The Pretty One: A Novel About Sisters (18 page)

But he stood up, too. Their bodies were inches apart, their groins nearly touching, his beer breath on her neck. “Pia,” he said again, his chest cratering. “Let me kiss you—”

She felt so torn—and also, in that moment, so starved for love. Why should she be the only one in the family without it? And Mike wanted her so badly. How could she deny him? Men had their needs. Well, so did women. And it could be just one time. As he moved closer, she felt powerless to everything that came next. She closed her eyes and felt his lips brushing against hers, her breasts melding into his volcanic chest, his crotch hardening against her thigh…

“Mommy?” came a tiny voice from outside the door.

Lola!! Olympia felt as if she’d touched an electrified fence and jumped away from Mike as fast as she could. “Coming, sweetie,” she trilled. She wiped her lips against the back of her hand, tucked her hair behind her ears, and exited the bathroom, failing to close the door behind her.

“Mommy, have you been crying?” asked Lola. Gus stood next to her, looking probingly at Olympia, then at Mike, who was now standing by the window, his back turned, his head down.

Then she looked at Olympia again.

“No, sweetie, just allergies,” said Olympia, taking her daughter into her arms and doing her best to ignore her sister’s suspicious glances. Except she couldn’t. “What?!” she said accusingly, turning to Gus.

“Nothing!” cried Gus. “Lola was just looking for you, that’s all.”

“Well, here I am.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine. Why?”

“Sadie says we can have popcorn,” said Lola. “But Aunt Gus and I can’t find it. And Grandpa doesn’t know where it is.”

“Well, let’s go look for it,” said Olympia, shuttling her daughter and sister back down the hall and trying to pretend that what had just happened never had.

This time it was Olympia who lay awake long into the night, trying to make sense of what had happened. In her mind’s eye, she could see Perri and Mike walking down the aisle at Lyndhurst Castle, while Eric Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight” played in the background, both of them beaming and round-faced. She also saw herself and Perri as children playing “ship” in their bunk bed. Perri, on the top bunk, was directing Olympia to raise the ladder before the pirates could climb aboard, then berating her for having done it too slowly and at the wrong angle and then placing it on the wrong side of the bed. It wasn’t just that Perri was bossy. It was that she seemed to need Olympia to fuck everything up. And Olympia was no longer willing to play the role. It followed that, the more convinced Perri became that she had all the right answers, the more loath Olympia was to reveal any doubts or questions about her life whatsoever, including those surrounding her decision to have a child on her own.

Olympia had also learned her lesson. In her twenties, following a breakup and leave of absence from yet another graduate
school, Olympia had admitted to Perri that she felt aimless and depressed. In response, Perri had suggested that Olympia consider an inpatient treatment program for insane people. That, or she should lower her expectations and get a minimum-wage job as a toll taker at the Tappan Zee Bridge. Or maybe Perri hadn’t actually said those things. Yet that had been the message with which Olympia had come away. She’d felt judged rather than supported.

Still, she didn’t hate Perri. On some level, yes, she was jealous of her older sister’s professional success. She also considered Perri to be a semi-absurd figure. At the same time, Olympia had always taken a strange sort of pride in having a sister like her. She even recalled feeling tickled when Perri had married at a relatively young age. It had made Olympia feel grown-up by association. It had also felt like further permission to stray and to fail. Only now Perri had called in sick, and Olympia was being offered a chance to play her sister’s understudy. Was that what was happening here? Or did this have nothing to do with Perri? Had Mike been secretly enamored of Olympia all these years? Olympia did a quick mental vetting of their interactions over the last ten years of Hellinger family functions. Sometimes he’d look at her sideways and make provocative, even suggestive comments. But he did that with everyone, didn’t he?

Olympia felt confused and agitated. All night, she waited for Mike to appear in the living room. What had happened between them felt like one step removed from incest. Mike was practically her brother! At the same time, she longed for him to climb under her blanket and smother her with kisses…

He never did.

And in the light of early morning, she was glad that he hadn’t. The same scenario that had kept her up half the night
seemed ill-advised, even absurd. She longed to flee the premises—and her crazy urges—as soon as possible. Unfortunately, she’d already promised Sadie and Lola that she’d take them ice-skating in the morning. So there was no chance of a graceful exit until the afternoon. At breakfast, Olympia avoided all communication and even eye contact with her brother-in-law, who kept his own distance as well, directing all his conversation at the kids (and Bob).

The skating expedition was yet another exercise in frustration. Sadie had taken lessons and even knew how to skate backward. But Lola was so petrified by the sensation of unsteady ground that, even with Olympia holding her in a full body lock, she refused to let her skates touch the ice. Instead, she lifted her bent knees into the air, and panted, “No, no, no!” while Olympia cried, “Ohmygod, do you have to be such a wimp?” Ten minutes later, her back and brain aching from the strain, Olympia gave up hope and accompanied Lola off the ice.

Back at the house, Olympia quickly stuffed her and Lola’s belongings into an overnight bag, while Lola and Sadie played with Sadie’s Littlest Pet Shop collection. “Sweetie,” Olympia said in a low voice. “I’m afraid we have to go back to the city now.”

“No!” cried Lola. “I want to stay with Sadie.”

“I know, sweetie. But I have stuff I need to take care of at home. I promise we’ll see Sadie again soon.”

Lola folded her lower lip over her chin. It was a face that Olympia had seen before, on someone else. But who? “We haven’t even had the funeral yet,” she said.

“Funeral?” asked Olympia.

“The walrus died.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“You’re not sorry.”

“I am. But we have to go.”

“I’m not leaving!” announced Lola.

“You
are
leaving,” said Olympia, struggling to keep her cool.

“Am not.”

“Are so.”

“Am not.”

Her patience worn thin, Olympia grabbed Lola by the elbow and began to drag her toward the door, Lola moaning in revolt. That was when Olympia caught sight of Bob. Embarrassed by both her display of aggression and the fact that she was leaving already, she quickly released Lola. She’d seen her father lose his temper only once, decades ago, after a family of Italian tourists cut them in the line to buy tickets to the laser light show at the Hayden Planetarium. “Excuse me, you fascist sympathizers, but we were here first!” Bob had said. “So SHOVE IT!” At the time, Olympia had been mortified. But during the years that followed, “Shove it, you fascist sympathizers” had become yet another oft-repeated joke-phrase in the Hellinger family.

“Leaving already?” asked Bob. The sight of Olympia’s overnight bag in the middle of the living room must have given her away.

“Unfortunately, I have some work stuff I need to take care of,” said Olympia.

“Well, that’s a real shame because I just got word that Mom’s being released this afternoon,” said Bob. “I know she’d be thrilled if you were part of the welcoming party.”

Olympia’s guilt metastasized. “Wow, I forgot she was getting out so soon,” she said, lamenting the timing, even as she was thrilled and relieved to think that her mother was on the mend. It occurred suddenly to Olympia that Hastings via Yonkers was
as good an “escape route” as any other. Plus, she couldn’t very well leave Mike to deal with getting her parents home from the hospital. “You know what—I can let work slide for a day or so,” she said. Never mind that she didn’t actually know if she had any work waiting for her next week. “Why don’t we go over to Yonkers with you right now and get Mom. Then all four of us can go back to Hastings together. Lola and I will spend the night. The museum is dark on Monday, anyway.”

“What a wonderful idea!” declared Bob. “It will be a real homecoming for Mom.”

No sooner had Olympia made the offer, however, than she began to regret having done so. Sleeping in her childhood bed always made her feel as if she were nine inches tall. But it was too late. Olympia helped her father pack up his two pairs of pants and rusted beard trimming kit.

Lola was still whimpering when the taxi honked.

Olympia kissed her niece and nephews good-bye. She and her brother-in-law exchanged no such formalities. “Good having you, Bob—and let me know if you need help at the hospital,” Mike announced while gripping his father-in-law’s hand.

“Will do,” Bob replied. “And if you don’t mind me saying, you have some handshake there! My right hand feels as if it were just mauled by a brown bear.”

“All those years of football training.” Mike smiled congenially. Then he turned to Lola, and said, “See you later, Deep Sea Diver.”

“Bye, Uncle Mikey,” she said lugubriously. Then “Bye, Sadie. I love you.”

Sadie didn’t answer. Olympia tried not to take it personally.

The three of them walked to the waiting taxi. Mike and the
kids stood on the front step, watching them go. “Bye, Grandpa,” Aiden called out.

“Remember, kiddo, develop knights toward the center!” Bob called out the window. As the car snaked down the driveway, Olympia glanced out the window and thought she saw Mike mouth the words “I love you.” A roiling, nauseated feeling overtook her gut. Or was she projecting? Maybe he was just telling Aiden to put some shoes on. And why was it that, throughout Olympia’s life, all the men to whom she was most attracted were unavailable? Was it possible that what made them attractive to her was the fact that they weren’t in a position to reciprocate? Olympia tried not to think about it.

Bob, Olympia, and Lola walked into Carol’s hospital room just as Carol was signing release forms. She still had a cast on her leg, albeit a smaller one. She was going to be on crutches, it seemed, for three more weeks. She’d also lost what appeared to be a considerable amount of weight, especially in the bosom. Her favorite plum chenille sweater hung off her like a scarecrow’s plaid shirt. Olympia didn’t notice the excess fabric until her mother turned around and said, “Pia, what a lovely surprise!”

Olympia was suddenly pleased she’d made the effort. (Everyone liked to play the Dutiful Daughter sometimes.) “Wouldn’t miss your homecoming,” she said.

“And Lola, too,” Carol went on. “Hello, sugarplum. Did you come to see your grandma home?”

“Look, Mommy!” cried Lola, who was excitedly pressing the button that made the bed go up and down.

“Grandma’s talking to you!” said Olympia, wishing that Lola had said something charming in reply to Carol’s question. Then again, she and Lola were both here, and her other children and grandchildren weren’t. Maybe that was enough. “Here, let me put these in a bag,” Olympia said, as she began to stuff novels, socks, and a sodden-looking bag of yogurt-covered pretzels into a large brown Bloomie’s bag.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” said Carol, waving her hand.

“But I want to.”

“Well, then, I won’t stop you.”

As they started toward the door, a plump Filipino nurse whose name tag read
CINDY
said, “We’re all going to miss you, Mrs. Hellinger.”

“Forgive me for saying that the feeling is
not
mutual!” said Carol. “Six weeks in captivity was long enough.”

“Mom!” cried Olympia, aghast if not entirely surprised. Gus had been going on lately about how much “nicer” their mother had gotten since the accident. (Olympia and her sisters regularly dissected Carol’s personality with all the squeamish fascination of a seventh-grade science class dismembering a fetal pig.) In any case, Carol was apparently back to her feisty old self. Which was comforting news in its own way.

“It’s okay,” said the nurse, chuckling. “You’re not supposed to miss us.”

“Well, I’ll be delighted if and when I run into you in the frozen food aisle at ShopRite,” said Carol. “How’s that?”

“That’s just fine.”

As they walked down the corridor that led to the door, Olympia held one of her mother’s elbows—a largely symbolic gesture since she was using crutches. “Good-bye and good
riddance, hospital,” said Carol, taking a last look at the peach walls and rubber plants before they stepped into a waiting elevator.

“Hear, hear!” said Bob, who hadn’t stopped beaming since they’d arrived in Room 310.

Olympia had called yet another taxi to fetch them. When they walked out into the daylight, they found it idling by the curb. The four of them climbed in, Bob in front and the women and Lola in back. Within minutes, Lola was slumped against Olympia’s shoulder and on the verge of dozing off. Lola rarely took naps anymore, but Olympia suspected that she and Sadie had barely slept the night before.

They weren’t the only ones.

12

M
OSTLY SUNNY
, with a high of
85
and a
50
percent chance of a late-afternoon shower. Clearing overnight.
That was the forecast in the complimentary copy of the
Miami Herald
that had been left outside Perri’s hotel room door. Now she was reclining in a teak and canvas beach lounger by a kidney-shaped art deco splash pool. Past the point of showing off her thighs to anyone to whom she wasn’t related, Perri was dressed in a black bikini top with plenty of support and a paisley-patterned sarong. A five-dollar glass of lemonade bedecked with a striped straw sat on a wrought-iron table to her left, and a self-help book called
Awakening at Midlife,
which she’d ordered before she left, lay unopened and so far unread in her lap.