“Yes.”
“So sit tight. We can think of something then.”
“Okay.” Sloane pushed open the door to the patio and gestured that I should come in; I gestured that she should come out instead.
“What did he say?”
“I asked him if I should try to break into Dave’s firm tonight, and he said no.”
“Seriously?”
“This whole thing is making me crazy.”
“I like that idea. Can you do it?”
“I think so.”
“I totally would.”
“Percy said not to.”
“It’s your life, not his. No one’s going to care about it as much as you.”
“True.”
“Plus, it’s sort of his fault anyway. He’s the one who scheduled your first real meeting tomorrow.”
“Come on. It’s not Percy’s fault.”
“So.” She raised one pointed brow, and I instantly wished I could do the same. “How would you do it?”
“Borrow Dave’s key card, go to his office, look around, leave.”
“Hmm.”
“Suggestions?”
“What about the office of that woman you told me he met with?”
“The HR person?”
“Exactly. Maybe she has notes or something.”
“Good idea.”
“You should totally do it.”
“Maybe I will.”
“Check you out.” She grabbed my shoulder, and I smelled the whiff of tobacco on her fingers. “Nerves of steel. Oh, and if they ask inside, you were calling the acupuncture place.”
“The what?” But she was already pushing open the door to go inside.
“Dave and I didn’t know you were doing acupuncture.” My mom looked at me, impressed, as I pulled out my chair and spooned some yogurt into my bowl. Dave shrugged with an I-just-pay-the-bills face that I knew my father would appreciate. “So what’d she say?”
Sloane’s expression was neutral as usual. “She said she has some openings tonight.”
“Tonight?” My mom frowned. “She’s open on Saturday night?”
“Yep.”
“I wish I could go,” said my mom. “Not that I’d invite myself along but . . . we have plans anyway. With Cherie and the Weavers.” My dad blinked once slowly and sighed. Not those bloody Weavers. My mom ignored him. “Oh!”
“What?” I said.
“How does everyone feel about boats?”
“About what?”
“Boats!”
Sloane shrugged. “Extremely whatever.”
“Well, Dad and I were thinking about something fun we could all do—you know, while we’re all together. Someone he knows through work has a boat.”
“It’s bigger than a boat, Van. It’s a yacht.”
“We thought we could rent it for the day for all of us?” No one responded. “Great! And Sloane . . .”
“What?” It was a short, sharp syllable.
“Why not invite your . . .”
“Invite Giovanni.” I had no patience for the awkward moment that was brewing. “You should.”
Sloane’s shoulders mini-jerked noncommittally.
“We’ll set it all up, then.” My mom paused. “Does it work?”
“Does what work?”
“Acupuncture.”
“Mom, I don’t know yet.”
“I’ve heard it does. What are you doing it for anyway?”
“Seasickness,” Sloane said, straight-faced.
“She’s kidding,” I said, jumping in to stave off the hand-wringing and hair-tearing. “Tell her you’re kidding.”
Sloane lifted one shoulder. “Curiosity.”
“What?” my mom said.
“That’s why we’re doing acupuncture.” Sloane’s eyes were innocent. “To cure curiosity.”
When I choked on a grape, Dave patted my back. “You okay?” he said, but no one had seemed to have any problems with Sloane’s explanation.
chapter twenty-five
Vanessa
LUCKILY, CHERIE AND Darren had gotten to the restaurant first. I made Frankie slip his credit card to the maître d’ to avoid any future awkwardness—the last time the Weavers had insisted on a whole long discussion about the bill: who drank what and who didn’t get an appetizer and who’d tasted a tiny sliver of someone else’s meat dish. We needed three calculators and an abacus to get out of there.
Pride is so silly. If I had known someone rich during the many, many years I was “financially challenged,” as Frankie called it, I would have let them pay for everything.
“Listen.” I put my hand on Cherie’s arm. “Pretend we’re taking you out for your birthday.”
“My birthday is in November.”
“I know it is. To avoid a scene. About the bill. Like last time.”
“Oh!” She dipped her head, playing bashful. “Well, thank you very much.”
“Many happy returns.” I smiled.
“What time do we have to leave for the play?” Darren chewed an ice cube.
“No idea.” Frankie grabbed his water glass with his full hand and gulped. What was it with those two? As if we’d arrived from the desert instead of a town car.
“We have plenty of time to eat,” Cherie said. “What’s the issue?”
“The play is always at eight,” I said. “Every Saturday night performance we’ve ever gone to, the play is at eight. How does this not sink in?”
“It’s not about having time to eat,” Darren explained. “I’m trying to figure out if it will have cooled down when we have to go outside.”
“No,” I said. “It won’t have cooled down. It will be miserable. Anyway,” I said, directing this to Cherie, “guess where they are.”
“Who’s where?” Darren said.
“Where?” Cherie talked over him.
“Acupuncture. Together. On a Saturday night.”
“That’s great!”
“Great? That’s weird,” Darren said. “Who goes to acupuncture on a Saturday night?”
“Bonding sisters,” Frankie said.
“Oh—Paigey T. and Sloane?” Darren nodded, supportive. “That is great.”
“They’re spending a lot of time together.”
“Wonderful,” said Cherie. “But just you wait. It will start to hurt your feelings at some point—how little they want to be with you.”
“Aw.” Darren reached across the table and rubbed her shoulder. “Poor mom.”
“I’m sure.” I sipped my sparkling water. It would never hurt my feelings to be left out. Like I said, pride is silly. Plus, this was my victory, and it had been so easy to bring them together.
If I’m being honest, being Sloane’s mother has somewhat exhausted me. Just the mental hoops I’ve jumped through, the constant uncertainty: Do I give her space? Do I fly across the country in an attempt to track her down? Where does my life end and hers begin? The answers are never as clear as they seem in self-help books.
Therapists love to tell you that you’re not responsible for everything. This is crap; there is no overestimating the importance of how a parent’s behavior affects a child.
People who grew up with parental support can’t know that without it, childhood feels like being handed a novel with the first three chapters ripped out and then directed to participate in class discussions. I know this because I’ve experienced both.
The partial-novel thing—sixty pages ripped out—happened to me in eleventh grade with Oliver Twist, and while I eventually read the whole thing, to this day whenever anyone mentions Charles Dickens, I feel lost and stressed.
The growing-up-without-parental-support thing happened from birth
. I conjured an imaginary little brother, Al, and clung to him straight through junior high. On a daily basis, I’d help Al get ready for school. I’d tell him when the farina was cool enough. We’d play solitaire, Al and I. I’d nag him to do homework. (I’m glad there was no Al, though. That hint of comfort and companionship might have turned us placid. We’d have wasted our energy licking our wounds instead of planning an exit strategy.)
Sloane has always pushed back from whatever head start I try to establish for her. It kills me—how could she not understand how much easier it could all be? I have longed to give her the CliffsNotes I’ve given to Paige: this is what a good husband looks like; that is the education you need; this is what life can be. Instead, it’s as though she barely scanned the back cover of the anthology I had printed just for her, and then, for no reason at all, threw the whole thing in the trash.
But I can appreciate that Sloane has used all that anger at me to propel herself forward. She’s so pissed at her lot in life that she’s managed to stand alone, just like I did.
She doesn’t see the connection between us, but it’s there: she’s my path not taken into darkness, the positive to my negative. Maybe she and I can never peacefully exist; maybe Sloane needs to pull herself away from me because without the string tension I provide, she’d fall slack.
chapter twenty-six
THAT SUMMER I was not so distracted by what my mother hadn’t divulged that I’d forgotten one of the things she had: when you’re doing something bold, trick yourself into thinking you’re doing something ordinary.
She had taught me this before my first day of first grade, when we’d moved neighborhoods into a new school district and I didn’t know anyone. I don’t remember Sloane—she must have been off somewhere stamping her fruit. What I remember is my mother turning around from the front seat of our wood-paneled wagon. “This is very brave what you’re doing,” she said. “New things are hard, but you want to know the secret to making them easy? Act like starting school is just no big deal, and you’ll fake your brain into thinking it’s true.”
No big deal is what I thought when I fished through Dave’s wallet, left out on the counter in the kitchen, to lift his Duane Covington ID.
No big deal is what I thought when I knocked on the bathroom door a little before seven thirty and told him I was heading out.
“Getting closer to cracking the case?”
I pulled on a cardigan to give myself time before asking, “What?”
“Why Sloane hates you all so much. You were wrong about the tension, by the way. From what I saw at breakfast, things are not better.”
“I wasn’t wrong. She’s changing.”
“Granted, she doesn’t seem to hate you. But your parents”—he shivered—“you could cut that with a knife. Maybe she’ll tell you why. Maybe you can ask her tonight at acupuncture.”
“I think we each get our own room.”
“Oh, Paige.” He whistled a song I immediately recognized—“My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It).” I was sure he was trying to be cute, but it made me want to give him the finger.
The first time I broke into Duane Covington—with Dave’s permission—I worried through the whole thing. What if I brought home the wrong document? What if the security guards caught me and gave me a hard time? What if I bumped into someone who knew I didn’t belong there? The worry was for naught—getting in was easy; I appeared to fit in so much that the guard didn’t even raise his head when I passed through the turnstile. I’d wandered through the spookily empty firm until I found Dave’s office, grabbed the fifty-pound document and lugged the thing home, triumphant.
No big deal, I thought, as I walked down Madison to Fifty-ninth Street. Duane Covington’s lobby cast a cool white glow through the glass wall of windows. From across the plaza, fifty feet away, the dark-uniformed security guard looked like one character typed on a blank sheet of paper—one ominous character. Dave was suspended, I remembered right then; the magnetized ID card I’d lifted from his wallet earlier, which now sat curled up in my sweaty palm, might not work. I could use it, and the light box lobby would swarm with dark-uniformed guards—an alphabet soup. I almost turned around.
I was sure the security guard noticed that my smile was lopsided. I was sure he heard my heart beating as I palmed Dave’s photo and held the card just so against the blinking red light on the turnstile. Waiting. Waiting.
He rustled, and I shifted the card to the right a little.
Magic.
The turnstiles opened and I walked quickly, sighing, now cool enough to pretend to be an overworked associate drawn into the office on a Saturday night. I was in, and that’s when I thought, No big deal, and started to believe it.
I took the elevator up to the twentieth floor, to the office of Hedda Brynn, human resources director, the one who had been in Dave’s meeting. It had been easy to find out—a quick flip through the pages of Dave’s directory.
The double frosted-glass doors separating the elevator banks from the offices were locked, so I pressed Dave’s key card against the black thing blinking with a stern red light: Darth Vader’s mezuzah. There was a click, the red dot turned an inviting green, and I was in the hall, the low fluorescent lights illuminating the corridor to a dull shade of gray.
Hedda’s hallway was empty, and only one other office light was on, the occupant’s jean jacket draped on the back of her chair. I pressed down on the long, matte silver doorknob until I felt the gentle click of release and then pushed against Hedda’s door with my shoulder, stepping into total darkness. My eyes adjusted in a few seconds, helped by the skyscraper lights outside and a huge neon sign, its red light straining through the closed shades. A mechanical whir, the sound of something starting up, caused me to freeze. An alarm? Had I triggered something? Footsteps passed in front of the door, and I heard paper shuffling. A printer.
I waited for silence, forcing myself to count to one hundred and eighty as my eyes skirted around the office. The red light gave the room an Amsterdam feel, until I saw the panda bears. Hedda Brynn was a fan, apparently; they were everywhere—smiling from framed pictures on her wall and playfully posing on her calendar.
The file cabinet against her wall, dotted with panda magnets, was locked, as was the top desk drawer. The bottom drawers were open but useless: multicolored files, blank employment forms, rubber bands in a ball, staplers.
I sank down in Hedda’s chair, my lower back supported by a chair pad with a panda bear patch sewn onto it. Hedda obviously had not seen the nature documentary Dave and I had watched that spring: pandas looked cute, we learned, but they were capable of murder. Or maybe she knew that. Maybe Hedda selected panda collectibles instead of, say, bunnies, as a threat to those rule breakers nervously bouncing their legs in her guest chairs.
My momentum for the mission was obviously fading. I rested my hands on Hedda’s desk, and my left one landed on something soft—a file folder that I’d mistaken for part of the blotter.
I skimmed the handwritten notes inside—they were barely legible, all written in a bubbly script in some sort of shorthand. About halfway through I saw it: one sheet. June 30, DT/AP Annie P. DT. NS? Hour meeting, 3 x. notified corp. dept. (phone), Stuben (phone). Implement handbook policy.
DT—Dave’s initials—and the date was one day before his breakdown, so I copied it into the little notepad I had brought.
What else, what else? My eyes darted around for a minute. All I saw was an army of thug pandas, eyes narrowed and claws bared at me.
I opened the door, peeked out and bolted toward the elevator bank, riding it down to the lobby. When the doors opened, I was still charged with adrenaline, so I didn’t get out. I pressed the button for twenty, and as I did, Dave called my cell phone. I hit the IGNORE button and pressed twenty again.
I walked there quickly, just as he had twelve days before. I half exp
ected yellow police tape around his door, but his office looked like all the others, just a shade neater. He had a magnifying glass on the desk (really, Dave?), clean legal pads stacked on top and two photos, one of us from our wedding—our walk back down the aisle, fingers entwined—and his favorite of me, the one from our Bermuda trip, where my sunglasses sat atop my head and my hair had streaks of bright blond from the sun.
I opened the desk drawers. Blank notepads, everything neat in its place. In the top desk drawer, there was a notepad, dated from last week, with Dave’s squared-off handwriting.
I was about to leave when I decided, for good measure, to go through the Redweld folders leaned against his windowsill. They were labeled, typed italicized titles declaring the matter on the back tab. Messinger Co. Frederick Trust. And then, three in a row: Mission Bank. Mission Bank. Mission Bank.
It took a moment to sink in.
And then, in a relentless whoosh, it did. My legs buckled at the knees and I flopped down to the floor, my legs splayed in front of me like those of some six-year-old’s Barbie Doll. I sat for a moment staring at the frayed beige carpet before forcing myself into frantic action. I opened the folders, flipping past e-mail and binders and organizational flow charts and Dave’s handwritten notes. I couldn’t have understood them if I’d had limitless time, and I finally bolted, bumping into one person on the way back to the elevator bank, a guy so riveted by something on his phone that he didn’t even look up.
I felt safe only when I was out on the plaza. I sat at one of the white metal tables for a beat, looking for Sloane, who was supposed to meet me there. I checked my phone. There was a text from an unknown number—hi cab we taincjek? For a moment I tried to find some meaning: did I know anyone who spoke Serbian? Was it a botched autocorrection? Clients sometimes sent late-night flares, but I had my limits—tonight, if they couldn’t bother to self-identify, I wasn’t about to reply. No, I decided, no “hi cab we taincjek.” At least not right now.
I texted Sloane and waited for a moment, but she didn’t write back, which miffed me a little, given how involved she’d made herself. Whatever. This was probably how Sloane operated, either coming on strong or disappearing completely.
The Never Never Sisters Page 15