Learning to Swear in America (12 page)

Yuri stared at them.

“I don’t know how to fly.”

“There’d be a co-pilot,” Dovie said.

“Thank God you people aren’t stopping this asteroid.”

“Hey, we’re doing the best we can,” Lennon said.

“That’s chilling thought.”

“In here,” Dovie said, indicating a clothing store displaying youthful male mannequins. She walked around the store grabbing hangers off the chrome racks, then shoved them at Yuri’s chest.

He went in the dressing room, stripped, eyed the clothes, and then sat down on the little seat against the wall. His legs seemed unnaturally white, like the ribs of a long-dead whale beached on an alien shore. He was tired of speaking English all the time. He missed his apartment and his favorite blue cup. He missed stopping at a bakery on the way home from the physics building on Lebedev Street to buy pryaniki, brown spice cookies he could smell through the bag and that left grease stains in its bottom. And he needed to get home. He didn’t want to pull American clothes over his Russian underpants.

“How you doing in there?” Dovie called.

He squeezed his eyes shut, struggled into a shirt, then hopped on one foot while pulling on the pants.

“Dovie!” he hissed.

“I’m just outside,” she said. “How do they fit?”

“You got wrong size.”

“No, I looked, too,” Lennon said. “She got them for scrawny-assed.”

“My pants are falling off.”

“That’s how they wear them,” Dovie said. “Let’s see you.”

“No!”

“Come on out,” Lennon said. “I want to see you in baggy pants.”

“I’d rather die.”

“That doesn’t mean much, given that you’re suicidal.”

Yuri stepped out of the offending pants and refolded them. No way he was buying them, and that felt somehow like a victory for him, and for Russia. He left the clothes in the fitting room and emerged humming the Russian national anthem under his breath.

They exited the store and walked to the center of the mall. Some shoppers ambled by, mostly young people, but it wasn’t crowded. They passed a cookie store and Yuri stopped and looked over the glass case.

“Do you have pryaniki?” he asked.

“Wha’?” the guy behind the counter said.

“Pryaniki. Small spice cookies.”

“We got oatmeal raisin.”

Yuri pressed his lips together in frustration. He slapped his hands on the counter, fingers curled under, and said, “My cookies can kick ass of your cookies any day of week.”

“Ooh-kay,” the counter guy said, rubbing his palms on his apron and glancing past Yuri.

“You might try chocolate chip,” Dovie said softly. “Here.” She handed a bill over the counter and pointed to a huge chocolate chip cookie with her index finger, a red ring catching the light. “My treat.”

The guy wrapped the cookie in waxed paper and handed it to her, then took a step back, away from Yuri.

Dovie ripped a piece off and popped it into Yuri’s mouth as they strolled through the mall. It was good, and when Dovie held
the cookie out toward him, he pulled another piece off and ate it slowly. They walked in silence for a few minutes, pausing occasionally to look in a shop window.

“We have another idea,” Dovie finally said. “It’s less entertaining than some of the others, but it might work better for a guy who refuses to change his look.”

“My underwears showed!”

“Yeah,” Lennon said. “So what about going to the Russian embassy? Or just calling them? You could explain, and they’d come get you.”

“You suggested drag before this?”

“We’re creative people,” Lennon said.

Yuri moved a chocolate chip around on his tongue.

“I thought about this. But they might come and get me now.” They looked at him, Dovie’s eye shadow scattering the harsh mall lights. “And we’re not done with work yet, on asteroid.”

“Couldn’t they get you as soon as you’re done? You tell them after you’ve figured your stuff out, and they send some spooky black van after you?” Dovie said.

He bit his lip, thinking of his disagreement with his team members. No way they’d use his result if he wasn’t there, but he didn’t want to explain that to Dovie and Lennon. Knowing about disagreements at JPL could cost them a lot of sleep. Then again, the asteroid would slam into America, not Russia. NASA could deal with it, and he could go home and protect his work, and his reputation. He paused for a long moment.

“I have to stay. Until it’s all over with asteroid.”

“Your choice,” Lennon said.

“Yeah.”

They were silent for a moment.

“What about getting into Mexico—” Lennon said.

“No.”

“—and keep going? Argentina takes anybody in. There have to be some old Nazis who have died by now. Maybe you could take over one of their hideouts.”

“Basic problem,” Yuri said, “is twofold. First, none of us have any experience with this. Second, I need point of exit from this country. Some way to get out. And I don’t have my passport.”

“You
forgot
your
passport
?” Dovie whacked his shoulder with the back of her fingers.

“I didn’t
forget
. They took it when I got on plane. To hold for me.”

“Ah,” Lennon said.

“Yeah. Ah.”

They walked into the Target store at the end of one spur of the mall, passed through aisles stocked with bright-colored plastic sand pails, swim noodles, and sunblock, and filed out through an empty checkout lane. Yuri held the door for Dovie and Lennon. It was still warm outside.

“Canada would be best,” Dovie said, leading them into the parking lot. “It has a long border, too.”

“I like Canada. I’m comfortable in forest zone.”

That made Dovie smile.

She pulled a shopping cart out of the cart return and climbed
in, using the lower railing of the corral as a step. She pointed to the side of the parking lot, and Yuri started pushing her. When they reached the edge of the lot, Dovie extended her hand and Yuri took it, trying to help her out. But Dovie wasn’t a thin girl, and she was starting from two feet in the air. Yuri finally put one arm around her waist and hooked the other behind her knees and lifted her out. He staggered slightly as he put her down, feeling the pull in his sore back and shoulders. He really needed to work out more if he was going to hang off bridges and rescue damsels from shopping carts.

“Now you get in,” she said.

He obeyed without a word and didn’t think about it until he was in the cart, knees drawn up to his chest, black dress shoes propped against the red plastic. He was not a spontaneous guy. Not a baggy pants guy. Yet he’d just climbed into a shopping cart because this American girl had told him to.

And she was pushing him toward the steeply inclined access road that curved down behind the store.

Yuri grabbed the red plastic rim, and Dovie put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him back down. She had a ring on every finger, and he could feel them all through his shirt, bright bits of metal and sparkle and girl. His shoulders tingled, and the sensation spread down his arms, his legs, everywhere. The rings were excellent conductors of electricity.

“Wait. What …”

“It’ll be fun,” Dovie said.

“I need helmet!”

“You need balls,” Lennon said. “I roll around all the time, and you don’t hear me screaming about it.”

“You gotta learn to live life, not just save it,” Dovie said, and gave him a push.

Yuri tucked his head down as the cart wheels rattled violently, the wind flapping his collar and cooling his ears. He reached out instinctively, looking for steering, for levers that weren’t there. He was completely out of control, and as he bounced down the access road toward the inevitable crash, it occurred to him that had been true even before he climbed in the cart.

“Come on,” Dovie said, extending a hand down.

The cart had clipped the curb and lay on its side on the grass. Yuri lay beside it, spread-eagle.

“Can’t. Dead.”

Lennon blew air out in disgust.

“We have cake back at the house,” Dovie said, “and Mom said to invite you.”

“Cake?”

Yuri sat up, inspecting himself for hemorrhages and lacerations of vital organs. He found a bruise on his left elbow.

“Mm-hmm. It’s a holiday.”

“May twenty-seventh is holiday in America?”

“It is in our house.”

He stood and began to trudge up the hill.

“Something to do with World War Two?”

Dovie and Lennon exchanged a glance.

“We don’t celebrate anniversaries of martial destruction or attacks on civilian populations,” Lennon said, “whether or not they were technically successful. Anyone causing human death has automatically lost.”

“Tell that to defenders at Stalingrad,” Yuri muttered, but stepped back to grab the handles of Lennon’s chair and pushed him up the hill.

Dovie drove them back to the Collums’ little purple house on its lot in the shabby postwar neighborhood. The paisley drapes were open, and light spilled onto the lawn.

“Dad frees Woody Guthrie for holidays,” Dovie said. “Be careful where you step.”

“The parakeet,” Lennon said.

“Oh.”

Mr. and Mrs. Collum hugged them all at the door. Yuri held his breath while Mr. Collum embraced him. He wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t think he’d ever been hugged by a man before, and it seemed like a good idea. Mr. Collum flipped a CD player on, and a man’s gravelly voice filled the room with something approximating music. They gathered around the table, where a round cake stood on a glass cake stand. It had chocolate frosting, and a circle with spokes piped on top with white icing. It was a wheel, and done with some artistry. Dovie reached out and took Yuri’s hand, and he blushed. Then Mrs. Collum took his other hand and he looked up and realized they were holding hands in a circle. Was this a hippie initiation rite? He hoped no bandana would be involved.

“We are thankful to be together and healthy in a circle of love,” Mr. Collum intoned, “on this anniversary of the release of Bob Dylan’s album
The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan
.” Yuri stared at him. “First released May 27, 1963, its importance to Dylan’s career and to the protest movement was incalculable.”

They dropped hands.

“That’s the album with ‘Blowin’ in the Wind,’ ‘Masters of War,’ and ‘A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,’” Mrs. Collum said helpfully. “Happy first Freewheelin’ Day, Yuri.”

“You celebrate this?”

“We don’t follow the Judeo-Christian calendar,” Mr. Collum said. “Too oppressive. Or official state holidays, designed to instill conformity in the population and inhibit independent thought.”

“We celebrate hippie holidays,” Dovie said.

“The Greenwich riots …” Mr. Collum said.

“Riots?”

“… the anniversary of the March on Washington. Even the Bonus Army’s march on Washington.”

“The Bonus Army? But armies …”

“Pretty much anybody who marches on Washington,” Lennon said.

“Do you follow the Judeo-Christian calendar?” Mrs. Collum asked politely, handing him a slice of cake.

“Don’t worry,” Lennon said. “She bought it at the bakery, and Dovie decorated it. We can have refined sugar on holidays.”

“It’s a wheel,” Dovie said. “You know, for ‘Freewheelin’.’”

“Oh. Um, well, university is closed certain days, so I guess I follow state holidays.”

“Can’t help that,” Mr. Collum said regretfully.

Bob Dylan’s voice ground higher on the CD player.

“What would your parents think about this?” Mrs. Collum asked.

“I honestly don’t know. Well, my father died when I was very young. But my mother? I’ve no idea.”

“What’s she like?” Dovie asked.

“Um … she’s cardiologist. She’s always on call, or at hospital, and I went away to school. I don’t really know her very well.” No one said anything but Dylan, crooning about the rain that was a-gonna fall. “She’s very clean.”

Mrs. Collum cut more cake and dumped it on his first slice.

“Oh. That’s nice,” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “Nice. She’s nice.”

They ate in silence for a moment.

“Um, is there dancing on Freewheelin’ Day?” he asked, to change the subject.

“Dancing? The boy wants to dance, Delinda,” Mr. Collum said.

“No! No, really. Just asking.”

“Dovie could dance Saturday if she wanted to, but she won’t,” Mr. Collum said.

“
Dad
.”

“Why don’t you see if Yuri will take you?”

“
Dad!
”

“Saturday is the prom,” Lennon said. “It’s the most important dance of the school year.”

“
You
never went,” Dovie said, then flushed. “Sorry.”

“I got dumped that week, asshole.”

“I said sorry. And you could have gone.”

“It’s juniors and seniors. She’s a junior,” Mrs. Collum said. “It’s formal clothes and fancy hairstyles and dancing all evening.”

Yuri nodded, thinking about the small house, Dovie’s clatter-trap of a car. Wondering if the problem was lack of a date, or lack of money for a dress.

“Do you want me to take you? I think I can get away …”

“No, you don’t have to do that,” Dovie said, blushing.

Yuri glanced past her to Lennon, who was nodding vigorously. So were his parents.