“Hi!” she shouted from the top of the stairs, and ran to put a robe on, so he didn't see the bruises, which were faint now.
“That's my sister Candy,” Annie explained. “Does she have clothes on?” You never knew with Candy, even now.
“Actually, she was wearing a bikini and a Christmas hat.”
“That's pretty dressed for her. She usually wears a lot less. Sorry about the dogs.”
“It's fine. I like dogs.”
“I don't. But you get used to them after a while. Things are pretty crazy around here most of the time. Especially when all four of us are home.”
“Do you always live together?” He was fascinated. The atmosphere he felt the moment he walked into the house was inviting and warm. You could tell that people lived here who loved each other, and he was entirely right. It made you want to stay forever. He said as much to Annie, and she was touched.
“Actually, they did this for me this year. They rented this house so they could help me get organized, because of the accident. We only have the house for a year. Tammy quit a fantastic job in L.A. to do it. She works on a terrible reality show here now. People try to shoot each other on it at least once a week. It's called Can This Relationship Be Saved? It's Up to You!”
“Oh my God, I've seen it.” He laughed out loud. “It's awful.”
“Yes, it is,” Annie said proudly. “My sister Tammy is the producer of the show.” She mentioned Tammy's previous show, and he was enormously impressed, particularly that she had given it up to come to New York for Annie. “My sister Sabrina was in New York anyway. She's an attorney. She has a boyfriend, Chris, who stays here some of the time. He's an attorney too. I was living in Florence before the accident, and I may go back, I haven't figured it out. I still have an apartment there. I keep meaning to give it up, but no one has had time to pack it up, and it's so cheap it doesn't really matter. And my sister Candy is all over the place. She's a model.”
“Candy? The Candy? On the cover of Vogue practically every month?” He looked stunned. She had quite a family of overachievers, with a flock of unruly dogs.
“That's who you just saw in the Christmas hat and the bikini. She's taking a few weeks off.” Annie didn't mention why. It was none of his business, and not something any of them ever planned to talk about. They didn't need to. Chris and Marlene were the only people outside the family who knew about it. They hadn't even told their father. It would have been too much for him to deal with right now.
“What a group!” Brad said admiringly. “This must be terrific.” For a moment he forgot the tragic circumstances that had brought them together. There was nothing tragic about them.
“It is terrific actually,” Annie said, smiling happily. “I was a little nervous about it at first, but it's been working out great.”
“What's terrific?” Candy asked as she joined them.
“Living together,” Annie explained. “Do you have your clothes on?”
“Yes,” Candy laughed, “I'm wearing a robe and my Christmas hat. I thought we should go and get our tree tonight.” Despite what had happened to her, she was in the Christmas spirit. She felt enormously blessed to have survived.
Brad couldn't stop himself from staring at Candy. He had never seen a woman so beautiful in all his life. And she was completely relaxed and in no way stuck-up. She was just like any other girl her age, only a hundred times more beautiful. Except that in her own way, he thought Annie was just as beautiful. She was smaller and had softer looks, but he loved her auburn hair and the pixie cut she wore.
“I got my tree last night,” he said, as Candy invited him downstairs for a cup of tea. He hesitated, but it was hard to resist spending a few more minutes with them. He followed Candy downstairs to the kitchen, with Annie right behind him, and all three of them were bowled over by the smell.
“Oh my God,” Candy said, as Annie translated for Brad.
“Mrs. Shibata eats these awful Japanese pickles. They smell like something died.” He laughed openly at the craziness that went on in their house. Mrs. Shibata bowed low as they entered the kitchen and put the pickle jar away. She had just put some seaweed in the dogs' bowls, and Candy grabbed it immediately and explained to Brad that the seaweed the housekeeper gave them made the dogs sick.
“I thought you said you didn't like dogs,” he said, turning to Annie.
“I don't. They're not mine. They belong to everyone else.”
“Zoe's mine,” Candy said as she picked up the Yorkie, as Beulah looked highly insulted, turned away, and sat down. He bent down to play with her, and Juanita tried to attack him again, but in the end, she gave up and licked his hand.
“You should get one too,” he said to Annie. He had suggested a seeing-eye dog to her earlier, and she was unenthused. She had finally admitted to him that having a seeing-eye dog with her identified her immediately as a blind person wherever she went. She could put the white stick away in a public place or a restaurant once she sat down. It was a vanity she wasn't ready to give up.
Brad left a little while later, enchanted with his visit. He had enjoyed meeting Candy, loved talking to Annie, and couldn't wait to meet the others. He called her the next day and invited her to dinner three days later, before she left for Connecticut for Christmas with her father. Annie hesitated for a second, and then accepted. It was a little scary dating someone you couldn't see. But she liked him, and they shared a wealth of common opinions and ideas.
Sabrina got home just after Brad called Annie and invited her to dinner, and Annie marched up to where she was sitting, unwinding from her day. Annie dropped five twenty-dollar bills in her lap without comment, and Sabrina looked up at her in surprise.
“What, did you win the lottery today? What's this for?”
“Never mind,” Annie growled at her, pretending to be annoyed, when in fact she was very pleased and excited about the dinner date with Brad. She was only twenty-six after all, and it was fun to have a date with someone who sounded as nice as he did. She had just paid off Sabrina's bet. And as she realized what it was, Sabrina scooped it up victoriously and laughed.
“I told you so!” she shouted as Annie slammed her bedroom door.
Chapter 23
All three of Annie's sisters helped her dress for her dinner date with Brad. She tried on four different outfits, and each of them had a different opinion about what she should wear for a first date. High heels, low heels, something simple, a little more dressed up, a sexy sweater, a light color, a flower in her hair, earrings, no earrings. In the end, Candy picked out a soft pale blue cashmere sweater for her, a good-looking gray skirt, suede low-heeled boots so she didn't fall on high heels walking into the restaurant, and pearl earrings that had been her mother's. She looked beautiful and young and uncluttered, and not as though she was trying too hard to impress him or seduce him. They all decided it was a good look, just as the doorbell rang. He found himself instantly surrounded by the entire group of sisters, and all three dogs.
“This is quite a welcoming committee,” he said, as Annie introduced him to Tammy and Sabrina for the first time. And two minutes later, Chris arrived.
“Now you know everyone,” Annie said happily. They left five minutes later, for a small Italian restaurant nearby. It was so close, they walked and didn't need a cab. Candy had loaned her her short gray mink jacket, so Annie was warm, and felt very fancy for her first real date in months. It was a far cry from her arty days in Florence with Charlie. This felt very grown up. And at dinner, he told her he was thirty-nine.
“You don't look it,” she said, and they both laughed. “Or maybe I should say you don't sound it.”
“You don't look your age either.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “At first, I thought you were younger.” He sounded embarrassed then. “I checked your records.”
“Aha!” she chortled. “Insider information. That's not fair. You know a lot more about me than I know about you.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything. Where you went to school, what you studied, where you grew up, who you hated in third grade, who you married, why you divorced.” He looked surprised then.
“You have insider information too. How did you know that?”
“Someone told me at school,” she admitted. But she was curious about him. Since she couldn't see him, she wanted to hear all the details. And she would have wanted to know them anyway. It was just that now she couldn't see the expressions on his face, of sadness, guilt, or regret. Those things were important. So she had to rely on what she heard, and how he said it.
“I was married for three years, to my college sweetheart. She's a wonderful girl. She's married to someone else now and has three kids. We're good friends. We wanted very different things out of life. She wanted a career in television, like your sister. I wanted a family and kids. I had lost my parents young, and wanted a family of my own. She didn't. It seems funny now that she has kids. But she's had all three of them in the last four years. We were divorced a long time ago. We were divorced by the time I was twenty-five, fourteen years ago. At the time, we were pretty angry at each other. She felt pressured. I felt cheated. We grew up in Chicago, but she wanted to live in L.A., I wanted to live in New York. I wanted to start the school. She hated the idea. It was a very stressful three years and terrible for both of us.”
“So how come you never got married again?”
“Scared, burned, busy. Starting the school was a huge amount of work. I lived with someone for four years. She was a great woman, but she was French and wanted to go back to France. She missed her family too much. I had already started the school and didn't want to move away. I guess I've been married to the school for sixteen years. It's been my baby and my wife. Time flies when you're having fun, and I am.” She could understand that to some extent. Both her older sisters felt that way about their work, and she had about her art. It hadn't precluded romance in her life, but it had in Tammy's case and even in Sabrina's, to some extent. They were both workaholics, and maybe he was too. You paid a high price for that, and sometimes wound up alone.
“What about you, Annie? No man in your life now?” She laughed dryly. She hadn't had a date since Charlie in Florence and thought she never would again.
“I had a boyfriend in Florence before the accident. He dumped me for someone else, before he found out I was blind.” She always took comfort in that. “I thought it was serious, but I guess it wasn't. Or not as serious as I thought. And before that, I only had one real boyfriend, after college. I was always too passionate about my work as an artist to put a lot of energy into other stuff. It's been a huge change not having my art. Now I have no idea what I'm going to do when I grow up.” She looked desolate for a minute and then shrugged and looked in his direction although she couldn't see him. But he could see how beautiful she was, and she touched his heart with her openness and sincerity. There was no artifice about her.
“You'll find something,” he said gently. She was industrious, hardworking, passionate, and smart. There was no way she wasn't going to find the right path sooner or later. He wasn't worried about her at all.
They ordered dinner and kept on chatting. They sat at the table until the restaurant closed and then he walked her home. She didn't invite him in this time, because it was late, and she didn't feel ready to do that. And her sisters were probably in their pajamas and relaxing. She thanked him for dinner, and let herself into the house. She turned as she was about to step inside, smiled at him, and wished him a Merry Christmas, wishing she could see his face. Her sisters had all told her he was handsome. He was tall and blond with broad shoulders, and they thought that they made a cute couple.
“Merry Christmas to you too, Annie,” Brad said softly. “I had a great time.”
“So did I,” she said, and closed the door behind her. Everyone was asleep by then, and she tiptoed to her room, looking happy. It had been a very nice first date, and worth every penny she'd paid Sabrina for their bet.
The last day on the show before the Christmas hiatus was predictably insane. Guests were hysterical, frantic about the holidays, and meaner than usual to their mates. One couple started slugging it out, and they had to cut to commercial. And for the first time ever, their psychologist, Désirée, got hit in the face and had hysterics. She took a Xanax and called her lawyer, she threatened to sue them, and said it was going to cost them. The entire staff had hangovers and headaches from their Christmas party the night before.
“Life in the fast lane,” Tammy said to someone as she ran to get an ice pack for Désirée to try and calm her down. The fighting couple had actually made up on the show, which Tammy told Désirée was a major victory for her.
It was all the usual craziness and then some, and on top of everything else, two of the network executives were on the set to see the show. They wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Since Tammy had been there, sponsors were lining up around the block, and the ratings were sky high. She was carrying the ice pack for Désirée when she was introduced to the executives, and one of them asked her if she took self-defense classes to work on the show.
“No, just Red Cross first-aid training,” she said, as she held the ice pack. “We administer electroshock therapy if they get too out of hand.” He laughed, and he was still hanging around after Tammy came back from Désirée's dressing room. She had finally calmed down.
“Is there some reason why you want to work in a psych ward?” he asked. He had thought the show was hilarious though in incredibly bad taste. There was a certain humanity and poignancy to it, but on the whole, even Tammy knew it was bad.
“It's a long story. I had to come to New York for a year. So I gave up my job in L.A.” It was more than a job. He knew the show she'd been on, and couldn't believe she'd given it up. Neither could anyone else.
“For a guy, I assume,” he said knowingly, but she shook her head, with a smile.
“No, for my sister. She had a bad accident and my other sisters and I decided to take care of her for a year. We moved in together, and it's been great. And I took this job. So here I am, Nurse Ratched in a psych ward, handing out ice packs and Valium.” He was intrigued by her. She was an amazing woman. He was a few years older than she was and had just moved from Philadelphia. She liked him too, and thought he looked relatively normal, which only meant he was a freak in disguise, if she thought he was cute.
“Look, uh … I'm going to St. Bart's with my family for Christmas. I'd love to see you when I get back, after New Year's. It would be fun to see you then.”
“Not to worry,” she said, smiling at him. “I haven't had a date on New Year's Eve since kindergarten. And I cry when I hear ‘Auld Lang Syne.’ Have a great time in St. Bart's.”
“I'll call you when I get back,” he promised, which she knew was polite for “I hope to never lay eyes on you again and I'm going to flush your cell phone number down the toilet, or feed it to my cat.” She had absolutely no expectation of ever hearing from him again. He was too cute and looked too normal. He didn't look like a vegan or like he'd ever had a high colonic.
“Thanks for visiting the show,” she said politely, ran off to attend to the usual crises, and promptly forgot him. He said his name was John Sperry and she was absolutely certain she would never hear from him again.
The sisters all left for Connecticut together the next day. Chris came with them, and they all went to midnight mass together with their father. It was a solemn moment thinking about their mother, after going to mass with her in that same church every year. Tammy looked over and saw that her father was crying. She slipped her hand into the crook of his arm and hugged him. And at the sign of peace, they all hugged each other. It was a tender moment full of memories and love, and in its own way filled with hope. They were still together and had each other, whatever happened.
The weather was cold in Connecticut, and it snowed several times over the weekend. The girls and Chris got into snowball fights, and they built a snowman.
Their father seemed more like himself at last. It was the perfect Christmas weekend for all of them. They gathered around the kitchen table on the last day, and ate an enormous lunch that they had all helped prepare.
Sabrina noticed that their dad was quiet and assumed it was because they were all leaving, and he would be alone again. She knew he hated being alone, and at the end of lunch, he cleared his throat uncomfortably, and said he had something to tell them. Tammy was afraid he was going to say that he was selling the house and moving into the city. She loved this house and didn't want him to sell it. She hoped that wasn't it.
“I don't know how to say this to you,” he said unhappily. “You're all so good to me, and I love you so much. I don't mean to sound ungrateful.” He was almost crying, and their hearts ached for him. “The last six months have been the most awful of my entire life, without your mother. There were times when I really thought I couldn't survive it. And then I realized that I could, that my life wasn't over because she died. And I owe it to all of you to go on.” All of his daughters were touched and smiling as he said it.
“And I don't think your mother would want me to be alone and unhappy. I wouldn't have wanted that for her either. People our age aren't meant to be alone. You need companionship and someone to be there for you,” he explained as they began to wonder what he was saying. He seemed to be veering off into some odd direction that was making less and less sense, and suddenly both Tammy and Sabrina began to wonder if he was getting senile. He was only fifty-nine, but maybe the shock of losing their mother had been too much for him. They were both frowning as he went on toward his conclusion. “I'm miserable alone, or I was. And I know this will be a shock for you, but I hope you understand that this is in no way a disrespect to your mother. I loved her deeply. But there have been changes in my life now, and Leslie Thompson and I are getting married.” All four of his daughters nodded complacently as they listened to what he'd said, and then suddenly it hit them. Tammy heard it first.
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