The Never Never Sisters (15 page)

DAVE WAS WAKING
up when I stepped out of the bathroom in the morning, towel wrapped around me and
tucked under my arms. He sat up in bed. “No lazing around?”

“Another family thing.” I slid on my watch. I had gone to bed feeling okay, but when
I woke up, my first thought was
Are we really just supposed to go back to normal now?
I’d felt a stab of venom behind my rib cage, like a cramp. Or maybe it was guilt.

He hummed. “We Are Family.” Honestly, I didn’t even feel like smiling. I felt like
slamming my weight against a punching bag.

“Can I come?”

“You’re not playing catch-up with work today?”

“I can do it after. Unless you don’t want me to come.” He laughed as though this would
never be a real possibility.

“No, of course I want you to come. I didn’t tell you about it because I assumed—”

“I’m teasing.” He swung his legs out of bed and grabbed a pair of shorts from over
the chair, pulling them on. “You’d want any buffer for the family stuff these days,
right? I don’t take it personally. You’d probably love for Bert to tag along to shield
you from all that tension.” Bert was our doorman. “And your mom? What’s the story
there—why does her personality completely alter when she’s in Sloane’s presence?”

“Hey there, Columbo.”

“Why am I Columbo?”

“Because your observations are a bit late in the game. It’s gotten much better between
everyone.”

“Really? Just in the past few days?”

“Really.”

“What was it about anyway?”

“It was about her addiction.” I said this in a tone of voice like
Duh
.

“I know that, but I mean why does your mom act so scared around her?”

“How should I know?”

“I dunno.” He found a T-shirt in the pile of clothes on the chair and shook it out.
“Weren’t you there when it all went down?”

“Dave!” My mom literally jumped up and down in one place with joy at the surprise
of his presence. “I’ll set your plate.”

I wanted to hug her after reading the last journal entry and reached out, but she
was already halfway to the kitchen, where I heard the pull of drawers, the clanking
of silverware. Dave’s work phone buzzed, and he paused to pick up while I followed
her in.

“Where’s Sloane?” I said, and she pointed out to the patio. “I’ll let her know we’re
here.”

Sloane was standing by the balcony, facing the East River, watching a boat drift toward
New York Harbor.

“Dave came with me.” The words rushed out.

“Where?”

“Here. This morning.”

She turned her head to try to see into the apartment and then peered at me. “You look
a little tweaked.”

“I am. He’s going back to work. He’s been cleared by the firm. Whatever that means.”

She looked at the pack of cigarettes on the table. “Want one?”

I had to smile at the thought of my mom peeking out to see me smoking. At this point,
she’d probably give me a double thumbs-up:
Great work
making Sloane feel comfortable, honey!
“No, thanks.”

“So tell me what happened.”

“I came home yesterday, and he told me the whole thing is over. He’s going back on
Monday. He still doesn’t know what happened, and he doesn’t want to.” Her expression—hooded
eyes—called bullshit. “I know.”

“If you want to call off the investigation, it’s no biggie. You can just move forward,
forget about the questions.”

“What would you do?”

“Why does that matter?”

“Just tell me.”

She patted my leg and tapped ash into a ceramic bowl.

“Hey,” I said. “You have a real ashtray.”

She took a drag. “Vanessa. She bought them yesterday.”

“Them?”

“Three. The presentation was this morning, right after I arrived. Gift wrapping, a
small card. It reminded me of Hanukkah. Remember Hanukkah? Or has it gone in the memory
void with everything else?”

“We still do Hanukkah. You should come this year. You and Giovanni. We do the whole
shebang, the dreidel and the latkes. It’s weird because there are no kids and for
some reason, it’s still a lot of fun.”

“Paige.”

“I don’t know.” I imagined doing nothing. Then I imagined sneaking into Dave’s office
and bugging his phone, which would involve a healthy amount of research to do properly.
Neither seemed like a good option. “Can you cover for me if anyone comes out here?”

“Of course.”

I pulled Percy’s card from my wallet and dialed his cell phone. He picked up on the
first ring.

“Hi, it’s Paige.”

“Are you in a bad spot?”

“No.”

“You’re just whispering a little. It’s hard to hear.”

“Dave is going back to work.”

“Okay.” Pause. “So we’ll cancel?”

Immediately I realized that if I canceled, I’d wake up angry every day, without knowing
why. And then in the evenings, I’d sit on the couch and systematically pull the buttons
off all of my clothes. It would be a twenty-first-century version of that chick-in-the-yellow-wallpaper
story, slowly going mad while her husband went off to work with a whistle and a spring
in his step. “No.”

“Okay.”

“I’m not calling to cancel. But it seems to me there’s a bit of a lost opportunity
with him back at work.”

“Yeah. I see your point. It’ll be harder to access his conversations and stuff. Well,
that’s okay. We can figure it out.”

“What I’m thinking is—should we try to get in there before?” Sloane cocked her head
in approval, bit her lip.
Nifty idea
.

“Get in where, Paige?”

“His office. The firm. Should we try to get in there before he starts on Monday?”

“No, I don’t think that’s necessary.”

“But if I could. If I—” My mom slid open the door to the outdoors, and Sloane stubbed
out her cigarette as if mad at it and bounded over. She said something to my mom,
and they both went indoors, my mom meeting my eye and pointing at her watch, then
miming spooning food into her mouth—time to eat. “If I could get in there without
a big production, what do you think of that?”

I pictured Dave’s office, what it would take to get in and look around. Not much.
I’d done it once before without Dave. He had been at home sick, cramped up with a
stomach flu on a Saturday night and in urgent need of a document. The messenger service
had quoted hour-long delays due to rain and no one else was around to help, so after
much bellyaching (literal and figurative) and back-and-forth, I volunteered. I insisted
I could manage it, shrugging off Dave’s explanations of how I had to press his key
card against the turnstile just so. “Different from a MetroCard,” he kept saying,
his voice weak and raspy.

“I think . . .” Percy talked slowly in that way people do when they’ve slipped on
the kid gloves. “That is one of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard. We’re supposed to
meet tomorrow.”

“Yes.”

“So sit tight. We can think of something then.”

“Okay.” Sloane pushed open the door to the patio and gestured that I should come in;
I gestured that she should come out instead.

“What did he say?”

“I asked him if I should try to break into Dave’s firm tonight, and he said no.”

“Seriously?”

“This whole thing is making me crazy.”

“I like that idea. Can you do it?”

“I think so.”

“I totally would.”

“Percy said not to.”

“It’s your life, not his. No one’s going to care about it as much as you.”

“True.”

“Plus, it’s sort of his fault anyway. He’s the one who scheduled your first real meeting
tomorrow.”

“Come on. It’s not Percy’s fault.”

“So.” She raised one pointed brow, and I instantly wished I could do the same. “How
would you do it?”

“Borrow Dave’s key card, go to his office, look around, leave.”

“Hmm.”

“Suggestions?”

“What about the office of that woman you told me he met with?”

“The HR person?”

“Exactly. Maybe she has notes or something.”

“Good idea.”

“You should totally do it.”

“Maybe I will.”

“Check you out.” She grabbed my shoulder, and I smelled the whiff of tobacco on her
fingers. “Nerves of steel. Oh, and if they ask inside, you were calling the acupuncture
place.”

“The what?” But she was already pushing open the door to go inside.

“Dave and I didn’t know you were doing acupuncture.” My mom looked at me, impressed,
as I pulled out my chair and spooned some yogurt into my bowl. Dave shrugged with
an I-just-pay-the-bills face that I knew my father would appreciate. “So what’d she
say?”

Sloane’s expression was neutral as usual. “She said she has some openings tonight.”

“Tonight?” My mom frowned. “She’s open on Saturday night?”

“Yep.”

“I wish I could go,” said my mom. “Not that I’d invite myself along but . . . we have
plans anyway. With Cherie and the Weavers.” My dad blinked once slowly and sighed.
Not those bloody Weavers.
My mom ignored him. “Oh!”

“What?” I said.

“How does everyone feel about boats?”

“About what?”

“Boats!”

Sloane shrugged. “Extremely whatever.”

“Well, Dad and I were thinking about something fun we could all do—you know, while
we’re all together. Someone he knows through work has a boat.”

“It’s bigger than a boat, Van. It’s a yacht.”

“We thought we could rent it for the day for all of us?” No one responded. “Great!
And Sloane . . .”

“What?” It was a short, sharp syllable.

“Why not invite your . . .”

“Invite Giovanni.” I had no patience for the awkward moment that was brewing. “You
should.”

Sloane’s shoulders mini-jerked noncommittally.

“We’ll set it all up, then.” My mom paused. “Does it work?”

“Does what work?”

“Acupuncture.”

“Mom, I don’t know yet.”

“I’ve heard it does. What are you doing it for anyway?”

“Seasickness,” Sloane said, straight-faced.

“She’s kidding,” I said, jumping in to stave off the hand-wringing and hair-tearing.
“Tell her you’re kidding.”

Sloane lifted one shoulder. “Curiosity.”

“What?” my mom said.

“That’s why we’re doing acupuncture.” Sloane’s eyes were innocent. “To cure curiosity.”

When I choked on a grape, Dave patted my back. “You okay?” he said, but no one had
seemed to have any problems with Sloane’s explanation.

Vanessa

LUCKILY, CHERIE AND
Darren had gotten to the restaurant first. I made Frankie slip his credit card to
the maître d’ to avoid any future awkwardness—the last time the Weavers had insisted
on a whole long discussion about the bill: who drank what and who didn’t get an appetizer
and who’d tasted a tiny sliver of someone else’s meat dish. We needed three calculators
and an abacus to get out of there.

Pride is so silly. If I had known someone rich during the many, many years I was “financially
challenged,” as Frankie called it, I would have let them pay for everything.

“Listen.” I put my hand on Cherie’s arm. “Pretend we’re taking you out for your birthday.”

“My birthday is in November.”

“I know it is. To avoid a scene. About the bill. Like last time.”

“Oh!” She dipped her head, playing bashful. “Well, thank you very much.”

“Many happy returns.” I smiled.

“What time do we have to leave for the play?” Darren chewed an ice cube.

“No idea.” Frankie grabbed his water glass with his full hand and gulped. What was
it with those two? As if we’d arrived from the desert instead of a town car.

“We have plenty of time to eat,” Cherie said. “What’s the issue?”

“The play is always at eight,” I said. “Every Saturday night performance we’ve ever
gone to, the play is at eight. How does this not sink in?”

“It’s not about having time to eat,” Darren explained. “I’m trying to figure out if
it will have cooled down when we have to go outside.”

“No,” I said. “It won’t have cooled down. It will be miserable. Anyway,” I said, directing
this to Cherie, “guess where they are.”

“Who’s where?” Darren said.

“Where?” Cherie talked over him.

“Acupuncture. Together. On a Saturday night.”

“That’s great!”

“Great? That’s weird,” Darren said. “Who goes to acupuncture on a Saturday night?”

“Bonding sisters,” Frankie said.

“Oh—Paigey T. and Sloane?” Darren nodded, supportive. “That is great.”

“They’re spending a lot of time together.”

“Wonderful,” said Cherie. “But just you wait. It will start to hurt your feelings
at some point—how little they want to be with you.”

“Aw.” Darren reached across the table and rubbed her shoulder. “Poor mom.”

“I’m sure.” I sipped my sparkling water. It would never hurt my feelings to be left
out. Like I said, pride is silly. Plus, this was my victory, and it had been so
easy
to bring them together.

If I’m being honest, being Sloane’s mother has somewhat exhausted me. Just the mental
hoops I’ve jumped through, the constant uncertainty: Do I give her space? Do I fly
across the country in an attempt to track her down? Where does my life end and hers
begin? The answers are never as clear as they seem in self-help books.

Therapists love to tell you that you’re not responsible for everything. This is crap;
there is no overestimating the importance of how a parent’s behavior affects a child.

People who grew up
with
parental support can’t know that without it, childhood feels like being handed a
novel with the first three chapters ripped out and then directed to participate in
class discussions. I know this because I’ve experienced both.

The partial-novel thing—sixty pages ripped out—happened to me in eleventh grade with
Oliver Twist
, and while I eventually read the whole thing, to this day whenever anyone mentions
Charles Dickens, I feel lost and stressed.

The growing-up-without-parental-support thing happened from birth. I conjured an imaginary
little brother, Al, and clung to him straight through junior high. On a daily basis,
I’d help Al get ready for school. I’d tell him when the farina was cool enough. We’d
play solitaire, Al and I. I’d nag him to do homework. (I’m glad there was no Al, though.
That hint of comfort and companionship might have turned us placid. We’d have wasted
our energy licking our wounds instead of planning an exit strategy.)

Sloane has always pushed back from whatever head start I try to establish for her.
It kills me—how could she not understand how much easier it could all be? I have longed
to give her the CliffsNotes I’ve given to Paige:
this
is what a good husband looks like;
that
is the education you need;
this
is what life can be. Instead, it’s as though she barely scanned the back cover of
the anthology I had printed just for her, and then, for no reason at all, threw the
whole thing in the trash.

But I can appreciate that Sloane has used all that anger at me to propel herself forward.
She’s so pissed at her lot in life that she’s managed to stand alone, just like I
did.

She doesn’t see the connection between us, but it’s there: she’s my path not taken
into darkness, the positive to my negative. Maybe she and I can never peacefully exist;
maybe Sloane needs to pull herself away from me because without the string tension
I provide, she’d fall slack.