The Pretty One: A Novel About Sisters

by Lucinda Rosenfeld

  “Sadie—enough!” yelled Perri.

  “Oh, stop, Perri!” said Carol, slapping at the air. “She’s just an imaginative little girl trying to make sense of the world.” She turned to Sadie, arms open, and said, “Come here, My Beautiful Thing!”

  As Sadie climbed into her grandma’s lap, Olympia looked away. Carol had once called Olympia by that name. It was clear to everyone—except, maybe, to Carol—that Sadie was her favorite grandchild by a margin of ten. No doubt some of the connection could be attributed to the frequency with which grandmother and granddaughter saw each other—at least twice a week. Sadie’s house was just a twenty-five-minute drive from Hastings; Lola lived a subway and train ride away. Even so, it seemed to Olympia that her mother hadn’t made as much of an effort to get to know Lola as she might have. She even bought her cheaper presents than she bought her other granddaughter. After Christmas, Olympia had found herself Internet-price-checking the gifts that Carol had given to Sadie and Lola respectively. To her intense annoyance, Sadie’s Butterfly Bead-Tastic Kit had come in at $26.99, while Lola’s Dress a Doll Magnet Set sold for a mere $13.99.

  Five minutes later, just as promised, steam rising from a cobalt blue Le Creuset stoneware baking dish she was carrying, Perri announced, “Le dîner est servi!”

  “Do I have a dream wife, or what?” asked Mike, walking over to where she stood.

  “A dream wife for a dream husband,” said Perri, seeming to lap up the praise as she lifted her chin and puckered her lips to meet his own.

  As the two kissed on the lips, albeit gingerly in order to avoid the scalding receptacle between them, Olympia found herself looking away again.

  “Well, I can’t speak for the rest of you,” said Carol, making her way to the table. “But that smells absolutely scrumptious.” She tapped her eldest daughter’s arm. “I’ll never know how you do it, Perri—raising three young children while you run your thing.” She waved her hand through the air.

  “You mean, my company?” asked Perri, lower lip extended and clearly miffed at Carol’s failure to have come up with the word and, by extension, to take seriously her entrepreneurial success.

  “That’s what I meant.”

  “With difficulty, is the answer.”

  “And did you hear,” said Carol, turning to the others as she pulled out a chair. “Perri’s been invited to China to give a talk to a business group?”

  For an intelligent woman, Olympia thought, her mother was shockingly dense about the ways in which she fostered rivalry between her daughters. Not that the proclivity was anything new. Olympia saw herself as a teenager, sitting at the dinner table, seeing how many canned peas she could spear on one prong of her fork, while Carol informed Bob that Perri’s scale model of the Roman Colosseum had won first prize at the History Day Fair—or Gus’s poem about an orphan boy with a cleft lip had won an Honorable Mention in the All Westchester Poetry Runoff for Under Thirteens. “Well, how do you like that,” Bob would say.

  “Wow, good for you,” Olympia now said, turning to Perri and thinking about how she was never invited anywhere—not even to Austria.

  “It’s really nothing.” Perri smiled faux modestly. “To be honest, the whole thing sounds completely hokey. I can’t figure out why I was even asked! The keynote speaker is the founder of Apple, Steve Whatshisname. Apparently, the organizers saw that silly article I was in, in Fortune magazine last year, about ten female entrepreneurs to watch—”

  Olympia felt her body tensing into a thousand individual knots. “I heard Steve Whatshisname is dying of cancer,” she said, then felt bad for saying so in light of her father’s medical issues.

  “I went to a conference in Beijing once,” said Bob. “Back then, they called it Peking, of course, raising the question… is it now called Beijing Duck?”

  “I was asked to speak, too,” interjected Gus, suddenly vertical. “In court tomorrow morning on behalf of a battered woman who’s about to become homeless unless her baby’s deadbeat daddy steps up to the plate.” She yanked out a chair at the far end of the table, producing a screeching sound that caused Perri to visibly flinch. (Or was it something Gus had said?) “And then, later in the day, I’m giving a lecture on the fundamentals of contract law to three hundred first-years.”

  “Such ambitious daughters I have!” declared Carol. She turned to her husband, then her son-in-law. “They certainly didn’t get it from me.”

  “Or me,” cut in Olympia, fully aware of the nakedness of her own insecurity, yet in that moment somehow unable to disguise it. At her age, she secretly felt she ought to have been running her own gallery or museum, not ordering cases of Riesling and updating mailing lists for someone else’s and especially not someone nearly ten years her junior. That, or she should have been one of the featured artists. But despite having attended Pratt for a year and a half and forging some connections in the downtown art world, Olympia had long ago given up trying to be an artist. She’d had her bunny paintings featured in a few group shows, but the exposure hadn’t led anywhere. Maybe it was that she didn’t have the energy or the drive, or that she secretly suspected that her artwork was trite, even corny, and possibly not even worthy of a Hallmark card; and that she couldn’t compete on that front or really any other; and that the only thing she’d ever been good at was looking a certain way, striking a certain pose. That and arranging blind dates. Her sisters were the Impressive Ones, while Olympia flitted from job to job and failed to complete master’s programs (two, so far). She was the only Hellinger sister without an advanced degree. Perri had gotten her MBA from Columbia, and Gus her JD from Berkeley. Olympia had also been the only sister not to break 1400 on the SAT.

  “Um, you’re hardly flipping burgers at Mickey Dee’s,” said Gus.

  “I didn’t say I was,” said Olympia, hiding behind her water glass.

  An awkward silence ensued. It was Mike who lifted the pall. “Well, here’s my public speech for the day: What do you say we all eat?”

  “Finally,” grumbled Aiden.

  “Sadie, Aiden,” said Perri. “Please go wash your hands!”

  “I washed them an hour ago,” murmured Aiden.

  “It’s only blood,” said Sadie, lifting her hands, which were covered with red streaks.

  “Blood!” cried Perri.

  “Just kidding. It’s marker.”

  “Fine. Be filthy, all of you,” said Perri as she doled out perfect squares of her asparagus frittata. “Contact cholera. What do I care?”

  Sadie lifted a celery stick off her plate, waved it through the air at her mother, and declared, “Petrificus Totalus!”

  “Anyone care for an omega-three-rich Nova and bagel?” asked Mike, a platter in each hand.

  “I do, thanks,” said Olympia, suddenly ravenous.

  After Mike served Olympia, he moved on to his father-in-law. “And how about you, Bob? I think this everything bagel has your name on it.”

  “Suppose it can’t hurt,” he answered.

  “And anything to drink with that, sir? Coffee? Water? Defrosted orange juice that looks a little too yellow for my taste?”

  “You know, I was just reading that, in certain ancient cultures, the consumption of one’s own urine was considered medicinal,” said Bob. “I believe the term is ‘urophagia.’ Apparently, it’s quite harmless, assuming it’s taken in small amounts and not highly concentrated or laden with bacteria.”

  “Bob, please,” said Carol, making a face.

  “Way to be gross, Grandpa,” said Aiden, who, in this case, spoke for the rest of the now snickering Hellinger clan.

  “You’re very welcome,” said Bob, smiling brightly.

  “I think you mean ‘Urine welcome,’ ” said Olympia, who, while in her sisters’ company and for unclear reasons, often found her sense of humor reverting to that of her two-year-old self.

  Perri and Gus appeared to have contracted a similar condition. The two of them suddenly burst into laughter so raucous that it nearly propelled th
em off their chairs. Olympia joined in. The three sisters twisted and gyrated, clutched their stomachs and shrieked. Why couldn’t it always be like this? Olympia wondered and lamented. Why couldn’t they all decide to be little kids again, free of ambition, envy, and anxiety? Or was she rewriting history? Had there never been such a time, not even when they were three, five, and seven and building sand castles on the Delaware coast? No doubt Perri had criticized Olympia for failing to achieve the correct water-to-sand ratio, then gone ahead and constructed a sand-based Versailles. Then the waves had washed the whole thing away. And Gus had found a way to take it personally and burst into tears of indignation—and Olympia had just stood there, wondering what she was supposed to do next.

  Lola was so exhausted by the day’s events that on the train ride back to Brooklyn she fell asleep. Olympia was able to transfer her from lap to stroller to bed without her waking up. With Lola out of the way, Olympia took the opportunity to lavish attention on Clive and feed him a peanut treat. Sometimes she wondered why, in search of a furry low-maintenance pet, she’d gotten a rabbit, not a cat, since rabbits were far harder to house and had shorter life spans too. But having a cat had seemed clichéd, even desperate, in a way that a single woman with a bunny wasn’t. Also, she’d recently learned from a magazine that cats were actually vicious predators who endangered the world’s rare bird populations. So now she could feel righteous, too, about keeping a pet that essentially did nothing all day long but lie on the bathroom floor, twitching its nose, nibbling on carrots, shitting pellets, and looking cute.

  After cracking open a bottle of Pinot Noir, Olympia lit a cigarette (she tried not to smoke, but sometimes she didn’t try hard enough) and called up the Huffington Post. As she inhaled and imbibed, she read a blog post about how the country’s milk supply was being tainted by the use of the bovine growth hormone rBGH. Outraged, she left a lengthy “comment” on the website of the Monsanto Corporation (creator of rBGH and alleged payer-off of the FDA), accusing the powers that be of purposefully giving kids cancer. When had she become such a strident environmentalist? she wondered. Also, when had she become such a hothead? Also, if she cared about the planet, did she have to stop smoking? Did it matter that her cigarettes were made of organic tobacco and additive free? And what if she smoked only two per week? Also, was it criminal that she didn’t always recycle tinfoil and plastic take-out containers—and still loved Phil Collins’s Greatest Hits album?

  After a while, Olympia got out her watercolors and worked on her portrait of her friends Rick and Carli, who were Couple #4 on her list of Matchmaking Triumphs. If there was one setup of which Olympia was most proud, it was them. Two years earlier and in the space of one month, Carli had lost her job as Sylvester Stallone’s personal art adviser and been diagnosed with lupus. Meanwhile, Olympia’s other friends had given up hope of Rick, a war photographer and famous “wild man,” ever settling down. Now Carli was three months pregnant; Rick had switched to sports photography; and the two were buying a three-story Victorian house in Ditmas Park. If the painting came out well, Olympia planned to have it framed and give it to them as their wedding present. Although Olympia struggled to be close to her family, she prided herself on being the Ultimate Friend.

  But it was getting late, and she had work in the morning. Before she turned out the lights, Olympia checked her email one final time. To her astonishment, she had a new message from Dawn Calico-Cronin. It read as follows:

  Hey, sexy. Hope you had a fab new year’s. Just wanted to let you know that I left Park Ave Cryo to pursue a masters in accounting. Also, since I’m no longer bound by bank policy, I thought I’d throw you a bone re #6103. Or, shall I say a boner? (Har, har.) On that note, apparently your man used to model skivvies for Sears. Bottom line: all of us at the bank had HUGE crushes on the guy—with an accent on the huge. Seriously, we used to have a joke around the office about volunteering to help him deliver his sample. LOL. Also, he had a little tattoo of a skull on his upper arm. I know because I administered his blood tests. Real name was something like Randy. From the west—maybe Vegas? At some point I believe he was enrolled in a continuing ed class in sports management at Columbia—hence, the Ivy League creds. Hope all is well with you and your chickadee. Good luck with your search! XOXO, D

  Olympia felt like a beach ball that had rolled over a rusty nail. Randy the well-endowed underwear model—with the tattoo of a skull?! From Las Vegas???!!! In one email, Dawn Cronin had effectively destroyed her entire picture, however inflated, of #6103, the earnest, well-mannered Deerfield- and Yale-educated young cardiologist. What’s more, the woman had offered just enough information to tantalize Olympia’s imagination without actually providing her with any tangible leads. She rued the day she’d ever asked Dawn for help. She blamed herself for not being happy with what she had.

  Nonetheless, the next day at work, in between writing and editing a press release, Olympia found herself obsessively Googling various combinations of the words, “Randy,” “model,” “Sears,” and “underwear,” and, perhaps not surprisingly, coming up with nothing.

  2

  TO EVERYONE’S RELIEF, Bob’s biopsy in January had come back negative for malignancy. The test indicated a relatively benign case of prostatitis. Since he continued to have difficulty urinating and his enlarged prostate appeared not to respond to medication, however, his doctors had recommended surgery to shrink the offending gland. An appointment had been made for early March. And now Perri was being asked to take time out of her already impossibly crazed schedule to drive him and Carol to and from the hospital and, on the return trip, help wheel or walk Bob out to the car. At least, that was how it had seemed to Perri when, the night before, she’d spoken on the phone to Gus and Olympia. Neither had point-blank asked Perri to retrieve their father. But both had alerted her to the near impossibility of getting out of the city until midafternoon at the earliest. After much prodding, they’d both agreed to come out after lunch.

  Perri didn’t necessarily mind doing a favor for her parents. Being the Good Daughter was as important to her as being a good mother. She might even have enjoyed the break from the daily grind. What she objected to was her sisters both assuming that she’d be there whenever it was necessary. Perri felt that, while Olympia and Gus were incredibly different, they had one thing in common: self-absorption on an epic scale. They take me for granted, Perri thought for the umpteenth time as she pulled into her parents’ driveway to pick up her father.

  A three-note text alert interrupted her thoughts. She put the car in park, lifted her phone from her bag, and scanned the screen.

  Want to see you—when?, Perri read in the front seat—and found her heart beating louder than it probably should have been.

  The text had been sent by Roy Marley, her college boyfriend before Mike. The dreadlocked son of a dentist, he’d been the only African American member of the druggie fraternity, where he’d played the role of both token and totem, especially after someone spread the rumor, later proved false, that he was the son of reggae legend Bob Marley. He and Perri had dated for three months of her sophomore year, at which point he’d dumped her without explanation. Twenty years later, he’d found her on Facebook and sent her a message that said, Yo, Hellinger, what’s up? Still think of the GREAT TIMES we had together. Things had escalated from there.

  In the past week, they’d texted or emailed at least three times a day. Perri couldn’t stop hitting Reply. She couldn’t stop checking to see if Roy had replied to her reply, either. She’d be in the middle of a business call to Mexico or China and, instead of concentrating on the manufacture of velveteen hangers, she’d be checking her BlackBerry. Every text of Roy’s felt like vindication, proof positive that he’d been crazy about her after all and regretted having split. Was that it? Or was Perri looking for affirmation in some larger sense—affirmation that she was still attractive, still young? Roy was now a doctor, divorced with two kids and living in Bethesda, Maryland.

  Maybe not such a goo
d idea, she typed. Then she pressed Send, only to be overcome by a wave of regret and fear that Roy would lose interest and/or give up, followed by guilt and shame that she didn’t actually want him to do so.

  Here she had all she’d ever dreamed of. Not just a loyal husband but three beautiful and healthy children; her own company; prime real estate; a still bountiful if recently attenuated stock portfolio (thanks to the stock market crash of early ’09); and possibly the most organized shoe closets, toy bins, and flatware drawer in all of Westchester County. Never mind the Lexus she was driving, or the side-by-side his-and-her sinks in their renovated master bath. Except, suddenly, things weren’t that perfect anymore. Mike had lost his job at the beginning of the year. And while Perri could tell herself he was a victim of the Great Recession, she secretly knew otherwise. The mass layoffs had taken place the year before. In all likelihood, the bank was simply clearing out its least productive rung, just as a gardener clears dead wood in early spring. It humiliated Perri to think of her husband as fitting into that category. Her identity depended on them both being winners in the game of life. She found it especially unsettling to think that she might be the more successful one of the two. Perri considered herself to be a feminist—to a point. But for a marriage to work, didn’t the husband still need to be the chief breadwinner?

  For another thing, it had been nearly three months since she and Mike had had sex. And the scary part was: Perri didn’t actually miss it. Vibrators, she’d found, made far more efficient partners than husbands did. They didn’t require you to look good; or produce vowel-rich soundtracks; or feel self-conscious about how long it was taking you to climax. Yet she feared the things that her abstinence portended. She’d once read an article in Vanity Fair magazine about a Greenwich, Connecticut, society family in which the matriarch had opined that the key to a happy marriage was lots of sex with one’s husband. The quote had stuck with her. Because while it had been a long time since Perri and Mike had had a lot of sex, until recently they’d at least had some. Which is to say, twice a month on Saturday night after their biweekly dinner date. It was a schedule that had seemed to suit both of them. It wasn’t as if they’d just met—far from it. And they were always short of sleep: if Noah didn’t wake up crying, his pacifier missing, Sadie would appear like a ghost in the doorway of their bedroom at four a.m., claiming to have had a bad dream and determined to climb under their covers, splay her limbs, elbow them in the face—and ruin any hope of a good night’s rest. (Aiden, god bless him, slept as if he were in a coma.)