The table was already set, so we sat. Haylee went from fear to suspicion. Did she think I had gone to speak to Mother after she had left my room last night? I shook my head, but she wouldn’t stop glaring at me with those eyes of accusation. Mother didn’t notice or start interrogating us.
“Don’t just sit there like guests. Make your toast,” she commanded, and we both jumped up and went to the toaster. Nearly a year ago, she had decided it was all right for us to have coffee at breakfast. While the bread was being toasted, I poured us each a cup. I set Haylee’s by her plate. She waited for the toast and brought it on a dish to the table. Mother hadn’t said another word. She finished making the eggs and scooped out eight perfectly equal tablespoons for each of us. Then she stepped back to watch us eat.
“Aren’t you having any breakfast, Mother?” I asked.
“I’m not hungry this morning. I’ll eat something later.”
We ate at our usual simultaneous pace. However, Mother’s staring was making us both quite nervous. Finally, she sat with a cup of coffee in hand. We hesitated as she lowered and then raised her gaze. Her lips trembled as her thoughts rippled across her face. Even Haylee was frightened now. We both held our breath.
“I had to agree to let you go to dinner tonight with your father,” she announced through clenched teeth. “I didn’t tell you last night because I thought it might disturb you and keep you from getting a good night’s sleep, as it did me.”
“Dinner?” I asked.
“Believe me, I didn’t want to allow it, but my attorney said I should. Whatever your father tells you will be lies,” she quickly continued. “The best I can say about it is that it will be a good lesson for you. You’ll see how a man equivocates and rationalizes his selfish misbehavior. He’ll try to turn me into a villain and make himself look like a victim.”
“How can he be a victim?” Haylee asked. “He’s left us for another family.”
“Exactly,” Mother said. Then she smiled. “I’m not worried about you. You’ll not be easily turned against me.”
“Of course not,” Haylee said.
Oh, if Mother only knew how Haylee really felt about her, I thought. I quickly agreed, but I added one thought that Mother didn’t appreciate. “I wish it had never come to this. I know how in love you both once were.”
“Love?” She grimaced as though just saying the word gave her a headache. “Animal passions too often disguise themselves as love,” she said. We widened our eyes at her admitting to sexual lust. “The woman is always at a disadvantage. Once you make love to a man, he thinks he owns you. Beware of that, and realize why it’s not wise to give yourself away too cheaply or too quickly.”
I looked pointedly at Haylee. She started to eat again, faster this time. Mother was staring ahead and didn’t notice her reaction.
“Real love is an investment of yourself. You drop every natural defense you possess and replace it too soon with trust and dependence.” She paused and looked from Haylee to me. “Love, or the feelings you will come to call love, can be very, very dangerous. Men don’t have the same sensibility. They won’t even realize it when they do hurt you, and then, when they do, as I told you, they’ll find a way to blame you. Tread softly through your adolescent years. It’s an emotional minefield. There are no immortal promises, not even the ones you make on your wedding day.”
“We can still have fun as long as we’re careful, right, Mother?” Haylee ventured. I would have preferred that she not say anything. In the mood Mother was in, any conversation concerning the opposite sex could turn into a swamp.
“Careful?” Her laugh was enveloped in a cold sneer. “That’s the most-used self-delusion you’ll experience. When people say you can never be too careful, what they really mean is you can never be careful. Period, end of sentence.” She rose.
Haylee looked at me to see if I would say something, but I shook my head. I especially didn’t want her to talk. This wasn’t the time to promote the good effects of a romantic social life, not when Mother was so down on it.
“Finish and clean up,” Mother ordered. “I’ve decided to put on some lipstick and mascara. I won’t turn into a ghost of myself. That would be exactly what your father would like to see.”
She marched out of the kitchen as if she was going upstairs to take her better self out of the closet. As soon as she was too far away to hear us, Haylee burst out, “She’ll never let us go on a date again now.”
“Relax,” I said. “She’ll calm down after this is over.”
“It’ll never be over.” She sat back, pouting.
I began to clear the table and wash the pan. “Empty the coffee pot, and clean it out,” I ordered in Mother’s voice.
She groaned and began to help. Then we went up to prepare to go shopping. Before I stepped out again, my phone rang. It was Matt.
“Did you pass inspection last night?”
“Barely,” I said. Before he could ask, I thought I had better let him know that tonight was impossible. “My mother is upset because we are having dinner with my father tonight. It will be uncomfortable for us, but we have to do it.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. Jimmy called me this morning, hoping we’d figure out another double date.”
“I’m afraid we’re going to have to tread lightly until my mother settles down. Right now, she’s so bitter about male-female relationships that the mere mention of another date might cause her to explode.”
“Oh?”
“Everything is more complicated for us, although Haylee prefers to ignore it. Matt, I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to have nothing to do with us, with me.”
“I’d blame myself,” he said. It brought a most welcome smile to my face. “We’ll figure it out. It’s the challenges that make life interesting.”
“My stargazing philosopher.”
He laughed. “Well, if you want to believe in astrology, the stars will tell us what to do and when.”
“Can’t be worse than what we’re believing in now,” I told him.
I promised to call him after our dinner with Daddy, no matter how late that might be. He made a point of telling me that he wasn’t going out, implying that he wasn’t looking for another girlfriend. I was sure Jimmy wouldn’t give Haylee that assurance. When I met her in the hallway, I told her Matt had called and what he had said about Jimmy calling him.
“Damn,” she declared. “Why do we have to suffer?”
I nearly laughed. “They’re our parents, Haylee. Of course we have to suffer. It’s our family that’s fracturing.”
“I thought that happened the day we were born,” she replied, and pounded her way ahead of me down the stairs.
On the drive to the department store, Haylee pouted. Once again, Mother didn’t notice, because she was lost in her own diatribe, lecturing us about dates and romance. She told us things about her early days dating Daddy and claimed that she had always had reservations about him but was blinded by her obsession with the fantasy of a perfect love affair and marriage.
“He was always flirting with other women and telling me it was nothing or blaming it on them. Right from the beginning, he was away from home often. I was so naive then. I had no suspicions, but I’m sure he was having affairs right and left. Contrary to what he told you, he was not that upset with my devoting my life to you. He used it as an excuse to pursue his selfish lust.”
I looked back at Haylee. She always preferred to sit in the rear when we went anywhere with Mother. It was easier that way for her to hide her reactions to things Mother said or look distracted by something else, but all this was happening just when she’d thought she had begun a real love life. She couldn’t disguise her feelings. She was sinking into a pit of anger and self-pity.
“Lots of men and women stay married and faithful to each other, don’t they, Mother?” she challenged.
“As far as you and I know,” Mother said, “but open a closet or unlock a drawer in those homes, and you’ll find disgusting secrets. It’s m
ore like they deliberately ignore the truth and live in blissful ignorance.”
The pessimism annoyed Haylee more than it did me. I still believed that once Mother had gotten completely finished with the divorce, she would calm down and not be so dark and gloomy.
Divorce was simply another sort of death, and although the deaths of loved ones diminished people, they went on, resilient and eventually hopeful again. There was really no other choice. I was confident Mother would realize that and would realize how she was depressing us.
I thought of something to say that might change her attitude. “If you stay sad and depressed, Mother, won’t Daddy have won?”
She turned and looked at me as though I had just washed and dried a window she could now look through.
“Yes, that’s very true, Kaylee.” She looked in the rearview mirror. “Is that what you were thinking, too, Haylee?”
“Exactly, Mother. We were talking about it just before we left the house,” she lied.
“My girls, my girls,” Mother said, nodding. “That settles it. I want to buy you something very pretty to wear to dinner. I want you to look happy and beautiful so he sees what he has lost. We’ll do that first, and then I’ll look for something new for myself. I’ve been invited to a party,” she revealed, surprising us. “A dinner party at Melissa Clark’s home.”
“When?” Haylee asked.
“Next Friday,” she replied. “I’ve already made an appointment with my stylist. Actually, I wasn’t sure I would go until just this moment, thanks to what you girls were thinking this morning. Of course, I shouldn’t just curl up and die. Out of the mouths of babes . . . you’re the light at the end of my darkest tunnel.”
I looked at Haylee. Her face was lit with excitement, and I knew why. She was already laying the plans for having Jimmy and Matt over when Mother went to her dinner party. She was clearly telling me that we would plan and plot together. After we parked in the lot for the department store and got out of the car, she walked beside me, and when Mother moved far enough ahead, she leaned over to whisper.
“No matter how we feel about him, when we come home from dinner tonight, we will tell her how angry and disgusted Daddy made us.”
My clever and conniving sister, I thought. She was always better at deception than I was and always would be. I should have realized it before it was too late, but unfortunately, I was infected with more loving trust than she was.
Mother led us to the more upscale dresses, marching down the aisles determined to spend more money than usual. She paused at the Ralph Lauren displays. We had never shopped here. Before the saleslady could reach us, Mother had already plucked out a black, beaded Leila dress. The tag stated a cost close to three thousand dollars, and she would buy two! I couldn’t deny that it was a beautiful dress, sleeveless and with beaded panels along the center front.
The saleslady had just started to greet us when Mother said, “I need two of this in the same size.”
“Of course,” the saleslady said, as if that was what every mother of every young woman demanded daily. She began to sift through the rack and came up with an identical second dress.
“Try them on,” Mother ordered, nodding at the changing rooms. We took the dresses silently and went into the same room. It had a wall mirror.
“Do you believe this?” Haylee asked, and quickly began stripping down.
“No,” I said. Mother had the eye for choosing styles and sizes that would fit us perfectly. This dress slipped on like a glove. I zipped up Haylee’s, and she zipped up mine. Then we stood in front of the mirror and looked at ourselves.
“I should be going out with older boys, with men,” Haylee declared. “Neither of us looks our age.”
“I think most men would figure it out pretty quickly.”
“You, maybe. Not me,” she said defiantly, and walked out.
The saleslady standing beside Mother looked astounded. It must have seemed like one of us had gone into the changing room, looked in the mirror, and then somehow taken her image out of the glass and brought it along. Before we had left the house, we had made sure our hair was brushed the same and we were wearing the same lipstick.
“They’ll need new earrings,” Mother muttered, mostly to herself.
“Such a perfect fit. For both of them,” the saleslady said.
Mother turned and looked at her as if she had just arrived on the planet. “Of course for both of them,” she said. “How could it be for one without the other? Never mind,” she added, before the poor woman could open her mouth. “Keep the dresses on until we finish at the jewelry counter,” she told us. “And you’ll need new shoes, too. Do you want to escort us?” she asked the saleslady.
“Of course, madam. Right this way,” she said.
The jewelry department had only one pair of the pearl earrings Mother chose immediately for us, so she went with two other pairs at twice the price. After that, and after she had bought the two pairs of shoes she wanted us to have, I calculated that she had spent about seventy-five hundred dollars. We then changed back to the clothes we’d been wearing and carried our boxes as we accompanied Mother on her search for a new dress to wear to the Clarks’ dinner party. That also required new shoes for her, and then a necklace that had caught her eye when she was looking for our earrings finished her own shopping.
“I bet this is what most women do when they get a divorce,” Haylee whispered as we followed Mother out. “Attack their ex-husband’s money. Lucky for us. I’m wearing this dress again with the shoes and earrings first chance I get. Seems like a waste for tonight. We’ll only be with Daddy.”
“Where are we going for dinner?” I wondered, and stepped up to ask Mother.
“He wanted to take you back to the London House, but I told him you’d be uncomfortable there without me, so I said he should take you to Cheeky’s. It’s nearly twice as expensive. If it was up to him, he would have taken you to some fast-food joint,” she added. “He’ll be coming for you at six. I want you to be right on time. I don’t want to have to make small talk with him.”
“Oh, we’ll be ready early,” Haylee assured her. “We’d like to get it over with as quickly as we can.”
Mother paused to look at her, and I held my breath. If she thought we were just humoring her, it would be worse for us than if we were happy and eager to go out with Daddy.
“I mean, it sounds boring,” Haylee quickly added. “Right, Kaylee?”
“We have to do what we have to do,” I said.
“Exactly,” Mother said, and I gave Haylee a look that told her to shut her mouth.
It was weird at first to see how important our dressing for dinner with Daddy was for Mother. She supervised our hair and our makeup like the producer of some important television show. She changed the shade of our lipstick twice and completed our makeup herself, rattling on about some of the modeling shoots she had done and the little tricks she had learned to highlight her best features.
“Is Daddy going to take pictures of us or something?” Haylee asked.
“He’ll take a picture, all right, with his brain,” she said. “As will anyone who sees you. The man will realize what he has lost. It will haunt him for the rest of his life.”
When everything was completed, she inspected us one more time. Then she led us downstairs to wait in the living room. She wanted us practically as still as statues so we wouldn’t mess up our appearance. A few minutes before six, Daddy rang the doorbell, which immediately struck me as so strange—our father ringing the doorbell of what was his own home.
Mother opened the door and stood there for a moment without speaking, as if she was going to block his entrance or had changed her mind and would go against her attorney’s advice. Then, instead of stepping aside to let him in, she fixed her gaze on him and called, “Haylee and Kaylee!”
We rose and went to the front door, where Daddy stood waiting in a jacket and tie.
“Wow,” he said when he saw us. “You girls look beautiful.”
“You probably just noticed,” Mother said.
Daddy looked at her, seeming to debate with himself whether to reply, and then stepped back. “Shall we go, ladies?”
I started forward first and paused in front of Mother. Haylee caught up, and Mother embraced us both.
“If you get uncomfortable, call me, and I’ll come for you,” she whispered.
Daddy had gotten a new car, a black Mercedes sedan.
“A new car!” Haylee couldn’t keep from exclaiming.
“Just to pick you two up,” Daddy said. “Who wants to sit in front? The other can sit there on the way back.”
“We’ll both sit in the back both ways,” Haylee replied, loudly enough for Mother to hear as she still stood in the doorway.
I glanced back and was sure I saw her smile. Daddy shrugged and opened the rear door. Haylee got in first, and I followed. He closed the door, looked back at Mother, then got in, started the engine, and backed out of the driveway.
“Of course, I knew you guys were beautiful,” he said. “You just look years older since I saw you last.”
“We are years older,” Haylee said. “Especially years older than the other girls in our class.”
“Oh, yeah? So tell me more about school. How’s it going?”
“We made the honor roll again,” I said.
“Why am I not surprised?”
“Despite our family sadness, we went to a party last night,” Haylee said.
“Really? She let you go?”
“We didn’t sneak out,” Haylee replied. “Mother’s not an ogre.”
I knew what she was doing. She was going to be sharp and smart with Daddy, just to make Mother happy and get her to let us do more, but I couldn’t help feeling bad about how she was treating him, despite what he had done.
“What’s your new family like?” I asked. I was really just curious and didn’t say it to sound mean.
“They’re not really my new family. I mean, Cindy’s got two young children, a boy, Thomas, who’s ten, and a girl, Mercedes, who’s eight.”
“Was she named after a car?” Haylee asked instantly. “Mercedes?” She let out her characteristic ridiculing laugh.
The Mirror Sisters Page 15