by Claire Cook
I laughed. “Don’t worry, I’m on it. The Christmas Tree Shop sells it by the bag, really cheap.”
“Christmas Tree Shop? I’m not sure that’s exactly the look I’m going for. The sea glass isn’t red and green, is it?”
I laughed some more. “No, they sell tons of beachy stuff, too. I don’t even know how to explain it. It’s so hard for me to imagine someone not knowing what the Christmas Tree Shop is.”
I looked out at the ocean while I waited for him to say something. The tide had turned and water was eating up the beach again, wave by wave.
“Um,” I finally said. “I just meant that everyone here has the same frame of reference.”
“Yeah, it’s amazing that we can even converse without an interpreter.”
“That’s not what—”
“Listen, I hate to cut you short, but there’s a delivery I’ve got to check up on. I’ll leave you to your tribe.”
I was still looking at my cell phone when B.J. yelled down from the edge of the beach that it was my turn to take a shower.
CHAPTER 27
B.J. and I were parked outside the mall waiting for Macy’s to open.
We took a sip of our coffee at the exact same moment.
“Jinx,” B.J. said.
“Owe me a Tab,” I said at the same time.
“So,” B.J. said. “Ask me who I was talking to on the phone while you ran into Starbucks.”
“Who?”
B.J. sighed and took another sip of Tab. “My. Husband.”
“Lovely,” I said in my best British accent. “It’s heartening beyond all measure to come upon this empirical evidence that functional marriages still exist, isn’t it?”
B.J. burped. “That’s a really bad British accent. Do me a favor and don’t use it tonight, okay? Do you want to know why that romantic husband of mine left me three messages last night while my phone was out in the car?”
I sighed. “Because he was worried about you?”
B.J. shook her head.
I hoped this wasn’t going to be too gaggable. “Because he missed you?”
B.J. shook her head again. A woman with a key on a lanyard was just unlocking Macy’s front door and getting ready to push it open.
I grabbed my door handle. “I give up,” I said. “Why did that romantic husband of yours leave you three messages?”
B.J. tilted her head back and drained the rest of her Tab. Then she made the pink metal crumple between the heels of both hands. There was a sculpture in there somewhere, but I couldn’t quite wrap my brain around it.
She threw her crushed Tab can over her shoulder into the backseat.
She reached for her door. “He couldn’t find the ketchup.”
B.J. and I stepped out of our dressing rooms and looked at each other. Then we pivoted like twin Midlife Barbies to face the three-panel mirror. My peasant blouse was coral and B.J.’s was turquoise, and they were billowy enough to cover everything that went south at our age. Our white skinny jeans even had some kind of magic stretch in them that made us look, well, practically skinny.
“Oh, Louise,” B.J. said. “Look at us. I knew we were still gorgeous.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off us. “You’re only letting me be Louise to talk me into this.”
B.J. turned sideways and pulled in her stomach. “We’ll be the hit of the reunion, Romy. Big hoop earrings. High strappy sandals. Well, not high-high, but maybe the highest we can find with good arch support. And we can always bring flip-flops with us for backup.”
I turned sideways and pulled in my stomach, too. I let my stomach back out. The good news was that in this top, you couldn’t really see much difference.
“You don’t think it would be weird to show up dressed alike?”
B.J. dropped her head forward and flipped it back. Her hair defied gravity and floated around her face like a Flashdance flashback. “Are you kidding? Everybody else will wish they’d thought of it first.”
I gave my hair a quick toss. Then I lowered the elastic at the top of my peasant blouse so that the big ruffle that circled the whole thing dropped below my shoulders the way it was supposed to.
“See,” B.J. said. “Total sexitude with full upper-arm coverage.”
I turned my back to the mirror and looked over my shoulder. My tattoo, puffy and angry and scabby and itchy, was fully exposed. Just looking at it made me want to scratch. Carefully.
I looked at B.J. She wiggled her ruffle down to match mine.
“It’ll be fine,” she said. “I mean, I’m on the committee, so I’ll just make sure they keep the lights down low. Nobody will be able to see anything this small without their reading glasses anyway, but they won’t want to put them on, because they won’t want everyone else to know they can’t see anything without them.”
“It terrifies me that I can follow that.” I turned my head and looked over my other shoulder. Even squinting, my tattoo was not a pretty sight.
“How about this,” B.J. said. She lifted the ruffle up on my tattoo side and hooked it over my shoulder. The angry tattoo was gone and my other shoulder didn’t look half bad.
“I guess it could work,” I said. “I just had such a vision of you and me and our badass tattoos.”
B.J. pulled the shoulder of her blouse down a little lower. “Oh, don’t worry. We’ll still be badass. Trust me.”
B.J. dropped me off at my sister’s house on her way to meet the rest of the reunion committee.
“Maybe I should go with you,” I said. “I could help decorate.”
“We have plenty of people,” B.J. said. “And if you don’t stop by to see her now, you’ll run out of time, and she’ll be pissed and then things will be awkward the next time you see each other.”
“Yeah, that’ll be different.” I gazed at my sister’s perfect house. “Okay, an hour and a half tops. And keep your cell with you in case I need an early rescue. And don’t leave until we’re sure she’s home.”
I should have called first. I wouldn’t even stop by B.J.’s if she lived down the street from me without at least sending her a quick text on the way over. But somehow, even though I knew I should have, I didn’t.
When I rang it, my sister’s doorbell played a loud rendition of “The William Tell Overture.” No wonder I had sister issues.
I was just about to turn and run back to the safety of the car when the heavy oak door finally opened. Marion’s hair was chin-length and tawny this time, and she didn’t have even a hint of regrowth at the roots. Her posture was still exactly like our mother’s had been. Her back screamed I’m standing up straight and then her shoulders curved forward as if she’d forgotten to take them along for the ride. The vertical lines between the outsides of her nose and the corners of her mouth had deepened. Now they looked just like the ones our father used to have.
“I wondered when you’d show your face,” she said. “That big box you sent is taking up half the garage.”
I’d almost forgotten about my box spring ladies. It seemed like such a long, long time ago that I’d packed them up and shipped them off. I couldn’t wait to put them in Mustang Sally’s rear seat so we could all ride around together like we were back in high school. And it would be so great if one of Marshbury’s high-end tourist shops would take them on consignment. Nothing would give me more satisfaction than having Kurt think I hadn’t even noticed he canceled that credit card. That I didn’t need a thing from him, ever again.
I faked a smile. “Sorry. I should have called to tell you.”
She just looked at me.
“Good to see you,” I said. I leaned in for an awkward hug.
Marion patted me once on the back of the shoulder and pulled away.
“Ouch,” I said.
“What’s wrong?” she said. Not with any real concern, but as if she couldn’t wait to tell me she was healthy as a horse.
“Nothing,” I said. “Actually, B.J. talked me into getting a tattoo with her.”
She shook he
r head. “Why does that not surprise me.”
I bit my tongue so I wouldn’t say, What do you mean by that? Because then she’d say, What do you think I mean by that? And then we’d be fighting already.
“Kurt moved out,” I said instead.
“You were always too good for him,” she said.
“Really?” I’d always thought she liked Kurt better than she liked me. Maybe I did like my sister a little bit after all.
She twisted her big fat diamond ring around on her finger. “Marriages take work. Jonathan still sends me flowers once a month.”
I reminded myself that I was decades too old to kick my sister in the shins. Or pull her hair.
“Well,” she said. “You’ll get through it.” She brushed her hands together like cymbals, her ever-aggravating signal for a change of subject. “Brittany and her family are summering in Provence, and Tiffany just got a promotion.”
“Trevor lost an arm and Troy joined a cult,” I said.
My sister looked at me. Then she turned and walked away.
I followed her out to the garage. The box was bigger than I remembered it.
Marion crossed her arms over her chest. “Jonathan thought maybe we should open it, as if it might be a present for us. I told him not to hold his breath.”
“It was addressed to me,” I said.
“You should have asked,” she said.
“I said I was sorry.”
There was so much outrage flashing between us you could almost see it like an aura. I wanted her to be my big sister again—to braid my hair and push me on the swing and make me a peanut-butter-and-grape-jelly sandwich because they always tasted better when she made them.
I tried another smile. “Does this mean we’re not going to have cookies and milk?”
Marion looked at me like I had three heads. “I’m gluten-free.”
“Hey,” I said. “Remember how right before Mom died she always wanted us to be in the room together? How every time we tried to take shifts with her, she would freak out?”
Marion’s arms were still crossed over her chest. “She got like that as soon as Dad died. You just didn’t have to hear it because you weren’t around. I waited on her hand and foot and all she ever said was, ‘Where’s my Melanie?’ ”
My eyes filled. “I was twelve hundred miles away. I did the best I could.”
“Sure,” Marion said. “When it was too late to make a difference.”
I’d flown up practically every weekend those last few months. I’d talked to doctors, made funeral arrangements, sorted through her things at the assisted-living apartment, the whole time knowing that nothing would ever be enough, just as it hadn’t been when our father had died three years before.
And maybe it wasn’t. Maybe nothing I did would ever be enough to get past this logjam between my sister and me.
But maybe if I could just find a way to pretend she was someone I actually liked, even almost a friend, she’d rise to the occasion and be likable.
I found some garden clippers on a shelf and used one of the blades to slice the tape holding the top of the box closed. I removed the tissue paper and unloaded my box spring ladies. I peeled off their bubble wrap and lined them up on the garage floor.
One by one I twirled them around and inspected them for damages. They were perfect, and even more beautiful than I remembered them.
It took everything I had to turn to my sister and smile. “I’d really like you to have one,” I said. “Take your pick.”
She gave them a quick once-over. “Cute, but thanks anyway. Not that there’s anything wrong with them—they’re just not my style.”
CHAPTER 28
The box spring ladies and I were standing at the end of my sister’s driveway.
When I saw the Mustang coming, I stuck out my thumb.
B.J. pulled up beside us. “Wanna go for a ride, little girls?”
She put the car into park and jumped out. “Ohmigod, they’re amazing. I love, love the parasols. Did you make them? Of course you did. Wow, you’ve come a long way, baby.”
I sniffed. “Thank you.”
B.J. shook her head. “Oh, no. What did that bitch say to you this time?”
I bent over and picked up one of the box spring ladies. “Come on, let’s just get out of here.”
The top was down so we lowered all three box spring ladies into the backseat.
“Do you think they’ll be okay,” B.J. asked, “or should I put the top up for them?”
“They’re pretty heavy, so I think they’ll be fine,” I said, “but we’d better buckle them in just to be sure.”
After we got them squared away, B.J. handed me a scarf and I found my sunglasses. B.J. gunned the motor a little louder than necessary and burned some rubber as we peeled out of my sister’s perfect neighborhood.
I tried to focus on the fact that it was a spectacular summer day, sunny and breezy and dry.
When we stopped at a red light, B.J. turned to me. “Spill it.”
I reached up under my sunglasses and wiped a few stupid tears from my eyes. I tilted my head back and blinked the rest away. There was no way in hell my sister deserved the satisfaction of giving me puffy eyes for my reunion.
“I offered her one.” I pointed over my shoulder at the box spring ladies. “Just to be nice.” I sniffed. “And maybe, well, so we’d get along for a few minutes.”
The light changed and B.J. took a right toward the beach. “Are you crazy? You could get a lot of money for those. And in case you’ve forgotten, you don’t seem to have any at the moment. What did she say?”
I swallowed back a sob. “She told me they. Weren’t.” I cleared my throat. “Her. Style.” I tilted my head back again, but it was too late. Tears rolled down my cheeks like a waterfall.
“Oh, please,” B.J. said. “Her style is early Stepford Wives.” She reached one hand over and patted my knee. “I’d hug you, but I don’t want to crack up my car. Or bruise your tattoo.”
I sniffed.
She handed me a tissue. “Here. Blow.”
I blew.
“She’s not worth it, Mel. And she’s totally, totally jealous of you. She always has been. You have more talent in your little finger than she has in that entire overplucked body of hers.”
“Really? She’s overplucked?”
“Oh, please, those eyebrows of hers, are you kidding me? And they’ll never grow back at this point, you know, even if she smartens up and realizes how ridiculous they look. She’ll be drawing them on with crayons for the rest of her ugly natural life.”
“Thank you,” I said. “You’re a good friend, Romy.”
“Damn right I am, Thelma. Okay, so we’ve got three options here. One, we can toilet paper your stupid sister’s house after the reunion. Two, we can go online and give your stupid sister’s email to every annoying politician we can think of. Or three, we can go find a ridiculously overpriced tourist trap and see if we can get them to take these gorgeous sculptures of yours.”
“Hmm. That’s a tough one.”
B.J. stopped at another red light. She popped the trunk. I ran around and got us each a can of Tab. I made it back to my seat just before the light changed.
“Well done,” B.J. said. “Good to see you haven’t lost your touch.”
“Thank you,” I said. I clicked open one of the Tabs and handed it to B.J. Then I opened the other one. I leaned over the seat to give each of the box spring ladies a pretend sip, then I buckled myself back in and took a real sip. It wasn’t sweet tea, but I had to admit the tinny, chemical taste was starting to grow on me.
I burped, long and loud. “Take that, my stupid perfect sister.”
B.J. burped, too. “And this one’s from me, Marion. Special delivery.”
I scrolled through B.J.’s playlist until I found Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.”
“That’s the spirit,” B.J. said. She reached over and cranked it up and we sang along at the top of our lungs.
“Evivrus Lliw I,” I yelled when we finished.
B.J. reached for her lip gloss. “Wow, that’s so weird. I was just thinking about Fawn, too. I wonder if Veronica will find a way to make it to the reunion.”
“No way,” I said. “We both know that. Maybe the next one, though. Hey, you know what I was just thinking? What if we brought my box spring ladies over to the reunion? They could be part of the decorations. You never know, one of our classmates might turn out to be a collector.”
“That’s a good idea. You’d think at least one person we graduated with would have to have money and taste.”
“Maybe Finn Miller will want them,” I said, mostly because I was dying to say his name out loud again.
“Of course he will.” B.J. checked the rearview mirror and then made a U-turn. “And they’ll definitely be a step up from all those crepe-paper streamers and those tacky Best Class Evah balloons. Plus, it wouldn’t hurt for me to show my face one more time before tonight to drop them off. You know how those committees are—blah, blah, blah about who’s doing all the work, like I didn’t do most of the early stuff. But I don’t want to get stuck there forever, so why don’t you let me just run them in? You can keep Mustang Sally idling by the curb.”
“Fine, Louise,” I said. “You run them in and I’ll be the getaway driver. Just make sure you put them somewhere safe.”
B.J. reached over and hit the SHUFFLE button on her iPod.
“ ‘Itchycoo Park’? I said. “Are you kidding me? That song was way before our time.”
“No way.” B.J. turned it up. “We were young, but my first words were ‘It’s all too bootiful.’ ”
The Small Faces were impossible to resist, so we both sang along to the rest of the song.
“I’m not sure you should have included songs from before high school,” I said when we finished. “I think it might make us feel older than we actually are.”
“Incense and Peppermints” by the Strawberry Alarm Clock came on next. I reached over and turned the iPod up even louder. “Aww,” I yelled over the music. “I forgot how much I loved this.” I turned it down a little. “Okay, you were right. Pre-high-school songs are fine as long as they’re special enough.”