The Pretty One: A Novel About Sisters Page 3

  “Well, we have a wonderful new bagel shop on Main Street in Hastings,” said Carol, who seemed truly to believe that the suburbs were Bounty Incarnate.

  “Meanwhile, did you hear about Cousin Stacy?” said Perri, bowl in hand as she made her way back to the island.

  “What?” said Olympia.

  “Apparently, Scott has moved out.” Stacy, a massage therapist, was the daughter of Bob’s troubled sister, Elaine. Scott was Stacy’s wine-distributor husband.

  “According to who?” said Olympia, who, although she pretended otherwise, never tired of family gossip—so long as it wasn’t about herself.

  “Gus, of course,” said Perri. (Gus had always been the family big mouth.)

  “Well, I say, ��Good riddance!’ ” declared Carol, a committed Hillary Democrat. “Wasn’t he a follower of that awful Rush Limbaugh?!”

  “Where did you hear that?” snapped Perri, who was married to a man whom all the Hellingers suspected of being a Republican as well, though he’d never admitted as much. Even so, Mike Sims’s politics were a source of tension between Perri and her mother. (Perri herself insisted she was “apolitical.”)

  “I thought you told me,” said Carol.

  “I never told you anything like that,” Perri said quickly. “In any case, politics are the least of Scott’s problems.” She overturned the bagel bag into the bowl. Sesame and poppy seeds sprayed across the white marble countertop, whereupon Perri quickly secured a spray can of “stone revitalizer” and a roll of paper towels. “According to Gus, he’s an online poker addict, and he owes massive debts,” she continued as she cleaned.

  “He’s a gambler?!” cried a now flabbergasted Carol, who was as uninterested in the amassing of money as she was in modern medicine. “Poor woman.”

  “Gus said Stacy sounded okay when she talked to her. But Scott Jr. is apparently taking it really hard.” Perri turned pointedly to Olympia. Or was Olympia projecting? Maybe Perri was just glancing at the clock to see how soon the frittatas needed to come out of the ovens. But even if the eyeballing was unintentional, she might have skipped that line about how hard the split was on Scott Jr. Lola didn’t have a father at home, either. It wasn’t necessarily the end of the world. Her sister could be so insensitive, Olympia thought as she lifted the bagel bowl off the counter and walked out.

  She found her own father seated open-legged on a microfiber sectional in Perri and Mike’s beam-ceilinged living room, diagonally across from a lackluster fire burning in a stone hearth. The flattened toes of his enormous brown suede Wallabies lent his feet a kangaroo-like appearance, while his silver beard bore a certain resemblance to Santa Claus’s. His body type, however, had more in common with Ichabod Crane’s. His long hands rested on opposing knees of threadbare brown corduroy pants. Beneath his not-quite-matching blazer he was wearing a paisley shirt with giant swirling patterns and a spread collar that looked as if it had been lifted from Led Zeppelin’s dressing room in the late 1960s. “Hello there, Daughter!” he said with a quick wave. Which either did or didn’t imply that he couldn’t remember which daughter she was.

  “Hi, Dad,” said Olympia, kissing her father’s sunken cheek. “What’s happening?”

  “Oh, nothing much. Just hurtling through space at sixty-seven thousand miles per hour!” he replied.

  She’d heard that one before—several times. “Whatever you say, Pops,” she said.

  Then she turned to greet Aiden, Perri and Mike’s blubbery elder son, who lay tummy down and elbows up on a geometric area rug, his butt crack visible over the waistband of his Spider-Man underpants. A pack of baseball cards spread out before him, he appeared to be in the process of composing a fantasy all-star team. He was also surreptitiously nibbling on a pack of Twizzlers that he’d hidden in the pocket of his gray hoodie. The only candy Perri allowed in the house were Yummy Earth Organic Vitamin C Pops. Also, the kids were required to brush their teeth immediately after eating one. “Aiden,” said Olympia, “what’s up?”

  “Hey,” he mumbled back without looking up.

  Finally, Olympia turned to Perri’s husband, Mike, who stood fifteen feet away through the archway to the dining room, thin-slicing a giant slab of smoked salmon with the crouched posture of the high school defensive tackle he once was. Now a salesman on the trading floor at Credit Suisse, where he sold stocks to pension funds and other institutions, he was wearing a pink button-down oxford and pressed jeans with a belt. “Mike,” she said—and found herself blinking into the glare, courtesy of a brilliant midwinter sun blasting through a newly installed picture window. (Perri was constantly “upgrading” their already flawless home.) “Happy two thousand whatever this is,” Olympia went on, her head aching. The pain may have had something to do with the mystery punch she’d helped herself to the night before at a loft party in Dumbo thrown by friends of friends. She hadn’t been all that keen on going—what if her friends didn’t show up and she didn’t know a soul there?—but the New Year’s invitations had been scarce this year, possibly owing to the fact that nearly all of her old friends were now married with small children and seemingly happy to “stay in.” This was partly thanks to Olympia, who, not long before, had successfully introduced the last two single people in her address book, figuring that, if she couldn’t manage to be happy in love, she might as well bring joy to others and live vicariously.

  Not that Olympia lacked for male attention. In fact, just the previous night, a handsome young Web entrepreneur had approached her by the drinks table and asked her in an ironic way if she believed in astrology and, if so, would it bother her when she found out he was a Scorpio. But after two minutes of flirting, Olympia had shied away, claiming she needed to use the bathroom. She couldn’t precisely say why—the Web guy was charming in his way—but she’d been struck by a familiar sense that there was no point in pursuing things since she was sure to mess them up eventually. Or maybe it was that she was never quite interested enough; or didn’t feel she had the time for a relationship; or thought whoever it was would flee once he found out she was the mother of a young child; or felt uncomfortable bringing strange men back to her apartment, especially since Lola didn’t have her own bedroom. “Rough New Year’s Eve?” said Mike, who never seemed to miss a single expression on her face.

  “Could have been rougher. What about yours?” said Olympia who, after ten-plus years, had grown almost but not quite fond of her brother-in-law’s frat boy banter. She’d also grown fond of trying to outdo him. He and Perri had hooked up her junior and his senior year at Wharton, where both had been in the undergraduate business program. Save for one nine-month breakup during which time Perri either had or hadn’t slept with someone else—Olympia had never gotten a definitive answer—they’d been together ever since. “Rumor has it that there was some serious brewski pounding in the ’burbs last night,” she went on in a dry tone.

  “You could say that.” Mike smiled congenially before he went back to his salmon slicing.

  Fifteen minutes later, the doorbell rang. “It must be Auggie,” said Carol, popping out of the kitchen, followed by Perri. Carol was the only one who still called Augusta by her childhood nickname, the rest of them having shifted to the high school–era moniker Gus.

  “I’ll get it,” said Perri, practically elbowing their mother in the face as she made for the front door, spatula in hand.

  There were footsteps, muffled voices, the gentle thud of a knapsack hitting the floor. “Where’s Debbie?” Olympia heard Carol ask her.

  “She couldn’t make it.”

  “She didn’t get arrested again, did she?”

  “No, she didn’t get arrested again.”

  “So, where is she?”

  “Jesus. Can I have five minutes before being subjected to the Spanish Inquisition?!”

  “I was just asking!”

  “You’re always just asking…”

  Carol and Gus bickered endlessly. Olympia, in turn, grew tired of listening to her mother complain during t
heir own once- or twice-weekly phone calls about how mean Gus had been to her. (Suggestions that Carol mind her own business and, what’s more, that she and Gus didn’t have to talk on the phone every day fell on deaf ears.) Finally, Gus came into view—in jeans and a filthy oversized anorak with fake fur detailing. Her skunk-dyed pixie-cut hair was in dire need of a wash, or maybe just a brush. Olympia found her younger sister’s personal style to be nearly as baffling as her older one’s was. (Why look homeless if you weren’t?) That said, Olympia knew better than to tease her younger sister, whose ability to laugh at herself was basically nonexistent. “What’s up?” she said.

  “Hey,” grumbled Gus. She took off her jacket and tossed it over the back of a leather club chair, revealing a completely shredded lining. But when she turned back to Olympia, an incandescent smile had overtaken her face. “We have a winner,” she announced.

  “And it’s Aaron Krickstein!” The words seemed to come out of Olympia’s mouth of their own accord.

  “Or is it Shlomo Glickstein?”

  For Olympia, the exchange—an ancient greeting ritual whose origins lay in the 1980 U.S. Open, in Forest Hills—encapsulated everything that had once been conspiratorial, even magical, about her relationship with Gus. Seeking further connection, she reached out to embrace her. As was usual in recent years, however, her younger sister recoiled at the gesture. “Ow, you’re hurting me,” she said, slithering out of Olympia’s arms even before they’d made it around her squirrel-like back.

  “Oh—sorry,” said Olympia.

  “It’s fine,” said Gus. “You just fractured my rib cage, that’s all.”

  “I got you a birthday present,” said Olympia, producing a small box wrapped in tissue.

  “Oh, thanks, that was nice of you,” said Gus, who’d turned thirty-six the day after Christmas. She removed the box from Olympia’s hands, then set it down in the corner next to Perri and Mike’s giant potted bird-of-paradise, in no apparent hurry to find out what was inside.

  “Aren’t you going to open it?” asked Olympia, feeling hurt, even though, truth be told, it was a “regift”—skull earrings given to Olympia for her own birthday, a few months before.

  “I will, I will!” said Gus. “Just give me a minute.”

  “Someone’s feeling crabby today,” said Olympia, suddenly crabby herself. She’d accepted the fact that her younger sister hadn’t given her a real Christmas or birthday present in ten years. (Once a decade, Gus, for whom “consumerism” was apparently a dirty word, would be moved to wrap up some cookbook on her shelf regardless of the peanut butter stains on the cover and knowing full well that Olympia only boiled pasta and microwaved.) But Olympia still expected her younger sister to show a modicum of enthusiasm and appreciation when accepting a gift for herself.

  “I’m not crabby,” Gus replied. “I’m just freezing.” She crossed her arms and rubbed her shoulders.

  “Come sit near the fire,” said Carol, patting the empty seat next to her.

  “Ohmygod, can everyone please stop fussing over me?!”

  “You were the one who said you were cold,” Olympia dared to point out, as much in defense of reason as in defense of their mother who, for once, seemed wholly undeserving of Gus’s impertinence.

  “Did anyone ask you?” Gus shot back.

  Olympia said nothing more. But the question stung. Once, Gus had asked her stuff. If not all the time, then sometimes. Olympia could still recall explaining to her thirteen-year-old sister that the cardboard applicator had to be removed after you inserted a tampon (hence, the shooting pains when Gus had tried to walk). In recent years, however, Gus had treated Olympia less like a sage than a village idiot.

  “Girls, enough,” said Carol.

  “Why don’t I just turn up the heat,” said Perri, ever the peacemaker as she walked over to the thermostat on the wall.

  “Thanks,” muttered Gus. Then she banged her palm against her forehead, and said, “Oh, shiiit! I completely forgot to buy orange juice. I’m really sorry. I could run out—”

  “It’s fine,” said Perri, inhaling through her nose. As if she were trying not to be mad but not trying all that hard. So everyone would understand the vast burdens shouldered by the Martyrs of This World, such as herself. “All the stores in town are closed. But I might have a few cans of emergency concentrate in the basement freezer. I’ll run down there as soon as I finish cooking for all nine of you!”

  Olympia was tempted to point out that hosting New Year’s brunch had been Perri’s idea. (In years past, the event had taken place at their parents’ house in Hastings-on-Hudson, with Carol playing hostess and chief dispenser of rancid cold cuts.) Olympia also wished to have it noted that, should she have forgotten the requested bagels, Perri would most definitely have gone ballistic. But in the interest of keeping the peace, she kept silent.

  “Speaking of beverages, who’s game for a Bloody Mary?” said Mike. “What about you, Olympia? Hair of the dog never hurt anyone.” He had a can of tomato juice in one hand and a bottle of Absolut in the other.

  “So right you are,” said Olympia, now seated on a tufted ottoman next to the fireplace, leafing through a coffee table book about the great beach houses of the Connecticut Sound. “Just make it a virgin.”

  “Virgin Mary it is,” he noted with a sidelong glance, followed by a wink. “I always assumed Lola was born by immaculate conception.”

  “Read between the lines,” muttered Olympia, her three middle fingers lifted into the air, her eyes still on a boathouse in Old Lyme.

  Just then, a cry came through the baby monitor. “Well, that was the shortest nap in world history,” said Perri, sounding aggrieved yet again as she stomped out of the room in her patent leather flats.

  No one asked you to have three kids, Olympia thought but didn’t say.

  Perri reappeared five minutes later with Noah balanced on her hip. His face was the color of rhubarb; his eyes were as narrow as slits; his hair (what there was of it) was yellow gold. He had the vaguely competitive, vaguely intoxicated expression of someone who’d been playing beer pong until all hours. Which is to say, he looked like a clone of his father. With his fat legs and triple chin, he was also ridiculously cute. “Can you say hi to Grandma?” said Perri, putting the two in striking distance of each other.

  “Gama,” he said, touching Carol’s nose.

  “Hello, bubala,” said Carol, tickling her grandson’s chin. She turned to Perri. “You know, he really has that presidential look.”

  “Except not the current presidential look,” Gus cut in, “since that guy is black.”

  Carol scowled. She and Gus had tension over politics as well, since Gus felt her mother wasn’t sufficiently left-wing.

  “May I?” said Olympia, extending her arms toward her nephew.

  But her older sister had other ideas first. Seemingly out of nowhere, a shot of hand sanitizer appeared on Olympia’s palms. “Sorry—if you don’t mind,” said Perri, smiling meekly. As Olympia dutifully rubbed her palms together, she allowed herself a gentle lift of the eyebrows. Finally, Perri handed him over with a “Here you go!”

  Olympia pressed Noah’s hot cheek into her own, breathed in his nutmeg scent, and found herself longing for another child—and didn’t see how it was possible, financially or otherwise. “Do you know who I am? Can you say ‘Aunt Pia’?” she asked.

  In response, Noah gazed quizzically at his aunt—before inserting a finger up her nose.

  “Hey, buddy, no treasure hunting today,” she said, head flung back to expel the digit.

  There was laughter all around, pleasing Olympia, who liked to be liked by her family more than she liked to admit to herself. Even Perri, not known for her sense of humor and usually repelled by all mention of bodily orifices, chortled heartily and, apparently resisting the urge to whip out more hand sanitizer, mysteriously declared, “Great. I’ve birthed another booger lover!”

  But the high proved temporary. Suddenly Olympia felt heat on her forear
m, then something foul-smelling. “Hey,” she said. “Are you pooping on me?”

  “I poo-poo,” Noah gurgled proudly.

  The smell was overwhelming and did nothing for Olympia’s hangover. “Sorry, kiddo, the party’s over,” she said, just as quickly doubting her own desire for a second child. “You’re going back to Mommy.” Olympia was about to hand Noah to Perri when she realized she’d be giving her sister yet another reason to lament her Perfect Life. “Or, even better, let’s find Daddy,” she said, changing course. She walked over to where Mike stood, talking to his mother-in-law.

  “In answer to your question, school is excellent, thank you,” Carol was telling him. “We’ve just finished Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War.”

  “Is that so?” said Mike, eyes glassy.

  “And next semester we’ll be reading excerpts from Sophocles’s Three Plays—as well as Adler’s Aristotle for Everybody.”

  “Cute title,” said Mike.

  “Speaking of cute,” Olympia cut in. “I’ve got a present for you.” She transferred the child into Mike’s arms. “Someone needs changing.”

  “Dude, have you been adversely affecting the olfactory environment of this house?” asked Mike, seeming both relieved to have an excuse to escape Carol and also genuinely smitten with his younger son.

  “I poo-poo,” Noah said again, clearly pleased with himself.

  “I thought so,” said Mike, turning back to his mother-in-law. “Excuse me, Carol. Noah and I have some business to take care of.”

  With that, the two vacated the room.

  Father and son reappeared five minutes later—to Perri’s pressing question: “Did you remember powder?”

  “Yes, Mommy,” Mike said in a dronelike voice that made Olympia shudder. If marriage was calling the person you had sex with the same name you called your parents, she was glad to have bypassed the institution.

  Mike put Noah down on the floor to play and poured himself another Bloody Mary. Two slugs in, he turned to the wider group and asked, “So, who’s made a New Year’s resolution?” He took another sip. “Myself, I’m thinking of mastering the fine art of cha-cha-cha, having recently perfected the samba.” In a shocking display of Latin dance acumen, he took a step forward, then backward, while swiveling his hips. Then he grinned broadly, one side of his mouth lifted higher than the other.