Wings & Hearts

I felt that I had become all too accustomed to international travel by plane - after avoiding them all of my life, here were three plane trips all in a month. It was like I had become some hot-shot business woman or something, I mused as I disembarked in the Helsinki-Vantaa airport, chewing a piece of nicotine gum until I could finally get a cigarette in my mouth.

“Sinikka!”

“Oh God, Hanna!” I nearly dropped my bags as we collided, she hugged me as hard (or harder) than any of the boys had upon my departure. “I missed you so much!”

“I’ve been so bored without you Sini, you have no idea!” She shouldered my duffel bag (why did everyone insist on carrying my crap? Did I look like I seriously couldn’t carry anything?) as we walked away from the packed terminal toward baggage claim. Hanna chattered away as she always did, and I listened with an occasional comment, as I always did.

“… and I’ve had to hang out with Lauri and his friends, and Paavo and Kiirsi. Oh God, Paavo and Kiirsi are so gross, Sini!” I grimaced at the thought as I lit a cigarette, cradling the lighter in my cupped palm.

“Oh lord, I don’t think I want to talk about Paavo and Kiirsi. Oh, and I forgot!” I snatched her up in a close hug for a minute. “Ville wanted me to give you a hug and a kiss, but I could only take him up on half of the delivery. Sorry,” I grinned brightly at Hanna - my only real girlfriend in the world.

“That ass! He hasn’t called me in three days!”

“That’s probably because he was too drunk to pick up the phone!”

We picked out my luggage and boarded the Metro, headed to Hanna’s apartment. Apparently, when I had speculated if my apartment had been flea-infested on my graduation day, I had been half right; the place was currently being fumigated for the infestation of cockroaches Paavo had discovered shortly after I had left to go on tour, which left the both of us homeless. Thank God Hanna had been home to clean out my belongings and offered her place to stay, else I’d be homeless and naked (conceivably, I could have stayed at Jyrki and Ville’s place, but it definitely would have been strange without the pair of them around to harass me).

“You know, I’ve never been to your place,” I commented, as we climbed the stairs that led up to the apartment she shared with her little brother; lugging my red bag up the three flights of stairs was a combined effort.

“Well then this will be an enlightening experience, won’t it?” Hanna laughed as she opened the door. The place wasn’t really a mess, not truly, but one could easily see where Hanna’s space ended and Lauri’s began. In the living room there was a TV perched precariously atop a table cluttered with VHS tapes, a worn-in blue suede couch, and a drum set. So that was why Jussi and Lauri were such good friends…

“So I had Lauri get out the air-mattress and fill it this morning, so it’s all ready for you in my room. I don’t think he dressed it at all, so I’ll go find some sheets. Feel free to make yourself at home,” With that, she disappeared, leaving me to survey the strangely-furnished living room before I wandered into the kitchen and began foraging for coffee with an unlit cigarette dangling from my lips.

“We don’t smoke in the house.” The short blond boy had his arms crossed over his chest, somehow managing to take up the entire doorframe with his diminutive stature. I lifted an eyebrow as I pulled out a mug for the coffee which slowly percolated in the nearby machine, and carefully tucked the cigarette behind my ear.

“Sorry. Would you like some coffee?”

“I don’t drink coffee. Tastes like shit.” Lauri moved to perch on the counter across from where I waited for the coffee.

“I guess it’s definitely an acquired taste,” I wondered if he was trying to push all of my buttons - he was definitely doing a bang-up job of it if he was. Slowly, I withdrew the carafe from the machine and poured a cup for myself. “So where do I go to get my nicotine fix?” Please don’t say downstairs, please don’t say downstairs…

“Downstairs.” Shit. Bleary-eyed and weary from the trip - and wondering what time it was in the back of my mind - I took my coffee and cigarettes and proceeded to the front door. Hanna accosted me along the way.

“Where are you going?”

“Lauri told me I had to smoke downstairs,” I shrugged, and sucked down as much of the burning hot liquid from the mug in my hand as I could in one mouthful. Hanna simply rolled her eyes, and motioned for me to sit.

“Lauri is an immature asshole,” She shouted, just loud enough for him to hear, I guessed as I perched on the arm of the couch, juggling coffee and cigarettes with practiced ease.

Settling in for my stay with the Ylonen siblings wasn’t too difficult; I soon learned to live by two creeds - don’t listen to a word Lauri said, and try not to let the landlord notice I was living there. Since I wasn’t going to stay for very long, Hanna had decided that it would better to not inform the landlord of my existence and risk being forced to pay higher rent for a month for increased occupancy. I was all too happy to comply with this, but it meant that if I was to leave I’d have to be accompanied by one of the siblings so I would appear as nothing but a day visitor. It really sucked when the time came for me to go out and secure the books I would need for the semester, and even more so when I finally got to move back into the apartment I shared with my brother right before the start of the semester.

The move had been excruciating, moving all of the stuff from Hanna’s house required multiple trips on the metro with awkward boxes, and I had been forced to endure more negative comments about the size of my wardrobe than I could bear. But what was worse than surviving Hanna’s good natured taunts and Lauri’s cutting jabs was the fact that not even two minutes after I had gotten my room back together, I found my brother had decided move-in day was a good day for band practice.

And his band wasn’t the normal kind.

Four cellos screeched together as I put the polo’s in my closet back into rainbow order and tried not to wonder how quickly a cello would burn if one held a cigarette to its wood. They were still playing when I moved from the closet to the dresser drawers, and the ruckus continued as I answered the ringing phone nearly half an hour later.

“Paavo, can you hush for a second?” I called, asking all too politely for the pain they had been putting me through. After a few rings, it became clear that they were ignoring me, so I set my cigarette down in the ashtray and answered the phone as civilly as I could manage (because it wasn’t the person on the lines fault my brother had suddenly turned into an asshole). “Hello, Lotjonen residence.” I rubbed my temples with a smoke in hand, and had to plug one ear with my fingers in order to hear the person on the other end.

“Sinikka! Hanna told …” The rest of my doting boyfriend’s loving sentence was drowned out by the sound of a dying cow giving it’s last rights.

“Can you hold that thought, Jyrki?” I asked, and set the phone down before he could answer, mainly because I wouldn’t be able to hear him if he didn’t comply with my request anyway. Furious, I stomped to Paavo’s room and kicked open the door (really I pushed open the handle, but I was angry enough to start kicking).

“For real, Paavo? Can’t you just quiet down for one vittun minute while I talk on the phone?” Beer cans littered the ground between the four cellists and their instruments, so many that a little avalanche had fallen out of the door when I had opened it. “I feel like your mother, Paavo! Get a job, get a life, get out of my HOUSE!”

I hadn’t meant to scream at them - I was a big believer in level-toned threats, which were usually much more intimidating - but perhaps the black polo I had chosen for the day was frightening to them (black = Sinikka in a bad mood), and one by one the musicians who didn’t live in my house packed up their cellos and left as I hovered in the doorway watching. The trio were escorted out by my sullen, sulking older brother, and I took a calming breath of smoke before I picked up the phone again.

“I’m sorry, kulta. Paavo thinks he’s cool if he plays rock music on his cello with his friends. Where are you today?” Slowly, I dragged my body up onto the counter between the coffee maker (my favorite part of the kitchen) and the blue and white china ash tray (another favorite).

“Copenhagen.”

“Copenhagen already?”

“I know! Only a few more stops until we’re home for that last gig.” I smiled into the phone - true to his word, Jyrki had called every evening (Helsinki time, too, very considerate of him!) and it had been the only thing keeping me sane in the Ylonen household. “So school starts tomorrow,”

“I’m all excited. It’s ridiculous.” Jyrki laughed, and made a sound as if he was trying to fight someone off of him.

“Oh, that’ll all wear off. Hang on a second,” The muffled sound of a palm being placed over the receiver made me hold the phone away from my ear and reach for my abandoned cigarette. Apparently the boys had no self-restraint when I wasn’t there to play mommy.

“I miss you,” His deep baritone returned. “And I love you. But Jussi wants to talk to you before we go onstage. Good luck in class tomorrow, sweetling.”

I barely managed an “I love you” in return before Jussi got a hold of the receiver and began to talk a mile a minute about nearly nothing. He made me smile, though, it was nice to know that more people missed me than the one who was obliged to.

“Yes Jus, I’m fine. No, Jyrki didn’t have time to tell me that they poured egg whites on your head, they‘re horrible, horrible men. Did you at least take a shower? Good boy. Alright, well play well tonight, put me back on with Jyrki.” Again I wondered about Jussi’s natural high as I managed to answer all of his questions and concerns before he finally put me on with Jyrki for the last minute before their gig started.

“I love you, honey.” I murmured as Paavo walked back into the apartment, looking like he was about to burst. “But I have to go. Play a good gig for me,”

“I know you could care less about how well I do or do not do onstage,” Jyrki laughed, but returned my sentiments before he had to go.

With a sigh, I gently set the phone on the cradle and leaned my head against the cabinet as I watched Paavo pace back and forth in front of me. He was about to break into some sort of uncharacteristic rant, I knew it - he had been doing strange things like this since he had started dating Kirsi - all I could do was suck on a smoke and brace myself.

“Saatanan runkkari, Sinikka!” Paavo continued his pacing as he shouted, my brother wouldn’t even look at me as he ‘reprimanded’ me. “Honestly, woman, I lived here before you did, this is my apartment, not yours!”

“Yeah, and look at what a shit hole you had before I came here! Shut the hell up, Paavo.”

“Bitch! Why don’t you go and live with your boyfriend if you don’t like it?”

“I don’t even know you any more! Who are you and what have you done with my brother!” On my feet now, I tried to make an escape to my room with my ashtray and cigarettes, but semi-drunken Paavo was faster than I had thought. He wrenched the beautiful piece of china out of my hand and threw it at the nearby wall.

“How dare you! Get the hell away from me, Paavo!”