SIGNS

With only two months of school left, Mom began to call more frequently than she had during the entire two years we’d been apart. Every phone conversation, she turned Rumpelstiltskin on me. “Now give me what you promised, little princess!” I think what she enjoyed even more than my impending move was my father’s failure to bring me over to the dark side. But she had one, too.

By this time, I had no doubt that Mom was an alcoholic. Roxy often called me in the middle of the night to report Mom’s activities, which included hiding out on the balcony in the middle of the night with a snifter and a cigarette. But I could tell Mom wasn’t all right, even over the phone. Not only did she slur through the majority of our conversations but her personality changed faster than I could keep track of. Within five minutes Mom could go from loving and enthusiastic to bitter and detached.

My mother had been my idol when I was a kid. Spirited and fierce in her love for her family, the woman could do no wrong, and anyone who claimed otherwise faced my wrath.

“Your mother came home at four in the morning,” Grandma Ksenia once said, batting at the flies with a rolled-up newspaper as she, Zhanna, and I walked home from the farmers’ market one morning. “She was doing figure eights down the sidewalk. I hope none of the neighbors was awake to see it.”

At twelve, I’d grown skin thick as an elephant’s as a defense against Grandma’s cutting remarks. But telling me I’d have better luck acquiring a well-paying profession (a city bus driver, for example) than a good husband was very different from criticizing my mother’s walking, or drinking, habits. Only I could do that.

“She must’ve tipped at least two bottles of vodka.”

“No, she didn’t. She made borscht this morning,” I said, because no one in their right mind would set out to create Grandpa Andrei’s favorite dish while nursing a hangover.

Grandma paused and clucked her tongue at me, then switched the sack from one hand to the other, fanning herself with the same newspaper she’d bullied the flies with.

Zhanna, routinely at the edges of these kinds of conversations, looped her arm through mine and tugged, an intervention she’d attempted too often for someone so young.

“Mom’s fine, and maybe you shouldn’t spy on people at four in the morning, Grandma.”

“She’s an alcoholic, that’s what she is. That’s a sure way to lose a husband. My Valerio could’ve found himself an actress from the Bolshoi if he wanted to. With a stipend and a vacation dacha out by the lake.”

“You’re jealous because everyone in the band likes Mom more than you,” I said.

“Oh, look, a pigeon.” Zhanna tugged harder, but I resisted.

“Your tongue is a kilometer long. Just wait until I tell your father how you disrespect your elders. See if he won’t take away that blasted jacket of yours. See if he won’t.”

For two years, I’d waited for Mom to discover she hated passing out change in casinos, but as the end of the school year approached, I saw that she had no intention of returning to Los Angeles. I felt guilty even considering going back on my word and worried about her, but I despised the idea of moving to Las Vegas, away from everything I’d come to love.

Then I received a letter of admission from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. My parents, busy reconstructing their own lives, didn’t get involved in my college selection, so the decision was left up to me. UNLV was the only place I’d applied because I had no idea you could apply to more than one school, and I didn’t bother to ask a counselor. But maybe on some level I always knew I’d end up in Vegas.

Annie and Brandon were starting general courses that fall at Pasadena City College. Suddenly, we were all growing up.

One evening, in celebration of our imminent descent into adulthood, we went out for sushi. Annie picked a tiny place hidden in the basement of the only apartment building on the block, the rest of the street lined with sagging and decrepit houses.

Cruz came, too, wearing a pair of black slacks and a merino V-neck that matched his eyes.

The atmosphere at the table felt vaguely tense and uncomfortable. We talked about the weather and our Shakespeare teacher, who always smelled of pot. And about our American history teacher, who had asked the question “Is life fair?” on a test, and had taken points off for everyone who answered “Yes,” noting “How about now?” in the margin.

Cruz joked around in his easygoing way, but he had bags under his eyes and kept making excuses to leave the table.

Ever since I had told him about my letter of acceptance, he’d acted more withdrawn. We were still together, though we made sure my father had no way of finding out. It wasn’t so difficult because Dad now spent so much time in his studio writing depressing love songs and horror-film scores, he wouldn’t have noticed a tornado ripping by. Cruz and I avoided many things during those last few months of school. I think we both felt something bad coming. When I brought up Vegas, he’d make a phone call to Pizza Hut and get all buddy-buddy with the person taking the order, or walk out of the room, claiming a headache.

“We can visit,” I said once. We were up at Griffith Observatory, on the lawn at the foot of the Astronomers Monument. The night sky slumbered above us, and I leaned back on my elbows to watch it take star-sprinkled breaths.

Sprawled on the grass next to me, Cruz teased the fragrant stalks with his fingertips.

“I might be going back to Brazil.”

“Why? When will you come back?” But of course I knew the answer.

“I have some things to take care of.”

I turned to look at him. Was he going back for his mother? In the dimness of the observatory lampposts, his face was that last fragment of light before the camera lens twists shut. Soon I’ll never see him again, I thought, and blinked to shake it off.

After we were found out by my father, the weight of guilt and the constant presence of “What if?” had packed on me like wet snow on a tree branch. Like my parents had done, I was going against my own parents’ wishes, and the fear of someday telling my children “I could’ve been somebody” began to draw me away from Cruz.

Throughout the meal, the very last we’d have all together, we conversed in a light tone, as if my move to a different state and his return to Brazil didn’t spell “breakup” in capital letters. No one at the table asked what we were planning to do.

After hours of strained niceties, Cruz finally laid down his chopsticks. “Can we talk?” he asked me.

We took the stairs up to the sidewalk and began to walk. The air promised rain, and I breathed the dampness deep into my lungs. The houses on this street looked frozen in the fifties, complete with brick trim and giant porches, but many had overgrown front yards.

“Are you mad at me about Vegas?” I finally asked. “Is that why you decided to go back?”

“No,” he said. “I saw your father earlier today.”

“What?”

“I asked him if we could get married.”

I was so shocked, I dropped down on the porch steps of someone’s house. “Why would you do something like that? Without asking me first?”

“You drive me crazy, you know that?” He ran a hand down his face and then gestured at me like I was deaf and he had to get my attention somehow. “Merde! Did you hear what I said? Your father pulled out a fucking broom when he saw me.”

I didn’t know what to do, what to say, if I should be mad or flattered.

“What did he say?” I was curious. I couldn’t believe Cruz was still alive.

“He said, ‘You keep dream, small boy,’ and then threatened to call the cops.”

I covered my mouth. I couldn’t help it. The first giggle rolled out of me, along with some of the tension.

He stuck his hands deep in his pockets and looked around. “I’m glad I can amuse you,” he said, trying to hide his own smile.

I went to him, wrapping my arms around his waist. I was still laughing softly, my eyes watery from it. “You are brave, small boy. Brave and completely insane.”

“I must be.” He pulled away. “So?”

“What?”

“Isn’t this what people do when they love each other?”

“And then they divorce—”

“I’m going back to Brazil for sure,” he said. “After graduation … And I want you to come with me.”

Raindrops began to fall softly around us. Goose bumps covered my arms—whether from the sudden coolness or Cruz’s offer, I could not tell. Wouldn’t it be something, though? If I said yes, I’d be the third generation of women in our family to defy her parents and run away with a man.

“I’ll have my own place—our place. I’ll buy you a piano and you can play for me all day.” He ran his hands up and down my arms, palms hot and so familiar. “Come on, we’ll be together and nobody will tell us how to live. I can take care of you.”

I closed my eyes against the image. It was dangerously appealing. But could I really go from my father’s house to my husband’s? Not yet.

“I love you so much,” I said.

“Don’t say that.”

I went on, despite him asking me to think about it first. “If we stay together, we’ll burn out. One day everything will spoil and we’ll hate each other.”

“Why are you talking this way?” He shook me. “This isn’t one of your Gypsy voodoo tricks, is it? I don’t believe in that bullshit, and neither should you.”

He caught my right hand, slipping it under his shirt to his chest, and held it there.

I pressed my palm to his skin, our fingers intertwined. Spirals of heat tingled up my hand, his heart lunging at me. His eyes pleaded, and I begged him to let me go. Instead, he held me in tight embraces and whispers. These are the things I remember most: his lips imploring against my ear, in my hair, and the silly way I kept kissing him and pulling away at the same time.

“It’s late,” I said. It was a stupid thing to say at that moment, but I couldn’t let him change my mind. “We should get back to the restaurant.”

His hands fell away, carving an empty space between us. The rain fell harder. For the longest time we stood inches away from each other without touching or speaking. I hugged myself, my body shaking.

He shook his head and walked away without a backward glance.

*   *   *

Within a month I lost more than ten pounds; scrawny did not suit me. For days I wore a shirt Cruz had left months ago under my bed. Sometimes I’d stick my nose in it and try to extract a ghost of his scent from the unwashed fibers. His absence drained every bit of fight out of me.

At the end of the school year I found Mr. North in the main auditorium rehearsing the graduation ceremony with the senior class of 1993. The theater boomed with voices. The chatter of those waiting for their turn onstage kicked up to the rafters. Mr. North clapped the beat to “Pomp and Circumstance” for the piano player, a Korean girl whose lower lip jerked every time she popped a chord. I approached the stage, and when Mr. North saw me wave at him, he broke the melody. “Take five, everyone.”

“Why aren’t you in cap and gown?” he asked, jumping off the platform.

“I’m not going to the graduation ceremony.”

He cocked his head. “You’re not?”

“Yeah, you know, there’s so much packing to do still—”

“You have to. What will your parents say?”

We took two seats in the front. I hadn’t thought our discussion would last more than a minute. Who could expect a teacher tasked with organizing sex-crazed teens into model citizens to play shepherd to one?

“My parents said they’re not coming.”

What a gifted liar I’d become. I had never actually told my parents how seriously Americans took their high-school graduations, that they wore special gowns, and that the wimpier ones bawled, clutching beribboned scrolls to their chests. If I had, who knows, they might’ve come. But then again, neither Mom nor Dad was big on ceremony.

In Moscow, at age twelve, I went to my music-school graduation. Solo. Mom was nowhere to be found, and Dad was in a “meeting” bargaining down the price of a Carver amplifier. The main recital hall was a blur of festively adorned families. A music-school diploma in the former Soviet Union was essential when gaining entry to any music conservatory, my mother’s dream for me, and the administration went out of their way to show how high their diplomas measured. The room, lined with snowy-clothed tables, smelled like a bakery. Every which way you turned, another mountain of piroshki or crescent cookies soared above rosy teakettles, matching cups, and real silverware. Parents and teachers mingled over dainty serving plates. Students grinned in clusters of joy. One teenage girl with a giant red Mohawk allowed her mouth to split into a smile when her mother squeezed her shoulder at a teacher’s praise.

I’d missed the ceremony, by the looks of it. With a pang of regret, I grabbed a potato-stuffed piroshki and zigzagged through the crowd.

Marina Nikolaevna, the school director, saw me and softly clasped her fingers over her middle (she always made the piroshki). Her wispy blond bun toppled dangerously to one side as she most likely tried to pin a name to my face. “I didn’t see you at the ceremony, Lenochka.” And failed.

“Mom and Dad are taking me to Gagri, Marina Nikolaevna, to celebrate the graduation. Could I get my diploma? We’re on our way to the train station right now.”

It felt perversely satisfying to hold that little black book in my hands.

Perhaps I should’ve insisted my parents come to my high-school graduation. I still lament not giving them a chance, as I’ve only recently grasped the significance of memory. Life is made up of sentiment yoked to flashes of recollection.

I took first place during that year’s talent show, the last one I’d ever play. This time, as I crossed the stage to accept the trophy, my feet touched ground just fine. I gave a speech. That part is so blank, I fear it never happened and my imagination was shooting home movies behind my back. Cruz wasn’t in the audience, and so I felt unfinished. Soul-split. We should’ve talked it through, made a gentle break instead of shattering apart as if cracked by an ax. Loss scooped me out, and I bowed to my audience with grace and smiles only for the sake of my father, who sat in the front row.

He stood up and clapped as I received the award.

“Molodets, dochenka (Good work, little daughter)!” I heard him shout, and the pain that had been suffocating me slunk briefly into the background. His showing up was so monumental that I promptly created an imaginary future where we’d jam during family birthdays and weddings the way many Romani do so effortlessly. Not until later did it come out that Mom had threatened to report Olga to immigration if my father dared skip the concert. For days after, he poked fun at the samodeyatelnost (amateur production) of the show. No matter. He was there in the moment with me. And I finally began to accept his nature and his clumsy love.

Later on, backstage, a classmate pressed roses into my hands. They didn’t come with a note. I hadn’t seen Cruz in weeks and so the flowers filled me with eagerness and anticipation, and I waited until the echoes inside the theater grew cavernous. He never showed. I walked through the dark hallway toward the exit where my father waited to take me home as though I were wading through miles of sand dunes. Cruz was, I was certain, too far out of reach now. But this was also a moment of clarity for me. I finally understood why I hadn’t listened to my impulses and followed him to Brazil. Even though I loved him, if I married him I would lose this freedom I was fighting so hard to wrest from my parents. Our independence, our identities, would mesh and soon nothing would be left of me or him. My American goal, I realized quite unexpectedly, wasn’t about becoming an American but about doing something I could never do as a young wife. Somewhere in this new landscape I hoped to find just one thing.