Read Online North of Boston by Elisabeth Elo - Free Book Online

die until one is ready. That sufficiently stubborn individuals can call the shots. Individuals like himself.
    He brings another curled shrimp to his mouth, and I notice that his eyes are unusually dull and glassy. At seventy, Milosa could easily be mistaken for a much younger man. He stays fit with squash and swimming (he taught me when I was a child), and takes a regimen of dietary supplements that costs more per day than most families pay for food in a week. Every three months he goes to one of the most elite doctors in Boston for a full battery of expensive tests that all show him to be in perfect health. Milosa is terribly afraid of dying. He can’t abide the prospect of defeat.
    â€œOh, let’s not talk about those things,” Maureen says with a little shudder.
    She announces that her new product line for teenage girls is coming along nicely. (Whenever we Kasparovs encounter emotional challenges, we start talking about work.) She intends to call it Sweet Surprise. It will be fruity—top note of grapefruit, bottom note of mango. Fresh and sassy, happy and brash. Target market: preteens and teens, thus inexpensive and gaily packaged in watermelon pinks and greens. First market entry: an eau de toilette, followed in quick succession by several flankers—a gel, talcum, and body wash, with possible spin-offs into facial soap and the kind of tubed lip gloss teenage girls are never without. All of it sold in drugstore chains with free scratch-and-sniff cards and a stand-alone display. Soon to be decided: the final formula, on which will depend the manufacturing schedule and launch date. Maureen’s fondest wish now is for a famous celebrity face.
    I agree to come to the meeting to finalize the formula when she’s ready.
    â€œRemember, we’re talking preteens and teens,” she reminds me.
    â€œIn other words, fruity.”
    â€œExactly.” She seems relieved that I’m on board and shoots an anxious glance to Milosa, who hasn’t said a word.
    Jeffrey has cleared the entrée dishes and served his famous low-fat lemon custard by the time Maureen and I finish discussing the new line.
    Maureen looks at her husband for several pensive seconds. His shoulders are slumped down like a pigeon’s, while his spoon clatters clumsily against the small china dessert bowl. The words on the tip of her tongue don’t fall, and her face lengthens in apparent disappointment. She wants his support, his admiration, but knows she won’t get it because she never has. He married her, but he doesn’t love her, and has always kept his heart to himself. Shadows flit across her face, probably flashed memories of previous hurts. Her jaw clenches; she bites her lip. I’ve seen her get to this point before—struggling to adjust to the yawning emotional gulf that stretches between her and the man she’s still trying to love.
    Maureen hasn’t touched the mildly caloric custard, and now she seems to find it repulsive. She throws her napkin on the table and lobs a sharp question at me while glaring at Milosa. “Do you suppose that if we found your mother’s private fragrance, Pirio, your father would take an interest in
that
?”
    Milosa picks up his head, looks at her blandly for a second or two, and proceeds to finish his dessert. Maureen storms out of the dining room.
    Another family dinner at the Kasparovs’.
    Soon after, Milosa leaves the dining room as well, and I’m left sipping the coffee that Jeffrey serves me, glad to have a few moments by myself. I’ve spent a fair amount of time trying to piece together my parents’ story from random details I learned growing up, and from my own insistent questioning of people who knew them well. There has always been a great deal of secrecy around them, possibly rooted in shame. What I’ve learned so far goes like this: Milosa was born in a godforsaken village whose name he pretends to have forgotten, into