The Pretty One: A Novel About Sisters Read online

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  For my father, Peter Rosenfeld (1936–2012)

  “But it is very foolish to ask questions about any young ladies—about any three sisters just grown up; for one knows, without being told, exactly what they are: all very accomplished and pleasing, and one very pretty. There is a beauty in every family; it is a regular thing. Two play on the pianoforte, and one on the harp; and all sing, or would sing if they were taught, or sing all the better for not being taught; or something like it.”

  —JANE AUSTEN, Mansfield Park

  1

  OLYMPIA LOUISE HELLINGER HAD always been the “Beautiful One” in her family. Among her sisters, she was also understood to be the Artistic One, the Flaky One, the Chronically Late One, the Mellow One, the Selfish One, and the Unambitious One. Whether reality reflected reputation was a matter of opinion. But at thirty-eight she was the events coordinator of a small museum of contemporary Austrian art, located on the Upper East Side. She was also a single mother. Little wonder that, as much as she loved spending time with her three-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Lola, she also longed for more hours to herself.

  For years, Olympia had been painting watercolors of little girls and furry animals. This had been true even before she’d given birth to Lola—or brought home Clive, a borderline-obese New Zealand white rabbit with pink eyes, from a local pet store. In her spare time, Olympia also enjoyed shopping for clothes; listening to music; setting up other single friends on blind dates; perusing symptoms lists on WebMD and fearing that she’d contracted a fatal disease (and feeling, somehow, that she deserved it); and then, as a distraction from her worries, drinking too much and reading the mystery and espionage novels she’d loved since she was a child, beginning with Harriet the Spy.

  A week before Christmas, however, a more serious form of sleuthing beckoned. Impatient to begin, Olympia started “bath time” fifteen minutes earlier than usual. “Story time” followed. For the sixth night in a row, Lola wanted Olympia to read her Madeline’s Rescue. Miss Clavel having turned off the light for the last time, Lola demanded that her mother “ask her a silly question.”

  Olympia complied with this request as well. “Excuse me,” she began. “But there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you. Can you explain to me why there’s a slice of pizza coming out of your elbow?”

  “Ask me another silly question,” Lola replied with a giggle.

  “I was also wondering why there’s a piece of celery sticking out of your ear?”

  That was apparently an even funnier image to behold. Lola laughed so hard she burped.

  “Also,” said Olympia, “could someone tell me why there’s a cheese sandwich attached to your behind?”

  Now in stitches, Lola collapsed onto her mother’s lap, then the rug. Enchanted by the sound of her daughter’s laughter, Olympia momentarily forgot what a rush she was in, bent over Lola’s tiny body, and, in an attempt to prolong her hysterics, tickled her exposed tummy. (Lola’s beloved Disney Princess nightgown, a hot-pink firetrap given to her by her babysitter and featuring the entire royal assemblage clustered like newscasters on a billboard, had ridden up to her armpits.)

  Shortly thereafter, Olympia’s internal clock resumed ticking. “And now it’s sleepy time for Sleeping Beauty,” she announced, lifting Lola into the air with her as she stood up.

  “I’m Belle—not Sleeping Beauty,” declared Lola, her laughter abruptly ceasing.

  “Well, Queen Mommy has decreed that all princesses must be asleep by eight thirty.”

  “One more silly question.”

  “No. You have school tomorrow.”

  “It’s not real school. It’s daycare.”

  Olympia released a heavy sigh of exasperation before attempting to regain the upper hand. “Okay, here’s my last silly question: can you please tell me why you’re not in bed already?”

  “That’s not silly.”

  “Nighty-night.”

  “But you didn’t sing ‘Favorite Things’ or do ‘This Little Piggy’ yet!”

  Olympia had a new tack. “If I do both things, do you promise to go to sleep?”

  “Okay,” Lola agreed.

  “But do you promise?”

  “Promise.”

  And so Olympia assigned neighborhood destinations to all ten of Lola’s toes. Then she did her best Julie Andrews impression. Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes!, she sang in a high register, secretly impressed with her own vocal skills and, for a split second, wondering if she could have made it a career. Silver white winters that meld into spring, she went on. Or was it melt into spring? And did it matter? Finally, Olympia arrived at the last of the feel so bads. “Okay, that’s it. It’s eight thirty,” she said. It was actually eight twenty-seven; luckily, Lola hadn’t yet learned to tell time.

  Olympia deposited Lola in her toddler bed, then switched off the butterfly lamp on her dresser. The room went dark but for the fluorescent glow of a night-light.

  “Noooooo!” moaned Lola. “No sleep. Not tired.”

  “Lola, you promised!!” said Olympia, her temperature rising.

  “I’m scared.”

  “What are you scared of? I’m going to be in the next room.”

  “I’m scared of the dark.”

  “Don’t be silly. It’s not even that dark in here.”

  “Is so.”

  “Is not.”

  “Is too,” said Lola, throwing her legs over the side of the bed as if preparing to stand up again…

  Blood rushed to Olympia’s cheeks and forehead. “ENOUGH!” she cried. “YOU’RE DRIVING ME FUCKING INSANE!!” With that, she pushed her daughter back onto the mattress—harder than she’d meant to.

  Lola burst into hysterical tears. Guilt and fear consumed Olympia. How soon before Children’s Services arrived? “I’m sorry I yelled at you,” she said, taking Lola back into her arms. “Mommy’s had a long day.” As Olympia held her close, she lamented the wet spot forming on her new blouse, but felt unable to justify altering the position of her daughter’s drooling mouth.

  “You pushed me, too.” The child wept. “You’re a bad mommy!”

  “All right, all right,” said Olympia, who, despite feeling bad, thought Lola was laying it on a little thick. “Sometimes grown-ups get mad just like kids get mad.”

  “What does ‘fugging’ mean?”

  “It means ‘very.’ But only grown-ups can use it.”

  “Like, I’m fugging hungry?”

  “Something like that,” said Olympia, cringing.

  Lola’s bedroom was really just an alcove of her mother’s, separated by a curtain. “Will you lay on your bed until I’m asleep?” she asked.

  Every night, Olympia told herself she wasn’t going to do so anymore. And every night she did. How could she say no now? “Okay, but only for two minutes,” she said.

  Two minutes, of course, turned into twenty-five, during which time Lola issued a stream of unanswerable questions (“Why can’t people fly?” “Why does cheese smell?” “Why don’t cows and dogs wear underpants?”). Finally assured of her daughter’s slowed breathing and splayed limbs, Olympia tiptoed
out of her bedroom and, half closing the door behind her, felt as if she’d just posted bail from a developing-world prison.

  Her interests never strayed far from her captor, however. After downing the remainder of a half-filled glass of Côtes du Rhône, Olympia walked over to her black file cabinet—once a floor model; hence the dent—and pulled out a manila folder marked “Lola-Birth.” She opened the folder and removed several sheets of rumpled copy paper, the first page of which was headed “Anonymous Donor Profile #6103.” It had been several years since she’d looked at the printout. Earlier that evening, gazing in fascination at Lola’s hazel eyes, abundant freckles, and flaming red curls, Olympia—who had straight brown hair, light olive skin, and green eyes—had wondered if she’d missed some salient detail that the profile contained.

  To both her relief and her disappointment, as she read through the document, she found nothing new in it:

  Ethnicity: Anglo-Saxon

  Height: 6′ 1″

  Weight: 185 lbs

  Hair: brown

  Eyes: blue

  Education: B.A., Ivy League college

  Occupation: medical school student

  Describes himself as: motivated, thoughtful

  Athletic skills: rowing, lacrosse, and cross-country skiing

  Education/occupation of father: businessman

  Education/occupation of mother: homemaker

  Favorite movies: Shawshank Redemption, Wedding Crashers

  Favorite sports team: Boston Red Sox

  Favorite author: Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Chromosome analysis: normal male 46…

  Clearly the hunky scion of a grand old WASP family, down on its luck, Olympia had thought at the time she’d purchased his genetic material—back when that assumption had been enough. Back then, she’d liked the idea of having a child with no identifiable paternity. Wounded by a tumultuous love affair with a married man that left her in doubt about the self-sufficiency on which she prided herself (and deeply ashamed as well), she’d seen the arrangement as refreshingly uncomplicated. Plus, the married man had had a vasectomy, so there had been no question of becoming pregnant by him.

  It was only recently that Olympia had begun to question her decision to have a family on her own. Increasingly, she felt as if there was no one to share her daughter’s small but, to Olympia’s mind, miraculous milestones—from Lola’s first steps without holding on, to the first time she’d drawn a figure with arms and legs, to her sudden ability to write her own name in crooked caps. Olympia’s friends, even those who were parents, couldn’t be expected to care. Her own parents seemed distracted. And when Olympia tried to tell her older sister, Imperia (known as “Perri”), her sister invariably pointed out that her daughter, Sadie, had done whatever it was six months earlier than Lola had.

  Olympia also dreaded the inevitable day when Lola would ask who her father was. What would Olympia say? He was a doctor who moved to remote Bangladesh to aid cholera victims?

  Little wonder that she’d begun to fantasize about finding the man behind the number. On one level, she knew it was a terrible idea and that she was better off idealizing a set of disembodied statistics than going through the inevitable heartbreak of locating someone—if it was even possible—who didn’t want to be a father except maybe in the most abstract sense. According to his listed birth date, #6103 was nearly ten years younger than Olympia; in all likelihood, he’d donated for the beer money. But curiosity and longing had proven stronger than reason. And so Olympia had taken to picturing the three of them—herself, Lola, and Lola’s virile young father—engaged in wholesome outdoorsy activities of the kind she imagined he must like (e.g., rowing across an algae-infested lake in New Hampshire). Not that Olympia had ever enjoyed sports or the outdoors, but maybe she could learn to do so.

  She’d also taken to imagining #6103, a reluctant father at first, being won over by Lola’s undeniable adorableness. These visions fixed in her head, Olympia had already started to make inquiries. She’d combed various message boards and donor registries—so far to no avail. But maybe there was another way…

  Olympia woke the next morning to find that it was flurrying outside. Considering that she could locate only a single pink polka-dotted mitten, she bundled Lola up as best as she could—and instructed her to keep one hand in her pocket. (“Bad mommy,” Lola told her for the second time in twelve hours.) Then, just as she’d done countless times before, Olympia wheeled her daughter the six blocks necessary to reach the Happy Kids Daycare Center, where she turned her over to two sexpots from Brighton Beach who appeared to be barely out of high school; wore low-cut glittery tops and sweatpants with words like “Player” and “Foxy” spelled out in script across the ass; and seemed utterly indifferent to children. Then again, Happy Kids charged only ten bucks per hour, which made Olympia a Happy Grown-up.

  After dropping off Lola, Olympia caught the 4 train to the Upper East Side. Exiting the 86th Street station, she walked east to the modern town house that contained the museum. The director and chief curator was Viveka Pichler, a barely thirty possible android with a Cleopatra haircut who wore four-inch-high gladiator sandals all seasons of the year. Viveka had never been seen eating anything except eel sushi. She was also legally blind, a point of fact that, for obvious reasons, she kept a secret. Rumor had it that the money for Kunsthaus New York had been provided by Viveka’s father, who’d made his fortune inventing a high-performance tire rubber for Formula One racing cars and other speed machines. Three years earlier, despite limited familiarity with the region and only rudimentary knowledge of the native language, Olympia had been delighted to accept a job at the museum. How bad could it be? she’d thought. Maybe she’d even score free airfare to Europe. And weren’t Gustav Klimt and his protégé, Egon Schiele, two of her favorite painters? What’s more, she’d left her previous position to spend time with Lola, then an infant. And her checking account had been hovering dangerously close to zero.

  The museum’s curatorial offices were to the right of the galleries. Viveka worked in one of them. The other three employees—Olympia and Viveka’s assistants, two unsmiling twenty-something Austrians named Annmarie and Maximilian—worked in the other. The walls, chairs, desks, and computers were all white. For any measure of privacy, one had to leave the museum entirely or barricade oneself in the bathroom or supply closet, which, naturally, was filled with white paper clips and white pencils.

  Later that morning, unable to forestall her curiosity until lunchtime, Olympia found herself crouched in the closet and calling the Cryobank of Park Avenue in search of Dawn Calico (now Cronin), her old high school classmate turned head nurse.

  Four-plus years earlier, Olympia had been prostrate and in stirrups—and about to be inseminated—when she’d discovered the connection. “Wait, don’t tell me you’re the Pia Hellinger I used to know at Hastings High?!” Dawn had crowed excitedly from between Olympia’s legs.

  Olympia had wanted to disappear under the examining table. How soon before her entire high school graduating class knew it had come to this? “That’s me,” she’d said in a tiny voice.

  “So, if you don’t mind me asking,” Dawn had gone on as she parted Olympia’s thighs and inserted a catheter. “How does ‘Miss Most Likely to Become a French Movie Star’ end up in need of sperm?”

  “I wasn’t ‘Most Likely to Become a French Movie Star,’ ” Olympia had protested meekly. “I was ‘Most Likely to Live in France.’ ” A founding member of the high school improv troupe, Dawn herself had been voted “Most Likely to Have Her Own TV Talk Show by Age Twenty-five.” Though, if Olympia had had any say in the matter, Dawn’s crowning superlative would have been “Most Annoying Person in All of Westchester County.”

  “All I know is that Brad Gadzak was hot for you,” Dawn had continued. “And he was the hottest guy in high school.”

  “Brad Gadzak. Wow. I haven’t thought about him in years. Do you know what happened to him?” asked Olympia, flinching on all fronts.
>
  “Last I heard, he was an Outward Bound instructor in Alaska with a harem of Inuit supermodels. Anyway, that’s it!” She withdrew the catheter.

  “Great!” Olympia had said, while fighting the urge to flee to the frozen north herself.

  “Does Dawn still work here?” she now asked the receptionist, her back pressed to the supply closet door.

  Within seconds, Dawn came on the line, and said, “Hello?”

  “It’s Pia… Hellinger!” she said, trying to sound upbeat.

  “Hey, Baby Mama,” said Dawn. “How the heck are you?”

  “We’re all great. How are you and your brood?”

  “Haven’t pulled an Andrea Yates yet.”

  “Well, that’s good.” Olympia laughed lightly as she ran through the accumulated tabloid stories in her head and tried to recall to which one Andrea Yates owed her notoriety. Was she the woman who drove off a bridge with her kids? Or was that Susan Something? “So listen,” she began again in a faux-casual voice. “I’m sure you don’t remember this, but I used six-one-oh-three.”

  “Ah, the ever-popular six-one-oh-three.” Dawn sighed, alarming Olympia. Exactly how many of his “motivated, thoughtful” progeny were toddling around Brownstone Brooklyn and the Upper West Side?

  “Right, him,” said Olympia. “Anyway, this is kind of embarrassing, but I’ve sort of been obsessing about the guy. And I was wondering if there was anything you could tell me about him that isn’t on the profile, even if it’s just a first name.” She held her breath.

  “Listen, sweets: nothing would make me happier than dishing dirt,” said Dawn. “But I can’t. Bank policy.”

  “I totally understand,” said Olympia, already wishing she’d never asked.

  Before she hung up, Dawn made Olympia promise to stop by “the bank” some time with Lola to say hello.