Inside the O'Briens (15 page)

CHAPTER 15

K
atie's sitting cross-legged on the living room couch in her apartment, sipping hot green tea, watching Meghan sew a ribbon into the arch of a shiny satin baby-pink pointe ballet shoe.

“I can't believe you're drinking tea. It's like a million degrees out,” says Meghan, who is sitting tall on the floor with her legs in a straddle split, facing Katie.

“It's freezing in here,” says Katie.

They own only one window-box air conditioner, and it's installed in the living room. Even with it blasting on the coldest setting all day, bedroom doors kept open and an unobstructed shot down the hallway to the kitchen, the other rooms never cool down. The living room is the only bearable space in their apartment when the temperature outside hits anything over eighty.

“You coming tonight?” asks Meghan.

There's an expectation in Meghan's voice, the question not really asking, an assumption that Katie will be in the audience to see Meghan dance in
Swan Lake
, if not tonight, then before the end of the run. Meanwhile, Meghan has never been to Katie's yoga class. No one in her family has. They all bend over backward and spend a small fortune to see Meghan in every show, but no one has done so much as a single Downward Dog in the yoga studio.

“Yeah.”

“You're not wearing that, are you?”

Katie's in black cropped yoga pants and a neon-yellow racerback tank top. Curtain is at seven. It's three o'clock now. Meghan will probably leave within the next half hour for stage rehearsal, hair, makeup, and getting into costume, but Katie has at least three more hours to get ready before she needs to leave.

“Yeah, I'm wearing lululemon to the Opera House.”

“You might.”

“I wouldn't, okay?”

“Just checking.”

Done sewing the ribbons on one shoe, Meghan grabs the Bic lighter from the floor near her pointed bare foot and singes the cut ends, the smell of burnt fabric reminding Katie of Sunday suppers and the quilted potholders her mother accidentally leaves on the burners.

“You should wear that sleeveless black dress that Ma bought you,” says Meghan.

“I don't need you to tell me what to wear.”

“It looks nice on you, and you never wear it.”

“You act like I don't know how to do anything.”

“Jeez, never mind. Wear whatever you want.”

“Thanks for permission to dress myself.”

Katie hears the familiar clipped note in her own voice, her cue to storm off, and she's about to catapult off the couch when she remembers how sticky-hot the other rooms are. She shouldn't have to sit here and subject herself to her sister's fashion judgments and overall bossiness, but she refuses to be chased out of the only comfortable room in their apartment. Katie sighs, resigned to being stuck in the same room with Meghan. She wants to turn on the TV or grab a book to read, do something other than watch Meghan, who is now scratching up the bottom of her pointe shoe with a pair of scissors,
but she doesn't feel like moving. Katie sips her tea and watches Meghan. Even doing virtually nothing, Meghan is the star of the show.

A message vibrates on Katie's phone. She lifts it and reads. It's Felix.

What's up for 2nite?

She types.

Teaching a private at 7. Meet u @ 10?

K. A 3 hr private?

Have to shower and get all pretty 4 u.

U r already pretty. Shower at my place. I'll join u.

She blushes.

K.

She feels guilty, lying to Felix, but it's a white lie, a harmless fib. If he knew she was going to the ballet tonight, he'd justifiably want to go with her. They saw the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater perform in Boston in April, and she and Felix were both blown away—the graceful power, the raw, earthy quality of their movements, all that juicy second- and third-chakra energy, so different from the floaty, sweet meringue prettiness of Meghan's ballets. At one point during
Revelations
, Katie looked over at Felix and his eyes were wet with tears. This is one of the things she loves about him, that a dance can make him cry. He's an MIT numbers nerd who would totally dig
Swan Lake
. But her entire family is going tonight, and
she's still not ready to introduce him to everyone, especially with all that's going on now with JJ and Colleen.

“So am I ever going to meet this guy you're seeing?”

Katie looks up, stunned, half believing Meghan was somehow able to divine her thoughts.

“What guy?”

“The guy you just texted.”

Katie looks down at her phone and then up at Meghan, knowing her sister couldn't possibly read the screen from across the room. “That was Andrea.”

“Fine,” says Meghan, obviously not believing her. “The guy you're having sex with.”

“What?”

“I'm not stupid. I know you don't sleep here at least three nights a week.”

Physically exhausted from the long, intense hours of practice, rehearsal, and performance, Meghan goes to bed early, typically by nine thirty, and she rises with the birds, dressed and out the door before Katie opens her eyes. So even on the nights Katie stays home, Meghan doesn't witness Katie going to bed or getting up in the morning. All Meghan sees is a shut bedroom door. Katie assumed her absence, like most everything else about her, went unnoticed by Meghan.

“And I know Mystery Man has stayed here at least twice now.”

“Wha—”

“Toilet seat up.”

“Oh.”

“So what's the deal? Who is he? Why all the secrecy?”

Katie sips her tea, knowing the jig is up, but still buys a moment before answering. Meghan is working on the skin-toned elastics, sewing them close to the heel. Even in a plain white T-shirt and gray shorts with zero makeup on, Meghan looks elegant, beautiful. She's an easy roommate, tidy, always washes
her dirty dishes and puts them away, and when she's here, unless their apartment is an oven and they're cloistered in the living room, she spends most of her time in her own bedroom. They don't see each other much, and when they do, it's typically in passing, the conversation limited to the logistics of living together, often reiterations of notes written on the kitchen chalkboard.
We need more toilet paper. Do you have any quarters? Mom's looking for you
.

“Well?”

It's this damn heat wave, trapping them together in the air-conditioned living room, prodding them via forced proximity into the kind of sisterly conversation Katie would rather resist.

“I dunno.”

“Don't worry. I'm not Ma. What's his name?”

“Felix.”

“Felix what?”

Katie hesitates.

“Martin.”

“Hmm.”

“What?”

“Not O'Martin or McMartin? I take it he's not from here.”

“No.”

“A Toonie.”

Katie nods.

“What's he look like?”

“I dunno. He's cute.”

“Okay. What else?”

“I dunno.”

“What does he do?”

“He's in business development for this company that turns trash into fuel.”

“Smarty pants. How'd you meet?”

“Yoga.”

Meghan smiles at Katie while bending the shank of her shoe, forcing it toe to heel, working it over and over. The shoe crunches audibly as she does this, its stiff architecture breaking in, softening. It amazes Katie that these shoes will be worn only once. All this sewing and cutting and bending to get them supple and quiet and perfectly fitted for Meghan's feet, and after tonight, the shoes will be considered “dead.” Meghan's feet are so strong, the integrity of the ballet shoe will be ruined after a single performance, sometimes even after a single act. They'd actually be dangerous to wear a second time.

There seems to be a goading quality in Meghan's stretched-out smile, the repetitive crunching of the shoe, the baited silence. Meghan wiggles her blistered, pretty toes.

“I don't interrogate you about who you're seeing,” says Katie.

“I'm not seeing anyone.”

Meghan says this as if not seeing anyone is the right thing to do, given their circumstances, which of course implies that Katie is doing the wrong thing, recklessly having a boyfriend when she might have HD.

“Well, I don't make fun of you for not having a boyfriend.”

“I'm not making fun of you. Jeez, you're so sensitive. I just want to know what's going on with you.”

“Well, now you know.”

“Am I ever going to meet secret, invisible Mr. Martin?”

Katie shrugs.

“You could bring him tonight.”

“No thanks.”

“What? Are we not good enough for some fancy Toonie?”

“You know what, Meg?”

“Oh, relax.”

“Whatever.”

Meghan turns her attention to the second shoe. She lays two ribbons and a short band of wide elastic on her thigh,
cuts a length of thread, and begins stabbing one end at the eye of a needle. It won't find the hole. She stabs and stabs, but the tip of the thread still slips past the eye. Her hands begin to shake. Meghan places the needle and thread down on the floor in front of her, clenches her hands into fists, rolls her shoulders up, down, and back, and then looks up at Katie. Meghan's forehead is beaded with sweat. The room is freezing cold.

“Listen, I need you to do me a favor,” says Meghan.

Katie raises her eyebrows and waits, silently incensed that Meghan has the nerve to ask her for anything right now.

“Will you watch me tonight, like really watch me, for, you know, anything weird? Even something really small and subtle.”

“Meg, you're fine.”

“I know, but I'm feeling really spooked,” Meghan says, nodding to the sewing needle and unattached thread on the floor.

“You just did the other shoe no problem. I watched you. And I couldn't thread that tiny thing. Just try again.”

“But you see how Dad doesn't know half the time that he's even moving at all and he's like all over the place?”

“Yeah.”

“I'm so scared of that.”

“I am, too. You don't have HD, Meg.”

“I know, but now JJ—”

“Even if we're HD positive, we wouldn't be symptomatic yet,” says Katie, trying to convince herself as much as her sister.

“Right. Probably not. I know. But still, I can't stop worrying about it being there, that it's starting and I don't even know it. Like having spinach in your teeth and everyone is too polite to say anything. I want you to say something.”

“Okay.”

“A tremor, any movement that looks even slightly off, I want you to tell me.”

“Okay.”

“You promise?”

“Yes.”

“I think I have to go see that genetic counselor.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. The stress of not knowing is making me crazy.”

Katie nods.

“Yeah, but what if you're HD positive?” asks Katie. “Won't that just make you crazier?”