These Girls

by Sarah Pekkanen

  “I’m the new editor of an advice column, remember?” Cate said.

  Renee laughed again, and she could see Cate’s shy smile bloom.

  “I think your instincts are right. She should stay in a hotel, and you two should have dinner together,” Cate continued. “See what happens. You might hit it off or you might have nothing in common.”

  “Except for DNA,” Renee said. “I keep wondering if we look alike. Wouldn’t that be weird, to suddenly see a stranger with your eyes and hair color and smile?”

  “I think it’s going to be odd even if she doesn’t look like you. But you might really like her. And if you do, you can invite her back to visit again. If you don’t . . .”

  Renee looked at Cate. “That’s the problem. I think that’s what I’m the most scared of. What if I don’t like her? She’s my half sister. I can’t not have a relationship with her, but what are we going to talk about? We don’t have any shared childhood memories. And I feel kind of badly that I got to spend birthdays and Christmases and weekends with my father, and she never even knew who he was.”

  “Hmmm,” Cate said. “Well, I guess if you can’t stand her, you’ll be like ninety-nine percent of the world, hiding from their relatives except when they’re forced to endure them at holidays. And you can always drink heavily then.”

  Renee was still laughing when Cate went to buzz in the delivery guy a minute later. She brought back the warm white cartons of food, and they dug in, not bothering with plates. For several minutes they just ate in companionable silence. Tonight felt like a turning point in their relationship, Renee thought. They’d never talked like this before.

  “I think the thing that freaks me out is the idea of my dad having this clandestine affair,” she said as she nabbed a snow pea with her chopsticks, then lost it when she tried to carry it to her mouth. “Slippery sucker. Anyway, I didn’t think my parents had such big secrets. I guess, because I’m incapable of keeping one, it seems strange to me that other people can do it. I wonder if my dad just put the affair out of his mind, or if he still thought about it over the years. It would feel so weird to be hiding such a big lie for so long, wouldn’t it?”

  Cate began choking on her food. She coughed and took a big sip of wine and coughed some more. Her face turned bright red, and her eyes watered.

  “Are you okay?” Renee asked. She jumped up, not waiting for an answer, and ran to the kitchen for a glass of water.

  “Something just went down the wrong way,” Cate said as she accepted the glass and took a big sip. She smiled, but it looked all wrong—forced and too bright. Her eyes were still watering, and Cate dabbed at them with her napkin.

  “I was thinking I could get up early and run out and pick up a rug for Abby,” Cate said. “It’s getting colder, and that would really warm up the room, wouldn’t it?”

  Renee scooped up her last bite of food and chewed it slowly to cover her surprise. Cate had changed the subject so abruptly . . . She’d seen Cate close herself off before, and Renee didn’t know if it was shyness or something else that caused her withdrawal. Or it could be that Cate felt, because she worked and lived with Renee, they should keep personal boundaries clearly drawn. Maybe she thought Renee was oversharing; it wouldn’t be the first time Renee had been guilty of that.

  Renee stood up and brushed invisible dust off her pants. “That’s a great idea, about the rug. Should we get back to painting?”

  “Sure,” Cate said. She put down her chopsticks, and they worked in silence for a few minutes. Finally Cate said, “Renee? Would you want to come with me to get the rug tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, okay,” Renee said. “Sure.”

  There it was again—another flip-flop. Renee had never felt so grateful for John Mayer’s mournful voice, even though she hadn’t quite forgiven him for dumping Jennifer Aniston. His rendition of “Gravity” filled the silence, diminishing the awkwardness between them.

  Soon Renee’s arms were aching from wielding her roller, but the bedroom was transformed. The dust was gone, the walls glowed, and the window was flung open to air out the sharp smell. They’d put back the furniture, and Renee was wiping down the bureau, cleaning every speck of dust from the drawers, while Cate made the bed with her extra set of rose-colored sheets.

  “It looks amazing, doesn’t it?” Renee asked, standing back to survey the room. A moment later, another surprising thing happened: Cate slung an arm across her shoulders and gave her a mini-hug.

  “I can’t believe we did all this,” Cate said. “She’s going to love it.”

  Eight

  THE NEXT MORNING CATE skipped her usual run. She showered and tidied up the kitchen and living area, wiping down counters and sweeping the floor and lighting a vanilla-scented candle. She felt awful about cutting Renee off, but she’d panicked when the subject of old lies had come up. The insecurities Cate usually felt around other women—the sense of not belonging—had evaporated in the face of Renee’s easy chatter, yet she still couldn’t reveal the truth. What was wrong with her? She poured a cup of coffee, suddenly needing its warmth.

  “Marry me,” Renee said as she stumbled out of the bedroom a few minutes later and Cate handed her a steaming mug of coffee. “Seriously, don’t you think half of all divorces could be eliminated if spouses took turns getting up early and fixing each other coffee? Caffeine deprivation should be a box you can check, like adultery or abandonment, as a valid reason for dissolution of a marriage.”

  “We’ll do an article on it,” Cate said, laughing.

  By nine-thirty they’d found an inexpensive four-by-six-foot, blue-and-green woven oval rug at a nearby discount store, along with a glass vase in cobalt blue. Cate bought a bouquet of gerbera daisies in a splash of bright colors from a street vendor.

  “Is there anything else she needs?” Cate asked as they walked back to the apartment, each woman lugging an end of the rug. “I mean, she only had that backpack with her, right?”

  “Didn’t a certain magazine just publish an essay about how the only things a woman really needs in life are a great smile and a willingness to take risks?” Renee said.

  “I hated that piece,” Cate confessed. “Like skydiving is going to solve all your romantic problems?”

  “If it did, a lot of women in New York would be carrying around parachutes instead of purses,” Renee said.

  They finished laying the rug just as the buzzer sounded, and Cate pushed the intercom button to let Trey and Abby inside the building. Renee hurried to the bathroom with a tube of lip gloss while Cate opened the door.

  She’d put a welcoming smile on her face, and it took work to keep it there. Cate had focused so much on Trey that she’d barely thought about his sister. Now she was struck by how terrible Abby looked. She was so thin! Her skin was chalky, and her eyes were ringed with dark circles. Worst of all, the expression in them was broken.

  “Come in,” Cate said after a pause she hoped didn’t stretch out too long.

  “Thanks.” Trey entered and Abby followed, moving like someone who was very old or very sick.

  “So . . .” Cate cleared her throat, feeling at a loss for words again. “I’ll give you the two-second tour,” she finally said. “You can see everything if you stand here and spin in a circle. Kitchen, living room, bathroom. Oh, and Abby, your bedroom is here.”

  Abby stepped into the room and looked around. “Thanks,” she said. “Was it just painted?”

  “Last night,” Cate said, laughing and holding out her hands so Abby could see the yellow paint stubbornly sticking to her cuticles.

  Trey looked surprised. “That was really nice of you,” he said.

  “It was Renee’s idea,” Cate said quickly. “She did most of it.” Trey gave Renee a quick, grateful look as she came into the room, and two circles of red bloomed on Renee’s already rosy cheeks.

  “Thank you,” Abby said. She set her navy blue backpack on her bed, and Cate tried to guess what it contained—a toothbrush, maybe, and a few changes of
clothes? She wondered again what had made Abby leave everything else in her life behind. She was like the survivor of a shipwreck, or earthquake, who’d taken only what she could grab before fleeing.

  Cate tried to study Abby without being obvious. She was really pretty, in an Abercrombie & Fitch–ad kind of way. Her long dark hair shone, and her brown eyes were big and long-lashed. Their family had some seriously enviable genes, but she didn’t look a thing like Trey; you’d never guess they were related.

  “We brought some bagels and cream cheese,” Trey said, holding up a brown paper bag. “Did you guys have breakfast yet?”

  “Ooh, they smell yummy,” Renee said, neatly sidestepping his question. She and Cate had picked up breakfast wraps on their way to the store. How like Renee, to spare someone’s feelings even on such a small point, Cate thought.

  Twenty minutes later, Cate had forced down a half bagel slathered with cream cheese, but Abby hadn’t eaten a bite or spoken more than a few words. She just sat there, sipping a cup of tea. Her shoulders were hunched, as if she was drawing into herself, and she looked terrified.

  But Cate saw something else as she watched Abby; Cate didn’t focus on her thin arms or the shadows under her eyes. She saw her loneliness. Suddenly Cate pictured her mother at the breakfast table in their old kitchen, cradling a mug of tea with both hands, just like Abby. Trying to draw out the morning ritual. The refrigerator in her mother’s house—which used to be blanketed with birthday party invitations and notes from school and soccer game schedules—was now empty. The calendar that had once been covered in appointments and reminders now had only a few scribbled notations taking up the vast white expanse of squares: Hair appt. Book club meeting.

  A great surge of sadness engulfed Cate. Her father was off living a new life with his girlfriend. They’d taken up golf together, and were planning a vacation to Barbados. Why couldn’t her mother do the same? If she’d only sell the house and buy an apartment in the heart of Philly, she could pop out all the time to eat dinner, browse bookstores, and meet friends for a movie. She could start dating; plenty of women did at her age. She didn’t need to cook lonely meals for one, or wander the rooms that were once filled with noise and activity. Yet her mother stubbornly clung to the house, to the faint echoes of that old life.

  Cate thought about how she had trouble connecting with other women. Last night she’d wanted to confide in Renee, but it was as if she’d smashed up against an invisible wall. Was it like that for her mom, too, trying to form friendships but not knowing how?

  Just then her cell phone rang. She looked down at the caller ID and saw her mom had waited until ten-thirty to call. Maybe she’d sensed Cate’s growing annoyance and was trying to tread carefully, lest she fray this last lifeline to her daughter.

  “Excuse me a second,” Cate said. She hurried into her bedroom and shut the door.

  “Mom, I love you,” she blurted.

  “Honey! Me, too.” She could hear surprise mixed with pleasure seeping into her mother’s voice.

  “I was going to call you this morning. The weekend after next is clear. Want to come up to visit that Saturday?” Cate said.

  “I’d love it!” her mom cried.

  Maybe Cate could figure out a way to navigate this new relationship with her mom. She could encourage her to come up once a month but for shorter visits; Cate could squeeze in an afternoon of shopping or museum hopping and an early dinner before her mom took the train home. She could do that much. And maybe Cate could figure out a way to talk to her mom about volunteer work, a part-time job, or a series of cooking classes. . . . She couldn’t fill up her mom’s life. But at least for now, the image of her mother sitting alone at a quiet table was replaced by one of her walking to the calendar, pen in hand.

  At least Cate could fill in one square in this empty month.

  Nine

  THE PANIC HAD STRUCK Abby as swiftly as a snake.

  Up until that moment, the morning had followed the contours of its pleasant routine. The oppressive humidity of summer was already fading into memory, and a light breeze swept in the season’s first hint of crispness. Abby came upstairs at 8:15, as usual, and chatted with Bob and Joanna, who were bustling around, collecting briefcases and cell phones and keys.

  “She was up twice last night,” Joanna said, leaning on the kitchen table with one palm for balance while she slipped on her navy blue heels with her other hand. “At one and three A.M.”

  She was smiling, but her expression also conveyed exasperation, and the little lines around her eyes were more pronounced than usual. Her boss was the sponsor of a big technology bill that Congress would soon vote on, and Joanna had brought home a bulging briefcase last night even though she’d gotten in at nine-thirty. “She’s been sleeping so well for months . . .”

  Abby nodded. “Could be teething. I’ll sneak a peek in her mouth today and check. If it is, a little baby Tylenol will make all the difference.”

  “Of course,” Bob said, smacking his forehead theatrically. “Here we were, worried she was regressing. Good thing we read all those baby development books, huh?”

  Joanna didn’t answer. Was there tension between them, or was Joanna just tired and distracted? Abby wondered.

  “So what’s on the agenda for the day?” Bob asked after a pause.

  “I think we’ll go to the park for a while,” Abby said. “Then maybe the library after her nap.”

  “Would you mind stopping by the grocery store while you’re out?” Joanna asked. “We’re running low on . . . well, everything.”

  “Sure,” Abby said.

  “Milk, bananas, Cheerios,” Joanna said, grabbing a pen and starting to write on the back of a junk mail envelope. She frowned as she lifted the pen and shook it, then tried again. “Why don’t we ever have any pens that work?” she demanded.

  Bob reached over and pulled another one out of a drawer. “Try this one.”

  She didn’t even thank him; she just kept listing the items. “Oh, diapers and wipes, of course. And do we need orange juice?”

  Bob opened the refrigerator and peered inside. “Yep.”

  “Boneless chicken breasts, romaine lettuce, and some Perrier. Can you pick up a six-pack of those little bottles? Actually, maybe two?”

  Joanna loved Perrier; she drank it with every meal.

  “No problem,” Abby said. Bob and Joanna didn’t expect her to do any housework, other than cleaning up after herself and Annabelle and doing the baby’s laundry. Running the occasional errand, especially when she was already planning to be out, seemed more than fair. But she couldn’t help but notice that Joanna hadn’t thanked her, either.

  Bob handed her a credit card, and she felt a little tingle as her fingers touched his. She averted her gaze and quickly tucked the card into the pocket of her jeans.

  After Bob and Joanna left, Abby dressed Annabelle in soft pink overalls and a yellow T-shirt, and stocked her diaper bag with a sippy cup of apple juice mixed with water, cut-up grapes, whole wheat crackers, and string cheese. She sang to Annabelle as she changed her diaper—“The Wheels on the Bus” was the little girl’s current favorite—then carried her out the door.

  At fifteen months, Annabelle was so adorable it verged on being illegal: Her hair was white blond, her eyes were blue and impossibly long-lashed, and her face was round and smooth. But a stubborn little will had recently begun to assert itself; Annabelle hated the car seat. Once she was strapped in, she usually succumbed, but snapping the buckles could be a battle.

  Abby kept singing, hoping to distract Annabelle from the looming indignity of being restrained. “The wheels on the bus go round and round,” she sang, but her voice wavered, like it was riding up and down on a wave. As she hit the button on the keys to unlock the doors, her feet suddenly froze.

  She forced herself to move closer to the car, her shoes crunching against the gray gravel.

  “Owie,” Annabelle cried, and Abby realized she was clutching her too tightly, her finger
s pressing into the baby’s soft flesh.

  “Sorry, honey. Time to go,” Abby said, but she couldn’t seem to follow her own directive. Her breath came in shallow gasps; her heart pounded like hoofbeats in her ears.

  Get the baby away from the car! Every instinct in Abby’s body screamed the warning.

  Abby walked backward, toward the house, and instantly felt the vise around her body loosen. Her legs were so weak that she worried she might collapse. She sat down hard on the front steps of the porch, a rush of pain shooting up her spine as she jarred her tailbone.

  What had happened?

  As her breath slowly returned to normal, she began to wonder: Was she having some sort of premonition? Maybe she was destined to have a car accident today and her sixth sense was kicking in.

  She raised her eyes to look at her Honda again, and her heartbeat sped up a notch. That settled it; she wasn’t taking any chances. Stranger things had happened—she’d once read a newspaper article about a businessman from New Jersey who’d deliberately missed a flight because the night before he’d had a dream it crashed. An hour into the flight, the plane dove into the Atlantic Ocean.

  She and Annabelle could walk to the park.

  “Let’s get your stroller,” she said. She stood up again and climbed the porch steps on shaky legs. She carried down the umbrella stroller and unfolded it with one hand while she kept the baby balanced on her hip. For some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to set the little girl down, even though the street was empty of cars and there wasn’t any danger.

  She fastened Annabelle into the stroller—the baby didn’t mind these buckles—and set off for the playground, grateful she’d worn her Merrell sneakers today. It was only about a half mile away, but the grocery store was another mile beyond that. She didn’t want to skip going to the store and have to confess what had happened to Joanna and Bob. She could almost see Joanna’s incredulous expression. Somehow, she knew ESP didn’t have a place in Joanna’s world. Bob would try to hide his surprise, but he was a practical, grounded guy—he worked with computers, after all—and she’d end up feeling humiliated. No one wanted a nut job taking care of their kid.