The old Jennifer would have probably scratched my eyes out. The new Jennifer, however, simply smiles wryly. “Let me rephrase that. If I told you I’ve been thinking about why I am the way I am, would you listen?”
“As long as you didn’t expect immediate absolution, sure, why not? Could be amusing.”
She takes another sip of water, her eyes fixed on my face. “You’re not perfect, either, you know.”
“No arguments there. But at least I never acted like I was.”
After a moment, my sister rises and crosses to the open window, removing the screen. For a second I think, ohmigod, she’s going to jump, only to realize, since she’d just land in the grassy side yard two stories below, she’d be doing well to get a broken ankle. Which would hurt. And I can’t see Jennifer willingly inflicting pain on her own person. Then she fishes a package of cigarettes out of her purse, putting up one hand when I let out a squawk.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to sully your airspace.” She lights up, settling her rear end on the window ledge, dangling the cigarette outside. Somewhere a pigeon is coughing. “I know, I know. I’ve gotta quit.”
“Did I say anything?”
“You don’t have to. Nonsmokers have it stamped on their foreheads. And I actually had, for a few months. Then my life went to hell in a handbasket.” One shoulder hitches as she takes a drag. “What can I tell you? Backsliding happens.” Her eyes scan the room. “You have any idea how much I used to hate this house?”
“You didn’t exactly keep it a secret,” I say, munching and feeling very virtuous. About the apple, I mean.
“No, I suppose not.”
“Although…I always thought it was me you hated. Not the house.”
She looks at me for a moment, then shakes her head. “I didn’t hate you, Ellie. I was jealous as hell of you.”
I nearly choke on the bite in my mouth. “Jealous? Of me? Why?”
“Because…I don’t know. Because you never seemed to be afraid of anything.”
“You’re not serious.”
“No, really. Think back, how you were always the first one to make friends with anyone new in the neighborhood, how you’d stand up to all the Scardinare boys. Even your clothes.” She waves at my outfit, a gauzy man’s Indian shirt over a black tube top (that I swear shrunk since last summer) and turquoise paperbag pants. “It takes guts to dress the way you do.”
Or poverty. But she doesn’t need to know that.
“Is that supposed to be a compliment?”
“Yeah, it is. Because ever since you were little, you’ve never given a damn what anybody else thought.” She shakes her head. “Unlike me, who’s always worried about what other people would think. Not that it ever did any good, since you were the favorite, anyway.”
Another piece of apple gets lodged in my windpipe. After I cough it up (and let this be a lesson to me: Nobody ever choked on ice cream.), I finally get out, “You are totally nuts, you know that?”
“Oh, Ellie,” Jennifer says on a sigh, “Mom and Dad always looked at me like there’d been a mix-up at the hospital. No matter what I did, I never felt like a real part of the family. Why do you think I cozied up to Nana so much?”
I resist the impulse to point out that Jen might’ve fit in more if she’d stopped with all the weird shit. And, sorry, the same goes for my grandmother. Although, if I really think about it, it’s not all that clear which of us were the “normal” ones, and which were the misfits.
“Okay, so you and Nana were different from the rest of us. But that doesn’t mean Mom and Dad didn’t love you, for God’s sake.”
“Loved me, sure. Because I was theirs. Understood me, no.”
“Is that why you acted like a brat?”
She shrugs, unoffended. “Isn’t that why most kids act like brats? To get attention? To compensate for everything they think they don’t have?”
“Compensate for what? Because…I got along with the Scardinares? Because I dressed strangely? What?”
“Because you were so damn talented, why else? Jesus, Ellie— I used to look at your sketches and want to scream, wondering why you were the brilliant one while I was so totally useless.”
For several seconds, I can’t speak. “You are nuts. Why do you think I dressed the way I did, acted the way I did? Not because I didn’t give a shit, but because I did. I’ve got news for you—it hurt, that our grandmother fawned over you and couldn’t’ve cared less about me. And that I could never figure out why. So the clothes, the attitude…don’t you get it? It was all a front! Because I couldn’t compete with my beautiful, smart, older sister on her level.”
“Oh, right!” Jen blows her smoke out the window, then lets out a dry laugh. “I was so smart that after four years of college, I’m not qualified to do a goddamn thing. So what did I do? I got married. That really worked out, huh?”
Notice how she didn’t dispute the beautiful part of my observation. But I scramble onto my knees on the bed and say, “And like my life has? I didn’t exactly plan on being a single mother, you know. Especially at twenty-two. And excuse me? What talent? No offense, but you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”
She points to her outfit, a chic, perfectly coordinated raw silk confection. Dior is my guess. Last year’s, but still.
“Okay, so you’ve got a good eye,” I grudgingly admit. “But that doesn’t mean—”
“Oh, and like somebody else designed those dresses in the basement?”
“Those were a fluke.”
“Were not.”
“Were too!”
“Were not! Oh, for Christ’s sake, what is this—the Who-Fucked-Up-More competition?”
I actually laugh. Then I crawl to the other side of the bed and sit on the edge. “Jen, look—I think it’s very nice, if a little bizarre, that you’re trying to bolster my ego like this, but nobody exactly encouraged me to pursue a design career. Nobody at FIT…not even Mama.”
After a moment, she turns back to the window. “No surprise there.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I say, even though the words are barely out of my mouth before I know exactly what she means. I hold up one hand. Yet even as I say, “Because she never got her own career off the ground?” something nags at the back of my brain, like a half-remembered dream.
“And did you ever wonder why? She was really talented, El. Don’t you remember hearing her sing?”
“Sure,” I say, although I don’t really. Not clearly. “So maybe she was trying to protect me, Jen. It’s hard, trying to make it in the arts.” But that niggling half thought is still there, just out of reach. “Besides, she never tried to talk me out of a career in fashion, just in design—”
“For God’s sake, you were only thirteen when Mom died! Don’t you think that’s a little early to be making judgment calls about someone’s prospects? Besides, you know as well as I do there are a helluva lot less talented designers with very successful careers, because they’ve got the drive and determination to make it!”
“But it takes more than that—
“Dammit, Ellie—look at me! I’ve got nothing! Nothing. All I know how to do is cook and give parties and blow jobs.” She smirks. “And apparently, I don’t even do that very well, according to Stuart. Now I have no husband, no marriage, no money and no skills.”
Seconds pass before I say, “You have your book.”
“Oh, right. My book. Talk about a piece of crap. Okay, so maybe it’s got some therapeutic value, but please. The chances of anyone actually wanting to buy it are slim to none. Whereas you have a great kid and so much talent it’s unbelievable, not to mention a man who’s crazy about you, and you’re sitting here with your thumb up your ass, not doing a damn thing about any of it. So who’s the pathetic one here, huh?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa—” I’ll deal with the “pathetic” remark later. “A man who’s crazy about me?”
“Hello? Luke?”
“That’s crazy.”
“No, you’re crazy. You’re in love with the guy, you’ve always been in love with the guy, and why the hell you let Tina move in on him, I do not know. Dammit, Ellie, I put the moves on him right in front of you, and you did nothing.”
“I did nothing because…wait—you were testing me?”
“I was bored. I thought it would be amusing. Except then I just got mad. That you can’t see what’s right smack in your face.”
I get up from the bed, my stomach roiling. “I don’t want to talk about this—”
“Which is the whole problem with this family, isn’t it?”
Almost to the door, I turn back around. “What?”
“I said, that’s the whole problem with this cockamamie family. Nobody ever wants to talk about anything. Or admit anything. Or make waves. I mean, Jesus, whatever was going on between our grandfather and this Sonja, it was pretty obvious nobody was happy about it. But it was easier to pretend that everything was fine, rather than actually doing something about the situation.”
Well, at least we’re finally back on topic. Not that it’s helping. God, I’m so confused. Life was much easier when my sister didn’t have a train of thought to keep up with.
“And what were they supposed to do? Divorce their spouses and marry each other?”
“How the hell should I know? But it would’ve been a damn sight better than living a lie!”
I angle my head at her. “You better be careful. If you get any deeper, you’re gonna drown.”
On a breathy half laugh, Jen threads one hand through her hair and sinks back onto the edge of the mattress. Then she lifts her eyes to mine. “See, it wasn’t until I could admit that Stuart’s leaving was at least partly my fault that other things began to make sense, too. Sure, maybe he only wanted a trophy wife and after ten years he got bored. And maybe I had a hard time accepting that he’d been an asshole for some time, because there were a lot of perks to being a trophy wife, even to an asshole. But maybe if I’d put more effort into my marriage, maybe if I hadn’t acted like a trophy wife, if I’d forced myself out of my comfort zone, maybe I’d still be married today. Or maybe I wouldn’t have married Stuart to begin with, or would have found the balls to leave him, and would actually have a life by now. But it’s scary on the other side, isn’t it? Who knows what sorts of monsters and icky things lurk past those boundaries?”
“That’s your problem, not mine—”
“Bullshit, Ellie. Our excuses may be different, but in the end, it all comes down to the same thing—we’re petrified of facing who we really are, because we’re both petrified of failing. Just like our mother was. And damned if she didn’t infect both of us with her fears.”
Outside, somebody walks by with a boom box so loud my teeth rattle. How it doesn’t wake Starr is beyond me, but she’s always been able to sleep through anything, even as a tiny baby. Eventually, the reverberations from hip-hop music die down, leaving in their place Jen’s words, pounding viciously inside my skull, their meaning every bit as distorted and indecipherable as the words to the rap song had been.
“But the way I figure it,” Jen’s saying, apparently oblivious to the fact that I’m falling apart over here, “I can’t get much lower than I am now. I mean, come on—coming back to live in this house again? If that’s not failure, I don’t know what is. But even though I feel like last week’s garbage, you know what? My heart’s still beating. I’m still in the game, even if I have no idea what the rules are. And I’m going to finish this book and start sending it out, because what have I got to lose? My pride? God!” She bounces up from the bed. “I feel as if I’ve been anesthetized for the past ten years, like I was living in a world that was only half-real, you know?”
She doesn’t elaborate. Thank God, since I’m way too wrung out to deal with any more of Jen’s liberated consciousness tonight. Especially since she seems hell-bent on dragging mine to the meetings right along with hers.
Now her hands are on my shoulders, her gaze locked with mine. “I realize this is about a decade too late—”
I shut my eyes. Please, God, make her go away…
“—but I’m really sorry about my wedding. Not letting you be part of it, I mean.”
What is this, double-coupon day at the Salvation Store?
“Oh,” I say.
“That’s it?”
“What do you want me to say? You treated me like crap the whole time we were growing up. In fact, you treated me like crap up until a month ago—”
“Please don’t hate me, El,” she says in a small voice. Her eyes well up. “You’re all I’ve got left.”
Do you believe this?
“I don’t want to hate you,” I say. “I never did. But I’m not all that wild about being thought of as a last resort.”
“I didn’t mean it like that!”
“Then learn to choose your words more carefully. Or reconcile yourself to the fact that this is going to take some time.”
“God. You’re really going to make me grovel, aren’t you?”
“That was the plan, yep.”
“I see.” A sigh. “I suppose that’s better than telling me to fuck off.”
Only marginally, but I don’t tell her that.
In any case, our little exchange has left my sister après-mud-pack radiant (sloughing off dead skin cells, sloughing off a couple decades worth of bad blood—all the same thing). While I, on the other hand, feel as though I tripped in the middle of the street while crossing Times Square at rush hour. And nobody noticed.
I leave her to her radiance and her book and return to my room. I should go back to work, but it ain’t gonna happen tonight. Instead, I rip off my clothes and toss on an old sleep T (sleeping nude is no longer an option when a small child pays regular visits to your bed at night), yank back the covers and collapse on my stomach across the bed, staring at Frito, who’s perched on the two-foot-high pile of discarded clothes on the only chair in my room, giving me the evil eye for having turned on the lamp and disturbed his sleep.
“So sue me. You’re supposed to be with Starr. Besides, you sleep twenty hours a day.”
He narrows his eyes. So whatcher point?
I flop onto my back to stare at the overhead light fixture, delicately frosted in cobwebs. The overhead light fixture I was supposed to change out for a ceiling fan two years ago. Where the hell is that thing, anyway? I distinctly remember buying one. And bringing it into the house. After that, it’s a blank. I suppose I should clean off the cobwebs, except the only way I can reach the fixture is to move the bed, and if I’m going to move the bed, I might as well put up the ceiling fan. Wherever it is. Except the fan blades would collect even more cobwebs than the fixture does, which means I’d have to just keep moving the bed, and that’s a pain in the butt, so maybe I should just forget about it.
I think I just solved a problem. I’m just not entirely sure what.
I let out a yelp when a large, furry, rumbling thing lands on my stomach. I lift my head—the rest of my body being pinned beneath the large, furry, rumbling thing—to see Frito massaging my belly with a goony look on his face. Apparently cotton jersey turns him on. Terrific. Now he’s in my face, letting out these strange errnking sounds and bumping my chin. Would someone please explain to me how a cat that only gets dry cat food can have fish breath?
Gingerly, I reach up to scratch his head. He actually lifts up to bump my hand, his eyes becoming slits of ecstasy as I scratch.
“What is this, reconciliation week?” Frito opens one eye, smiling that smug you-should-only-know cat grin just as my cell phone rings on my nightstand. I nearly dislocate my shoulder trying to reach it without disturbing the twenty-pound furbag settling in for the duration on my stomach.
“Hey, El. It’s me. Tina.”
I should have guessed.
chapter 22
“I can’t believe Jason’s gay,” Tina says the next night, seated across from me at one of a half dozen bistro tables crammed into three square feet of
sidewalk space in front of Pinky’s, out of deference to their smoking customers. We’ve been here for about a half hour; the heat rising from the pavement is slowing searing my butt through the tiny metal chair. I’m wearing the minimum amount of clothing I can without risking arrest, but mugginess clings to my skin like a film of exhaust-flavored Pam.
“I know. The last thing I expected him to come out with. As it were,” I add, and we both laugh.
On the surface, we’re just a couple of friends catching up, falling back into old patterns of conversation as though nothing’s changed. But it has. For me, anyway. And judging from Tina’s shredded cocktail napkin, the way her eyes never quite meet mine, my guess it has for her, too. We sound the same, we look the same, but we’ll never feel the same.
I’ve filled her in, about Leo and the childcare incident and how I’m home now, at least for the time being. I tell her about Jennifer’s moving back, but not about our most recent conversation, since I haven’t processed that one myself. I tell her about Sonja.
In her turn, Tina tells me she’s got a good job, a better job, doing payroll for some machine parts manufacturer in Jersey. And a really nice apartment. With a pool. And a washer-dryer right in the kitchen. She’s thinking about getting a dog. Something little, like one of those itty-bitty poodles or something.
Nobody’s mentioned Luke. Yet. But he’s here as surely as if he were sitting at the table with us.
A couple goes into the bar, releasing a puff of booze-scented air-conditioning. I inch my chair closer to the door, wincing as the metal seat rips the top layer of skin off the backs of my bare thighs.
“So how’s Starr?” Tina asks.
“She’s good. My sister’s staying with her tonight.”
Tina nods, then lifts one hand to toy with a strand of newly copper-highlighted hair. “And…Luke? Do you see him much?”
Ah. Bouncing my straw up and down in my Coke, I say, “Not that much, no. We’ve both been busy.”
“So…you haven’t…?”
“Haven’t what?”
“You know. Gotten together?”
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