CONVERTING SHERRI

Olga’s company consisted of women who started off as clients. She read their palms and tarot cards, and performed occasional cleansing or binding rituals in the séance room. Since Olga was a social creature, eventually they all ended up gossiping in the kitchen. Soon these women came by at all hours to drink tea and sometimes ogle my father and his many long-haired musician buddies.

The women were loud in the way birds are during the early-morning hours. When they sat in that kitchen together, they seemed to manage several conversations at once.

One of these ever present characters was a Russian hairdresser named Sherri (Russian name Elizaveta), who made the Real Housewives of Orange County look like the Singing Nuns. Every time Sherri and Dad were in the same room, her boobs pointed in his direction like radar dishes. Having almost no chest to speak of, I secretly wanted to ask her how to make mine more noticeable.

I couldn’t imagine Olga didn’t notice Sherri’s interest in my father; perhaps she chose to ignore it, appearing to be content as long as the clients, and their money, kept coming.

Sherri paid in hundred-dollar bills but only for tarot readings. She avoided all other types of divination until one night Olga finally convinced her to join us for a channeling session. If I didn’t know better I’d say she had agreed only because my father would lead the séance. Roxy had gone to bed earlier, but I was allowed to participate. Though I was still afraid, that didn’t mean I wasn’t curious. Plus I trusted my father with the board.

Dad laid the board on the kitchen table and fetched his plate from the bedroom. Sherri sat next to me with an expression of boredom, one side of her mouth pinched up, the same look you get from people who think you’re lying and want you to know they know. Dad began chanting, and in a few moments, we were ready to go.

“We have someone new with us tonight,” he said into the air. “Her name is Elizaveta. Will you answer her questions?”

The plate slid to “Yes.”

Sherri shook her head. “No, no, I’ll pass.”

“Why?” Olga said.

“They’re dead. Dead people can’t talk.”

“You think we’re faking,” Dad said.

Sherri crossed her legs nervously, the heel of her left pump nearly touching my pant leg. Suddenly she grabbed my hand. “Fine. But let Oksana go first.”

Dad chuckled, but Olga wasn’t as pleasant.

“Next thing we know, you’ll say Oksana is in on it. That we trained her to ask certain questions.”

“If this is real she doesn’t have to ask the question out loud, does she?” Sherri said triumphantly.

Lately I’d been skeptical myself, because Dad’s connection with his guides appeared unbroken. Any time he called, they responded. Mama Lola was to blame for my misgivings, and I hated her for it. Dad wasn’t like Agrefina; he had no visions of his own the way a seer does. If anything, he was more like Paywand; instead of predictions that focused on a specific individual’s energies and thoughts, he connected with entities who delivered “knowledge” through him. But what if he was like Mama Lola and I’d been unwilling to notice the signs? Though I wasn’t a big fan of Sherri’s, she presented a unique opportunity to find out if Dad was indeed a true medium.

I concentrated on clearing my mind, and silently asked the vaguest question I could think up: What should I do with my life?

Immediately I pictured myself passing out drinks inside a large commercial airplane, my baby-blue uniform crisp. Flying wasn’t a dream of mine, and I was surprised by the image.

The plate spelled out “fly.” I could almost hear Azhidana, Kevoidana, and Avadata giggling.

“Well?” Sherri said.

I shared, and Sherri promptly went from skeptical to leaving. She snatched her purse and keys from the kitchen counter. “I just remembered I have to buy some wineglasses for a friend’s bridal shower.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Olga said. “Come back. Let’s ask if you’ll ever get hitched again.”

Sherri rummaged inside her purse as if she’d lost a city in there. “Sorry, guys. I still don’t believe any of this.”

Her departure left Olga scrubbing out ashtrays as if she were going to use them for serving plates.

Meanwhile Dad asked the guides one of his favorite questions: “Why is my life so fucked up?” By this time he’d visited several L.A. recording studios and management firms in search of work or representation, but was rejected every time even before he opened his guitar case on account of being too old and foreign.

“It is your father’s fault,” the plate spelled out slowly.

“See?” He clapped his hands on the table. “Baba Varya’s curse is strong. But I will find a way—”

“I don’t care,” Olga snapped. I was still getting over the fact that a porcelain plate had told me to become a stewardess, when she flung herself back into her chair. “Ya etoy suke pokazhu (I’ll show that bitch).”

“Relax,” Dad said. “She’s afraid, but she’ll be back.”

“Dear spirits, you saw the disrespect Elizaveta showed you. Will you let her get away with that?”

“Olga!” Dad reached for the plate, but she clawed her hands around his to keep him away.

Quickly, before he could escape her grip, Olga cried out, “Prove your power to Elizaveta!”

Dad jumped up and wrestled the board and the plate away from Olga.

“How dare you, woman. You say those words and you give them permission to harm. How fucking stupid can you be?”

*   *   *

At a little past midnight Sherri came back. She’d been crying for a while, and the sleeves of her blouse were smeared with the makeup she had wiped off. Dad led her toward the kitchen, but she refused to go in there, hiccuping uncontrollably. In the living room, Olga and I brought cool washcloths and wine while Dad guided her through a breathing meditation. It took Sherri a good amount of wine to collect herself, but even then her hands shook.

“I don’t know if I’ve gone crazy,” she said.

“Gospodi,” Dad said. “What happened?”

Olga didn’t seem happy to see Sherri in such a distraught state. It brought the other woman in close proximity to Dad, allowing her to cling to his arm and heave a frail sigh at his reassuring words, safe from Olga’s retribution unless she wished to come across as a callous harpy. Maybe I detected some guilt, a reaction so unusual for Olga that I must’ve imagined it.

Sherri lit a cigarette and began in a thin voice.

“After I left here I went to that shopping plaza off Cahuenga Boulevard, for the glasses, you know. I parked on the street and went inside. No more than twenty minutes and I was back.” She picked up two cigarette lighters from the coffee table and lined them up. “The red lighter is my car,” she said. “The green is the BMW parked behind me. I get in, turn on the ignition. And out of nowhere the car jerks like somebody rear-ended me. So I look back and sure enough, the Beamer is on my bumper. He backs up and drives slowly around me.” She slid the green lighter out of the imaginary parking spot and parallel to the red one. “I’m livid, so I roll down my window, waiting for the fucker to roll down his window. When we’re even, I’m already cussing the roof off his convertible.”

She hesitated.

“What happened then?” I asked.

The cigarette between Sherri’s lips had grown an ashen beard, but she let it age.

“Who was it?” Olga asked, perched on the arm of the couch.

“Nobody,” Sherri said. “There was nobody at the wheel! So I try to drive away, but it sits there, idling. I’m fucking pounding the horn to get anybody’s attention, and then it rolls some feet ahead and parks. Like nothing happened.”

“You are crazy,” Olga said after a few moments. “Some kids played a trick on you, starushka (old lady).”

“There was nobody in the car.”

“You sure?” Dad said.

“After all the noise I made, a guy runs out of the store and he’s waving his arm in the air. I roll down the passenger window, and he starts yelling, ‘Who stole my car?’ I point to the demon BMW and he just stands there with his mouth open. How do you explain that?”

After taking a few drops of valerian, she went into a coma-like sleep on the guest-room futon. Dad and Olga stayed up until four in the morning, Dad lecturing his wife on the etiquette of channeling and Olga looking like a kid caught stealing.

My question had been answered. But having a medium for a father didn’t end our tribulations in the strange country we now called home.