nodded in my direction and said something to them. They said something in response, and then she came over to sit with us.

  She was in her mid-fifties, by my guess. Her blond hair and conservative gray dress suit and baby-pink satin shell made her look like she’d stepped straight out of the eighties. She nodded at Tallie and Arianne but held out a hand for me to shake. The most unnatural looking smile I’d ever seen was plastered on her face.

  “I haven’t met you yet,” she said as I took her hand warily. She had a really heavy accent, much like Tallie’s, only her voice was so sugary sweet that it made me feel sick. This couldn’t bode well. “The girls over there said you’re married to our Mr. Chambers?”

  I tried to pry my hand free, but she wouldn’t let it go. My eyes strayed down to an ornate gold cross hanging from a chain around her neck. It was big enough to draw notice but not big enough to be gaudy.

  Immediately, I felt uncomfortable. Anytime someone religious found out about my work in porn, it was never good. What had those women told her about me? And what was she planning to do with that information?

  Tallie put a hand on my shoulder, as though she could sense my discomfort. “Mrs. Jernigan, this is Razor’s wife, Tori. Tori, Mrs. J is the team owner’s wife. Mr. J is the pastor at New Hope Fellowship Church, and they’re the ones who brought the NHL to Tulsa.”

  A preacher’s wife. She was either going to try to save my soul or tell me exactly what she thought I needed to do with my sinful self. I tried harder to take my hand back. No use. She only held on tighter.

  “Tori, is it?” Mrs. Jernigan said, almost too sweetly. “Not Viktoriya?”

  “My name is Viktoriya, yes,” I replied guardedly.

  “I wondered if maybe you and I could have a few minutes alone together?” She sent a pointed expression in Tallie and Arianne’s direction and tugged on my hand so I’d follow.

  I gave Tallie a panicked look.

  “Oh, but Mrs. J,” Tallie said, and somehow her Southern accent got even thicker than normal. “Tori’s English isn’t always so good. Sometimes she needs me to interpret for her.”

  It took a Herculean effort not to snort in laughter at the lie she’d come up with, but I appreciated the effort even if my friend couldn’t speak a word of my language.

  “You speak Russian, Tallie?” the woman asked. “How did I not know that?”

  Tallie waved a hand, like it was no big deal. “I took a couple of semesters at OU. Anyway, I think you two should just stay here, in case Tori needs some help.”

  “What we need to discuss is really something that ought to be kept private,” the minister’s wife insisted.

  I shook my head. “It’s fine. Tallie can hear.” At this point, I knew what the woman was going on about. Tallie would surely learn about my past one way or another. She might as well hear about it now. “Arianne, too.” Why bother trying to hide it from anyone? For that matter, we might as well wave everyone else over to listen in.

  The older woman scowled, but Tallie just gave her a determined nod, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “Viktoriya,” Mrs. Jernigan finally said, her voice stern, holding tight to my hand and sitting back in her seat, “it appears some of the other players’ wives are under the assumption that you’ve been working in…well, in the pornography industry.”

  “Yes. I did porn.”

  As a credit to both Tallie and Arianne, neither gave any outward reaction to the news.

  Mrs. Jernigan blinked at me a few times, as though she’d been expecting me to deny it. “So they were correct?” she sputtered.

  “Yes. I did porn before—”

  “I’m sure you’ll understand, then, that my husband and I are going to have to ask you to avoid any and all team functions. Tom is a minister, you see, and a very prominent one, at that. We can’t be associated—”

  “Pardon me, Mrs. J,” Tallie cut in with an edge to her tone that I’d never heard before. “But Tori said she did porn in the past. She’s not doing it now. I can attest to that, since I’ve spent a lot of time with her over the last few months. And even if she still was, I can’t see how it matters since she’s Razor’s wife. She’s married to a member of this team, so she should be just as involved as any of the rest of us.”

  “But it’s all about the association,” the minister’s wife said, as if that was explanation enough. And honestly, I got the impression that she truly thought it was the only justification required for kicking me out of this aspect of Razor’s life.

  What would the immigration people think if I never stepped into this part of his world? It would be one more knock against me, one more bit of proof that our marriage wasn’t a true marriage. Panic clawed at my lungs. I had to get out of there.

  But Tallie kept her hand on my shoulder, forcing me to stay put. “Aren’t Christians supposed to love everyone? Judge not, that you not be judged.”

  “Now, Tallie, you know me better than to think I’m judging—”

  “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone,” she cut in. “Have you lived a perfectly sin-free life, Mrs. J? Have you never made a mistake? Aren’t we supposed to welcome everyone with open arms and love them all the same, no matter what they’ve been through or what they’ve done, as Jesus did for us? Mrs. J, you know I love you and respect you. You and Mr. J have been in my life for as long as I can remember, but you shouldn’t go shooting your mouth off before you load your brain.” Tallie pried my hand free from the minister’s wife, then took her baby back from Arianne and stood up. “Come on, Tori. We’re heading down to our seats to watch the game.”

  I gathered up my purse and her diaper bag and followed her in a daze. When we got to our seats in the arena, she gave me a look full of irritation, rolling her eyes.

  “That woman! Good gravy, the nerve of her.”

  “Why did you say that to her?” I asked.

  “Because she had no business saying what she did to you. I’m sorry she treated you like that, and I wish I could say that was the last of the hypocrisy you’ll encounter living here, but I’m sure it’s not. This ain’t my first rodeo as far as that’s concerned. We’re deep in the Bible belt, and some people are just opinionated, bigoted jerks.”

  I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Thank you.” It was an odd sensation to have a friend who would defend me like that.

  “I don’t care what she says about you staying away. Don’t listen to her on that. If you want to come, then come. Lord knows Razor wants you here.”

  Did he? Did he really want me to be part of his life in this way, or was he just inviting me along so that we could satisfy the interviewer about how we were intertwining our lives? I wasn’t positive. I knew where
I stood on the matter, but Razor and I hadn’t really talked about it. I gave Tallie a humming sound as a response, letting her interpret it as she would.

  She gave me a look, one eyebrow raised. Not a judging sort of look. Just curious. “So it’s true? You really did porn?”

  “I really did porn. You want…” I stopped and shook my head, stomach churning.

  “What?” she demanded.

  “You want to stop being my friend?”

  “Not a chance,” she said, as serious as I’d ever heard her. “You’re more scandalous than I am. All the drama with me and Hunter finally blew over, but still. You never know when someone’s gonna come along and raise another stink about things from the past. I’m latching on to you and not letting go.”

  The lights went down and war drums started, so loud it startled me. I jumped in my seat, and Harper started crying as two giant totem poles lowered to the ice from somewhere up in the rafters, lit up by spotlights.

  “Sorry,” Tallie said. “I forgot to warn you about that. It’ll happen any time the T-Birds score, too, only minus the totem poles and fog and shit.” She bounced the baby in her arms. “Hopefully tonight, they won’t score much. I don’t fancy the thought of them waking Harper up from a nap, you know? But don’t tell them I said that.”

  “Won’t tell,” I promised, my mind racing.

  Razor and I needed to talk, to truly talk about exactly what we both felt and wanted out of our relationship. And we needed to do it before the interview.

  I needed to know where he stood. Because if he didn’t want what I did—if he was still only doing this in order to help me out with my residency status—maybe it would be best to let them deport me. If they were going to send me away, I needed it to happen before he claimed more of my heart than he already owned. I just didn’t know how to convince him of that.

  The guys took the ice, skating out between the poles amid a bunch of fog. Apparently there were fog machines inside the two enormous poles. Most of the players headed to the bench, but a few stayed out at center ice for all the pre-game rituals. Razor was one of them. He turned to scan the crowd until he found me. He waved, and I thought I caught a smile, but it was difficult to tell with his helmet and visor blocking his face. The PA announcer instructed us to rise and remove our caps for the national anthem.