Little Sister

by Barbara Gowdy

  “What door?” Rose says and hears the knocking.

  She had slept through Hidalgo and intermission and the first part of The Misfits. She assumed the person outside her office must be Victor.

  It was her friend Robin.

  “So you were sleeping,” Robin said. “Fiona thought you would be.”

  “Hello,” Rose said and went toward her.

  “Just let me take this off,” Robin said. She removed her dripping raincoat, and the two women hugged. Beneath them men yelled, “Six, seven, eight.” It was the scene where Marilyn hits the paddle ball.

  “This is a nice surprise,” Rose said.

  Robin limped to the sofa. “You didn’t get my messages?”

  “What’s the matter with your leg?”

  “Oh, this new kid, he has major anger overload. He smashed my knee with a metal truck. Elaine wants him out before he kills the babies, but we’re his third day care in a year.” She sat and took a bottle of juice from her overflowing bag. “Didn’t you get my messages?”

  Rose glanced at the window. Blue sky, shredded stratus. “What messages?”

  “I left one yesterday, and one half an hour ago. I guess you were conked out.”

  Half an hour ago Rose was inside Harriet. She had a vague recollection of yesterday’s message. “Oh, right, you were meeting someone.”

  “And then coming by for a quick visit. You fast-forward, you miss the important part.”

  “Sorry,” Rose said, “I forgot.” She sat down and waved at the general chaos. “I’m swamped. I’m behind in everything.”

  “Don’t worry, I can’t stay. The meeting ran late. I just thought I’d pop in.”

  “No,” Rose said. “Stay.” Robin was her oldest friend. They’d met in grade seven and were drawn to each other, the two big tall girls, the white one with the tragedy and the black one newly arrived with her adoptive white parents from London, Ontario, where the population was so uniformly Caucasian that when Robin was three and saw a little black child walking down the street, she stopped in her tracks, awestruck, and said, “Look, another Robin.”

  “It’s like we’re in a soap opera,” she said now. “Have you ever noticed how in soap operas they’re always showing up at each other’s doors?”

  This made Rose smile. She was dying to tell Robin about the episodes, but how could she? Even somebody who believed in God and the angels (and Robin did not) would question her sanity.

  “What?” Robin said.

  Rose realized she’d been staring. “I’ve missed you,” she said truthfully. Ever since Robin had gotten married and moved to Oshawa, they hardly saw each other. “Have you eaten? Do you want some popcorn?”

  “God, no, please. Fiona already offered me a bucket. How’s she doing? She seemed a bit confused.”

  “She’s up and down. More up than down.”

  “She said she hoped Brandon and I were sorting out our troubles.”

  “Actually, that was sharp of her. I used you as an alibi. I told her we were meeting for a drink to discuss your marriage.”

  “When really you were . . .”

  “Going to this party.”

  “You can’t go to parties?”

  “She thinks I’m out all night fooling around on Victor.”

  Robin raised her eyebrows. She drank her juice. She had never spoken against Victor, but he wasn’t her favorite person, Rose knew that. When Robin lived in Toronto and had them for dinner at her apartment, Victor picked at his food and extracted the beans, nuts, carrots, uncooked tomato skins, and whatever else brought on his allergies. Also, he didn’t exactly keep it a secret that operating a day-care center was his idea of hell.

  Rose glanced again at the window. Inky clouds were rising above the billboard. “Are we in for another storm?” she said. “Is that possible?” She got up and went to her desk.

  “You should see our backyard,” Robin said. “It’s a swamp. What are you doing?”

  Rose was Googling Toronto weather radar. “I need to check something.”

  “So you went to a wild party.”

  “Moderately wild.”

  “Was Victor there?”

  Heavy rainfall warning, Rose read. Risk of flooding in low-lying areas.

  “No, Victor was not there,” Robin concluded.

  Rose heard thunder. “You know what?” she said. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to write this e-mail.”

  “Yeah, and Brandon’s waiting for me. To help sort out our troubles.” She heaved herself up. “Well, I was in town, so.”

  “I’ll call you soon,” Rose said, standing and going over. “We’ll get together.”

  “Oh,” Robin said softly.

  “What?”

  “Everything’s . . .” She looked around the room. She raised her hands and moved them here and there.

  Rose watched in a state of immobilizing disbelief. It’s the office, she thought. The office triggers the episodes. It’s me, she thought, I’m spreading them, they’re viruses. She had a calamitous image of the entire theater being infected and patrons falling left and right, men entering the minds of young girls. She pictured herself and Robin groping toward each other’s consciousness through the illicit dark of Harriet’s. All this before Robin, completing her sentence, said, “spinning.”

  “Spinning?”

  Robin drank the rest of her juice. “That’s better,” she gasped.

  “So are you all right?” The thunder was closer now. The scar on Robin’s jaw was coming into focus.

  “Yeah, I’m okay. It’s my new blood-pressure medication.”

  “Do you feel sick or . . . ?”

  “No, it’s just these sudden five-second dizzy spells. I’ve had two today. That one was strong, though. A good thing I don’t drive.” She put on her raincoat and gave Rose a hug.

  “You’d better see your doctor,” Rose said. Her vision swarmed with flecks.

  “Don’t worry, I will. Okay, I’m late. I’m off.”

  “Be careful on the stairs.”

  Far across the room, too far, was Rose’s desk. Her skin cooled and tightened. She sank onto the carpet.

  The lumpy seat cushion under her thighs, the smell of lemon oil and caramel corn, the pillars crowding her peripheral vision, the movie up on the screen—every passing second substantiated Rose’s impression that she was beneath the entrance to her office, where, in her own body, she had collapsed. If the office floor gave way, she would fall on top of herself.

  A forearm pressed companionably against hers. Marsh’s, surely. Rose’s impulse was to race down to the auditorium. Except—oh, right—she was inside Harriet. An asphyxiating terror seized her. I’m going to die in here, she thought, but then a blaze of anger from Harriet wrested her attention back to the screen.

  Eli Wallach, at the wheel, was chasing down a small herd of mustangs. Marilyn sat in the passenger seat, Gable and Montgomery Clift stood in the flatbed. Wallach pulled up beside a mare who had separated from the herd, and Clift tossed a rope around her neck, whereupon a tire attached to the rope’s other end jumped off the truck and dragged her to a halt. Gable laughed and whooped. He loved this. Marilyn hated it. So did Harriet.

  So did Rose. She had seen The Misfits three times, but not until now did she appreciate that the horses weren’t acting. This was real for them: their lungs really burned, their starved bodies really ran themselves out. No wonder her parents hadn’t let Ava see it.

  Harriet felt nauseous. She got her bag and stood.

  “Are you all right?” said the person next to her. Yes, it was Marsh.

  “I just need to pee,” she said.

  As soon as she was out of the auditorium, she headed for the stairs. The runner’s hectic flower-and-crown pattern dazzled her, and she almost vomited on the landing. She made it to the top and stood clutching the newel post. Her eyes traveled across the paneling and paused on the unmarked office door behind which Rose sat.

  The door was ajar.

  Other way, Rose
thought. The washroom’s the other way.

  Harriet seemed transfixed by the door’s brass-and-porcelain knob. Maybe it interested her. Or maybe this was Rose’s mind craving her body. If the door should open. If Rose should see herself from outside herself. The instant, traceless, mutual extermination she envisioned seemed inescapable, only seconds away. Go left, she begged. Other way.

  Her hand—Harriet’s hand—slipped from the post. She glanced right.

  Left. Go left.

  She went left.

  She locked herself in the first cubicle and let out a breath that couldn’t begin to convey Rose’s relief. Harriet sat on the toilet seat and cried. Rose felt as if she cried, too, first for the horses and then over a memory of Ava allowing the friendless, brain-damaged boy from across the street to chew the end of her ponytail.

  The washroom door thumped open. She flushed the toilet. Last year Rose had installed “control roll” dispensers, and you could tear out only a measly strip at a time. She blew her nose. The door thumped again, not a second woman coming in, the first woman leaving.

  At the sink Harriet was drawn to her reflection endlessly multiplied in the mirrors behind her. For Rose the most distant reflections were Ava. She had a peculiar, ghostly feeling of leaning forward through an expansion in the web of Harriet’s consciousness. This circumstance, however phantasmal, unbalanced Harriet. She gripped the sink. Seconds passed. The web sealed over, Rose’s mind retreated, and Harriet, regaining her balance, picked up her purse and left.

  Straight down the stairs she went, over to the concession, where Fiona, inches taller, her freckles and wrinkles distinctly visible, stood watching.

  Did Fiona see Ava’s eyes? How could she not? Her expression softened, although it would have anyway for a pretty young woman. “That’s a smart jacket you’re wearing,” she said.

  Harriet also softened. “Thank you.”

  Fiona put her glasses on to peer at the jacket’s cuff. “It’s a cotton-linen blend, isn’t it?”

  “It might be. I’m not sure.”

  “Do you mind if I feel?”

  “No, not at all.”

  Fiona rubbed the sleeve between her fingers. “Cotton-linen.” She took the glasses off. “That’s why it doesn’t crease.”

  From Rose’s vantage she and Fiona were looking straight into each other’s eyes. Fiona, from her vantage, should have been looking into Ava’s eyes, both daughters vicariously present to her, and yet she betrayed not the slightest recognition. Rose found this strangely terrible.

  “Now what would you like?” Fiona said.

  “Do you have Perrier?”

  “In the refrigerator there. Help yourself.”

  The bottle was big in her little hand. Her money she kept in a vintage upholstered change purse. She unfolded a five-dollar bill and held it out to Fiona, who took it and snapped it professionally.

  “Horse killers!” Marilyn screamed from the auditorium.

  She flinched.

  “They set them free,” Fiona said. “Although I’m giving away the ending.”

  Harriet was struggling not to appear as disturbed as she felt. “I don’t think I’ll go back in.” She dropped her change, three quarters and a dime. Fiona scooped it up and put it firmly in her palm. How eerie for Rose, the touch of her mother’s dry fingers.

  There were voices to one side of them. They glanced over. A man and woman had entered the vestibule and were shaking out their umbrellas.

  Fiona, turning back, said with sudden conviction, “I know who you are. You’re the youngest Beaton girl.”

  “No, actually. I’m not.”

  Jenny Beaton—Rose had gone to high school with her—was dark and short, otherwise nothing like Harriet. Nothing at all like Ava.

  “Jenny,” Fiona said. “Jenny Beaton.”

  “I’m Harriet Smith.”

  “Well, I could have sworn,” Fiona said. She nudged the box of straws closer. “Harriet. That’s a name you don’t hear every day.”

  “I’m the only one I know.”

  “It has substance. Are you a lawyer?”

  “I’m an editor at a publishing company.”

  “Which one?”

  “Goldfinch Publishers.”

  “I haven’t heard of them.”

  “Have you heard of Vireo?”

  “Why don’t you ask him?” Fiona said, nodding past her.

  She looked and saw Lloyd walking from the projection booth stairs to the ticket stand. When she looked back, Fiona’s mouth was knit into a lewd smirk. She has dementia, Rose thought, stricken, but Harriet seemed to know. “I just might,” she said.

  The smirk roamed her way. “What?”

  “I just might ask him.”

  “He’s not your husband,” Fiona scolded in her Irish accent.

  “No, he isn’t. I’m single.”

  Fiona squinted. “All on your own, then, are you?”

  Oh, Mom, Rose thought. She could have died for her.

  Somebody came out of the auditorium. It was Marsh. “They cut them loose,” he said.

  “I heard.”

  “I’m sorry, Harriet. I thought it was about rescuing mustangs.”

  “Well, we had a nice talk.” She raised her Perrier to Fiona, and Marsh pivoted, but Fiona stepped away and began industriously scooping popcorn. She was herself again, Rose could tell. She was aware of having suffered a lapse and afraid of what she might have said or done.

  “Let’s just go,” Marsh said quietly.

  The rain had ended. The evening smelled of earthworms flooded from their holes. Rose was feeling emotional about her mother. Harriet was feeling defensive. “I’ve cut down,” she said, lighting her cigarette.

  He knows she’s pregnant, Rose thought.

  “Am I saying anything?” Marsh protested.

  “You’re thinking it loudly enough.”

  He knows.

  “What happened back there?” he said.

  “With the mother? We were talking, she was really sharp, really lovely, and then she . . . she went somewhere else.”

  “I noticed the ticket fellow keeping an eye on her.”

  “Poor thing. It’s Alzheimer’s, right?”

  Marsh took a long stride over a puddle. “The daughter only said dementia.”

  “At least she’s working, making herself useful.”

  “In beautiful surroundings.”

  “Oh, when I went upstairs to the washroom? I had this incredible déjà vu. Everything was familiar. The carpet, the railing. The doorknobs.”

  “Those massive washroom doorknobs?”

  “No, the ones . . .”

  Their voices faded behind the commotion in Rose’s mind. A real, undeniable leak had sprung between Harriet and her. What else could account for the déjà vu? But it wasn’t déjà vu, it was Rose’s lifelong acquaintance with the hallway swelling into the vacuum created by Harriet’s ignorance of it. I’m wearing away at her, she thought, and tried to imagine what that might mean.

  A painful spasm in her upper back returned her to the present moment. She and Marsh were on a side street. They were crossing to a rusty old Tercel. He unlocked the doors, and they climbed in and lowered their windows.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to wait until you can lie down?” he said.

  “No, because it’ll settle in, and then it’ll last all night.” She reached behind her to touch the sore place. “If we can get it now.”

  “Come closer.”

  She shunted over as far as the gearshift.

  “Lean into my hands.”

  She did, and he began to massage his thumb down her scapula. She cringed. Rose, who had her own back problems, knew this type of hurt.

  “Breathe,” he said.

  She blew out air, sucked it in, and he found the knot and worked at it until it loosened and disappeared. “Oh, that’s good,” she said.

  He started massaging her shoulders. Her head dropped. This, now, was pure pleasure, so relaxing that Ros
e fell into a reverie of lying on a tropical beach. Since she had never been south, she wondered if she wasn’t eavesdropping on a memory of Harriet’s. There was an end-of-the-world quality to the wind clattering the palm fronds, the waves sloshing far up onto the sand, and over the water a mist that made for an impression of blue light trapped and sparkling between panes of glass.

  “Am I forgiven?” he asked after what felt like an entire afternoon.

  “For what?”

  “The movie.”

  “No. But that was great, thank you. You have magic hands.” She moved to her side of the car. “How are you with abortions?”

  “Harriet,” he chided.

  “I’m joking,” she said, stung, and she fished in her bag for her Du Mauriers. He got the car going. “Can we stay a bit longer?” she asked.

  He turned the engine off. She held her cigarette out the window. Neither of them spoke. Rain from the trees and power lines hit her arm when the wind gusted. She was looking at the BMW parked in front of them: its license plate, *NUN*.

  “So this is what,” he said, “day three of the antidepressants?”

  “Day two.”

  “They take a couple of weeks to kick in, right?”

  “One week, I’m hoping.” She puffed on her cigarette. “Do nuns drive BMWs?”

  “Not as a rule. Not as a habit.”

  She smiled over at him, hunkered and crammed into his tiny, crumbling car, this good man.

  “It’s a nihilist,” he said. “NONE was taken.”

  Harriet’s attention had moved on. “I can’t believe how reasonable she was.”

  “Who are we talking about?”

  “Lesley.”

  “Ah, the wife.”

  “She was like a social worker, and David and I were these punks she had to straighten out.”

  “I think you should tell him.”

  “I’m not telling him.”

  “He might choose you.”

  She shook her head. She smiled, but she felt bleak.

  “It’s really over, then,” Marsh said.

  She tossed the cigarette. “It’s really over.”

  In the episode’s aftermath it dawned on Rose that Harriet and Marsh were parked no more than a few blocks away.

  She rushed into the hall. At the top of the stairs she stopped. Where were they exactly? She remembered having gone north, crossing an intersection, turning onto a side street. She remembered the BMW. Otherwise, she couldn’t summon a single marker.