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“Yo! Your aunt’s pretty cool,” one of the kids said.
“Yeah… she is,” I laughed. A curvy Latina standing nearby agreed with him and sheepishly complimented me on my necklace.
“Thanks,” I managed to stutter. I turned my head just time to see Raven giving me two enthusiastic thumbs up.
When we got home late in afternoon, Esperanza was waiting in the shadow of the bakery’s pumpernickel chubby. I ran into the folds of her tangerine dream perfume and told her all about the game. I held up the medal so it could reflect her lukewarm smile. All the others went inside, except Marija, who solemnly leaned up against the side of the building.
“What’s up? You seem sad or somethin’.” Then, she knelt down to that position all adults take when they need to up the seriousness to Hiroshima levels.
“I’m afraid I won’t be able to finish out the five-month inspection period,” she said, gently laying her ice cube tray hands on my shoulders.
“You’re ditching me?” I said, backing away.
“No, never…It’s just that… I’m sick,” she stuttered.
“How sick?” I screamed. She didn’t answer, which said more than I wanted to know. My brain felt like it was being carpet bombed, and I took off running across A1A, trying to avoid any emotional shrapnel. The beach was crowded, and I didn’t feel like crying like a punk in front of all the Kentucky fried snowbirds. I hopped the fence into a private beach and just collapsed into a pile of used towels. About twenty-minutes later, I heard a loud thud, and I turned to see Marija all tangled up in a pile of beach chairs. I quickly wiped my eyes and went to pull her out.
“Thanks, I was aiming for the sand, but I’m afraid sports have never really been my thing,” she whispered. I didn’t say anything and just returned to the towels that had now become the world’s largest tissues.
“Well, you certainly picked a lovely spot,” she said. She spread her arms and inhaled the ocean mist.
“So, does everybody know? Was your sister’s stupid skeleton trading card her little way of messing with me? ” I asked, punching the sand.
“Esperanza made me swear not to tell you or anyone. Valeska is just an incredibly gifted tarot card reader,” she said, sitting down in a chair across from me.
“Why didn’t she tell me?” I sobbed. She inched the chair closer and laid my head in her lap.
“She wanted to wait until you were a little bit more secure here, but I’m afraid that the Wheel of Fortune turns at its own pace,” she whispered. Suddenly, I felt ten scoops of green guilt on my shoulders.
“Esperanza’s not upset that I ran away, is she?”
“No, she knows you just needed to get it out of your system, and I promised that I would make sure you were ok.” I spent the next hour held up in her lap listening to her sing a song that sounded more like spell. Once in awhile, a few English words broke through.
“I went, I went on long roads. I met happy Roma. O Brother… where did you come from?” She paused and looked down at me with her wild opal eyes.
“Death Cards, like broken life lines, are just symbols for change, movement, and eventually new beginnings. My life line looks like chop suey,” she whispered, showing me her hand.
“Does your…sister’s look the same,” I said with all the sarcasm an eleven year old could muster.
“No, hers just stops short,” she sighed. Then, she told me a story to get to another story. It wouldn’t be until years later that I realized that adults don’t always operate in linear realities.
In the thirties, before Hitler started to get real lippy, Germany was home to many gypsies. However once the schnitzel hit the fan, Marija’s grandparents were carted off with all the Jews. Out of her entire caravan, her grandmother was the only one that managed to survive the camps. When she was freed she walked barefoot as Far East as she could go; only stopping to give birth to a little, golden haired souvenir, on the shore of the Black Sea. Marija then skipped a generation and told me that when Valeska was born she came out backwards, upside-down, and in the middle of every bad omen a gypsy could think of. Since no man stepped forward to claim her, everyone just assumed that Marija’s father did the deed or she was some kind of a demon. On the day of Marija’s twelfth birthday she was told she was going to have to marry a thirty-year old tinsmith to unite two great Chovihano families. She ran off into the woods hysterically crying and stumbled over sixteen year old Valeska curled up like a black-and-blue mountain lion.
“Her mother would always beat her until she bled and her brothers…well… I’ll tell you about that when you’re older,” she paused nervously. Valeska supposedly got to her feet, and without a word, extended her blood and snot soaked hand to Marija. Marija took it, without even a second thought, and they both made their way along the rusty hem of the Iron Curtain.
“It was a silent pact. She insisted on carrying me, until we were both finally safe. It only took two continents and an entire ocean to satisfy her.” She peered off into the distance and watched a gull pipeline its way to shore.
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About Christina Ginfrida
