Three Sisters (3 page)

“Karen told me you wrote poetry, Liz.” Marisa said, and Scott smiled at her.

“Well … I try.”

“I’m in awe of poets,” Marisa said. “I don’t understand how they do it. Do you have a favorite poet, Liz?”

“My rival,” Scott said. “She’s always quoting him.”

“Who?” Karen said. And then, remembering the poems tacked up to the bulletin board over Liz’s desk, she said, “Donald Hall?”

“You see,” Scott said. “Everybody knows. She even likes his name better than mine. She wants me to change my name to Donald.”

Liz and Scott had been going together for almost a year. For the first six months or so, the family hardly saw him. Nothing new. Ever since she had been fourteen, Liz had had a string of boyfriends who came and went, not one lasting more than six months. Scott, Karen had heard her father say, was going for the distance. The whole nine yards.

Karen leaned against the window, watching Scott. Every year, downtown, there was a sidewalk art show. Hundreds of paintings, mostly of red barns and white birch trees and little kids with big eyes, but once, Karen remembered, she’d seen a painting of an angel descending to earth in a cloud of light. A real charmer of an angel with a mass of curly blond hair and eyes that were as warm and friendly as a little dog’s. Scott’s hair was dark, and instead of robes and wings he wore flannel work shirts and steel-tipped work boots, but otherwise he might almost have been the model for that darling, curly-haired angel.

“Dogs are one thing Scott and I disagree on, Marisa,” Liz said. She put her arm across Scott’s neck. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate dogs. But I don’t

exactly like them, either. Pant pant pant pant, do you love me, do you love me, do you love me? They’re really insecure.”

“You don’t feel that way about dogs, do you, Karen?” Scott said.

She smiled, shook her head.

“You see,” he said to Liz. “Karen likes dogs.”

The dog was gone by the time they got to Derider. “I’m disappointed,” Scott said to the woman who’d run the ad.

“Ohh,” she said sadly. “You would have been good. You look like you love dogs.” She wore bright red lipstick and a bright red sweater. “We were just heartbroken that we had to give up our little Shelley.”

“Was he a nice dog?”

“The best. Wonderful personality. So bright and loving, just a real human being.”

On the way home, they stopped for pizza. Marisa and Karen sat on one side of the booth, Liz and Scott on the other. “Well,” Liz said, “I have to confess I feel a little sorry that Scott missed out on Shelley.”

“You do?” Scott looked amazed.

“He might have been a special dog, less doggy than most dogs. I mean,” she said, sucking up a piece of straying cheese, “considering who he was named after.”

“Who’s that?”

“You know, sweetie.”

“I do?”

“Yes, I’m sure you do.” She appealed to Marisa and Karen. “You two know, don’t you? Hint,” she said. ” ‘Nothing in the world is single, All things

by a law divine in one another’s being mingle—Why not I with thine?’ “

“You wanted my being to mingle with a dog?” Scott said.

“You’re all a bunch of boors,” Liz said. “Shelley. Percy Bysshe Shelley!” At their blank looks, she sighed. “The poet, the famous, wonderful, dead poet.”

“You think those people named their dog after a poet?” Scott said.

“Yes.”

“Come on, you know who they named the mutt after. That fat actress—Shelley, Shelley what’s-her-name.”

“It was a male dog,” Liz said. “Why would they name him after an actress?”

“Makes as much sense as naming it after a famous, wonderful, dead poet.”

When Scott stopped at Marisa’s house, Karen got out of the truck first to let her out. “Scott’s beautiful,” Marisa whispered, putting her knapsack over her shoulder. “I don’t see how you keep from having a violent crush on him.”

“Oh, well … I don’t.”

Five

Rain lulled Karen to sleep that night, and then woke her in the morning. Above her, in the attic, she heard the steady drip drip drip of water into the pans. “We’re going to float away,” her mother said every time it rained, which meant that the leaks in the roof hadn’t, by some longed-for miracle, repaired themselves.

“As long as they don’t get worse,” her father would say.

In the attic, Karen emptied pans out the window. On the street, cars swished by with their lights on. Two little kids in yellow raincoats passed. She imagined Scott’s truck pulling up to the curb. He’d get out …walk up to the house… . She’d watch him until the last moment. Then she’d lean out the window. Scott! He’d look around, puzzled, then look up, see her and smile, his angel smile. And leap up, leap straight into the air and come flying through the attic window.

Shivering in her pajamas, Karen went downstairs.

Tobi’s door was ajar and Tobi was awake, the covers pulled up to her chin. “Close the window,” she said.

Karen got in bed with her. “Ohh, so warm in here.”

“It was, until you arrived. Your feet are like ice.” Tobi lay back, her head on her arm. “Look at that ceiling.” The plaster was hanging like stalactites. “Any day now it’s going to fall down and kill me.. And you know what Dad’ll do? Nothing.”

“Well… he’s not so handy around the house.”

“A dentist not being handy is a contradiction in terms, Karen. The truth is Daddy doesn’t care. He could live in a shack and so long as he had plenty of people to let him poke around in their mouths he’d be happy. This whole house is falling apart. Do you know how many years we’ve had those pans in the attic?”

“A long time.”

“You bet!” Tobi pulled Karen’s chin around. “I’ll tell you something… . Can you keep a secret?” She took a snapshot out of her night table drawer and held it out to Karen. A large, bulky man sprawled on the steps of a house. He wore jeans, desert boots, a mocking smile beneath his brushy mustache. Beer can in hand, he saluted the camera.

Karen leaned up on her elbow. “Who is it?” she said. “I think he’s bowlegged.”

“Does it show?” Tobi studied the picture. “He’s one of my instructors. A sculptor.”

“You’re taking sculpting? I thought you wanted to work with learning-disabled kids.”

“It’s a general art course. Anyway, don’t be such a yahoo. I’m going to college to broaden myself.”

“I haven’t noticed you’ve gained any weight.”

“That isn’t even worth a snicker.” Tobi took the snapshot back.

“Why do you have his picture?”

“I might bring him here sometime.” She paused. “We’re in love.”

Karen fell back on the bed. Liz and Scott. Now Tobi and—“What’s his name?”

“Jase. Jason. Jason Wade Wilson.”

“Funny name,” Karen sniffed. Tobi and Jason. Liz and Scott. And me? she thought. Karen and Davey? Was that love? Something, probably, but not love.

“Don’t say anything to anyone.” Tobi flopped over on her stomach. “Do I have a zit on my back?”

“Two,” Karen said meanly.

“Two! Pick them.”

There was something so satisfying and so disgusting about picking. She always wanted to. She always felt ashamed. And yet, the more disgusting it was and the more ashamed she felt, the more she wanted to laugh.

“Did you ever think,” Tobi said, her voice muffled by her arms, “how in this family we have a little niche for everyone? Liz is the most beautiful and creative. I am the smartest and most passionate. Mom is the gutsiest and most practical. Dad is the most idealistic and dreamy. We all pretend to be humble and modest, but don’t we really judge everyone else by how they measure up to the fabulous Freeds?”

“You forgot me,” Karen said.

“Oh, God.” Tobi turned over. “Let me see, where do you fit into the family mythology? You,

Karen—” She looked blank for a moment. “Well, you—you’re our monkey.”

“No, that’s disgusting.”

“Oh, well, then, you’re—” Again Tobi paused. “Okay, you’re—you” She rolled out of bed. “Don’t you have to get ready for school? I’m going to take a shower.”

You’re you. Was that it? The whole thing? That remark of Tobi’s rankled. Karen couldn’t forget it, but cowardly her, she didn’t say anything. She had once read a story that began, “Cowards are the nicest people.” Maybe so. She didn’t think acting like a coward made her nice. What it made her was mad at herself.

For a couple of days she kept going back to that moment in her mind, thinking of all the things she should have said. Look, Tobi, you gave everybody else a character. What am I, to you, a cipher? A zero? A zit?

Finally she said it, caught Tobi in the upstairs hall. “Tobi, you said something on Tuesday I want you to explain.”

Tobi looked at her incredulously. “You want me to remember what I said a week ago?”

“Two days ago,” Karen said. “Tuesday morning. We were in your room. We were in bed and you showed me what’s-his-name’s picture, that art teacher—”

“Shh!” Tobi grabbed her arm. Considering how thin she was, it was amazing how hard Tobi could grab. She had a lot of muscle. “I told you not to say anything about him.”

Karen shook her hand off. “Will you listen? You were talking about us, our family. And you said

that in our family Liz was the creative one and Mom was this and Dad was that—”

“Okay, okay, I’m always talking that way, so what?”

“And then, Tobi, you said about me. ‘And you, Karen, you’re you.’ “

“So? Well?”

“So! Well! Well, this, Tobi. What does that mean? ‘You’re you.’ You can’t think of anything else to say about me?”

“God, Karen! What’s the big fuss? I don’t get this. How do I know what I meant on Tuesday morning? Probably nothing. It was just a remark. Look, why don’t you relax and take it as it comes?” She went into her room. “Don’t be so sensitive,” she added over her shoulder.

How many times had Karen heard that one? They were always saying it to her. Don’t be so sensitive. You’re so sensitive. Why are you so sensitive? “Tobi!” she shouted. “I am not sensitive!”

Tobi looked up from her desk, an expression of saintly patience on her face. “Gimme a break. I’ve got a paper to do for my psych course.”

“Excellent!” Karen stamped down the hall to her room, slammed the door. Here she was fifteen, finally, more than half grown up, and here was Tobi accusing her—again!—of being too sensitive. It was an accusation, wasn’t it? It meant she was still that same kid Karen, the little one, the little sister who was too easily upset over this and that, over little fol-de-rols that any mature and well-balanced person would take in stride. A fool, after all.

Six

What are you doing?” Karen said to David. “Obvious, isn’t it?”

“Too true. You’re wrecking your mother’s scale.”

“Please. I’m fixing it.” David held the scale to his chest, grunting as he twisted the marker. He was big—tall and big-boned—maybe a little fat around the tummy, with a mop of black hair that was always falling in his face. “This thing has been set at two pounds and two ounces for the last thousand years. What’s the point of having a scale if it’s not precise?”

“Oh, precisely.” Karen found an opened can of pineapple juice in the refrigerator. “You want some juice?”

“Not now. Food interferes with my concentration.”

“Nothing interferes with your concentration, David.” She sat down at the table, placing her goldfish in the plastic carrying bag next to the glass of juice.

David and his mom lived in a little apartment over a grocery store. Karen liked being there; everything was small and cozy and neat.

She first knew Davey in elementary school when the Kurshes lived down the block on Morningale. That made her and Davey neighbors, but not exactly friends. She was willing, he wasn’t. He palled around with four or five other boys. They played war games and had a secret club in a tree house where they had nailed up a huge sign: NO GIRLS

ALLOWED.

When the Kurshes sold their house and moved away, Karen didn’t miss David; she hardly gave him another thought.

In eighth grade, they met again. “Aren’t you Karen Freed?” he said, coming up to her during a break in gym.

She saw a big boy with a mop of bushy hair, wearing a T-shirt that said, No Nukes Is Good Nukes. “Davey Kursh?”

“David, please.”

“Sure, Davey.”

He looked pained. “I mean it, Karen. I prefer David.”

“Rightey-o, Davey.”

He rolled his eyes up into his head. “Why do you hate me?”

“Just a little never-too-late revenge for the sign on your tree house.”

“What sign?”

Coach blew the whistle and they separated. They were on opposing volleyball teams. “What sign?” he yelled, punching the ball her way.

All that week he’d come up to her in the halls

and say, “What sign? What sign? I don’t remember any sign.”

Finally, she said, “I’ll give you a hint. Still hate girls?”

In answer, he gave her a big smile.

“You really don’t remember that sign?”

He raised his hand. “I swear. Total blankout. You’re going to have to tell me, Karen.”

She had to admit he’d had a change of heart. The boy who wore a No Nukes T-shirt was not the boy who’d played war games. And he definitely didn’t hate girls. That year, a lot of kids were giving parties and pairing off. Davey and Karen started getting invited as a couple. It was easy being with him, so without their ever actually deciding to go together, it happened. They became David-and-Karen.

After a while, he told her about his father, who had a rare disease of the nervous system. When Mr. Kursh first found out what his trouble was—that was when they lived down the block from the Freeds—he was able to work out of his house. He was an accountant, so he didn’t really need to go to an office. “He got worse, sicker,” David said. “And everything cost tons of money—doctors, tests, therapy, all that stuff.” He shrugged. “We couldn’t afford to live over there on Morningale anymore, so we moved. My father’s in the Vet’s Hospital now.”

“When do you see him?”

“Weekends.”

“That’s really rough, David.”

“Yeah. It is.” His eyes got red.

After that conversation she felt close to him. He

came over to the house a few times, ate with the family. “Cute boy,” Tobi said.