by Fran Seen
“Dolly?” Minnie poked her head into the conference room, finding me curled up in the chair, hugging my knees to my chest.
“Yep,” I mumbled. “I’ll get back to work in a second. I know you requested the Smith affidavit yesterday morning. I’ll have it to you this afternoon.”
Minnie took a seat next to me at the L-shaped table, sweeping her dark hair out of her face and kicking off her patent leather heels. “I’m not worried about it,” she said, rocking back and forth in the emerald leather chair. I studied her vexed expression. Minnie looked older than I remembered. I rarely caught a glimpse of her in a candid state, when she wasn’t posing or pretending.
“I fucked up,” she burst into tears, causing my heart to jolt. I’d never heard my sister utter a curse. Not even a little slip of god damn when slamming her finger in a door. “I should’ve scheduled Jim’s hearing sooner. We could’ve asked for more money. I was playing it safe. We should’ve moved the case along faster.” Minnie crumpled over, sobbing onto the table, leaving smudges of mascara on the freshly polished, wooden surface.
“It’s not your fault,” I insisted, but Minnie wasn’t listening.
“No. It is. I am a fucking terrible attorney. I am shit at everything besides picking out figure-flattering pencil skirts and sensible but stylish footwear. Dad let me have Jim as my first big-girl case, and I blew it.”
“You’re being dramatic,” I shrugged off her meltdown. “You and I both know that man would’ve killed himself regardless of his settlement,” I insisted, remembering how Jim had soiled himself during his initial consultation. He wiped away tears as his wife wheeled him to the bathroom and cleaned him up. Jim refused to make eye-contact with any of us after that, not even when Minnie handed him his check.
“But—”
“But nothing. Jim Rafferty was a wheelchair-ridden cripple who had given up on his life. His last wish was to set his wife up financially, so that Mrs. Rafferty could live out the rest of her years unburdened by debt,” I sighed, locking eyes with my sister. “You fulfilled that wish for him.”
Minnie wiped her snotty nose on her blouse sleeve. “Sometimes, I wish you and Dad would act like my family, and just like, hug me and say ‘it’s ok.’ Is that too much to ask? Or do we all wanna continue this high and mighty charade for eternity?”
“Girls?” Dad appeared in the doorway, his short gray hair a mess and his signature red tie loosened. “We’ve got a call at three. Are we taking it in here?” he inquired, oblivious to Minnie’s mascara-streaked face.
“No,” Minnie hiccuped, grabbed her shoes and stood. “I quit.”
Dad laughed and leaned against the antique bookshelf, filled with yellowing publications and cracked leather spines, but Minnie didn’t echo his humor. I wanted to crawl under the table and disappear, but Minnie yelled before I had a chance to climb out of my seat.
“I hate working here. When I got into the Art Institute—” she shook her finger at him. “You told me not to be ridiculous. Pursuing photography as a career was the equivalent to torching dollar bills. How did you put it?” Minnie rubbed her chin manically and began to pace across the room, her bare feet stomping the creaky hardwood. “Oh, yeah: ‘You know who’s hiring Art majors, right, Minnie? The coffee shop on the corner.”
Dad’s chest expanded with a long sigh, and his posture straightened, assuming the courtroom body language of a counter argument. “Don’t be silly, Minnie. Take the afternoon to cool off. Dolly will take your calls.”
“Dolly doesn’t want to be here, either!” Minnie shot back, her face reddening with every word.
“Quit speaking for me!” I screamed, my anger bubbling over. “You don’t have the first clue what I want. You’ve never asked. Neither of you have.”
“And that’s my fault how? You have a voice. You could’ve spoken up,” Minnie fired back, folding her arms over her chest.
“Girls, stop fighting. I’ll close the office this afternoon. We’ll work it out,” Dad attempted to silence us. We both eyed him in contempt, and he backed into the wall.
“I would’ve spoken up if you would’ve let me get a word in edgewise!” I fumed at my sister and cursed at Dad when he tried, once again, to serve as the voice of reason.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Minnie rolled her eyes and charged me. She snatched the phone from my hands and started scrolling through it. I swatted at her, attempting to retrieve it, but she ran out of reach. She glanced up from my phone and hissed, “If I spoke on your behalf, it was for your best interests. I’ve been waiting for you to pipe up for years.”
“You’re full of shit. Give me my phone back.”
“Excuse me? Who’s Charlie?” Minnie cocked her perfectly waxed brow at me.
“Girls!”
“If I spoke up, you’d just yell over me!” I shouted, hurling myself at her, and we fell to the ground in a loud thud, causing several of the books to topple off the shelf and scatter across the hardwood.
“Mom always—” Minnie started, but I elbowed her in the rib. She threw my phone to the other side of the room. When it finally skidded to a halt, the screen looked back at me, cracked and broken. My open palm made contact with the side of my sister’s face. The slap reverberated through the silent conference room, challenged only by the chime of the grandfather clock in the corner.
“You’re not Mom!” I held her wrists down and yelled in her face, silencing her. “Maybe if you stopped pretending to be her, you’d be a lot happier.”
“Oh, so now I’m the only one pretending? You’re a frigid bitch,” Minnie shook her head at me, grabbing a handful of my hair and tugging down. I grunted in pain as she rolled on top of me and cemented my shoulders to the carpet. Dad ran over to disengage us, but we both screamed at him to leave. Minnie snatched my chin and forced me to look up at her. Her chocolatey brown eyes bore down at me. “Let’s set the record straight, you’ve been moping around for months. I’ve been waiting for you to tell me—tell anyone what’s wrong. But you refuse. Typical Dolly.”
“Fine,” I choked out, digging my nails into her hand, but Minnie didn’t budge. “I fell in love with the best person I’ve ever met. He asked me to move in with him, but I said no. Like I always do. Because I have expectations to meet and obligations to fill. If y’all were disappointed by my lackluster law school options, I can only imagine the shame I’d bring on you from abandoning the almighty Drummond legacy to be happy.”
The room grew silent. Minnie climbed off of me. She whisked my phone from the floor and dropped it on my chest. Once I caught my breath, I scrambled to my feet, and both my sister and Dad stared at me, open-mouthed.
“Great talk, everyone,” I choked out, scanning the room for the closest exit. “I guess I’ll go back to my desk now and scrub Minnie’s name off the welcome sign.”
“Get in, bitch. We’re going to Dairy Queen,” Minnie yelled from her window, pulling up to the curb in her black BMW. In an effort to clear my mind, I’d stepped outside and found an empty bench. Chattanooga traffic buzzed in my ear. A group of cyclists sped by, waving at me, but I scowled back at them, baring my teeth. I glanced back at the office, overcome by sudden guilt of berating my father.
“Dad will live,” Minnie revved the engine, beckoning me into the car.
After grabbing our heavy tray of burgers and fries, we claimed a seat at a picnic table outside, seeking solace from the summer heat in the shade of a red umbrella. My eyes widened as Minnie sucked ketchup straight out of the packet and hammered a handful of fries into her mouth. She looked up at me and shrugged, “Dairy Queen is cheaper than therapy.”
“I thought you were vegan,” I eyeballed her double cheeseburger. Minnie muttered something indiscernible through her fry-stuffed mouth. I ignored her response and decided to apologize. “I’m sorry I downplayed your sadness and self-loathing,” I mumbled, shoving a handful of fries into my gob. Minnie was right; I felt better already. I grabbed one of her ketchup packets with hesitance, fearful she
might bite at my fingers. “I didn’t mean to make you feel stupid.”
“I’m going to assume you’re sorry for slapping me, too.”
It was my turn to roll my eyes. I noticed Minnie wasn’t apologizing for breaking my phone or pulling my hair. “I’m sorry for slapping you, but you provoked me,” I groaned, dipping a fry into the tomatoey red pool.
“You slap with the force of an old woman battling osteoporosis. Regardless, apology accepted. Now, cut the shit,” Minnie smacked the fry out of my hand. “Who’s the guy?”
“Charlie Blackbird,” I muttered, wanting to retreat to the bottom of my soda cup. But instead of shutting up, I told my sister everything, beginning with our years of online communication and ending with me leaving on a dreadfully stormy night months ago. When I’d finished the tale, I was red in the face, and Minnie’s mouth hung open.
“So, this whole blood quantum,” Minnie began, submerging a fry into her chocolate milkshake. “Sounded pretty important to Charlie up until you showed up. It’s like you’ve reversed roles. I think you’re dwelling on the importance, and he’s abandoned the concept totally.”
“It should still be important to him,” I volleyed back. “His entire belief system is wrapped up in Cherokee culture and tradition.”
“Yeah. Okay. I get that. I really do. We’ve all idealized a notion before,” she sighed, unwrapping her burger. “Not exactly the same, but do you remember how you wanted to be an astronaut when you were like, ten? You asked for a telescope for Christmas, and you stuck those glow-in-the dark stars to the ceiling. The day Pluto was denied planet status, you refused to eat breakfast, and you nearly pissed yourself when Dad told us he signed us up for space camp.”
“I remember,” I nodded. Huntsville, Alabama boasted a world-renowned space camp, fitted with a cafeteria in which real-life astronauts ate, and there was even astronaut ice cream to be bought at the gift shop. Minnie and I slept on bunk beds in a room with six other strangers and filled our week with space simulations and dissections of moon rock.
“And you remember what you told Dad when he picked us up?”
I frowned, recalling our long drive home from Alabama, “I told him I didn’t wanna be an astronaut anymore.” Minnie and I had watched a demonstration of how astronauts used the bathroom in space. A tube attached to the crotch of the space suit and sucked all the, ahem, waste from the astronaut and catapulted the matter into space. I decided that sort of lifestyle wasn’t for me. I was a closed-door-bathroom-habits kind of girl.
Minnie laughed, almost choking on a bite of her double bacon cheeseburger. “Yeah, you told him you didn’t want to be an astronaut, but what you failed to mention was that you puked all over some whiny kid after riding the G-force simulator. Thomas Pepper, I think his name was—the poor soul who intercepted my sister’s projectile vomit. Summer camp hit him so hard, he called his mommy five minutes after the ride was over. We never saw poor Thomas again.”
I threw a fry in her direction, and a pigeon ran off with it as soon as the fry made contact with the pavement. “Thanks for reminding me, Minnie. I knew there was something I’d forgotten to ask God’s forgiveness for,” I said, sticking my tongue out at her.
“I admit that was a major digression, but my point was this: once you realized the reality of being an astronaut and accepted that it wasn’t your ticket to eternal happiness, you dropped the idea and moved on.” I opened my mouth to argue that she was reducing Charlie’s wishes to childlike wonder, but she continued, “I’m not saying that your dream of becoming an astronaut and Charlie’s dreams of having full-blooded, Native children are on the same spectrum. I’m saying that once he realized the reality of living a life without love, the idea of continuing his hardcore Cherokee legacy became a lot less attractive.”
“But—”
“Shut up. I’m still talking,” Minnie shushed me through a mouthful of burger. “I’m your sister, remember? When I’m honest with you, it’s not from a place of absolute hatred. Got it?” My sister waited for me to nod. “Good. Accept what I’m about to say at face-value: your fatal flaw is that you forget a person is just a person.”
“Pardon?”
Minnie slurped a sip of Coke and then set her drink down. “Some people are larger-than-life characters with an irritating amount of charisma and great teeth. Some people are sniveling blood-suckers out to ruin the world. In between, we have the unobserved, frightfully boring, average folks. Regardless, they’re all people made of the same stuff: flesh and blood, bone and ligament, hope and desire,” Minnie paused, scanning my expression for either comprehension or willful ignorance. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think you see yourself as a combination of mine and Dad’s unmet expectations, as Charlie’s wrong choice, as the girl teetering on the cusp of almost, but you’re just a person, Doll—just like me, Dad, Mom, Charlie Blackbird. You need to realize it’s okay to want things, and it’s even more okay to let yourself have them.”
My sister plucked the limp tomato off of her cheeseburger and slapped it onto the tray. “Like I said, Charlie is just a person, and you’ve gotta give him some credit. He’s told you exactly what he wants—no frills, no fuss—but instead of focusing on what you want, you’re sitting here, trying to dissect his words even though they weren’t open for interpretation.”
I wiped away a stray tear trailing hot down my cheek and sniffled. For over a decade, I’d seen Minnie as the unwavering dictator of my life. She was the daughter who never made the wrong choice, whom my father believed was void of imperfection. She was the beauty queen who loved to hear herself talk, and the common folk loved the bullshit spewing out of her mouth. I’d been jealous of her for so long that I forgot what it felt like to feel sorry for her.
I forgot she was my sister.
I forgot she was beside me the moment Mom died, displaying strength beyond her years to protect and comfort me. I resented her for steering me down a safe path, keeping me out of trouble, and providing me with tools for success. Heck, I even disliked her in this moment, because after we’d smacked each other around and called each other nasty names, she’d bought me junk food and told me, in her own way, that everything was going to be okay.
“Don’t cry at the Dairy Queen,” Minnie blinked at me, wiping her tears away with her sleeve, and handed me a napkin. “Everyone’s going to think you found a rat in your milkshake. You’re embarrassing me. Now, tell me why you are here.”
“You brought me here! You bought me food,” I hiccuped, whirling my head around to see if anyone was staring. The other tables were empty.
Minnie scoffed, shaking her head. “Try again. Why did you come home, Doll?”
“The internship. Grad school starts in two weeks,” I breathed, exasperated.
“Life doesn’t slow down for anyone. After school will be work, and then after years of mind-numbingly boring and repetitive hours, you’ll be too busy naming all of your cats,” Minnie sighed, shoving a spoonful of milkshake between her lips. “You’re always going to find an excuse if you’re looking for one.”
“Well, running off with some guy isn’t something you would ever do,” I scowled, bewildered by Minnie’s response.
She grinned back at me with chunks of hamburger in her teeth, “You’re not me, and that’s my favorite part about you.”
Quantum of the Heart
Accustomed to a constant state of second-guesses and self-doubt, it was odd to experience an unfamiliar, prickling sensation coursing through my veins.
Certainty.
I was certain I’d witnessed Minnie endure a major meltdown this afternoon, during which, she quit my father’s firm, dropped the f-bomb a handful of times, and blew through three thousand calories of cheeseburger, fries, and milkshake. I was certain that, if I were a caring, observant sister, I would’ve paid more attention to the signs of a minor madness: her slender frame turning willowy, the constant shadow under her eyes, or the skunk-like aroma of marijuana radiating from her bedroom. But I wasn’t a
good sister. I wasn’t even an alright, half-way decent, or tolerable sibling. I ignored Minnie for years, interpreting her displeased disposition to be directed at me, rather than a reflection of her own personal struggle. I never considered that she needed comfort or affirmation, because Minnie was the strong sister: an iron-born, never-say-never, do-gooder who supplied support and seldom asked for anything in return.
I never realized her life wasn’t perfect.
I stared out the window, peering down at the rushing Tennessee River as we sped over the bridge. Certainty, like a fire in my head, blazed through my memories, dissecting each one of mine and Charlie’s interactions. After I doused the soot off of every thought, touch, and declaration, I stood back and opened my eyes, seeing for the first time the way things were instead of what might’ve been.
Absentmindedly, I pressed my fingers to my lips, remembering Charlie’s kiss. I texted Charlie from Minnie’s phone on our drive home.
We need to talk. Call me after you get off work. My phone is broken. Dial this number. -Dolly
Minnie’s BMW meandered through our neighborhood, past the identical mini-mansions with only a few feet of unearthly green sod separating them. After checking to see if Dad was home and confirming that he’d locked himself in the basement to watch the football game, I followed Minnie into the foyer, speckled with family photos and vases of fake flowers, and up the curved staircase, to her room.
Minnie’s room was a menagerie of awards, sashes, and crowns—all of which she’d left at home during her college years, but returned to when she began working at the firm. From the back of her bedroom door hung a series of black and white stills which were clothes-pinned to a string. In the photos were profiles of ordinary people whom I couldn’t identify, but there was a magical quality to the pictures that drew me in, noticing the dimple of the person’s cheek or the wrinkles of their forehead or the glimmer in their eyes as they smiled. Minnie had a knack for molding ordinary into extraordinary. I studied her photos for a moment before grabbing the dry-erase board and a marker from her corner desk. Uncapping the marker, I plopped down on the four-poster bed clad in white and pink frills. Minnie busied herself while I scribbled, causing a ruckus inside of her overstuffed walk-in closet, and appeared moments later with a blunt in hand.