Читать книгу My Dear Bitch. V#2 An Unwelcome Person - Margie Fillin - Страница 2

Wedding Rings. Photo by Alejandro Avila

– Thank you so much for my favorite ball, guys. I’ve already lost any hope to catch it in the wavy ocean, – a tall, shapely, fair-haired stranger ran up to me and sincerely thanked for the ball.

I was a little bit surprised when this young-looking American woman suddenly appeared in front of me. The curly playful waves brought the big bright ball directly to my hands from the ocean just less than a minute before. I couldn’t imagine that the next minute the owner of the ball would be standing in front of me and smiling. Of course, I gave her the big bright ball back at once.

– So, huge waves and such strong wind from the ocean today, – the young woman continued the conversation. – My light ball flew off the ground so unexpectedly, and the wind brought it to the ocean so quickly that I couldn’t get it after my continuous attempts. I can’t leave my mom alone for a long time at the shore. Look, she is sitting there in the beach-chair, can you see her?

I nodded to the nice stranger.

– I used to come here, to Zuma Beach pretty often. I am from Beverly Hills. I love this beach in Malibu. Do you like this place? – She asked me politely.

– Yes, I love Zuma, too. It’s fantastic, this wonderful place gives me a lot of positive energy and the ocean calms me down, – I answered.

She joined me and my son, and we were slowly strolling along the ocean shore. Slightly wet and hard sand crunched and left the holes under our feet. The warm fresh salty ocean wind didn’t bother us at all anymore. We were led away by our vivid conversation.

– Oh, hold, hold your little hat on, it can fly away like my ball, – the friendly pretty woman caught my flirtatious little straw hat that slowly fell down from my head.

– Thank you, – I answered and smiled. – I and my son thought that, probably, some children lost such a beautiful, extremely colorful ball. We were going to bring it to the lifeguards.

– Where are you from, guys? You have so nice light and sexy accent, – she wondered.

– From Russia, from Saint-Petersburg.

– Wow! You don’t look Russian at all. I thought you were from Europe. And how long have you been here?

– Two years and a half.

– Do you like it?

– Yes, very much. – I looked at her face and smiled again.

– I have never been to St. Petersburg, but I know you have the Hermitage there, and I’ve watched several documentaries about your stunning city. You know, a lot of Russian-speaking people live and work here, especially in Santa Monica. Recently I worked with some Russians -very smart and well-educated people.

The young woman got excited.

– Have you ever been to Santa Monica? And to Beverly Hills? – She asked me a question by question, I liked her inquisitiveness.

– Yes, sure. We’ve been there many times. We love travelling and opening new places for ourselves. By the way, I married in Beverly Hills.

– You married there? It’s amazing. An American guy in Beverly Hills? Well, I never! And where did the wedding ceremony take a place?

– Oh, that wedding! – I smiled. – Formal procedure in the city hall. That’s all. And have you ever heard about traditional Russian wedding ceremonies and celebrations?

She shook her head.

– OK then, one day I’ll tell you about different Russian traditions. And now…

I started to hum a popular Russian song “Wedding”. It is in the list of so called “The best of Russian modern classic”.

Then I briefly told her what the song was about. The American grasped the main point of the lyrics at once, and she was very much impressed by me.

In a few minutes she conducted enthusiastically, and I was impressed by her talent. She repeated after me, word by word, some words from the song in Russian: “Svat’-ba, svat’-ba… pe-la i pli-sa-la…», “mes-ta ma-la…” (1aka One, two, three…)

We sang it together and unexpectedly started dancing; we stopped for a moment and burst out laughing.

– Oh, now I know, I know! My favorite ball… – she sighed, – it flew away because it was not enough room for it, either in the sky or on the ground. The same is with Russian weddings: No space is enough as Russians love to celebrate it in a big way. I’ve got it!

This way I acquainted with Joy, a very optimistic, cheerful violinist, who madly loved the life and the whole world surrounding her. She worked at one of the Los Angeles orchestras, and, as well as for the other musicians, most of her life she was touring America and Canada.

Joy was very curious about everything concerning music. After listening to the song “Wedding” and watching the video “Ferris Wheel” on YouTube, my new American friend at once and forever fell in love with the creative works of one of the greatest Russian singers Muslim Magomaev.

– Vika, such a delightful, fantastic, unique baritone. Look at his pics! He was a handsome and so talented person. You know, I have an idea. Let’s go to Santa Monica to an American ferris wheel and sing there his “Ferris Wheel”, okay?

– Let’s go, Joy. – I accepted her suggestion.

So, on a sunny Saturday afternoon I and Joy went to the well-known Ferris wheel in Santa Monica.

We both were in a very good mood and spent some time together walking around the city and shopping a little bit. In the evening, we took a ride on the Ferris wheel and merrily sang some couplets from another Russian song “Ferris Wheel”. We were in the cabin high above the Pacific Ocean and Joy showed some progress in learning Russian. She surprised me because she sounded great.

– Look, at the sky! We are flying between the stars and ocean and singing the love songs; we are screaming “Love you!” – the stars will hear us, and the real love will, definitely, come to your life and to mine. You’ll see, Vika!

When we left Ferris wheel, two young guard-men asked what the song was about and romantic Joy answered proudly:

– About Love, guys!

It was getting dark and cool, and after having a cup of hot coffee latte in the nearest Starbucks we slowly went back to the parking lot where Joy had left her car.

– I wonder, Vika. Did anyone sing in your American wedding ceremony?

Joy surprised me with her question.

– Except the birds, – I joked.

Joy laughed.

– I remember, I twittered like a bird repeating word by word the wedding oath after the representative of municipality, who was assigned to marry us. And can you imagine, Joy, instead of “my lawful husband” I said “my awful husband.” Little did I know…

– What? Unbelievable! – Joy exclaimed in bewilderment.

– I couldn’t hear the letter “l” in the beginning of the word “lawful”. It was because of my excitement and agitation. I could hear just “awful”. I felt a possible mistake, but the proper word didn’t come to my mind.

Joy listened to me very attentively.

– At that very moment one thought rapidly flew in my head, – I continued my story, – if the phrase of the oath “in the joy and despair” is considered normal, probably, the word “awful” in the same oath is OK, too.

And I quickly pronounced “awful”. Deep in my heart I hoped that if it was, wrong someone would correct me.

– I couldn’t dare to stop the wedding ceremony and interrupt the solemn oath reading just because I, the bride, misheard or misunderstood something, could I? – I asked Joy and looked at her eyes. – Although…

– You could dear; – Joy finished my thought instead of me. – And it would be just like in Hollywood movies then. You could scream nervously and stop the ceremony: “I can hardly understand you! So bad English!” Or you could scream out whatever you like. – Joy was laughing.

– But nobody stopped me, and I thought they didn’t notice – there was no mistake.

– And then? – Joy was interested.

– Then? – I re-asked her. – As soon as the ceremony was over and we left, the first question of my “new-born’ husband, as you could guess, was: “Why did you say ‘awful’ instead of ‘lawful’?”

– Oh my… Was he angry?

– A little bit, of course. And when he asked that, I stared at him for a moment and also said: “Oh, my…” I felt myself so embarrassed because of my crude mistake. I honestly explained to my husband everything as it was.

– And he? What was his reaction?

– He laughed and made a joke of the wordplay of “awful” & “lawful”. He said that mixing words will be our family’s “gold collection”. He remembered about my previous mix-ups of some English words. Once when gardening, I was so tired, that I mixed up the meaning of the words “ant” and “ass”. “Look Dan, – I addressed to my future husband, – there is an endless quantity of asses, and they are everywhere in the garden. Black and white and even copper-colored. Different sizes and shapes. I have never seen so many before. Look, look, they are running like crazy ones.” But in a minute he understood what I meant, and burst out laughing: “Where? Where are they, dear? Show me please at least one ass in my garden. I’m eager to see the biggest copper one, but I can’t see. Well, just a second, sweetheart. Where are my gold-rimmed spectacles?” He put on his stylish glasses. “Oh dear, I’m sure I’ve found one already. And I can tell you that one is the sexiest ass in the world and it’s in front of my nose!” A moment later he slightly slapped my ass; “Harassment!” – I joked.

Joy laughed.

– Well, “ant —ass” is logical, – she thought for a moment and added, – and it’s funny! But “awful husband” in the solemn moment of wedding, hmm… – she shook her head.

We approached her car, she opened the doors, we sat down and went back home.

– Vika, I’m sure that word was pronounced by you instinctively, and it definitely happened for a reason in a very important moment of your life. Have you ever thought before your marriage that Daniel is an awful person? Have you ever thought that some of his actions are horror of horrors? Or… was anything in his behavior bizarre or stupid?

I listened to Joy’s questions, and some weird pictures of Dan’s behavior immediately flashed through.

Why did he check the laundry basket in St. Petersburg? (He was mad for a couple of weeks, but didn’t tell me a word about a new box of condoms that he had found on the bottom of that basket.) Why did he rummage in my wardrobe and then was jealous just because a few American T-shirts XXL sizes were kept there? Why did he always “fail to remember” of underwear when putting on his jeans or shorts?

“You don’t know Californian guys, dear. Who wears underwear in such fine climate? No one cares. You are not in Russia. Stop it, please, Vika”, – Dan used to say.

Yea, my friend was absolutely right. Some of Daniel’s actions seemed if not awful, then unusual and bizarre to me.

I was deepened with my own thoughts and could hardly notice how quickly Joy’s Mustang convertible was racing along the picturesque and comfortable CA-1.

And when I was ready to answer Joy’s questions, we suddenly were deafened with yelping sirens of the fire engines and police cars. They blinded us with their bright red twinkling lights.

We had to yield the right-of-way to the emergency vehicles and stopped until the emergency vehicles have passed; at the same moment we could smell the smoke, and I started to cough.

Joy began to rub her eyes.

– On my wedding day in Beverly Hills I rubbed my eyes and coughed, too, Joy.

– Why? Vika, tell me, please. I want to know the whole story of your wedding.

And I continued with my wedding story specially for her.