The Weird Sisters

by Eleanor Brown

  “Mmm. How’s she?” Cordy asked around a mouthful of corn. She ate around the ear in tiny circles—always had, though the rest of the family ate in long lines.

  “Don’t know, really. We haven’t talked much. She looks good. As always.”

  “Weird, huh?” Cordy finished the ear of corn and held it delicately between two fingers as she walked it over to the compost basket and dropped it in. “How we’re all home together now?” She came over to the table and sat down, putting one foot on the edge of her chair and hugging her leg close to her like a teddy bear, a comfort object. There was a tear in one of the patches of her skirt.

  “Weird,” Rose agreed.

  “I heard Jonathan is in England? That stinks.” Cordy picked corn from between her teeth, examining each kernel before sucking it off the tip of her finger. Rose grabbed her hand and stopped her. Cordy ran her tongue along her teeth and then grinned. “Got it all anyway.” Her fingernails were filthy, Rose saw, and her hair had a greasy sheen to it. “How’s Mom, anyway?”

  Rose stopped herself from rolling her eyes. Anyway. As though it were an afterthought. How nice to be Cordy, to assume that everything would always turn out just fine, to let everyone else watch out for the danger. “Doing okay. They’re doing chemotherapy to try to shrink the tumor before they operate. She had a treatment a couple of days ago, so she’s only just getting over that. She’ll be pretty tired, so no drama, okay?”

  Cordy considered this for a moment. “Cool,” she said finally. “Well, I’m ready for bed. How about you?”

  Rose shook her head. Typical Cordy. Not interested in anyone besides herself. Draining the last of her milk, Rose padded softly over to the counter, rinsing her glass and leaving it on the drainboard. “I’ll carry your bag,” she said.

  Rose led the way, Cordy’s damp army green duffel resting on her back, soaking through the light fabric of her nightgown. Cordy followed behind, the neck of her guitar case bumping cheerfully into every available object. “Oops,” Cordy kept saying. “Oops.”

  Rose opened the door to Cordy’s bedroom and walked inside. For some reason, Cordy had never redecorated the way Bean and Rose had as we grew older. The room was still the room of a child: pink and white, ribbons and bows. She had changed her own look a thousand times, but her room had always remained the same.

  Cordy came inside and stepped out of her skirt, hurling herself on the bed wearing only her shirt and underwear. Her legs were hairy, and the bottoms of her feet nearly black with dirt, Rose noticed with a light sense of revulsion. “G’night,” she said, and closed her eyes, halfway to sleep in a moment. Rose paused for a minute, wanting to tell Cordy to brush her teeth, or wash her face, or some other motherly bedtime reminder. But she thought better of it.

  For now, Rose would let her sleep.

  “Good night, sweet prince,” she said finally, and closed the door on Cordy’s hollowed face.

  Our father and Rose had taken our mother for a follow-up to have the tumor measured, so when Bean woke up, she wandered outside to pick up the newspaper to keep her company during breakfast. The flag on the mailbox was down—our mail had always been delivered egregiously early, so she grabbed that, too, flipping through the letters as she walked back inside.

  There was a thick, padded envelope from New York, addressed to her. She recognized her ex-roommate Daisy’s passive-aggressive debutante scrawl.

  She tore open the envelope, dropping the newspaper and the other mail on the table, and reached inside. There was a pile of envelopes, all addressed to her New York apartment. A couple of wedding invitations, two postcards inviting her to gallery openings, and then, what she’d been dreading. Bills. A dozen, at least. Credit cards, all of them maxed out, all of them with usurious interest rates.

  And at the bottom of the stack, a note on Daisy’s obnoxiously proper Southern belle stationery. A detailed accounting of what she owed her erstwhile roommates: rent, electricity, water. The sum at the bottom made her swallow, hard.

  Bean had purposely left no forwarding address, but clearly it hadn’t been beyond Daisy’s limited finishing-school ken to track her down, which meant that the credit card companies wouldn’t be far behind.

  She’d been in the habit, for too long, of refusing to open the bills, as though not knowing the exact numbers she owed would make them smaller, or, if she were really lucky, nonexistent.

  This, unfortunately, hadn’t turned out to be the best strategy.

  Bean thought of the ugliness that these envelopes contained. She thought of the way the men in the bar had turned away from her the other night when the girls had come in. She thought of the empty days she’d spent at home so far, and all the empty ones spreading out ahead of her. She thought of the way our mother collapsed against the pillow after fighting another losing battle with her nausea, out of breath, ashen and sore, smudges of purple around her eyes. She thought of the new priest asking her if she’d be at church.

  She sat down at the table and opened the first envelope slowly.

  Cordy slept late, awakening only when the noises of the house and the insistent sunlight became too obvious to be believably incorporated into her dreams any longer. A near-decade of roaming had made her cautious upon opening her eyes—she had grown used to a slow awakening, testing the space, telling herself the story of how she had landed in that particular bed, in that room, at that moment. She lay in bed for a few minutes, staring at the ceiling of her childhood. The same crack curved over the door, the same fluted light fixture hung from the rippling, aged plaster. She had the corner room by our parents, under the attic, and the dormer windows in Rose’s and Bean’s rooms were offset here by the sharply sloping eaves that made the room seem shaded and womb-like.

  Sometime during the night, she had climbed under the covers, and she emerged now, rummaging through her bag for something with a semblance of cleanliness. For months now, she had been living out of people’s vans, crashing periodically in some youthfully enthusiastic group home, mixing with people who were milling around, desperately trying to find some lost Kerouacian glory.

  It had sucked.

  All of her clothes were dirty and smelled like a well-marinated mixture of sweat and pot. Her hair had grown long and shaggy, and she had been clean so rarely that she had begun to scratch idly at the film on her skin, leaving dull marks down her arms. When she woke in the morning, often staring at the scruffy-haired, anonymous boy-man lying beside her, the first thought that had sprung into her mind had usually been, I am too old for this crap. The people she had met had been kind, certainly, but not a natural kindness, more of a benevolence stemming from a cocktail of illicit substances and a quiet, frantic desire to be liked.

  She was fairly certain none of them would have characterized themselves in this way. They were young enough to be fooled by the grandeur of their own plans, to be so absorbed in the intense romanticism of the lifestyle they were building, one hovel at a time, that they never cared to notice that there was nothing romantic about a case of scabies. But at the same time she couldn’t help but love them for it, in the condescending way an adult can love the idiocy of a child. Because, and Cordy had recently come to face this, she had aged into an adult among children, and it was past time for her to move on. But given there was nowhere to move on to, she had simply moved back.

  Accepting the fact that her bag held nothing clean at all, Cordy yanked open the bottom drawer of the antique dresser in the corner alcove, and dug out a pair of loose-fitting bell-bottom jeans and a T-shirt that might fit, thin as she had gotten. The other downside to the lifestyle she had been living was that she had been hungry much of the time. If they were at a concert, for instance, given by one of the seemingly millions of interchangeable nostalgic folk-rock bands, there would be some dirty, dreadlocked couple selling sandwiches within her meager budget, but they would be dry, tasteless things, homemade twelve-grain bread with cruelty-free alfalfa sprouts and unsalted butter. She grimaced at the thought, but her stomach rum
bled traitorously. She placed her hand over her belly to quell the sound, and instead felt the beginnings of the hard lump that reminded her of why she’d finally come home.

  Judging by the angle of the sun, she figured it was almost eleven in the morning, so she padded out of her room and down the hall to the bathroom, dropping an enormous pile of laundry down the chute on the way. Bean’s door stood open, and she could see her back, taut and crooked forward like a beckoning finger. She held a phone to her ear, her fingers mottled white and red against the receiver, and she was crying. Cordy stopped, putting her palm lightly against the door as though she could give comfort through the walls.

  “I’m not coming back,” Bean said, giving the choked gasp that is the sign of exhausted bawling. When she spoke again, her voice had lowered to a whisper. “No, it won’t,” she hissed.

  Silence again. Cordy shifted slightly on her feet, goose bumps rising on her bare legs. “I’m going to,” Bean said, and then, “I know. I know.”

  Something in our sister’s tone made Cordy pull back, step away from the door. There was a secret here, a secret Cordy was not sure she wanted to know, because she could not remember the last time Bean had cried, at least not in someone else’s presence. Something smelled sour and painful to her. She turned on grimy feet and walked down the hallway loudly, stepping purposefully on every aching board, making her presence known.

  Cordy sat slumped at a table in the Barnwell Beanery. Nothing had changed, really. Mismatched furniture, heavy and chocolate brown, swaybacked and tired from constant use; battered wood floors crossed with the dark streaks of traffic patterns. There were Magic 8 Balls and Barrels of Monkeys on the tables, and paintings by local artists hung beseechingly on the walls. Cordy, looking pure Beanery—olive cords, a faded T-shirt, and a woven hemp bag—rested her head on her arms on one of the tables, her sandaled feet curled around the chair’s legs. A glass mug sat in front of her, the tag of a tea bag resting on the lip, sending smoke signals of steam into the air. Cordy looked at it morosely.

  “Hey, Cordy! I heard you were back in town!” Dan Miller sat down across from her, tossing a dirty dish towel over his shoulder. “How you been?”

  Cordy pushed herself up sleepily. She had pulled her hair into two messy braids, which she flipped over her shoulders as she turned to him. “Miller,” she said, smiling. “Bad news travels fast.”

  He chuckled, his smile breaking his face into a dimpled glow. His hair was darker than she remembered, nearly black, and his face was stubbled with a day’s growth of beard. “It’s not so bad. The bad news is that Bean is back, too.”

  “Oh, man. What’d she do to you?”

  “Nothing. Dicked over one of my roommates pretty bad, but I think we’ve all recovered from it by this point. I shouldn’t be picking on your sister anyway.”

  Cordy waved her hand magnanimously and picked up her drink, wrapping her fingers around the glass, warming herself despite the summer sun pouring in through the windows, oozing its way across the floor. “Pick away.”

  “So how the heck are you? You look like crap.”

  “I see your legendary charm hasn’t faded,” Cordy said, eyeing him over the rim of the glass before she set it down again, fiddling with the string of her tea bag. “I’ve been on the road for a while. Following bands, you know. Hanging out.”

  “Wow. That’s awesome. I thought most of us had gotten too old fart for that.”

  “Well, I am two years younger than you. Obviously thirty is the cutoff point for old fartdom.”

  “But you’re back,” Dan observed. He reached up, tugging at the neck of his camo green T-shirt with a broad finger. The backs of his hands were furred with dark hair. “Obviously old fartdom has come early for you.”

  “Okay, so maybe I hit my cutoff point, too. You know it’s bad when Barnwell starts looking good by comparison.”

  “Hey now,” he warned, tut-tutting a finger at her. “Forget not to whom you speak. I live here voluntarily.”

  “Yeah, what’s up with that? Aren’t you from Philly or something?”

  “In a former life, yeah. And I just liked it better here. That’s not such a bad thing, is it?”

  Cordy shrugged and picked up her glass, taking another sip before she replied. “Just unexpected, I guess. I mean, I was reading one of the alumni magazines last night and everyone else has joined the Peace Corps or become some important cancer-curing researcher.”

  “And here we sit. Depressing, isn’t it?”

  “Hey, I never graduated. I have an excuse.”

  “I am a Small Business Owner,” Dan said, sitting up straight. “And a respectable member of the community. I need no excuse.”

  “You own this place?” Cordy looked around. As it was summer, there were few people in here, but during the school year, like everything else around campus, it would be hopping.

  “Yes, it’s all mine,” he said, gesturing expansively. “I’m the food service magnate of Barnwell. Bow to me.”

  “No thanks,” Cordy said coolly, but she gave him a slight smile, turning up the corners of her lips, Chapstick-pink.

  “How long are you around for?” he asked.

  “Dunno. A while. My mom’s sick, you know. And Rose is getting married. And I kind of got to think about what’s going to come next. Save a little money.”

  “Shit, that’s a lot going on all at once.” His eyebrows bent together slightly, a vee of concern. “You working?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, if you need a job, you let me know. Miller’ll give you the hookup.” He patted his chest, then rubbed it. At the hollow of his throat, thick hair curled up from under his shirt. She remembered watching him play Frisbee on the quad, shirtless, and the way she had been amazed by how hairy he was. Neither repulsed nor attracted, but scientifically fascinated, curious about the texture.

  “But I hate coffee. I mean, drinking it. I love the smell,” Cordy said.

  “So there’s a start, right? And it smells awesome in here, doesn’t it?” Dan asked, leaning back so far that he had to hook his booted foot around the table leg to keep from falling off as he drew an exaggerated, enormous breath.

  Cordy giggled.

  “The pay is crap, but you’re living at home, right? So no worries. Call me.” There was a moment’s pause. She’d had dozens of jobs over the years—a job didn’t mean she was committing to anyone or anything. Taking a job in Barney did not mean she would owe her soul to the proverbial company store. It wouldn’t mean she’d have to stay forever. She wouldn’t even have to stay through a shift if she didn’t want to.

  “Okay,” Cordy agreed, and Dan hopped out of his chair, placing his hand on her shoulder and squeezing lightly.

  “Jesus,” he said, prodding at her clavicle. “You need to gain some weight, girl. I’ll send over a pastry or something.”

  “Thanks,” Cordy said, reaching up to squeeze his hand in return. He walked off, whistling, and she watched him go, looking at the loose fabric of his baggy jeans. He seemed so happy, and it made her a little sad to realize how alien that emotion had become.

  It could have been worse, Cordy knew. She could have been Ophelia, with all the illicit sexuality and going mad and committing suicide. She could even have been Bianca, with all the beauty and obedience to live up to. So being Cordelia was, she was well aware, not as bad as it could have been.

  Cordelia’s problem—that is, the Shakespearean Cordelia, but hang on and you’ll see where we’re going with this—for Cordy was that she was just so unformed. Her great moment of rebellion was in refusing to swear her love to her father precisely because she loved him too much. (Though Cordy was, truth be told, always kind of pleased at the middle finger that sent—albeit indirectly—to the older sisters.) And then there she was at the end, loyal and cooperative, until she, you know, dies. Okay, so there is the part where she becomes Queen of France and leads the French forces against Evil Edmund, but (a) she loses and (b) it’s not like she wanted to lea
d them. If there’s any way you could be a major military leader and be totally passive about it, that’d be Cordelia for you. Everything happens to Cordelia; she never makes anything happen.

  To be named after Cordelia should have invited some kind of dignity, but Cordy had never really felt it. The only thing she had absolutely inherited from her name was a gentle rage against injustice, and like Cordelia, she was hesitant to speak up about it, though Cordelia’s reluctance came more from some overinflated sense of goodness and Cordy’s came from . . . what? Laziness? Fear? She wasn’t really sure. In her most recent incarnation she had sat in hazy, smoke-filled rooms with sagging floors and listened to people mouthing off about The Patriarchy and The Establishment, and while she agreed, felt a great weight of sadness about the terrible things she knew existed in this world, she felt powerless to change them. After all, Cordelia had been executed for doing The Right Thing, and while Cordy didn’t think that was likely to happen to her, she wasn’t exactly eager to test the waters.

  In love, too, Cordy had always been compliant. While Rose searched, and Bean made herself available, Cordy had rarely bothered to seek anything out. Her sweet and comical nature had drawn men to her, true, but mostly she took them as they came, and did not let herself be drawn into the drama falling in love entailed. She accepted these suitors, but did not care about them, not really. She had found herself, more than once, below the body of a sweating, heaving man whispering endearments in her ear, hot breath on her skin, and wondered idly how she had gotten there, and what all the fuss was about anyway. Sex had given her a bed more often than not in the past few years, but it had never held any passion, and Cordy always felt it was more companionable than anything else.

  To Cordy, life was filled with things that were simply what you did when they were required of you, like sleeping with someone in exchange for a bed, or working as a hotel maid to get money to go to the next town, or marrying the king of France and leading his troops into certain death.