All for a Sister (16 page)

It didn’t help that there were clear signs coming from the house that the evening was progressing without her. She heard laughter coming from downstairs, traveling its echoing path, losing words but bringing mirth. Graciela’s laughter, low and warm, and her father’s, occasionally. He must have been telling her about the movie, the secrets of all the silly moments, not wanting to wait until breakfast time. It wasn’t fair. Celeste wanted to talk about the movie. Tried to, until stupid Calvin made everybody mad. More laughter—loud and then hushed.

Imagining her shadow-self, Celeste crept out of her bed and to the door, peering through the narrow opening, seeing the empty hallway and her mother’s closed-off room. Safe from detection, she slipped silently down the hall, to the stairs, and winced at the cold tile on her feet. When faced with the choice of running back for her slippers or running down to listen to Daddy’s conversation with Graciela, curiosity won out.

“Come on,” she whispered to herself, then made her way down, step by step, and sat on the last one. From here not only would she be able to hear them, but she could smell the unmistakable scent of Graciela’s cooking—eggs and peppers and cheese. She could hear the spatula scraping against the iron skillet, and her mind filled in the image of Graciela’s soft, rounded body swaying with the motion.

At the moment there was a lull in conversation, and Celeste held her breath, fearing they’d detected her presence. She heard a plate being set on the counter and another rustle before her father said, softly, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,
Arturo
. And good night. I’ll clean up the dishes in the morning.”

Drat. She’d missed everything, until she heard her father say one more word.

“Stay.”

He said it like some kind of command, though he was never one to boss Graciela around. Not like Mother, who constantly barked orders from all over the house—get this at the market, clean this, do that. Never with a please or a thank-you. So to hear Daddy speak this one word already brought an uncomfortable unfamiliarity to the conversation in the kitchen. But then, a response Celeste could never have predicted from Graciela.

“No.”

It wasn’t much more than a whisper. A tiny breath of a word drifting away like so much smoke.

No.

Never, no matter what duty she’d been charged to undertake, had Graciela been defiant. Anytime Celeste had been too demanding, she’d say, “
Más tarde, cariña.
Maybe this afternoon when I’ve finished the laundry.” But as far as her parents were concerned, she’d been pleasantly compliant. Often indulgent. Until tonight.

Stay.

No.

“Just for a little while. Until I finish eating. Keep me company.”

“It is late.”

“It’s not eleven o’clock. Stay with me until Calvin comes home.”

“No.” Again, stronger this time. “I will see you in the morning, Mr. DuFrane.”

Then the unmistakable sound of a chair scraping back across the floor, then something like a whimper, then a new kind of silence. Fuller, and it stirred something unfamiliar within her.

Celeste kept her bottom glued to the step but leaned forward,
stretching her neck, hoping to get a peek around the corner. But even if she’d been one of the flamingo mallets from the queen’s croquet game, she couldn’t have seen into the kitchen. She’d have to get up, walk around the corner, stand in that wide, square doorway, risking her own detection to see something she knew would be best kept hidden.

Still, she stood and took two soft, cold steps, clinging to the banister, as if that would guarantee a quick escape.

“What are you doing up, kid?”

She managed to stifle her scream just in time, turning around to see Calvin, uncharacteristically disheveled, holding a warning finger to his lips. He himself had spoken barely above a whisper, his question more of a feeling than a sound, and when he took his finger away, he too gripped the banister, though clearly in an attempt to steady himself. With his free hand, he gripped Celeste’s wrist and pulled her to him and, without another word, led her back to her room.

“Get in,” he said, gesturing half-interestedly toward her bed. Silently she obeyed. Then, for the first time in memory, he sat down heavily on its edge. “Were you getting a snack?”

She shook her head, feeling the static against the pillow. “I was listening.”

His sour breath let out a humorless laugh. “Dad and Graciela?”

She nodded, and he said something that would have earned a scolding from Mother.

“Why do you have to be so mean all of the time?”

His dark hair was mussed from its usual sleekness, and he ran his hand through it, causing even more disruption. “Am I?”

“Tonight you were. We were all having a lovely time and might have come home to have hot chocolate or something, but
you had to go off with your stupid friends and make Mother mad and so nobody said a word.”

“We weren’t going to have hot chocolate. When was the last time any of us ever sat around to drink hot chocolate? But if that’s what Princess Celeste wants, that’s what she’ll get. I’ve no doubt Graciela is still in the kitchen.”

He said this last bit with a sneer that made him look diabolical in the dim light. She knew he was thinking mean, awful things, and she felt an ugliness growing beyond their usual filial dislike.

“Just go. Get out of my room. Nobody ever really wants you around. They didn’t even care when you left. Didn’t say another word about you.”

He laughed, and the sound of it proved more frightening than any scowl or sneer. “Do you think I don’t know that already, little sister?”

There was a hurt buried deep within his words, and she wished she could take her own back.

“I didn’t mean—”

“You might be surprised to learn that things were pretty good before you came along. I remember, when I was a kid, Mom and Dad and me. We used to—
they
used to talk to me and each other. We’d spend entire days at the park, flying kites. Having picnics . . .”

He picked one of her dolls up out of the basket by her bed and held it loosely in his hands. “And then you died.”

Terrified, both of his words and the eerie, tomb-like emptiness of his voice, Celeste clutched her blanket and brought it straight up to her nose.

“Wait.” He brought the doll up and tapped his forehead against it. “You couldn’t have died, could you? But you did. I remember. That’s when Mom stopped looking at me. When I
knew I’d never be enough for her. Because you died for a while. And then—”

He stopped, looking at her as if seeing his little sister for the first time.

“And then what?”

“And then you came back.”

DANA SEES STARS

1925

NO FEWER THAN FIFTEEN
dresses lay strewn across the bed, each one a masterpiece of silk and beads and fringe. Celeste stood in front of a full-length, gilded mirror, dressed in nothing more than stockings and a garter belt, holding up yet another—this one festooned with long, black feathers—against her pale skin.

“Too dramatic?”

“I’m not one to judge,” Dana said. She sat on the upholstered bench at the foot of the bed, idly running her thumb and forefinger along the rippling velvet hem of a rich, red garment. “I’ve never been to a—what is it called again?”

“A premiere. And neither have I, for that matter. Not as a real person, anyway.”

“A real person?”

“An actress. Somebody in the film. I’ve always been one of those screamers on the street hoping to grab John Gilbert’s attention.”

“But it’s not your first movie.”

“It’s my first where I get to be an actual woman. I even have a kiss; can you believe that? And for the first time you’ll see
Celeste DuFrane
on the movie poster in the lobby.” She turned her attention back to her reflection and decided that the black dress wouldn’t do after all. “It’s for a much older woman.” Then, inspiration. “Maybe you should wear it.”

Dana didn’t know if she should be amused or offended, so she offered only a low chuckle in reply as Celeste clapped her hand over her mouth in wide-eyed mortification.

“I’m so sorry.” She dropped her hand. “I’m such a dope. That was terribly rude, wasn’t it? I just meant that . . . well, you are . . .”

“Old?”

“Really, not so much, but I forget. Sometimes, you seem, I dunno. Older.”

“You’re getting kinder by the minute.”

Celeste made a sound of frustration, threw the black feathered dress on the pile, and cinched her silk robe around her waist. “Didn’t you think everybody was old when you were my age?”

At this, Dana
did
laugh, though more bitterly than she’d intended, and her heart softened at the stricken look on Celeste’s face. “I don’t know that I remember much about being your age. Everything for me is rather a blur. I was a child, I was a child, I was a child, and then—”

“Then what?” Celeste sat on the edge of the bed, mindless of the silks and chiffons piled upon it. “Think back to when you were a child. Before all of this.” She waved her hand, as if dismissing nearly twenty years of injustice. “What did you want? More than anything? I wanted to be in the movies. And here I am.”

“All Mama and I ever talked about was for her to find a good job as a live-in in a big house, where I could stay and work beside her.”

“So your dream was to be a maid?” Celeste had never looked more confused.

“That was my mother’s dream. All I ever wanted was to see her happy.”

“Nothing for yourself? I remember lying in that room—” she pointed out, toward the room Dana now occupied—“praying to God to be in a movie. I can remember it like yesterday.”

Dana smiled indulgently. “A lot more time has passed for me since my childhood.”

“Maybe so. But here you are now. Here we both are at this same place. The one thing we have in common is that we were both children, once. And now we’re both women. Maybe if we can find something we held in common back then, we can find something we hold in common now.”

Dana kept her composure only by imagining Celeste to still be that child, longing to be an actress, playing dress-up with her mother’s cast-off gowns.

“Did your mother want you to be an actress?”

Celeste blushed, the pale flesh of her collarbone blotched red. “She hated the idea. Tried everything she could to stop it. Sometimes, and I know this sounds awful, but I don’t think she ever forgave me for not being my sister. She saw my existence as being the reason for Mary’s death, like the universe had to push her aside to make way for me.”

The brash, confident girl who, mere moments ago, had bragged about her name on a motion picture poster all but disappeared, grown smaller and nearly silent toward the end of her revelation. A wave of compassion swept over Dana as she imagined that the only thing worse than being locked away by Marguerite DuFrane’s misplaced revenge would be to grow up under it. She needn’t tell her that all she’d ever wanted as a child was to live in a house like the DuFranes’, surrounded by pretty things she could call her own. And it would be cruel to enlighten Celeste on just
where Dana had been when
she
was nineteen—one small, dark cell. Alone and forgotten for a period of time she’d yet been able to measure, and wanting nothing more than an opportunity to speak the truth. Tell her story, and walk out to . . .

What? Where would she have gone had the doors and gates mysteriously opened all those years ago?

Somehow, in this moment, she had all she’d ever wanted.

“Perhaps,” Dana said softly, “we have more in common than we think.”

Celeste looked up, not understanding.

“I don’t believe your mother liked me very much either.”

The first giggle snuck out like a mistake, and each seemed to need the other’s permission before any laughter could ensue. When it did, it came across with great release, dying away only briefly as both stole a glance at the framed photograph of Marguerite DuFrane on Celeste’s dresser.

“When was that taken?”

“Shortly after we moved here.” Celeste’s brow furrowed in thought. “Just think. She must have been about your age.”

Dana squinted, a further reminder that she must see someone about the growing dimness in her eyes. “She looks older.”

The second round of laughter had a sweet air of wickedness and died out with a harmonious sigh that led to the most comfortable and content of silences.

“You should go with me,” Celeste said after a time.

“Where?” Dana had lost all thread of conversation.

“To the premiere. Tonight.”

Before Dana could protest, Celeste had bounded off the bed, calling,
“Graciela!”
at an increasing volume until the older woman’s head poked through the door.

“
Sí,
Celita?”

“Do you have time to do a quick set on Dana’s hair before tonight? We have to leave at six o’clock. No later.”

“Oh yes.” The older woman’s smile was warm and proud, and if Dana envied Celeste anything, it was growing up with such devoted care. “I’ll be back. Ten minutes.”