My Sister, My Love (32 page)

“WHY, SKYLER! WHAT A NICE SURPRISE.”

Distractedly, Mummy kissed her
little man
on the side of his flushed forehead just as, unfortunately for the
little man
, a much-awaited call from StarBright Modeling Agency came in on Mummy’s cell phone.

“SKY-BOY! CONGRATS! ’H.P.I.’—IS IT? AND A TERRIFIC LITTLE GOLD DAGGER
for your lapel, eh? This is some sort of ‘secret society’ at that school of yours, I guess? I’d thought those were forbidden at Fair Hills Day but what the hell, good for you, son. A little pin in your lapel, years from now, it’s like Daddy’s Ep Pi pin who knows what doors might swing open for you.”

Distractedly Daddy ran playful-Daddy knuckles over Skyler’s head on his way to pour himself a much-needed drink.

AND THERE WAS BLISS, MADE TO BLINK NEAR-SIGHTEDLY AT THE TINY GOLD
upright-flame lapel pin her brother held out to her. “Is it for me, Skyler?”

Skyler laughed harshly. “No! For once, it’s something for me.”

This was unfair. This was cruel. Bliss adored Skyler. Skyler knew better.

“It’s pretty, Skyler. Is it like—a pin? To wear?”

Skyler explained: “H.I.P.”—“Higher Ivy Potential”—what the headmaster had said to him and how the headmaster had shaken his hand. How
special it was to wear an H.I.P. pin if you were a student at Fair Hills Day for it meant that you were in the highest percentile.

“‘Per-cen-tile’—what’s that?”

“The highest of the high.”

Even as Skyler boasted he felt the hollowness of his boast. For there was his little sister gazing at him with wistful admiring eyes, sucking her finger.

Poor Bliss! Much of that day she’d been practicing at the rink. Hour upon hour, practicing her routine for the Hershey’s Kisses competition which was only five days away. In the late afternoon, Mummy had taken her to Dr. Bohr-Mandrake for a therapy session and to Dr. Muddick for injections. From the gingerly way in which Bliss was sitting on the edge of her bed, Skyler surmised that her bottom was hurting.

From what Skyler had been overhearing lately, Bliss’s skating was not going so well as Mummy wished. Skyler supposed it was that damn fantim pain in Bliss’s left ankle again, that leapt from Skyler’s right leg to Bliss’s ankle, and from Bliss’s ankle to Skyler’s leg, like a flu passed back and forth between siblings.

Skyler said, relenting: “The smart kids at school would all rather be you, Bliss! A champion skater.”

Faintly Bliss smiled. “They would? Why?”

“Because then they’d get attention! Their pictures would be in the paper and they’d be on TV.”

Still Bliss smiled, faintly. (Sometimes Skyler felt a rush of impatience: you’d think Bliss was a
retard.
)

In one of those gestures of big-brother magnanimity that reverberates to this very hour, as a sign that bratty/envious Skyler could be nice, sometimes, Skyler pinned the H.I.P. flame to Bliss’s collar. “This will protect you, Bliss! Next Saturday.”

Bliss thanked Skyler! Blinking back tears.

“Will you make me a red-ink heart, too? Like yours?”

(Scattered in secret places on Skyler’s body, including the palm of his left hand, were silly little red-ink “tattoos” of the kind Skyler’s gangsta classmates sported. But no one was supposed to know about Skyler Rampike’s “tattoos” because Skyler belonged to no gang; and
Skyler believed that, if the other boys knew, they’d have been angry at him.)
*

“No! Mummy would find out, and Mummy would be mad.”

For Mummy knew every inch of Bliss’s body. All that had to do with Bliss, Mummy knew.

“For when I skate, Skyler! A red-ink heart.”

But Skyler shook his head, noooo.

As Bliss was between tutors, Skyler had volunteered to help her with the same first-grade material her tutors had tried to teach her without success: ABC’s and primer reading and (very) primer writing, numerals and the most basic arithmetic. But Bliss made very little progress and was easily discouraged. Skyler perceived a fundamental, you might say a metaphysical rejection of the very concept of Objective Reality, on the part of his sweetly stubborn little sister: for Bliss could not comprehend why, for instance, six times six “must be” thirty-six, and not sixty-six; and how is it possible, if you subtract (“take away”) twelve from ten, the answer “must be” minus-two. (And how to explain “minus-two” to a skeptical child? Bliss smiled as if suspecting a joke, a kind of sly-Daddy joke, to make her believe something silly and then laugh at her. And often Bliss asked Skyler, “Would Daddy believe this?” with a doubtful look. Or, “Does Mummy believe this?”) How frustrating to Skyler, whatever he managed to teach her, a few days later she’d have forgotten: “It’s like my head is a glass bowl of slippery things, Skyler, and if you push new things in, the old things will fall out.”

It was so. Bliss’s head seemed very crowded. When Mummy was not with Bliss and Bliss was allowed to be alone, and quiet, Skyler perceived that his sister was deeply involved in her thoughts and he knew, from little twitches and tics in her limbs, and the stiff little doll-smile that Mummy insisted upon for Bliss’s skating performances, that Bliss was
practice-skating
in her head; and that such
practice-skating
could be as exhausting as the real thing.

As in his own fevered thoughts Skyler often found himself reenacting
again, again, and yet again those catastrophic moments in which his young life was irrevocably altered in the Gymnastics Lab under the tutelage of the Russian Vassily Andreevich Volokhomsky as Skyler bravely/brashly/desperately grasped the rings and leapt into the air.

But no: that was over. Long over.

Bix Rampike had received an “undisclosed” sum of money from the beleaguered Gold Medal Gym & Health Club and as Daddy would say with sly-Daddy-smirk:
Fin-it-o.

Today’s lesson with Bliss was a very simple one: Bliss was to spell out, in block-letters, words that Skyler pronounced (“horse”—“dog”—“girl”—“house” etc.), that Bliss was supposed to be able to spell; but Skyler decided to experiment by printing out their last name R A M P I K E and asking Bliss to copy it “exactly as you see it”; and so, gripping a crayon tightly in her right hand, painstakingly Bliss reproduced

“WELL. WHAT DO YOU THINK?”

As Daddy had spread out his Rampike Dream House plans on the dining room table with a flourish some weeks ago, now breathless Mummy spread out Bliss’s “contact sheets” from the StarBright Agency. These were dozens of color photos of Bliss Rampike in modeling poses, in an assortment of Junior Miss Elite Skates Fashions: practice sweatpants and fuzzy pullovers, turtleneck sweaters and little pleated skirts, leotards with colorful sashes, knitted caps with tassels, tartan kilts, tulle tutus, satin-and-sequin “showgirl” costumes. In the most dramatic of the photographs Bliss was posed on a bluish-glittering ice surface, in her beautiful little white kidskin Junior Miss Elite Skates. Yet, though Bliss was in skates, and on the ice, where ordinarily Bliss Rampike felt most comfortable, here she seemed stiff, almost awkward, and her sweet-shy little doll-smile was unconvincing.

“Looks good, sweetie! My bestest-best li’l gal.” Daddy had but given the contact sheets a cursory glance, for Daddy had a drink in his hand,
and somewhere (Daddy’s “home office”?) to get to, but Daddy took time now to kiss Bliss lightly on the top of her head.

“Bix, wait! These pictures are good, don’t you think? Bliss is very—winning, isn’t she?”

Brightly Mummy spoke but keen-eyed Skyler could see how, like Bliss whom so often Mummy scolded, Mummy was digging nervously at her thumbnail.

“Sure! Bliss always is. What’s the problem, Betsey?”

Daddy spoke in the most affable/patient of domestic-Daddy tones. With a wink to Sky-boy, signaling
These women!

“Well, they are saying, at the Agency, that Bliss is ‘stiff ’ and ‘looks older than her age.’ That she might need modeling lessons before we can expect a contract from Elite Skates.”

“‘Modeling lessons.’ Models have got to be taught, to stand there and have their pictures taken? Chri-ist!” Daddy laughed to suggest that (1) he was being funny, but (2) he was not being funny.

Mummy protested, “Bix, don’t be silly! Modeling is a—profession. Not just anyone can ‘model.’”

“Like not just anyone can be an astrophysizist, or palyontologist or brain surgeon, eh? Or an alpha-mummy like
you.
” Daddy laughed, pleasantly. A dull flush was rising into Daddy’s big-boned big-boy face.

“Oh, Bix! Your sarcasm
hurts.
”

Now Daddy protested, “Who’s being sarcastic? This is just Daddy asking: what will ‘modeling lessons’ set me back, on top of ‘skate lessons’ etcetera?”

Mummy’s cheeks reddened. Mummy was standing close behind Bliss, loosely embracing her as Mummy pushed the contact sheets about to be better viewed. “Bix, everything in life is not the damned ‘bottom line.’ There is beauty, and there is—art. For art, people have sacrificed over the centuries! After the Hershey’s Kisses Festival next week, where our daughter is favored to win the junior-miss crown, and the Hudson Valley All-Girl Challenge in two weeks in Newburgh, Bliss should have plenty of time for what’s called a ‘total-immersion’ course taught by StarBright, and the Agency will allow us a discount.”

Daddy laughed ruefully. “Well! That’s good news. For a moment I was worried, I might have to shell out the full price.”

As Daddy was about to turn away, Mummy tugged at his sleeve.

Skyler saw Daddy’s jaws tighten.
Now Daddy will shake off Mummy’s arm
, Skyler thought; but, as if to refute Skyler, and Mummy herself, who may have expected this, Daddy did not.

“Bix, you do think these photographs are good, don’t you? I mean—beautiful? We worked so hard to make Bliss up, and to pose her…”

“I said, sure. Daddy’s bestest-best li’l girl always looks gorgeous.”

“But, Bix—”

“Yes, Betsey?”

“They are saying—some of them—at the Agency—that Bliss’s hairline is just a ‘centimeter of a centimeter’ too low.”

“Like hell! Our daughter’s hairline is just fine.”

“They’re suggesting electrolysis, to raise it just slightly. The effect would be magical, I think: Bliss’s forehead would be higher, and her eyes larger. Electrolysis is a simple procedure in a doctor’s office with a very mild sedative and virtually no recovery required.”

Now Bliss, who’d been staring at the showy likenesses of herself spread on top of the table, wriggled inside Mummy’s embrace and touched her forehead at the hairline. “I don’t want ’lectrolysis, Mummy. No.”

“Sweetie, we’ve gone over this. It doesn’t hurt at all, it just tickles.”

“I don’t want ’lectrolysis! Please, Mummy.”

“Honey, we can have it together. My forehead has always been too low, too! It’s too late for me to be a model—or a skater—but I can have my hairline raised anyway. All right, sweetie? We can have the procedure done together, in New York City, and have such fun—”

Daddy intervened: “No. I don’t think that fucking ‘electrolysis’ is a good idea for our daughter.”

“Bix! Your language. Please.”

“Betsey! Your language. Pl-ease.”

“The Agency wouldn’t recommend electrolysis—or modeling lessons—if they didn’t think that Bliss has genuine potential as a child model, or even a child actress. They have seen her on ice and they are wild about her—I mean, literally. And electrolysis isn’t expensive, and it isn’t dangerous, and—”

“I said no, Betsey. Can you spell?
N
-
O.
”

“Bix, you are not the dictator of this household. Damn you Bix, you are not the despot.”

“No, I am not. I am that child’s father, and I pay the fucking bills around here, and I say
no.
”

“Bix, you make so much money! Your Christmas bonus, alone—”

“Okay, I’m a millionaire. Multi-millionaire. And I intend to be a billionaire. So what? I say
N-O
, and
N-O
it is.”

Clumsily Mummy gathered up the contact sheets as if Daddy had befouled them, biting her lip to keep from whimpering. In disgust Daddy stormed out of the room but returned almost immediately to continue the quarrel, as Bliss backed off jamming several fingers into her mouth, and Skyler looked on in

(OKAY: I CAN’T END THIS SCENE. BELIEVE ME, I HAVE TRIED, AND I HAVE
tried, and I am exhausted trying, and I give up. It is rare for an author to concede to the reader that he has
given up
—probably it is unknown in the annals of literature, or whatever sub-category this is. But Skyler Rampike, nineteen years old going on fucking
*
ninety-nine,
gives up here.
)

DOORBELL!

The Rampikes’ housekeeper Lila Laong hurried to the door. How peculiar this incident was, Lila Laong would recall only in retrospect.

It was mid-morning of January 8, 1997: a bright cold winter morning just three days before Bliss Rampike was to compete with nine other hopeful young-girl skaters for the coveted title Hershey’s Kisses Girls’ Ice-Skating Princess 1997 and less than twenty-four hours since Bix Rampike left the house at 93 Ravens Crest Drive (but only temporarily, it was believed, since Mr. Rampike had packed only a single suitcase and had but one pair of shoes, which he was wearing). Another time the doorbell was rung, impatiently it seemed, and Lila opened the door, to her surprise seeing on the front step a tensely smiling delivery man “not dressed right for a delivery man”—“a youngish man, very pale”—“red-haired, with no hat”—“smiling so hard, his mouth looked stretched”—with a large bouquet of spring flowers (tulips, daffodils, jonquils, richly scented paperwhites and hyacinth) which he presented “for Miss Bliss Rampike” and which Lila took from his slightly tremulous hands, put in one of Mrs. Rampike’s largest vases and placed on a marble-topped table in the foyer, beside it a card neatly hand-printed as if by a scrupulous child:

DEAREST BLISS I KNOW THAT YOU WILL WIN

ON SATURDAY AND YOU WILL WIN BIG

FOR YOU ARE ANGEL ON EARTH MY DARLING

G.R.’S PRAYYERS ARE WITH YOU FORVER BLISS

LOVE G.R.

What was strangest about this incident was that the “youngish man”—“not dressed right for a delivery man”—had not brought the flowers for Bliss Rampike in a delivery van but, cradled in the crook of one arm as he pedaled, on a bicycle.