STEPHEN O’CONNOR
Next to Nothing
FROM Conjunctions
Sour Sisters
THE SOROS SISTERS’ eyes are the blue of lunar seas, their complexions cloud white, and their identical pageboys well-bottom black. The term “beautiful” has never been applied sincerely to either sister, though Ivy, the youngest by two years, might be deemed the better looking, because she has detectable cheekbones and a waist narrower than her hips. Isabel has very little in the way of body fat, but is square shaped from almost any angle. Even her face is square shaped. It’s been that way since birth.
As soon as Isabel and Ivy slam the doors of their white van, three people in front of the pharmacy stop talking. A man whose metallic-gray pickup has just bleeped and flashed its lights feigns acute interest in a parking meter. No one looks either sister in the eye as they approach along the solitary block of the town’s main street. No one raises a hand, or says hello. But once the sisters have begun to recede in the opposite direction, all four heads turn to watch. Significant glances are exchanged, but not words. There’s no need.
Isabel and Ivy’s parents retired to the town twelve years ago, when their father had a stroke and had to give up his orthopedic surgery practice in the city. Everybody loves Dr. Soros, who is floppy of foot and eccentric of speech, but can be counted on for a lopsided grin whenever he is spotted in public. Hilda Soros has the perpetually startled expression of a woman with too many worries, but perhaps for that very reason, with her every smile—timid, then radiantly blooming—she seems to be discovering joy for the first time in her life.
Her daughters, however, seem never to have discovered joy. They bypass even the friendliest greetings with the indifference of a bulldozer flattening a picket fence. In the rare instances when small talk is unavoidable (on the checkout line at the Food-Star, on the diving raft at the lake), they terminate it in twelve words. Or five. Their brows are always wrinkled, their mouths slot straight. They make the townspeople feel erased. They make the townspeople feel like a variety of wood louse.
Something Is Not Right
Isabel and Ivy are sociologists, and thus the beneficiaries of lengthy academic vacations. They have spent every July and August in their parents’ white-clapboard house ever since each bore her first child: daughters—both eleven now. Isabel’s husband is an executive at a food-processing company, and Ivy’s is an investment banker. The two men cannot be in the same room without getting drunk and turning every topic of conversation into a theater of mutual disparagement. Their visits to the town never overlap and are, in fact, so fleeting and rare that many people believe that the sisters are lesbians, and that their children—six of them now; evenly divided—are the products of artificial insemination. Isabel and Ivy each have their own room, and a double bed, and their children sleep in an attic that reminds everyone of the dormitory in that old house in Paris where Miss Clavel looked after Madeline.
Tonight it is Ivy’s turn to read to the children. She is sitting at the end of the aisle between the two rows of beds in a sage-green easy chair, the arms of which are frayed to their cotton batting. The children are all upright in their beds, staring at her expectantly. Although Ivy’s parents are brown-eyed and both her husband and Isabel’s have eyes the color of wet charcoal, each of the twelve irises turned toward her is the all-but-white blue of a lunar sea—a statistical anomaly that Ivy finds more than moderately disconcerting.
“I don’t like that story,” says Gwenny (Isabel’s oldest child).
“I haven’t even started it yet.” Ivy lifts the picture book from her lap and looks at the cover, though for no particular reason.
“I don’t like it either,” says Jen (Ivy’s oldest).
“Me too,” says little Jerry (her youngest).
“We hate that book,” says Gwenny.
“OK.” Ivy puts the book down on one side of her chair and picks a new book from the pile on the other.
“We hate that one too,” says Paulette (Isabel’s middle child).
“OK.” Ivy puts the second book down and picks up a third. She doesn’t care what she reads. They all seem stupid to her. But the kids hate that book too, and the next.
“Tell us a story,” says Gwenny.
“I’m trying to, but you won’t let me,” says Ivy.
“No, make one up!”
“Yeah,” says Jerry. “Make us up a story, Mommy.”
Ivy begins to sweat along her hairline and under her arms. For a long moment she sits in the chair, silent, swollen looking—as if she has been stuffed. Then she sighs heavily.
“Once upon a time,” she says, “there was a little princess . . . or she might have been a prince”—she looks at Jerry—“only you know for sure.” Jerry sticks his thumb into his mouth and slides down in his bed so that he is looking straight at the ceiling. “Anyhow,” says Ivy, “the princess lived in a castle on the beach. It was a sand castle. And it had a dungeon. That was where she kept her toys.”
“What kind of toys?” asks Paulette.
“She had exactly the same toys that you have,” says Ivy. “One day she went down to the dungeon to play with her toys and there was a dragon there. He told her, ‘This is not your castle. It is my castle. You have to leave now or I will turn you into a cinder.’ ‘But I’ve lived here all my life,’ said the princess. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said the dragon. ‘You have to go. You can take one toy with you.’ So she picked up a toy and she left.”
“What toy did she take?” says Jen.
“What do you think she took?” says Ivy.
“A teddy bear,” says Jen.
“No. It was a plastic teepee.”
“A teepee!” says Jerry, his thumb still in his mouth.
“It was her favorite toy. But as soon as she was out of the castle, she put it down on the sand and a wave washed it away.” Ivy waits for a response from the children. When none comes, she continues. “For seven nights and seven days she walked, and she got so tired and so cold—because it was snowing—that she came down with a fever and fainted on the old man’s doorstep.”
“Which old man?” says Gwenny.
“The blind old man who lived in the cottage in the forest. He made her a bed in front of the fireplace and gave her medicine, but it was the wrong kind of medicine, so she didn’t get any better.”
“What kind of medicine?” says Gwenny.
“Leeches.”
The children make ripping noises with their lips and teeth.
“Anyhow,” says Ivy, “a prince was walking by the cottage, and when he saw the princess lying in front of the fire, he decided to go in and kiss her. The prince was so quiet that the blind man didn’t even know he was there. The prince bent over the princess and kissed her on the lips. But when he lifted his head, he saw that she was dead, so he crept out of the cottage as quietly as he had come in.”
“That’s horrible!” says Paulette.
“Did his kiss kill her?” says Gwenny.
“Nobody knows,” says Ivy. “But she was probably dead when the prince walked into the room.” Ivy puts her hands on her knees and stands up. “OK, everybody—time for sleep!”
Good News
It is hurricane season. A week ago, newscasters spoke urgently about Hurricane Gigi’s devastation of Haiti. Then Tropical Storm Henry earned an afternoon and evening of coverage. But now the coiffed heads on every news show talk about nothing but Hurricane Ivy, which is rolling up the Eastern Seaboard like a massive ninja star and is predicted to pass over the town as a category-four storm the day after tomorrow.
“Brace yourself,” says Isabel, sitting with her laptop at a picnic table under the shade of an enormous willow. A small brook meanders just behind her, making a noise like Ping-Pong balls sliding down a plastic chute. Mosquitoes hover unsteadily around her head. She doesn’t care. She takes Benadryl every night to get to sleep, so mosquito bites have no effect.
“For what?” says Ivy, who is standing directly in f
ront of the table. A mosquito has sunk its proboscis into her left shoulder. She slaps and lifts her hand: a starburst of blood.
“You know: your name.”
When Ivy still doesn’t understand, Isabel adds, “Jokes.”
“Oh,” Ivy rubs the starburst and thready mosquito remains away with the side of her thumb. “I don’t think that’s anything to worry about.”
It isn’t.
Silence falls and eyes avert as Ivy walks into the Food-Star.
The checkout clerk looks at the name on Ivy’s credit card, but only says: “Paper or plastic?”
Back outside, the sky is festively sunshiny, though gigantic clouds mount in shades of cream, blue, and gold toward the upper edge of the troposphere. One can look at those clouds and imagine monstrous forces of nature stirring within them. Ivy doesn’t. The clouds are just weather.
The Food-Star has been emptied of candles and size-D batteries—the two main objectives of Ivy’s expedition. She leaves the store with twenty-four cans of tuna fish, twenty-four cans of peaches, a dozen boxes of vacuum-packed milk, two giant boxes of Cheerios, and one plastic jar of yellow mustard—all items on her mother’s shopping list, which bears a title: “EMERGENCY.”
In the Food-Star parking lot, a young blond woman asks Ivy if she has been saved.
“What are you talking about?” says Ivy.
“Saved!” The young woman’s smile brightens distinctly. “You know,” she says, “have you found Jesus?”
“There’s no point in talking to me,” says Ivy.
When the young woman only blinks and ups her smile volume, Ivy says, “I don’t believe in God.”
“Why not?”
“Because I know that I am entirely insignificant, doomed to complete extinction, and I see no reason to pretend otherwise.”
Isabel Tries Out Divinity
Isabel is six, Ivy four. The sky above the buildings outside their apartment windows is the color of a dusty chalkboard, and the light coming down onto the street is exactly the color of boredom. Nothing can move in that light. Nothing changes.
“Do you love me?” Isabel asks. Ivy says nothing. “Will you do what I tell you to?” Isabel asks. Ivy picks up a plastic frying pan and puts it on the pink cardboard stove. She is not looking at her sister. “Do you want to play a game?” asks Isabel.
“What?” says Ivy.
Isabel has to think about raw liver to keep from smiling. Merely from the way Ivy’s moon-bright eyes look up at her from the floor, Isabel knows everything that will happen.
“Hide-and-seek,” she says.
Ivy looks back at her frying pan. She makes a tick-tick-tick in the back of her throat, which is the sound of the cardboard burner lighting. But Isabel knows this is only a diversionary tactic. Ivy loves hide-and-seek.
“Only this time,” says Isabel, “we will both hide.”
Now Ivy looks at Isabel. In the faint pursing of Ivy’s glossy, plum-red lips, Isabel sees hope. And in the check-mark crinkle of Ivy’s right eyebrow, Isabel sees curiosity. These are weaknesses: hope and curiosity. Isabel almost feels sorry for her sister.
“You’ll hide first,” says Isabel. “And while you’re hiding, I’ll hide too. Then you count to twenty and try to find me.”
“I want to hide first,” says Ivy.
“You will,” says Isabel. “That’s what I just said.”
“No. I want you to find me.”
“I will. As soon as you find me, it will be my turn to find you.”
The pursing of Ivy’s lips intensifies. What was once hope is now determination. Isabel has to move quickly or she will lose her advantage.
“I promise I’ll hide in this room,” she says, “so it will be easy to find me.”
“OK,” says Ivy.
“Where do you want to hide?” Isabel asks. “Under the bed? In the closet?” These are the most boring places in the world. Isabel only asks to give her sister the illusion of choice. “What about the trunk? You could also hide in the trunk.”
The trunk is on the floor at the end of Isabel’s bed, and it is the place where their mother keeps clean sheets and pillowcases. Also, at the very bottom is a trove of Ivy’s baby clothes. It is the baby clothes that so endear the trunk to Ivy. She likes to climb inside, lie on the bedding, and cover her face with one of the tiny velvet dresses she wore as a newborn. When she does this, she says she is taking her “secret nap.” Sometimes she closes the lid of the trunk; sometimes she doesn’t.
“OK,” says Ivy.
Ivy curls up inside the trunk. Isabel closes the lid and sits on top of it. “Are you counting?” she says. When Ivy doesn’t answer, she adds, “I can’t hide until you start counting.”
Isabel hears Ivy’s naptime voice counting. She waits until Ivy misses thirteen, which she always does, and then she says, “You forgot thirteen.”
“You’re not hiding,” says Ivy.
“Yes, I am.”
“You’re sitting on the trunk.”
“No, I’m not. I’m hiding. I’m in a special place. I bet you’ll never find me. Finish counting and then come out and try to find me. Don’t forget thirteen.”
“Thirteen,” Ivy says in her naptime voice. “Fourteen.”
When Ivy reaches twenty, nothing happens. Maybe she has fallen asleep. “Come and find me,” says Isabel.
Ivy’s knees or elbows clunk against the trunk’s side. Isabel feels the upward pressure of Ivy’s hand against the lid just beneath her right buttock.
“Get off,” says Ivy.
Isabel says nothing.
“Get off!” Ivy shoves the lid harder. Isabel feels the pressure, but it is entirely ineffectual. The top of the lid bulges a bit, but the lid’s edges do not lift off the trunk’s lip.
“Get off!” Now Ivy is shouting. She shoves again, still to no effect.
Isabel is smiling and working hard to keep from laughing. “Come and find me!”
“You’re not hiding. You’re lying!”
“I am hiding,” says Isabel. “And you will never be able to find me. Never ever.” Now she is laughing, but she doesn’t care.
When Ivy flips onto her back and uses her feet to push up against the lid, it rises a quarter-inch off the lip of the trunk, so Isabel reaches down and pulls up the hinged brass lock, fastening it. Now Ivy doesn’t have a prayer.
Isabel sits Indian style while her sister screams and kicks, all to no avail. After a while Ivy stops kicking, stops saying anything. Silence accumulates. Isabel thinks: “When she starts to cry, I will let her out.” And a little later she thinks, “I will let her out because I am merciful.”
One Leg Is Both the Same
Isabel and Ivy’s natural tendency is to see human society as a pointlessly complex mechanical device of no use to anybody, and most likely broken. They know, however, that theirs is a minority opinion, and so, from a very early age, they have compared what people actually say and do to what it would be reasonable to say and do, hoping they might discover what it takes to feel at home in the world. These efforts—disappointing from the get-go and worse over time—nonetheless endow the sisters with certain intellectual habits that propel them through college, sociology graduate school, and into tenure-track jobs: Isabel at a university in Nebraska, Ivy, in Indiana.
Ivy’s primary area of study is the financial futures market, where traders make billions by buying and selling absolutely nothing. Isabel investigates apocalyptic cults and is particularly interested in the notion of the apocalypse as moral reckoning. The thesis of her book, Revenge: The Ethics of World Destruction, is contained in its opening sentence: “As the extinction of life on earth will have no positive or negative effect on the rest of the universe, it is an event entirely without moral significance, and it is precisely this insignificance that inspires the moral furor of apocalypse cultists.” Revenge has been submitted to seventeen university and academic publishers and so far has no takers.
“Too many mathematical formulas,” says Ivy.
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“Maybe you should tone it down a bit,” says her mother. “After all, some people will care if the world ends. That’s an effect, isn’t it?”
“Not at all,” says Isabel. “No people, no effect.”
Her mother touches the index and middle fingers of her right hand to the ear stem of her glasses, as if she is listening to a secret message. Then she takes her glasses off, shrinking her eyes to the size of kidney beans. She blinks and doesn’t seem to know where she is.
Field Work
Now it is Isabel’s turn. Her mother insists that they have at least one set of D batteries for their solitary flashlight, which, at present, casts a faint, coppery illumination, undetectable after a yard and a half. The mission is hopeless, of course, but Isabel has undertaken it because actual failure is the only way of shutting up her mother.
Isabel is standing in front of the Food-Star, holding a plastic bag containing twenty-four cans of tuna fish, two Snickers bars, and a packet of black pantyhose. The parking lot descends partway down the hillside forming the northern edge of a valley big enough to contain an entire county—which in fact it does. On the valley’s southern edge, blueberry- and plum-colored mountains rise to Isabel’s eye level and higher. And above those mountains, bulbous gray and slate blue weather is stacked so precariously high, it looks as though it could topple into the valley at any minute.
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