Throughout our twenty-year marriage, Eli and I have tried to deal with it in positive ways. Eli’s a great talker, and he’s especially good on topics like family hang-ups. Because he’ll stick to a subject until we run it into the ground, we have explored every facet of my overwrought relationship with Shay. These discussions are difficult and usually end with Eli saying the best thing about having a wild sister is that it strengthens a person’s character.
Yeah, I always answer, so does a broken leg.
To my knowledge, nowhere is it written that sisterhood has to be difficult. There have been sisters who didn’t insist on being diametrically and dialectically opposite types. There is no law that states sisters must use the Snow White/Rose Red fairy tales as their operative model.
Look at lawyer-writer Flo Kennedy and her sisters, who call themselves the Other (read Black) Kennedy women. They get along. Look at Ursula and Gudrun of Women in Love, who linked arms and literarily walked through life together. Look at Beth and Jo and Meg and Amy in Little Women. Didn’t they care for and about each other? Look how often the fierce feminist Gloria Steinem came to Washington to help her sister Suzanne take care of her six children when they were little. And didn’t Erica Jong even write a poem to her younger sister full of love and warm advice?
Still, I guess I instinctively knew the truth long before I began my research:
(A) It is impossible for sisters to be both different and equal.
(B) Two or more sisters cannot occupy the same space.
(C) One sister cannot be both a subject and an object.
(D) Any action by one sister creates an equal and opposite reaction in the other.
It was Margaret Mead’s sister, Elizabeth Mead Stieg, who announced that sisterhood was “probably the most competitive relationship within the family.” Let’s hear it for Elizabeth!
“Sisters are the crabgrass on the lawn of life,” wrote Anon. Allll riii-ight, Anon!
Kate Millett’s younger sister, Mallory, said that her relationship with Kate made her feel “like Milton Eisenhower to Kate’s Ike.” Tell me about it, Mallory.
Again and again over the years I have asked myself: Am I jealous of Shay?
And each time I have had to answer: Yes. Absolutely yes.
I am jealous of her looks, her career, her zingy clothes, her passionate pursuits, her notoriety. I am jealous of all the lovers she’s had, who by now must number well into three digits. I am jealous because Shay knows all the glitzy glamorous celebrities in America, all the late-night talk-show charmers, the stand-up comics, giggly starlets, chic fashion designers, low-budget directors and-far-out rock stars.
I am jealous because she knows all the movers and shakers who appear on morning network news shows—the media spin doctors, best-selling authors, policy-making politicos, Wall Street brokers, Olympic athletes, hostile-takeover honchos, Hollywood producers, foreign correspondents, Harvard pundits, diet doctors and French actresses.
I am jealous because she consorts with all the flamboyant hostesses and international CEOs and millionaire tennis stars and world-class yachtsmen and kooky artists—all the residual royalty in Europe, the smartest people in New York and the fastest ones in L.A. I almost lost it when I first saw whom she’d coded into her speed-dialing memory system. Her Rolodex reads like an index to a book by Stephen Birmingham or the key to a roman à clef by Dominick Dunne.
I freaked out when her name cropped up on the short list of Washington women mentioned as Gary Hart’s real mistress—a woman known as a serious journalist, not just a bimbo. I couldn’t handle it when a reporter from The New York Times, seated beside Eli at the annual Gridiron Dinner, asked if the rumor about Shay and Qaddafi was true. It blew me away when Ted Koppel asked Eli if there was anything to the story that linked Shay and former California governor Jerry Brown.
What I’ve learned from being Shay Karavan’s sister is that a rumor is as good as the truth for boosting name recognition.
Over the years different shrinks have asked me, “Were you always jealous of your baby sister? When you were little, did you mind being older when she was so much bolder?”
Of course, I’ve always answered. Of course I did.
Did it bother you that she’s had both a family and a career?
Of course, I answered. I minded that very much.
Did it bother you that Eli loved Shay first and only discovered you after she’d left him?
Are you kidding?
But when one shrink asked me if I’d exchange my life for Shay’s, I said: No, sir. No way, José.
I haven’t got Shay’s temperament. We are drastically different. Even though I sometimes envy her life-style, I don’t approve of her life.
Irreconcilable Difference #84: I happen to have inherited a particular synapse between purpose and caution that got left out of her genetic map.
Irreconcilable Difference #91: My conscience is integrated into my character so that I am a serious human being, while Shay is totally superficial. I am a person; she is a personality. I perform; she’s a performer. I have character; she is one. I help; she hypes. She grandstands while I try to withstand the gross temptations of our society.
So how do I live with this sister of mine, who flits in and out of my life, using and abusing me, hogging the limelight, taking liberties and always just a bounce away from actually flirting with my husband?
Poorly.
“Ta dum.”
Shay has finally found the hairbrush she’s been hunting. Lowering the sun visor, she adjusts the mirror so she can watch herself brush her thick, crinkly black hair. The dozen or so silver bracelets she always wears on her left wrist click like castanets each time she back-combs her curls.
“Any visitors in residence over at your place right now?” she asks me.
“No.”
“So, then, would you mind if Mickey stays there with me over the weekend? He’s coming in tonight and we’ll be leaving for Atlanta Sunday. But, please, Nat, I want you to tell me the truth. If it’s going to put you out in any way, we’ll just forget about it and find a hotel.”
I can’t think of anything I would like less at the moment than having Shay and her new lover move into my home.
“You’ll love Mickey, Nat. He’s a real mensch. In fact, he might just be the right man for me. Finally. He’s fabulously rich, you know, but he gives away pots of money to political organizations. And he’s brilliant and funny and absolutely awesome in the sack. He’s absolutely huge. Hu-ge. On top of that he’s a good dancer and a great kisser. I mean really great. At least he doesn’t drool spit into my mouth, which is a great improvement over Christopher, I can tell you that much. Anyway, I can’t wait to get him to Atlanta so I can flash him around a little. Up till now we’ve been keeping a real low profile.”
Eli is also going to Atlanta Sunday to cover the convention, but this year he didn’t invite me to join him like he’s always done before. We’ve attended every Democratic and Republican National Convention together since 1968. That’s twenty years. So I have to admit not going this summer hurts a lot and forces me to admit to myself that Eli just isn’t very interested in being with me anymore.
SNAPSHOT
This is Eli standing outside the National Press Building. He’s definitely better-looking than Walter Matthau—but not much. He’s a bespectacled, shaggy, baggy man—big, fleshy and comfortable. I guess he’s sexy in the same way as a messed-up, much-used, slept-in bed. Being married to a Washington journalist is like being a doctor’s wife—plenty of perks and vicarious status, but no personal satisfaction. Mates of Washington journalists are admitted into their members-only speakeasy by virtue of marriage—not merit. It is best they never believe they belong. Divorce brings death to the identity of the nonpractitioner. At best, the spouse of a journalist can hold conditional second-class citizenship in the elite world of the national press corps.
Eli didn’t invite me to Atlanta this year because he’s bored with me.
Th
at’s why I’d wanted a quiet weekend alone with him before he left. I have this fantasy of somehow making him remember how tight we used to be, how thick we were, before our cold war started this spring. Although I have been hurting over the state of my marriage for months, I don’t say anything about that to my sister. Instead I say:
“Sure. It should be okay. Eli’s just getting ready for Atlanta too, so he’s feeling pretty mellow.”
We are spinning across Memorial Bridge at 55 MPH. The city is baking, but there are still some joggers—federal office workers wearing satin running shorts—bobbing along the walkways. There are also two women guiding a string of youngsters across the bridge.
“Oh look, Nat. Look at all those darling little grandchildren,” Shay coos.
I actually turn my head to see if she’s flipped out.
Grandchildren?
“Imagine the teacher taking them for a field trip on such a hot day! But listen, Nat. And I want you to tell me the truth. Do you think Eli would mind if Amelia stayed over at your place with me too? If you think that’d create too much commotion for him, just say so and I’ll forget about it. But really, she’s begun sleeping through the night again, almost every night now.”
I am squinting into the sun, scrunching up my face so my distress won’t show.
“No, that should be okay,” I say, concentrating on changing lanes. “I bought a new mattress for that little cot she sleeps on.”
“Rea-lly? That’s so-ooo nice. Well, would you mind stopping to pick her up right now on the way home?” Shay asks. “I get so lonesome for her I could die.”
“Really, Shay. If I’d known you wanted to go to Georgetown, I would have taken Key Bridge,” I respond tersely, letting ink-black irritation stain my words.
“Sorry about that. But can’t you just take the Whitehurst Freeway back?”
“Jesus, Shay. Why didn’t you tell me you wanted to go to Georgetown?”
“I didn’t want to put you to any trouble,” she says penitently.
“You always do the same thing, Shay. You make more trouble stalling around than if you just came right out with it. You knew you were going to ask me eventually.”
But like a responsible older sister, I turn back to hang a right on the Whitehurst Freeway. As soon as I make the turn, Shay reaches over to clasp my shoulder.
“You’re so terrific, Nat. I couldn’t survive without you. Really,” she says. “Thanks a million.” Then she leans over into the backseat. “I bought you something in New York. I didn’t even get a chance to wrap it, but I can’t wait to show it to you.”
The next thing I know she is dangling some lacy red thing in the air between us.
“Look,” she says.
I take a lateral look.
“Good God, what is that?”
“A bra. And the cups unsnap.”
“You mean a nursing bra, Shay?”
I’m a tad touchy on that subject.
“No,” she squeals. “It’s from Frederick’s of Hollywood. It’s to vamp Eli with. You know.”
“I can’t look right now,” I say, changing lanes again. My heart is pounding. It would take six of me to fill those two enormous cups. “Just drop it in my purse, Shay. I’ll look at it later.”
And shut-the-fuck-up, I think with hot resentment.
Just shut the fuck up.
Having brushed her hair until it is dancing with electricity, Shay now ties it back away from her face by twisting one long strand into a rope, wrapping it around the thick frizzy mass and knotting it near the nape of her neck.
“Aren’t you afraid, Shay?” I ask her. “Aren’t you scared?”
“No. Why should I be?”
There is no trace of anxiety on her face. Because I watched her grow up, I know Shay has no sense of personal danger, no internal alarm system. She operates on junkie logic, always did. From babyhood on, she acted as if she had blanket immunity from the consequences of her actions. She’s perfect for these times.
SNAPSHOT
That’s Shay, seated on her Schwinn two-wheeler. She is seven—which is when she began riding in the street. Despite our parents’ fierce prohibitions, Shay actually used her bike as a mode of transportation. I obediently stayed on the sidewalk, which, of course, led nowhere except around the block. I believe Shay acquired her sense of purpose from disregarding our parents’ orders and doing whatever she wanted to do whenever she wanted to do it. This snapshot is like a movie still mounted in a glass showcase beside a box office, freezing some climactic moment plucked from a film. This snapshot blurts out the nature of my childhood experience: Shay disregarding the rules and then charging past me—atop her speedy Schwinn—to triumph despite her disobedience.
Of course she drove poor Marge crazy with her recklessness.
Actually, Shay and I have different mothers. At least we don’t seem to remember the same woman. Shay has her Marge and I have mine. My Marge was always sweet and gentle. She wanted me to be good, so that’s what I was. Shay’s Marge is a wicked old witch who psychologically damaged Shay by claiming she was difficult to raise.
“Listen, Nat,” Shay says, lighting up another cigarette. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you. Didn’t you have a doctor’s excuse to get out of taking gym?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe. Maybe one year I did. I can’t remember.”
The Whitehurst Freeway runs along the river, so I’m able to steal a quick sideward glance down at the Potomac. It is a shocking sight. The water has receded, leaving the riverbanks bald and exposing previously submerged rocks, tree stumps and boating debris. The Potomac has shriveled up, evaporated. Another Greenhouse Effect.
“I think you did get out of gym with a medical excuse,” Shay insists. “Anyway, do you remember Miss Tippy? In sixth grade? She taught geography?”
“Sort of,” I say, as the freeway bends away from the river.
Now we are on M Street, instantly and irrevocably stuck in rush-hour traffic.
Four-thirty on a Friday afternoon in July near the Key Bridge in Georgetown.
We are going belly-up on M Street, trapped in standstill traffic, while Shay tries to recollect our childhood.
“Well, do you remember that chart she used to pull down like a window shade over the blackboard? It had the five basic food groups on it? What we were supposed to eat every day? One was leafy green vegetables and one was cereal grains and one was dairy products. But I can’t remember the others. Do you?”
“No.” I shake my head. “I don’t remember.”
“God. I really wish I could think of it.”
“What are you after, Shaysie?” I ask impatiently. “Why do you want to know all that stuff?”
“I just want to remember … correctly,” she says, fiddling with one of the three emerald studs set punk-style in her left earlobe. “For some reason it feels important to me.”
I sigh.
Here she sits, maybe making world history, and she’s still worried about remembering the food groups from back in sixth grade when even the teachers were nutritional Neanderthals. I can’t figure Shay out. I never could. She’s totally inconsistent. Although she borrows things from me and never returns them, last year when she was in Chicago, she sent me a case of Nut Goodies—our favorite childhood candy bars—because they’re only retailed in the Midwest. On the other hand, even though she’s in Chicago frequently, she never has time to stop in Minneapolis to see Marge. She’s been home only once since Dad died last summer.
A pale ribbon of sunlight is struggling to break through the haze hanging over Georgetown. Pulling down the sun visor, I suddenly see my reflection in the open mirror. In truth, I look a lot better at forty-two than I did back when I was twenty. Eli says I’ve started to resemble some Italian actress from a grainy Fellini-style black-and-white post-World War II film, pushing her own middle-aged envelope and looking raunchier and randier every day.
But what do I really look like?
A pale, blu
rred, tamped-down rendition of Shay, an underdeveloped Polaroid photo. I’m the faded sister, the vanilla sibling, the pale comparison. Unlike Shay’s, my chest and ego are slightly underdeveloped—my skin and hair too thin, my temper too short and my memory too long.
SNAPSHOT
This is my favorite picture of myself and it was taken by the Motor Vehicle Department for my driver’s license. Not quite an Avedon portrait, but what it shows is that I’m a Sigourney Weaver kind of woman. I belong to that class of brunettes-including Debra Winger, Anne Bancroft and Elizabeth Ashley—who light up from within, whose idealism illuminates their features and alchemizes relatively plain faces into beautiful ones as compelling as any gorgeous movie stars’. I think of myself and other brunettes of my ilk as the bushel-basket brigade, as in: “Don’t hide all your charms under a bushel basket,” which is what Marge used to say to me all the time.
Of course I automatically deflate my self-rating when Shay’s around. She always puts a different spin on everything, especially how I feel about myself. Sitting beside Shay I invariably react like the little girl in the dirty joke who points at her diaperless baby brother and asks: “How come I’m so plain and he’s so fancy?”
Shay whites me out like a typo.
All around us cars are shimmering like mirages in old MGM desert movies. Inside their air-conditioned incubators, the drivers look frazzled as they watch each other with drugged and distant eyes. Even their aggravated honkings, caused by some staccato stoppage, seem muted and remote.
Suburban Fairfax and Loudoun counties in northern Virginia have put water emergencies into effect. All nonessential usages—the washing of cars, watering of lawns and filling of swimming pools—have been declared illegal. Courtyard fountains are forbidden to run. Commercial car washes have closed. There are periods of time in which no one can use any water at all: 1:00–4:00 A.M.; 3:00–5:00 P.M. Rain, which was ignored when it arrived at approximately appropriate times in proper amounts with foreseeable results, is now remembered, in its absence, as dear and beloved.
Everyone is waiting for rain.
“You know, the Gauguin retrospective is only at the East Wing until the thirty-first,” Shay prattles. “Everyone says it’s wonderful and there’s only a few days left to see it. I think we should all go tomorrow.”
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