Like It Never Happened (11 page)

“Rebecca.” With one hand on her hip, my sister cocked her head. “Why are you bleeding?”

Charlie fled. His instant getaway put my new skills to shame. I guess that was the point of knowing how to ride a bike.

“Hi,” I heard myself squeak.

“Why are you bleeding?” Mary repeated, like it was very disturbing to her. Like she had any way of knowing how unusual it was or wasn't for me to be bleeding on a Saturday morning. Her hair fell in loose, deliberate waves. A leather purse hung from one elbow and her eyeliner looked god-given.

“I fell off my boyfriend's bike.”

We stared at each other. I cannot stress how much this woman did not look like my sister.

“About fifty times,” I added.

“Were you riding down a staircase?” she asked.

“No.” I gestured toward the door. Mary was really my parents' problem. “It was my first time.”

She stood in place, frowning deeply. “You don't know how to ride a bike?”

“Can we go inside?” I asked.

She shrugged and obliged, clicking up the front steps and pushing through the front door like she did it every day of her life.

“Mooooom!” I bellowed in that helpless way.

My mother came running from the kitchen, wiping wet hands on her chinos, prepared for a yellow-rose-related crisis. When she saw Mary, her face went slack and froze that way.

Recovering, Mom pulled Mary into a hug. Mom's shoulders relaxed and her eyes fluttered closed. She looked utterly content, like she had been doing nothing all morning except waiting for Mary. Like it was the most natural thing in the world for my sister—who had once gotten her tongue pierced on a school trip to Seattle—to show up dressed like a Kennedy.

My father wandered into the foyer holding the newspaper in front of his face.

“Mary is here,” I announced.

He lowered the paper. “There she is,” he confirmed.

After an unbearably awkward moment of silence, they hugged. Both of my parents turned to frown at me, lingering on the stairs. They wanted Mary and me to greet each other like sisters, but we had no idea how to do that.

“Well, would you like a drink?” asked Dad. “Or a snack? We have a fridge full of leftovers from the party.”

“It's much too early for a drink, Glen,” admonished my mother.

“Is it?” My father checked his watch. “So it is. Lunch then?”

“I'll whip us up some sandwiches.” My mother clapped her hands together.

I followed Mom into the kitchen and watched her empty the fridge at an alarming pace. “Do we need anything from the store?” I whispered. “Maybe I should go out.”

My mother looked up from the lettuce crisper, like strangling me was her deepest desire. “Or maybe,” she hissed, “your sister is home for the first time in three years and you will get her some Perrier with lime and sit with her in the living room.”

I got my sister some Perrier with lime and sat with her in the living room. I delivered the glass to her left hand, perfectly tanned save for a quarter-inch of pale flesh circling her ring finger.

Suddenly the whole thing made some amount of sense. She was married. Or engaged.

My father had taken a seat in his favorite chair, as far from Mary as possible. I had no choice but to sit beside her on the couch, leaving only a cushion of space between us.

“It's good to see you,” said Dad belatedly, his gaze fixed on the ceiling fan. Mary smiled into her glass.

My father's watch was audibly counting each second. Outside, we could hear Mrs. Almeida watering her garden, even thought it was ninety percent cherubs.

“I learned how to ride a bike today,” I announced.

My father flashed me a pained look, like I had burped without excusing myself. Abruptly he rose from his chair. “Linda probably needs my help,” he declared. I watched him pad into the kitchen, one leg of his khakis tucked into his sock.

Alone with me, Mary breathed a sigh of relief, the opposite of how I felt. “Are they always this tense?” she asked.

“Uh.” I inspected the hem of my shorts as if fascinated by the ripped material. “I think it has something to do with your unexpected presence.”

When Mary giggled she sounded young. “Good point.” She dipped her finger into her water and traced the lip of the glass. An old habit I remembered, one that used to get her into trouble at restaurants. “So that was your boyfriend?”

“Yes.” I considered asking about her finger's tan line, but decided against it. I didn't necessarily share Mary's belief that we should have a heart-to-heart in however many minutes it took for our parents to return to the living room.

“How long have you been together?”

I paused. “Five days, technically.”

“Technically?”

“There was a surprising amount of paperwork.”

She giggled again. “Is he nice to you?”

It was a difficult question to answer.
Nice
wasn't a word people generally used to describe Charlie. More common would have been
brilliant
or
ambitious
or
improbably smooth
. But when he was nice to me, it meant more than if nice had been his default setting.

I nodded.

“Does he smoke cigarettes?”

Narrowing my eyes, I answered, “Sometimes.”

“Good,” she said. “Your first boyfriend should smoke some cigarettes.”

On that note, Mom and Dad paraded into the room, each holding two plates of food. Lunch was distributed and then consumed in vast silence, punctuated only by Mom's squinty-eyed smiles in Mary's direction.

When Dad had swallowed his last bite, he wiped his fingers on his pants and cleared his throat, businesslike. “Well, Mary, what brings you to Portland this afternoon?”

Mary kicked off her shoes and pulled her legs onto the couch. “I'm visiting friends in Lake Oswego, so I thought I would drive down and say hello.”

“Is anything wrong?” asked Dad. “Do you need help?”

“Oh Glen, does she look like she needs help?” snapped Mom.

Dad shrugged, like there was simply no way of knowing.

“I don't need help,” Mary assured them.

“Something tells me you didn't drive all this way for leftover chicken salad,” said Dad.

“You are welcome here anytime,” added Mom. “And we hope you will stay the night.”

Dad flashed Mom a look, like she was thwarting his game plan. I, for one, would prefer Mary not stay the night. This tension could not be sustained overnight. The air around us felt like glass, liable to shatter at any moment.

“I do have some news,” Mary confessed. Finally.

My mother's eyes went outlandishly wide. I guess there are only a few pieces of news one's estranged child might have.

“I am getting married.” My sister spoke with minimal emotion, but Mom's eyes filled instantly with tears. I expected her to smother Mary with affection, but for some reason she restrained herself, staying planted beside my father.

“To whom?” asked Dad. He had gone stiff.

“To Jeffrey,” said Mary.

A look passed between my mother and father: some unspoken confirmation. Now Mom lunged at Mary, arms spread like wings.

“Who is Jeffrey?” asked Dad, once they had broken their embrace.

“My fiancé. We met at a party. I was working for the caterers.”

“You're working for caterers?” Dad looked disturbed.

“I'm not anymore.”

“Was this Jeffrey also serving food?” asked Dad.

“No, Dad,” Mary sighed, sounding a lot like an annoyed daughter. “He was a guest at the party.”

“What does Jeffrey do?”

“He's a very talented golfer.”

“A professional golfer?”

“Yes, Jeffrey Cline.”

My father made a face like he had just walked straight into a window. “You're getting married to Jeffrey Cline? Winner of three West Coast tours?”

For the record, my father was obsessed with golf. Jeffrey Cline was not a celebrity by any normal person's standards. Mary nodded, and then my father said something that made him sound extremely old:

“Well, I'll be damned.”

A hush fell over the room. It was momentarily like being in church. From her purse, Mary produced a diamond ring the approximate size of a golf ball. My mother gasped theatrically.

“Whoa,” I said, like a moron.

“I think it's time for champagne.” My father stood and padded into the kitchen. To my surprise, he retrieved four glasses from the china cabinet and poured equal amounts of Dom Pérignon into each. I accepted mine without comment. Some screw had apparently come loose in my father's brain.

It was two in the afternoon when we toasted my sister and her golfer. My parents chanted, “To Mary and Jeff!”

I managed a “Yay.”

“Jeffrey,” corrected my sister. “He never goes by Jeff.”

The tiny bubbles brushed against my lips and lingered on my tongue. I was developing something of a taste for alcohol. Admittedly this wasn't the best time to explore my new hobby, but when Dad offered, I accepted a second glass. The glasses were small anyway. Like the test tubes we used in science class.

Mom and Mary indulged in an airy conversation about dresses and flowers. Then Mom told the story of the Labor Day barbecue—how I had begged her not to expose my relationship with Charlie, how she had “accidentally” let it slip, how the joke was on me all along.

Amazingly, even a tiny amount of alcohol allowed me to laugh at this story. I wondered what a whole bunch could make me do.

Mom begged Mary to stay the night in her old room instead of driving the whole ten miles to Jeffrey's parents' house in Lake Oswego. With her cheeks flushed and her feet bare, Mary agreed. She stepped onto the porch to call her fiancé.

For a few minutes I was alone with my parents. It suddenly felt like I had never been alone with them in my life. They turned to each other to acknowledge the events of the day and I felt like I was intruding on a private moment.

“She certainly seems happy,” said my father.

My head was feeling strangely heavy. I let it fall back against the couch.

“Very happy,” echoed my mother. “It's really much better this way.”

Late that night, Mary knocked on my bedroom door. I let her inside. She was wearing a silk pajama set with a column of pearly buttons. She looked absurd, and my first idea was that she wanted to explain the weird e-mail she had sent me in August.

“Do you have a cigarette?” asked Mary, her eyes wide and urgent.

I started to shake my head, but then I remembered Charlie's jacket lying on the floor of my closet. I had borrowed it a few nights ago, when the temperature had dropped unexpectedly. I searched the pockets and found a pack of American Spirits, but no lighter. I left Mary alone in my room while I searched the hall closet for matches. It was strangely satisfying to supply my sister with her nicotine fix.

She leaned out the window to exhale. My muscles went taut with the possibility of getting in trouble. I had to remind myself that Mary was twenty-six: She was allowed to get engaged to middle-aged sportsmen and not come home for Christmas and smoke in my bedroom.

I sat cross-legged on the edge of the mattress. I was all ready for bed, wearing an old T-shirt and a pair of boxers. Mary stared moodily out at the street, her pajamas making her look like a vintage advertisement.

“So why did you . . .” I trailed off. What exactly did I want to know? Why did she assume my heart was wild? Why did it matter if I remembered Nadine? Why did she bother writing to me at all?

Mary was eyeing the taxidermied puffin perched atop my dresser. She pretended she hadn't heard me. “What's with the dead bird?” she asked.

I was on the verge of telling her the story, but then I changed my mind. I shook my head and the puffin became my secret.

She shrugged, the opposite of intrigued. Her eyes traveled around my room, making me very self-conscious. I remembered her own room in high school. The walls had been plastered with posters and pictures of her friends and her own paintings, the shelves crowded with ordinary things harboring mysterious value: empty bottles, dried leaves, rusted jewelry, cracked CD cases. Even as a little kid I had wanted to know what could be sacred about a receipt for two candy bars.

My room was plain, heaped with dirty clothes. The walls, once purple, had faded to a bruise color.

“I have to ask you something.” She ground her cigarette against the windowsill. “Just answer honestly.”

Finally, she was going to mention the e-mail.

“Do you smoke pot?” she asked.

A startled laugh escaped my throat.

“Just tell me.” She spoke quickly. “Because if you don't smoke pot, there is something I need to do.”

“I haven't tried it yet,” I admitted, unwilling to commit to simply
not
smoking.

“One more question, then. Have you cleaned out your closet in the last ten years?”