The Weird Sisters

by Eleanor Brown

  “It smells good,” our mother said.

  Rose squirted some lotion into her palm and rubbed her hands together before stroking them up and down our mother’s arm. She could feel the muscles beneath the gentle droop of age. Cordy sat up and held out her hand, and Rose poured lotion into her palm so we could rub her arms together.

  “Now this is the life,” our mother sighed. “If I’d known I’d get treated like this, I’d have gotten sick years ago.”

  “Gallows humor,” Rose said.

  “No, if this were the life, we would be cabana boys and you’d be on a beach somewhere,” Cordy said.

  “I could hardly keep up with a cabana boy nowadays,” our mother said. “I feel like all I’ve done for the past six months is lie around. I’m going to have muscle atrophy by the time this is over.”

  “We’ll get you some servants to carry you around in a palanquin,” Cordy said. The phone rang, and she flopped backward into a seemingly impossible position, her pants slipping down to reveal her belly as she reached above her head for the receiver. Our mother gingerly stretched her arm up as Rose put on the new bandage.

  “Hel-LO,” Cordy said. “Hi, Jonathan! How’s my favorite brother?” Rose’s eyes flicked to the clock. After midnight there. Unusual. A little flicker of panic zipped through her.

  Cordy paused, wiggled her eyebrows at Rose. “We’re good. Getting Mom ready for bed.” She tucked the receiver against her shoulder and helped Rose as we pulled our mother to a sitting position, grabbed the white nightgown and tossed it to Rose, who pulled it over her head. “Uh-huh. She’s better. What’s up in England? Had any good tea lately?” There was a pause again, and she giggled. “Totally. Hey, isn’t it like a million o’clock there?”

  Our mother gasped as Rose pushed her arm slightly too roughly into the sleeve of the nightgown. “I’m sorry.”

  “Here, let me give you to Rose before she breaks Mom’s arm. See ya!” Cordy handed the phone to Rose and then tugged our mother’s nightgown down over the towel before pulling it out, like a magician pulling a cloth from a table.

  Leaving Cordy plumping up the endless pillows our mother could never be without, Rose stepped out into the hallway.

  “Are you okay?”

  Jonathan laughed. “That’s my Rose. Always looking for the disaster.”

  “Stop. You know it’s past your bedtime.”

  “You always call me when it’s the middle of the night there. Turnabout is fair play.”

  “I’m glad you called, actually. I was trying to get you last night, but you weren’t in. Can’t you get an answering machine?”

  “I could. But that would spoil all the fun. I was in London at that conference, remember? Presenting my paper?”

  “Oh, of course,” Rose said guiltily. She’d been so excited that she’d completely forgotten he was presenting. “How did it go?”

  “It was great. I was awfully nervous, but once I started reading, it got much easier. And there were some wonderful questions afterward. Got to go to some good sessions, too. So why were you trying to call?”

  Excitement swelled up in Rose and she forgot all about her careful wording. “I’ve got some really exciting news.”

  “Do you? I do, too. Who goes first?”

  “Me,” Rose said. “I’ve been jumping up and down since I heard.”

  “There’s a mental image.”

  “Metaphorically.”

  “Disappointing. So what is it, love? It’s nice to hear you so happy.”

  Rose went into her bedroom and closed the door, lay across the perfectly made bed. “I ran into Dr. Kelly at the pharmacy yesterday. Do you remember my telling you about her?”

  “Sure. She was your favorite professor in college, right? Supervised your honors thesis? How is she?”

  “Yes, that’s her. She’s fine. She’s getting ready to retire, actually, at the end of next year.”

  “Oh.” He inhaled slowly on the other end of the line, and if Rose had been in any state of mind to hear it, she would have known that her plan was about to fall apart.

  “She wants me to apply, Jonathan. She says they’ll take an internal candidate to be department head, and then there will be a tenure-track position open. And she said it was mine if I wanted it. She actually said that. Can you imagine? A year from now, I could be teaching at Barney.”

  “I thought we’d talked about looking for somewhere else after next year,” Jonathan said. His voice was cautious, probing.

  “We did. But this is Barnwell, Jonathan. I’ve always wanted to teach there, ever since I was a little girl. Isn’t it exciting? I know it sounds stupid, but it’s like a dream come true.”

  “Yes, I guess it is.”

  “You don’t sound happy.”

  “I’m not unhappy. I just . . . You’ve taken me a bit by surprise here. This isn’t the direction I thought we were heading in.”

  “No, it’s not like we’d talked about it. But it’s so perfect. I could be near my parents, and you’d be so close to home, too, and I know Columbus would take you back—the provost said as much, even though you broke your contract. And it’s so much more affordable here than in the city. You could commute, and, well, it would just be perfect!” Rose could hear the hesitation in his voice, and she pushed through, forcing cheer into her own, as though she could inflate him with her excitement from miles away. She bit her lip and waited for his reply.

  “It’s funny that you’re telling me this now, because the thing is . . .” He stopped, cleared his throat, laughed awkwardly. “It’s kind of ironic, really. I’ve been offered a visiting professorship.”

  “Where?” Rose said, but her stomach was already souring. He was going to leave her. He was going to leave her alone.

  “Here! It’s amazing. Two years. I’d be able to finish my research. I’ve got these amazing doctoral candidates to work with; I know we could finish and publish in that time. It’s incredible, really, Rosie. You wouldn’t believe the competition.”

  “I didn’t even know you were applying,” Rose said, and she could hear how weak she sounded, and she hated herself for it. She sat up and leaned forward on the edge of the bed, her stomach pressing into her thighs.

  Jonathan’s voice softened. “I didn’t want to upset you. You’re upset, aren’t you?”

  Rose swallowed. “No, I’m happy. Happy for you.” It was a lie and he knew it.

  “But I haven’t even told you, Rosie. They’re moving me into an apartment, so there will be room for you, too. You can come over and we’ll be Brits for two whole years.”

  “In England.”

  “That is the primary location,” Jonathan said. Tension thrummed behind his voice. “Think of it, Rose. It’s like a sign.”

  “But we’re getting married,” Rose said, and it was more of a cry, her voice cracking in the last syllable.

  “And we still are,” Jonathan said. “But it means you could come here, take a sabbatical.”

  “I can’t. There won’t be a position open when we come back. Do you know how long I’ve waited for something to open up here?”

  “Does it have to be Barnwell?”

  “Does it have to be England?” she asked. She sounded ridiculous, whiny, childish, but she couldn’t stop herself.

  “Rosie,” he said, and he sounded stern. “This is the chance of a lifetime.”

  And it was. For him.

  “For both of us,” he said. How well he knew her.

  “You want me to come to England,” she said.

  “No, you’re coming to England anyway. I want us to live in England. For a little while. Rose, you know what a coup this is for my career. And you know the odds of a position opening mid-year are so small. It’s perfect for me, and it’s perfect for you. You can write and get some articles published, and then we’ll find positions somewhere else. Somewhere that sees you for the incredible researcher and teacher you are.”

  Rose said nothing.

  “Rose, I’ve got to hav
e you with me. I miss you so much. Every day I look at those stupid dreaming spires and I wish you were here to see them, too.”

  “Jonathan, I don’t know,” she said. “I mean, my mother, and the wedding, and we were going to buy a house, and I . . .” She trailed off. It was so unfair. He knew how much she’d always wanted a job at Barnwell. And a tenure-track job at that. Security. No pulling up roots every two or three years to head somewhere else only to have to do it again. No wondering where she’d be living in a few years’ time, or what might happen if they couldn’t find jobs at the same place.

  “You can’t live in Barnwell your whole life, Rose. There’s so much out there you’re missing. And it’s missing you.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, her voice flat. Cold.

  “You are so much more than that town. You’re so brilliant, and you’re such an amazing teacher. You know that. And you’d only learn more if you’d spread your wings a little and try out a few other places.”

  “And my mother?”

  “She’ll be okay. And you said it looks like Bean is sticking around. Let her keep the home fires burning for a while. You need to take care of yourself for once, Rose.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Silence hung across the line for a moment, and then he sighed heavily. “Look. We don’t have to make any decisions right now. I know what they said, but we don’t even know if you’ll get the position at Barney for sure, right?”

  “Right,” Rose said carefully, wondering if she was ceding some important ground just by admitting that.

  “We’ll think about it. And you’re coming out in a while to visit, right? You can see how you feel about it then. Have you bought your ticket yet?”

  “Not yet. It’s been a little busy here, Jonathan.” This was not entirely untrue. But she had been procrastinating on making travel plans, a little in the same way that Bean had refused to open her bills. We are more alike than we would ever admit.

  “I understand. Why don’t you see if you can take some time and get a flight, and we’ll talk about it more when you’re here. Okay?”

  “Okay,” she said. She suddenly felt near tears, and very, very tired. All the excitement of seeing Dr. Kelly yesterday had run out of her. Jonathan wasn’t going to whoop with joy about turning down this job and moving back to Barnwell with her forever and ever. And she couldn’t imagine having worked her entire life, hoping that one day she’d have the opportunity to take a job here, only to turn it down.

  One of them was going to have to give, or the whole thing was going to fall apart.

  Bean was extraordinarily hungover, which was embarrassing enough at her age—shouldn’t you leave those things behind along with consumption of alcohol through funnels?—but even worse on a Thursday morning. The sun was a cheerful irritation pushing its way through her designer sunglasses, and her stomach pushed and rolled with every step she took.

  When she had walked up to the house that morning, Rose, barreling down the porch steps, had nearly knocked her over. “You’re just coming home? I didn’t realize you were going to be out all night.”

  She hadn’t known she would be, truthfully. She had headed out with the intention of shaking off a little of the small-town stink and burying her troubles in alcohol. She hadn’t made it far, only to Edward’s house, to the front door, where he greeted her with a drink, and she returned the favor by slipping off her dress and draining the glass as he kissed his way down her neck.

  “It wasn’t intentional,” Bean had said to Rose, pushing her way past our sister into the kitchen. She was more than aware that the scent of cigarettes and alcohol was pushing its way through her skin, underscored by the dank, vinegar smell of sweat and desperate sex.

  Rose followed her back inside. “You smell like a brewery.”

  “And yet I haven’t been in one. Odd, no?” Bean filled a glass with ice and then let the tap run, the ice cubes cracking, startled by the difference in temperature.

  “What if something had happened?”

  “Then I’m sure one of the three other able-bodied adults in the house, if not all of you, would have handled it with alacrity.” She took a long drink of the water, forcing her stomach back down as it lurched against her ribs in protest.

  Rose felt the burn of unfairness in her stomach. It wasn’t right that Bean could just run around like this, while she was taking care of things. It wasn’t fair.

  She opened her mouth to speak, to pass judgment, but at that moment, Bean put down her empty glass and their eyes locked. Bean’s hair was uncharacteristically ruffled, her eyes bloodshot and tired. She had misbuttoned her shirt, and her hands were shaking slightly as she went to fold her arms over her chest. When had Bean last looked so exhausted, so weak?

  When Rose was six and Bean three, our mother nearly ready to give birth to Cordy, we were in the kitchen playing while our mother baked. We had brought in a set of wooden blocks and were constructing a castle with wide towers and drawbridges that moved with the aid of our clumsy hands. After she put a cake in the oven, our mother wandered out into the garden, forgetting us, perhaps, absorbed as we were in our architectural fantasies. Finally the scent of chocolate bursting in the oven’s heat became too much for Bean’s empty stomach, and leaving Rose building the walls of an empty moat around our creation, she toddled over to the stove. With arms deliciously baby-fat, Bean reached for one of the dish towels that hung over the oven’s door handle and pulled down. She blinked at the rush of damp heat that flooded out, the smell wafting into her hair and the weave of her dress. Before Rose could stop her, Bean reached inside and put her hands on the heavy glass pan, wanting to pull the richness of that scent to her.

  Bean’s scream was unforgettable, Rose says. But what we remember is the way Rose sprang into action—yanking Bean away from the oven and letting the door slam shut with a thick metallic rattle, then lifting her onto a stool and running cold water over her hands and arms, already blistering red and white from the stove’s furious heat. We don’t know how she knew what to do, how to grab a towel and fill it with ice from the plastic bin in the freezer, place Bean’s arms on it. Bean, eyes wide and tears stilled by Rose’s efficiency, but mouth still working thick sobs, watching it all, the way our sister had saved her from herself. And then Rose running for our mother, whose own reaction was slowed by the weight of her belly and the way her mind was so often far from us.

  Looking at Bean’s face now, Rose could see her wounds as easily as when she had cared for her burns all those years ago. She stilled herself and walked over to the cabinet beside the sink. She opened the door and flipped efficiently through the half-bottles of medicine until she found some aspirin. Shook two into her palm, refilled the glass on the counter, and handed both to Bean.

  “Take these. And drink some water. You’ll feel better if you sleep.”

  Now, hours of dreamless rest and one tentative piece of toast later, Bean was sitting on one of the hopelessly outdated chairs in the library. The faded orange wool scratched against her thighs as she shifted. Bean had one leg curled under her, a bent-legged stork. Across the uncomfortably wide table lay a handful of discarded books: a few on résumés, one on the color of her parachute, and a coffee table photographic journey through the distended bellies of the third world. She had eschewed all of them in favor of a fantasy novel. Not her normal fare, but guaranteed not to make reference to anything that might evoke one of the beasts of her current craptastic situation, the way one of those modern-day tales of shoes and ex-boyfriends, or even the drama of small-town life in Ireland, might. Someone was always getting betrayed in those books, and the fact was, being a betrayer at the moment herself, she couldn’t bear to think about it.

  “It’s about that time, Bianca,” Mrs. Landrige called from the desk, where she was sitting, her hands folded neatly in front of her. The library was empty. “Are you checking anything out?”

  Bean looked up, blinking, and lifted her sunglasses up, squ
inting through the lights to the falling dusk outside. Another day in paradise, gone.

  “Yeah,” she said, slumping forward against the table to pull the scattered books toward her.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Landrige corrected her, and Bean parroted the correction without thinking. That was the problem with coming home. You turned smack back into a teenager again.

  Her stomach had stopped swirling and now it growled insistently as she replaced the books on the shelf before heading over to the checkout desk. “I’m glad you came in, Bianca,” Mrs. Landrige said, stamping the book efficiently and placing the card in the tray for filing. “I hear you’re looking for a job.”

  “You do?” Bean asked. “Who said that?”

  “Rose. She was in the other day and she mentioned that you were having a spot of trouble finding something. Not surprising, really. Wrong time of year, even if Barnwell were a booming economy.”

  “Rose told you I needed a job?” Bean asked, still stumped. “My sister Rose?”

  “What are you acting so surprised for? She is your sister. She’s worried about you.”

  “Worried about me,” Bean said. “Right.”

  “In any case, it’s not exactly a big secret. Maura at the bookstore mentioned you’d been in to see her, and you’ve been in the 650s all day.” She nodded in the direction of the books Bean had just replaced. Mrs. Landrige knew the Barnwell library without looking. You could ask her anything, and she’d spit out the Dewey decimal number and point a taut hand in the direction of the shelf. Puberty rites? 390, by the study carrels. Charlotte’s Web? Juvenile literature, by the windows. Soccer? 796, to the left of the drinking fountains. When we were little, we sometimes tried to stump her, thinking of the most arcane topics we could, but we never won. Mrs. Landrige was the champion of the Dewey decimal system.

  “I suppose,” Bean said. “It looks like I’ll be here for a while.”

  “I’m taking a leave of absence. Hip replacement surgery.” She looked up at Bean. The neck of her dress—it was always a dress, she was Of That Age—framed her neck, which looked so delicate against the fabric, the taut cords and loose skin standing out against each other. Bean stroked her own skin unconsciously, sure she could already feel the loosening of her jowls, the emergence of her clavicle.