Free Learning to Swear in America by Katie Kennedy Page B

flipped the cloth back over the cage.
    Yuri stole a quick glance around. Ivy and a Boston fern droopedfrom macramé hangers knotted through hooks in the ceiling. The walls were covered in green paint until, halfway up, it changed to blue, which continued across the ceiling. The kitchen counter was littered with brown paper bags labeled “Organic oats,” “Organic dried berries,” and “Brewer’s yeast.” Framed photos of Nelson Mandela and Jimi Hendrix hung on either side of the kitchen clock, above the cabinets.
    “Give peace a chance!” the parakeet screamed from under its cloth.
    “We went through a hippie stage,” Mrs. Collum said, by way of explanation.
    “Oh. Is it over?” Yuri said.
    Dovie snorted orange soda out her nose.
    “Sorry,” she said, laughing, and grabbed a paper towel. She smeared the puddles around on the table.
    A man with Dovie’s dark eyes wandered in from the hallway, a paperback folded around his thumb.
    “What’s going on out here?”
    “Dovie brought home a Russian boy from NASA,” Mrs. Collum said.
    “He was bloody,” Lennon added helpfully.
    Yuri stood, trying to be polite, painfully aware that gauze almost entirely covered his face. Mr. Collum looked him over, then spoke to Dovie.
    “You shouldn’t let strange boys in your car.”
    “We’d already met,” Dovie said. “He’s the one who sent you the cruller that day.”
    “The one who made you stand in the street? Huh.” He was silent for a moment. “This isn’t the start of a collection, is it? Like your rings, or those snails?”
    “No. I promise this is the only bloody Russian I’ll bring home.” She turned to Yuri. “The snails were like two years ago.”
    Mr. Collum stared at Yuri for a moment. “All right, then. Carry on.”
    He turned back down the hall. Yuri sat.
    “He tried to kill himself,” Dovie told her mother. “He jumped off the Hernandez Park bridge and I pulled him back up.”
    Yuri stared at her. “I didn’t try to kill myself. I fell when I turned to see who was there, because you stopped.”
    “You were on the outside of the railing, looking at the gorge. Then you let go and went down. That counts as jumping.”
    “She’s right,” Mrs. Collum said, giving him a sober look. “That’s a suicide attempt.” She squeezed his shoulders.
    “Why’d you do it?” Lennon asked, suddenly interested. He wheeled his chair around with one hand and muted the television.
    “I didn’t. I fell.” Yuri felt his face burn under the gauze.
    “So why were you outside the railing?”
    Yuri stared at his soda can. Why had he climbed over the railing? He wasn’t really going to jump. Was he?
    He glanced up. All three of them were looking at him. This would never have happened at home. If something awkward came up, something emotional , his mother would have pretended it didn’t exist. She wouldn’t have asked him about it. She would never, never have mentioned it.
    “I … was just thinking. About asteroid. Is stressful, you know.” He clicked his thumbnail on the soda can. “And my mouse died.”
    They let that hang for a moment.
    “I’m so sorry about your pet,” Dovie said, squeezing his forearm.
    “So you really are with NASA? Seriously?” Lennon asked.
    “I’m with Moscow State University. Russian government lent me to America. I’m physicist.”
    “Wow. So your head’s important, and you got in a car with Dovie?” Lennon said. “You are suicidal.”
    “She doesn’t drive car so much as … herd it, I think.” Yuri smiled to take any sting out of his words. Lennon and Mrs. Collum laughed, but Dovie looked serious, and for a moment he thought he had offended her.
    “You’re some kind of freaky genius, then, right? So you shouldn’t have been on the outside of that bridge,” Dovie said, leaning forward. “Aren’t you supposed to be saving us?”
    “Not just me.”
    They were silent for a moment. He shifted under the gauze. Dovie leaned in closer, the light shooting