The Pretty One: A Novel About Sisters (22 page)

“Please, what?” he said.

“Forgive me!”

“I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Mike, we’ve been married for—” she began. But the line had already gone dead.

As the tears rolled down her cheeks, Perri redialed her home number. She stopped after the fourth digit, realizing there was no point. Mike wouldn’t pick up. Besides, there was an even more urgent call she needed to make just then—to her youngest sister, Gus, to tell her that she was never speaking to her again for as long as she lived.

Gus and Perri had never really had a big blowout before. True, Perri had been less than amused when her sister had shown up for her wedding twelve years earlier wearing a light blue men’s tuxedo. Perri had begged Gus to wear a dress, even offering to buy her one of her choice at Nordstrom’s, no expense barred—to no avail. But the whole incident had been more of an eye roller than anything else. This time was different.

“What’s up?” asked Gus.

“This is Perri,” she began in a shaky voice, “and I just want you to know that I’m never speaking to you again.”

“What?!” said Gus.

“I spoke to you in confidence this morning, and you betrayed me. You told Mike every single thing I told you. You told him I had an affair, too. Which, by the way, is patently false. But what do you care about the truth?”

“Oh, Jesus,” she said.

“That’s the best you can do?” said Perri. “Invoke the name of a God you don’t believe in?”

Gus sighed heavily. “Perri, I swear—I didn’t mean to say anything. Jeff dragged the whole thing out of me, and then he swore he wouldn’t tell Mike. I’m seriously going to kill him.”

“Do what you like!” Perri shot back. “It won’t make a difference to me, since our relationship is OVER, a relationship that, by the way, I once considered among the most treasured entities in my life.”

“Perri—PLEASE!” Gus let out a gasping little yowl.

Perri’s first instinct was to comfort her sister, just as she’d done so many times before. In order not to do so, she had to remind herself that she was the victim, not the other way around. Perri wasn’t going to let Gus off the hook without further berating, either. “When I think of all the times I was there to hold your hand,” she went on, “like when you thought you needed a sex change, freshman year of college.” Perri paused to catch her breath and wipe the spittle that had found its way onto her chin.

“You’ve been a great sister,” moaned Gus. “I didn’t mean to upset you. Please don’t cut me off.”

“Why shouldn’t I?” cried Perri. “You sold me out. I turned to you in a vulnerable moment, mistakenly believing you’d have more compassion than Pia would. It turns out I was wrong.”

“You weren’t wrong.”

“Really?”

There was a pause. Then, in a newly defiant voice, Gus announced, “I’m not the sister who’s getting cozy with your husband the second you leave.”

“Ex-
cuse
me?!” cried Perri.

“Let’s just say that a certain two people spent a lot of time in the bathroom together with the door closed the night after you left.”

Perri was momentarily speechless. What in the world was Gus trying to imply? Had her husband been unfaithful, too?! “And which two people would that be?” she asked.

“You figure it out. One of their names starts with O—and the other with M.”

For a full minute, Perri was speechless. Was Gus serious? It sounded implausible. But what if it wasn’t? What if her husband had spent the previous twelve years believing he’d married the wrong sister? And what if Olympia, consummate flirt and known saboteur of others’ marriages, had tried to sabotage Perri’s marriage too? Perri’s thoughts turned to the entirely inappropriate outfit that Olympia had worn to her wedding, which had basically consisted of two pasties attached to a loincloth. “Good-bye, Augusta,” Perri said finally. “I hope you have a nice life. You won’t be hearing from me again.”

“Perri—WAIT!” cried Gus.

But Perri had already hung up, just as her husband had hung up on her, ten minutes before. As far as she was concerned, both sisters were now lost to her. She picked the phone back up and dialed Olympia’s number to inform her that she, too, had become a nonperson.

16

J
UST AS
O
LYMPIA WAS EXITING THE KITCHEN
, following her unpleasant confession to Carol, Perri’s name flashed across the screen of her phone. Happy for the distraction from her own problems, Olympia took the phone into the living room with her, and said, “Hello?”

What she wasn’t expecting was the fusillade of vitriol that greeted her left ear. “For nearly forty years, I’ve stood by you!” said the furious person who was apparently Perri on the other end of the line.

“Perri?” said Olympia.

“In high school, when everyone was calling you a slut, I told them to go jump in a lake!”

“
Jump in a lake?
I don’t think anyone’s used that expression since the nineteen-fifties,” said Olympia, her casual banter belying her now pounding heart. Had Mike told Perri about their sort-of kiss?

“And when you were struggling in your twenties,” Perri went on, “I sent you that check for five hundred dollars—which, for the record, you never paid back. But that’s beside the point.”

“Well, then, what
is
your point?” asked Olympia, now fearing the worst, even as she felt enraged. Perri had some nerve in raising the issue of Olympia’s ancient, unpaid debts! Besides, what was five hundred dollars to a rich person?

“My point is that whatever secret hostilities you’ve been harboring toward me for the last thirty-eight years, this is one shitty way of expressing them! Though on that note, if you really want my idiot husband, you can have him.” She let out a high-pitched laugh. “Really, he’s yours!”

Olympia’s heart rate had gone berserk. So Mike had told her, she thought—
the bastard!
Clearly, he’d just been using her to get back at Perri, Olympia decided. He’d caught Olympia at a vulnerable moment and turned that vulnerability into a cudgel to use against his jealous wife. What a fool Olympia had been to fall for it! Even so, she wasn’t ready to hand him (or Perri) the victory just yet. “So, now I’m taking the hit for the fact that I had to haul my ass all the way to Larchmont after work on Friday because you decided to split on your family and on Dad?” she said. “Only to have your
husband
come onto me in the bathroom out of nowhere and, to be honest, to my complete and utter horror. I wasn’t going to tell you, because I didn’t want to embarrass you.” Olympia realized that she wasn’t being entirely honest. But maybe her version wasn’t
that
far from the truth?

“That’s not what I heard happened,” said Perri in a more subdued voice.

“Well, what
did
you hear happened?” asked Olympia.

“Gus told me that—”

“Gus?!” Olympia felt heat on her face. So it had been her younger sister, not Mike, who had betrayed her. Olympia couldn’t believe it. Or maybe she could. Growing up, Gus had
been her most loyal and consistent playmate. The two of them had even had their own secret society—the Kangaroo Club (headquarters: Bob’s shoe closet). But now Olympia wondered if she and her younger sister had ever been as close as she’d thought. She’d never forgotten that Gus had “come out” as a lesbian to Perri rather than to her. Clearly, Gus had been Perri’s Chief Confidante (and Snoop) all along.

“Well, she saw everything,” Olympia heard Perri saying.

“Well, if you want to know what
actually
happened, why don’t you ask your estranged husband,” said Olympia, her anger welling up.

“How dare you presume to know my marital situation!” declared Perri.

“Well, how dare
you
presume to know what happened when you weren’t there!”

“I don’t want to have this conversation anymore.”

“Me, neither.”

“Then let’s hang up.”

“Fine with me. Happy fucking birthday.”

“Thanks—and f-f-fuck you!”

Olympia hung up the phone stunned not only by her sister’s fury, but by her use of the f-word, itself a rarity if not a first. Turning to leave the room, she found Carol standing there next to the hunk of gnarled wood that passed for a coffee table. Tears shimmied in her eyes like water sloshing around the bottom of a rowboat. At the sight of them, Olympia felt even more wretched. The only thing more awful than having a screaming fight with one’s sister was feeling as if one had simultaneously ruined the life of one’s parent. “What?” said Olympia. “Why are you staring at me like that?”

“Be angry at me all you want,” Carol answered in a shaky voice. “But please don’t fight with your sisters. You’ll need them someday—after Dad and I are gone.”

It was too heavy a concept to entertain in daylight (and without alcohol). So Olympia turned the conversation back to her mother. “Well, why do you think we fight?”

“You’re all strong-willed, I suppose. I don’t know.” Carol shook her head, bit her lip.

“Yes, and did it ever occur to you that all your labeling and comparing and boasting has made us all insanely competitive?”

“I never compared you,” insisted Carol.

“Well, maybe you never compared us directly. But telling us all how perfect and successful Perri was all the time; and how passionate and committed Gus was in her quest to raise a thousand dollars for the starving children of Biafra; and how beautiful and artistic I was—didn’t exactly help.” Olympia wasn’t even sure if she believed half the things she was saying, but the words tumbled out of her mouth now as if her life depended on it. As if they’d waited four decades to come out (maybe they had).

“I’m sorry for being proud of you!” cried Carol.

“Proud—or not as proud as you wish you could be of me?” asked Olympia.

“Proud of you just the way you are.”

“Well, there are ways of being proud that don’t turn us all into caricatures.”

“You defined yourselves. I had nothing to do with it. Dad and I gave all of you the same opportunities.”

“But you were always push-push-pushing for us to
achieve
something,
be
something! It made all of us neurotic messes. You want to know why I never made it as an artist? Because the
expectations in this family were too high. I couldn’t handle any kind of rejection. And you know why I never found a great guy and got married? No one was ever good enough, because you taught me to believe that I was special in some way, better than other people. And you taught me to be critical, too. That’s why I’m being such a Huge Bitch right now.”

This time Carol didn’t answer. She pursed her lips, hung her head.

Out of accusations, and filled with shame at all the people she seemed to have hurt and disappointed in one day, Olympia ran up the stairs and into her childhood bedroom, or what was left of it. Now it was more like a storage locker. In one corner there were
National Geographic
magazines piled nearly to the ceiling, their skinny yellow spines cracking like late autumn leaves. In the other corner was a picture window with views into the Romanos’ backyard, with its neatly planted azalea bushes all in a row like Civil War soldiers ready to do battle. Growing up, the Hellingers had been the North to the Romanos’ South, with disputes regularly breaking out over everything from overly bright Christmas lights (the Romanos) to maple trees whose untrained branches created unwanted shade (the Hellingers). The previous fall, however, Carol had been delighted to announce that a new family had moved in, a young Serbian couple with a baby. Meanwhile, the Romano elders, who’d once toiled in the chemical factories on the Hudson, had retired to the Gulf Coast of Florida with the proceeds from their house sale. A happy ending for all, if only…

Stretching out on her old twin bed, which was half covered with garment bags, Olympia felt exhausted and disoriented. It wasn’t just the thought that she no longer knew anyone who lived on Edmarth Place with the exception of her own parents.
It was the fact that she was no longer on speaking terms with anyone in her family with the exception of Lola and Bob, neither of whom were fully verbal. For the second time in twenty-four hours, tears cascaded down Olympia’s face and dripped into her mouth. She’d never felt so alone.

But single mothers don’t have much time for self-pity. Minutes later, Lola appeared in the doorway, claiming to be hungry and demanding spaghetti—and wondering why Mommy’s eyes were all red.

“Mommy’s got hay fever again,” Olympia told her. “But I’m fine now.” And so she was, because she had to be.

Five minutes after that, three generations of Hellinger women (Carol, Olympia, Lola) were back in the kitchen, talking about trivial matters in strained voices (“Does she want butter with that?”), when the doorbell rang. “This darn leg,” said Carol, trying to lift herself off her chair.

“Don’t bother. I’ll get it,” said Olympia.

“I want to come!” said Lola, rising too.

“Eat your pasta,” said Olympia, pushing her daughter’s tiny shoulders back down.

“Maybe it’s the boogeyman,” offered Lola, before exploding into giggles.

“At this point, I wouldn’t be entirely surprised,” said Olympia. On her way out of the room, she snuck a glance out the bay window, which afforded views of the driveway. Parked behind Carol’s Honda was a navy blue VW Jetta, seemingly fresh off the assembly line. No doubt some faculty member from Hastings High, coming to check on Carol or some such, Olympia thought. But what if it wasn’t? For a fleeting second, she
imagined that Mike had sent a hit man to kill her off, so he’d never have to see her again, never have to face the temptation. She could already see the headlines: “Sister Murdered in Love Triangle Drama.” Then again, the Internet had killed the newspaper headline. Now they came and went every two hours. It was sad in a way, Olympia thought. She cracked the door.

Standing there, her shoulders thrown back and chin lifted, was an extremely attractive Asian female, about five feet eight inches, of indeterminate age. She was wearing a trench coat, a black V-neck shirt, black pants, and ludicrously high, very expensive-looking, black patent leather stilettos. Her shiny black hair hung practically down to her waist; a tiny butterfly barrette held it off her forehead. Fine lines fanning out of the corners of her mascara-caked eyes were the only evidence of time’s passage. “I’m so sorry to bother you,” she began with a smile that fell somewhere between shy and officious. “My name is Jennifer Yu. And I’m looking for Robert Hellinger?”