Love Sold Separately

by Ellen Meister

  Hell, Dana might even believe her.

  She got off the train in Roslyn, Long Island, and took a taxi to her sister’s home, which Dana had affectionately dubbed the House of Seventeen Gables, due to the abundance of rooflines. Dana had noticed that this style of architecture had been invading suburbia like well-financed dandelions.

  She rang the bell and her sister pulled open the door. Instead of saying hello, Chelsea took in Dana’s outfit—a concert T-shirt, distressed jeans, combat boots and faded leather jacket—and said, “I thought we were going to Café Rosemary.”

  “We are!” Dana said brightly, realizing she shouldn’t have tried so hard to look the part of the defiant younger sister. “But thank you for the warm welcome.”

  Chelsea shook her head and gave Dana an affectionate hug. “Never mind. I can lend you a cardigan, loser.”

  Dana didn’t take offense. In fact, teasing was the way they showed affection. “Fuck you very much,” she said, hugging her sister back. “And happy birthday, by the way. I bought you an ugly scarf.”

  “I’m sure I’ll love it,” Chelsea said, and led Dana into the house.

  Wesley, the three-year-old, was at his afternoon nursery school program, so the house was quiet. Or mostly quiet. Dana could hear the housekeeper upstairs moving a vacuum back and forth. She didn’t hear the au pair, but Dana assumed she was around, as well. Her sister had staff.

  She also had stuff. A lot of stuff. Chelsea wasn’t merely a rich woman who could afford to indulge. She was compulsive. A casual visitor wouldn’t know it to look at the house, which was orderly and pristine, but Dana knew the truth. There was a brightly lit underbelly that displayed the naked shame of her sister’s hoarding. It was the finished basement—Chelsea’s husband’s concession to her habit. The walls were lined with massive shelving racks—the kind people put in their garages. But Chelsea’s shelves held stacks of sweaters, rows of boots, entire lines of designer purses, winter coats Wesley would eventually grow into and lifetime supplies of anything nonperishable, such as school supplies, laundry detergent, dryer sheets, paper towels, deodorant, toothbrushes, Swiffer refills, bathroom cleaner, toilet paper, disposable razors, toner cartridges, batteries, shampoo, panty liners, tampons and cases of Diet Coke. She had backup hair dryers and toaster ovens to replace the appliances when they eventually gave out. There were also items she held on to as future gifts, such as pots and pans sets, luggage, baby clothes, jewelry, perfume, scented candles, silver picture frames and even a few musical instruments. There was an entire shelf of gift sets from Bath and Body Works, and another of designer jeans, organized by hue.

  Despite all this, Chelsea wasn’t hard to shop for. Sure, she was a woman who, almost literally, had everything. But Dana understood that Chelsea simply loved new things. So no matter how much stuff she got, more stuff always made her happy.

  Dana handed her sister the slim box containing the silk scarf she had picked out, and Chelsea accepted it with an enthusiastic smile.

  They sat at the kitchen island and Chelsea tore into the wrapping paper. She lifted the lid off the box and gasped in delight at the sight of the softly colored scarf. “Oh my God,” she said, holding it up to her shirt, because the match was uncanny. The scarf was a blue-on-blue pattern threaded with delicate lines of turquoise that perfectly matched Chelsea’s top. “You’re like a witch!” She tied it expertly around her neck. “What do you think?”

  Chelsea’s joy lifted Dana’s mood. It wasn’t just because she was glad her sister liked the scarf, but because this meant she was less likely to try to make Dana feel like shit for getting fired from a job that required little more than the ability to remain upright.

  “Great,” Dana said. “I’m glad you like it.”

  Chelsea looked at the clock on the wall oven and seemed alarmed by the time. “Oh! We have to go.”

  “What’s the hurry?” Dana asked. She knew they didn’t have a reservation.

  Chelsea bit her lip and sighed. “Dad is meeting us there.”

  The bottom fell right out of Dana’s mood. “Dad?” she asked. “Why? I thought we were just going to—”

  “I’m sorry,” Chelsea interrupted. “He called this morning to wish me a happy birthday and asked what I was doing for lunch. What could I say? ‘I’m meeting Dana but you’re not invited because we’d rather have a human conversation’?”

  “To start,” Dana suggested. She still hadn’t adjusted to her father’s retirement. Who the hell was this man who suddenly had time for them? Well, time for Chelsea, anyway. Dana didn’t count since she was unsuccessful and struggling financially. Kenneth Barry had little tolerance for the unwealthy. He took it as a moral failing.

  “Well, I couldn’t,” Chelsea said.

  Dana’s shoulders dropped as she frowned in thought. Now she had to rethink her entire strategy. And fast.

  “Listen,” she said, “before we go, I have to tell you something. I lost my job at Hot Topic, but I don’t want Dad to know. So could you please not bring it up at lunch?”

  “You got fired?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “From Hot Topic?”

  And here it comes, she thought. “Well, that’s where I worked.”

  “What did you have to do to get fired from that place? Set it on fire? For shit’s sake, Dana, how are you going to pay your rent? Your student loans? You know Brandon said I couldn’t give you any more—”

  “Don’t have a fit. I’m not asking for money.” It was excruciating—the thought that Brandon and Chelsea had actually had conversations about her loser sister, conversations that probably mirrored her father’s philosophy. Handouts were dangerous and would only make her dependent. But of course her father took it a step further. Handouts were okay if you were already successful. In fact, he had always promised to pay back Dana’s student loans if she ever got a decent job. As long as she was struggling, she was on her own.

  “Don’t tell me not to have a fit,” Chelsea said. “I’m worried about you.”

  “I can always get another horrible job.”

  “Will you be able to make it until then? Do you have anything set aside?”

  “Relax. I can always sell crack or prostitute myself.”

  “This isn’t funny, Dana.” Chelsea looked genuinely distraught. “What happened at the store?”

  Dana let out a sigh. “It doesn’t matter. It was a ridiculous job for me. And the pay sucked. Besides...” Dana trailed off, wondering if the timing was right to tell Chelsea about the Shopping Channel.

  “Besides what?”

  “I might have something else. It’s not a sure thing, but—”

  “An audition? Please don’t tell me it’s an audition.”

  Dana sighed. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  She did. Her booking ratio with auditions was one in twenty. That was about average for actresses in New York. But to her sister, it simply meant that Dana failed ninety-five percent of the time.

  “We’d better get going,” Dana said, hoping Chelsea’s mood would lift when they got to the restaurant. This was simply not the time to go into detail about the Shopping Channel audition.

  “Do you want to borrow a cardigan?” Chelsea asked.

  Dana shot her sister a look.

  Chelsea shrugged and pulled a bottle of Advil from the top shelf in a kitchen cabinet.

  “You okay?” Dana asked.

  “I have a headache.”

  Dana opened her palm toward her sister.

  “You, too?” Chelsea asked.

  “We’re meeting Dad, aren’t we?”

  And so the Barry sisters took painkillers and headed off to meet their father for lunch.

  4

  By the time they arrived, Kenneth Barry was already seated, a glass of Scotch in front of him. He wa
s wearing a fine-gauge cotton sweater in pale salmon, which Dana thought made him look almost human. His angular cheekbones had softened since retirement, and he looked ruddy and healthy. A testament to all those extra hours on the green.

  They kissed him hello, and Dana noticed that he was wearing more aftershave than usual. Her father normally smelled like soap or, if it was after work, like something vaguely sterile and Band-Aid-y.

  “What’s going on, Dad?” Dana asked. “You smell good.”

  “Don’t be funny,” he said.

  It was one of his favorite comebacks. The other was Don’t be childish. As usual, she was tempted to respond by sticking her hand under her arm and making a fart noise.

  They took their seats, and Kenneth put a small gift on the table in front of Chelsea. It looked like a jewelry box, and Dana tensed. She didn’t like to indulge in petty sibling rivalry, but come on. Jewelry? For Dana’s last birthday, Kenneth had made a production of presenting her with a book called Success and the Single Girl. It was a life guide on how to get a better job and a better guy. Most of the advice centered on wardrobe choices. She wondered why no one wrote self-help books for retired neurosurgeons who still taught part-time at Columbia and had more intimate relationships with cells on a slide than with human beings, and who couldn’t even manage a single date after their wives left them and moved down to Florida and remarried.

  “I love it,” Chelsea said after discovering a bracelet inside the box. She held it up to show Dana, who was surprised by the taste level. It was a stylish silver charm bracelet, very on trend.

  “Beautiful,” Dana said, impressed.

  “Thank you, Daddy,” Chelsea said, and held out her wrist for Dana to help with the clasp.

  “I might have had a little help picking it out,” Kenneth said, his lips doing something that looked vaguely like a smile.

  Dana stared at him. This wasn’t the kind of thing her father said. It was self-effacing and almost...charming.

  Chelsea seemed unfazed. “Salesladies always liked you,” she said.

  “Of course they like him,” Dana said. “They know money when they smell it.”

  Chelsea gave her a reprimanding look.

  “Not a saleslady,” Kenneth said, ignoring the dig. “A friend.” He took a sip of his drink. “A lady friend.”

  Dana’s and Chelsea’s jaws unhinged simultaneously.

  “You have a girlfriend?” Chelsea said.

  Kenneth gently put down his glass. “I do.”

  Dana sat back in her chair. Now it made sense—the handsome sweater, the aftershave. But the thought of it almost made her dizzy. Her father with a woman? A woman who actually liked him? She couldn’t imagine how he had managed it.

  “Who is she?” Dana asked. “What does she do?”

  “Her name is Jennifer Lafferty.”

  “Jennifer?” Dana said. “She sounds too young for you.”

  “She’s forty-two.”

  “Ew, Daddy,” Chelsea said. “That’s a twenty-two-year difference.”

  Dana knew that Chelsea was probably getting the same image she was—a collagen-lipped barfly in a low-cut top who had been sifting around for decades and finally hit pay dirt.

  “She’s a lovely lady,” Kenneth said.

  “Where did you meet her?” Chelsea asked.

  “That’s a private matter,” he said.

  Chelsea gave Dana a look that said, This is getting weird.

  “What’s the big secret?” Dana said. “Is she a stripper or something?”

  “She’s a cardiothoracic surgeon.”

  Dana stared at his expression to make sure he wasn’t kidding. He was, as usual, as serious as a glioblastoma. And just like that, it all made sense. He had found a fellow automaton. A doctor nerd. She imagined them sitting side by side on a lazy Sunday morning reading peer-reviewed medical journals.

  “So what’s the big secret about how you met?” Dana asked, assuming they had been set up on a blind date by a colleague.

  “Never mind,” Kenneth said.

  Chelsea grabbed her arm, a smile spreading as something dawned on her. “I bet I know!” she said. “It was a dating site! That’s it.” She turned to their father. “I’m right, aren’t I? You met online. That’s why you’re embarrassed.”

  Their father exhaled through his nose and tented his fingers, as if dealing with a subject that required intense concentration. “Many people meet online.”

  Dana shook her head as she tried to imagine her father with a Match.com profile. What on earth could he have said about himself to make him sound appealing? I like long walks on the beach, prescribing MRIs and making people feel insignificant.

  “We should order,” Kenneth said, picking up the menu. And that was the end of the conversation about Jennifer Lafferty.

  When the waitress arrived, she wrote down their order and Kenneth asked her to read it back to him.

  “I got it, sir!” she chirped, smiling.

  He folded his arms. “Humor me.”

  “Dad, she’s got it,” Dana said. “Chill.”

  “Let’s be sure,” he said, and looked back at the waitress. “Go on.”

  The young woman hesitated, as if it might be some kind of a joke. But Kenneth just stared, like he was prepared to grade her performance, and the waitress’s smile dissolved. She read back the order, nervous enough to stumble over a few words, and he was oblivious to her discomfort.

  After she left, Dana turned to her father. “Why do you have to do that? Why can’t you show people a little respect?”

  “You want me to respect a waitress?”

  “Would it kill you?”

  He let out a breath. “Tell me what’s going on with you at that clothing store. Have they promoted you yet?”

  Chelsea kicked her under the table.

  “Not quite,” Dana said. “But yesterday I auditioned for the Shopping Channel.”

  “The Shopping Channel?” Chelsea said, her face lighting up, just as Dana had expected. “Why didn’t you tell me? Do you think you have a shot?”

  “Explain,” Kenneth said. “This place hires actresses?”

  “On-air hosts,” Dana said. “To describe the merchandise and get people to buy it.”

  Her father was unimpressed. “Like what you do at the store, but on TV.”

  “Oh, Daddy. It’s much better than that,” Chelsea said. She turned to Dana. “What was the audition like?”

  “They wanted me to describe this big, ugly malachite ring. I guess that was the challenge—to try to make it sound appealing. But I didn’t do that. I described a comb.”

  “A comb?”

  “A little black comb. I got it from one of the guys on the set. I figured anybody could do ten minutes on a ring, but I wanted to show that I could take something so ordinary and make it sound exciting.”

  “Would it have killed you to follow the rules for once?” Kenneth said.

  Dana dismissed him with a wave and addressed her sister. “Do you know who Kitty Todd is?”

  Chelsea gasped. “I love her!”

  “She was there. And after my audition she turned to the company president and said—”

  “The president?” Kenneth said, as if it were the only word she spoke worthy of consideration.

  Dana almost laughed. He was so predictable. “Yes, the president. She turned to the company president and said, ‘Hire her. Hire this one.’”

  “She didn’t!” Chelsea said, her enthusiasm in hyperdrive.

  “But I don’t want to get my hopes up,” Dana said, counting on Chelsea to put up an argument. “You never know with auditions.”

  “I think you’re going to get it,” Chelsea said, and turned to their father. “Don’t you, Daddy?”

  “Does this mean you would give up that...drama club?”


  Dana clamped her jaw to keep from exploding. “Theater group,” she said through her teeth. “A well-respected theater group. Not a drama club.” She hated that he was so intentionally obtuse about it. The Sweat City Company had been the most important thing in her life for the past five years. They performed experimental plays in a small theater downtown, and they were the most talented, generous and dedicated group of people she had ever known. “And no,” she added. “I would never give it up.”

  The waitress brought their food, and the conversation went back to the Shopping Channel, with Chelsea sharing her expertise on the difference between the three major players in the field. When the topic was exhausted, the sisters went back to pressing their father on the details of his relationship. They learned that Jennifer Lafferty lived in Manhattan and they saw each other every Saturday night and on occasional Wednesdays, when Jennifer wasn’t on call. He went out of his way to mention that, like him, she had invested wisely. It took Dana a moment to process why he had shared that particular information, and then she got it. He wanted to make it clear she was interested in him, not his money.

  As they were finishing their meal, Dana’s cell phone rang. She glanced at the caller ID. It was Megan, and she broke into a sweat. Could good news come this fast? Could bad news? It certainly had in the past. Then again, maybe Megan just wanted to know if Dana was free to go jeans shopping, which she did more frequently than most people bought milk. A flattering pair of jeans was Megan’s Holy Grail.

  As her father snapped his fingers at the waitress, indicating that he wanted a cup of coffee, Dana answered her phone.

  “You got it,” Megan said triumphantly.

  “What?” Dana was sure she misheard.

  “I said you got it. The Shopping Channel.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “Just to be clear—they’re giving you a chance to go on air and see how the viewers respond. But you’re the only one who got the call, so it’s practically a formality. If all goes well, they’ll draw up a contract.”