These Girls

by Sarah Pekkanen

  Abby turned back to look at the car again, and a shudder ran through her body. “Let’s get going,” she said to Annabelle, forcing cheer into her voice, as she slung the diaper bag over the stroller’s handles and hurried away.

  Two hours later, Annabelle had had her fill of swings and slides, and they were heading toward the grocery store. The cool morning had succumbed to the strength of the sun, and Abby wished she’d worn shorts instead of her heavy Levi’s. Annabelle soon fell asleep, her head slumping to one side, while Abby counted the passing blocks and berated herself for forgetting to bring along a bottle of water. Her throat felt parched.

  She finally reached the store and tried to figure out how she’d manage both the stroller and a cart. No way was she going to wake up Annabelle after a twenty-minute nap to transfer her; the baby would be exhausted and cranky the rest of the day.

  Abby grabbed a basket and began loading in items from Joanna’s list while she steered the stroller down the aisles. When the basket was full, she left it on the floor next to a checkout register and grabbed another one. Luckily, there were only a few other shoppers at this time of day.

  By the time she’d filled a third basket with Perrier and orange juice, it was so heavy it kept crashing against her hip and throwing her off-balance. She added a can of Coke from the mini-refrigerator at the front of the store and chugged the whole thing down while she waited for the items to be rung up.

  “Paper bags?” the cashier asked.

  Abby had a mile-and-a-half walk ahead of her. Paper handles ripped easily, and she couldn’t loop them over the stroller handles. “Plastic,” she said. She smiled apologetically, even though the cashier looked like she couldn’t care less. “We’re walking home and it’ll be easier.”

  But there were five bags total. Along with the diaper bag, Abby could fit only three on the stroller handles, which meant she had two heavy bags to hold while she gripped the stroller. After three blocks, the plastic stretched thin and began to cut into her fingers. The sun was high overhead and seemed to be beating directly into her eyes. She squinted and wished for sunglasses and another Coke.

  Annabelle woke up a few minutes later and promptly cried for juice.

  “Oh, baby. . . .” Guilt flooded Abby. She’d brought only one sippy cup, and Annabelle, who’d worked up a thirst climbing all over the playground, had drunk all but an inch of it. “Here you go.”

  A minute later, the cup was empty and Annabelle was wailing; the nap had been too brief to leave her fully rested. A spot between Abby’s shoulders began to ache. Her whole body felt hot and sore; she’d lifted Annabelle up and down off swings and slides all morning, and she’d been tired to begin with since she’d stayed up past midnight studying for an exam tonight. Her body still felt weak from her panic episode this morning, and she hadn’t eaten lunch.

  “Orange juice? Do you want to try some OJ, sweetie?” Abby asked, knowing the baby hated the taste. But maybe she’d give it another chance; kids were always changing their minds about food.

  She filled up the cup and handed it to Annabelle, who took a sip and promptly let it dribble out of her mouth as she began to wail louder. The little girl wanted apple juice, or water . . . But Abby had milk! She set down the bags and feeling flooded back into her hands. The fact that Annabelle usually drank milk only at meals didn’t mean she couldn’t improvise. Abby dumped out the orange juice, then opened one of Joanna’s precious Perriers to rinse the sippy cup. She filled it with whole milk and handed it to Annabelle before downing the rest of the Perrier herself.

  “Another mile to go, kiddo,” Abby said. She wiped her sweaty brow on her forearm and tried to find fresh places on her palms to loop the bags around, but they kept slipping into the painful grooves they’d already created. She forced herself to walk another block before putting down the bags. “Fucking Perrier,” she muttered under her breath, massaging her palms and feeling a surge of anger toward anal-retentive Joanna and her fussy taste buds.

  It took her an hour to get home, and Abby was almost crying by the time she unlocked the front door and set down the bags. She hurried to get the drinks into the refrigerator, worrying that the milk might have spoiled. Even though it smelled okay, she dumped it down the sink, deciding that she’d pick some up on the way home from class tonight. She’d lie and tell Joanna the store was out of milk.

  She needed to soak her hands in icy water; the grooves in her palms felt like burns. “Today’s the day you get to meet Elmo, sweetie,” she said, clicking on the television. Abby knew kids weren’t supposed to watch TV until they were two, but she was desperate.

  She drank a quart of water and swallowed two Advils before tending to her hands, smoothing them with Neosporin and wrapping them in gauze. By the time Bob got home, she and Annabelle were curled up on the couch, working their way through a stack of books as Abby struggled to keep her eyes open.

  When she heard Bob’s key in the lock, she slipped off the gauze and shoved it in her pocket. “Did you have a good day?” he asked, smiling at Annabelle with such tenderness that, for the second time, Abby almost burst into tears.

  “We sure did,” she lied, keeping her eyes on the book so he didn’t see her expression.

  But Bob seemed to sense her mood. “Is everything okay?” he asked. Annabelle jumped off Abby’s lap and ran toward him, and he picked her up, but he kept looking at Abby.

  “Just tired,” she said. She closed the book’s cover and busied herself stacking the storybooks into a neat pile. “It was so hot today, and we were outside most of the time.”

  “Why don’t you sleep in tomorrow?” he said. “I can get into work a little late.”

  She looked up at him, standing there with sunlight streaming in from the window behind him, highlighting the gold in his hair. He’d made a little shelf out of his forearm for Annabelle to sit on, and his other arm was wrapped around her back. He was smiling—Bob always seemed to be smiling—and he looked so strong and healthy and good that Abby wanted to crawl into his arms, too.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  Later that night, she got into her car to drive to her night class. She felt no fear at all; the key turned easily in the ignition, and her heart rate remained steady, even when she merged onto the Beltway, which could make all but the most confident drivers anxious.

  Joanna and Bob would never know what Abby had done to spare Annabelle from possible harm, she thought, rubbing one of her palms against her thigh. The angry red lines were still visible, and she knew she’d have trouble holding a pen to write her exam answers. But it was worth it. She didn’t care how ridiculous it sounded. She knew in her heart that Annabelle had been in danger, and Abby had protected her.

  Renee stepped onto the scale, holding her breath. She’d resisted weighing herself for almost a week, knowing little fluctuations weren’t reliable indicators of whether her body was shrinking. But by now she should be seeing results. She’d gotten off the elevator a few floors early and walked up the stairs, gone for two-mile jogs (well, technically more like trots) every other day, and exited the subway one stop early in the mornings. Her stomach had to have shrunk; she’d never been so miserably hungry. She felt positively concave.

  The numbers were in. Renee glanced down, her breath still caught in her lungs, and saw the reward for the nights when she’d gone to bed dreaming about the crunchy satisfaction of a single saltine, the five lunchtimes when she’d forgone even a smidge of dressing on her salads, and the veggies and brown rice she’d ordered from the Chinese place when she’d been craving kung pao chicken. It had all added up to the loss of a pound.

  A miserable sixteen ounces.

  It would take her weeks—months—of torture to reach her goal. If she slipped up and ate enchiladas even once, she’d be right back where she started. What was the point? She wasn’t the kind of woman who craved seeds and sprouts and carrot juice; her body was built to gravitate toward generous curves, not lean lines. It clung to calories as passionately as
Kate Winslet had to Leo DiCaprio in the closing scenes of Titanic. “I’ll never let go,” her weight seemed to be whispering.

  Tears filled her eyes. Why did it have to be so hard?

  Renee stepped off the scale and kicked it harder than necessary to wedge it under the vanity. Her appetite was a huge dog lunging at the end of a leash, and she’d barely managed to rein it in this week, but the battle had cost her a good bit of strength. Soon, without the motivation of results, she’d lose control. Most women dreamed about Hugh Jackman; last night, she’d dreamed about digging her fingers into a gooey chocolate cake, again and again, and licking off the frosting.

  Maybe she should just give up and move back to Kansas, where women came in all shapes and sizes instead of seeming to march off an assembly line of size 4s. If she didn’t get this job, she might have to move back after all. She was racking up debt and still working as an associate editor at the age of twenty-nine. Maybe she was destined to fail at everything she tried.

  Renee sighed, knowing she was being self-pitying but unable to help it. She opened the medicine cabinet and pulled out a tube of Crest. Even though she’d brushed her teeth right after waking up, she’d read that clean teeth make it less likely you’ll snack between meals. She’d have to redouble her efforts this week. Get off two subway stops early. Maybe invest in a Victorian corset. She had to keep it up until Nigel picked the beauty editor. The thought made her want to sob.

  As she scrubbed her teeth, Renee realized that she and Cate had been so busy readying Abby’s room they’d neglected to show Abby which shelf in the medicine cabinet she could claim. Space was at such a premium in their apartment that they kept only essentials in the bathroom, like deodorant and moisturizer, and carted their bulkier toiletries around in plastic tubs, like she had in college when everyone in her dorm shared one big bathroom.

  Renee rinsed out her mouth, then opened the cabinet door and noticed Naomi had left behind the stuff she didn’t want to bother dealing with. Would it really have killed her to throw out an old tube of mascara and a few prescription bottles?

  Renee glanced idly at the labels as she collected the bottles to pitch in the trash. All the pills had the same name, a long, unpronounceable word. She’d heard it before. Was it for anxiety? Acne? She tossed the bottles and went to her bedroom.

  Abby hadn’t come out of her room yet, but Renee planned to be there when she did. Maybe she could cajole Abby into a walk; the fresh air would be good for her and a welcome distraction for Renee. Renee opened her food journal and jotted down her breakfast: a boiled egg, a half grapefruit, and coffee with Splenda but no cream.

  Suddenly she lifted her head and sniffed the air, alert as a bloodhound. Dear God, was Cate cooking pancakes? The buttery, yeasty scent filled her bedroom; Renee could almost see the clouds of flavor floating in through her open door. Cate never cooked—but maybe she was making them to tempt Abby. For one fleeting moment, Renee felt jealous of Abby’s heartache, whatever it was. She’d endure an emotional crisis if it meant erasing her appetite for a few weeks. But almost instantly, Renee felt guilty at the thought.

  She had to do something to get her mind off that insanely tempting smell. She picked up the phone and dialed her parents’ house.

  “Hello?” a woman answered.

  “Mom?” Renee asked reflexively, even though she knew it couldn’t possibly be her mother.

  “Oh, this must be Renee,” the woman said, and suddenly Renee recognized her voice. “It’s Becca. Hi.”

  Renee felt dizzy. What was Becca doing answering the phone? Renee was struck speechless; it was as though she’d entered a portal to an alternate universe where Renee was the interloper and Becca the rightful daughter.

  Becca reacted smoothly to Renee’s silence. “Your mom asked me to grab the phone because she was just taking muffins out of the oven. Here she is.”

  “Hi, sweetie,” her mom said, as cheerful as always.

  “Mom?” Renee hesitated. “Is Becca still in the kitchen with you?”

  “She’s right here.” Her mom confirmed. Oh, perfect—now Becca would know she’d asked.

  “Can you go somewhere where we can talk privately?”

  “Sure, honey. . . . Okay, I’m in the other room now.”

  “What is she doing there?” That had come out wrong. “I mean, I didn’t realize you guys were spending so much time with Becca. I was just surprised when she answered the phone. Are things . . . are you and Dad still fighting?”

  “I was going to call and tell you all about it,” her mom said. She gave a soft exhale, and Renee could picture her sitting down on the couch in the living room. The newspapers would be stacked in a pile by the fireplace, with the page containing her father’s crossword puzzle folded over for him to do after dinner, and the lopsided clay vase Renee had made in second-grade art class would be adorning the mantel. A surge of homesickness suddenly gripped Renee. “Honey, I think in a way I’m still kind of shocked about everything. Your dad’s in shock, too. But the one thing we both agree on is that Becca deserves to get to know Dad—none of this was her fault. She came by here to go to get coffee with him, and she invited me. I told them to go alone, but I asked her to come in afterward, and we all ended up talking. Meeting Becca somehow made things better between Dad and me. She’s had a rough time, you know.”

  “What do you mean?” Renee felt blindsided. She’d wanted to go home and help, yet somehow Becca had been the one to bring her parents together.

  “Her mother was nutty. You’d have to be, wouldn’t you, to trick a married man into sleeping with you and then hide the fact that you’d had a child from him for the rest of your life?”

  Renee noticed her mom’s use of the word trick—already Becca’s mother was being cast as the villainous seductress and her father the hapless victim. But if it helped her mom get through this, who was Renee to interfere?

  “She was manipulative and destructive,” her mom was saying. “Becca spent some time being bounced around to different apartments when her mother kept losing jobs and getting behind on the rent. She had to switch schools half a dozen times. But she has turned out so well, in spite of it. She’s an incredibly resilient young woman.”

  Something was ringing through her mother’s voice; something Renee had only ever heard when her mother talked about her. Pride.

  It was petty to feel jealous, Renee thought. Petty and ridiculous. It was just that she’d always been the only child; she liked being the only child. “Just one?” strangers would ask her mother in the supermarket, and Renee could never understand why their voices were tinged with pity. She thought their family of three was the perfect size. But she was the one who’d moved away. She didn’t have any right to feel temporarily replaced by her half sister.

  “That must’ve been really hard for her,” Renee said. She pushed aside her feelings and tried to think about what it would be like for a young girl in an unstable home, being transferred from school to school. She envisioned Becca standing alone on the side of the playground, watching a group of kids play tag or Red Rover, and she felt a flash of pity. “I’m glad you guys like her. I’m going to meet her, too. She’s coming to New York for a visit in a few weeks.”

  “She told us,” her mom said. Again, Renee felt that little pang. Should Becca be the one updating her mom about Renee’s life?

  “What does she look like?” Renee asked.

  “Oh, she’s very pretty. Tall and thin, with dark hair. She does mini-triathlons on weekends,” her mother said. “She was just telling me about the importance of weight training. It prevents osteoporosis, you know. She’s going to give me some hand weights!”

  A tiny little piece of Renee’s heart felt like it had been torn off. Which was ridiculous. It was just that this was all happening so fast. She’d learned of Becca’s existence only a month ago; now Becca was an established part of the family. Renee was the only one who hadn’t met her—she was suddenly the outsider.

  “Anyway, I don’t w
ant to be rude. I just left her in the kitchen,” her mom said.

  For some reason Renee imagined Becca snooping through their drawers and pantry, skimming the names in their address book, and checking out their activities on the calendar. She shook her head to clear her mind. She was acting like a five-year-old.

  “I love you, Mom,” she said.

  “Oh, honey, I love you, too. And I miss you so much.”

  Those last few words served as a healing balm to the part of Renee’s heart that seemed still stuck in kindergarten. Skinny, bean-sprout-loving Becca hadn’t replaced her.

  Renee hung up the phone, feeling unsettled. She hadn’t thought about it this way before, but she’d always envisioned her parents frozen in time back in Kansas City while her life surged ahead in New York. To this point, their routines had been quietly unremarkable—her dad worked as a mail carrier for the U.S. Postal Service, and her mom was a substitute teacher. They grilled rib eye steaks every Sunday night, saw movies on Wednesdays when the local theater had a half-price special, and clipped coupons out of the paper every Sunday. They bickered over silly things, like her father’s inability to remember to put his keys in the dish by the front door, but they never truly fought. The idea that her parents were now tangled up in something straight out of a soap opera was deeply disconcerting.

  Renee wished she’d hopped on a plane the moment she learned about Becca. She would have, except flights were so expensive. And she’d been so focused on everything happening in her own life—Naomi moving out, Trey’s sister moving in, the possible promotion—that she hadn’t fully realized what was unfolding back at home.

  Cate interrupted Renee’s thoughts with a knock on her open door. “Are you hungry?”

  “Thanks, but I already ate.” And yes, I’m freaking starving!

  “Abby’s still sleeping,” Cate said. She leaned against the doorframe and folded her arms. “Or at least I guess she is. She might just be staying in bed. I made some pancakes because I was hoping to tempt her to come out and eat.”