The Never Never Sisters

by L. Alison Heller

“Thanks for letting us stay here.”

  “Of course.” It wasn’t her fault. It really wasn’t, and she certainly wasn’t the monster I remembered, but since the trip, every time I saw Sloane, I wanted to run away. She had a roughness around the edges, a misplaced intensity, that made me anxious. “How long do you think you’ll be staying?”

  “Are you mad about something?”

  “No.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, I feel like—” I put down the cotton ball. “I feel like you’re not totally with me on the Dave thing.”

  “Actually, I’m all for you getting to the bottom of it.”

  “Exactly. You’re a little too with me that way.”

  “Don’t fall into the trap, Paige.”

  “The trap?”

  “The sweep-everything-under-the-rug trap.” Her eyes got a little crazy. “The accept-what-you’re-given trap. The don’t-ask-questions trap.”

  “See, I feel like those are all concerns that might apply to you and your”—I wiggled my fingers, grasping for the right word—“dynamic. But they aren’t necessarily helpful here. You’re projecting.” That was it. That was the right word: “projecting.”

  She gaped.

  “It’s very common.”

  “You’re in denial. Also very common.”

  “I’m not. I’m not saying things in my life are perfect, Sloane. Or that I wasn’t trying to find out what really happened, but you have to agree—it’s between me and Dave, right?”

  “Yep.”

  “I only just met you, and Dave has been my family for years.” I could tell I had hurt her. “I’m not trying to make you feel bad, Sloane. I’m trying to explain. I have to go about this in a way that makes sense to me, okay?”

  She raised one shoulder and set her jaw.

  “Let’s change the subject. Are you and Giovanni bringing a change of clothes to boat day? I don’t know if I should, but it’s not like we’re going swimming, right?”

  “Boat day sounds like hell.”

  “You’re going, though, right? You and Giovanni?”

  She didn’t respond.

  “You’re going to boat day, Sloane.” I kept my voice even. “What were you just saying about sweeping things under the rug?”

  My phone started to ring and shake on the bathroom counter. Lucy. “I’ve got to take this.”

  Sloane gave another half shrug and stalked out, pissed. “I’m not trying to be mean, just honest,” I called after her.

  “Hey, Luce.” With my free hand, I saturated a cotton ball in toner and dabbed at my face. “What’s happening?”

  “Where are you? This week is almost over!”

  It was easier to not get into it. “I’m going to have to push things back.”

  “Why? Come out! It’s getting boring.”

  “Really?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Maybe in a couple of weeks when my sister leaves. There’s some weird stuff going on here.”

  “With her?”

  “Yeah.” I tossed the cotton ball in the trash and tried to sound casual. “And with Dave.”

  “Such as?”

  “He’s got work stress, I guess.”

  She sighed. “They’re always stressed.”

  “I guess. He won’t talk about it. It kind of . . . worries me a little. I want him to open up.”

  “They don’t have it easy. . . .”

  “Who?”

  “You know, the Daves of the world, spending all their time in pressure-cooker office cubbies.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Poor guy. Cut him some slack.”

  Once I hung up, I popped my head outside, hoping to smooth things over with dinner choices, but the TV was off and the door to the office was closed. The only one out there was Bandito, curled up on the couch asleep with his head tucked into his crotch, little breaths inflating his body. I patted his head, but disappointingly, he didn’t look up at me, even though I desperately wanted the same liquid-eyed approval he’d granted to everything else I’d thrown at him that day.

  chapter thirty-eight

  ON BOAT DAY, I woke up with seventeen minutes to spare before the car was due to arrive and whisk us to New York Harbor. I rushed through getting dressed to find that everyone was ready and waiting for me in the living room. Dave stood right outside the kitchen, inexplicably holding a coffeepot upside down.

  “Bummer,” he said, filling me in. “We forgot to get more beans.”

  “We,” I knew, meant “me.” “Sorry,” I said. “I meant to. It just got—”

  “That’s okay. It’s been a weird week.”

  Sloane and Giovanni were silent, and a stranger might have blamed this on the early hour and the lack of beans, but the way Sloane was avoiding my eyes, I knew those weren’t her reasons.

  “So we were thinking,” continued Dave, “we should go to the coffee shop first.”

  “No time. I still have to pack sunscreen and stuff.”

  “We’ll run out.” Sloane seemed eager to leave. “Just have the car stop to pick us up.” And they were gone.

  Dave handed me his sunglasses and a book to put in the bag. My stomach did a little twist; the book was about the Mike Milken insider trading scandal.

  “Are you okay?” Dave put the back of his hand on my forehead.

  “Fine.” I slipped them both in my tote. Fine. Fine. Fine.

  Once again, Dave cast himself in the role of group elder. He insisted on getting in the front seat of the town car so the three of us had enough room in the back. Giovanni was squashed in the middle between Sloane and me, but he wasn’t enough of a barrier for our wordless cool. It felt familiar, the sulky brooding, and I wondered if this was how we had fought growing up—surely we fought growing up?—more cold war than skirmish. It might have been, or it could have been a side effect of my not knowing why I was mad, just that I was. I had no words.

  “Do you guys know about this boat?” Dave leaned his head to direct his voice to the backseat. His attempts at conversation, his sunny good nature, only inflated my anger at being the bad guy. Why was I the bad guy? It was so unfair.

  “No,” Giovanni said. “Tell us about the boat.”

  “It belongs to some sultan.”

  “Of what?”

  “Something in the Middle East. We should expect gold toilets.”

  “Cool.”

  Awkward silence. Dave tried again. “Giovanni, your first time meeting Vanessa and Frank?”

  “Yep.”

  “Oh boy.”

  “Any tips?”

  “No, I’m just teasing. They’re great. You’ll love them.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “And the Rabinowitzes too. They’re great. Like family.”

  I tried not to snort. Like family. What did that mean anyway? Because I’d been avoiding my mother’s calls, Dave had passed along the news to me that the Rabinowitz clan was included on our family boat trip. “She says she’s been having trouble reaching you, but she wanted to make sure you were prepared.”

  Prepared for what? I was finally seeing her passive-aggressive pattern: information disguised as a lure for more facts. It’d been a few days since she’d seen Sloane, and she was starving for contact; right now she was probably riffling through prepared note cards on Giovanni, like a talk show host before a big interview, poring over the small details I’d told her days ago—his curly hair, his Italian heritage, his aptitude with computers, the existence of Bandito. I would not have been surprised if she’d decorated the sultan’s boat in red, white and green and posted “Benvenuto!”

  She hadn’t. As we pulled up to the harbor and got out of the car, it was clear that decorating the whole yacht would’ve been
impossible without a staff and the contents of at least two Party City stores. The vessel was huge, bright white with darkened sleek windows. The four of us stood on the concrete borders of the harbor, straining our necks to take in the whole thing, which bobbed along, dwarfing the smaller yachts like they were matchbox boats.

  My mom waved down at us from somewhere above. “Hello, landlubbers!”

  “Hello.” Dave was the only one who waved back. We stepped down into the living area single file and were immediately handed freshly squeezed orange juice by a white-gloved expressionless gentleman who ushered us up the left side of a double-curved staircase.

  My mom was waiting at the top. Her pupils moved back and forth between us as if following a speeding train until they settled on Giovanni.

  “Mrs. Reinhardt—”

  “Vanessa, please.”

  “Vanessa, thank you so much for including me.”

  “We’re just so happy to—who’s this?”

  Giovanni gestured to the rat-sized head poking out of his tote bag. “This is Bandito. Hope you don’t mind we brought him along.”

  “Not at all. I love dogs.” She stroked under his chin. “His eyes are so intelligent. So soulful.”

  I did snort then, pulling Dave’s arm over to where Binnie propped herself up on a lounge chair, little bare lump of stomach sticking out of her bikini. She removed her earbuds.

  “Where’s Mike?” Dave asked.

  “Home with the kids. Our sitter’s sick, and he has golf tomorrow, so I came alone.”

  “Why didn’t you bring them?”

  She gave me a skeptical look. “You don’t bring little kids on a boat, Paige. Safety.”

  “Isn’t that what life preservers are for?”

  “Oh, Paige.” She laughed as though I’d suggested we hook ’em to a pole and make shark bait. With her index fingers she pushed her earbuds back in her ears.

  “So, that’s the fiancé?” Cherie had bustled over and pointed toward my mom, Sloane and Giovanni, who were all clustered around Bandito. My dad had joined them, having materialized from somewhere, and Giovanni was shaking his hand, as Sloane pinned herself against his left arm, her body twisted away from them.

  “That’s him.”

  “Give me the dirt.”

  “He’s been staying with us.” Dave offered this up. “He likes games.”

  “Games? What does that mean? Like manipulations?”

  “No, literally games,” I said. “Like Bananagrams.”

  “What’s Bananagrams?” Darren asked.

  “Something with letters on squares like Scrabble, I think. We haven’t played it yet.”

  “What does that mean, ‘He likes games’?” Cherie was talking to herself. “Is he simple?”

  “He’s not simple. You’ll like him,” I said. “He’s polite, sickeningly into Sloane and very easy to get along with.”

  “Oh. Good,” Cherie said. “So, you think she’s doing okay?”

  “I guess.”

  “What’s with the sulky tone?” She regarded me sharply. Cherie had never been one of those grown-ups who felt uncomfortable disciplining another’s kid. I’d been staying with them the time I got in trouble for talking back to a teacher in health class—see Percy, that was my minor rebellion stage, lasting all of thirty minutes—and she’d grounded me for three days. “I thought you all were on a bonding spree.”

  “No sulky tone.” There was, I realized, no way to claim your tone wasn’t sulky without sounding defensive or sulky, and Cherie looked unconvinced, so I excused myself, bag still over my shoulder, to find the gold toilet.

  Downstairs there was a living area with couches and an open kitchen where three people in chef jackets were preparing food. One of them looked up as I walked downstairs. “Can I help you with anything, miss?”

  “Ladies’ room?”

  He pointed me down the hall. The bathroom was large with small appliances—metal, not gold, and a weird flusher. No matter how much money you had, I guessed, a boat loo was a boat loo. I wandered into the living area and ran my finger over the book spines on the shelf. I opened the cabinet and stood back, counting the board games (twenty). They had everything—Pictionary, Scattergories, Trivial Pursuit—heaven for Giovanni.

  My phone rang and, surprised at getting reception, I picked it up.

  “I would like to speak to Paige Reinhardt, relationship counselor.” The voice was girlish.

  “This is she.”

  “I, well, we—my girlfriend and I—would like to make an appointment. We’re not married. But there are just some issues.” She giggled, nervously. “Rather big issues.”

  “That’s okay. You don’t have to be married to work on the relationship.”

  She gave a pleased little tinkle of a laugh. “I guess not.”

  “Who is this, by the way?”

  “Oh, sorry. My name is Selena Richards.”

  The Selena? “How did you get my name?”

  “Percy Stahl.”

  The sprig of inappropriate hope that I’d felt hearing her name bloomed into elation. “Great!” And then, because that sounded a little too enthusiastic, “It’s always nice to get a referral.”

  My cheeks flushed while we made arrangements for the next day and when I hung up, I realized Dave had come into the room at some point and was watching me carefully.

  “How’s it going upstairs?” I said.

  “Fine.”

  “Is there any cross-pollination?”

  “Between factions? Everyone’s pretty much doing their own thing. Although your mom keeps trying to talk to Sloane and Giovanni.”

  “How’s that going?”

  “Kind of sad. I actually have to make some calls.” He grimaced. “You think I can get reception in here?”

  “I did. The room is yours.”

  When I walked back upstairs, no one acknowledged my return to the group. I sat down on a chaise lounge that allowed me to turn away from my mother’s pathetic attempts to bond with Sloane and started flipping through one of the fashion magazines I’d brought. Other than Dave’s popping up now and again before returning downstairs for calls, I could have been at a luxury hotel, on a beach full of strangers. I kept reading, until at some point one of the kind uniformed men bent low enough to block my sun and informed me that it was lunchtime.

  Most of the group was already at the table, so I pulled out the chair next to Dave. Poor Giovanni—Darren was grilling him about his job, which seemed to be all anyone ever wanted to talk to him about. No wonder the guy found refuge in games.

  Dave swung his head toward me and winked. I winked back.

  It was good we were going out tonight. It was just what we needed, to rekindle. That’s what I was thinking, so I didn’t even hear Binnie’s entire question, just Giovanni’s response, my attention lured by the mention of my name.

  “The best host. Paige has been so generous even though we must be wreaking havoc with her schedule.”

  “Her schedule?” Binnie laughed. “I’m sure it’s no problem. Where are you staying? In the never-quite-renovated guest room? If you want a real room, you’re welcome to stay with us.”

  It wasn’t the worst thing she’d ever said by far. Had it come from Lucy, I would have laughed. But contents under pressure don’t take much to explode, and Sloane, whose face I couldn’t have seen unless we both leaned forward at the same time, said, “God, Binnie.” She spat the word “Binnie” as if it were a type of disease. “Were you always this fucking rude?”

  Binnie’s face colored, and my mom jumped in, her voice soothing. “It’s okay, Sloane. Paige is fine with it, right, Paige?”

  “God. You are the worst. Just look at her.” At Sloane’s direction, all faces turned toward me and, although shocked, I gave a fee
ble smile. “Is that the expression of someone who’s fine with it? I’ve only been back for a little bit, but to me it’s clear as a bell. Paige is not fucking fine. But whatever, Vanessa. We know you only acknowledge the facts that fit into your little narrative.”

  Dave’s mouth made an O, and he quickly covered it with his hand, presumably to stop himself from humming “Sunday Bloody Sunday.”

  “Enough.” Cherie put her silverware down. “Enough. It’s not okay to talk to your mother that way.”

  “And it’s not too late to teach your perfect daughter some basic manners,” Sloane parried. Giovanni put a hand on her arm—I wasn’t sure whether it was to calm her or support her. “And either you don’t really know my mother, or you don’t care that she’s a fraud. I don’t know which is worse. But we’re not talking about that now. We’re talking about Paige, and she is not fine.”

  “Paige,” said Cherie, “tell her you’re fine.”

  “Paige.” Dave nudged me.

  “Paige is just fine.” My mom said this so definitively that it pissed me off.

  “How would you even know?” I didn’t think before I said it, and her head snapped back as if from a slap. She didn’t look at me, though. She looked, worriedly, at Sloane for a long time. I watched her for a few moments, my anger ticking down until I shouted it again. “How would you even know? Why ask me when you could tell me? When you can just decide yourself?”

  They all had the same expression—dumb and confused, and it whipped my anger into peaks. I could have cannonballed off that over-the-top boat right into the Long Island Sound. I could have climbed the mast and rained lightning down on them like Zeus for the rest of the trip. Instead, I retreated to the lower level. Midway down the stairs, Sloane caught up to me and grabbed the sleeve of my cover-up. “That was fantastic. Did you see her face?”

  I didn’t say anything, just kept walking downstairs. “Hey,” she said. “Stop.”

  I turned around, level with her elbow. “What?”

  “I’m so proud of you. For finally standing up to them.”

  “Why are you even here, Sloane? I’m maddest at myself for letting a stranger shake up my life.”

  I didn’t wait to hear her response.