In Maryna’s Bedroom; or And Then We Split Another Bottle of Wine

Maryna very much wants to give me some of her jewelry.

“You like?  Peek.  You peek what speak to you.”

I look into Maryna’s jewelry box, a pirate’s treasure of dangling, sparkling earrings and necklaces most accurately referred to as “statement pieces”.

This appeals to me, as I have many statements to make.

“You like?”  She holds up a pair of earrings the shape of a psychedelic spider web.

I take them from her.  “These are way too heavy for this old broad.”

“No,” she says.  “Never say.”  Her Ukrainian accent gives every utterance a sorrowful, downward inflection, attaches a weighty solemnity to the most mundane of situations.  “You are beautiful woman, not old broad.”  She narrows her eyes, almond-shaped and black as midnight. “They are too heavy.  You are right.”  She takes them back.

“Here, you take.”  She passes me a string of chains, a large, blood-red dahlia attached to them.  “Poot on.  Go to mirror.”  She places a helpful hand to the small of my back as I turn to go to the mirror at the other end of the room.  I pull the necklace over my head.

“Adjust.  Like thees.”  I turn to see her pantomime moving the flower to rest on the clavicle, a jaunty burst of color near the jaw.

I adjust the necklace.

Maryna grins.  “Eet’s you, baby.”

I grin back.  “I always leave here with jewelry,” I say.  “Why is that?”

She shrugs, inscrutably Eastern European.  “Ees life,” she says.  “And sometimes ees jewelry eenwolved.”