Warren rubbed his chin’s day old stubble. “The only thing you can ever assume about our dear sister is that she has one priority: herself. Find Karla’s sanctuary, and you’ll find a phone, a computer, and no doubt a full bar because that bitch used to drink like a fish.”
Jenna snapped her fingers, arousing her siblings from their private thoughts. “The bar!” They both stared at her blankly. “Tappy’s Tavern! Mitch and Anne would sneak up there all the time when they were teenagers. Remember Dad caught them once and freaked out?”
“I don’t remember that,” said Chrissie.
“That’s because you were too little,” snapped Jenna, annoyed at Chrissie’s passive aggressive habit of always pulling focus.
“I hate being too little.”
“Ignorance is bliss in this family. Trust me.” Warren shot a dismissive hand in her direction while she sulked.
Jenna glanced towards the front door. “I bet that’s where they are.”
“This early in the morning?” said Warren, “Even for hardcore alkies, that’s extreme.”
Jenna thought for a moment. “Well, it’s worth a try. I’ll hike up there today and ask if anybody’s seen them.”
Warren snapped his fingers, energized by the plan. “Good idea. And I’ll nose around and see if I can find a key to that room.”
“What about me?” Chrissie whined.
Jenna sighed and turned towards Chrissie. “You find out where Karla is staying on the property.”
“How?”
“Christ Chrissie, use your brain. Follow her!”
Chrissie faced Jenna, her chin quivering. “Something I want to work out in therapy today is why you are always so fucking mean to me!” She brushed past them and headed towards her room, her footsteps scuffing down the hall, followed by the muted slam of her bedroom door.
Warren snickered, moving to the breakfast buffet. “Nice one, Jenna.”
“Shut up, Warren!”
“Excuse me!” He spun to face her.
“You’ve been nothing but an asshole since we got here! Now Mitch and Anne are missing and Chrissie’s pissed! The least you can do is try to be a little understanding.”
Warren set down his coffee cup, his face reddening. “Like you’ve been, Miss 24/7 period lady?”
A hoarse laugh escaped from Jenna’s throat. "What's that supposed to mean?" It’s been years since their last big fight, and Jenna felt them both ramping up for a good one.
Warren took a step towards her, an ugly sneer forming on his lips. “Have you looked in the mirror lately, honey? Those lines between your eyes are begging for a shot of Botox. If you haven’t made it as an actress by now, you can forget it!”
“What does that have to do with anything?” Her voice jumped an octave.
“It has to do with everything about you, Jenna, and why you’re such a miserable cunt to everyone.”
Before she could catch herself, Jenna pushed Warren’s chest with both hands and shouted, “Shut the fuck up!”
He stumbled back a few steps, nearly toppling onto the buffet. Anger replaced the look of shock on his face as he lunged at Jenna, catching one of her wrists in his hand. “You shut up, bitch!”
They were grappling like two kids in a schoolyard fight when Karla, wearing a fresh outfit, appeared in the foyer next to Dr. Weiss. “Therapy time,” she said, observing her warring siblings with barely concealed amusement.
And as if caught with their pants down, Warren and Jenna parted and retreated childishly to opposite corners of the room.
* * *
The towering grandfather clock, one of the lodge’s treasured antiques, patiently recorded the two-hour therapy session. For Warren each tick-tock was an eternity. He had resigned himself to participate in this chicanery for the money. Not that he and Peter weren’t well-off thanks to his book, but the extra million would buy the second home they craved, and allow Peter more flex-time with his job as a city social worker. Warren had his doubts about Karla’s offer, but like Jenna, he decided to make the best of it, even if it meant suffering under Karla’s intense gaze as they sat facing each other, their knees practically touching for two hours straight.
Dr. Weiss formed an apex between the two siblings and patiently led them through an exercise called coming clean. Karla was wrapping up an emotional monologue directed at Warren. From the look of his ashen face and crumbling posture, the exercise was far from therapeutic—for him.
Jenna sat in a far corner of the room, hoping that no one would notice her presence. Despite their recent squabble, the old compassion she felt for Warren, especially when he was cast in the role of underdog, welled up in her like a rising tide. How could Karla participate in something that was obviously so hurtful, and yet be so oblivious to the pain she was inflicting? Easy, Jenna thought, she’s Karla. Warren’s earlier words had stung her, but she also knew that he was right.
Her career, or non-career at this point, was nothing but a tired affectation, a screen she held up to the world and herself in the guise of endless auditions and interesting projects she was excited to work on—none ever paying. She had indeed started working in real estate helping out a guy she met (ironically at an acting class) showing apartments for him in her free time that lately had been most of the time. He was married with kids, and an affair between them seemed inevitable. But Jenna had been down that road too many times. She didn’t want someone else’s seconds. She wanted her own life. And what better way to start fresh than with a million dollar nest egg? As crackpot as this therapy session appeared to her, Jenna made up her mind to be a good soldier for the next twenty-nine days. But she wondered if Warren would survive it. Karla always seemed to take a certain glee in his emotional distress.
Today was no exception. In fact, from the looks of it Karla was just getting started, hitting Warren right below the belt with decades’ old shit he had pulled, most of it related to his drug and alcohol problems and lack of a solid career. Jenna was astounded to hear how many times Karla had bailed him out financially. As Warren uttered no denials during the emotional auto-da-fé, Jenna assumed most of it was true.
Chrissie sat on one of the low sofas before the cold embers of the fire, focusing on the exercise, and occasionally taking notes. After a quick cry in her room earlier she had dried her tears and returned when the session began, calmly informing Jenna she hoped the intensive therapy would help bring some healing to their obvious conflicts. Jenna shuddered at the thought.
“I am angry with you, Warren, for betraying me,” Karla said, her voice quavering. “When you wrote that book telling all those horrible lies about me, I hated you. I hated you so much, but I want you to know that I forgive you now. I forgive you, Warren. And that’s not about freeing you. It’s about freeing me because I don’t want this anger inside me. I release it, Warren, I release it back to you.”
A deep sigh escaped from Karla’s rouged lips. Her body relaxed as Dr. Weiss gently guided her shoulders back into the chair. Warren glanced around the room with a look that communicated, can you believe this shit?
“Maintain eye contact with Karla, please.” Dr. Weiss’ spoke to Warren like a strict schoolmaster. “Do you have a response?”
“Yes, Dr. Weiss,” Warren stated, calmly. “I do have something to say.”
The chair creaked under Dr. Weiss’ weight as he excitedly moved in closer, licking his thick lips. “Go on, Warren.”
Warren took Karla’s hand in his while she eyed him cautiously from beneath her long, black lashes. “Just wondering, Dr. Weiss. How did you get her skin to look so young? Look at her hands! You must be a genius.” He held up her hand to the light. It was as smooth and plump as a young girl’s, the perfectly manicured nails enhanced by her fine jewelry. Karla frowned, snatching away her hand and placing it in her lap.
Dr. Weiss took on a scolding tone. “Please Warren. You mustn’t be afraid to express yourself.”
“My response is this.” Warren’s voice was calm as looked Karla s
traight in the eye. “I don’t care whether you forgive me or not. Everything I wrote in my book is true. I know it upset you, but maybe you need to face the truth about yourself.”
“And what is that, brother dear?” Karla challenged.
Warren moved his face very close to hers, his eyes unblinking. “The truth, sister dear, is that underneath this plastic exterior of perfection, you’re a bitter, dried-up, old whore, and I despise you! There! I’ve expressed myself!”
Jenna’s jaw dropped. Chrissie looked down at her hands. The grandfather clocked ticked away a few seconds, then Karla, seemingly impervious to the verbal assault, shrugged. “Well, I feel a lot better now that we’ve gotten that out. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to have a rest before this evening’s activity.”
Chrissie jumped at the chance to break the tension in the room. “What’s the activity?”
Karla stood and stretched her arms over the head. “Dinner and a movie.”
“What movie?” Asked Jenna, welcoming any distraction.
“Body Parts,” Karla said, smiling brightly.
“Body Parts! Not that flop!”
Karla was unfazed. “That’s the one. Of course, it’s now considered a classic.”
“Classic camp, maybe.” Jenna snorted.
“Like all great art, Jenna, it was misunderstood during its time,” Karla said, then turning towards Warren, unwilling to release the fish from its hook just yet. “I’m sure Warren will enjoy seeing it again. He was on the set with me when I was making it. Remember? You made quite a fool out of yourself over Casper. He was a brilliant director with an enormous ego so naturally he was flattered by your fawning. But in the end, Warren, he chose me."
“Actually it was my end he chose!” Warren shot back.
Chrissie looked away, uncomfortable. Jenna leaned forward, hands on knees, bracing for the inevitable outburst, but Karla surprised everyone by throwing her head back in an authentic laugh that made her platinum waves dance around her face.
“Touché, Warren,” she said, her dimples deepening in her smooth cheeks.
Dr. Weiss grunted as he stood, wiping his monocle on the hem of his doctor’s coat. “That is enough therapy for today. Warren has penetrated one wall of resistance and is re-experiencing the emotional trauma of his past. We will continue tomorrow.”
“Does that mean I’m free to go?” Warren asked, his face tense and pale.
Dr. Weiss nodded. “Yes.”
Like a child let out of school, Warren vaulted from the chair and disappeared in the direction of the east wing.
“Well, that was fascinating,” Jenna said, making no attempt to conceal her sarcasm. “I can hardly wait for my turn.” She glanced out the window at the overcast sky.
Rain again. She thought. I’ll have to leave for Tappy’s now.
“I’m going for a walk,” Jenna said, wincing at how forced her voice sounded.
Karla didn’t notice, and reached for a bottle of Ostara water. “Good. You need the exercise.”
Jenna ignored the barb and turned to Chrissie. “Would you care to join me?” Worried that Chrissie was too dense to remember their earlier plan, Jenna gave her the high sign behind Karla's shoulder. After an agonizing pause, the light bulb finally turned on.
“No,” Chrissie said flatly. “I think I’ll…” She looked around the room. “I think I’ll just spend the afternoon in my room…reading.”
“Great,” Jenna said with a sigh. “See you later.”
“See you at tea time,” Karla cooed.
Jenna grabbed her windbreaker from the back of the chair and headed for the front door. Chrissie followed, then veered off at the hallway that led to their bedrooms.
The sisters shared a silent look as Jenna went out the front door. Before she closed it, she noticed that Karla and Dr. Weiss stood close together, his hand resting on her arm as he whispered something in her ear. Then Karla laughed, that cruel laugh Jenna knew so well. It could cut through her like a rusted saw. Jenna hated that laugh more than anything in the world, and felt relieved to find herself outdoors in the fresh air and away from the suffocating atmosphere of her family’s dysfunction.
8
She started up the wooded path she once knew like the back of her hand, but found the old landmarks: a towering oak tree and the large rock where the family had once picnicked now obscured by overgrown weeds.
She instinctively reached for her phone, then remembered that it had been missing from her purse the night before; she had meant to ask Karla about it, but forgot. Now she felt adrift without it.
You never had a cellphone as a kid and you survived, she thought, pushing past a grove of trees that opened to the great expanse of Wolf Lake. Except for small waves lapping along the muddy banks, the water was a flat blanket of calm, as gray as the sky above. It was a stunning vista, but she averted her eyes when she passed a particular spot. Two thick poles poking up from the ground were all that remained of the pier that had rotted into the lake decades ago.
Jenna didn’t spend much time thinking about (or analyzing) the past. When painful memories inevitably crept into her consciousness, she pushed them out just as quickly. Maybe the reason she pursued acting was because it allowed her to wear a mask. But she came to know through her study and experience that the art of acting was all about revealing truth, not covering it up. She’d learned that lesson too late in her career, resulting in performances that were too studied, lacking spontaneity or any real depth of feeling.
I can still act rings around Karla at least, she thought, moving up the lakeside path.
The sun peeped out from behind a bank of clouds for a moment, and from the corner of her eye the lake glistened, lighting the fuse of a lingering memory that flamed and demanded acknowledgement, despite her best efforts to extinguish it. It was a vision of Karla lying on the pier, stripped of all pretenses of glamor yet somehow rendered more beautiful by the surrounding tragedy, in a fashion similar to the heroines of Jenna’s favorite romance novels. She knew that kind of beauty wasn’t something you could get from an aerobics class. It was given by God, or at least given by genes; and Karla had gotten the ones that created golden skin and stunning curves, not the flat chest, hairy arms, and frizzy curls that were Jenna’s lot. She pressed on, deeper into the woods and away from the recollection.
It was a half-mile hike to the road and Jenna welcomed the exercise. Pumping in strong strides up the hill, she soon sweated through her light windbreaker. She paused for a moment, sitting on a rock to catch her breath. Breathing deeply the scents of earth and pine, she was at once engulfed by another memory, one she took out of the vault only rarely as it was imbrued with much shame.
The Mancusi children had been raised on strong Catholic traditions: mass on Sunday and all holy days, fish on Friday, and the nightly family meal. One summer evening many years ago when they had sat down to an alfresco dinner overlooking the lake, it was discovered that Karla was missing. Jenna recalled the collective groan from the table as Leo, their father, reminded the family that no one would eat until everyone was present. Jenna volunteered to find her older sister, sprinting on coltish legs into the woods where she suspected she’d find her with Dave, Karla’s summer boyfriend.
This wasn’t the first time she had spied on them. She caught them kissing once before and when she teased her about it later, Karla had retaliated with a silent pinch to Jenna’s thigh that drew blood.
This time she found them again in the familiar spot. Encased in a golden light filtering through the trees was Karla: topless, leaning against a tree with her back arched, pushing her perfectly round breasts skyward as Dave sucked voraciously on them, taking turns with each nipple, his fingers working wildly inside the open front of her denim shorts. Their bodies, hers slow and heaving, his jerky and awkward, were contrasts linked in mutual pleasure. Karla’s hands pressed calmly against the bark of the tree, offering no resistance as Dave pulled her pants down, taking her pink bikini underwear with them.
When Jenna spied Karla’s triangle of dark bush against her creamy skin she reeled back in shock; her foot slipped from the log on which she stood and snapped a twig underfoot. Karla’s eyes opened and flashed on Jenna like a hawk’s. She pushed Dave away and picked up a rock and lobbed it at Jenna’s head with astounding accuracy. Jenna ducked just in time and took off running back to the safety of the family.
Moments later, Karla joined them at the dinner table, completely composed; her eyes, two sapphires gems cut with hard edges, locked on Jenna’s from across the picnic table, challenging her to ever breathe a word. She never did, and they never spoke of it.
Sometimes Jenna would think of that scene in the woods when she was in bed with a current boyfriend who didn’t inspire her orgasm, and especially when she was pleasuring herself alone. She felt guilty, knowing it was wrong to think of one’s sister this way. If it had been someone else besides Karla it would have been the same—she hoped so anyway.That would have made an intriguing chapter in Warren’s book, she thought as she locked the memory back in the vault and continued up the hill. The incline was sharp and her ears buzzed as she pushed the rest of the way towards the road, relieved to know that some civilization existed (if one could call it that) within walking distance of the deserted camp.
* * *
The glowing neon Budweiser sign in the window of Tappy’s was a hopeful sign, but as she got closer Jenna realized the place was closed. She peered through the frosted glass for any sign of Mitch and Anne. A shuffleboard table in one corner, the blue light of the jukebox in the other, and silhouettes of beer taps jutting up from atop the wrap-around bar offered no clues on that front. There were no hours posted on the door, but she guessed from the position of the sun glowing through the expanse of gray sky that it was close to three.
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