The Pretty One: A Novel About Sisters Read online

  “Wow,” said Olympia, mystified. “Have you been taking lessons?”

  “I have indeed,” said Mike. “I’m actually considering a name change to Miguel.”

  Just then, Gus doubled over and began to sob, her shoulders rising and falling like old-fashioned typewriter keys in the middle of a memo.

  Perri rushed to Gus’s aid before Olympia or her mother had a chance to do so. Or maybe Olympia hadn’t actually wanted the chance. Maybe it was easier letting Perri be the family’s anointed caretaker—especially when it came to taking care of Gus. Olympia found her younger sister’s emotional swings to be exhausting. She also found them unfair, insofar as it often seemed as if Gus had co-opted the family’s entire supply of tears, leaving none for anyone else ever to shed. Gus had co-opted the family’s storehouse of anger, too. At least, that was how it had always felt. Indeed, the dominant image of Olympia’s childhood was of herself tiptoeing through the living room in the aftermath of one of Gus’s explosions, as if in danger of stepping on a land mine.

  A nubbly brown arm (Perri’s) draped itself around a holey striped shoulder (Gus’s). “Sweeeetie,” Perri crooned in a saccharine voice. “What’s the matter?”

  “Debbie left me,” wailed Gus.

  “Sweeeeeetie!! I’m so sorry,” said Perri, tucking an overgrown bang around her youngest sister’s multiply pierced ear. “Are you sure you didn’t just have a bad fight?”

  “There was no fight,” Gus choked out. “One day last week, while I was at work, she just moved all her stuff out. When I got home, she was gone.” She sobbed again.

  “I never thought she was good enough for you, anyway,” muttered Carol, now standing rigidly to Gus’s left. “What was the name of that college she went to?”

  “Mom—shush!” said Perri.

  Gus, too, took the opportunity to glare at their mother before she wiped her nose on her sleeve, causing Perri to visibly recoil. “The worst part is, I hate myself for feeling this way,” Gus moaned on. “Compared to ninety-nine percent of the world’s population, I’m so incredibly privileged—”

  “You’re not that privileged!” Perri said with a quick laugh.

  “I am privileged!” cried Gus, who had famously (in the Hellinger family) begun to collect spare change for the Sandinistas in Nicaragua at the age of twelve. “There are a lot of people in the world with actual problems, like not having enough food to eat or money to pay the rent—not fake problems like their girlfriends leaving them.” Gus let out another sob. “It’s just that… I feel like such a loser.”

  “Please! You are so far from being a loser,” said Perri. “For starters, you have a completely heroic job helping people in need—when you’re not busy educating the next generation of lawyers.”

  “I’m also thirty-six and alone!” wept Gus, who split her time between the civil division of the Legal Aid Society of New York, where she worked as a family law attorney out of the Bronx office, and Fordham Law School, where she was a recently tenured professor specializing in gender and contracts.

  “I’m really sorry about Debbie, but you can be single and still have a life,” Olympia felt suddenly compelled to interject, her own choices seemingly on trial yet again.

  “Well, maybe you can,” said Gus, with a quick laugh.

  Olympia flinched. Was Gus trying to imply that she had no heart? That she thrived on cheap hookups? You don’t think I want someone in my life, too? Olympia was about to say, wanted to say, but pride stopped her. “Why am I any different from you?” she asked instead.

  Gus wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Let’s just say I’d never have a baby on my own.”

  “Try three babies!” Perri cut in, not to be outdone. “And a husband who’s never home.”

  “I heard that,” Mike called from the background.

  “I’m nine years old, Mom,” came another male voice from yonder. “And you’re never home, either.”

  “That’s not true, Aiden!” said Perri, looking like she, too, might start crying.

  “I didn’t set out to have a baby on my own,” Olympia heard herself telling Gus, and growing defensive too, and feeling unable to stop herself on either count. “I just happened not to have had that kind of relationship with Lola’s father. I’m sorry that’s so hard for everyone to understand.”

  Fearing that Gus would deem her an elitist for having used a donor with a clearly privileged background, and that Perri would disapprove of her having used a sperm bank at all, Olympia had kept the entire matter of Lola’s paternity a secret from everyone but her college roommate, who lived in Japan.

  It was more than that too: What if her sisters saw her as a failure?

  “Well, how are we supposed to understand when you’ve still never told us who Lola’s father is?” asked Gus, prosecutorial even when in a crisis.

  “Must we go there now?” said Olympia.

  “I’m sorry for being curious!” cried Gus. “I’m your sister. So shoot me.”

  “No one you know. How’s that?”

  “But someone you did?”

  “It’s true, Pia. We’re all dying to know who the redhead is,” Carol trilled in the background.

  “Thank you, Mom,” said Olympia, wondering why she bothered to attend these family get-togethers, since they always left her in a foul mood. “Now, if everyone is done harassing me, I’m going to use the bathroom.” Olympia walked off.

  No one called after her. No one ever did. Despite her myriad professional accomplishments, Gus was still the one whom everyone was always whispering about, wondering if she was happy, worrying about whether she was “okay.”

  “What the heck is her problem?” Olympia heard Gus ask Perri with a sniffle.

  Once ensconced in Perri and Mike’s guest bathroom with its recurring tulip motif, Olympia splashed cold water on her face. Then she took a long look at herself in the mirror over the sink, just as she’d taken long looks thousands of times before. Although Olympia had never been able to judge her own appearance with anything close to objectivity, having always concentrated her attentions on her few faults (such as her ever so slightly beaked nose), as opposed to her many assets (such as her high cheekbones, Barbie doll body, and luxurious mane), she was also aware that she wouldn’t have gotten the attention she’d gotten in life if she hadn’t looked the way she had. At the same time, she was increasingly aware that her age was catching up with her face. Every morning, it seemed, there were new little lines around her mouth and eyes. It was as if she went to bed with a draftsman lying under her pillow.

  It was also true that, after a lifetime spent placing a premium on beauty, she’d begun to tire of her own vanity and of feeling as if she had to be the most beautiful woman in any room. It was too much work, too much pressure. Standing there staring at herself, Olympia wondered how soon it might be before the “you’re so beautiful” chorus went quiet. Already, it had decreased in volume from mezzo forte to mezzo piano. Would she be devastated, relieved, or some combination of the two? At least then, maybe, people would stop asking how a woman “who looks like you do” could “possibly be single.” Maybe also she’d stop feeling so much pressure to marry. At the insistence of friends, she’d tried Internet dating. But the question-and-answer sessions that passed for first dates reminded her of job interviews. And all the men seemed desperate. As if any womb would do. And hers was getting old. Dating was also expensive. Every mocha latte at Starbucks required paying a babysitter for a minimum of three hours.

  Or was she just looking for excuses because she was still obsessed with Patrick Barrett? Four years later, she could hardly say his name out loud. They’d met at the art opening of his friend, Brian, who made shiny red photographs of tree branches. At the time, Olympia had been a glorified “gallerina” at a big-name 57th Street gallery. Brian, while not the biggest of the big-name artists, had been in the gallery’s regular stable. Olympia had gone over to congratulate him on the show—and also to find out who the handsome man with the de
ep-set eyes standing next to him was. “Meet my do-gooder best friend,” Brian had said.

  “What exactly do you do that’s good?” Olympia had asked.

  “I run a community center for disadvantaged youth,” Patrick had told her.

  “In East New York,” Brian had added.

  “Not by choice,” Patrick had said. “It was the only job I could get straight out of prison.”

  “Prison?” Olympia had asked.

  “He’s joking,” Brian had said. “I think.”

  “You guys are hilarious,” Olympia had told them.

  “Some people find me funny,” Patrick had said. “Other people, extremely dull.”

  “Well, I guess you’ll have to find out which people I am,” Olympia had said, head cocked coyly. It had all been her fault. She’d started the flirting.

  “I guess so,” Patrick had said. “And what do you do?”

  “I work here.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Well, mostly I stand around helping create a certain ambiance conducive to rich people buying art,” she’d told him. “I do some other important stuff, too, like ordering coffee.”

  “It sounds very important,” he’d answered.

  It had also been obvious at first glance that Patrick Barrett was married: he was wearing a gold band on the second finger of his left hand. Looking back, Olympia no longer fully understood her motives in pursuing him. Maybe it had something to do with his unavailability and his teasing manner. Until the moment they kissed, Olympia hadn’t actually been sure that he’d liked her in a boy-girl way. She and Patrick had spent most of their time discussing her problems—until he became her biggest problem of all.

  However it had happened, she’d fallen hard. Before Patrick, there had been a way in which love had felt too easy. How many times in her life had Olympia heard “I love you” uttered by men who didn’t seem to know the first thing about her and who only seemed to like her for the way she looked? And yet how she’d toiled to maintain that look, paying meticulous attention not just to her skin, hair, clothes, and weight, but also to her soft voice, sense of “mystery” and “vulnerability,” and all the other things that the opposite sex seemed to want from her. What she wanted from them was all mixed up in her head. But with Patrick, she’d felt as if she’d had to do the work of wooing herself. For once, she’d been able to say “I love you.” And Patrick had seemed to feel the same way.

  The day after they’d first slept together, however, Olympia had learned that Patrick’s wife, Camille, was a daredevil French heiress who, while on holiday in New Zealand, had broken her back and severed her spinal cord partaking in the extreme sport of hydro-zorbing (i.e., rolling down the side of a mountain in a giant ball filled with water). The result was that she’d be in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Patrick had told Olympia he’d always hated the risk-taking side of Camille’s personality: he’d seen it as a pointless expenditure of energy. And he’d said he’d been leaning toward divorce. Before she’d left for New Zealand, he’d been sleeping on the sofa, he’d insisted. But after the accident occurred, he’d felt obliged to stay. Camille’s fortune had had nothing to do with it, he’d sworn over and over again.

  To Olympia’s knowledge, Camille never found out about their affair. Olympia hadn’t ever met her, either. Olympia felt that none of these mitigating factors made her own behavior any more excusable. Never mind Patrick’s behavior. What kind of guy cheated on his disabled wife? But then again, what kind of woman slept with a man whose wife was disabled?

  If Olympia deserved punishment, she’d received it—and then some. After leaving Patrick eighteen months into their affair, she’d felt as if her heart had been ripped from her chest and left to wither on the sidewalk. She’d also felt as if the hole in her chest where her heart had once been would never be filled again. Listless despair had defined the waking portion of her days. But what other choice had she had? She couldn’t very well have asked him to leave Camille. At Olympia’s insistence, she and Patrick had cut off all contact. But the silence had only made it harder—so hard that, on occasion, one of them (usually Olympia) would break down and call the other. Then there would be more tears, even the occasional reunion that led nowhere.

  To salve her guilt, Olympia began volunteering once a week as a “meeter and greeter” in the rehabilitation unit of an East Side Manhattan hospital. The patients ranged from quadriplegics to carpal tunnel sufferers. Maybe not surprisingly, Olympia preferred caring for the former. A secret part of her was probably also hoping to one day meet and greet Camille. So Olympia could prostrate herself before the woman, beg for her forgiveness, and be reassured that she wasn’t a horrible person after all.

  Or was she simply curious to see if Camille was pretty?

  In any case, it was in the aftermath of her breakup with Patrick that Olympia made the startling discovery that taking care of others made her feel confident and at peace. Slowly, the idea of becoming a mother began to take shape in her head. Not only would a baby provide her with someone to love who wasn’t Patrick, but it would mark a new chapter in her life. At the time, she was approaching thirty-five. If not now, when? She didn’t want to end up childless at forty, still waiting to meet the right person.

  At first, she tried to think of casual flings of years past that she might be able to revisit, but no one seemed right. And having a baby with a gay friend sounded too complicated. Eventually, she found herself at Park Avenue Cryo, as it was known, leafing through the listings book…

  Olympia blew her nose and reapplied her lip balm. Then she went upstairs to check on Lola.

  Tiny rosebud wallpaper decorated the second floor hall with its seascape painting flanked by brass sconces. The door to Sadie’s bedroom was ajar. Curious as to how the cousins were getting along free of adult supervision, Olympia peeked her head through the crack.

  She found Lola sitting motionless on Sadie’s bubble gum pink shag rug in an Ariel the mermaid costume, her legs extended before her, her thumb in her mouth. Next to her on the rug in striped underpants and a hooded black cape was Sadie, a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader Barbie in her grip. “Welcome to Gryffindor Tower. My name is Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington,” Sadie announced in a bad English accent. “But most of Hogwarts know me as Nearly Headless Nick.” With that, she yanked the doll’s head off its body.

  How was it possible that her older sister had birthed such a perverse and beautiful child? Olympia wondered. Sadie was tall and slim, with dark blond hair, porcelain skin, a swanlike neck, and giant aquamarine eyes. Fascinated, amused, and just the tiniest bit threatened, Olympia tiptoed back down the hall.

  Returning to the living room, Olympia found the other members of the extended Hellinger-Sims clan indulging their signature manias. Perri was busy DustBusting corn chip crumbs beneath the coffee table. Mike was also on all fours, doing push-ups and sounding as if he were at high risk for having a coronary. Gus was stretched out on the short end of the sectional, barking at Carol, whose crime had been to insist that Aiden’s acumen at the baseball card game Strat-O-Matic was evidence of a young Pythagoras at work. “Can’t you ever just let anyone be without having to make them into something more?!” Gus berated their mother.

  “Whatever I say is wrong,” said Carol.

  Meanwhile, Noah had climbed into Grandpa Bob’s lap and was now picking his nose, undeterred by Bob’s chuckling cries of “Careful there, sonny.”

  Surveying the scene, Olympia was overcome by the desire to make nice. Being mad at your family was too exhausting and upsetting, she decided. It was far easier to stick to the surface-level chitchat that defined her and her sisters’ current interactions. In fact, the three of them emailed or spoke on the phone nearly every day, even if it was just two lines back and forth, or two minutes of talk. “Hey, Perr. Any chance of hot food in the near future?” Olympia said in a resolutely upbeat voice. “I’m famished.” (Olympia knew how her older sister loved to feel necessary.)

  “Five min
utes,” said Perri, still out of view. “But the coffee is hot if you want some.”

  “Great, thanks,” said Olympia, next turning to her younger sister. “Hey, I’m really sorry about Debbie.”

  “Thanks for saying that,” mumbled Gus.

  Just then, Lola wandered in.

  “Yo, mermaid,” said Mike, still on all fours. “Want to go fishing in Uncle Mikey’s boat?”

  “Yay. Fishing!” cried Lola, boarding her uncle’s back and throwing her arms around its captain’s sweat-beaded neck. To Olympia’s vague horror, her daughter seemed to consider “Uncle Mikey” the source of all excitement in the world.

  “All passengers aboard!” bellowed Mike, rising onto his knees.

  “I see a shark! I see a shark!” cried Lola, pointing at Noah.

  “Hey, Lola,” said Gus, half sitting up. “Don’t I even get a hello?”

  “Lola, go kiss your aunt Gus hello,” said Olympia.

  Lola dutifully disembarked and performed the requested task. Then she climbed into Olympia’s lap and stuck her thumb back in her mouth. Olympia felt a rush of proprietary pride. Paternity questions aside, Lola was still the greatest thing that had ever happened to her, she thought—especially when there were other people around to keep her entertained.

  Sadie appeared shortly thereafter, decapitated Barbie still in her grip, but wearing slightly more clothing beneath her cape (a T-shirt and leggings) than she had been in her bedroom.

  “Who’s my favorite little witchy witch?” asked Mike, lifting his daughter into the air and enveloping her in a bear hug.

  “Daaaaaaaaddddy,” Sadie said languorously as she rested her cheek on his shoulder.

  “Hey, what happened to Barbie’s head?” asked Olympia, curious as to how she’d answer.

  “She wouldn’t do a split, so I had to punish her,” explained Sadie.