The Pretty One: A Novel About Sisters

by Lucinda Rosenfeld

  “Maybe you’re right,” said Gus. “Anyway, I should get going. I’m heading over to Perri’s for dinner.”

  “Send my love to everyone.”

  “Will do. Get some rest.” Gus paused. “And stop being so nice. Would you?”

  “Pardon me?” said Carol, blinking.

  “Never mind,” said Gus, eyeing her mother sideways as she walked out of her room. “See you tomorrow.”

  It was only a ten-mile drive, due east, to Larchmont. Driving up Perri’s snakelike driveway in her beat-up old Honda Civic, Gus wondered how anyone could stand to live as her oldest sister did. The pressure to keep up appearances must have been relentless. Gus had no such issues. She lived in an utterly utilitarian prewar apartment on the unfashionable northern tip of Manhattan. For Gus, its utter lack of attitude—never mind charm—made it that much more relaxing. You could walk around in it in sweatpants just being yourself, or, better yet, no one at all. You could leave the bathroom door open when you did your business. That was also the problem. It felt utterly empty in there without Debbie. Was it any wonder that Gus had been coming out to Westchester so much, spending time with the very family who purportedly drove her insane?

  Mike answered the front door with a “Yo.”

  “Hey,” she said. Gus had long considered her brother-in-law to be a harmless doofus who was unworthy of Perri in every respect. But she didn’t really mind him, either. As her eyes ran from his flip-flops to his baseball cap—worn backward, of course—she wondered if he secretly liked being off work, or if he found it emasculating, or if he had any thoughts in his head whatsoever. “What’s up?” she went on, stepping past him and into the house.

  “Nice pants,” he replied. “I admit I never pegged you as the leather type.”

  Gus was suddenly self-conscious. Debbie had accidentally left behind all her motorcycle gear at Gus’s apartment. And Gus had claimed it for herself, even though it was a size too big. It was a sentimental thing, she supposed—maybe an obnoxious thing, too—since she really ought to have returned it. But she didn’t feel like it. Not right now. She was still too angry at Debbie for luring her in and spitting her out. That was how it had felt. Not that it was any of Mike’s business. “But I always pegged you as the Dockers type,” she told him.

  “They’re actually Banana Republic,” he said.

  “This is a fascinating conversation,” said Gus.

  She followed him down the hall. She never understood how her sister kept the place looking like a museum when it housed three children under the age of ten. “Gus. You remember my little brother, Jeff, right?” Mike was now saying.

  Gus looked up. Leaning against Perri’s marble kitchen island was a person who looked just like Mike, only three inches taller and twenty pounds thinner, chiseled where Mike was doughy and possessed of a full head of swooshy brown hair where Mike’s was inching backward like a receding tide. His biceps, which were visible below an artfully torn olive green T-shirt, had the rippled appearance of challah bread. His legs, which were poking out of a pair of gray athletic shorts, were sinewy and the same color as a shiny penny. His coral choker had certain qualities in common with a dog collar. Gus had first met Jefferson Sims at Mike and Perri’s wedding, more than a decade ago. She’d been a couple years out of college; he’d been a senior on the extended plan at some ski school—she couldn’t remember which one. UVM? Middlebury? Or was it somewhere out west like University of Colorado? To her further recollection, he’d also been incredibly impressed with himself for no apparent reason other than his abdominal muscles, which he’d bared on the dance floor by managing to get himself sprayed down with a Champagne bottle, “forcing” him to disrobe. He’d also been accompanied by his girlfriend at the time, an Amazonian blonde who was reputed to be trying out for the Olympic team in giant slalom. Gus had seen him only a handful of times since then and not in five years at least. “How are you?” she said, raising her palm in a wave. Shaking his hand seemed too formal, kissing him on the cheek too intimate.

  “I’ve been well, thank you,” he said, squinting and smiling. “How have you been?”

  “Could be worse.”

  “So tell me this, Gus. Do you too reside in the greater Larchmont area?”

  “No, I still live in the city, way uptown, in Washington Heights,” she told him.

  “Washington Heights.” He nodded unsurely.

  “I promise you’ve never been there.”

  “You’re most likely correct.”

  “And you?”

  “Of late, I’ve been a denizen of Breckenridge, Colorado.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “But I’m actually considering moving to your neck of the woods.”

  “When did that happen?” asked Mike, sounding alarmed.

  “Just toying with the idea,” said Jeff, shrugging. “You gotta grow up some time and become ‘the man.’ Speaking of which”—he threw an arm around his brother’s back—“how’s the job search going, bro?”

  Mike made an irritated face and shook off his brother. “At least I’ve had one in the last ten years!”

  “I beg to differ!” declared Jeff. “For six long months in the year two thousand nine I toiled in the capacity of chief ski lift operator.”

  “Scoring free lift tickets in exchange for a couple hours a week lowering the bar is not working. Sorry, buddy.”

  “Maybe not to you.”

  “Maybe not to anyone.”

  “Do you, too, find my brother exceedingly rude?” said Jeff, turning back to Gus.

  “I’m staying out of this one,” Gus said, laughing as again she lifted her palm into the air.

  “Wise move,” said Jeff. “Now tell me this, Gus. How exactly have you been occupying your time when not at home in Washington Heights, New York City?”

  There was something about his face that seemed to invite confession. Or maybe it was that he kept calling her “Gus.” As if he actually knew her. (In a way, she supposed, he did.) And as if he couldn’t wait to know more.

  “Well, for the past few years, I’ve been a family law attorney for a nonprofit foundation,” she told him. “I also teach at a law school.”

  “Impressive,” he said, nodding as he turned his lips inside out and scratched at an imaginary beard. “Now, Gus, I have one more question for you. What do you make of my brother’s outward spread in the six months since we’ve seen each other?” He grabbed a chunk of flesh from Mike’s waist.

  “Fuck you, man!” cried Mike, now sounding genuinely pissed as he pummeled his brother on the shoulder.

  “I think I’ll stay out of this one, too,” said Gus, laughing again.

  “Another wise move,” said Jeff.

  “Hey, I’ve had experience. I was always busting my ex-girlfriend about having a big butt. She dumped me at the beginning of the year.” Why had she just told him that? Why couldn’t she ever keep her private life private?!

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said.

  “It’s okay, I’m over it,” said Gus.

  “So you’re single.”

  “I guess you could say that.”

  Jeff got a glinty look in his eye. “Would you like to go out for a beer tonight after dinner?”

  “Jesus, Jeff!” cried Mike.

  “What?”

  “I’m getting out of here.” Mike shook his head as he turned his back.

  “Thanks, but I’m busy,” said Gus, still unsure if the guy was joking or not.

  “What if I wear a dress?” asked Jeff.

  How dare he mock her sexual orientation! “What if I punch you in the face?” she said, temper flaring.

  “I might enjoy it.”

  “You’re sick.”

  “Maybe you like sick,” said Jeff, still smiling.

  Gus couldn’t believe the cheesy and vile way he was talking to her—a near relative, no less! And she had every intention of giving him the finger and following Mike out the door. But something kept her legs motionless. Was it
possible that she was somehow attracted to the guy? Or was she mistaking anger for passion? She felt heat on her cheeks and on her collarbone. “This is just a game for you,” she said. “Isn’t it?”

  “Maybe, but maybe not,” he replied.

  “You want to see if you can pick up a lesbian. Is that it?”

  “What was that, Johnny Appleseed?”

  Gus suddenly recalled the satchel of McIntosh apples still in her grip. Glancing south, she burst into involuntary laughter. The week before, Perri had made a dig at Gus regarding the frequency with which she’d been dining in Larchmont. Stung by the accusation, Gus had been attempting a gesture that would counteract the impression that she was freeloading. She set the satchel down on the island and sighed in defeat.

  At which point Jefferson Sims threaded his fingers through hers. “Admit that was a good one,” he said, grinning.

  Gus felt as if her heart were an inmate who had gone berserk in solitary confinement. “I admit nothing,” she said meekly.

  Just then, Perri walked in, causing Gus to jump three feet backward—straight into Perri’s marble countertop.

  “Hey!” said Perri, eyes popping at Gus. “I didn’t even know you’d arrived.” She looked from one to the other of them.

  Gus had never felt so humiliated in front of her oldest sister—not even when Andy Lyons came over for the first time, and said, “Perri, you never told me you had a little brother.” She’d told him, “I’m female, you fuckhead,” an oft-repeated line in the Hellinger household in the years that followed—years during which Gus was expected to laugh at her own alliterative “genius,” even as she failed to find the encounter funny and, in fact, still felt vaguely humiliated by it. “Well, here I am,” she mumbled while biting her lip and rubbing her side. Who knew marble was so hard?

  “I was actually showing Gus one of the relaxation techniques I learned in my therapeutic massage class last summer,” said Jeff.

  “You went to massage school last summer?” Perri asked skeptically.

  “Well, not technically. But I have a close friend who works in the field. Did you know the pressure point between the thumb and forefinger holds the key to most common headaches?”

  “I didn’t know that. Or maybe I did. It’s hard to say what I know right now.”

  “Anyway,” said Gus, desperate to restore normalcy. “I brought some apples. I know the kids like them.” She lifted the satchel and held it toward her sister.

  “Oh, thanks, that was nice of you,” said Perri, still eyeing Gus suspiciously as she removed the bag from her grip.

  All through dinner, Gus continued to make a fool of herself. She couldn’t help it. Jeff was staring at her, and she at him, while a dead weight lodged itself at the bottom of her stomach and refused to lift. Perri’s homemade meatloaf, which Gus usually devoured, sat uneaten on her plate. She could barely even follow the conversation. Mike was going on about the real estate market in Larchmont and how it was “holding up pretty well under the circumstances”—unlike Gus, who didn’t know if she’d make it through the meal, didn’t understand what she was feeling either…

  “Excuse me, Gus,” Jeff was saying. “Would you mind passing the butter?”

  “Of course,” she said, swallowing unnecessarily as she reached for the dish.

  As the transfer was made, her fingers brushed his, sending pins and needles up and down the length of Gus’s arm. Against all explanation, she longed for the guy to lay her down on the carpet and crush her into oblivion.

  That night, Gus couldn’t sleep for hours. If she was attracted to this man, did it mean she wasn’t really a lesbian? And what if she’d never been a lesbian? What if it had all been a pose, as paper-thin as a fashion magazine spread, albeit without the makeup and pretty clothes? And what if her sexual orientation all went back to some desperate need to define herself apart from her sisters, who, early on, had monopolized the good girl and femme fatale roles, respectively? That is, what if lesbianism’s main draw had been that it was the ultimate noncompete clause?

  Even more pathetically, what if her lust for other women had been born of some secret need to replicate in her love life the intense relationships she’d had with her domineering older siblings? One could make the argument that the women to whom Gus had been attracted, beginning with Penny Showalter in high school, and continuing with her first real girlfriend, Jen French at Wesleyan, had managed to combine Perri’s bossiness with Olympia’s haughtiness. It was also true that, in the years just after Gus had come out at the age of eighteen, being a lesbian had sometimes felt like a series of stylistic gestures that she was trying on for size. She remembered worrying that her hair wasn’t sufficiently “dykey,” her walk not tough enough—and making a mental note to improve these things about herself.

  Or was she not giving her heart the credit it was due? From a very early age—as early as eleven or twelve—Gus had also been aware that she was different from other girls in her class. She would hear them describe the fluttery excitement they felt in the presence of their boy crushes. Gus had never felt that way. It was her girl friends themselves who occasionally elicited flutters, some of them so painful and exciting and overwhelming that the friendships would become impossible to maintain, and Gus would have to preemptively ax them with one or another concocted fight.

  Yet at some indistinct point in her late twenties the performance had become her, especially as her career began to mirror her personal proclivities. Eventually, lesbianism became more than a sexual identity for her; it became an entire way of being in the world—not just a lifestyle but a cause and a rallying point that needed no explanation. She was committed to women, not only as lovers and partners but as legal subjects whose interests needed defending. And what if her attraction to Jeff was simply a matter of curiosity in the same vein as eating psychedelic mushrooms or flying a single-engine plane? What if she wanted to try it only once? And if that were the case, would it be so terrible to indulge the impulse while she was between partners? Or would she be betraying the things she stood for, even betraying herself?

  The problem was—Gus suspected that the answer was yes. It would have been one thing if Jefferson Sims were some self-effacing New Man who shared a common interest in social justice. But by all accounts, he was a cocky, womanizing ski bum.

  8

  OLYMPIA AND LOLA WERE on their way home from Happy Kids when Olympia’s phone rang. Her left hand on the stroller, she dug her right hand into her bag and began to fish. How was it possible that she could grasp every object inside it, from her keys to her wallet to her emergency tampon (which had naturally escaped its paper wrapping) without locating her phone until its last ring? Finally, her hand made contact with the familiar expanse of smooth plastic, and she lifted it into the open. Perri’s name flashed across the screen, just as it did most every evening of Olympia’s life. Not in the mood to talk, Olympia considered not answering, then decided it would be a greater hardship to have to call her back. “Hey, what’s up?” she said.

  Perri sounded indignant as she relayed the gossip of the evening—how Mike’s brother, Jeff, had flirted with Gus at dinner. With the honking horns, Lola’s incessant chatter, and her own exhaustion, Olympia had trouble following the story, which sounded unlikely, if not downright apocryphal. It wouldn’t be the first time that Perri had concocted a cockamamie fantasy based on flimsy evidence, Olympia thought. Her sister had always been a fabulist of the tallest order. Or maybe the better word was “alarmist.” If you lost two pounds, she thought you were dying of a wasting disease. “That definitely sounds weird,” she said. “Are you sure?” Then she turned to Lola, and said, “I’m talking to Aunt Perri!… Wait, what happened at school?… Gossamer had an allergic reaction to bread?!… Sorry, Perri, hold on one more second…. What? No, I’m not buying you your own iPhone on the way home…. No, not next year either. Try ten years!… Sorry, Perri, what were you saying?”

  “I don’t think you’re grasping the enormity of this,” P
erri went on, clearly irritated. “Mike’s brother, who literally arrived in New York ten minutes ago, is making the moves on our younger sister, Gus, who supposedly doesn’t like men. I found them in the kitchen holding hands!”

  “Are you sure they weren’t just shaking hands?” asked Olympia.

  “They were not shaking hands! They looked like they were about to kiss.”

  “Well, the man definitely moves fast,” said Olympia, turning up her block, past a bedraggled figure slumped on the sidewalk, wearing a sandwich board that read, HELP ME.

  “The man is a snake!” cried Perri.

  “Why is that man sitting on the sidewalk?” Lola asked at the same time.

  “He’s homeless,” said Olympia.

  “Hardly,” scoffed Perri. “Guess who got a quote, unquote ride back to the city with Gus?”

  “Sorry—I was talking to Lola. We just walked by a homeless guy.”

  Perri’s voice changed. “Oh, god. Where are you?”

  “On my block.”

  “Yikes. I didn’t know you had homeless people in your neighborhood!”

  Sometimes, Olympia suspected that her older sister was acting willfully ignorant and reactionary to irk her. “Anyway, if it’s for real, maybe it will help Gus get over Debbie,” she said, refusing the bait.

  “She’s already over Debbie,” snapped Perri.