My New American Life (20 page)

Lula was dancing in place when Alvo returned with more raki. As they toasted each other, Alvo smiled so widely that his gold tooth sparkled at her, only at her. Alvo eased in beside her and bumped ever so slightly to the music. When his hip brushed hers she longed to rub against him like a cat.

Luckily, they had double rakis to finish before they had to decide whether to join the dancing, which, as luck would have it, stopped, giving them more time to figure out what to do next. A set of curtains opened, and a guy in a white suit bounded onto a low stage. His first “Good evening” in English and Albanian elicited manic applause. He slipped between languages, playing to both sides, the older people who clung to their native tongue and the kids who'd never learned it. But everyone understood and loved his patter about old friends and new friends, brothers and sisters, all family here tonight. More applause for the names of the stars who'd be entertaining them this evening, and for each of the beautiful cities in which the talent had performed. The applause built as two men, also in white suits, tried out the keyboards, one of which sounded like a clarinet and the other like a drum. The host whipped the audience into a frenzy of welcome for the singer, who strutted out nonchalantly, as if frantic clapping was the background noise of her everyday existence. Then her bright red mouth exploded in smiles, and she bowed from the waist and blew kisses.

Black as Zeke's, but varnished to a high gloss, the singer's hair framed her face in question marks. Curls spilled over the shoulders of her white dress, which had gauzy sleeves and pearl flowers like a wedding gown, only with a miniskirt stretched tightly across her belly. White boots rose up to meet it, exposing a long expanse of thigh, fit and tan in the dead of winter, though her face and hands were pale.

“Miss Ada Culpi!” yelled the MC, and the singer curled her arms, palms up, asking, asking. She sang to each person in the crowd, begging each kind soul to advise her, to tell her what to do about the man she loved but who didn't love her. No one believed this guy didn't love her, but her voice reminded them of every time they'd felt what she was pretending to feel. Lula had never felt that way. Then she remembered Alvo and thought she might be about to start now. She glanced at Alvo, steeling herself for the sight of entranced, hormonal male rapture. Instead he shook his head and shrugged, eloquently conveying his adorable opinion that Miss Ada Culpi was a little much. His shrug said he preferred more normal, less outrageous women like . . . well, like Lula!

Ada Culpi reached for the audience, grabbing them, pulling them in, signaling that the only way they could soothe her broken heart was by dancing. A few people, then a few more, formed a line, and the line of dancers grew long enough to coil once and then again. By now there were two rows, a men's line and a women's line facing one another.

Lula took Alvo's empty raki glass, set both glasses on a ledge, then led him onto the dance floor. The women's line grabbed Lula just as the men's line, led by a guy twirling a red scarf embroidered with a double-headed eagle, yanked Alvo the opposite way. Lula had drunk precisely enough to feel loose but not too loose as the steps came back to her, as natural as walking but less isolated and boring. Why should this seem so pleasant to a person like herself, a person who hated chorus lines, military parades, anything in lockstep? She liked the music, and she liked knowing what to do with her body in response to the drum beat and the hysterical clarinet.

A girl with purple eyelids held one hand, a middle-aged woman the other. The woman smiled, but not the girl. Lula trusted them both enough to briefly close her eyes. Alvo was out there somewhere. No need to fear he'd left the club or found a prettier girl to dance with. They were all dancing together, Lula and Alvo among them. As the lines spooled and twisted, Lula caught sight of Alvo, taller than most of the men. Alvo could dance, it turned out. Confidently, but not arrogantly, his back straight, his head held high. How handsome he was, and how glad she was to be here with him. Why should she care about a gun, some moody weirdness, a certain lack of clarity about what he did for a living? And okay, some low-level stalking.

Did Alvo see her? She couldn't tell. She watched his line snake closer until he was opposite her. He saw her. They looked at each other. That was that. Nothing needed to be discussed, not even inside her own head. Lula loved how the voice of sex drowned out all the other voices, the naggings of reason and common sense, shyness and hesitation. Desire and inevitability were the only voices left, and their interesting questions were the only questions: How and when? When and where? Would it be easy or awkward?

Alvo and Lula danced past one another and looked back, not caring who was watching. Alvo's line turned a corner, so that his back was to Lula, who peered around the dancers between them. There was nothing to do but keep dancing.

At last the music ended. The singer said, “
Falemenderit
. Thank you thank you thank you,” and a storm of blown kisses rained down on the dancers, who regretfully dropped each other's hands so they could applaud.

Alvo found Lula and put his arm around her shoulders and steered her toward the exit. He produced a bill and a claim check and gave them to the coat girl, who sensed that this was not the moment for another competitive whole-body appraisal of Lula. They headed out into the cold night, which warmed up when Alvo grabbed Lula and kissed her right in front of the door. The bouncers whistled and cheered. Alvo handed over the parking ticket, then drew Lula into the shadows and kissed her with such force that it took several horn blasts from the valet to detach them long enough to get into the SUV.

Before leaning over to kiss her again, Alvo considerately pushed the buttons that heated the seats, and the warmth beneath Lula flowed into the warmth inside her. It must have started snowing, because Lula was dimly aware of the sigh of the windshield wipers.

“Merry white Christmas,” Alvo said.

“Merry white Christmas to you,” said Lula.

Alvo shook himself like a wet dog as he separated from Lula. As he drove, he yanked at his clothing with a shy embarrassed smile at some secret he had with himself, a secret that, Lula concluded happily, must be a massive hard-on. After a few blocks, he pulled over and parked on the formerly scary industrial street that now seemed private and romantic.

They kissed and pressed against each other as closely as the console between them allowed. Pausing for breath, Lula watched, from a momentary remove, passion locked in a heated argument with her sensible reluctance to have sex for the first time with Alvo in a vehicle, even one as roomy as this. It was awkward enough in bed, with every creature comfort helping you over the various hurdles, zippers and bra hooks and first seeing the other person naked.

“Not here,” her sweet Lancelot murmured.

“No, not here,” agreed Lula.

“My place,” Alvo said. Then he slapped himself on the forehead and said, “Look how you've messed with my head. I forgot the Vlorë cousins.”

Lula had messed with his head. His desire for her—for her!—had erased three entire cousins. Lula waited for Alvo to suggest a hotel. It couldn't seem like her idea, even if it was. She didn't want to look like a degenerate slut who did this all the time.

Typing into the GPS, Alvo said, “She'll tell us a hotel.” Then he said, “Motherfucker. I don't have a credit card. This friend of mine got his wallet boosted at a club. Five round-trip tickets to the DR charged before he called it in. So now I only bring cash and my driver's license. I could pay you back—”

“I don't have a credit card,” Lula said. “I don't even have cash.”

“Big problem,” said Alvo, then kissed her again, as if that might solve the problem. After a while Lula heard herself say, “We could go to Mister Stanley's.”

“And what?” Alvo said. “Introduce myself? Hi, I'm a friend of your nanny's?”

Lula said, “They'll be asleep. But we'll have to be very quiet.”

“Silent as death,” Alvo said. Lula wondered if it was possible to literally faint from desire. Probably not if you were sitting down. As Alvo started the motor again, Lula rested one hand on his thigh. Brushing against his groin, the backs of her knuckles confirmed her pleasant suspicions. She would have to make sure that Alvo left before Mister Stanley woke up.

Alvo groaned softly. “Wait. Slippery weather. I need to concentrate on the road.”

Lula sat back and closed her eyes. That last double shot of raki had affected her more than she'd realized. Probably it would sober her up to focus on the challenge ahead: finding the quietest route to her room and figuring out what she would say if by some chance Mister Stanley or Zeke was still awake, waiting to catch Santa Claus squeezing down the chimney.

Alvo said, “Tonight is why God invented four-wheel drive.”

The alcohol almost persuaded Lula that this might be the time to broach the subject of Alvo breaking into Mister Stanley's when she wasn't there. This time we'll sneak in together, she'd say.

Only at the last minute did better judgment prevail. Suppose it hadn't been Alvo? He might change his mind about getting naked and defenseless in a house where stalkers wrote Balkan stories on computers and showered, uninvited. As Alvo sped down the icy highway, Lula reminded herself to observe how he acted at Mister Stanley's, to see if he gave any sign of having been there before and knowing how to get to her room without her having to show him.

A
lvo took the Baywater exit, then parked, and they kissed some more. By the time he started the car again, Lula's hesitations had vanished.

Mister Stanley's windows were dark, except for the outside light he'd left on for Lula. She told Alvo to wait behind the tree and crept around to the window to make sure that no one was sipping delicious cold water at the fridge.

All clear! She gave Alvo the thumbs-up sign, unlocked the door, and pushed him away so he wouldn't be groping her till they were safe in her room. Stealth came easily to Alvo. For such a forceful guy, he could be quiet as a kitten. Lula forgot to watch and see whether he knew the way.

She opened the door to her room. What was that smell? Musty, yeasty, with an edge of organic rot. Mice died in the walls in Tirana. Did that happen in New Jersey? Of course. But why now, why here, why on this night of all nights when she had found a guy she liked and was bringing him home? What would Alvo think of her? Maybe he wouldn't notice. She pulled him inside and shut the door. Light shone in from the street. Lula lowered the shade and switched her night lamp on low. She knew men liked to see. In the dark, the costly underwear would have been for nothing.

“What's that smell?” asked Alvo.

Lula said, “The kid's pet rabbit escaped and had babies inside the wall.”

Alvo said, “I always wondered how bunnies have so many babies.”

“Let's find out,” said Lula.

“Not the baby part,” Alvo said warily.

“Of course not,” Lula said.

Alvo sat on the edge of the bed, spread his knees, and eased her toward him. The sweetness and the expertise Alvo put into his kisses made Lula feel hopeful about the immediate future. Of course there was fear and nervousness, that was part of the high. The silk panties were a brilliant touch. A nice surprise for Alvo.

By the time Lula surfaced for air, the smell had gotten stronger.

“Hey, where are you?” Alvo said.

“Right here,” said Lula, demonstrating how right there she was. She had reentered the state of steamy bliss when Alvo pulled away.

“What the fuck?” he said.

Lula turned. A dripping-wet woman, naked except for a towel wrapped around one hand, stood in the bathroom doorway. Lula turned the lamp on full. The woman was smeared with some brown substance that Lula hoped was mud. She was backlit against the bathroom glare, her shadowed face surrounded by a bright nimbus of reddish gray curls. Then she stepped into the light.

“Ginger,” Lula said.

“Who the hell?” Alvo said.

“The mom,” Lula said. “The mother and the wife. The wife of Mister Stanley. I know her only from pictures.”

“You stay away from my pictures,” said Ginger.

“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Stanley,” Alvo said.

“Go back to hell, hog boy,” said Ginger.

“Nice,” Alvo told Lula, as if it was her fault. “Nice manners your roommate has.”

“She's not my roommate,” said Lula.

“Your boss,” said Alvo. “Your boss's wife.”

“I told you, I never saw her before!”

“Then what's she doing in your room?”

Ginger took a step forward. Proximity and lamplight were spectacularly unkind. Lula didn't know where to look first, or where not to look ever. Not at the tires of soft flesh stacked around Ginger's middle, not at the sunken loins and sparse pubic hair, the pouched thighs streaked brown, and certainly not at the grotesque mask of the face in the family snapshots.

“It's chocolate,” Ginger said. “I had to cover myself with candy to get rid of the sour vibe you've brought into this house, miss.”

What exactly did Ginger mean by “sour vibe”? The psychic residue of Lula helping Ginger's husband and son sweep up the ashes after Ginger had burned down their happy home?

“Chocolate,” Lula said. “I hope so.”

“Disgusting,” said Alvo.

“You shut up, asshole.” With a dramatic flourish, Ginger shook the towel from her hand, revealing, underneath, a butcher knife that she brandished, first at Lula, then at Alvo. Lula recognized the knife. The last time she'd tried to cook Zeke broccoli, it had sliced through the stem in one stroke. How had Ginger found it? It was Ginger's knife.

“Put that down, lady, please,” said Alvo.

“Please, Mrs. Stanley,” said Lula.

“Call me that one more time, and I'll cut your face off. I'll kill you both and let you bleed out on the floor.”