I do, in fact, know how my mother’s neurotic dogs are, particularly Grover, who pees on the floor if his schedule is altered. Or his kibble is varied. Or the water bowl has a hair in it.
I sigh, close my eyes for a second.
“Okay,” I say weakly. “I’ll see you tonight then.”
“Sounds wonderful, thanks again, Tatum.”
I want to say, Oh, no problem and thank you for calling and dropping this steaming pile of dog doo in my lap at the last minute.
“Sure,” I say instead. “Anytime, Mama.”
***
It’s as I’m driving to the airport that night (prayers for giant storm of the century still unanswered, though I’m checking the sky for a last-minute miracle) that my heart skips a beat. Out of the nothingness of the empty road comes a genius idea: how to deal with Emerson Prescott. At least, I think it’s genius. Driving has this effect on me. A way of unwinding my mind and letting all its background work come to the surface as the miles speed past.
I grin and mentally pat myself on the back. With a plan for Prescott, I can now focus on my trip. I haven’t been to Arizona before. What better time to go then during a never-ending frozen stretch in Vermont? I wonder if I can weave this impromptu trip into the conversation with Sophie. Somehow our exchanges always leave me feeling like an uneducated hick with hay pieces stuck in my hair while Sophie, polished and perfect, looks down her expensively powdered nose at me.
The night is clear and cold, stars pressed into the dark sky above like pieces of chunky glitter. I leave the parking garage, hustling to get into the warmth of the airport. Cold air whips across the open corridor that separates the two buildings. A lone plane circles overhead, ready to land. The sound is deafening. The automatic doors open and close, and the sound of the aircraft is drowned out when I enter the building.
Instantly my nose is assaulted by heavily fragranced candles. To the right is a small gift shop where the horrible things reside. The shop is overflowing with Vermont-themed gifts: stuffed moose, cows, and maple flavored everything. I walk upstairs toward the incoming gates, checking a monitor on my way.
Flight from Philadelphia is on time. Crap.
The airport is small, so tiny in fact that there are waiting areas outside of each of the handful of gates. I find a molded plastic chair outside Sophie’s gate and sit. My legs feel jittery, and my arms won’t be still, though, so I pace the area instead. There are a few families waiting, plus a guy in his thirties with a bouquet of flowers. An older couple bends over a phone, looking at pictures. Their faces are lined, free hands clasped.
I swallow and realize my throat’s dry. A trip to the water fountain around the corner helps. I use the bathroom while I’m in the area, taking my time washing my hands. Checking my reflection in the mirror, seeing the same brown eyes and straight, brown hair I’ve had since childhood. (Well, other than the time I tried a perm. Can you say poodle?) I apply a coat of lip gloss, smooth my hands through my hair, and pinch my cheeks, hoping it will disguise my nose that’s still red from the cold. I hear an overhead announcement. Sucking in my gut, I head back to the gate.
Sophie arrives minutes later in a cloud of expensive perfume. She’s wearing a perfectly cut suit (who wears a suit when not at work?) and a new, shorter hairstyle, very swingy and very blonde. Her eyes are as blue as ever and she’s lost weight. If she loses more, she may become transparent. I feel like a cow, lumbering toward her, my boots clomping and the jeans I squeezed into constricting around my waist like a noose.
“Oh, Tatum, it’s you.” Her brow wrinkles, making two perfect lines above her eyes. Her mouth pulls downward into a little disgruntled bow. She looks so much like our mother. Only a younger and more stunning version.
“Mama asked if I could give you a ride home.” It’s odd that we both refer to mama’s cottage—which neither of us has ever lived in—as home. The house we spent the majority of our growing up years was sold years ago. I suppose wherever our mother ends up is home.
“Well, thank you. That’s ... nice of you,” Sophie says. We hesitate for a second and then I pull her into an awkward hug. It’s like trying to hug an ironing board. I let go and she sniffs, smiles, and strides toward the staircase which leads to the baggage claim area. “I suppose it works out well for you, too. Probably don’t get to Burlington very often?”
I shake my head. “Nope, us country bumpkins don’t make it off the farm too often. Not like you, big sis.” I match my walk to my hick accent, swaggering as though I just came off the back of a horse and steal a look in her direction.
She exhales, sharply. “Please stop. You are embarrassing me.”
“Aw, gee, didn’t mean to embarrass you, ma’am,” I say, exaggerating my swagger even more. “We hicks from the sticks don’t know much about city livin’, that’s for sure.”
Sophie ignores me and stalks ahead, walking surprisingly fast on very skinny, extremely high heels. I stop swaggering and walk several paces behind, like a kid dragging her feet after her mother tells her to hurry up. What is it about Sophie and Mama that bring out my inner brat?
A small crowd grows near one of the two baggage carousels. People murmur together in small groups. You can tell who lives here—they’re the ones dressed in layers of warm clothing. The rest of the people have on thin jackets and light windbreakers. Sophie shivers every time the automatic doors open nearby, bringing in a blast of arctic air.
“I’ve got an extra coat in the car,” I say, walking up to her. My head is just a bit over shoulder level, and I wonder if my attitude has something to do with the fact that I literally feel five years old near my sister. There is no justice in genetics, that’s for sure.
“Thanks,” she says, “but I have some warmer things in my suitcase.”
At that moment there’s a loud bleat from the baggage claim carousel and a red strobe light starts spinning. Everyone takes an unconscious step or two forward, as though willing their luggage to come out first.
We wait several minutes and then a perfectly glossy white suitcase spills out onto the belt. Sophie takes a deep breath before moving forward to collect it, preparing for the weight, most likely. I reach for it at the same time and together with our hands on the thick handle, we wrestle it to the ground.
“What did you pack in here, bricks?” I ask.
“I brought some extra clothes. I knew it would be cold. And a few gifts for Mama.”
“Gifts like rocks?”
Sophie ignores me and yanks the handle out of the case, enabling it to glide along smoothly over the polished floor.
“Let’s just go, okay?” she says and heads toward the door.
***
By the time we arrive at our mother’s cottage, my rusted old Toyota has finally heated up fully. Sophie is still shivering, despite the thick coat she pulled from her luggage and the extra one I keep under the seat that she spread over her bare legs.
A light snow falls. The cottage with its warm light blazing in the windows and the snowflakes soundlessly dancing down look like a Christmas card scene. The spell is broken Grover and Ashford, Mama’s two annoying dogs bounding from the cottage. They have twenty acres to run around on, so you’d think they would be tired out by doing so. But no, there’s plenty of jumping and dashing and slipping and sliding as they rush to the car and determine if the occupants are friend or foe. Never mind that I’ve had this car for eight years and that Sophie and I held the dogs when they were puppies and were cuter and less stupid.
“Grover and Ashford! Is that the polite way to greet our guests?” my mother sings out from the top step.
The house is cream-colored, looking more like an advertisement in a glossy home decorating magazine than a real, lived-in home. A small red barn stands nearby, where one could park a car, if one could drive (my mother doesn’t) and another building, a miniature version of the cottage, stands beyond that. My mother calls it her retreat. Since she lives alone, I’m not sure what she’s retreating from. I suspect
it’s her annoying dogs.
Speaking of annoying, the second I crack the door of my car—which opens with a loud squeal—Grover sticks half of his body into the space and immediately jams his nose into my crotch. This is reason number seventy-nine why I do not have a dog. Sophie, smartly, stays motionless and leaves her door unopened until Mama calls off the dogs. They retreat, bouncing and barking, into the house.
“Sorry about that, darlings. You know how much they love you,” Mama says, picking her way across the snowy driveway to the passenger’s side of the car.
“If they loved us anymore, we’d be wearing them,” I say. I hear a thin tinkle of laughter from Sophie’s side of the car. On this one, ridiculously small matter, Sophie and I agree.
Mama puts her hands on her hips.
“Now, Tatum, you know they do. Oh, Sophie,” my mother gasps. “Don’t you look stunning.” She opens my sister’s door. “I love your new haircut.”
My lips immediately form a smart aleck comment, but I bite my tongue, hard, and pull my sister’s jumbo-sized luggage from the back seat. Or, try to. When she sees me struggling my sister takes pity on me and helps extract it. It took a while to wedge it into place. For a few scary seconds I think it’s not coming back out. Finally, though, with much tugging and some cursing on my part, it emerges.
Sophie drifts off, answering Mama’s question that I couldn’t hear over my ragged panting. I roll the suitcase toward the house, my sister and mother ahead of me. Mama’s soft Southern accent has that trilling sound it gets when she is excited. Of course, she’s excited. Her golden child is safely home.
Stop it. For pity’s sake, you’re not five years old anymore.
My foot catches on a rock near the path to the door and I nearly fall.
“Careful Tatum,” Sophie says.
What’s this? I pause, my hand sweating on the handle. Is my sister showing actual loving concern for me?
She glances back over her shoulder. “There are breakables in there.”
Chapter Thirteen
I fake an incoming phone call during dinner. Anything to get out of the overly warm, overly perfumed dining room. Grover trots on my heels but as soon as we’re out of my mother’s sight, I nudge him away with my knee. He looks at me in wonderment, as though no one has ever refused his presence before. I make a face at him. He wags his tail and comes closer, pressing his hairy, shedding side against my legs. Finally, I lock myself into the bathroom.
Once there I decide to make good use of the time and call Reba. There is no answer on her cell phone, so I try the barn.
“Yeah,” a gruff man’s voice says.
I hang up. Chew a hangnail. Then I call again.
Same greeting, this time even more impatient sounding.
“So sorry, I must have gotten disconnected. I’m trying to reach Reba. Is she there?”
“Who wants to know?”
None of your business.
I smile. I read somewhere that doing so puts the person on the other end of the phone in a better frame of mind. The way this guy sounds I may need to grin like a clown.
“This is her gynecologist’s office.”
“It’s almost nine at night,” the man says.
“Yes, well, in these instances we prefer to pass along the information right away. If you could just get Reba—”
“Hold your horses,” he grunts.
There’s a loud clunk and I hear a machine whirring and a couple of cows mooing in the background. Several long minutes later, Reba answers.
“I have an idea that I think will work. Do you want to meet in the morning and talk about it?”
“What?” Reba’s voice sounds far away. “I can’t hear you. Who is this?”
“It’s ...” I nearly say Tayt and catch myself at the last second. “It’s me. Sunflower Specials.”
There’s a loud click on her end of the phone and I think for a minute she’s hung up on me. But when Reba comes back on the line her voice is clearer.
“Who is this?”
“Sunflower Specials.”
“Oh. Good. Do you have plan?” Her voice is quieter.
“Yes. I thought you might want to meet tomorrow morning to go over it. And I’ll need payment, half at least, up front.”
This is the part where I hold my breath. I hate asking for money for doing Sunflower Specials. It seems wrong somehow, that I’m tainting something good. But Visa and the mortgage company are unrelenting taskmasters.
“Yeah, all right. I can meet you at the Rail Trail again. I’m done milking about eleven. Can you meet me around then?”
I tell her yes and we say our goodbyes.
***
Sophie and my mother are lingering over cups of coffee, and I pour myself a mug, adding cream and sugar.
“Easiest way to get rid of those extra pounds,” Sophie says, pointing at the sugar bowl. “Cut down on your carbs.”
I swallow a retort and look at the clock. Are the batteries dead? How can the minute hand have only moved that much in the time I was gone?
“Thanks, Sophie, but we can’t all subsist on water and air alone.” I stir my coffee too briskly and a little of it slops over the side of the cup. “Yes, I’ve put on a few pounds. So, shoot me. Oh, that’s right, someone already did!” I laugh.
My mother frowns though. “Sophie is only trying to offer some friendly advice,” Mama says. Her long fingers are pale against the dark cup.
I snort in response.
“When you get shot for the first time, Sophie, let me know many classes you’re taking at the gym, okay?” I set my mug down too hard and Grover bounces close to the table for a look. “Give me a break,” I say under my breath.
Sophie nods. “Fine, Tatum, I was just trying to be helpful. As usual you are determined to twist everything I say into criticism.”
“Imagine that.”
My mother shoots me a dark look and I take a sip of coffee as a preventative measure.
“So, tell us where the idea for this impromptu trip came from,” says my mother, changing the subject and leaning toward Sophie.
My sister stares out the dark window. She seems to shrink in front of my eyes. Instead of looking glamorous and perfect, Sophie looks suddenly unstarched, her face gray in the light, her eyes smudged with bruise-like shadows.
“I’ve left Elliot,” she says finally.
“Oh, baby doll,” Mama says. She draws back in her chair shaking her head, one hand at her throat. Mama’s unconscious way of showing shock.
A few long, quiet seconds pass.
“What happened?” Mama asks finally. She removes the hand from her slender neck and puts it over my sister’s. Sophie is motionless, her eyes glassy as she continues to look through the window.
“The whole thing that happened with ... with Dad. It’s really been weighing on me. I’ve been thinking a lot about life and what matters and what doesn’t.”
“Having your father accused of murder can do that to a person,” I say. “Can you pass the almonds?”
My mother frowns more deeply at me. Sophie turns, her eyes boring into mine. I squirm in my seat.
“What?” I say, my voice innocent. “I just don’t see how Dad’s situation has anything to do with your marriage. I mean, I thought you liked Elliot. Plus, third times the charm and all that—”
“What is wrong with you?” She interrupts. “Are you that intimidated by my success it prevents you from having a civil conversation. You are so immature, Tatum. I wish you’d never ....”
Her voice drifts off.
Never what? Been invited to dinner? Been born? I picture Sophie, not for the first time, as an only child. She would have loved every minute of it.
I stand up, my chair soundless on the thick tile floor.
“I’m fairly sure that’s my cue. I have a busy day tomorrow,” I say.
My mother leaps from her chair and comes around the table. I half expect her to shove me back into my seat, but she pauses just before she g
ets to me and puts her hand on my arm.
“Please stay, Tatum. Your sister needs you.”
Sophie has never needed anyone, not in her whole life. Except maybe an audience. Just applause and admiration. I don’t say this though, figuring I’ve opened my fat mouth too much as it is.
“I’ve got to go, Mama. Thanks for dinner.” I reach for my mother, plant a kiss on her cheek. She smells like Coco Chanel and flour. I stay where I am, just a second longer than necessary, breathing.
My mother has never been a good hugger. She sort of stands there and does nothing, as though she’s enduring a hug more than enjoying it. My father though, he used to give great hugs: big and boisterous and tight. But that was a long time ago.
“Sophie,” I let go of my mother and turn to my sister. She’s staring again in that glassy-eyed way. “I’m sorry about Elliot.” I half hunch over, wrap my arm around her shoulders and squeeze quickly before pulling away.
“Maybe you can make it work. He’s a,” I stumble because the words “tedious,” and “dull” are the first that come to mind. “He’s a nice guy.”
She nods, turns her gaze to the table and watches a tea light flickering.
The dogs walk me to the door. Well, actually they sandwich me between them and walk in the direction of the door. I stuff my arms into thick coat sleeves, pull on a hat and a pair of ratty woolen gloves and let myself out of the house, pushing them back in with my knee before closing the door behind me.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
Sophie had a point, much as it pains me to admit it. What is wrong with me? Why can’t I ever keep my mouth shut? Because you really are jealous, a little voice says. Because Sophie is a success and rich and beautiful, and you are none of those.
Well. There is that.
***
I meet Reba at twenty past eleven the next morning. Her nose is red with cold, and her cheeks are pink. Her hair is short and curly, and it stands out around the edge of a warm-looking but ugly hat like party ribbons.
I clasp her hand in mine when we meet. Hers are calloused and rough; mine feel surprisingly ladylike in her firm grasp.
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