The Language of Sisters

by Cathy Lamb

Genres: Literary Fiction; Women's Fiction; International Crime & Mystery

Synopsis

A family of Russian refugees juggle their haunting past with their challenging present in this novel by the author of My Very Best Friend.

Sometimes Toni Kozlovsky and her sisters know what each other is thinking, just when they need it most. Since Toni, Valerie, and Ellie were little girls growing up in Communist Russia, their parents have insisted it’s simply further proof that the Kozlovskys are special and different.

Now a reporter, Toni lives on a yellow tugboat on Oregon’s Willamette River. As far as her parents are concerned, the pain of their old life and their dangerous escape should remain buried in the Moscow they left behind, as should the mysterious past of their adopted brother, Dmitry. But lately, Toni’s talent for putting on a smile isn’t enough to keep memories at bay.

Valerie, a prosecuting attorney, wages constant war against the wrongs she could do nothing about as a child. Youngest sister Ellie is engaged to marry an Italian, breaking her mother’s heart in the process. Toni fears she’s about to lose her home, while the hard-edged DEA agent down the dock keeps trying to break through her reserve. Meanwhile, beneath the culture clashes and endearing quirks within her huge, noisy, loving family are deeper secrets that Toni has sworn to keep—even from the one person she longs to help most . . .

“Lamb . . . draws readers into the embrace of Toni's eccentric and loud extended family, who inject regular bouts of humor into the story while their love for one another is palpable . . . . The joy of this intricate story is following these characters and their warm and compelling development . . . ” —Library Journal

Release date: August 30, 2016

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 480

Sample

I was talented at pickpocketing.

I knew how to slip my fingers in, soft and smooth, like moving silk. I was lightning quick, a sleight of hand, a twist of the wrist. I was adept at disappearing, at hiding, at waiting, until it was safe to run, to escape.

I was a whisper, drifting smoke, a breeze.

I was a little girl, in the frigid cold of Moscow, under the looming shadow of the Soviet Union, my coat too small, my shoes too tight, my stomach an empty shell.

I was desperate. We were desperate.

Survival stealing, my sisters and I called it.

Had we not stolen, we might not have survived.

But we did. We survived. My father barely, my mother only through endless grit and determination, but now we are here, in Oregon, a noisy family, who does not talk about what happened back in Russia, twenty-five years ago. It is best to forget, my parents have told us, many times.

“Forget it happened. It another life, no?” my father says. “This here, this our true life. We Americans now. Americans!”

We tried to forget, but in the inky-black silence of night, when Mother Russia intrudes upon our dreams, like a swishing scythe, a crooked claw emerging from the ruins of tragedy, when we remember family members buried under the frozen wasteland of the Soviet Union’s far reaches, we are all haunted, some more than others.

You would never guess by looking at my family what some of us have done and what has been done to us. You would never sense our collective memory, what we share, what we hide.

We are the Kozlovskys.

We like to think we are good people.

Most of the time, we are. Quite good.

And yet, when cornered, when one of us is threatened, we come up swinging.

But, pfft.

All that. In the past. Best to forget what happened.

As my mother says, in her broken English, wagging her finger, “No use going to Moscow in your head. We are family. We are the Kozlovskys. That all we need to know. The rest, those secrets, let them lie down.”

Yes, do.

Let all the secrets lie.

For as long as they’ll stay down.

They were coming up fast. I could feel it.

“A Italian!” my mother, Svetlana, howled, slamming a cast-iron pan onto her stove. “What is this? My Elvira marrying a Italian? Why not a Russian? What wrong with Russian? I been cursed. Like black magic spell.”

English is my mother’s fourth language. Russian and Ukrainian come first. She is also conversationally fluent in French, which is the language she likes to swear in. Her English is never perfect, but it goes downhill quickly based on how upset she is.

“That sister of yours, Antonia”—she put her palms up to the ceiling—“Elvira is a... how you say it? I know now the word: rebel. She a rebel. I pray for her, but I knew when she born, your aunt Polina say to me, ‘This one, she will cause your heart to cry!’ And see?” She pointed at her chest. “Tears.”

“Mama. Your heart is not crying. Ellie says she is in love with Gino.”

“Love! Love!” she scoffed. She pushed a strand of her black hair back, the same color as mine, only mine fell down my back in waves and hers was to her shoulders in a bell shape. Our blue eyes were the same shade, too. I looked at her and I knew what I’d look like in twenty-two years. Definitely encouraging.

“I know about love. I have it with your papa. I know about this passion I have for him. He and I, we have the, what you call it?” She lowered her voice, for effect. “The biology in the bedroom.”

“Chemistry. You and Papa have chemistry.” I rolled my eyes and braced myself, then ate one of her chocolate fudge cookies. They are beyond delicious.

“No! Not chemistry. That chemicals. I say we have the biology in the bedroom because biology is body. He cannot stay away from me, from this.” She indicated her body from neck to crotch with one hand, head held high. My mother is statuesque. She curves. She still rocks it, I have to say.

“I cannot stay away from his manly hood, either.” She grabbed a knife and held it in the air, as if making a solemn vow. “I say that in the truth.”

I was going to need many chocolate fudge cookies that afternoon, that was my truth.

“But Antonia, your sister”—her voice pitched again, in accusation, as if I were in charge of Ellie—“she cannot have the biology for a Italian. She has it, it in her blood, for a Russian! A strong Russian man.”

My mother started banging pans around, muttering in Ukrainian. I loved her kitchen. It was huge, bright, and opened up to the family room. There were granite counters, white cabinets, and a backsplash with square tiles in every bold color of the rainbow. My mother loves bright colors. Says it reminds her, “I am no longer living in a gray and black world, fear clogging my throat like a snake.”

She had her favorite blue armoire, formerly owned by a bakery to showcase their pies, built into the design and used it as a pantry. A butcher block counter was attached to a long, old wood table that had previously been used in a train station. Blue pendant lights, three of them, fell above the train station table. The windows were huge, at my mother’s request. She wanted to be able to look out and know immediately that she was in America, not Moscow. “Free,” she said. “And safe from evil.”

This kitchen was where all of her new recipes for my parents’ restaurant, Svetlana’s Kitchen, were tried out. This kitchen was thousands of miles away from the tiny, often nonfunctioning kitchen of my childhood in Moscow. The one where I once watched her wash blood off her trembling hands—not her blood—in our stained and crumbling sink.

“Elvira should marry Russian man. She will grow to love him, like a sunflower grow. Like a turnip grow.”

“You were in love with Papa when you married him. No one asked you to grow to love your husband like a turnip.”

“Ah yes, that. I in love with your papa when I see him at university. I told my father after the first kissy, you must plan wedding for Alexei and me right away, right now, because soon I lay naked with him.”

Oh boy. Here we go. I poured myself a cup of coffee. My mother makes coffee strong enough for me to grow chest hairs.

“I make the love with him.” She grabbed a spatula and pointed it at me. “I say that to my father.”

I imagined my mother’s sweet, late father, Anatoly Sabonis, hearing that from her. Poor man. I’m sure he momentarily stopped breathing. “I know, Mama, you told me.”

“It was how I felt. Here.” She put her spatula to her heart. “So in one month I am married to Alexei, but my father not let me be alone with him for one minute before wedding. And still, in the bedroom, your papa and I—”

“I know, Mama. You love Papa. Like Ellie loves Gino.”

“No! Not like that.” She smacked the spatula on the countertop. “Elvira fall in love with non Russian. A nonrusseman.”

“A nonrusseman?”

“Yes. I make that word up myself. It clever.”

“Is it one word?”

“Yes. One word. More efficient. More quickly.”

“Are you done?”

“No, I not done. Never done. That Italian not Russian. Does not have our genes. Our pants, you know? The jeans. Not have our history in his blood.”

“Mama, what’s in our blood is a lot of Russian vodka.”

“Yes, devil drink. Fixes and dixes so many Russians, but we are Russian American. American Russians. We marry other American Russians.”

“Unless we fall in love with Italian Americans, then we marry them. Or we marry Hawaiians, like Valerie did.”

“Kai is my new son.” My mother adores my sister’s husband. “Not this Gino. No and no. He not enough. I see them together and I no see the love.”

I didn’t see it, either, from Ellie to Gino, but Gino loved Ellie. I decided to keep my mouth shut.

My mother whipped the spatula through the air like a lasso. “But she plans a wedding. Me oh my God bless, Mother Mary help me.”

“I like Italian food.”

“Italian food!” My mother gasped. “Italian food? At the wedding of my Elvira? No. Russian food. We have Russian food. If we not have Russian food, I not come.”

“Ellie wants you to come.”

She crossed her arms over her impressive bosom. “No. Not unless Russian food.”

“It will be Russian and Italian food, I heard. A blend.” I tried not to laugh.

“That not happening.” Fists to air. She looked to the heavens for divine intervention. So dramatic. “It cannot be. I am good Russian mother. I be good to her and now! A Italian. My Elvira choices it. Where went I wrong?”

“Gino is not an it.”

I watched my mother stomp around the kitchen as she yanked out more pans. Her pans, cast iron, from my father, are her favorite possession. She cried when he brought them home many years ago as a gift, when I was a teenager, as did my father. It wasn’t about the pans. It was about loss, despair, and a promise kept.

My mother loves to cook, and when she’s stressed she cooks until the stress is gone. The cooking and baking can last for days.

Her customers love it, as when my mother is stressed she makes specials for the restaurant. It is a quiet message that goes through the Russian American community. “Svetlana is upset? What is she upset about?” And then, quickly, “What is she making? Last time I had fish soup with salmon, halibut, and lemon. It warmed my bones. Do you know if she’s making that again?”

The restaurant is packed, always, but when the Russian community hears about my mother’s temper going off, we are more packed than usual, line out the door.

She banged those special pans, muttered, in English and Russia, swore in French, then it was back to English. She has a doctorate in Russian Literature and used to be a professor when we lived in Moscow before our lives collapsed.

“You children and your papa, though he tire me out in the bedroom, you are my whole life. We love the children. But constant it is!” She yelled and swung another pan onto the stove. “Always these problems. Elvira want to marry a Italian it. Your other sister around the bad criminals, all the time! And you”—she pointed at me, this time with a wooden spoon, wielded like a sword—“you write about the crime. That make criminals mad at you. Why like this? More worries. More anxious for me. I worry, all the time!”

Yes, I write about crime for the Oregon Standard, our state’s largest newspaper. But to my credit, I hate it. I would probably quit soon. Another problem, which I was not going to share with my mother so she would not get “more anxious,” is that the dock where my home is—a yellow tugboat—is about to be shut down. Yes, I live in a yellow tugboat on the Willamette River.

I was also climbing my way back up from a soul-slashing experience that had knocked me to my knees, then whipped me to my butt, then pushed me down face-first into the dirt and there I lay for a long time. I am now breathing, and I have told myself that I will not be facedown in the dirt again, but sometimes I say that when I am facedown.

“Lookie. See my hair. White streak. From the worry. It my worry hair.”

My mother did have a white streak. It started at her widow’s peak, to the left center of her head, the same place where Valerie, Ellie, and I had our widow’s peaks. It’s where the language of sisters and brothers comes in, she’s told us, handed down through the Sabonis family line, to communicate, silently, with our siblings. It’s not rationally or scientifically explicable, so I won’t try, but sometimes I can hear my sisters talking to me in my head.

“It’s vogue, Mama.”

“No, not vogue. This old woman hair. Caused by my children. Nieces and nephews, too. All the peoples in the Kozlovsky family. I blame you, your sisters. And!” She slammed down a container of flour. “You know who, who worries me the most!”

I knew who. I worried, too.

She flung a pile of spice bottles down on the counter. “We are Kozlovskys, we are good people, but this not right. You talk to Elvira, Antonia, I tell you, you fix this.” She shook her finger at me. “Fix it right up, like you do. Quick. You do a quickie. No nonrusseman.”

When I left, she gave me cheese dumplings and a container of roast goose with apples and dill. My mother has to feed her children. A daughter leaving the house without a container of food would undoubtedly starve by noon tomorrow, her skeleton pecked at by crows.

“I love you, my Antonia.” She hugged and kissed me.

“Love you, too, Mama.”

“Now I make new recipe. I call it ‘My Childrens Makes Me Worry.’ ”

I headed home to my tugboat.

Six months ago, I sold my home in the hills above Portland and moved to my yellow tugboat with red trim. I was in a dark pit I couldn’t crawl out of because each time I looked around, a memory bashed me in the face.

I cried for days when I sold that home, but I knew it had to be done. The house was white with blue shutters with a willow tree in front. Now I live on a dock in a marina with other people who live on houseboats.

You have to walk by three houseboats to get to my three-story yellow tugboat with red rails and trim and a red door. Petey, a friend of my father’s, used it for twenty-five years to haul timber, grain, sand, and gravel on barges up and down the river, but he retired and didn’t want it.

I wanted to live on the water, away from the city, as natural as I could get without a long commute to work, so I bought it from Petey, who moved to a condo in Miami. I then had it gutted and remodeled before I moved in, with a full bedroom added to the second floor. I needed something to think about other than the memory bashing, and it helped to have a project.

I rented a slip on the dock and settled in.

The whole tugboat is about a thousand square feet. I painted the small entry white. Two square windows on either side let in the light. I’ve taken photos of my river “pets,” which include two mallard ducks that always wander up on my deck named Mr. and Mrs. Quackenbusch; a blue heron named Dixie; a bald eagle, which disappears for days, that I call Anonymous; a golden eagle I named Maxie; two beavers named Big Teeth and Big Tooth; and river otter. There are a number of river otter, so I call all of them Sergeant Ott.

I matted the photos in blue with white frames.

I have a tiny hallway, then a bathroom off to the right. I have a shower over a claw-foot tub. Across the hallway is the kitchen with a huge window over a white apron sink. I had the cabinets painted light blue; the counters are a beige, swirling granite; and the backsplash is made of blue, gray, and beige glass.

The kitchen opens to my family room. I have white wainscoting on the lower half, light beige paint on the top half, and a blue couch in the shape of a V. The blue couch has a multitude of pillows, made from thick, shiny, fuzzy, painted, mirrored, arty, lacy, silky fabrics from all over the world, sewn by my sisters and me. I have a glass dining table in the corner near the French doors, which leads to the tugboat’s lower deck. On either side of the French doors are more square windows.

Up a skinny spiral staircase, on the second floor, is a semicircle office with a desk; a closet with shelving on both sides to house my clothing collection/obsession that used to house the crew in bunks; and my bedroom, the comforter and walls white. The bedroom has windows on both walls, and another set of French doors leads to a second deck.

A ladder in the office leads to the wheelhouse up top where Captain Petey used to steer the tugboat up and down the river. The wood captain’s wheel and an old, gray clunky phone with a silver bell on top of it are still there, as is the dark wood paneling on the lower half. There is also an array, on a panel in front of the captain’s wheel, of radios, levers, switches, gauges, and controls to drive the tugboat.

The top half, into the ceiling, is all windows so Petey could see in all directions. The roof windows make it excellent for stargazing.

I had a three-foot-wide bench built up in the wheelhouse, raised over four feet. I added a long red mattress and a pile of red and white pillows with fabric from India, Thailand, Norway, Pakistan, Mexico, China, and Hawaii.

I can sit on the bench in the wheelhouse and have an incredible view of downtown Portland if I look one way and the ruffles of the river and towering trees if I look the other way. Sometimes I go up there to cry.

Outside I have another “house,” built on my side deck. It’s not a real house. More like a shelter with a door. I don’t go in there. It hurts me too much. When I moved in, I shoved in what needed to be there, then shut and locked the door.

Locked. It’s locked.

I can’t see unlocking it anytime soon.

An hour later I called my father from my deck, Mr. and Mrs. Quackenbusch in the water by my feet. “Mama’s upset about Ellie.”

“I know, I know,” he said, his voice sad, moaning. My father is tall, balding, with a chest like a bull, a broken nose shifted a bit to the side from his boxing years in Moscow, and brown eyes that have seen way, way too much. In Moscow he was a physics professor at the university before he was arrested and entered prison/hell, his scars our reminder.

I could hear the restaurant sounds in the background—plates clanging, waitresses chatting, a chef yelling, lively Russian music. “My poor Svetlana. She worry. I okay he a Italian, you know what I saying, Antonia? But I no think those two, not a up match.... ”

I knew he meant “Not a matchup.” My father’s English gets worse as he gets upset, too. I listened as he told me what he thought of Gino, Elvira’s fiancé. “He handsome. He funny. He love Elvira, I knows, I see it. But Elvira ... she not, what you call it? She not over the sun for him.”

“Over the moon.”

“She not over sun or moon. I worry. I don’t like that Gino’s hair. Vain. Why a man care about his hair? Not me. I no care. He not enough for my Elvira. What his real job? Huh? You tell me, what his real job?”

“Entrepreneur.”

“Entrepreneur.” He slung that word out long and slow. “That mean he want to be leech off my Elvira’s pillow business.”

“I don’t think so. He does own parts of a number of businesses.” Gino did well. So did Ellie with her pillow-making business.

“What your mama making?”

“She had chicken, walnuts, coriander, flour, and white wine out. She said she’s drinking wine for inspiration. I don’t know what she’s cooking. She’s experimenting, throwing things in, chopping like a fiend. If she likes it, she says she’ll make it at the restaurant tonight. She says it’s called ‘My Childrens Makes Me Worry.’ ”

My mother liked it. She brought her recipe down. First diners sampled it.

Word travelled fast. It was a ninety-minute wait into our restaurant that night.

Two nights later, he called.

“I’m having the flashbacks, Toni. And the nightmares.”

“They’re back again?” I slung my feet over my lower deck, then rubbed my forehead, right by my widow’s peak. It was nine o’clock at night, stars blocked out by clouds. I felt a mixture of sorrow, horror, and overwhelming guilt, my usual feelings when he was upset.

“Yes.”

“Where are you and which ones are you seeing?”

“I’m in India. The southern part. And I’m seeing the woman. Her blond hair. The one I think is my mother.” His voice crackled, pain and memories blending together, an emotional tornado. “And that blue ceramic box is back with the carriage and the fancy lady with the parasol and the butterfly. The box keeps opening, and that red and purple butterfly is flying around. I’m trying to catch it, trying to talk to the butterfly, but it keeps flying toward the woods.” He took a shuddering breath. “The woods are so scary, I know there’s something in there, or someone. I think they’re from my past, not just random things.”

“Okay, breathe with me ... one, two, three ...”

He breathed with me, raspy and ragged. “I’m seeing the wooden ducks. I’m seeing them being thrown. Yelling. I’m scared of someone there. It’s a dark shadow, and I don’t know who it is. The blood is back, too, Toni. All over me. I can feel it. It’s all over her, too. She’s bleeding. I can see it in her blond hair. I’m trying to get to her, but I can’t. I wake up and I can’t breathe.”

I lay down on my deck, holding the phone. I had been told never to tell him what I knew, what I saw, what I guessed at.

“Where is all this coming from?” he asked. “What does it mean?”

Never tell, Antonia, never, ever tell.

I was a secret keeper, and I could not hold the secret much longer. It had been twenty-five years and he needed to know. He deserved to know. But not tonight. “Breathe with me again, okay, here we go ...”

Over the next few days I received a number of calls and texts from family and friends who had had my mother’s special named “My Childrens Makes Me Worry.” They wanted to know what we Kozlovsky kids did to make my mother worry. The older people who called from the Russian community also gently chastised me, in Russian, of course. “Don’t make your mama worry, Antonia. You know better.”

The regular dishes at my parents’ restaurant all have family names. “Elvira’s Tasty Treats,” which is a selection of desserts; “Valeria’s Dumplings,” which are beef dumplings on a bed of lettuce; and “Antonia’s Delight,” which are cheese crepes.

But the specials ... well, those are a crap shoot.

In the past, my mother has named specials “Alexei Not The Boss,” after she had a fight with my father.

And “Teenagers Big Trouble,” when we were younger.

And “I Wish Valeria Quit Her Job.”

I had “Antonia Not A Criminal,” simply because I write about crime.

Ellie endured “Elvira’s Bad Choice” when she got engaged to Gino. It hurt Gino’s feelings.

As my sister Valerie says, “I’m a state prosecutor. I try to maintain respect, a professional image, then Mama puts out a special called ‘Valeria No Call Mama Enough,’ and even the criminals are asking me why I don’t call my mama more.”

It goes on and on. Don’t make my mother mad, or you’ll hear about it on the Tonight’s Specials board of Svetlana’s Kitchen.

On Saturday night I heard a knock and opened the door of my tugboat. I knew who it was.

“Hi, Toni.”

I smiled. “You’re up late.”

“So are you. I saw the light on. Want to come over?”

“Yes.”

He put out a warm hand, and I took it. He smiled, kissed me on the cheek, hugged me close.

I locked my door, though I didn’t need to, and we walked down the dock. He opened the door to his houseboat.

“Want dinner? I bought crab legs for us.”

“No, thank you.”

“Wine? I bought that white wine you like from River Valley Vineyards.”

“No, thank you.” I wanted one thing.

Relief.

It was incredible sex, as always. I am turned on by touching his hand.

He asked me to stay, he always does. I said no, thank you. He said that he wanted to wake up with me. I said no, sorry. He said, “I need this to change.”

I said, “I already told you it’s not going to change.”

I rolled over on top of him and kissed his cheek. He linked his fingers with mine, then rolled over on top of me, our hands above my head. He wasn’t happy. I ignored it. I disentangled our fingers, pushed at his shoulders, climbed out of bed, and got dressed. I ignored his unhappy face and walked out of his houseboat.

He followed me and made sure I returned to my tugboat safely. I don’t know why he does this, I’m perfectly safe. I opened the door. I did not look back at him, but I knew he was hoping I would.

I didn’t turn on the lights. I went to bed and stared at the ceiling, the river a lonely thing wrapped around my tugboat.

Then I did what I always do after these nights with him.

I cried.

It was Kozlovsky Sisters Night at Svetlana’s Kitchen. Valerie, Ellie, and I were at the bar. It was crowded, as usual.

“Valerie,” I asked. “Do you sometimes feel like you’re the Lock ’Em Up Queen of Portland?”

“Yes, I do, Toni,” Valerie said, tapping the side of her martini glass.

Valerie likes her job as a prosecuting attorney. She is almost two years younger than me. She’s tall and thin, and has risen through the ranks at work like lightning. I told her it’s because of her fire-and-brimstone nature, the bonfire beginning in our childhood. She agreed.

Valerie has short black hair, blunt cut, her widow’s peak naturally pushing her hair away from her face, as mine does. Her eyes are blue, a little lighter than mine. She is married to Kai, who is a burly Hawaiian and a captain on the Portland police force, and they have two kids—Ailani, who is ten, and Koa, who is three. Ailani knows way more about crime than she should and finds it fascinating, and Koa likes to dress up like a monster. Both the kids have a widow’s peak. Or, perhaps I should say that Koa has a cowlick.

“They commit the crime, they’re arrested and locked up. If they’re guilty as sin, I grill ’em, chill ’em, and bake ’em.”

“That’s an interesting way to describe your job,” Ellie said.

“It’s very chef-like—grilling, chilling, baking,” I said.

“Only it’s people,” Valerie said. She took a long drink of that martini. “More complicated.”

“You love it,” Ellie said. Ellie is almost two years younger than Valerie. She has wavy black hair, to her shoulders, same thing with her widow’s peak. Her eyes are blue green, like the sea. She curves, like our mother. She believes she’s fat. I believe she has a perfect figure. Ellie owns the pillow-making business that my father thinks Gino wants to leach off of. It’s called Ellie K’s Pillows.

“I love it most of the time,” Valerie said. “Call it childhood revenge.” I knew, by the way she closed her eyes, that something from our childhood had come up and clawed at her.

As a crime and justice reporter for the Oregon Standard, I don’t write about the crime, or the court proceedings, if Valerie has the case. That goes to Shamira Connell, my colleague at the Oregon Standard, as clearly there’s a conflict of interest. Valerie did not change her name after she got married—“We’re Kozlovskys forever”—so it wouldn’t do to have the reporter’s name the same as the prosecuting attorney’s. However, I’m often familiar with her cases because I wrote about them at the time the crime occurred.

“Any info on the job you applied for?” Valerie asked me.

“None.” It was probably hopeless. I had applied to be a reporter for a new magazine inside the newspaper called Homes and Gardens of Oregon and had heard nothing. The attraction was that I would not be writing about crime. The other attraction was that I might be able to avoid a nervous breakdown.

“How are you doing, Toni?” Ellie asked.

“I want out before I have an embarrassing nervous breakdown.” I wasn’t kidding.

“Shoot, Toni, I’m sorry,” Valerie said. “Quit. I told you. Start over. New career. Take time off.”

“Quitting scares me. I’ve never quit anything in my life. I don’t want to talk about this. It makes me want to go home, get in my bathtub, and eat an entire box of chocolates. Ellie, let’s talk about your wedding.”

“Got it covered.” Ellie’s voice was falsely cheerful.

I winked at Valerie, and she winked back.

“All flowers ordered, cake chosen?” Valerie asked Ellie, trying not to laugh.

“Got it covered.” Ellie, our poor younger sister, paled.

“Menu set with Mom for the wedding reception?” I shut my mouth on my chuckle.

“Got it covered.” Her hands shook as she dug in her voluminous purple purse and pulled out a paper bag. She blew into it.

Being engaged to Gino was giving Ellie panic attacks. She didn’t want to take any sort of “tranquilizer fit for a horse,” so she kept a paper bag in her purse at all times.

“One breath in,” I said, slowly, almost singsongy.

“One breath out,” Valerie said, also slowly, singsongy.

Bag went in, out, in, out, Ellie making wheezing sounds.

“It’s a euphoric time of life for her, filled with excitement, wedding bouquets, champagne, and choosing hors d’oeuvres,” Valerie said.

“She can’t wait to walk down that aisle,” I announced. “Virginal white dress ...”

“I can see the white veil now, flowing in the breeze.”

Wheeeeeze.

Ellie choked out, “I don’t want to talk about the wedding.”

Valerie and I laughed and took another sip of our martinis while Ellie put the bag back over her face. I glanced at Tonight’s Specials board over the bar and choked. One of them was “Antonia You Fix That Problem.” The special was cabbage and sausage soup and salad combination. I shook my head. Why does Mama have to do this type of thing?

Svetlana’s Kitchen, which my parents started a little more than a year after we arrived, dead broke, in the United States, is fairly formal. The 1920s building is all brick, and the outside has a patio and trellis with a blooming wisteria vine. The front door is red, the windows clean and wide, with an elegant sign, painted in gold, that says SVETLANA’S KITCHEN. It’s three stories tall, the restaurant on the first two stories.

When they could afford it, my mother insisted on circular tables, leather booths, white tablecloths, candlelight, crystal, a few chandeliers, and heavy silverware. There is exposed brick, a slick mahogany bar, subdued lighting, and a fountain in the corner. It has an old-fashioned, classy Russian bar feel, and all