TO MAGNET OR NOT TO MAGNET

My father was always difficult to love, but I was no marshmallow Peep myself. Now, in a new country where brand-new experiences were being taped over our old life, maybe we had a chance to finally bond. Why not? We hailed from a gutsy stock, after all. Personally I would’ve given my right eye for my father’s affection, and since it’s the eye that does the majority of seeing for me, I was pretty desperate.

If only my father’s heart were so easily breached. I’d spent years waiting for the moment Dad would look up, see me, and be proud. And the only way to accomplish that was by proving that I was an artist of exceptional talent. The magnet school seemed like the perfect place to make that happen, even if it was part of an institution of “organized learning.”

Traditionally, Romani prefer to teach their kids at home. Among them there is a commonly shared opinion, even today, that the public school system alienates kids from adults, churning out generations of disrespectful, lazy egomaniacs who go through life without purpose.

Dad knew school had a place, but he insisted that family had the ultimate responsibility to its children. Only blood could shape us into what we ultimately became, his thinking was. He abhorred people telling his kids what to do. Where did that leave broken families like ours? I never dared ask.

During a discussion with my eighth-grade home economics teacher, Valentina Semyonovna, he set out to prove his point on the subject of social education. “Let’s not forget identity and self-worth. Two subjects school curriculum skirts.”

“Comrade Kopylenko,” she said, “those kinds of notions are not healthy for the children’s mind.” She had refused the Armenian sourj Mom had made in a jesveh, a brass pot with a long handle used to make this traditional coffee. Mom disregarded the unintentional insult for the sake of diplomacy.

I knew the exact reason behind the visit. This was only a few months after Ruslan’s death, and already I felt as transparent as morning mist, fading from my school’s bleach-smelling hallways. By this time, my parents were living mentally in America, and believed that a Soviet education wouldn’t be of much use to me once we moved across the ocean. Perfect, since school always felt like a battleground to me. I was failing every subject except for music and gun club. But how to get kicked out?

I had shown up one day wearing a blue skirt and a sweater with fuzzy penguins on the front. The outfit looked better than the mandatory crap-brown parlor-maid uniforms.

As soon as she saw me, Valentina Semyonovna, who was short and plump like Winnie-the-Pooh, said, “Oksana Kopylenko. You go back home right now and put on your uniform.”

“It’s in the Dumpster.”

Now Valentina Semyonovna was in my home trying to convince my parents to let her take me to Young Pioneers camp.

“People need to be led, to be shown the correct path. Herded, if I may be frank.”

“Sheep need to be herded,” my father said, “goats led. Do I have horns?” This last with a chuckle.

Leaning on the kitchen counter out of Valentina Semyonovna’s line of vision, Mom waved her arms at Dad and mouthed, “Shut up already!”

My teacher’s cheeks were two ripe tomatoes, her back a broomstick.

“You are intelligent people. Surely you must recognize the ingenuity of our leaders’ approach.”

“Let us perform an experiment,” Dad said. “My cat, Michael Jackson, loves music.” The cat in question—a cantankerous hodgepodge of various Russian breeds—had been napping on the phone stand nearby. He heard his name and lifted his head.

“I’ll prove to you now that even animals, when given a choice, can make the right one.”

Dad fetched his guitar from behind the table, turned to Michael, and eased into “Affirmation” by George Benson. Michael stretched his body before sitting up to watch Dad play. His upper lip shook ever so slightly and lifted in a soulful meow. After each passage, which my father emphasized by a pause, Michael came back with an answer.

Valentina Semyonovna’s face was transfixed.

Dad laid the guitar on his lap. “Ah? What do you think about that?”

“Remarkable.”

“That’s right.”

My teacher reached for the guitar. “May I?”

As her pudgy fingers strummed the strings in a quick warm-up, Dad sat back in his chair, arms and legs crossed, a smile on his face. Then she began to sing.

Otzie o svobode e shastye metchtali,

Za eto srazhali ne raz.

V borbe sozdavali e Lenin, e Stalin

Otechesvo nashe dlia nas!

 

Our fathers have dreamed of freedom and happiness,

They’ve fought for those rights more than once.

In struggle did Lenin and Stalin create

This wonderful homeland for us!

Michael turned a couple of times before settling for another nap with his posterior facing my teacher.

Dad clapped, for the poor woman or the cat, I do not know. “My dear Valentina Semyonovna. You were right about one thing. He is a most remarkable cat!” Even Mom had covered her mouth, complimenting the sour-faced teacher through tight fingers. For the brief remainder of my Soviet public education, I wore civvies.

Ironically, Valentina Semyonovna adopted Michael when we left the country. I hope he has learned to enjoy her taste in music.

*   *   *

I said nothing to my father about wanting to join the Hollywood High magnet school, lest he bring up the Michael incident, the way he did whenever I felt the urge to join a herd. When I’m famous, I’ll surprise him, I thought.

I called Mom instead, explaining that the interviews were about to take place. Despite her fear of freeways, she drove from Vegas the very next morning and picked me up a few blocks from Dad’s place. I had not expected her to drive two hundred miles; a few encouraging words would’ve sufficed. Not that I didn’t appreciate her presence; more like I dreaded her trying to administer her charm on my behalf. In Armenian and Romani cultures alike, parents will mend your clothes and cook your food until you’re using a walker.

I jumped inside the car and she wrapped her arms around me, weeks of loneliness packed in that embrace.

“Goodness, it’s like I haven’t seen you in ages,” she said, and pulled away, arms still on my shoulders. “I’m so proud of you.”

“I haven’t done anything, Mom.”

“But you are about to, no?”

“Not if we’re late.”

The main auditorium was nearly empty of applicants. A row of tables had been set up near the stage, where the counselors conducted interviews and checked in applications. There was only one counselor left, a heavyset woman with a high blond ponytail and wireless glasses. Mr. North, I saw with a sinking feeling, was nowhere to be seen. Two stacks of applications rose on either side of her, the one on the right dwarfed by the one on the left. She smiled with a mouthful of neon-white teeth, face shiny and fresh like a baby’s, and motioned for me to come closer.

Mom and I crept toward the table, clinging like conjoined twins. I handed her my application, hiding my hands behind my back. I had bitten my nails the night before.

“I wish to join the program,” I said.

She perused the pages. “I see here you’re a junior. Good. Oksana? Mr. North told me about you.”

I hoped that was a bonus, and she seemed pleased.

“My only concern is your English,” she said, and my hands started to sweat. “How are your ESL classes going?”

“I’m top of my class.”

“She good in school. Ona ochen talantlivaya (She’s very talented),” Mom said. “Like her mama.”

“Mom.”

She stepped back with one hand on her hip. But she didn’t argue, which was so out of character that I’ve never forgotten it.

“It’s okay,” the counselor said. “Don’t be so nervous. If you feel uncomfortable, there’s always next year.”

“I don’t have that much time.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have a plan. If I take regular English, it will help me to learn it faster, which is part of that plan. So you see, I must be in this program. Also, I need to become great musician fast.”

“Pravilno (That’s right),” Mom said from somewhere behind me. For the time being we both chose to forget that most of this was to impress my father.

The counselor considered me over her nearly invisible glasses. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking.

“What are the four basic types of sentences?”

I stuttered.

“So vat?” my mother said, back to her post at my side. “My daughter write books from small-child time. You play Mozart? Debussy? Gershwin?” Mom was folding a finger for each composer I had ever learned.

No; the counselor shook her head. “But I don’t see the relevance.”

“She learn one measure, two measure, for hours, until perfect. Because she have disciplina and good brains. You tink she can’t do something, and she do it.”

“Mom, please.”

“Program for talent, yes? Say so on your paper. She talent. Like her mama. I come America wit no money, no English. I alone with two childrens, but we do good. Is hard, but we harder. So, you take her, yes? No problem.”

Where was the charm? Where was the mother who could talk a king out of his crown?

Mrs. Dominguez regarded us for some time before her expression came into focus the way it does when someone makes up their mind about something they find wonderful.

“I can see how important this is for you both.”

“I won’t fail,” I said.

She put my application on top of the stack to her right. “See me in my office after school for the new schedule.”

I don’t know if the process of getting into the magnet school was different for other students. Did they have to audition? Show good grades? To me it was a miracle, and I was afraid to pry into its workings lest it burst into smoke. Mom and I walked out of that auditorium with wings strapped to our shoes. It wasn’t really that big a deal, now that I think back. In California, magnet schools are as plentiful as parking meters. But when Mom and I parted that day for her to make the long drive back to Vegas, all I could think was, I’m not a foreigner anymore.

*   *   *

Cruz caught up with me on the bus going home, though he was the last person I wanted to see. Earlier I had found out he’d been flirting with Natasha, the Russian girl from our last year’s ESL class, who gloated while telling me about it in detail during lunch. It was no secret that she had a thing for him. I was crushed. But maybe it was my fault. When Cruz blackmailed me into that date at the Pizza Place in exchange for gaining entrance to the cemetery, I had brought Natasha with me.

Inconveniently, Cruz lived three blocks away from my father’s house, so I couldn’t tell him to get lost.

“Happy to see me?” he asked.

Instead of dwelling on Natasha, I told him about the magnet program. For some inexplicable reason, I wanted him to be proud of me.

He congratulated me in a crisp kind of a way.

“What’s the matter?” I asked, disappointed.

“Nothing. It’s great.”

Our stop came up and he followed me off the bus. We walked for a while in silence.

“We won’t have classes together,” he finally said.

I hadn’t given it much thought. For a good reason: I was too busy planning my next big step, the perestroika of Oksana Kopylenko. Finally I had found a way to begin to reconstruct myself.

We walked down the narrow sidewalk, our shoulders almost touching. Sunlight splashed the city with buttery heat, and I wanted to stay as carefree as the weather and to forget my petty jealousy.

The thing with Cruz was that he was the easiest person to have as a friend. A few minutes in his company could supply you with confidence enough to last a week. People gravitated to him because of his knack for making you feel like your troubles were more pressing than his, for he hardly talked about himself. I studied his way with people as if tracking an elusive animal in its natural habitat. Amid all that flirting, I started to accept that Cruz’s amiability was a character trait I sorely lacked and one I desperately wanted to master.

Besides that, his face was handsome enough to quicken my pulse. Every time he tucked his hair behind his ear, I’d get tingly and have to look away.

“So we won’t have classes together. What difference does it make? You have Natasha.”

He stopped, staring at me as if I had spoken in Russian. “We’re not together, are we? Why should it bother you?”

That he chose not to deny flirting with Natasha hurt more than her bragging about it. “Forget it,” I said, hurrying across a neighbor’s lawn.

“Okay, wait.” He caught up to me. “Let me tell you why I did it.”

“Throw me off a cliff, won’t you?”

Before I reached our driveway, he grabbed my shoulder, forcing me to face him. “You wanna know or not?”

“Not.”

“I wanted to make you jealous.”

“Great job. First-class performance,” I said, my eyes stinging.

He let go. “Why do you do that?”

“What?”

“Always try to pick a fight with me. Can’t you unfreeze enough to admit that it worked?”

Biting back tears, I finally pushed past him toward the house. “You can have your Natasha. I don’t give a shit.”

“Whoa, Oksana. Stop. I didn’t mean it to sound that way.”

“Believe it or not, not everyone worships at your feet,” I said. Every time I moved, he blocked my way again. “If you don’t let me pass, I’ll scream.”

“First tell me you’re not angry.”

“Go away.”

Two things happened at once. He rushed me, his hands holding my face, kissing me, his lips fantastically hot. At the same time, the front door burst open, making us jump apart. Our kiss must have lasted all of two seconds.

“What is going on here?” Olga called from the doorway. “Valerio, come. Look at what your daughter is doing on our front lawn.”

“Go,” I whispered to Cruz, willing the world to stop spinning.

“We didn’t do anything wrong,” he said. But we had. Hanging out with guys who hadn’t been “approved” by the family was a big no-no according to my father’s rules. I still remember the fits Dad went into after catching Ruslan and me reading together. Ruslan was a Rom. Cruz, a Brazilian, stood no chance.

My father stepped outside his house with a guitar in one hand. He’d been practicing, as he had been every day since I could remember. His scales and arpeggios drove us all mad, but we dared not interrupt.

“What is this?” he asked, and his face hardened with disapproval. Despite wearing a pair of acid-washed denim overalls, he still managed to look intimidating.

“Just a friend from school. His name is Cruz—”

“This little hussy was hanging off him like a chimpanzee,” Olga crowed. “Thank God I caught them or who knows what would’ve happened next.”

I had never been more grateful that Cruz could not understand Russian. “We’re on the front lawn, Olga. In bright daylight.”

“I don’t want you bringing gadjen to my house,” my father said. He hadn’t acknowledged Cruz, as was his habit with all sorts of nuisances. “Send him home.”

“But he wants to take guitar lessons,” I blurted out in English, throwing a meaningful glance over my shoulder.

“Really?” Hazel eyes scrutinized the potential victim standing at my back. Cruz went a little pale.

“You want play?” Dad asked in broken English.

Cruz cleared his throat. “Yes, sir. Absolutely.”

Had I known a useful prayer, I’d have been praying. I could only hope that vanity had not abandoned the artistic egos of the world.

I widened my eyes at Cruz and he said, “Sir, that’s the most amazing guitar I’ve ever seen. I would be honored to learn on such a remarkable instrument.”

There you go, I thought, as my father’s frown softened.

Dad nodded in approval. The guitar truly was a piece of art, though I guess I’d gotten used to seeing it every day. For one thing, it had two necks, the top having four strings and the bottom nine, and its maple-and-spruce soundboard created a lush resonance. It was made by Master Krasnoshekov in 1872, and was considered a national treasure, but Grandpa Andrei had purchased it at a black-market auction before it could be transported into a government-run storage facility for safekeeping until it could be matched with a museum. Grandpa had then commissioned a local master to restore it.

“Come inside. I let you hear,” Dad said, then shook a finger. “But you no think you play it. You play Squier.” Which, according to him, wasn’t much of a guitar at all.

I gawked at him. Clearly an invisible barrier had been breached, and I had no idea how to feel about it.

Olga remained on the porch and watched them go in. As I passed by she muttered, “That boy can sweet-talk the Devil. You sure he’s not Romani?”