The Pretty One: A Novel About Sisters

by Lucinda Rosenfeld

  Mrs. Dolores gazed disapprovingly at her. Or was Perri projecting? “Mommy home,” Noah said.

  “I’m home indeed—home forever,” said Perri, before she turned to Dolores and asked, “Do you know where Mike is?”

  “Mr. Mike says he has to go to work.”

  “That’s interesting,” said Perri, talking mainly to herself, “since Mr. Mike is out of work.” She turned back to Noah. “Sweetie, do you want to come upstairs with Mommy while I unpack?”

  “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy,” he said, squeezing her nose between his two fingers.

  “Nice to see you, Noah,” Perri said in a nasal drawl, causing Noah to burst into giggles.

  Small children’s love was so unconditional, Perri thought wistfully as she climbed the stairs to the master bedroom. One day, of course, Noah would probably turn into a lying bastard like her husband and father. (In the previous twenty-four hours, Perri had nearly managed to convince herself that her own extramarital flirtation had never actually occurred.) But why ponder that grim outcome now?

  Perri sent Dolores home, albeit promising to pay her for a full day. She wanted to spend time alone with Noah, even as she looked forward to his nap. He went down at one. Then she puttered around the house, unpacking, tidying, looking at wedding photos of her and Mike, and feeling strangely resigned to the end of their marriage. And wasn’t that what was happening here? Perri didn’t want to get divorced, but it seemed unlikely that she’d ever be able to forgive Mike, or he her. It was the kids who complicated matters. How would Perri ever forgive herself for allowing the family to be broken up? She was no better than Olympia! Just recently, she’d read an ominous article in the Times about how test scores were lower among kids who lived in single-parent homes.

  At three o’clock, she fastened a still half-asleep Noah into his car seat and went to pick up Aiden and Sadie from school. “Hey,” said Aiden, hoisting himself into the backseat. As if his mother had never been gone.

  “Hi, sweetie,” said Perri. “How was school?”

  “Fine,” he mumbled.

  Sadie, however, refused to play dumb. “Daddy says you went on vacation without us,” she said. “Is that true?”

  “It wasn’t quite a vacation,” Perri told her quickly. “Though I was in Florida.”

  “I don’t like it when you go away like that,” she said.

  In the rearview mirror, Perri could see her daughter sulking. The expression reminded her suddenly and almost eerily of Olympia when she was pissed about something. Sadie was beautiful like Olympia too, Perri thought with pride and anxiety. Was it possible to be intimidated by your six-year-old? “I’m sorry,” she said, her stomach constricting at visions of the future, when she’d be “going away” all the time in accordance with the custody arrangements she and Mike would need to draw up. “I should have said good-bye before I left. I won’t do it again.”

  Sadie glowered but said no more.

  When Mike finally walked into the living room at eight fifteen that evening, Perri was seated on the sofa with her three children nestled around her, reading The Trapp Family Book, a Christmas present for the kids from “Uncle Jeff,” who had apparently picked it up on one of his ski trips to Stowe, Vermont. Surely, she looked like the perfect picture of motherhood, she thought—all the better to shame the man! Or did he have no shame? Glancing over at her husband out of the corner of her eye, Perri saw that he was wearing a suit and tie, which surprised her. (A job interview?) He was also staring straight at her. Feigning oblivion, she kept reading. “One morning Captain von Trapp received a letter from the German navy department asking him to take over command of one of their new submarines.”

  “Hey, kids,” Mike said in a low voice.

  “Hi, Daddy,” they mumbled, without looking up.

  “What are you doing here?” asked Mike.

  Perri looked up from the book, as if noticing him for the first time, and said, “Oh, hi.”

  “Are you guys in a fight?” asked Sadie.

  “Shush,” said Perri, folding the corner of the page down and standing up. “We’ll read more later. Why don’t you go play Angry Birds while I go talk to Daddy for a few minutes.”

  “You want us to play games on your iPad?!” asked Sadie, screwing up her face.

  “Just this once.”

  “But what about all those Chinese kids whipping our butts in standardized testing?” asked Aiden.

  “We’ll let them beat us tonight.”

  “Cool!” he said.

  “What do we have to talk about?” Mike asked Perri on the way out of the room.

  “Please, Michael—not in front of the kids,” she muttered.

  “Now I’m Michael?”

  “Can we please talk about this elsewhere?”

  Grimacing, he followed her into the kitchen, where he leaned his backside against the countertop, crossed his arms, and said, “I told you not to come back here.”

  He really did hate her, Perri thought. And maybe she couldn’t entirely blame him. But could this really be it for them? “This is my house, too,” she said, her hand gripping the handle of the dishwasher so she wouldn’t fall over. Mike didn’t answer. Perri figured there was nothing to lose by telling the truth. This could be the last conversation they ever had without a lawyer present. She took a deep breath. “Look—I freaked out. I admit it. Okay? Maybe it had something to do with turning forty and being upset that my life was half over. Or maybe it was because”—Perri swallowed hard—“you never want to have sex with me anymore. But whatever I did to hurt you, it pales in comparison to what you did after I left. After all the stories I’ve told you about Pia undermining my confidence, did you really have to pick her, of all people, to hit on?”

  “That’s not what happened,” Mike said flatly.

  “No?” said Perri, catching a glimpse of his crotch and idly wondering if he’d gotten an erection when he kissed her sister. The thought both repulsed and fascinated her.

  “No. She was just”—his mouth was forming words, but nothing was coming out—“there. And I—I didn’t know what I was doing.” He hung his head.

  “I see,” said Perri, realizing in that moment how desperately she wanted to believe him, wanted to be reassured that it had all been a big misunderstanding, wished they could start from scratch…

  “Also, I’ve been under a lot of stress lately. Okay?” Mike went on. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I lost my job a few months ago. Which is a nice way of saying I was fired. It was pretty humiliating, frankly.”

  “You were laid off, not fired,” said Perri.

  “Semantics,” said Mike.

  “But it wasn’t your fault. The whole banking system ground to a halt last year!”

  “You and I both know that’s not what happened. The recession was in two thousand and nine. I got fired at the beginning of this year—just as things were looking up again, at least in the financial sector.”

  Perri wasn’t going to argue. “Well, you said having time off was a blessing in disguise. I remember you using those exact words.”

  “Give me a fucking break,” he said. “I love the kids, but you think I want to hang with them all day?! I’ve never been so bored in my entire life as I was constructing that underground mining station with Aiden. Maybe you don’t understand this, Perri. But a man’s confidence is tied up in his work.”

  “And not a woman’s?”

  “Not as much. Women take pride in other things, too.”

  “Is that right?”

  “And it’s not like you were very supportive.”

  “I was very supportive!”

  “You were bugging me about job interviews my second day at home!”

  “No, I wasn’t.”

  “Also, it wasn’t like you instigated anything on the other front.”

  “I’m a woman! I don’t instigate.”

  “Why not?” Mike shrugged. “You order me around in every other part of my life.”

  Perri considered this pos
sibility—that their moribund sex life was simply a matter of her not being bossy enough—and thought he might have a point. But she had other complaints. “Maybe that’s true,” she said. “But my frustration wasn’t just about sex. All these months you’ve been home, you never bought milk once.”

  “You didn’t ask me to!”

  “How do you think milk gets into the house? You think it miraculously appears via our backyard dairy farm?!”

  “Fine. Sorry. I’ve been a little distracted. Or depressed, actually, if you really want to know the truth.”

  “You? Depressed?!” Perri said with a laugh. It was a new concept for her to entertain. She’d always imagined that guys like Mike didn’t get depressed.

  He shook his head and let out a short laugh himself. “This is all pretty ironic.”

  “Why is that?” she asked.

  “Because”—he allowed himself a half smile—“I actually got rehired today.”

  “What?!”

  “Good old Credit Suisse. The private banking division needed fresh blood—you know, someone to help a bunch of bajillionaires diversify their holdings. The base salary is lower, but what the fuck. Institutional stock sales are about to go the way of the phonograph. In a few years it’s all going to be done on computers.”

  “Wow—that’s great,” said Perri in a lackluster voice.

  “What, private banking’s not good enough for you?!” Mike’s face tensed. “Is that what this is really about? You wish you’d married a Wall Street star and instead you got a cog in the machine?”

  “No, no! It’s not that at all.” She stared at her feet, bit her lip. “I’m sure you’ll never believe this, but it was just the thought of you being gone all the time again.”

  “I don’t believe you. You’re right,” he shot back, even as he seemed relieved. “What do you care if I’m gone?”

  “I care because”—Perri swallowed again—“I’m assuming—or, rather, hoping—that we’re going to continue to be a family.” With that, she met Mike’s eyes, tried to smile. “At least, I hope so.”

  But he looked away, toward the convection ovens. There was silence. Then he said, “To be honest, I don’t know what I want right now.”

  Perri felt as if her stomach were falling out of her body. It was really happening. She couldn’t believe it, or maybe she could. Would she die alone? Would Mike marry Olympia? That might actually kill her. “Well, maybe we could go talk to somebody about it,” she said in desperation.

  “About what?” asked Mike.

  “Our marriage.”

  “Jesus, Perri. I’m an Anglo-Saxon male! You think I want to sit around talking about my feelings!”

  Was he trying to be funny? (Was that a good sign?) “You’d rather just be in an unhappy marriage?” she asked him.

  “I’d rather order a pizza. I’m starving,” he said on his way out of the room. Apparently, he was done with the subject, at least for now.

  Not knowing what to think, Perri followed him back into the living room.

  At the sight of their downcast faces, Sadie asked, “Are you and Daddy getting divorced?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” said Perri, ripping the iPad out of her hands. But her words were more confident than she was.

  “But you said—” began Sadie.

  “I changed my mind. Where are your Kumon workbooks? You should be doing three pages a night, at least.”

  “The Asian kids—right, Mom?” said Aiden, sighing.

  “Exactly my thought,” said Perri. “Actually, it’s bedtime. I want you upstairs right now! It’s a school night. And I want everyone to floss. No excuses will be entertained.”

  “Does Noah have to?” asked Sadie.

  “No, he’s a baby.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “Life’s not fair. Not fair at all.”

  That night, Perri and Mike slept next to each other, but not even their ankles touched.

  18

  SO MUCH HAD HAPPENED in one short weekend that Olympia woke up Tuesday morning, in Brooklyn, wondering if it had all been a dream. Did Viveka expect her back at work? She hadn’t received a call or message over the weekend telling her not to come. So she figured her job was still waiting for her, assuming she still wanted it. But did she still want it? Unable to answer that question, she found herself filled with anxiety. She dressed in her usual museum uniform (all black). Then she dressed Lola in her uniform (all pink). The two ate a quick breakfast. Then, just as she’d done hundreds of times before, Olympia wheeled Lola to Happy Kids Daycare.

  They’d made it three blocks and were crossing Hoyt Street when a Lycra-tights-clad biker appeared out of nowhere and nearly mowed them down. “Watch where you’re going, asshole!” yelled Olympia. She had no idea if the guy had heard her—maybe he was already too far ahead?—but for a brief moment she felt thoroughly gratified by her outburst. Then she remembered Lola’s ears and was racked with guilt. She really had to stop swearing in front of her daughter.

  Luckily, this time, all Lola asked was: “Mommy, why are you yelling at that man?”

  “Because he nearly ran us over, sweetie,” Olympia told her. “And also because, even though Mommy believes global warming is a dire threat, she also thinks that the guys who ride around Brooklyn acting as if they’re in the Tour de France just because their carbon emissions are lower than mine are really annoying.”

  When Olympia arrived at work, later that morning, she encountered a monastic level of quiet. Annmarie and Maximilian failed even to greet her with a Guten Morgen, as they usually did. Instead, they kept their eyes on their screens. The door to Viveka’s office was closed. After twenty minutes, Olympia couldn’t take it anymore, and muttered, “Jesus—it’s like a funeral home in here.” Still, Annmarie and Maximilian didn’t answer. Clearly something was amiss. “Also, is there a reason no one’s talking to me?” Olympia asked.

  Annmarie looked at Maximilian. Maximilian looked at Annmarie. Finally, Maximilian spoke: “Viveka said you were to retrieve your belongings and exit the building immediately.”

  “Right,” she said. So that was it. Humiliated and relieved in equal parts, Olympia began to empty the contents of her desk. The only question left was whether she should say Auf Wiedersehen, or screw you—or some combination of the two—to her boss. Her bag packed, Olympia decided to knock on Viveka’s office door. Receiving no answer, she turned the knob anyway. She found Viveka leaned over a birth control wheel with a giant magnifying glass. For a split second, Olympia actually felt sorry for her.

  “Have you not heard of knocking?!” Viveka screeched as she snatched the disk off her desktop and slipped it into the pocket of her parachute pants.

  “I did knock.”

  “And I did not answer. Which means you were not welcome to enter.”

  “I just wanted to say good-bye,” Olympia told her.

  “My family fires you,” said Viveka.

  “You can’t fire me because I’m already leaving,” Olympia pointed out.

  “Well, you will not be receiving a recommendation from me,” said Viveka.

  “If you don’t give me a recommendation, I’m going to tell everyone in the art world that you’re blind.” Olympia couldn’t believe her gall. Was she blackmailing the woman? And if so, was that okay?

  Viveka narrowed her eyes at her. “Good luck finding your sperm donor.”

  Olympia winced before she regained her composure. “Good luck finding Tuesday’s pill,” she said. “And good luck promoting crappy, misogynist art. Oh, and for the record, Eberhard Fuchs called me a dreckige Hure. Which is why I freaked out on him.”

  “Do you not have a bastard child?”

  “You’re a terrible person.”

  “Eberhard is a visionary. Please close the door behind you.”

  “There’s just one thing.”

  “What?”

  “You have two different gladiator sandals on. I thought you might want to know.”

  Viveka looke
d down at her feet, then back up at Olympia, her face contorted. “EXIT THE PREMISES!!” she cried.

  After she left Viveka’s office, Olympia said farewell to Maximilian and Annmarie.

  “Good-bye,” they muttered in unison.

  “I just have one question before I leave,” Olympia said, pausing at the front door. “How come you guys never smile?”

  “What do you mean by smile?” asked Maximilian, stony-faced.

  “Never mind,” said Olympia. She shut the door behind her and exhaled.

  The unemployment rate was close to ten percent. In two weeks’ time, she’d have no source of income. Plus, she had a daughter to support. But she had enough savings to make ends meet for three months at least, and she could always apply for unemployment benefits. Maybe she’d finally be able to devote herself to her watercolors. But first, she was going to treat herself to a café au lait at her favorite Eurotrash bistro on Madison Ave. She’d read the newspaper and catch up on what was going on in the world. The truth was that she was tired of thinking about herself, tired of thinking about the Hellinger family too. She needed a week off. She’d be seeing her sisters again on Sunday, anyway.

  19

  GUS FELT ALMOST AS anxiety-ridden about what to wear to the Sisters’ Summit as she had been when selecting an outfit for her rendezvous with Jeff. Today’s choice had come down to: her court outfit (i.e., a men’s suit) or one of her new “girlier” ensembles, if only so her sisters would find her easier to relate to. Right now, they were treating her, not Jennifer Yu, as if she were the interloper fourth sister. Multiple messages to both Perri and Olympia had gone unreturned. Meanwhile, Gus was no longer speaking to Jeff, ostensibly for the crime of having told Mike exactly what she’d asked him not to, but also because she’d suddenly become repelled by the very idea of him. The one time they’d spoken since Gus had chewed him out, Jeff had claimed to be suffering without her. Though Gus had read between the lines that he’d already started flirting with a SoHo housewife whom he’d met at the tennis bubble. And so, while she felt sorry for him, she didn’t feel all that sorry. Clearly, he was obsessed with her only because she’d dumped him.