Page 39 of Roma King
She arches an eyebrow at me. “From the Russian mafia.”
“Yes. From the Russian mafia.”
“There’s something very romantic about that, Zara. Something very…nineteen sixties. I loved the sixties, y’know. You must be relieved. The father said the kid was okay, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, he did.”
“And you believe him?”
I think about this for a beat. “Yeah. I do, actually. The video he showed me was current. Corey looked like he hadn’t slept much, but other than that he seemed fine. I mean, it would be nice to see him in the flesh, to witness that he’s okay with my own two eyes, but honestly…I don’t really want any further contact with his father. Yuri Petrov is one frightening motherfucker.”
“Tssshhh.” Sarah slaps my arm. “I’ve never heard a young lady curse as much as you.”
I wave the coat at her again, ignoring the reprimand. “You want this or not? My arm’s getting tired.”
Sarah tries to suppress the excited grin on her face as she takes the coat and folds it over her arm, stroking her fingers through the fur; she looks like a kid on Christmas morning. Her eyes shine brightly as she leaves the kitchen, beckoning for me to follow after her. Down the hallway we go, past rows of Sarah’s shoes all lined up on the floor, stiletto heels against the walls—she ran out of room for them in her closets a long time ago—and into her bedroom. The crimson satin sheets on her bed are rumpled, and the air is thick with the heavy scent of the perfume she must have spritzed herself with just before I arrived.
Reverently, Sarah places the coat down on her bed and makes a beeline for her closet, tapping her index finger against her chin as she surveys its contents, no doubt wondering how the hell she’s going to fit the coat inside.
“So, tell me,” she says absently. “What happened at the Midnight Fair?” Her tone is light and careless. The tone of someone only asking a question out of politeness, but I know Sarah’s quirks. She’s very interested indeed. After the way she reacted the night of the fair, it was surprising that she didn’t come down and question me about it yesterday before I went to work. Seating myself on the edge of her bed, I tell her in minute detail what happened, not forgetting the part where I verbally accosted the green-eyed guy, and then made the grave error of leaving my cell phone in Patrin’s plastic tub.
Sofucking dumb. I still need to find the time to go buy a new one.
At the beginning of my story, Sarah makes a show of buzzing around her bedroom, tidying things away and folding silky scraps of clothes, tucking them into her chest of drawers, but she abandons all pretense of indifference once I mention Madame Shelta. Her back straightens, and her eyes alight with nervous energy. I almost stop speaking when I see the look she’s wearing, but she waves her hand at me, urging me on. When I’m done, she collapses into the chair at her vanity, elbow on the table, head propped up on her fingertips. “Shelta.” She says the fortune teller’s name like it’s a curse word.
I frown at her reflection in the vanity mirror. “You know her, don’t you? That’s why you wouldn’t go down there. You knew the name of the fair.”
Making eye contact with me in the mirror’s polished surface, she presses her fingers to her lips, her cheeks draining of their color. “Could say that,” she mumbles from behind her fingers. I recognize the expression on her face as one of guilt. “You remember when I told you I was born in Poughkeepsie?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m sorry, sweet girl. I just…I’ve never liked telling people where I came from. That…I don’tknowwhere I was born. Somewhere in the south, probably, before we moved up here. The Midnight Fair belonged to my grandparents. Shelta’s my sister, and she’s a sour piece of work. I haven’t seen her in…what? Thirty-five years?”
Oh, come on. This has to be some sort of joke. There’s no fucking way she’s telling the truth right now. The world isn’t that small. There are no coincidences this big. My life cannot have gotten so fucking weird in such a short space of time. Kidnapped little boys. Possessed payphones. Threats from salty old fortune tellers. Run-ins with the Russian mafia. And now my friend, a woman I’ve known ever since I moved to Spokane, is telling me that she’s somehow related to the same fortune teller? It’s just alltooimplausible.
“You got the name wrong at Hitchin’s the other night. They’re not Travelers. They’re Roma. But back then, when I still lived with them, people used to call us Gypsies,” she says in a soft whisper. “Being Roma was nothing to be proud of. At least, according to the outside world, it wasn’t.Iwas always proud of my heritage, though.”
My mouth hangs open. “So, what? The fair is run by Roma?You’reRoma?” I suppose, in a weird way, this makes sense. Last week, back in Hitchin’s when Henry brought up Gypsies, Sarah had gotten very quiet. Very quiet, indeed.
She shifts uncomfortably. “I used to be, once upon a time. I was twenty-six when I left my family. I haven’t seen or heard from any of them since. To them, I’m just aGadje.”
My ears prick. “They called me that when I was at the fair.”
A huff of a laugh. A twist of a bitter smile. Sarah gets to her feet and moves back to her closet, pulling out a green pea coat. She slips it from the hanger and replaces it with her new fur coat. “Gadjeis a term for someone who isn’t Roma. An outsider. But, like anything, it depends on how it’s used. When I left my family and Shelta called megadje, she meant it as an insult. To them, I’m the lowest of the low. I walked away from my culture and my family traditions. I became an unclean, contemptable thing.”
I hear the hurt in her voice. In all the time I’ve known Sarah, I’ve only seen her cry once, when her cat Fifi died. Her voice has a hollow, choked sound to it that makes me think she’s fighting back her tears now, and my heart is breaking for her. “Why did you leave, then? Why did you walk away?”
Pain flickers in the depths of her eyes. Perhaps I should mind my own business and keep my questions to myself. Can’t take it back now, though. It’s already too late. “There was a scandal. I really…” She shakes her head. “It’s a long story. I don’t think I’ve got the heart to tell it right now. Honestly, it’s…” Her words evaporate. Silence follows.
“You could have gone down there,” I whisper. “It probably wouldn’t have been so bad. They might have been happy to see you.” As far as I’ve known, she’s not been unhappy with her life here at the Bakersfield. She’s always seemed more than content; I’d never have thought she was missing anything, mourning the loss of such a huge chunk of her life, of her identity, but looking at her now, that’s exactly what I see on her face.
Sarah laughs. “You met my sister. She’s always been that way. Cold. Unfeeling. Hard to read. She terrorizes everyone at every opportunity. Yes, she would have loved to see me at the fair. It would have made her very happy to have me show up on their doorstep. I don’t doubt that’s why she even came to Spokane. But her joy wouldn’t have been at seeing her long-lost sister. It would have been at the chance to crush me all over again, thirty-five years after the fact. It would have been shitty. Really fuckingshitty, Zara. Shelta should never have been matriarch of the clan. She doesn’t have a maternal bone in her body. It’s a blessing that she never had any children of her own.”
I jerk back, my eyebrows almost hitting my hairline. Oh…fuck. I know I mentioned the rude bastard with the eyes. I know I did. But…didn’t I tell her who he was? Damn. Will she be happy to learn she has a nephew? Or will she be devastated that her sister had a child after all, and she never had the chance herself? It’s a coin toss. I battle with myself, trying to decide if I even have the right to keep something like this to myself, when it’s really Sarah’s right to know. I wouldn’t see her hurt any further for all the world. If keeping this to myself will save her from more heartbreak—
“Out with it, girl. You look like you’re about to burst into tears.”
“Oh, it’s nothing. I just…” I have no idea what to do. In the end, it’s the worry on my friend’s face that forces me to spill the beans. She’s far too astute, and I’m horrible at hiding my feelings. “She did have children. Or she had one that I know of, at least. The man I told you about? The one I laid into outside the fair? She said he was her son.”
