All for a Sister (8 page)

“Do you know them, Graciela?” Perhaps they’d attended one of the grown-up parties Celeste had witnessed from the top of the stairs.

“Mujeres fáciles.”
Even without translation, Celeste knew this was not a compliment.

In the backyard, Daddy was motioning for her to come down, and the lady with the cigarette twisted her lips, not pleased.

Celeste looked to Graciela for permission. “Should I go?”

“Sí.”
She took a thick, warm sweater from the brass tree standing beside the bedroom door and popped it over Celeste’s head. “And I’ll make some hot chocolate for you to have with your lunch later.”

She gave the little girl a soft tap on her bottom, their unspoken permission to run in the house—granted only when Mother wasn’t home.

On this day, she had gone back to Chicago, she said, to sell their old house. According to the arguments that echoed throughout
this
house, their former home was a fortune of bricks and emptiness, part of an old life that neither wanted to remember.
It was impossible to tell which parent was more angry, or why either of them cared, but in the end it had been Mother to pack her bag and board a train, saying it was best to keep such things in the family.

Celeste ran to the stairs, then waited for Graciela to descend before climbing onto the banister and sliding down the varnished wood. Once she landed safely on the bottom step, she clattered through the entryway, delighting at the echo of her footsteps, and tore through the kitchen, pausing only long enough to take a pinch of ginger cake left on a plate on the counter.

Outside, the air was cold, with a hint of salt from the ocean that Mother said they couldn’t visit again until spring. The two women were sitting on the little iron bench flanked by empty rosebushes, their heads tipped together as if conspiring. Celeste’s father and the other man worked together settling a camera atop a tripod. She wanted to tug at his coat to get his attention, but she knew he didn’t like to be disturbed when he was working, so she moved to put him between herself and the women and waited for him to notice her.

“Sure we don’t need more light?” The other gentleman crouched to look through the lens.

“This is perfect,” her father said with an air of authority that made Celeste go to her toes with pride. “Too much, and the color would bleed into the reflection.”

“So you’re saying we’ll only be able to make movies on hazy days?”

“I’m saying we’ll develop screens and shades, but that will have to come with initial investors. For now—”

He’d taken a step back, bumping right into Celeste, and bent to sweep her up in his arms.

“There’s my girl!” He carried her over to the little iron bench,
holding her high enough that the two women had to crane their necks to look at her. “Which of you two ladies wants to play Mother?”

Their faces froze into crimson-lined smiles, and one of them managed to speak without seeming to move her lips at all.

“You never said anything about working with a kid.”

“Adorable as she is,” the other added quickly.

“I want to capture as many different scenes as I can,” Daddy said, hitching Celeste closer to his side. “Including action and high motion, and I don’t fancy either of you running with abandon through the yard.”

“I told you already I’d do whatever motion you wanted,” the woman with the cigarette said. She reached out and pinched at Daddy’s pant leg, making Celeste want to kick her hand away.

“Making you not quite the ideal mother material, I suppose.” He set Celeste down on the ground and pointed her toward the other woman. “Celeste, sweetheart, this is Edie.”

“Abby,” she said, darting her eyes first up to Daddy and then down to Celeste.

“Sorry.”

“Charmed.” Abby held out her hand, and at her father’s prompting, Celeste shook it.

“Now,” Daddy continued, “I’m going to be filming . . .”

“Nadine,” the woman prompted.

“Nadine, over by the trellis. Abby, if you wouldn’t mind, maybe add a touch of color to my girl, just the lips and cheeks?”

“Of course.” But she looked like she minded quite a bit.

Celeste took the abandoned seat on the bench and watched over Abby’s shoulder as Daddy helped Nadine out of her coat, despite the woman’s protest of the chilly temperature.

“I’m not asking you to trek across the Klondike,” he said.
“I need to capture the color of your dress. Any camera can pick up a black coat. There, over by the hibiscus, please.” And when Nadine looked confused, he took her elbow and turned her toward Graciela’s pride and joy—the perpetually bright, flowering plant in the corner of the garden.

“Hey, kid,” Abby said. “Look here.”

She’d taken a small jar out of her purse and held it open in the palm of one hand, the fingers of the other dipped in. “Do this.” She spread her lips into a long, thin smile, and Celeste did her best to imitate it and not back away when Abby touched her rouge-tipped fingers to her cheeks. “Now blend.” She demonstrated by rubbing her own fingers in a circular motion on her already-pink cheeks, and once again Celeste mimicked the action.

“Mother wouldn’t approve,” Celeste said, hoping not to rub it all away.

“Well, I ain’t a mother. Now pucker. Like a kiss.”

Celeste did so and, without prompting, squeezed her lips together to work the dabbed-on color to a perfect tint, though Mother would have had a much different way to describe it, using words that Celeste dared not even think.

“Can I see?”

“See what?” Abby applied an unnecessary layer to her own lips before screwing on the lid.

“Me. Can I run inside and look in the mirror?”

“Here.” She reached inside her purse again and produced a small compact, from which she withdrew a circle of powder-flecked cotton and dabbed at her nose. Celeste took the proffered mirror and saw her own familiar face, now enhanced with new color, and puckered her lips again.

“I look like a lady in a magazine,” she said, in awe of this new beauty.

“You got a ways to go before that.” Abby took the compact away, snapped it shut, and turned to look at the scene behind her. “That one—
she
could be in a magazine.”

Celeste leaned forward, wishing her father would move out of the way so she could get a better view. She tugged at Abby’s sleeve. “Do you want to go up on the patio? It might be a little warmer.”

“Sure. Heaven forbid, I suppose, we could wait inside.”

“I can’t invite strangers in.”

Abby gave a short laugh. “Good policy, sister.”

Making a wide arc around her father and the cameraman, she led the woman to the covered patio, where they sat on cushioned rattan chairs facing the yard. From here, she could see everything. The cameraman’s arm worked furiously, turning the handle on the wooden box, his head buried beneath a square black cloth.

“That’s it,” Daddy was saying. “Now touch the flowers. Go ahead, lean in and smell it; then look at me.”

Nadine followed his instructions, running her tapered fingers across the blossoms as if encountering such a thing for the first time in her life. She looked over her shoulder. “Can I pick one?”

“Of course,” Daddy said, and Celeste drew in a sharp breath. Not even Mother touched any of the flowers in the garden without Graciela’s guidance.

Nadine plucked a flower from the bush and turned to face the camera. She held it up to her nose and then ran the petals across her lips as if they had somehow contributed to the stain. Even from this vantage point, Celeste knew she wasn’t looking at the camera, but at Daddy. She held her head down somewhat and looked up, her eyelids heavy, almost like she was sleepy.

“Hussy,” Abby said, and while Celeste didn’t recognize that word any more than the Spanish term Graciela had used when
they were looking on from upstairs, once again the tone was unmistakably insulting.

“Beautiful,” Daddy said, straightening his stance and putting his hand on his hip.

“Why, thank you,” Nadine said. She’d removed her hat along with her coat, revealing chestnut-colored hair coiled and pinned at the nape of her neck. She took the flower now and tucked it just above her ear, thrusting her bust forward as she did so.

“How does that look?” she asked, tilting her head to give the best possible view.

“Beautiful,” Daddy said again, but slower this time. “Blow me a kiss, sweetheart. Right to the camera.”

Nadine complied.

“Now a little twirl.”

And she twirled. Her plum-colored skirt fluted out toward the hem, and she staggered just a bit when she stopped, facing the camera. She giggled like she was one of Celeste’s schoolgirl friends rather than a grown woman.

“Sorry about that. One more spin and you’d have to come catch me. I guess I didn’t miss my calling as a dancer after all.”

“Sweetie, you don’t miss anything,” Abby said, though far too softly for Nadine to have heard her.

When Daddy said, “Cut,” the cameraman’s arm stopped its motion, and he stood straight, emerging from the black cloth covering.

“What do you think?”

“What do I think? I think it’s a good thing your kid’s in the audience.”

Daddy laughed and turned toward the porch, opening his arms. “Come here, Celi!”

At any other time, Celeste would have run to him, sometimes
making him tumble under the force of her jump into his embrace, but the scrutinizing eyes of Abby and Nadine slowed her steps, and it felt like she was walking in wet sand rather than the small-stoned path that trailed through the yard and garden. When she finally reached him, he took her hand, called for Abby to follow, and walked her to the brightly colored playhouse in the corner.

“Now—” Daddy squatted down to her eye level—“I want you to look right out at me and say, as clearly as you can, ‘Come find me, Mama!’ Then duck into your playhouse and shut the door.”

“But Mother isn’t here,” Celeste said, looking into his eyes for some sign that he was telling a joke.

“That’s me,” Abby said, not sounding at all thrilled. “I’m the mama.”

Celeste cupped her hands around her mouth and came in close enough to smell her father’s shaving soap. “She’s not my mother, and I don’t like her.”

“Oh, darling.” He hugged her close and nuzzled his moustache in the crook of her neck, tickling in the way that usually made her laugh, then pulled back to his arm’s length. “We’re just pretending. Like you do with your dolls, how you pretend to be their mother? Think of it in reverse. You’re a real little girl, and she is like a great big doll.”

“Now that I like,” Abby said.

Celeste scowled at her. “Nobody asked you.”

Daddy strengthened his grip to get her attention. “Be kind. We’re only going to play for a few minutes. You will say, ‘Mama! Come find me!’ then hide in your playhouse. When I call to you again, you will come running out, look at Miss Abby, run up to her, and hug her.”

Celeste pondered this for a moment. “If I want her to come
find me, why do I open the door at all? Why don’t I stay inside and hide?”

“And that,” the cameraman said, “is why you’re some kind of scientist and not a director.”

Daddy chuckled and stood. “What do you suggest?” His question was no doubt directed to any of the grown-ups standing around them, but it was Celeste who answered.

“She should come look through the window and pretend not to see me. And then—” Celeste moved away from her father and stood next to the playhouse—“pretend to look and say, ‘Cel-leste? Where are you?’ And
then
I’ll come outside because I’ll think I fooled her.”

Daddy’s look of pride warmed her more than any sun ever could.

“How did you think of all that?”

“That’s how Graciela plays.” She didn’t mention that sometimes she pretended Graciela was her mother.

“Well, then, that’s how we’ll do it.” Daddy told the cameraman to set up the next shot and told Abby to take off her coat and hat, making her look like any other mother out playing with her daughter on a lovely day. He bent back down to Celeste and kissed the tip of her nose. “You look beautiful, sunshine.”

She felt beautiful just because he said so, and determined to do the very best that she could to please him. Soon the cameraman’s arm was turning the handle, and at her father’s direction, she stood in front of the playhouse. Looking past Abby’s sullen figure, she saw Graciela standing in the open kitchen door, looking on. She wanted to break away, run into her soft folds, and inhale the familiar scent of coconut and flour, but the sound of the camera took over, and instead she smiled, giving license to her fantasy, and pressed her lips together before saying, “Mama! Come find
me!” exaggerating every word and giving a little shrug and a giggle before ducking into her playhouse. She gave one long, sneaky look from behind the door before closing it.

From the semidarkness inside, she could hear Abby shuffling around outside, apparently not doing anything the way Daddy told her to because he kept saying the same things over and over.

Then her face filled the window, blocking out the light, invading the familiar smell of musty lumber with that of a heavy perfume.

“Hey, kid. Don’t make me look bad.”

Celeste couldn’t imagine what she meant by that, and she wished she could stay inside her playhouse until her real mother came home. Or until Graciela called her in for lunch and hot chocolate.

“Act like you’re looking for her,” Daddy was saying. “Put your hand up, like this. No, like this, like you’re searching. Like this.” And then, with an air of frustration, he summoned Celeste outside. Although it wasn’t exactly how they had planned, Celeste popped her head out the window and said, “Here I am!” her eyes finding Abby rather than the camera. Then she swung open the door and stood in the threshold.

“Go to her,” Daddy said.

Celeste brought her hand to her mouth as if to stifle a giggle, knowing it would hide the movement of her lips from the camera. “She needs to kneel down, or they won’t see me.”

“Get down, Abby,” Daddy ordered.

There was nothing about the woman’s expression that made her look like a loving mother. “I’ll get my dress all dirty.”