Sometimes on weekends Lula went into the city. The happy shopping couples, the giggly groups of girlfriends, could see how lonely she was. Sometimes she thought they were laughing at her. Stranger in a strange land. She was always happy to get back to New Jersey.
Another problem with lying was how often lies came true. Now, for example, since the public library was one of the few places she could walk to, she had become a reader. She’d looked up Albania and spent hours reading the novels of Ismail Kadare, her country’s greatest novelist, who until now she’d only pretended to have read. Trying to imagine the words back into Albanian was good for her English. Not having gotten one piece of mail—let alone a utility bill—at Mister Stanley’s, she couldn’t apply for a library card. But now that she had her work visa, maybe she’d try again.
She had also started writing, another lie come true. Zeke let her borrow his laptop when he was at school. He made her promise not to look at his files. Touched by his trust, Lula never mentioned the beautiful girls who kept popping up, asking Zeke to get back in touch. Who knew if they even looked like that, or how old they thought Zeke was? Lula e-shopped for luxury items—garden furniture, scented candles, motorboats—she would never buy, priced itineraries to places she would never travel.
Eventually, Lula buckled down and wrote a story in English, with the help of a dictionary and a thesaurus she found in Zeke’s room. In the flyleaf was an inscription. “To Zeke, Happy Birthday from Mom, may words give you wings!” What heartless witch gives a teenage boy a thesaurus for his birthday?
Trying not to think too hard, Lula wrote a story about the blood feud in her great-great-grandfather’s time. She pretended that her Cousin George was the bridegroom’s brother and added a long poetic passage about the bride walled in, stone by stone. There was also a lot about muskets, information that came easily, her dad having been a gun nut, and finally lots of folkloric stuff, curses and proverbs she found on Albanian online forums. She put in everything but the sound track of Albanian folk songs.
Mister Stanley liked her story so much that it became part of the package they gave Don Settebello, who now listed writer among her skills, along with translation and childhood education. Independently, or maybe not so independently, Mister Stanley and Don suggested she write a book. Lula couldn’t imagine why a country would want a citizen from a long line of blood feuders. So to tip the scales in her favor, she wrote a sad story about the day she heard that her parents had been killed in the NATO bombing.
“I’m so sorry,” Mister Stanley said.
“I’m okay,” Lula assured him.
It was true, they’d died in the war. So what if they hadn’t really got stuck in Kosovo when the war broke out, but had sneaked across the border when it was almost over? Thousands of refugees had been fleeing from Kosovo into Albania, from the Serbs and from NATO. Only her crazy father had stolen his brother’s car and, fueled by drink and misguided patriotism, driven himself and her mother in the wrong direction. His Kosovar brothers needed him! Her dad had gotten it into his head that the Kosovo Liberation Army could use his collection of tribal muskets. So what if it wasn’t the NATO bombing that got them, but an auto crash, and her dad was driving drunk? They’d hit a NATO tank. Lula’s private opinion was that he’d been on a suicide mission. The six years since her parents died sometimes seemed like an eye-blink and sometimes like forever. Some days Lula could hardly remember them, some days she couldn’t stop seeing their faces. She still cried whenever she thought about her dad’s funny porkpie hat, a style increasingly popular with hipster boys in Brooklyn.
“You should write a memoir,” Mister Stanley had said, that first conversation.
“Maybe short stories,” said Lula.
“I don’t know,” said Mister Stanley. “Don says nonfiction sells better. A memoir of immigrant life. Coming from the most backward Communist country and moving here—”
“Not the most backward,” said Lula. “You’re forgetting the stans. Turkmenistan. Uzbekistan.”
“Sorry,” said Mister Stanley. “That was thoughtless.”
“Don’t mention it,” said Lula.
By the time the Lexus had passed the house four times, Lula had progressed from being sure it had nothing to do with her to thinking it was no wonder that the car had come to punish her for lying.
The Lexus stopped. Three guys got out and ambled toward Mister Stanley’s. No double-checking the address. They acted like they lived here. All three wore black jeans streaked with white dust. Maybe they were in construction. Had Mister Stanley hired someone to fix the house and not told her?
One of the men wore a red hoodie appliquéd with the black double-headed Albanian eagle. Not exactly regulation INS business wear. So it made sense, of a kind. How many Albanians were there in the metropolitan area? The odds were against this being a random home invasion. Which wasn’t to say that her fellow countrymen wouldn’t rape and kill her for fun. But the odds were also against their doing that to an Albanian girl they didn’t personally know.
Had Mister Stanley called Albanians to work on his house? Surely he would have said. Lula sometimes watched a TV show that warned you about the latest dangers—phone scams, dust mites, black mold, carjackings. But the series was in rerun, so you couldn’t tell if the threat was current. Not long ago she’d seen a segment about a gang that went door-to-door and offered to fix your roof, and if you refused your house burned down.
The three guys were like a comedy act. Two of them looked like twins. Same body type, black cop shades, overly gelled spiked hair. Stocky, big hips, fat asses. She’d gone to high school with guys like that. Maybe she even knew them. The one without the hoodie wore a long black leather coat.
The third was taller, red-haired, and fell in behind the other two. Cool, both hands in his pockets. Cute. He glanced up at the window and saw her. He had a mustache and longish hair. He reminded her of a boyfriend with whom she’d sniffed glue when she was young and crazy and going to raves in the bunker fields. Now that the Cute One had seen her, pride wouldn’t let her lock herself in the bathroom and pretend not to hear the doorbell.
The third time they rang, she opened the door but kept the chain on. She looked at them hard, each in turn. Strangers. She would have remembered.
“Miremengyes,” they said. Good morning.
“Miremengyes,” said Lula.
“Lula,” the Cute One said. “Little Sister.”
How had these guys found her? How did they know her name? Maybe they knew Dunia. Had she sent Dunia her new address? Oh, Dunia, Dunia, where was she? Best not to think of that now.
“Whassup?” said Leather Jacket. On the street they might speak Albanian, their secret code, but on this American doorstep, they showed off for each other in the street slang of their new country.
“Remind me how we’re related,” Lula said.
“All Albanians are related,” said Hoodie. “Brothers and sisters.” His eagle sweatshirt was half unzipped. Around his neck, on a silver chain, hung a double-headed silver eagle.
The Cute One gestured at the SUV. “We’re good friends and customers of your Cousin George.” Then he curled his lips in a way that transformed his pretty mouth into Cousin George’s fat liver lips. Lula laughed, partly because it was funny and partly because it was nice to meet someone who could imitate her cousin.
“Brothers and sisters,” said Hoodie.
“Okay,” said Lula. “Got it.”
Leather Jacket said, “Congratulations. Congratulations on your work visa.”
“How do you know about that? My cousin doesn’t know yet.”
The Cute One’s smile uncovered a gold tooth. “Don’t worry how we know. My girlfriend works in immigration.”
Lula said, “I have a great lawyer. My boss—” The quick sharp looks the men exchanged made Lula sorry she’d boasted. Her Balkan survival instinct had been blunted by the spongy atmosphere at good-guy Mister Stanley’s.
Lula undid the door chain. Plea
se don’t let them steal Mister Stanley’s television and Zeke’s computer. But who would want Mister Stanley’s ancient Motorola, or Zeke’s student laptop? Maybe that would make Mister Stanley finally buy a flat screen, which would make Zeke happier than the therapist he’d seen weekly when she’d first got here and then decided to stop seeing, a change that inspired Mister Stanley to give Lula a little raise. There would be no more little raises if Mister Stanley found she’d invited these guys into his house. And maybe no green card, no citizenship. Disaster. On the other hand, they were Albanian. They called her “Little Sister” and knew her Cousin George. The Cute One was cute. And nothing else remotely this interesting was going to happen today.
The men brushed past her, then turned and, one by one, shook her hand. Two of the handshakes were ceremonial. The Cute One’s was a caress. How long had it been since anyone touched her, not counting the restaurant customers grabbing her ass? She could always tell which guy it would be, and after how many mojitos. The last time she’d had sex was with a waiter, Franco, who took her to his loft in Long Island City, which he shared with three roommates. He’d showed her the sculptures he made from mattress springs he’d found on the street. She’d said they looked like space aliens, apparently the right answer, and then he told her he called it his Bedbug Launching Pad series, very nice considering that they were about to get in his bed. Mostly she remembered her surprise that a guy that drunk could get it up at all. She’d drunk quite a bit herself, or she wouldn’t have been there.
“I thought you guys were brothers,” said Lula. “Up close not so much.” The same way of muscling into space was the main resemblance.
“You think I look like this guy?” said Hoodie. “Are you kidding me, or what?”
“Brothers with different mothers and fathers. Blood brothers.” Leather Jacket slashed a finger across his upturned palm. “No joke.”
Hoodie said, “Every Albanian is related by DNA.”
“So we’re family,” Lula said flatly. Then she waited to find out what her three long-lost brothers wanted.
The Cute One hung back, scanning the living room as if searching for a place to hide something or a place where something was hidden. Only when Lula looked through his eyes did she see what a dump it was. Heaven, compared to Albania. All the creature comforts. Still, it was sad to have come this far and to have wound up here.
She could have made the house more pleasant, or at least less musty and smelly, but Lula wasn’t the type to redecorate someone else’s space. Everything from Ginger Time remained as Ginger left it—the puffy grandmother furniture, the piano no one played. Lula had developed a wary and disapproving relationship with Ginger, based on her examination and appraisal (negative) of Ginger’s stuff, and on what little she’d heard (more negative) from Mister Stanley and Zeke. One bleak morning, Lula had gone through Ginger’s dresser, holding the baggy cargo pants and roomy dashikis up against her body. The stretched-out granny underwear explained a lot, though not the question of why Ginger had been the one to leave. How could a woman—a mother—walk out on two helpless babies like Zeke and Mister Stanley? Mental health issues. What did that mean? Mister Stanley hadn’t said.
The Cute One looked around and sniffed. What was he comparing it to, his sumptuous walk-up in downtown Bayonne? Or maybe some shack in Durrës? Why should Lula feel protective of Mister Stanley’s home?
“What’s that smell?” said Leather Jacket.
“The grave, I think,” Hoodie said.
“It’s my boss’s house,” said Lula. “My job is watching his kid.”
“We know that,” said the Cute One.
Lula hoped he wouldn’t go over to the fireplace. She hoped he wouldn’t look at the family photos. If she couldn’t change the lamps or move the end tables, what were the chances of her saying, Mister Stanley, Zeke, are you sure you want to keep a mantelpiece full of mementos of your life with a lunatic who left you for a glacier?
The family had traveled a lot. Many of the snapshots were posed against natural wonders, mountain peaks and canyons. Their smiles were frozen, and they always looked cold, even in the desert. Apparently, they weren’t the type to ask strangers to snap their photos, which showed Mister Stanley and Ginger, Zeke and Ginger, but never Zeke and Mister Stanley. Ginger seemed not to take pictures, but the travel was her idea. Lula couldn’t imagine Mister Stanley and Zeke going anywhere on their own.
The Cute One held a picture toward her. From across the room, Lula saw Ginger and Mister Stanley posed against rocks at a beach. For the first time she noticed that their arms were around each other’s shoulders.
“My boss, Mister Stanley,” Lula said.
“Tarzan!” The Cute One curled his lip.
“And her?” the Cute One asked.
“Ginger. His wife. His former wife.”
“Ginger the person? Ginger the cookie!”
He handed the picture to Leather Jacket, who said, “Ginger the Spice Girl. Hah!”
In a soft voice, Hoodie started chanting Albanian names and their English translations. “Bora snow, Era wind, Fatmir lucky. Beautiful Albanian names, ugly words in English.” He took a deep breath and resumed, rapping himself into a trance. “Jehona echo, Lula flower—”
“Shut the fuck up, you fucking idiot,” said Leather Jacket.
“Guys,” the Cute One said warningly.
Hoodie emerged from his name-trance like a child waking up cranky. He said, “So you and the boss . . . ?” He joined his left thumb and forefinger and poked his right index finger through. The Cute One shot him a look.
Leather Jacket said, “Sister, disregard this ignorant donkey bent over one too many times for the Greeks.”
The Cute One said, “Okay, guys. Cut it out. I’m Alvo.”
“Pleased to meet you, Alvo,” said Lula.
“This is Guri,” said Alvo, pointing at Hoodie. “And Genti.” He indicated Leather Jacket. “Better known as the G-Men.”
Lula said, “So . . . what do you guys do?”
“Listen to her,” said Hoodie. “Already asking her brothers the rude American question.”
“Contracting,” Alvo said.
“And you’re here because . . . ?”
Their expressions were like conversations reaching back to her childhood. She said, “Would you like some coffee?” If there was ever a moment to be Albanian, this was it. A shift in the pitch of their shoulders told her she’d done the right thing.
Hoodie—that is, Guri—and Leather Jacket Genti rearranged the furniture so the comfortable chair, Zeke’s chair, was at the head of the table. Alvo sat in the soft chair, the others on either side. They reached into their pockets and pulled out cigarettes.
She said, “Please don’t smoke. My boss—” Zeke wasn’t supposed to smoke or drink. Tobacco was disgusting. Lula’s father’s machine-gun cough still interrupted her dreams, less so after her hair stopped smelling of smoke, as it had when she’d worked at La Changita. She didn’t think Zeke’s super-weak mojitos counted as drinking. Lula bought the rum with her salary, not with the food allowance Mister Stanley gave her.
“Please,” she repeated. “If I get fired . . . what then?”
Hoodie said, “One cigarette each. Trust me. No one will know.”
Lula plunked down a soup bowl for them to use as an ashtray and stomped off to the kitchen. She ground a lot of coffee. Mister Stanley wasn’t picky about much, but he did like his whole Starbucks beans. This was not a job for the timid electric coffeepot. She boiled the coffee in a pan. She had to wash off a coating of grime, but Ginger’s Zen tea set would do nicely. Lula decanted the tarry sludge into delicate Japanese cups.
She brought four cups on a tray. The men thanked her. She sat in her Sunday breakfast seat, next to Leather Jacket and across from Hoodie. Leather Jacket took a bottle of clear liquor from his pocket and splashed some into the men’s cups. When he looked at Lula, she nodded. The alcohol burned deliciously. Spiked coffee at ten in the morning!
&nb
sp; “Delicious,” Lula said.
“Raki,” said Leather Jacket. “From my grandfather’s mulberry trees in Gjirokastra.”
“G’zoor,” they said. Enjoy. Good health. Long life. They drained their cups.
If Lula had hoped for a rush, she was unpleasantly surprised when the caffeine and alcohol melted her into a puddle of self-pity. How pathetic her life must be if she was ecstatic because three Albanians had home-invaded Mister Stanley’s and dosed her coffee with lighter fluid.
“Thank you,” Alvo repeated. “Little Sister, the reason we’re here is we need to ask you a teensy favor.”
Lula braced herself. Teensy favor could mean fly to Dubai and back, coach both ways, with a dozen condoms full of heroin up her ass.
“We need you to hold on to something for us. It’s nothing.” As Alvo leaned toward her, his handsome smile emphasized that it was nothing.
Lula pictured columns of shrink-wrapped white bricks stacked in Mister Stanley’s garage. Good-bye sweet library walks, good-bye innocent cocktail hours with Zeke. From now on, she would constantly be looking out the window.
Lula said, “You don’t even know me—”
“My point exactly,” said Alvo. “There is no Reese’s Pieces trail for ET to follow from us to you. Except for your Cousin George and my aunt in the immigration office.”
His aunt? Five minutes ago it was his girlfriend. But who was Lula to judge someone for not keeping his story straight? Better an aunt than a girlfriend. She was pleased to hear it.
“Hold on to what?” she said.
“A gun,” said Alvo. “A little gun.”
Lula sighed. She should have known. Maybe the white dust on their jeans was an illegal substance. Who drove SUVs like that except coke dealers and pimps? Contractors so rich and successful they had to go around armed?
Lula said, “What kind of little gun? I know about little guns. Also bigger guns.”
“Seriously?” said Guri. “No insult, you’re a girl.”
My New American Life Page 3