About My Sisters (2 page)

march

Maya stands in our kitchen wielding a spatula.

“I'm making dinner,” she says. This brief sentence of hers tells me much more than it would seem. It doesn't just mean that she is whipping up something for the two of us. If that were the case, she'd ask me, “What do you feel like eating?” and then we'd go around for twenty minutes with neither one of us able to decide what culinary ethnicity we'd prefer:

“What about Greek? You want Greek?”

“Too much garlic. How about Chinese?”

“Too much work. Pasta?”

“Boring. Want to have Thai for a change?”

“I can't eat Thai, too much peanut sauce in everything.”

And then, ultimately, we'd grow weary of the debate to the
point where nothing seemed worth eating and settle for a couple of frozen pizzas, or toast (my default meal), or prepackaged stir-fry (hers).

But when she says, “I'm making dinner,” it means she's already decided; that we will be having penne with fresh julienned vegetables, or orzo with feta and tomatoes, or tofu Milanese with roasted corn and mashed potatoes. It also means that we will be having a big family gathering. Just how big remains to be determined. Our parents will be here for certain. Our brother probably won't show up. Our other two sisters probably will. And there is always the possibility that various significant others might appear. Everybody will arrive at a different time, despite the fact that Maya has designated a specific hour for the meal. There will almost definitely be an argument about that. There may be other arguments as well. There might be a couple of scenes or more than one furious exit. There might be a lively debate over whatever turns out to be the topic of the day and it might even be amicable, but it certainly won't be calm and quiet. Calm and quiet is not something my family does when they're all together. However, the exact tenor of the meal will be determined by who shows up this time and by what well-established patterns we choose to tread. And my sisters and I are adept—no,
brilliant
—at maintaining our patterns of behavior.

I am trying to remember when it was, exactly, that Maya started making these dinners or how our house got to be the designated destination of almost every family gathering. It may have been about fifteen years ago when our family owned Peppy's, a little pizza parlor in Oregon, and Maya became the chief cook (in reality the
only
person who could actually make a pizza). But I think her position as family chef has its origins much earlier. Although I had my turns with crescent rolls and apple pies when we were growing up, Maya was the one who really developed an affinity for and understanding of pastry and cakes. Where I
found cooking for large groups of people (our family, in other words) overwhelming, Maya was always able to put together a big meal with whatever was in the house. I got very tired of using the same ingredients in the same way (there's nothing more depressing to me than a pot of boiling potatoes), but Maya was always able to replicate her dishes effortlessly. For Maya, cooking was not only easy but a source of pride. I always preferred to clean up afterward.

Maya and I moved in together in 1987 and our house (or apartment—there have been five different places since then) gradually became the place to go whenever there was a meal attached to a birthday, a celebration, Sunday brunch, Mother's Day, a New Year's Eve party, or anything that could be seen as an
occasion
. For a while, we were all eating a meal together at least once a week. There was a period, too, when dinner at our house became the testing ground for new friends and lovers. The theory behind this being that it is less threatening to introduce someone to your whole family when it's your
sister's
house as opposed to your parents. And between the two of us, we've got a couple of important bases covered. Maya cooks, providing nourishment, and I do the astrological birth charts and subsequent interpretations for the potential mates. I can always tell that there's a new romantic interest in the offing when one of my sisters (or my brother, for that matter) calls me up and says, “Hey, can you run a quick chart for me?”

When a friend or lover becomes a long-term relationship, Maya will even fix up a to-go container if that person can't quite make it to dinner, but sends a message that he just loves Maya's cooking so much and is so sorry that he can't be there in person and will miss it so much…. And the Tupperware comes out. Like I said, it's a source of pride for her.

“Who's coming?” I ask her now. I need to be prepared.

“Everybody, I think.”

“What do you mean, everybody?”

“Lavander, Déja, Mom, Dad…”

Well, that covers the parents and the sisters at least. “What about Bo?” I ask, referring to our brother, who doesn't attend these gatherings regularly.

“He's coming, too.”

“Really? And Danny?” Danny, Déja's boyfriend, has lately been a fixture at these family dinners.

“Yes, Danny's coming, too.”

Full house, I think, and am mentally adjusting when another thought crosses.

“Tony's not coming, is he?”

Maya says nothing just long enough for me to know that Tony, Lavander's current boyfriend, might actually be attending. “I don't know,” she says, finally.

“What do you mean, you don't know?” I ask her. “Didn't we all decide that it was a
bad idea
to have that guy over for dinner? Or anywhere, for that matter?”

By “we” I don't just mean the two of us. This has been a family conclusion that's been bubbling to the surface for the last few weeks. Lavander started seeing Tony in December. He was here, at our house, on Christmas Day when we all gathered for a family brunch. As I recall, we all liked him and welcomed him with open arms at that point. Somewhere in the last three months, things started to go south between the two of them and, therefore, between him and the rest of us.

“Well, what do you want me to do?” Maya says with exasperation as if we've already been arguing about this for hours. “I can't
not
invite him. I can't tell her not to bring him, can I? Well, can I?”

“Why not?” I ask her. “He's not exactly popular at the moment. Why would we have him over for dinner? Why would we act like he's part of the family? Why?”

“Because he's her boyfriend, that's why.”

I know she's right, that to specifically eliminate Tony would spark a war the likes of which nobody even cares to contemplate. And Lavander is so good at setting us up this way, using our dislike of her boyfriend (a dislike I believe she has fostered herself) as a reason to act wounded, misunderstood, and angry. So what if he's a loser/sponge/poser or any of the other epithets that she, herself, has slung his way lately? He's her boyfriend—the Boyfriend of Damocles, hanging precariously over all of our heads.

“I really don't want him here,” I say.

“Yes, well, maybe she'll have the good sense not to bring him,” Maya says.

“If she had any good sense, she wouldn't be seeing him in the first place,” I say.

“Well, we
know
that.”

We sigh in tandem, and then I ask her, “What are you making?”

This is the other Rubicon to cross where dinner is concerned. Everybody has at least one favorite dish and one that they can't stand. Lately, too, several members of my family have developed special dietary rules (aside from vegetarianism, which we've all had in common for twenty-five years) that must be adhered to. For example, my mother is “off” pasta this week. Last month, she wouldn't eat any cheese. Now she doesn't want bread either and is asking for raw food. My father has rules against “fruit and nuts in food.” No raisins on the salad, in other words. Nothing even approaching say, pears, in a main course. He's only just accepted capers into his culinary pantheon, previously dismissing them as “too exotic.” Danny, on the other hand, won't eat tomatoes. His plate can always be identified by a bright red ring of picked-out pieces around the rim. Lavander will most likely arrive saying she's “not very hungry” because she “had a big lunch,” which will set Maya off (“Why come to dinner then? That's what we do at dinner—we
eat
”) and then she'll pick from the serving dishes until she's eaten the equivalent of a full plate.
Ironically, my son, Blaze, who is always thrilled when we have these get-togethers, won't be eating with us at all, having an intense aversion to most foods and their odors. He only joins the table for dessert, of which he always partakes. And I must admit, I have my own dietary peculiarities. I have issues with both garlic and onions, two foods that
nobody
else has a problem with. But even Maya, who claims open-mindedness about everything, has a few items she won't touch. No avocado. No mushrooms.

Admittedly, these restrictions tend to make dinner more interesting. Maya is very sensitive about her cooking, as well as being proud of her abilities with food, so if someone dares to say something snide about bell peppers, for example, she takes it very personally. So, naturally, during the course of any given dinner, someone is bound to say something snide about something. Tonight will doubtless be no different.

“Well?” I ask Maya a second time. “What are you making?”

She shoots me a somewhat sardonic look and says, “Macaroni and cheese.”

“Trying to start a revolution?” I ask her. Surely this dish, containing onion, garlic, cheese, pasta,
and
tomato, is guaranteed to commit dietary offenses for just about everyone.

“I can't do anything about it,” she says, “there are too many people to make anything else and I can't keep up with what people are eating or not eating this week. Besides, there's a salad.”

“Yes, well, just be prepared,” I tell her. “Salad or no. So what time do the festivities begin?”

“I told everyone six o'clock. We'll see who manages to get here on time.” I glance over at the clock. An hour and a half. I wonder if there is anything I can clean while I'm waiting.

 

The macaroni and cheese is in the oven and Maya is in the shower when I hear the clickety-click of high heels on the walk
way outside our front door. Lavander walks in, half hobbling and slightly bowlegged, as if she's just gotten off a horse. She's wearing a tiny black sweater with faux leopard trim and tight black Capri pants, neither of which contains a single natural fiber. Tony, I am relieved to discover, is nowhere in sight.

“Ugh,” she says by way of greeting, “I just had a Brazilian wax. I'm in such pain.”

“Brazilian…” I venture. “That means, what, everything? Almost everything?”

“They leave a little bit,” she says patiently. “It's called a landing strip.”

“You're kidding, right?”

“Want to see? Look,” she says, and starts pulling down her pants.

“Oh no, please. Oh, hell no,” I gasp, shielding my eyes with my hand. I'm not squeamish, not in the least. I can deal with open wounds, projectile vomiting, bleeding, and injections. But this is too much even for me.

“You know, there's a
reason
we have hair there,” I tell Lavander when she's covered up and I can safely look at her again. “What you've done—I don't know, it's like self-mutilation or something.”

“It is not,” she says indignantly. “It looks so much better like this.”

“To
whom
?” I ask.

“Oh, come on,” she says.

“Why would a man want a woman to be hairless?” I ask. “Think about it, you're making yourself look like a child. I think that's really weird, don't you? I couldn't look at my
self
if I had that done. And the pain! Like the bikini line isn't bad enough.”

“Debra,” she says slowly, as if speaking to a child, “I don't think you understand. But it's okay. Women
your age
like to have a nice little triangle there. And that's what men
your age
like.”

I cross my arms in the ancient posture of self-defense. “My age?”

“You know,” she says, “over thirty-five. This is for women in their twenties. Times change, you know.”

“You're not in your twenties.”

“I'm only thirty.”

It's true, she's only thirty, but looking at her now, I am reminded once again of Grandma, our father's mother. Lavander has always had a fair bit of Grandma coming through her, in fact. Historically, Lavander hasn't enjoyed that distinction, although my father once pointed out that, “You know, in her time, my mother was considered a beautiful woman.”

“By whom?” my mother asked wryly. “Like Daryl Zanuck spotted her somewhere and thought she was a beauty?”

“Among her group,” my father said testily. “Those who knew her. Lavander has that same kind of beauty.”

“Whatever,” Lavander said.

None of us knew Grandma “in her time,” and there are no photos of her in her youth, so it is impossible to say exactly what she looked like then. But more than a similarity of actual features, Lavander has inherited from Grandma a certain mode, a collection of mannerisms. There are the fingernails, for one thing. Grandma always had the most immaculately polished and shaped nails. Lavander's are the same. Every nail parlor within a twenty-mile radius has an intimate knowledge of the state of her cuticles. Her nails, in fact, are one of her business expenses. And differences in clothing styles aside, Lavander dresses very much as Grandma used to. Grandma was one of the most “put-together” women I've ever known. Everything matched, from pants and tops to jackets and purses, and she had a belt to go with everything. Grandma could wear anything and somehow make it look stylish, from macramé to gold chain. She even looked good in white vinyl. Lavander is the only other
woman in the world who can wear white vinyl and not seem like she's going to a 1960s revival party. In fact, like Grandma, Lavander can pull off just about any bizarre cut or poly blend while simultaneously matching it with an accessory or two.