“You romanticize siblings,” she said. “Look at Charlotte and me. We have nothing in common. The only thing we ever talk about is what a disaster our parents are.”
“Exactly. That right there. Having a person in the world who knows what it’s like to have your parents. Someone to commiserate with. That’s what I’m talking about.”
“You want Gil to have someone to commiserate with about us.”
“Absolutely,” he said.
“You know, even if we wanted one, I don’t think we could afford to have another kid,” she said. “They’re expensive. Nomi was telling me that she’s looking at pre-K programs that cost thirty thousand a year.”
Andrew didn’t respond. She wondered if he’d taken that last comment as a slight about how little he was earning. She hadn’t meant for him to feel that way. Or maybe she had. Maybe she was being defensive because Charlotte was on her mind and she never thought about Charlotte without thinking about money.
When Elisabeth was twenty-three and Charlotte was twenty, they made a pact: they would never again take one dollar from their father.
This had required sacrifice, especially early on. Elisabeth started waiting tables to supplement her magazine salary, which she had previously spent on clothes and purses. But it was worth it. She was free of him.
From the time she and Charlotte were kids, their father had bribed them into keeping his secrets and accepting his horrid behavior. Elisabeth still remembered the pattern on the sofas in the breezy hotel lobby where he left them with a box of crayons while he went upstairs with some woman, and returned an hour later with a fifty-dollar bill for each of them.
When he lost his temper and punched another father who dared steal his parking spot at Charlotte’s fourth-grade ballet recital, he made up for it by buying Charlotte a purebred Havanese puppy. When he showed up reeking of gin, with a woman he introduced as “a colleague,” to pick Elisabeth up from a friend’s birthday party, he took Elisabeth to Arden Fair the next day for a shopping spree.
He used money as both carrot and stick, threatening to withhold it when he didn’t agree with a choice one of them had made. He said he would pay for Elisabeth’s education only if she attended a school ranked in the top ten in the country, since otherwise there was no point. He refused to let Charlotte study dance.
“Dance isn’t something you study,” he said. “It’s just something you do.”
This led to Charlotte majoring in marketing and ultimately dropping out to go live in Mexico City with a boyfriend she met on spring break.
Their mother would say, He only wants the best for you, and it was true, but the best was however he defined it.
Their father was at once a charming man and a vicious narcissist with a gift for making his victims forget the pain he’d caused. It worked on their mother. There was nothing a diamond bracelet or a last-minute getaway couldn’t smooth over with her.
But fourteen years ago, he did something to Elisabeth that she could not forgive.
Charlotte was living in New York then too. She was at Elisabeth’s apartment the day he showed up at the door to make amends. It was meant to be a grand gesture. He’d had to fly across the country.
Elisabeth was in tears when he walked in. When she saw him, every nerve in her body flared.
“Sweetheart,” he said. “Cheer up. I know it seems like the sky is falling, but trust me, you’ll forget all about this in a week. Know how I know?”
Elisabeth turned her face away from him, wanting to scream.
“Charlotte,” he said. “You’ll want to hear this too.”
“Not now, Daddy,” Charlotte said.
But he barreled on, as usual.
“I’ve arranged for you two to have unlimited use of my brother’s house in Southampton for the summer,” he said. “We worked out a good deal. Five bedrooms, on the beach, you can bring all your friends. Now, I know you’re thinking, But how will we get there? The train is such a hassle. Well, girls. Your new Mercedes convertible is parked outside. Who wants to take it for a spin?”
Elisabeth looked up at him. She’d been awake and crying for forty-eight hours. Her eyeballs ached.
“Get out,” she said. “Just go away.”
She was disgusted by him, but by herself as well. It had come to this because she had been so easy to buy off.
When he didn’t move to leave, she said, “Everything you touch gets twisted. You think you can just meddle in other people’s lives whenever you feel like it. Well, I’m done with you.”
The look on his face suggested that they were only negotiating; that he thought this was a game.
“Okay then,” he said. “Char, I guess this is good news for you. You just went from sharing a new car to having it all to yourself. That is, until Elisabeth stops pouting.”
Elisabeth wanted to punch him.
Charlotte was his favorite, and she adored their father. So Elisabeth was shocked when she said, “No, Daddy. You went too far this time. Elisabeth’s right. We’re done.”
He looked stunned. He opened his mouth to speak, but then turned and walked out instead.
After a long pause, Elisabeth met her sister’s eye. The two of them had never been close. They were too different. But in that moment, she felt the kind of sisterly devotion she had always wanted as a kid.
“Thank you,” she said.
“He deserves it,” Charlotte said. “Everything you said is true.”
Charlotte was drinking champagne on rich old guys’ yachts at fifteen. She traveled the world with all kinds of inappropriate men on their father’s dime. He let her do it. Better to have her out of his hair. She seemed to be having fun, but Elisabeth saw then that it had been a performance. Charlotte knew as well as she did what his behavior had done to them.
After their father walked out, neither of them spoke to him for three years. Not until he had a mild heart attack and their mother convinced them he was dying.
To this day, they refused to accept his financial help. Money was power, and their father would have none over them.
Charlotte now lived in a condo on the beach in Turks and Caicos. She taught yoga three days a week at a five-star resort. And she had her Instagram account—she was fond of reminding Elisabeth that she was a verified user, with seventy-five thousand followers.
“There’s no way she lives off that,” Andrew had said, many times. “It’s impossible. Your dad must be sending her money.”
“I know for sure that he isn’t,” Elisabeth said, though she did not elaborate.
For a long time, Charlotte was supported by her fiancé, Matthew, a finance guy who, like their father, made all his money in shady real estate deals. Three years ago, she called off the wedding. She moved to Turks and Caicos, got on Instagram.
“How many bikinis does she have?” Andrew said at the time.
In every picture, Charlotte wore a different bathing suit. She paired the photos with some inspirational nonsense she had written about dreams and destiny and manifesting her truth.
But clearly, Charlotte knew what she was doing. Whenever they spoke to her, she told them about the skin-care companies and high-end sandal brands that sent her free samples, which she promoted in kind. A boutique hotel chain with properties all over the Caribbean sponsored her stays, putting her up in lavish rooms, where she posed half naked in the window, gazing at the ocean through sheer, flowing curtains.
Still, as Andrew often pointed out, it remained unclear how Charlotte paid her bills. Until the day she called Elisabeth in tears and said, “Don’t hate me, but I’ve got to call Daddy. I’m broke. Not just broke, actually. I’m majorly in debt.”
“How much debt?” Elisabeth said.
“Two fifty.”
“Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars?”
“Getting my business off the ground
wasn’t cheap, okay? The camera, the clothes, the flights, the blowouts. But it’s all about to pay off. Soon I’m going to make twice as much as I owe in one lump sum.”
Elisabeth had never heard her sister refer to what she did as a business before.
“How?” she asked.
“I wasn’t going to tell anyone until it was official,” Charlotte said. “But I’m negotiating a huge sponsorship deal with Enthusium.”
“What’s that?” Elisabeth said.
“Diet pills.”
“You’re taking diet pills?”
“God no. They’re for desperate fat people. I’m like the aspirational after photo.”
“But you’ll have to say you’re taking them.”
“Sure. My point is I need the money sooner than the deal is going to go through. I figured what’s the harm in asking Daddy for it. It wouldn’t even count as taking his money. It would just be a loan. Once I get this sponsorship, I can pay him right back.”
“Don’t do that,” Elisabeth said. “You’ll figure it out. If you’re this far in debt, what’s the harm in waiting another month or two to pay off your credit card bill?”
“It might be longer than a month or two. Amex is sending debt collectors to my door. It’s bad. I could lose everything. Gossip travels fast on a small island. Can you imagine what that would do to my brand?”
“Your brand?”
“I need this weight off my shoulders,” Charlotte said. “I’ve made my decision. I thought I should give you a heads-up before I call him.”
Elisabeth’s heart pounded. She had gone to great lengths to ensure that her father had no control over her. That was for her own sake. But her need for Charlotte to do the same, Elisabeth knew—that was about punishing him. She didn’t want to give it up.
“Let me loan you the money,” she said.
Charlotte sniffled. “Really?”
Elisabeth wired the full amount to her the next day, already doubting the decision.
The savings account had had just over three hundred thousand in it—whenever she thought of that, Elisabeth had felt a sense of safety and pride that she had done it on her own. She handed almost all of it over to her sister.
To stay calm, she reminded herself that it was a loan. But two years had passed. The sponsorship deal had yet to happen. Every time Elisabeth asked her about it, Charlotte said they were working out the final details.
In her darkest moments, Elisabeth scoured every comment on her sister’s social media accounts to try and find some clue that revealed how soon the money was coming.
Meanwhile, Charlotte borrowed even more. Small amounts, mostly, but they added up. Car payments, rent checks. A three-hundred-dollar restaurant bill when some jerk ran out on her without paying after they’d had a fight.
When she agreed to lend her the money, Elisabeth had no idea that Andrew was about to quit his job. His salary had paid for their living expenses, for IVF, and co-op fees. For everything, really. When they first got together, she sold her single-girl apartment and they bought their place in Brooklyn, which turned out to be a great investment. They were able to buy the new house outright with what they sold it for.
But being a person was expensive. Neither of them was earning much of anything at the moment. Elisabeth was stressed about money in a way she hadn’t been since she started refusing her father’s. The savings account dipped closer to zero with every dinner out, every grocery order, the sort of expenses she never would have thought twice about when Andrew was in his old job.
He had no idea what their life cost. No clue what she had spent over the years on linens and rugs and furniture and dishes, all the details that added up to an appealing home.
They were accustomed to living a certain way. She couldn’t give up the organic berries, the cage-free omega-3 eggs, the good coffee, the cruelty-free dish soap that was three times the price of Dawn. Even if she could give them up, if she made drastic changes, Andrew might suspect.
Elisabeth hadn’t bought anything nice for herself in ages. When her high-end skin-care products from Bloomingdale’s ran out, she replaced them with creams and serums from CVS. She didn’t think they worked nearly as well, but it was possible that was in her head. She had an unworn Theory dress hanging on a clothing rack in the laundry room with the tags still on. She was saving it in case of emergency, should she need something new she could no longer afford.
She told her sister they were low on cash. But she added that Charlotte should keep coming to her if she really needed to. Charlotte kept coming.
Elisabeth still hadn’t told Andrew about the loan. He thought they had a nest egg to pull from, to keep them safe. She justified this in the following manner: until he asked outright and she had to answer, she had not lied. There was time to fix it.
It was too late now to tell him the truth. He had quit his job, taken a huge risk, believing they had a cushion. He would be terrified, furious, if he knew.
Elisabeth had betrayed him to help her sister. Her sister, who on the day Gil was born had posted to Instagram a photo of herself on the beach at sunset, naked, in child’s pose.
Balasana…the breath of new life. Today a child came into this world, made of the same stuff as me—the energy extends, the wisdom renews. Did my infancy ever cease? I am my own baby, soft and amazed. I vow to nurture and care for myself, a precious soul meeting the universe, yet again.
“Is she trying to make it seem like she had a baby?” Elisabeth had demanded at the time.
“Is she actually wearing no clothes?” Andrew said.
It was another six hours before Charlotte bothered to text them and say congrats.
Even in her moments of deepest regret, Elisabeth remained pleased that sending the money had kept Charlotte on her side in the family war. This was the only thing she really liked about her sister, but it mattered more than everything else combined.
* * *
—
That night, she couldn’t sleep.
Andrew snored beside her. She picked up her phone, went straight to BK Mamas.
Someone had asked for recommendations for a coffee shop to write in. A topic she knew well.
Café Harmony is my go-to, Elisabeth responded. Perfect ambience, best latte in Brooklyn, and they never rush you out.
She posted her reply, picturing herself there, alone in a rush of bodies.
Mimi Winchester responded right away. Harmony closed two weeks ago. Try Kelly’s on Court.
Elisabeth had known Mimi a bit in her twenties, when they both worked in magazines. Mimi was a hustler then, but she had married a hedge-fund guy and now only wrote an article every six months or so, usually a puff piece about a cosmetics line or clothing company run by one of her friends. She would post a link on BK Mamas saying something like Just for funsies!
Once, Mimi had come upon Elisabeth sitting alone on a bench in Carroll Park. Elisabeth was shaking a can of formula, pouring the thick grayish liquid into a bottle for Gil, who was crying in the stroller.
“Oh my gosh, you adopted? That’s so admirable!” Mimi said.
Elisabeth was almost certain she wasn’t trying to be awful. It just had not occurred to her that a biological mother would do anything but breastfeed.
She wanted to say every mean thing she’d ever thought about Mimi then.
She had hoped the pettiest parts of her, all her foolish insecurities, would somehow be erased by motherhood. At first, she thought it had happened. But they returned when Gil was eight weeks old, like so many uninvited guests.
Café Harmony had closed, and Mimi needed her to know. Why should something as small as that unnerve her? But it did. Elisabeth felt like she’d had her hand slapped.
4
Sam
AT THE END OF EVERY HALLWAY in the dorms was a short flight of stairs that led to four
rooms—two large doubles on either side. These were called the platforms. Only seniors were allowed to live in platform rooms, and only they got invited to platform preparties on Friday nights.
Tonight, their platform was hosting. Isabella had made sangria in the recycling bin ahead of time. The too-sweet smell of it filled the room.
Hosting was supposed to be a big deal, but Sam hadn’t given it a moment’s thought. Clive’s flight from London was due in at ten.
Isabella had offered to let Sam take her car to the airport, but it was too nice. It made Sam nervous. Instead she had begged Steph, who managed the basketball team, to let her use the beat-up van they took to away games. Sam had never driven a van, but this she had not mentioned when she made the request.
All week, she had been nervous and excited in equal parts. Her palms hadn’t stopped sweating since Tuesday. Her stomach was a mess. It was impossible to imagine Clive here, among her friends. As Isabella had put it, “You simply cannot bring a six-foot-five British man into the dining hall without raising eyebrows.”
Sam didn’t want to be a topic of conversation. And yet, she couldn’t wait to see him. She had missed him so much.
After dinner, Isabella did her makeup for her, and flat-ironed her hair.
Then it was Sam’s turn to help Isabella.
It was a comfort, having something to take her mind off Clive for a minute.
Sam opened the mini-fridge and pulled out a vial of clear liquid. She filled a syringe.
“Ready?” she said.
“Ready.”
Isabella held up the hem of her blue tank top with one hand and tipped back a tequila shot with the other. Sam poked the needle straight into her taut abdomen, as if throwing a dart.
Isabella winced—from the drink or the pain, Sam wasn’t sure.
She counted to five, pulled out the needle, and dabbed an alcohol swab over the drop of blood that bubbled up.
The process had been a shock the first time they did it three weeks ago, the two of them screaming, bouncing around the room for several minutes beforehand.
Friends and Strangers Page 6