HONEYLAMBSHANK

The next morning I walked the six miles home. I’d shaken Roxy awake, but she pulled the covers over her head and rolled onto her side, snoring before I was even dressed. Sneaking out of the house was a breeze because Dad stayed up all night and usually slept all day. Apparently so did his new wife. No doubt Mom would begin her interrogations the moment I came through the door, but better that than waking up to Olga’s loaded comments about our little spat.

After I’d seen Dad’s nice new place, the reality of our situation became that much more apparent. We were living in the Dumpster of Los Angeles. But if I told Mom, she’d go nuts, especially if she heard about Olga renting a house around the corner from Beverly Hills. And who could blame her? It didn’t seem fair that we had to live in a shithole while the witch was enjoying the good life in a house she’d nearly suffocated with her rugs.

I bet Olga doesn’t have to deal with roaches, I thought to myself as I shut the front door after a quick survey of the floor. I dropped my backpack in the corner, looking forward to getting some actual sleep. Something whistled in the kitchen. As I tried to sneak by, Mom turned and cleared her throat, holding a steaming kettle in one hand. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” I said, which in teenage language means “Everything.”

“You hungry? You look starved. Did they not feed you at all? Is Roxy eating all right? Is she with you?”

“She’s fine. She’s gonna stay for the rest of the week.”

“Well, all right.” Mom looked disappointed. “Goodness, you have such bags under your eyes. Sit down. I’ll make something light.”

I took a chair at the kitchen table with a sigh, bracing myself.

“I thought you were going to stay until New Year’s.”

“Change of plans.”

Mom placed a plate of toast in front of me and sat down.

“If you don’t want to tell me what happened, you don’t have to.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t care to hear anything concerning your asshole father anyway.” She eyed me from over the rim of her coffee cup.

“That’s good.”

There was a very long moment of silence. I munched on my toast. Mom’s staring meant the conversation was far from over. But for a little while neither one of us spoke.

“We need to talk about school,” she said out of the blue.

“Nothing to talk about. I’m not going.”

“Oksanochka. We came all this way for you to have a better life. Don’t start it as a high-school dropout.”

“I read, I write, I know my numbers,” I said. “What can I possibly learn that I don’t already know?”

“You’re right,” she said.

I hadn’t expected that and made the mistake of looking surprised.

Then she continued with “But…”

“We just moved, Mom. I need time to adjust.”

With a skeptical huff, Mom got up and poured herself another cup, adding a splash of brandy. “It’s a matter of principle. We must show everybody that we can make it in America. You need to have a goal, Oksana, and you might not think school is so important, but wait until you’re thirty and cleaning toilets because of a stupid mistake.”

“What’s wrong with cleaning toilets?”

“Absolutely nothing,” she said. “As long as you’re doing it by choice.”

Pride wouldn’t let me tell her that my not wanting to go to school had nothing to do with school itself but with the other people there. And I wasn’t against having goals. As a little girl, I was convinced that I’d grow up to be a famous dancer.

It was only when I started school that I realized the foolishness of dreaming so big. My goals diminished in size and grandeur down to one: Don’t get beat up. Who was to guarantee that Hollywood would be any different from Moscow?

Mom sighed. “Does my suffering mean nothing to you?” she said. “Look at how skinny I have become. If it wasn’t for my coffee and cigarettes, I’d be walking on crutches by now. Oksana, you must try. To give me hope in these hard times. To show me that there is someone in this world who cares for me.”

I hated it when she said things like that, especially when she used that small, defeated voice accompanied by melodramatic sighs. She could’ve written The Idiot’s Guide to Ruining Your Child’s Life with Sighs.

“Fine. After the New Year,” I said. “Happy now?”

When she sat back down, her eyes sparkled, like she was congratulating herself on her theatrical outburst.

I was ready to lock myself in the bedroom for the rest of the week, but she was staring again and I knew I wouldn’t be able to leave the kitchen without telling her what she wanted and didn’t want to hear.

“So,” she said finally. “Are they happy?”

“Mom, do we really have to do this?”

“I’m just asking. Not that I care. Just making conversation.”

I took another bite, making sure my mouth was too full to answer. But then an image popped into my mind. I giggled through the toast. “She calls him honeylambshank.”

“A what?”

“A honeylambshank.”

Mom plunked down the cup, spilling coffee everywhere. We both knew how absolutely my father was not a honeylambshank. “Oh, Oksana. Really?”

“Yeah. And … and you know what he calls her back?”

“I’m afraid to find out.”

“His little sparrow.”

She slapped both palms on the table, her face tomato-red. We laughed until my sides ached.