Elena hid the slightest smirk behind her drink, sipping it. “Well, do you have any ideas?”
Max said, “We thought of some dumb stuff, like giving people flowers or drawings, but nothing good.”
“What about baking some cookies?”
Ivan said sadly, “We don’t know how to cook.”
Elena thought for a second, and then said, “How about throwing a neighborhood party? A potluck party, so everybody brings something?”
We looked at one another in amazement. “Yeah! A party!” I shouted. It immediately came to me that maybe my mother, even my dad, might come.
“That’s a great idea!” Ivan said. “Like with music and dancing?”
“Sure,” said Elena. “Why not? Everybody likes parties, right?”
Max turned serious for a second. “And with good snacks? Like, no vegetables? And we don’t have to dance, do we?”
“Well, you have to dance with me,” Elena said, red lips spreading with her easy laugh.
“Okay!” I loved the dreamy prospect of dancing with her. “Let’s do it!”
Ivan asked, “What should we do? Make invitations? I wish Beatriz was here.” Beatriz was very creative.
“Well, you have to let everybody know about it. Maybe it would be easier if you just made a few posters and put them up around the neighborhood? But first you have to decide what day and time the party will be, and where. And you might have a name for the party.”
I said, “But like what?”
“What about ‘Great Big Cool Party’?” Max suggested.
Ivan said, “I think we should have ‘Festival’ or ‘Fiesta’ in the name because that sounds more fancy and, umm…international.”
“What about ‘Big Fun Fiesta’?” I said.
“It needs more…oomph,” Elena said. “And maybe something about families, so people won’t think it’s just for kids.” She pulled out a green pill bottle and her smokes from her kimono sleeve, where she carried important things, popped a Miltown, and lit another Vogue, a lovely turquoise.
“How about ‘Fabulous Family Fiesta’?” Ivan looked up hopefully at Elena, who said, “Mmmh!” and enthusiastically blew a plume of smoke into Ivan’s upturned face. “That’s perfect! I’m sorry, darling—I didn’t mean to blow on you.” She fanned the smoke away with her hand. Ivan beamed.
I was ready to make the posters right then, but Elena said she had too much to do, and she’d be out the rest of the afternoon and into the evening.
“Rats,” said Max. “You go out too much.”
“Who are you going out with this time?” Ivan asked, not bothering to hide his disappointment.
We knew it could be any number of men. Cars pulled up to the Goncharoffs’ at all hours and whisked Elena away to parties at the Fairfax hotel or the Rive Gauche, ritzy spots in town, or a palatial town house in Kalorama or an embassy on Mass. Ave. She often told us about them later—the food, the dancing, the political celebrities, the money they raised for Latin American or European refugees. My grandfather said, “There’s nothing more boring than Washington parties,” but I don’t think he went to the parties Elena went to. When we slept over at each other’s houses and sneaked out to ride bikes in the middle of the night, we’d sometimes see Elena return with a gentleman friend. They’d stagger up to the porch and smoke. Sometimes she didn’t come home until daylight, riding in a Diamond Cab, and then there would be a loud argument in Russian with Josef. Air-conditioning and privacy were luxuries few people had in those days, so windows and doors were open, and conversations, especially those that involved shouting, flew around the neighborhood like flies. Unlike flies, you couldn’t swat secrets—they buzzed around forever on Connors Lane. From the Andersens we’d heard, “Oh, why don’t you go back to Provincetown with your precious little boyfriend,” and, “You are the most vile harridan I’ve ever known!” Which sent me straight to my grandmother’s crossword puzzle dictionary. Or it might be the Shreves, laying into Beau and D.L. on a regular basis, and Dawn Allgood was known for screaming at her boyfriend. And, of course, before their divorce, there had been my parents.
“It’s not really a date,” Elena said. “It’s more of a meeting.” She stubbed out her Vogue in the heavy brass ashtray by her swing, looking with distaste at all of Josef’s smelly cigar butts. Josef supposedly had his bad heart and Elena had her asthma, but they both smoked incessantly. “I’m talking to some important people about some Hungarian families who are having trouble staying in the country,” she continued. “Your schoolmate Gellert’s family is one. So please be glad I’m doing something useful.”
We weren’t. We liked Gellert okay, a strange kid who was a head taller than Max but was in the same grade at Rosemary as Ivan and I were. He’d come to Washington recently and couldn’t speak English and did odd things, like sniff our heads to show appreciation. But he was a lot of fun on the playground at recess, and we always wanted him on our kickball team—he was fast and clobbered the ball, although occasionally he would neglect to round all the bases and would just run way off into the outfield, chasing the ball and laughing. Which didn’t matter because he always kicked homers. Even so, I wasn’t pleased that he was garnering more of Elena’s attention than we were.
“They won’t send him back,” I said. “This is America.”
Elena smiled sadly and said, “Things are not always what they seem, even in America. And sometimes life is terribly unfair.”
Just then Linda and Rudo, the Goncharoffs’ big poodles, and the naked twins, Katya and Alexander, tumbled out the door. All four of them were covered in spiderwebs and happy about it. Clumsy Rudo, looking like a brown bear, jumped up on the big chair we called The Throne, and Elena scolded him, “Rudo! Get off that chair! You know better!” Apricot-colored Linda, who did know better, flopped on the floor with the twins, looking alarmed. The Throne was Josef’s special seat—a handsome rattan thing with huge, poofy cushions covered in a verdant tropical print. Josef had decreed that nobody but he himself was allowed to sit on it. He wanted no dog hair, Popsicle drippings, cigarette holes, and certainly spiderwebs on his cushions when he came out in his robe to smoke his nightly cigar. But I’d seen Elena occasionally sitting on The Throne when a gentleman friend was sprawled on her swing. I wondered if this was ever the cause of their arguments. I wondered, too, if Elena did it just to spite him.
Elena ejected Rudo from The Throne and onto Linda and the twins. She fanned the overheated pile of curly fur and cherubic flesh with her magazine. “Why are you two not taking your nap?” she said to the toddlers, poking them with the Sports Car toes, and the swing swung, making me long to sit close to her. Calling out musically to Maria, “Ma-dee-a!” Elena gave each child a swig of her Cuba libre. Maria appeared and dragged the twins off into the house.
“Can we have another sip?” I asked as Elena rattled her glass.
“No, it’s just ice and slobber now.” She spilled the ice on the floor for the dogs, who scrambled to lick it up, crunching the melting cubes.
Elena said she had to go upstairs soon to get ready for her appointment. To appease us, she reached into her special sleeve and handed each of us a piece of Bazooka chewing gum, and we shoved the powdery squares into our mouths, chewing out the sugar as fast as we could to then see who could blow the biggest bubbles. Elena flipped through her magazine, then raised her head, listening. “Boys, don’t I hear Tim coming?”
Bells jingled far away. Tim was our Good Humor man. His square white truck appeared every summer afternoon but Sunday to deliver succor in the form of Creamsicles, Fudgsicles, Drumsticks, and Popsicles. Elena pulled a dollar bill from the silky sleeve. “My treat!”