My New American Life (18 page)

It was a sign of power, having somewhere you had to be. In the same article in which the female CEO advised buying fancy underwear, another successful corporate woman said her secret was to always give the impression that she had even less time than she actually had. Lula too had somewhere to be—right here—and someone who needed her: Zeke.

“We have Estrelia,” said Lula.

Dunia slipped back into her coat. “Call me. Call me soon. Meantime you can stop worrying that I'm a sex slave in Dubai.”

They hugged and kissed, then hugged again. And then Dunia was gone, leaving Lula feeling more hopeful and less alone, but so physically exhausted that she drifted into the living room and sank into the couch, where she remained until the last trace of Dunia's perfume had followed her out of the house.

D
unia's safety and good fortune were a relief, and yet her visit was like a spray of ice water, shocking Lula out of the coma in which she'd been snoozing at Mister Stanley's. Wake up! Girls found rich husbands or married men they loved. They didn't hide out in a Jersey suburb dreaming that Alvo would find some tough-guy-contractor language in which to tell Lula that he thought about her as much as she thought about him.

It was a welcome distraction to sit at Zeke's computer. Would anyone go for a story about a man who tried to build an apartment house that kept collapsing until he dreamed that the solution was to wall his beloved wife into the foundation? The house stayed up, but the foundation was always wet, soaked with the woman's tears. Mister Stanley and Don Settebello obviously believed that the laws of physics no longer applied once you crossed the Albanian border. It was fortunate that she'd mentioned mixing fiction and nonfiction. When she'd written enough for a book, they would sort it all out, but for now her two American guardian angels could think what they wanted about her pretending her stories were true.

Lula was writing the scene in which the builder explains to his wife why his real estate needs demand that she be buried alive, and when she refuses, he shoves her into a crawl space and, sobbing, mixes the cement. Lula was so lost in her story that when the doorbell rang, she heard it as the clang of the husband's shovel, smoothing out concrete. She ran downstairs and opened the door to find Leather Jacket on the front steps.

“Little Sister, why so sad?” Leather Jacket—Genti—kept glancing back over his shoulder. The unforgiving winter light pooled in his pitted cheeks. Lula told him to step inside, where he seemed even more uneasy. Had he come to ask her out behind Alvo's back? Was Alvo passing her along to his friend, a sick male custom she'd heard of but never experienced firsthand? Did they think she was a hunk of roast lamb to be tossed to the next guy down the table? More likely Genti had come for the gun. Let him stand in the hall and mumble.

“What?” said Lula.

Mumble mumble.

“I can't understand you!”

“Mumble mumble Christmas Eve? My boss? . . . not busy Christmas Eve? He wants to know, Do you want to go out?”

Why was everything a question? Genti sounded like a teenage girl. Gradually she understood. The guy was playing Cupid! It was all Lula could do not to throw her arms around him and squeeze till his jacket crackled. How touching that Alvo hadn't wanted to risk rejection in person. At the same time, how thoughtless and conceited of him to assume she wouldn't have plans. Christmas Eve was only two weeks away, and she had no plans.

What would happen to Leather Jacket if she told him to tell Alvo she was busy? Most likely the messenger wouldn't get killed if the bad news was about dating. As if Alvo cared enough to give his friend a hard time. He would just send one of the G-Men to ask another girl.

Lula said, “Tell him yes, I'd be happy.”

“He'll be here at eight? He said dress nice?”

“Dress nice?” said Lula. “I always do. As opposed to what?” Where did Alvo get the nerve? But maybe it wasn't male arrogance. Maybe it was semantics. Maybe
nice
meant
up
, dress
up
, maybe they were sparing Lula the embarrassment of arriving at a formal event in a T-shirt and jeans. Obviously, she would dress up. It was Christmas Eve. But before she could ask for details, Genti shook her hand and left. Mission accomplished, he could go back to being a busy guy with important business elsewhere.

T
wo weeks until Christmas. The winter days were too short and bloodless to sustain the weight of thought required to fathom the meaning of “dress nice.” Nice by Dunia standards? Or Albanian nice: too shiny, too tight, too synthetic, and above all, too leopard. Nice like the big-haired singers who traveled the Balkan circuit with their big-haired manager husbands? Alvo was way cooler than that. He'd mean what Lula meant by nice.

Lula had patience and goodwill to spare, especially for Zeke. On their drives to The Good Earth, they mixed high school metaphysical talk about the purpose of life (Lula assured him that life had a purpose) with the usual chitchat about driving and the other drivers, who, according to Zeke, were getting crazier and angrier as the holidays approached.

“What do you want for Christmas?” Lula asked.

“I don't know. Nothing. Wait. There's a DVD, this vintage vampire film called
Nosferatu
.”

“Write it down,” said Lula, who had no intention of spending money to feed Zeke's vampire obsession. She'd already bought him a leather belt on St. Marks Place, with rows of studs and grommets, and an iPod Nano for Mister Stanley.

Against her better instincts, she'd been letting Zeke drive to the market even when the weather was bad. She didn't tell Mister Stanley when the Olds slid into a snowbank, and Zeke and Lula had to dig it out, ruining Lula's boots. It would be hard enough explaining that she was going out Christmas Eve, abandoning Mister Stanley and Zeke on the anniversary of Ginger's departure.

She waited for a Saturday afternoon. Zeke had gone somewhere with friends. Christmas shopping, he'd said. Lula found Mister Stanley in the living room, reading the weekend sections of the Sunday paper. Tomorrow's news today. He was wearing his chinos, a cardigan, and a knit shirt, in which he managed to look more stiff and uncomfortable than he did in a suit. He looked like Mr. Rogers, the first American Lula ever saw on her granny's contraband TV.

“I need to talk to you,” Lula said.

Mister Stanley said, “I have a wild idea. Let's go for a walk.”

“Too wild,” Lula said. “It's cold out.”

“The air does one good,” he said. “You'll turn into Dracula, entombed in this dark house.”

A funny remark from the father of a vampire son. He was making a Mister Stanley joke. Trying to be helpful.

“Ha ha,” Lula said. “Okay, let me get my coat.” Outside, she pointed accusingly at the plumes their breath made in the air.

“Just around the block,” said Mister Stanley. “No one is going to freeze.”

Lula and Mister Stanley had the street to themselves, unless you counted the inflated plastic reindeer and carolers on the neighbors' lawns. Every so often a car passed, but no one slowed to watch the two of them drift from house to house, pausing to gaze at the Christmas displays, each of which, Lula thought sourly, consumed enough electricity to power all of Albania. But surely the lights were low-wattage. Why couldn't she just enjoy this harmless American custom instead of going straight for the dismissive immigrant envy? Because the decorations were intended to make outsiders envy the happiness inside.

No matter how much Lula had learned about American family life, she still longed to have participated in those family trips to the big-box store, the assembling of the decorations, with Dad and Junior following Mom and Sis's cheerful creative suggestions. Under Communism, one of the few foreign texts they'd been allowed to read was a translation of Hans Christian Andersen's “The Little Match Girl,” which was taught as an illustration of class brutality in the West. Like everyone, Lula believed it. But in her new American life, she had learned about nuance. Mister Stanley came from the same class as the living rooms into which they were staring. An alternate title for her memoir could be
On the Outside Looking In
.

When Mister Stanley paused before a plastic sleigh the size of a tractor-trailer, Lula said, “I need to tell you something. I won't be spending Christmas Eve with you and Zeke. If that's okay with you.”

“Of course it's okay,” said Mister Stanley, too quickly. “So. What are you doing instead?”

“Going out,” Lula said. “With friends.” If Mister Stanley asked which friends, she would say friends from La Changita.

“Well, that's excellent,” said Mister Stanley. “We want you to have your own life.” He walked ahead to the next lawn, on which there was a crèche with a life-size camel whose plaster had chipped off so that hunks of flesh appeared to have been clawed away in a fight.

“It shouldn't make any difference,” he said. “I think Zeke would be just as happy if we did away with the tree and the trimmings and the holiday cheer.”

Holiday cheer? Had Mister Stanley forgotten that last year he brought home a dead tree, and they'd spent Christmas at the mall?

“Are you sure?” asked Lula.

“I don't know,” said Mister Stanley.

Lula said, “When they outlawed religion under the dictatorship, people still celebrated. They'd pile up pyramids of baklava that looked like Christmas trees.” Her granny had made baklava on Christmas. The pyramid part was extra. “The dictator ignored it because he loved pyramids so much he had himself buried in one. Until they dug him up.”

“They dug him up?” said Mister Stanley.

Lula nodded. “And reburied him.”

“That's awful.” Mister Stanley chuckled, then caught himself. “A little-known fact, I guess.”

“Every Albanian fact is a little-known fact,” Lula said.

Mister Stanley smiled at his cute Albanian pet.

He said, “You're priceless, Lula. Enjoy yourself while you're young. Okay, let's go home now. You were right. It's freezing.”

“L
ula,
este
Jorge,” said Dunia, wrapping one flawlessly manicured hand around the wrist of the driver who had beeped for Lula to come outside and spare Dunia and her boots another damaging encounter with Mister Stanley's snowy walkway. “Jorge,
esta
Lula.
Mi amiga
.”

“
Buenos dias
.” Jorge's smile lit up the rearview mirror.

“
Buenos dias
,” said Lula, glumly. Lazy Dunia could have come inside long enough for Lula to give her the history of her relationship, if you could call it that, with Alvo. Describing her fantasy romance was embarrassing enough without having to do it in the presence of New Jersey's most handsome driver. Even so, she was grateful that Dunia had, without hesitation, agreed to take Lula shopping. Despite everything, they had stayed friends, holding hands across the Grand Canyon of money and class that seemed to have opened between them.

“Don't worry about Jorge,” Dunia said. “He speaks fifty words of English, all having to do with local highways. I've been teaching him Albanian. Our secret language, right, Jorge?”

“
Si
,” said Jorge. “Yes.”

“Come to think of it,” Dunia said, “speech is not his language.”

“How is Steve with that?” Lula said.

Dunia slashed her forefinger across her neck and laughed. “I'm joking. Steve doesn't want to know what Steve doesn't know. Very incurious person. So what's the desperate situation?”

“I didn't say desperate. I said serious.”

“You said desperate,” Dunia insisted.

Maybe Lula had said desperate. “Okay, I meant serious. I need something to wear.”

Dunia raised one eyebrow. “That's desperate? Baghdad is desperate. Hurricane Katrina was desperate. Ten-year-old Albanian kids working in a factory disassembling old Kalashnikovs is desperate. Did you hear about that?”

“My boss told me,” Lula said.

“Nice boss.” Dunia looked Lula up and down. She said, “Okay. Desperate.”

“Short Hills Mall,” she told Jorge. “
Gracias. Por favor
.”

It was easier once they were moving. Less intimate, in a way. Lula tried to talk without thinking, to just let the story of Alvo and his G-Men roll out. Or as much as she knew of the story. When she finished, Dunia was silent for so long that Lula had no choice but to contemplate the ridiculousness of what she'd just said.

“Let me get this straight,” said Dunia. “You're spending Christmas Eve with a guy who takes you to some Thai joint and screws with your head and sneaks into your house and takes a shower and writes shit on your computer—”

“On Zeke's computer. Plus he left me a present.” Lula missed Little Charmy Puppy and its unconditional affection. She'd made it bark so often that it broke and couldn't be fixed.

“What present? You didn't tell me that part.”

Lula smiled. Let Dunia imagine.

“Presents mean nothing,” said Dunia. “Take it from someone who knows.”

After that they rode in silence. Dunia said, “Bravo, Jorge! We're here. This is the only decent mall, the others are big wasters of time.”

“Wastes of time,” said Lula.

Dunia shrugged. “Look where perfect grammar's got you. So let's be clear about this: You want to make sure Mr. Psycho knows he can fuck you if he wants to. Take it from me, he wants to.”

“You're one to talk,” said Lula. “You've had some pretty strange boyfriends.”

Dunia's pearl-dusted eyelids fluttered. Lula wondered if she was thinking of the tough little stockbroker who'd refused to do it in bed and who was always leading Dunia, flushed and dreamy, back from the men's room and the alleyways near La Changita.