The Language of Sisters (29 page)

We kayaked, we traveled, we built memories.

I am so grateful now, for all those memories.

* * *

Marty was popular in our Russian community, not only because he was kind and interesting and always asked people how they were doing, but because he helped them with their medical concerns.

We would go to parties, to church, to dinners and celebrations, and members of the Russian community would come up and talk to him, in English and Russian. One elderly man spoke in Russian and Hebrew, sometimes changing midsentence.

“My heart goes thump thump, then it goes thump thump thump, quick, like a damn coyote. Why does it do that?”

“I have a problem with my gooser, Dr. Marty. Yes. My gooser. Here.” A woman smacked Marty's butt, then turned around to show him her butt. She leaned in and whispered, “I have to talk to you privately.”

“Can you take a peek at my titties, Dr. Romanowsky? I think one is a lot bigger than the other. Is that normal?” Marty was flashed by a seventy-two-year-old woman. “Do you see the problem?”

He listened. He was compassionate. He referred people he thought had true problems. They brought us meals, treats, sent flowers, hugged him.

Everyone loved Marty. I loved him, too.

* * *

“You all received the notice of eviction?” Charles asked, leaning back on his couch. He was worn out. Charles and Vanessa had worked hard for our dock to stay open, as had many other people. I'd done what I could through the newspaper and donated extra to pay the attorney. Heather Dackson had sent letters, worked with the courts, filed this and that.

But Tweedle Dee Dum and Tweedle Dum Dee, Portland slumlords, had hired their own attorneys. A counterattack was now being launched. Whether they could actually kick us off with a suit filed, that was another question. Maybe there would be an injunction, a hold, until the courts could settle it out.

“Yes,” I said, along with Nick, Lindy, Beth, Jayla, Daisy, and other houseboat owners on the dock.

“I received it right after a nine-hour operation.” Beth was worn out, too.

“Ninety days,” Vanessa said, “and we're supposed to be off and out.”

Everyone groaned.

Nick sat by me. I could feel his hotness. I was upset about the dock closing, but I also wanted to go to his houseboat, modern and clean, and roll around in his king-sized bed.

Nick had tried to help. He knew the governor from when the governor worked in law enforcement. The governor called his contacts. No go.

“Cannibals, both of them!” Daisy stood up and announced. She was wearing a green daisy the size of a saucer in her black felt hat and a purple dress with a white-haired woman holding a white feather in her teeth painted on the front. She was also wearing vintage, shiny red heels.

“Daisy, you told your sons that you have to leave, right?” Jayla asked.

“No, the f-word, I haven't told them. They are very bad boys. I'll tell them once I sail my houseboat away on the open ocean and visit the whales.”

“Now, now,” Charles said, worried, sitting back up. “Let's not do that, Daisy. Don't try to sail your house.”

“That wouldn't be safe, Daisy,” Jayla said, patting her hand. “We'll tell your sons and they'll move you to a better place.”

“No, I don't want a better place. I'm staying here on the river, with my river family! We're all together. I'm not going to live in a place with sick and old people. I'm not sick. I'm not old. I'll jump in the ocean with the fish and ride the whales before I live in a place without my river family. I love you! I want to live with you.”

Nick sighed, sad. Jayla dropped her head. Beth seemed to sink into her chair. Vanessa said, “We'll always be a family, Daisy,” so gently, “but we might have to move. How about if I call your sons?”

“I'm mad at my boys.” Daisy was suddenly angry. “They took my nunchucks. I know it. They took my sword, too. From China. Stealers. Burglars. Sometimes they're well-behaved boys, sometimes they're naughty. They tossed a man into this river, right here, under our feetsies, when it was snowing like a snow cone a few years ago, another one they made fly like a bird off a bridge. That man didn't have wings. How could he fly? There were two men gone with bang and bang, they shot with water guns, a long time ago, but they were mean to their wives, slime balls. Bang!”

Nick rolled his eyes. He was an officer of the law. I knew he could not let that go.

“I told you, you don't have to worry,” Lindy said, waving a dismissive hand. She was dressed in a white blouse, a brown skirt to her knees, and flats. Her blond hair was back in a ponytail, no makeup. Earlier she had regaled me with her opinion of Dostoyevsky. “We'll call it You Are Toast Day, and Tweedle Dee Dum and Tweedle Dum Dee will back off and no one will have to leave the dock.”

“And what's that? What's ‘You Are Toast Day'?” Nick asked. I felt him tense a bit. “You are toast” is not a phrase a DEA agent likes to hear.

“It means I have them handled.” She smiled at everyone. “Guess what I brought for dinner? Italiano!” She kissed her fingers. “Delizioso!”

We did cheer up over the pasta primavera, gelato and hot bread. Hard not to.

It was also hard not to stare at Nick.

I tried, tried hard, but his natural seductiveness reached out and stroked me and prodded my naked thoughts. I glanced away every single time he caught me staring at him. I might have even blushed. He smiled at me. I smiled back.

I blew him a kiss. I didn't think anyone saw the flying kiss until Daisy announced, “Aha! I see it! A kiss between crying kayak woman Toni and Pistol Man. It's love. I know it is.” She hugged me and said, “Now I'm going to sing you a love song,” and she did.

We do all love Daisy.

* * *

“This cake is enough to make me orgasm,” Valerie said.

“Please don't,” I said.

She mimicked one, short and sweet.

Ellie laughed.

“My daughters! I cannot believe you talk this way. Tsk.” My mother poked Valerie in the arm with a fork. “Mary, mother of Jesus, help me—”

I interrupted. “Mama, what do you think of the lemon cream?”

“I think it not made by Russian, but I like.” She winked at Juliet, a friend of ours since high school.

Juliet owned Juliet's Cakes, a pink-and-white bakery. Her cakes were like eating cake heaven. Ellie was trying to pick a flavor for her wedding cake, and we were tasting bites of each one—a difficult job but someone has to do it.

“I'm a boring and faithful married woman,” Valerie said. “You're going to be a boring and faithful married woman soon, Ellie. How does it feel?”

“Delightful.” Ellie smiled, teeth gritted, lips pulled back like a scary mask.

“Geez, that smile,” I said. “Gave me a fright.”

“I'd have to agree, Ellie,” Valerie said. “That was a freaky smile if I ever saw one.”

“It is because of the Italian stallion,” my mother said, waving her fork. “Elvira, I want to see you smiling for this, and I no see a right smile. See that smile? I think you ate a alligator.”

Ellie stopped smiling. She put her hand right over her widow's peak. The worry spot.

“What is it?” I asked.

“It's nothing ... but last night I was thinking of our vows and other ... thoughts ...”

“What thought?” my mother said. “You tell me the thought, I tell you don't marry Gino the Italian.”

“It's not that... .” Ellie paused. “It's not that I want to be with a bunch of men in my life, I don't. You know me, I am not promiscuous.”

“You're one step away from being Pollyanna,” Valerie drawled. “All you need is the blue dress and the white bow at your back.”

“But ...” Ellie fiddled with her hair. “One man? For decades? Forever?”

“That would be marriage,” Valerie said.

“Yes, that what it is,” my mother said, tapping her fork on Ellie's plate. “It forever. Like me and your papa. We together forever. You ready for that, Elvira? I ask this, I think no.”

I thought of Marty. I had wanted him for forever. Then I thought of Nick. Nick. Ah, Nick. “You don't like the forever part?”

“Gino is a sweet and caring man. The other day he brought me flowers. He makes me laugh. He loves me. He's smart. He's protective. But ...”

“See, I fix this problem,” my mother said. “You want wedding cake, Elvira? I buy you wedding cake, right now, we eat after dinner, but not at wedding. How about it? We take pink one, Juliet. Let's go.”

Ellie shook her head, pulled her paper bag out of her purse. “Juliet?”

“So, of the cakes before you,” Juliet said, taking her cue. “The vanilla cake with lemon cream icing, the pink champagne with coconut icing, the chocolate cake with mocha butter cream, the chocolate cake with salted caramel icing, and the white cake with raspberry butter cream, which is your favorite, Ellie?” She smiled. Juliet is calming and encouraging. She has a black belt in karate and I've seen her knock a grown man onto his back.

Ellie said, “They're all delicious. I can't decide. Can we get five cakes?”

Juliet's eyes opened wide. “Five?”

“Yes. Five medium cakes.”

“We could do that,” Juliet said. “It's not traditional, but I love the idea. It would be splendid for my business, too, if everyone started ordering five different cakes for their wedding.”

“I'm not that traditional. All the traditional stuff with this wedding is making me feel ...” Ellie waved a hand in the air, then pressed her fingers to her widow's peak, the worry center. “Like I can't breathe.”

“It's not the traditional that's taking your breath away,” Valerie muttered.

Ellie breathed into her paper bag. “I'm supposed to be with one man for the rest of my life. I'm supposed to take a vow, saying I will stay with him, forever.” Her voice pitched, higher and higher. “We are both going to change. We will become different people. Even if things go bad, go wrong, and I don't like him anymore—”

“Which they will, trust me,” Valerie said.

“I'm supposed to stay,” Ellie said. “Trapped. Stuck. Unhappy.”

“That is right,” my mother said. “You stay until you're dead. You stay with that Italian Gino until he is old man. Wrinkled. You stay with him when his bladder not work. You stay when that other thing not work. When he makes the farties, you stay with him. You want that, Elvira? Do you? I say no.”

Ellie, the jittery bride, who was getting closer and closer to running, I could feel it, attached the bag to her face again. The bag scrunched in, blew out.

“I'm keeping my mouth shut so I don't get tossed in the river again,” Valerie said.

Ellie stood up. “I'll take one of each, Juliet, thanks.” She walked, swaying from one side to the other, her air gone, out of the bakery.

What? After all that? I leaned back in my chair. When would she end this?

“We buy cake and I have daughter who go down the aisle with paper bag on face,” my mother said, patience for this mess gone. “We call her bride bag lady, no? Maybe we give brown bags out to guests for presents, huh? Everyone use when they see Elvira.”

I envisioned that. All the wedding guests with bags to their faces. I laughed.

* * *

In order not to lose my skills at Keeping The Monsters At Bay: Shopping Defensive Strategies, I dropped into a store nearby and bought new panties by Lace, Satin, and Baubles. All lacy and silky. Nick would like them, I was sure of it.

* * *

“Can I take you on a ride in my boat, Toni?”

I thought about it for only one second. Nick had invited me out on his boat before, but it felt like a date, and a date I could not do, and a boat was like a kayak, in that they both floated, so I said no.

But it was Saturday afternoon. I'd finished a story about a woman named Grenadine Scotch Wild, who made ten-foot-by-eight-foot paintings, then added collage items like sticks, birds' nests, beads, and sequins. Her art was exquisite. I was tired. I love the water and I hadn't been out on it in too long.

“It's not a date,” Nick said, smiling, as if he could read my mind.

“No, it's not.” His blondish, I-like-running-my-hands-through-that-hair was feathering back in the wind. “Why do you have to be so hot?”

Nick blinked a couple of times. My comment had caught him off guard.

“It would be a lot easier for me to resist you if you resembled a boar.”

“A boar?” He thought about that. “They're scary when they run straight at you.”

“You're scary enough.”

His face gentled. “I don't want to scare you, Toni. Ever.”

“I know, but you do.”

“I'm sorry.” He smiled again.

“Why do you have to have a smile like that?”

He laughed. “Like what?”

“A smiley smile. Handsome smile. Irresistible smile. Turn it off. Please.”

He stopped smiling. He glowered. Sheesh. “Now you're scaring me again.”

“I'm trying to do the right thing, here, babe. Come on, Toni. Will you go out on my boat with me? I bought chocolate chip cookies for you from that bakery you like downtown.”

“Yes, I will. I'll be brave on this non-date.”

“I'll hold your hand.”

I almost said, “Why do you have to have such sexy hands that know exactly what to do and where to go?” I refrained. I held my hand out, he took it.

I loved Nick's boat,
Sanchez One
. Two stories, as I like to say. Newish. Handled well. Clean. We anchored and had a late lunch of turkey sandwiches and the chocolate chip cookies.