Let Me Explain You

  Marina ladled them each another cupful, then said, “No more eating the profits.”

  They cleared the table, chopped onions, mopped the floor. At the end of the night—too close to the next morning—she returned the scarf to her neck, as she would every night when work was done. Knotted tight around her neck, it made Marina ten years older. A woman unable to relax, an immigrant with money on her mind.

  That made two of them. Here they were, two foreigners and a salt shed, all trying hard to be what they were never, and always, meant to be.

  We were told He Will Come Back Tomorrow. Tomorrow We Were Told, He Is Working, Always Working. He Is Coming with Christmas. He Is Making a House for You, Plank by Plank. He Is Cooking Tyropeta, and When He Makes Enough to Feed the New York, He Will Come for His Kouklares . He Is Helping Your Sick Mother Get Better. He Has Shingles, Very Painful, Very Worried for You and Wanting the Best. Soon, Koukla, Soon. He Is Coming after You Finish Your Porridge. He Is Coming When You Stop Crying and Stomping Your Feet. He Will Be Here the Minute You Don’t Pee the Bed Anymore. He Is Coming When He Can Come for Good Girls. He Is Coming When You Answer Back with English & Not the Angry Spoons of Greek. He Is Coming When That Star Moves to That Black Space. See Him? He Is on His Way. He Is Just Greetings Away, One English Word Away. He Is Never So Near, He Can Hold the Rain Back with Nothing More than a Shrug. He Is Not Afraid of Nightmares, He Will Conquer Them for You. He Is So Close, You Can Touch His Strange Animal Beard. You Can Hear the Approaching of His Footsteps in Your Own Throat. He Is Coming. He Is Coming. He Is Coming. He Is Coming.

  PART III

  DAY 2

  * * *

  Acceptance

  CHAPTER 20

  * * *

  Marina has a story to tell, too.

  Marina has her own dream.

  Marina comes to work today, every day. Marina misses no work. Work is the moon that hangs the day. The moon is the crescent sickle that hangs the day. The moon tells Marina, Get up, use your fingers and your rosy brain. Even when the wake-up moon is shrouded in coal, Marina gets up. Summoned, chosen. Work helps you understand that a day has just happened to you, that you have been lucky enough. Work, not sun, marks our orbit.

  Marina prays before the sun can make its interruptions. When she was younger, the prayer had words to it, but now words are not necessary. The prayer is in the breathing, which she says Pay attention to, because the prayer keeps each of you between its breaths. When Marina prays, she thanks for many things, which includes the pig she will kill today. Marina pats the hind of the pig, which sounds like dough being slapped onto a board. Each day, for sixty or more years, a pig’s hindquarters have sounded like this to Marina. The quiet is nice, too, for Marina. The moon. Maybe one time it reflected the things missing, and one time reminded her of someone she left behind, someone whose skin feels like cork, but Marina is not a lonely woman these days. Look at all she has built, all the life that she has come by. Even this person she has left behind, the one who could massage the stone out of her chest, even this person would be honored and hold no regrets.

  The dream-sky gets clearer, and Marina knows that it is time for kafe with Stavros Stavros. She knows that he will come down from his apartment, and that if it is not raining or very cold, and today it is not, they will sit on each side of the picnic table and make lists and ask each other the names of the customers they are continuously forgetting, and Marina will prod Stavros Stavros to tell her what is new with the girls, and he will remain vague because he does not have a head for it, and she will craft her own understanding of their lives from the shavings of detail he gives. Her girls—she’s watched with growing pains. She will think of them through his complaints while he makes the kafe, the one thing he does for the two of them because it is his kind of prayer, Marina has come to realize. Marina will shake out her apron and tie it to her, and then Stavros will retie it as he walks by, almost without thinking, because her hands, which can fillet a bulb of garlic, have trouble with knots these days.

  Stavros Stavros thinks of work the way she thinks of work. Not even when his youngest was born did he take a day off.

  Because at their core people are always who they were, Stavros Stavros will tend to the goat, which is standing in the corner of the lot and scraping against a tree. The day will be getting louder, it will be full of crispy promise for the simple fact that it is a day, and then they will talk business and ingredients very close to spoiling, which must be turned into specials.

  But, of course, Stavros Stavros does not come.

  It is four days, Stavros missing.

  Until now, she has only laughed about living until we say goodbye.

  Marina boils the kafe, cuts two thumbs of cheese, and spoons out a clot of honey. This happens very fast, all at once.

  Marina takes the wooden stairs to the apartment. She stands on the top step, which is larger than the others, and which has one flower in a pot. Marina knocks on the glass, which is obscured by a shade. Marina tries the door, which is unlocked. She feels already that it is an empty place, that it is like a carcass rather than an animal; she will not find her boss and partner here. Foolishly, Marina enters calling for Stavros Stavros, and because it is a trembling voice, she does not believe it belongs to her.

  The bathroom, it is empty except for a wet towel curled on the floor like a dog. The bedroom, it is unmade, but she can smell cologne on the collars of hanging shirts. The hall is dark. The kitchen—the kitchen. This is Marina’s fear, because the kitchen is where Marina was born, and the kitchen is where Marina will die. So Marina feels for the light switch before she looks. Marina turns her face to the particleboard cabinets before she will look at the table or floor. She tries to feel, rather than see. She trusts her peripheral vision to tell her what is to come, what there is left to work through.

  Nothing. Nothing she can foresee, except a blackness.

  The dream, it gives Marina a chill.

  “Which is why Marina has asked for you today, which is why Marina has brought the two of you together.”

  Something troubled Stavroula. Marina’s story, but also the story being told beneath Marina’s story—it went clang, clap clap. It was outside, tied up: the goat. It continuously pawed the metal doors leading to the basement, as if there were a dent it was compelled to bang out. Clang, clap clap. She felt her stomach lurch. She looked at Litza to see if she could hear it. She couldn’t tell.

  Litza said, “He has a dream about dying and wants everybody to jump. Now you have a dream, you expect everybody to run.”

  This morning, Stavroula had awoken and stared at herself in the mirror. What she saw was Dina. Dina’s square face, her whittled, selfish eyes. Dina’s short short hair, yes; that, she had given to herself willingly. Staring into the mirror, Stavroula said, Four days. There were no traces of her father. Where was her father in her?

  Litza had taken care, extra care, with her clothes. Her black shirt was ironed, and she wore a silver necklace that repeated itself in loops. She had on three pretend-silver rings. Or, what did Stavroula know, maybe they were real. Litza had dressed carefully, but that did not hide that there was something clammy about her face. Her makeup was slipping. The eyeliner was a blue scrape. If Litza had slept at all, she had slept too much.

  Something was wrong with Marina’s face, too. Moist darkness beneath the eyes, like mushroom. Stavroula wanted to wet the bottom of Marina’s apron and wipe them.

  “He is not with you, he is not with me, he is not with your mother, he is not with your sister, he is not with Hero. Not with customers nor vendors, his car is here.” Marina clapped her knife on the board. “You must agree, your father is gone.”

  Frail. This was how Marina looked. It suddenly hit Stavroula—Marina had brought them here to plead with them. Stavroula said, “Should we call the police?”

  Litza snickered.

  Marina slapped Litza. Right in the face. Marina’s mouth trembling. “For once, stop being an animal.”

&nbs
p; Stavroula waited for the explosion. Litza, who had told Marina off over far lesser insults. But Litza was not yelling or fighting, and Litza was not running.

  Clang, clap clap. The kitchen gone silent, uneasy.

  Anger crowded out the fear, put Marina back inside Marina. She flung her apron. “You are not children anymore. This is yours to deal with, like it or not.” Then she was moving through the kitchen and into the dining room, telling them about their Mother’s Ass and Where They Could Find Their Father’s Unwed Whores, who were nearby in Hell and Reeking of Plant Decay. The kitchen, relieved, got loudly back to work.

  All this time, Litza held her palm to her cheek. Standing beside Stavroula. Listening—Stavroula was sure of it—to the clang, clap clap. Admitting, for the first time, that she heard it, too. Litza’s breaths coming quick, just as they had on their first day in America. Little Stavroula entering this country holding her breath, Little Stavroula, looking straight ahead, taking her sister’s hand. Saying, Myn AnysykhYte, Don’t Worry, Never mind. Then slipping a stone—not a stone, a blue Evil Eye to ward off bad spirits, which she had dug out of the ground—between their palms, and holding it there, between her hand and her sister’s. Encouraging Litza to be brave, because what did Little Stavroula know about what was to come?

  Stavroula said, “You OK?”

  And, finally, Litza running.

  CHAPTER 21

  * * *

  Litza went looking for her father, alone. It was a familiar feeling, seeking someone who didn’t want to be found. She drove. She tried to imagine where he’d go, but she could not create a route that reminded her of him. Only the roads themselves, speeding up and turning away from her, escaping to other towns, other countries, barely looking back, reminded her of her father.

  Dear Dad: What am I looking for?

  His philosophy had always been, If you make a wrong turn, don’t expect me to come find you. Alternatively, Always take the high road, and you won’t be in the dark with the mud or bums.

  What she wished to hear was—It’s OK if you make mistakes, even if they hurt other people and You have the right to be happy.

  At the pizza place that he went to when he wasn’t having Marina make him a meal, they told Litza that he hadn’t ordered anything in days. She drove to the Greek church, taking the back roads, which she imagined her father taking, too. He was not at the church, she knew he would not be. She went to the mistress’s house, an address she had found in his office when she and Stavroula went ransacking, even though Marina said it was over between them. The mistress lived in a development where one house looked exactly like the next, but the cunt couldn’t hide from her. Litza had no shame, Litza didn’t care, she looked through the windows. She shouted through the door, “Is he in there with you?” She pounded on the glass and appreciated how it shuddered in response.

  The yellowing blinds went up. The cunt’s voice came through, muffled. “I haven’t seen Stavros in a week.”

  They stared each other down through the glass door. Litza was surprised. This person seemed to have almost nothing in common with her father. OK, she was black, but she also had to be twenty years younger, and she was big—she looked like she was built for nesting. Her father’s mistress looked like she had more in common with Mother, truthfully, which was fucking hysterical. He clearly had a type.

  What type was that, exactly? What was Rhonda? A 303? 304? And whatever code there was for Gold-digger, Taking Advantage of a Man Who Has Cut Himself Off from His Children.

  The mistress gave in first, and the blinds fell. Then came the unlocking of the door, and the opening, because she must have been warned it was better not to fight Litza.

  Litza sat on the stoop. She stared at the two cars in the driveway. One was older, a sedan. The other was new, an SUV. Black. She guessed that her father had paid for that one.

  When the mistress came back—Rhonda—she had two mugs in her hand. She sat next to Litza on the step and gave her the mug, and when Litza did not accept it, set it next to her. She had taken the time to put cream in Litza’s cup, though she had not bothered to ask if Litza would care for any coffee.

  “Can you tell me what makes somebody so desperate that they have to go looking for a married man online?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Rhonda said. “He came looking for me. And you’re at my house, so remember that when you open your mouth. I know your father taught you as much.”

  Litza didn’t begrudge this. She tried to imagine her father keeping up with this woman and couldn’t. Maybe that was one of the things that attracted him to her. She tried to imagine them doing things like walking hand in hand. She never thought of her father’s hands as small, but they would be small in Rhonda’s. She tried to imagine them dancing together—her father liked to dance and was good at it, he had decent rhythm—and figured she’d be the one woman he let lead. She imagined her father being unable to help laughing at himself when Rhonda lugged him around the floor like a sack of flour.

  Litza said, “I bet you’re sorry now that you answered his email.”

  “It takes two people to make a mistake. But I should’ve seen him coming.” Rhonda held the mug close. “So you know, he said he wasn’t married.”

  Litza shrugged. A technicality. Maybe he said he wasn’t married, but that didn’t mean she should have believed him. Litza could tell that Rhonda was shrewd, and “unmarried” was the story she wanted to believe because it was convenient. The truth, though—even Litza could acknowledge—was that his marriage had been gutted by that point, anyhow. Long before he ever made an online account to date black women, Litza had judged him for being unfaithful. It had almost nothing to do with Mother, and even less to do with a mistress. Add cheating on his wife to his long list of infidelities.

  “I’m not proud of it, all right?” Rhonda said. “I should’ve cut him off as soon as I found out. But it was too late by then.” She took a sip from her mug because there was awkwardness between them, because all of a sudden this was a real conversation, and neither of them had expected it to turn into that. She said, “How is he?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Last I saw him, he didn’t look too good.”

  “What, like sick?”

  “Unh-uh. More like troubled.”

  Litza laughed. “Maybe you’re the trouble.”

  Rhonda cracked a smile, but it faded quickly.

  Rhonda had no idea he was missing. She believed Litza was here to confront her about being a mistress. It delighted Litza that she could withhold this critical information from someone who was firmly inconsequential to her family. More inconsequential than her. Even if the cunt had received a new car and Litza hadn’t.

  Litza tried the coffee, which was very hot. And tasted burned. “What is this?”

  “Starbucks.”

  Of course. Probably, he had gotten it for free from Mother, and then passed it on as a gift to his mistress. How Litza hated Starbucks coffee, almost as much as Greek coffee.

  There was something about Rhonda that reminded Litza of Mother. That is, a woman who had been presented a vision of a man who pretended to be one way but really was the opposite. Stavros pretended to be a man of courage and sympathy and someone who opens a door for you because all he wants is to cherish you, when in reality he is opening the door so you can cherish him. When, in reality, he is giving you gifts so you can praise him for being such a giver. When he looks at you, all he sees is what you can do for him. This much Litza could read on Rhonda’s face. But there was something in the way that she shook her head that reminded Litza of herself, too: she and the mistress were the kind of women who both accepted, but resented, that they had to take what they could get.

  Rhonda said, “I can’t be with someone who’s looking over his shoulder all the time. I need someone to be with me.”

  “Bullshit. You got what you wanted, and you got out.”

  “Have you known anybody to get what they wanted from your father?” Litza let her h
ave that one. “Your father can’t give what he don’t have.”

  E883.9. Falling into a hole or cavity or other open surface, such as a pit or a shark tank. Rhonda had actually loved him, Rhonda had fallen for him. Or, more realistically, E886.9, he had pushed or collided into her or shoved her into caring for him. Rhonda, like Litza, had had to find out the hard way how disappointing he was.

  “Did he get you that car?” Litza asked.

  “No.”

  “Yes he did. I saw the receipts.” This was a lie.

  “Then he bought himself the same one.” Rhonda turned to look at Litza. “What did you come here for? A fight?”

  “I can get that at home.”

  “So what, then? You want an explanation? ’Cause you should go to your father for that.”

  “I just came for the coffee.”

  Rhonda snorted. “If it’s one thing you can get from your family, it’s coffee. Why are you coming around now, Litza?”

  It was surprising to hear her own name. It was validating, in a way, and it somehow made Rhonda more real, too. It meant her father had talked about Litza, but also it meant that Rhonda, as a potentially objective outsider, had been listening and might have made up her own mind about her. And maybe could be fairer about Litza than any of them. It was strange to have an ally in someone who, for all intents and purposes, didn’t matter but wasn’t meaningless. It meant something to Litza to be seen, truly seen, by her father’s mistress.

  “I don’t want anything from you.” Litza stood. “I’m just looking for him.”

  “Why?”

  “He owes me money.”

  “That man doesn’t owe anybody money.”

  Rhonda didn’t stand, which was a power move in itself. She looked out at the street. “Your father is a good man. He stuck by his family, even when things got tough. He made hard choices ’cause he had to. You think I don’t know, but I do. I was paying attention the whole time. He told me all of it. You girls don’t know him. You don’t see all of him.”