The Other Sister, page 3
“Get back downstairs,” I say to Robbie. “Tell Dad everything’s fine.”
Our eyes meet. Robbie’s almost as pale as his mother, but fury blazes behind his dark eyes.
Oh, kid. I’m so sorry.
“Please, Robbie,” whispers Marie.
“Yeah, right, sure. ’Cuz what the hell else should I be doing right now?” He tosses the crumpled gauze package onto the floor and stomps out.
This of course sets Marie off. “I’ve got to get back down there.”
“You’ve got to hold still.”
“He can’t…Everyone will be upset.”
She tries to get up. She’s stronger than she looks, but so am I.
“You need stitches.” I’m dabbing at the gash. The blood isn’t slowing down.
“Just get some more gauze on it, and tape it up,” she snaps.
“It’s a barbecue, Marie, not a national emergency. What does it matter?”
She looks me right in the eye. Her color’s back. In fact, her cheeks are flushed. “It matters,” she says, steady as stone. “You know it does.”
Get her cleaned up before somebody sees.
“Yes, yes, okay.”
Marie winces and spasms as I press down with the layers of gauze and use half the roll of tape to hold them in place.
“Geraldine?” whispers Marie.
“Yeah?”
But Marie’s busy reevaluating. The sight of my sister’s careful internal calculations triggers a déjà vu so strong I’m instantly motion sick. I once joked my sister couldn’t climax until she planned out the duration and intensity of the orgasm.
Not one of my better jokes, or my better days.
The sleek digital clock on Marie’s nightstand flicks over another silent minute. Laughter flutters through the floor vent, probably from kids all the way down in the rec room. Nobody else has come up here to make sure everything is okay. Nobody is going to, either, not if I know the Monroes.
“What is it, Marie?”
“There was some trouble down at the old house,” she tells me. “I had to change the locks. The new keys are in the top drawer of the dresser.”
“Thanks for taking care of that.” I pull the neatly labeled ring out of her (dust-free) dresser and I let it lie in my palm, as if testing the weight. There are two brass keys, both with those little colored caps on them so I can tell them apart. Red and green. Front door and back door.
Marie was the one who saved the house. She was the one who realized it would be needed again. I didn’t ask her to. I didn’t have to. Marie always plans for the long term. Then, she puts the keys in her drawer and waits.
I close my fingers around the keys. My hands are stained with blood and strawberry juice, but I swear to God I smell tobacco and beer. But it’s really salt and iron and cold water. Scents of memory, of self-harm and delusion. Mine. My mother’s. Her sister’s. My sister’s. It doesn’t matter which. It’s all blended together into one great swampy mess.
“Geraldine, you need to make a decision,” Marie says slowly and reluctantly. “The development commission is getting ready to condemn the old house.” She waves her unbandaged hand, but lets it fall, thump onto the bed.
I stare out the window, over the green hills toward the shimmering silver expanse on the horizon that is Lake Michigan. Right up until this second, it wasn’t real. I could still just sneak away. Now, no matter how quietly I leave, Marie will know, and all our plans become just one more secret I’m asking her to carry for me.
“Dad’s on the development commission, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“How hard has he been riding you about it?”
“He just thinks it’s a waste to have it sitting there unused, especially with property values on the rise like they are.”
The shiver that runs through me is far too much like a premonition for anybody’s comfort.
“I’ll make sure everything’s okay downstairs,” I tell her. “You are going to lie there for a half hour with your arm up. If I see you a minute sooner, I’ll call 911 and tell them you’re gushing blood from a suicide attempt.”
My sister believes me. She should. I walk out and close the door.
Robbie’s standing at the top of the stairs, craning his neck to see past me for a glimpse of his mother.
“Is she gonna be okay?”
“She’s fine,” I lie, but I do it with conviction. “She’s just going to change and take it easy for a bit.”
We face each other, this slender, grim boy and I. His full name is Robin James Pendarves. Marie wouldn’t let him change his last name after she divorced David, even though I know Dad and Grandma Millicent pushed for it. He’s Hollywood handsome with his fair hair and square jaw and those big eyes over fashionably sharp cheekbones. He holds himself carefully, trying not to make any sudden moves with his too-long arms and legs. I see this a lot in my freshman boys. I thank all my stars for those boys right now, because they’ve taught me how to stay relaxed while looking up into young, hostile faces.
“Aunt G?”
“Yeah?”
“Mom’s not going to say anything…”
“Yeah, she never says, does she?”
That cracks his shell just enough to let out a hard, wry smile. He knows that I know, about this house and about Dad. About all of them, really. Or, I should say, about all of us.
“Hell, no, of course not.” Robbie shoves his hands into his back pockets. “But she really wants to know if you’re going to stay.”
I rub at my scar. It’s itching. Badly. There’s a question I should ask, and now is the perfect time. But I just can’t do it. Not yet.
“I’m going downstairs. Gotta say hi to your grandfather and all the family.”
“That should be fun,” he breathes.
We smile at each other. Tight. Sharp. Angry. I bet his mother has never seen this smile. Robbie’s keeping his own secrets. I smell them on his Coca-Cola breath and see them in the black pupils that are too large in his dark Monroe eyes.
Tobacco and beer. Salt and iron and cold fresh water. Sex and danger and blood and friends who will never be invited into this house and plans of his own that don’t fit the picture frame he’s been shoved into.
I see myself in Robbie’s eyes and the terror of it slashes straight through me.
“You didn’t answer my question, Aunt G. Are you staying?”
Am I staying?
“I don’t know,” I tell him. “But I’m going to try.”
2.
Once upon a time, the Monroes ruled the town of Whitestone Harbor. Monroes built the first barn, and church, and dormitory from out of the scrub and the forest. We pulled the stumps and planted corn and apple trees. We exploited the local loads of timber, then the limestone and sand. We opened the pits, which brought the workers and opened the roads, which brought the banks and the businessmen to found a fortune that lasted through a better part of the twentieth century.
But the world changed, construction slowed, and it got too expensive to haul sand and stone down from northern Michigan. People moved away, and the Monroe hand on the tiller of Whitestone Harbor shriveled, weakened, and almost gave way.
Then my father came along, with his charm and his savvy, and his rock-hard certainty that Whitestone could be hauled back from the brink. Thanks to him, the Monroes are kings of the castle again. Literally.
I take the long way around through what used to be the children’s wing and down the back stairs so I’ll come down in the kitchen instead of the great room. The air is filled with the scent of smoke and hot meats, the sizzle of frying food and the clatter of dishes. Carla is stacking empty plates in the dishwasher, a job that, incidentally, allows her to avoid the rest of the family.
“Oh, Geraldine, great! How’s Marie?”
“Just a cut,” I say, which is true as far as it goes. “But it’s messy. I told her to lie down.”
Carla smirks. “Yeah, and that’s going to work. How are you holding up?”
“Ask me after the third martini. It’s still martinis, isn’t it?”
She rolls her eyes. “Does anything ever change around here?”
Yes. It does. I shove my hand into my pocket so my fingers press against the keys. We just pretend it doesn’t. That way we don’t have to admit to all our deals, compromises, and petty thievery.
Carla snaps her fingers. “Oh, I meant to tell you. While you were upstairs your phone rang, like three times.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
My purse is still where I dropped it on the kitchen island. I don’t want to check. I really don’t. I’m pretty sure I know who called. He’s been calling all three days of my drive from Lillywell to Whitestone. But Carla is watching, so, I dig in among my private flotsam, and find my phone. Yep. I’ve got three missed calls, all from the same number.
Tyler.
“Something wrong, G?”
Yes. My heart squeezes, a lot harder than it should.
“Just my department.” I shove the phone into my back pocket. I’m going to need it later. “Always something.”
Carla nods like she believes me, but movement in the other room catches her eye. Dad is out on the terrace, heading over to the grill. Carla’s husband, Walt, is forking a piece of steak onto my cousin Amber’s plate. Dad whispers something in Walt’s ear. Carla stiffens.
And just like that, I know that Marie and I aren’t the only ones with secrets here.
“Shit,” Carla mutters. “I wish…” She glances toward the stairs and nibbles on her lower lip. “I’ve got to get the desserts ready.”
“Want me to take care of it? I can still slice a mean cheesecake.”
“No. You can’t hide in here all night.” She doesn’t look at me when she says this though. Dad puts his hand on Walt’s shoulder to give him a little “snap out of it” shake. Carla twists her gold rope chain, and untwists it, and twists it again.
“Well.” I take a deep breath and a swallow out of the coffee cup on the counter. It’s stone cold, and not mine. I make a face and hand it back to Carla. “Once more into the breach, dear friend.”
I shake my jacket back on my shoulders and cross the threshold to the great room.
3.
Our little family gathering has segregated itself by sex. The men cluster on the terrace while the women have taken over the great room. Originally, the kitchen was closed off. Its door opened onto the formal dining room, and that opened onto the great room. But that was too old-fashioned. The walls had to be torn down to make this modern, pillared open plan where everybody can see everybody else at all times.
Grandma Millicent, of course, has pride of place in the square, white Nella Vetrina chair. Aunt June hovers beside her, an uneasy combination of honor guard and lady’s maid. The little kids duck between the grown-ups to grab deviled eggs and baby carrots. These are my second and third cousins, the disregarded children of a legion of unsatisfactory marriages.
Danish modern furnishings have been traded for Italian modern since I was last here. This isn’t really a surprise. Dad gets bored easily, and Marie is always having to redecorate. Currently, the great room that holds these decorous, gossipy, hard-drinking ladies is pristine black and white, except of course, for the Tiffany glass.
That stained glass is our home’s crowning glory. Dark painted evergreens stretch from floor to ceiling in a series of panels that alternate with delicate amber-tinted glass. Glorious scarlet glass roses wind around the French doors. When the light is just right, like it is now, you feel as if you’re standing at the edge of a pine forest while the sun streams in from some adjacent meadow.
As I come out of the kitchen, Dad is handing Grandma Millicent a plate of salad and delicate pink salmon. They have identical expressions—their special blend of satisfaction and disdain. Dad straightens and colored light turns the familiar angles of his face into a gaudy, painted mask. But his eyes, as they turn to see through to me, remain clear and bottomless.
He knows. My throat closes. Old, ludicrous adolescent guilt floods me. He found out what we’re doing.
“Geraldine, there you are!”
I just about jump out of my skin. But it’s only Aunt June. She doesn’t notice how badly I’m startled. She transfers her dinner plate from one hand to the other so she can throw a bony arm around my shoulders, and give me a pair of loud air kisses. “Is Marie all right?”
“She’s fine. Just needed a lie down.” I put my back to the enormous fieldstone fireplace so nobody else can sneak up on me. Standing here, I’m draped in the colors of blood, sand, and moss.
Dad smirks and turns his back, dismissing me from his list of immediate concerns.
“Marie works too hard,” Aunt June is saying around a mouthful of blackened chicken. “I’ll never know where she gets the energy. But look at you! All New York chic!” She steps back so she can properly take in my black jacket, black blouse, pencil skirt, and stiletto boots. I’m a shadow walking through all the pastel and khaki. “Mother, doesn’t Geraldine look wonderful?”
Grandma Millicent sets her plate down on the side table and blots her mouth carefully so as not to smudge her coral lipstick.
“I’m so glad you could make it, Geraldine.” She gives me her light, cool hand. We will not hug. We have never hugged.
“You look great, Grandma.” This is true. My grandmother is as polished, sharp, and strong as ever. “How’ve you been?”
“I’m old and getting older,” she says with crisp modesty. “Will you be with us long?”
So, now’s the time for the big announcement. It’s appropriate that I tell the Monroe matriarch first. “Well, actually, I’m on sabbatical.”
She arches her neatly plucked brows. “Sabbatical?”
“Mmm-hmm. I’m writing my book, and I was planning on working from here.”
“A book? Well.” Grandma Millicent picks up her plate. “That sounds very exciting. I look forward to hearing all about it.”
But not now. Now she has to eat her salad before it gets warm and her salmon before it gets cold. I am dismissed.
“A book!” Aunt June threads her arm through mine and steers me away from Millicent, just in case I didn’t get the hint. “That’s amazing! I could never write a book. Oh, I should tell you.” She snuggles up, all confidential. “The new medical center downtown? They’re making a specialty out of cosmetic surgery. Susan Fisk—you remember her? She just had her eyes done and she looks twenty years younger. You wouldn’t believe what they can do with lasers these days. If you wanted, I could set you up a consultation for your, you know…?” She lays her finger across her lip, like she’s telling me to shush.
I squish my mouth into a smile that makes my “you know” wrinkle and pull tight. “I’ll think about it.” I slide away from her with a nonchalance I picked up at faculty cocktail parties and come up next to my cousin Amber.
“Well, you made it.” Amber rakes me over with gray eyes that have grown colder and harder since I was last here.
“I heard you were out in Seattle,” I remark.
“For a while.” The weight of her failure makes Amber’s words fall flat. “Are you really writing a book?” My cousin has never worked a day in her life. Amber lives off husbands, when she has them, as well as her share of the assorted Monroe family funds that my father doles out.
“I really am writing a book.” Amber looks positively panicked at this and I laugh. I can’t help it. “Don’t worry, it’s not a memoir. Strictly pop culture with a little pop psych sprinkled on top. My department wants to shake off the academic dust, get us out in the mainstream, and fairy tales are hyper-trendy right now.” God bless the good ship Disney and all who sail her.
“So, what’s it called?”
“Seven Secrets of Highly Successful Princesses.”
Amber stares for a moment longer. “Well, sounds like a bestseller to me, but then what do I know?”
Before I have to answer, Walt steps up to the edge of our little knot. “Hello, Geraldine. You made it.” He hands me a paper plate that holds a cheeseburger, rich with grilled onions and cheese on a big brioche bun. “I thought you might be hungry.”
“My savior!” Amber, who has been loading up on the salad and chicken, looks away politely as I take a big bite. “Mmmmm!”
Walter’s got the beginnings of a serious widow’s peak and a blossoming paunch. He blinks at the world from behind round, wire-framed glasses. He beams as I roll my eyes in rapturous enjoyment.
If I’ve got a direct opposite among the Monroes, it’s Walt. I ran away from home. Walt, he ran back. I tore up my father’s last bribe. Walter’s not only on the family payroll, he’s my father’s right-hand man, just one rung down from Marie on the ladder of trust. I’ve never been able to hold a relationship together. Walt has defied the odds and stayed married to Carla for over twenty years.
My mom was killed. Walt’s father…well, we never talk about what really happened to Walt’s father. In that way, we are both genuine Monroes.
“So,” Walt begins.
“Marie’s fine, I’m still at Lillywell,” I tell him. “But I’m taking a year off to write my book.”
Walt not only gets the joke, he actually laughs. “Okay, okay, genius. We are all unoriginal drones and you have broken the mold. I’ll find a new question. How about this? You seeing anybody?” Because of Carla, Walt still believes that people like us can fall in love if we just try hard enough. He’s a genuine sweetie, and whatever’s got Carla on edge does not seem to be bothering him at all. Worry creeps through me and takes some of the enjoyment out of the burger he’s made.
“No, not seeing anybody now.” I try very hard not to think about the phone I have shoved in my pocket and all the calls I haven’t answered.
That’s when my shoulder blades twitch. It’s Dad. It’s got to be. I turn my head, just enough so I can see he’s crossed back over the window-forest threshold. Evidently, he feels he’s given me enough line. It’s time to reel Geraldine in.
