Three Sisters

by Norma Fox Mazer

  Shivering in her pajamas, Karen went downstairs. Tobi’s door was ajar and Tobi was awake, the covers pulled up to her chin. “Close the window,” she said.

  Karen got in bed with her. “Ohh, so warm in here.”

  “It was, until you arrived. Your feet are like ice.” Tobi lay back, her head on her arm. “Look at that ceiling.” The plaster was hanging like stalactites. “Any day now it’s going to fall down and kill me. And you know what Dad’ll do? Nothing.”

  “Well … he’s not so handy around the house.”

  “A dentist not being handy is a contradiction in terms, Karen. The truth is Daddy doesn’t care. He could live in a shack and so long as he had plenty of people to let him poke around in their mouths he’d be happy. This whole house is falling apart. Do you know how many years we’ve had those pans in the attic?”

  “A long time.”

  “You bet!” Tobi pulled Karen’s chin around. “I’ll tell you something.… Can you keep a secret?” She took a snapshot out of her night table drawer and held it out to Karen. A large, bulky man sprawled on the steps of a house. He wore jeans, desert boots, a mocking smile beneath his brushy mustache. Beer can in hand, he saluted the camera.

  Karen leaned up on her elbow. “Who is it?” she said. “I think he’s bowlegged.”

  “Does it show?” Tobi studied the picture. “He’s one of my instructors. A sculptor.”

  “You’re taking sculpting? I thought you wanted to work with learning-disabled kids.”

  “It’s a general art course. Anyway, don’t be such a yahoo. I’m going to college to broaden myself.”

  “I haven’t noticed you’ve gained any weight.”

  “That isn’t even worth a snicker.” Tobi took the snapshot back.

  “Why do you have his picture?”

  “I might bring him here sometime.” She paused. “We’re in love.”

  Karen fell back on the bed. Liz and Scott. Now Tobi and—“What’s his name?”

  “Jase. Jason. Jason Wade Wilson.”

  “Funny name,” Karen sniffed. Tobi and Jason. Liz and Scott. And me? she thought. Karen and Davey? Was that love? Something, probably, but not love.

  “Don’t say anything to anyone.” Tobi flopped over on her stomach. “Do I have a zit on my back?”

  “Two,” Karen said meanly.

  “Two! Pick them.”

  There was something so satisfying and so disgusting about picking. She always wanted to. She always felt ashamed. And yet, the more disgusting it was and the more ashamed she felt, the more she wanted to laugh.

  “Did you ever think,” Tobi said, her voice muffled by her arms, “how in this family we have a little niche for everyone? Liz is the most beautiful and creative. I am the smartest and most passionate. Mom is the gutsiest and most practical. Dad is the most idealistic and dreamy. We all pretend to be humble and modest, but don’t we really judge everyone else by how they measure up to the fabulous Freeds?”

  “You forgot me,” Karen said.

  “Oh, God.” Tobi turned over. “Let me see, where do you fit into the family mythology? You, Karen—” She looked blank for a moment. “Well, you—you’re our monkey.”

  “No, that’s disgusting.”

  “Oh, well, then, you’re—” Again Tobi paused. “Okay, you’re—you.” She rolled out of bed. “Don’t you have to get ready for school? I’m going to take a shower.”

  You’re you. Was that it? The whole thing? That remark of Tobi’s rankled. Karen couldn’t forget it, but cowardly her, she didn’t say anything. She had once read a story that began, “Cowards are the nicest people.” Maybe so. She didn’t think acting like a coward made her nice. What it made her was mad at herself.

  For a couple of days she kept going back to that moment in her mind, thinking of all the things she should have said. Look, Tobi, you gave everybody else a character. What am I, to you, a cipher? A zero? A zit?

  Finally she said it, caught Tobi in the upstairs hall. “Tobi, you said something on Tuesday I want you to explain.”

  Tobi looked at her incredulously. “You want me to remember what I said a week ago?”

  “Two days ago,” Karen said. “Tuesday morning. We were in your room. We were in bed and you showed me what’s-his-name’s picture, that art teacher—”

  “Shh!” Tobi grabbed her arm. Considering how thin she was, it was amazing how hard Tobi could grab. She had a lot of muscle. “I told you not to say anything about him.”

  Karen shook her hand off. “Will you listen? You were talking about us, our family. And you said that in our family Liz was the creative one and Mom was this and Dad was that—”

  “Okay, okay, I’m always talking that way, so what?”

  “And then, Tobi, you said about me. ‘And you, Karen, you’re you.’”

  “So? Well?”

  “So! Well! Well, this, Tobi. What does that mean? ‘You’re you.’ You can’t think of anything else to say about me?”

  “God, Karen! What’s the big fuss? I don’t get this. How do I know what I meant on Tuesday morning? Probably nothing. It was just a remark. Look, why don’t you relax and take it as it comes?” She went into her room. “Don’t be so sensitive,” she added over her shoulder.

  How many times had Karen heard that one? They were always saying it to her. Don’t be so sensitive. You’re so sensitive. Why are you so sensitive? “Tobi!” she shouted. “I am not sensitive!”

  Tobi looked up from her desk, an expression of saintly patience on her face. “Gimme a break. I’ve got a paper to do for my psych course.”

  “Excellent!” Karen stamped down the hall to her room, slammed the door. Here she was fifteen, finally, more than half grown up, and here was Tobi accusing her—again!—of being too sensitive. It was an accusation, wasn’t it? It meant she was still that same kid Karen, the little one, the little sister who was too easily upset over this and that, over little fol-de-rols that any mature and well-balanced person would take in stride. A fool, after all.

  Six

  “What are you doing?” Karen said to David. “Obvious, isn’t it?”

  “Too true. You’re wrecking your mother’s scale.”

  “Please. I’m fixing it.” David held the scale to his chest, grunting as he twisted the marker. He was big—tall and big-boned—maybe a little fat around the tummy, with a mop of black hair that was always falling in his face. “This thing has been set at two pounds and two ounces for the last thousand years. What’s the point of having a scale if it’s not precise?”

  “Oh, precisely.” Karen found an opened can of pineapple juice in the refrigerator. “You want some juice?”

  “Not now. Food interferes with my concentration.”

  “Nothing interferes with your concentration, David.” She sat down at the table, placing her goldfish in the plastic carrying bag next to the glass of juice.

  David and his mom lived in a little apartment over a grocery store. Karen liked being there; everything was small and cozy and neat.

  She first knew Davey in elementary school when the Kurshes lived down the block on Morningale. That made her and Davey neighbors, but not exactly friends. She was willing, he wasn’t. He palled around with four or five other boys. They played war games and had a secret club in a tree house where they had nailed up a huge sign: NO GIRLS ALLOWED.

  When the Kurshes sold their house and moved away, Karen didn’t miss David; she hardly gave him another thought.

  In eighth grade, they met again. “Aren’t you Karen Freed?” he said, coming up to her during a break in gym.

  She saw a big boy with a mop of bushy hair, wearing a T-shirt that said, No Nukes Is Good Nukes. “Davey Kursh?”

  “David, please.”

  “Sure, Davey.”

  He looked pained. “I mean it, Karen. I prefer David.”

  “Rightey-o, Davey.”

  He rolled his eyes up into his head. “Why do you hate me?”

  “Just a little never-too-late revenge for
the sign on your tree house.”

  “What sign?”

  Coach blew the whistle and they separated. They were on opposing volleyball teams. “What sign?” he yelled, punching the ball her way.

  All that week he’d come up to her in the halls and say, “What sign? What sign? I don’t remember any sign.”

  Finally, she said, “I’ll give you a hint. Still hate girls?”

  In answer, he gave her a big smile.

  “You really don’t remember that sign?”

  He raised his hand. “I swear. Total blankout. You’re going to have to tell me, Karen.”

  She had to admit he’d had a change of heart. The boy who wore a No Nukes T-shirt was not the boy who’d played war games. And he definitely didn’t hate girls. That year, a lot of kids were giving parties and pairing off. Davey and Karen started getting invited as a couple. It was easy being with him, so without their ever actually deciding to go together, it happened. They became David-and-Karen.

  After a while, he told her about his father, who had a rare disease of the nervous system. When Mr. Kursh first found out what his trouble was—that was when they lived down the block from the Freeds—he was able to work out of his house. He was an accountant, so he didn’t really need to go to an office. “He got worse, sicker,” David said. “And everything cost tons of money—doctors, tests, therapy, all that stuff.” He shrugged. “We couldn’t afford to live over there on Morningale anymore, so we moved. My father’s in the Vet’s Hospital now.”

  “When do you see him?”

  “Weekends.”

  “That’s really rough, David.”

  “Yeah. It is.” His eyes got red.

  After that conversation she felt close to him. He came over to the house a few times, ate with the family. “Cute boy,” Tobi said.

  “Agreed,” Liz said, “but not old enough to be really interesting.”

  “Oh,” Karen said.

  “Still,” Tobi said. “Old enough for Karen.”

  Stand-up comedy, with her as the straight woman.

  “David,” she said now, “do you realize we’ve been going around together for almost two years?”

  “Looooong time.” He twisted harder and the scale pinged ominously.

  “David. I want to ask you something. What kind of person do you think I am?”

  “You’re okay.”

  “Many thanks.”

  “Well, what do you want me to say?”

  “It isn’t what I want you to say, Davey. The point is, what do you want to say?”

  “You’re okay.”

  “Thanks, oh thanks. You, too.”

  She wandered into the living room. There was a dry cleaning store across the street, a car wash, a pizza place. A man passed on a three-wheel bike. He stopped at a trash can, picked out two empty soda bottles, stashed them into a wire basket with other empties.

  In the kitchen David was still working away at the scale. She said, “You’re not afraid of breaking it?”

  “Have some faith, will you, Karen?”

  “David, not to be mean about it, but you always break things. Remember that clock you were going to fix—”

  “It was beyond repair, Karen. Nobody could have fixed it.”

  “—and your mother’s toaster which, you told me, she ended up throwing out—”

  “That is not very friendly to remind me of that.”

  “—and that little tv—”

  “It was an old piece of junk. I thought I could resurrect it as a gift to my father.”

  “Your intentions are good. Where’s Eggbert? You didn’t break him, did you?”

  David looked at her over the scale. “Eggbert?”

  “Disaster! You’ve forgotten already?”

  They were both doing the Health and Family Life unit this quarter. In the interests of teaching his class “what it means to be responsible for another soul,” Mr. Albright had assigned each student the task of carrying around either an uncooked egg or a goldfish for two weeks. “Just think of that egg as your child. I want to see your child in school with you. If you want to leave your child, you have to get a baby-sitter. When you sit down to eat lunch, you must know where your child is and, in the case of those who choose a goldfish, you better make sure your child gets to eat properly.”

  “The egg,” Karen said. “Eggbert. Your favorite kid, Davey. The friend of my kid, Gladys Goldfish.”

  “Karen, you’re worrying a lot today.” He pointed to the cupboard where Eggbert was sitting next to a heap of dirty dishes.

  “Don’t leave poor Eggbert there. He might get broken.”

  David sighed. “Say break or broken once more, go ahead, I dare you.”

  “Break. Broken. Brokest.” She leaped up as he dived for her.

  “You’re not going to get away with this, Freed.”

  “Don’t break anything,” she yelled as they galloped around the furniture. He caught her in the corner between the couch and the tv. “Ah … uh … oh … David. Davey! You’re breaking my ribs.”

  He didn’t want to let go. Hugs and hands. And he was a lot stronger than she, although she didn’t just limply let him do anything he wanted. Which, lately, was more and more. “Sex is natural,” he’d informed her. “Haven’t you heard the news? It’s wrong to stifle your basic biology.”

  She hadn’t known what to say to him. She’d talked to Liz about it, not quite coming out with it, picking her way delicately around the subject, as if it were a bomb that might go off in her face. But Liz knew. “Look, Karen,” she said, “don’t let him talk you into anything. I tell you that from personal experience. From where I am now, I can see I picked the wrong person and the wrong time. It was—not good. But even if it had been the right person and the right time—no, I don’t think fifteen is exactly the right time for anyone. So think about it, Karen.”

  She had. She did. And she had come to some conclusions. “I love you a lot as a friend,” she said now, holding Davey’s hands.

  “That’s great. I love you a lot, too.”

  “But … ah … don’t take this wrong; there’s something missing.”

  “Hey, hold it! I’m all here. Nothing missing. Look.”

  “Quit that, Davey. I don’t mean missing in you.”

  “You’ve got something wrong with you?”

  “Maybe so.” A disturbing thought. “Something’s missing in my feelings—do you know what I mean?”

  He puffed up his lips, shook his head clownishly. “What is this missing mysterious matter?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, “because I’ve never had it.”

  “Then maybe whatever is missing is not, in fact, missing. Maybe everything is where it’s supposed to be. Me, boy. You, girl.”

  Karen smiled automatically. Davey was making a joke of it, but she was sure, she was absolutely positive that something was missing between them, some chemistry—yes, some mysterious matter. And if it weren’t missing, if it were there, then she would know it and recognize it.

  Seven

  Sunday morning, Karen’s mother was frazzled, at least as frazzled as she ever got which, on a scale of ten, was about a four. “Your grandmother’s coming over,” she announced, lighting a cigarette.

  “Yeah, Ma, it’s Sunday.”

  “Well, what are we going to feed her?”

  “You say that every Sunday.”

  “Every Sunday it’s a problem.”

  “Food will do fine,” Karen’s father said.

  “Is that a dentist joke, Arnie? I was thinking meatballs, or—” She looked in the freezer. “I could heat up that casserole?”

  “Meatballs,” Karen said. “Garlic bread, salad.”

  “Good.” Her mother’s relief didn’t last long. “This house is a mess. I didn’t have a chance to do a thing all week. You’re not going out, are you?”

  “The house looks okay to me,” Karen said.

  “Librarians are cleaner,” her mother said. A librarian joke.

&nbs
p; The minute they heard housecleaning, Liz and Tobi both disappeared. “I promised Scott.…” Liz jiggled her car keys.

  And Tobi, in gray sweats and a white headband, said, “I’ll join the fun when I get back,” and jogged out the front door.

  Karen felt surly at not being able to pull her own disappearing act. The phone rang. She took it in the kitchen. Maybe it was Marisa with some wonderful plan to rescue her from being the household drudge. “Hello.”

  “Dr. Freed?” a male voice asked. Yes, you idiot, sure, this is Dr. Freed. “Dad,” she called. He picked up the phone upstairs.

  “Arnie Freed speaking.”

  “Dr. Freed? Dr. Freed, I have a terrible toothache.”

  “How bad is it?”

  “I didn’t sleep all night.”

  Karen hung up. She knew the rest of the conversation. Did you try aspirin? Yes, Doctor. It didn’t help? No, Doctor. Well, if you feel that bad, why don’t you meet me in the office in half an hour?

  Her mother said that her father had to be the only dentist in the United States without an answering service. No buffer. Nothing standing between him and his patients. They bleated and he ran. Karen couldn’t imagine being that devoted to puffy gums, putrid mouths, and rotting teeth.

  While her mother washed the kitchen floor, Karen sorted through the pile of stuff in the front hall. The closet there was a catchall for everybody’s everything. “What a mess,” Karen complained, walking through the kitchen with an armload of jackets to hang up in the back entryway.

  “It’s no more fun for me than for you.” Her mother was bent over the mop, wringing it out in a bucket.

  “At least you’re used to it.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “It’s your job, isn’t it?”

  “I thought being a librarian was my job. Or do you believe in sex-associated cleaning genes?”