The Pretty One: A Novel About Sisters (21 page)

“Um, I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” said Gus, suddenly concerned on Olympia’s account. Or was she simply making trouble because she could? “Why don’t you spend a few days relaxing and come back midweek?”

“Why?!” screeched Perri, sounding alarmed. “Did Mike say something? Does he not want me back?”

“No!” said Gus. “It’s nothing like that. It’s just that—everyone’s been a little weirded out. Instead of surprising them, why don’t you give them time to readjust to the fact that you’re coming back. I’ll tell them I spoke to you—and that you’re just taking a break and you’ll be home in a few days.”

“Gus. Tell me the truth. Did something happen?” Perri demanded to know. “You’re really freaking me out. Did Mike hire a hooker, or something?”

“Not that I know of—”

“Excuse me,” came a voice from across Gus’s desk. “Are you ever getting off the phone? I’ve got bills to pay.”

Gus gasped in horror. She’d been so riveted by the details of Perri’s midlife crisis that she’d forgotten she was in the middle
of an interview! “Listen, I have to go. I’ll call you back. Okay?” she told Perri. Then she turned back to Marta, and said, “I’m so sorry. Where were we?”

“You asked me whether I ever saw my ex giving alcohol to our baby,” said Marta. “And the answer is, yeah—once, I saw him mixing Wild Turkey in with the formula.”

Gus duly noted the detail on her questionnaire form. Then she paused, realizing that she couldn’t begin to concentrate on anyone else’s man problems when the ones in her own family were so vast. “Actually, I’m wondering if we could finish this interview at some later date. The truth is, I’ve got a bit of a Wild Turkey crisis in my own family. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

“As you like.” Marta shrugged, clearly miffed as she rose from her chair.

Gus rose, too, apologized again, collected her belongings, and followed Marta outside.

Every year, it seemed, springtime in New York grew shorter—until summer seemed to follow directly on the heels of winter. That day, which happened to be the last in April, was as sticky as any in July. Gus walked by Jimbo’s Hamburger Palace, her nostrils filling with the heady scent of grease, then managed to traverse the traffic nightmare that was the intersection of 163rd Street, Hunts Point Avenue, and Southern Boulevard without getting flattened by a sixteen-wheeler. As she grew farther away from a parked car blasting salsa—and closer to the subway entrance—she dialed Jeff. She knew she wasn’t at liberty to tell him what Perri had told her. Yet she somehow felt that he should at least
know
that Perri had called. After all, he was the brother of Perri’s husband. Until further notice, he was also
Gus’s boyfriend. It was also true that Gus was excited to have “inside information” and couldn’t bear not to advertise that fact to her close relations. Plus, she just wanted to hear his voice, just wanted to know it hadn’t all been a dream…

“Hey,” she said. “It’s me.” Jeff had already gotten himself a job filling in for a traveling tennis pro at the Midtown Tennis Club. (He’d been second singles at Pepperdine before transferring to the University of Colorado at Boulder.)

“Hey, baby,” he said. “I’m just about to head onto the court. What’s up?”

Gus felt disoriented. She’d never been called “baby” before in her life—wasn’t sure she ever wanted to be again. “I heard from Perri.”

“No joke. Where is she?”

“I can’t say.”

“What do you mean you can’t say?”

“I promised her I wouldn’t.”

“Wait, didn’t you just call me?” Jeff sounded peeved.

“I know, I know. I’m sorry,” said Gus, now wishing she’d never dialed.

“All right, well, I should go.”

“No, wait!” cried Gus. She hated the thought that he might be mad at her, didn’t want him to hang up yet. The sex had made her needy. It always did.

“What?” he said.

“All right, fine. She’s in Florida,” Gus told him. “But that’s ALL I CAN SAY!” Why was it so hard keeping one’s mouth shut when talking to someone with whom one had recently exchanged bodily fluids?

“The Sunshine State—interesting.
Por qué?
”

“Just—I don’t know—so she can get some sun.”

“By herself?”

“Don’t make me answer that.”

“Okay, not by herself.”

“I didn’t say one way or the other!”

“Yes, you did. By refusing to say that she was alone.”

“Okay, fine, but the other person is already gone.”

“So it was a one-night stand?”

“I have no idea. But please, Jeff—I’m
serious
about you not saying anything to Mike.” Realizing how much she’d said (without actually saying anything), Gus was beginning to panic. It hadn’t been her intention to have been the first link in a long gossip chain. What’s more, if Perri found out that what she’d revealed to Gus in confidence had gone straight back to Jeff, who would likely tell Mike, Gus might have to join the Witness Protection Program. Though at least Gus hadn’t said anything about Perri using a bogus credit card…

“Gus—Mike is my brother,” Jeff announced in a righteous tone. “And he’s in a lot of pain right now. I’m only going to tell him what I think he needs to know.”

“Yeah, well, your brother is no angel, either,” said Gus. “You might want to ask him what exactly he was doing with my middle sister in the kids’ bathroom last weekend with the door locked.”

“What in Jesus’s name are you talking about?!”

“Just that he and Pia were in there together for, like, a half an hour. And I kind of doubt they were comparing plucking techniques. Though you never know.”

“Interesting,” said Jeff.

“Ohmygod, what have I done?!” gasped Gus, suddenly
cognizant that she’d now sold out pretty much the entire family. “Next thing you know, I’m going to tell you about Perri’s fake credit card.”

“You just did.”

This time, when Gus gasped, no sound came out. How had she become such an incorrigible loose lips? In her professional life, she was a model of discretion. In fact, she made a point of protecting the privacy of her sources. But in her personal life, it was as if she were still a teenager, trying to get her sisters’ attention at the breakfast table in Hastings with scandalous tidbits about their classmates.

“Listen, babe,” Jeff said. “I should go. Private lesson waiting. But that was superfun last night.”

“I had fun too,” said Gus. “But, Jeff?”

“Yes, milady?”

“I was serious about not telling Mike everything I just told you. I’m actually begging you.”

“I like a woman who begs for it.”

“Jeff, I’m serious!”

“I’ll do my best.”

Was it any wonder that Gus descended the steps to the subway feeling as if Hades awaited her?

14

A
S MANY TIMES AS
Olympia returned to her childhood home, she never grew acclimated to the sight of it. It seemed somehow impossible that it should still exist with the same people in it, the same furniture she remembered too. Most of her friends’ suburban parents had downsized to condos after their nests had emptied—not the Hellingers. It was midday. Lola was asleep upstairs. Olympia wandered into the kitchen. She found her mother peering into the cupboards.

“Is there any coffee?” Olympia asked her.

“Should be, but I’m actually looking for the Ovaltine,” said Carol. “Oh, here it is!”

“What is it with you and Dad and the Ovaltine?” Olympia muttered as she lifted the kettle off the stove.

After the water boiled, and Olympia poured out two hot beverages, she and Carol sat down at the kitchen table. “So, what have I missed?” Carol asked with a breezy sigh.

For the first time in ages, Olympia saw an actual person sitting across from her, as opposed to her Annoying Mother—a
person who wanted to believe her life mattered and that she was indispensable to those around her. It seemed suddenly ludicrous that everyone should be lying to her. Olympia took a deep breath and announced that Gus had fallen for Mike’s brother, Jeff, while Perri, far from being at a closet conference, had walked out on Mike on her fortieth birthday and was currently in an undisclosed location.

Carol sat listening with popping eyes, her cup suspended in midair. When Olympia had finished speaking, she took a sip of her Ovaltine, and declared, “My goodness—well, I don’t know what to say. Between you and me, I never thought Mike was worthy of Perri. He’s a Republican, you know.”

“I know.”

“But they have three kids.”

“The split might not be permanent.”

“And I bet that brother of his is a Republican, too. It tends to run in families.”

“As far as I can tell, all the guy cares about is skiing. And now, I guess, Gus.”

“And is Gus in… love with him?”

“I’m not sure she’s ‘in love,’ but she clearly likes him.”

“The heart is a mysterious thing,” Carol said, sighing again, as she gazed out the window. “And here I’d finally come to accept that I was the mother of a gay person!” She turned back to Olympia. “And what about you? Who does your heart belong to these days, other than to Lola?”

The question startled Olympia in its very directness. Meeting her mother’s gaze head on, she thought of how infrequently the two of them spoke about anything meaningful—it was all quips and barbs—and how little time they’d spent together in recent years apart from Perri or Gus. Who knew when the next
time would be? And who knew how many years her mother and father actually had left? Ten? Twenty? Twenty-five at the absolute most? In that moment, Olympia resolved to come clean about her own life, too. “If you want to know the truth,” she said with a trembling heart, “I’ve been in love with the same man for five, maybe even six years. We broke up before Lola was born. He runs a community center for disadvantaged kids. The problem is… he’s married and his wife is”—Olympia swallowed hard—“a paraplegic. So he can’t leave her.” She held her breath while waiting for the onslaught of disapproval that she’d always assumed her faithfully married mother would direct at her.

But to Olympia’s surprise, all Carol said was “That does sound complicated. I’m sorry.”

Carol’s reticence, in turn, spurred Olympia onward. “Complicated is one way of putting it,” she said, somehow knowing she’d live to regret what she was about to say, yet unable to stop herself. “So complicated,” she went on, “that when I wanted to have a baby four-plus years ago, and he was the only guy in my life, I decided to use”—Olympia paused—“a sperm bank instead.”

“A SPERM BANK?!” Carol cried.

Olympia was already regretting her confession. “I thought it would be less complicated,” she said. “I was wrong about that, of course. But at the time…”

Carol’s contorted face suggested horror, bewilderment, and disappointment all in one. It was the same expression she’d had when Gus had “come out” nearly twenty years ago—only a more extreme version of such. It was one thing, apparently, for a gay person to admit that she couldn’t help being gay, quite another for a heterosexual person to admit to willfully
subverting reproductive norms. “But couldn’t you have waited to see if you met someone else?” she stammered.

“I was turning thirty-five. How long was I supposed to wait?” asked Olympia, her lower lip now quivering.

Carol didn’t answer.

15

P
ERRI HAD ALWAYS LOVED BREAKFAST
. It was her favorite meal of the day. When Mike traveled for business, she’d treat herself by eating cereal for dinner after the kids went to sleep. Now she lay sprawled on her hotel bed, feasting on room-service waffles (at four o’clock in the afternoon, no less) and trying not to fret about the fact that Gus had discouraged her from returning home. What accounted for Gus’s negativity? Seeking distraction from her worries, Perri flipped on the TV.
The Real Housewives of New Jersey
were having some kind of altercation. As Teresa overturned a table onto Danielle, Perri felt a momentary jolt of smugness in the knowledge that the lives of reality TV stars were infinitely tackier and more dysfunctional than hers would ever be.

However, the sound of her ringing phone—and the sight of the name “Sims, Michael” flashing across its screen—undermined that certitude, reminding Perri that she’d dumped her husband and kids so she could have sex with a vascular surgeon in South Beach. She dreaded the thought of the conversation
to come. But if there was any hope of repairing the damage, it needed to be had. It was why she’d left Mike a teary message, twenty minutes earlier, apologizing in a general way and asking that he call her. “Hello?” she said in a mealy voice.

“You went down to Florida to have an affair. Is that it?” he barked.

“WHAT?! Who said that?”

“I have my sources.”

Perri was aghast and inflamed. So it had taken Gus not even five minutes to betray her? There was no other explanation. She wanted to break one of Gus’s legs. “Well, your sources are wrong,” she told him.

“Yeah, right,” said Mike.

A sob climbed the length of Perri’s throat, and she felt powerless to keep it inside. “It’s already over,” she said. “And nothing even happened. But I’m sorry anyway. I’ll be sorry for the rest of my life.”

“So, who was it?” asked Mike, seemingly unswayed by his wife’s display of abjection. “Some pool boy you met down there? The sixteen-year-old with the handlebar mustache from the office?”

Remorse mingled with rage. “What do you care?” cried Perri. “It’s not like you want me anymore!”

“Is that what you think?”

“Yes.” He hadn’t denied it, had he?

“So you had to go fuck someone else?”

Perri felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach. “I didn’t
f-word
anyone.” It pained her in particular to have to use the word as a verb, even in an abbreviated form, but she saw no other way to counteract the charge. “And for the record, I’m lying in bed
alone
right now eating waffles. Okay?”

“Well, good for you. I hope you have a lovely and romantic getaway. And at the end of it, do everyone a favor and don’t come back.”

Was he serious? “Mike! PLEASE!” Perri was crying so hard now that she felt as if she couldn’t breathe. What had she done? And how had they arrived at this point? Hadn’t they loved each other only a short time ago? She could no longer even remember what she was doing in Florida.