Sisters of Heart and Snow (15 page)

S
AN
D
IEGO

Present Day

D
rew's phone rings, verboten in the library. Jonah, her ex. Drew holds up a finger to Rachel and steps outside to take it.

“Thank God,” Jonah says. His baritone sounds hoarse, as if he's not practicing the good vocal hygiene (no alcohol, only soothing teas, singing from his gut) that Drew tried to drum into him and which he of course ignored. “I went by Dogwarts and it was closed permanently. Your landlord said he hasn't seen you for a while. I thought something bad happened.”

“I could've died two years ago, for all you know,” Drew points out. She hasn't talked to him but once since they broke up. It's sweet of him to worry. She remembers the way it felt to embrace him, how her head rested so comfortably against his chest, and her throat catches. She's not still in love with him. She can't be. “What do you want?” She sounds harsher than she wants, but it'd be so easy to fall back in with him. If he said right now he wanted her to be the tambourine player again, to scoop up those little crumbs he saw fit to throw her, well, she just might get in her car and drive back up to him.

“We've restructured the band a bit. Drummer's gone.” That would be John, the guy who disliked Drew. “We're thinking of using strings at some of our shows, and I thought of you.”

You mean the way I suggested years and years ago?
She exhales. Part of her wants to say
Yes, of course.
The other part, deep in her gut, tells her.
This will not end well.

“It's for Jimmy Kimmel,” Jonah adds. Dangling the carrot. “We start rehearsals next week. We might use the strings on tour, too, if it goes well. Drew,” his voice drops an octave, “I haven't called because I knew we had to break it off clean. But . . . nothing's the same without you.”

“Really? You guys are doing better without me.” Drew turns away from the library.

He blows into the phone. “I mean, Drew. You know what I mean. We just wake up and go to the airport and play a show and go to sleep and go to the airport and . . .” he trails off. “I miss you.”

Drew feels her bones turning into jelly.

Rachel appears, carrying the books Joseph got her. Drew remembers where she is. With her sister, helping her. Helping her mother. “I've got to take care of some family stuff, Jonah. I'll let you know.”

“Okay,” Jonah says, sounding surprised. A little hurt. Yes. He expected her to come back, when he wants.

Drew hangs up, her heart beating hard. For a moment she thinks she's done the wrong thing. What if she goes back and everything works out great, and she finally has the career and the life she wants? What if she's meant to be with Jonah? She can't just hang out with Rachel forever. She's got to come up with a plan.

A good plan. A foolproof-no-shit roadmap, telling her how to live the rest of her life.

Her sister holds out her hand. “Everything okay?”

A familiar gesture. Rachel always held Drew's hand when they were little. Up until Drew was twelve, actually—Rachel would grab Drew's hand and steer her through parking lots.
Just in case,
Rachel would say, as if she alone had the power to protect Drew from two tons of solid metal.

Drew takes her sister's hand. It is the same size as her own now.

Rachel drops it. “I've got to carry these,” she says, almost apologetically, and hands a few books to Drew. “Help me?”

“Sure.” Drew takes the books and follows her sister to the parking lot.

•   •   •

Later in the day,
after I take Drew back to my house, where she says she's going to job-hunt online before she picks up Chase, I drive back up to La Jolla to meet my daughter.

I pause outside the bridal boutique, staring at the all-white faceless mannequins in dolloped whipped cream dresses with rib-cage-binding bodices. I'm so out of my element. This is downtown La Jolla, a street of high-end shops and restaurants a couple blocks from the beach—and from my mother's nursing home.

Quincy wants to go on a preliminary dress-scouting mission. When I shopped for my dress, this store wasn't even on my fantasy list. Come to think of it, I had no fantasy list. I'm glad my daughter does. Isn't that what we've been working for, all these years? Anyway, I'm not telling Tom what Quincy's dress cost for at least forty years. Preferably, he won't find out until I'm dead.

Quincy appears now, almost sprinting again. Her face and arms, exposed by her cream-colored tank top, are with dusted with freckles, but her summer tan's gone and she looks chalky. Not her natural skin color, like she's been working too hard. Her sunglasses push back her long, unkempt hair and she's as thin as a fashion model. Normally, my daughter's got a fair amount of muscle packed on from playing volleyball and eating well. I want both her and Drew back at my house, stat, eating. I'll get Tom's mother to help. We'll hold them hostage for a weekend and pack them full of lasagna.

“Hey, Mom.” Quincy holds out her arms.

“Hey, Q.” I hug her, splay my hands over her ribs on her back. Yep. Skin and bones.

“Stop it. I know what you're doing.” Quincy steps back. “I like being this thin. I eat. I'm perfectly healthy. Ryan will love me if I weigh a hundred pounds, or gain two hundred.” She shakes her head.

“Sorry. I'm just concerned.” I let it go. “Before I had kids, I was too thin. I gained eighty with you and only sixty came back off, which was a good thing.” It was true—after my weight went up, post-swimming, I dieted myself back down into skinniness, overdoing it, as I am wont to do. I look sideways at her. “Don't get pregnant for a long time, though.”

“Mom. Stop. For real.” Quincy laughs me off. “I know. I'm genetically prone to stretch marks and should enjoy my youthful physique while I still can.”

“Something like that.” We link arms and look in the window. When Quincy was five or so, she poked at my belly.
Why is your belly so squishy? How'd you get all those scars? Were you in a fight?

I glance at the bridesmaid dresses next to the bridal gowns, the tones of emerald and deep red and brown contrasting sharply with the white. Fall and Christmas colors. “Who are your bridesmaids going to be?” I'm having trouble picturing the wedding party, imagining myself in a mother-of-the-bride dress.

Quincy shrugs. “I don't know.”

“Nobody from the volleyball team?” Is she friends with
anyone
besides Ryan these days?

“Didn't I tell you? I quit.” Quincy squints at the dresses in the window, a small frown playing across her brow.

“What?” She's been playing volleyball since she was ten. “Did you get hurt?”

“No.”

Quincy used to be unstoppable. Nothing held her back. Sort of like Tomoe Gozen, I think, as I look at my daughter. True to herself, doing whatever she wanted, regardless of what anyone else said. What's happened to my daughter? A couple of years ago, Quincy had her wisdom teeth extracted and was supposed to rest for a week. But two days after her procedure, the sound of the blender woke me before dawn. I switched on the light to see Quincy, who'd been in the dark. “What are you doing?” I eyed the eggs, the dirty frying pan, the toast crusts. “But what are you making?”

“Scrambled eggs and toast. Blended.” She glopped the thick concoction into a glass. It looked absolutely vomitous.

My stomach turned. “I can make you a fruit smoothie.”

“Just leave me alone, Mother. I'm perfectly fine.” She tipped the glass to her mouth and drank in loud rebellious gulps, her eyes never leaving mine. I waited for her to gag, to spit the gelatinous goo into the sink, but she kept on drinking until the glass was empty. “I feel a ton better. I'm going for a run.”

“The doctor said no exercise for a week.”

“That advice is for
normal
people. Not for me.” Quincy put the pan in the sink.

Yes, Quincy was tenacious, almost to the point where she didn't care about her personal safety—also like Tomoe. It's funny. I'd always wanted her to be more careful in that way. Balanced. Yet now she's telling me she quit volleyball, and I don't like it.

“I need to focus on my classes.” Quincy rolls her eyes. “Mom. Please. It's not like I was going to go professional. Calm down. Anyway, that's probably why I'm thinner. I lost muscle mass.”

Well, engineering is one of the most demanding majors. And she's right—she's not going to be in the Olympics. I swallow down my questions. “That makes sense.”

Quincy jerks her head toward the shop. “What are we waiting for?”

We step inside. It's like stepping into a wedding cake, and it smells sweet, too, layers of sugar and flowers. Everything is in shades of white—bright whites, warm whites, silvery whites, light cream. There are mirrors everywhere, bouncing the whites back.

I walk around the shop, eyeing the dresses. I will not look at the prices because I am ninety-nine percent sure I will faint. I touch the heavy satin of a Cinderella-type dress, fitted in the bodice, full at the bottom. No idea what sort of dress my daughter wants. A ton of cleavage? Bare shoulders? Tight skirt or full? Will she go in the modest Princess Kate direction, with long sleeves and lace? Quincy mostly wears jeans and T-shirts. I could barely get her into a dress for prom. “What style do you like?” I ask.

As if on cue, a saleswoman with short red hair appears. “We're having a fabulous sale this week. Ten percent off.”

“I brought photos.” Quincy fans out some magazine pages that, as far as I can tell, contain a sample of every conceivable type of gown: short, tight, full, trains.

The saleswoman purses her pink-lipsticked mouth. “Let me pull some gowns. I'll show you to a room.”

Quincy points to a satiny silver couch where a middle-aged woman sits, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. “Wait here, Mom.”

I sit. Another bride, the one who belongs to the woman next to me, appears in a floofy dress, and the woman claps her hands.

I bought my dress from a wedding-prom discount warehouse, sifting through racks of dresses tried on hundreds of times previously. Tom said he'd ask his parents to buy me a dress, but they were already doing too much. It was ridiculous to spend money on a gown you'd only wear once. We could use that money for tons of other things. I bought an A-line satin dress that skimmed my growing belly, deeply discounted due to the makeup stain by the cleavage. That stain still bothers me whenever I look at our wedding pictures, displayed in our hallway. I don't want that for my daughter.

Tom's proposal was not over-the-top romantic. He actually sort of proposed before we even knew about Quincy. I'm glad he did. Otherwise, I might always wonder if he would have.

He took me to Ocean Beach to go boogie boarding. All day we caught waves until my belly turned lobster-red from my prone position. Waves were high for San Diego, maybe five feet, but I kept up with him, not stopping even when my shoulder told me to.

We sat on a beach towel and drank a couple of Coronas we'd smuggled in Super Big Gulp cups. “I've never had beer through a straw before.” I stifled an alarming, nonromantic burp. “Pardon me.”

“That was the cutest little burp ever. Like a baby burp.” He laughed and put his towel and his arm around me. I put my face in his shoulder. A sense of peace washed over me. With Tom, I never had to pretend I wasn't anxious or afraid. I just was whoever I was. Felt whatever it was I felt.

He squeezed me in close. “You know what?”

I looked at him.

“I want to marry you one day.” His face was serious.

I pulled the towel over my head to hide my pleased blush. “Really?” I felt like if he saw me, I'd burst into a million pieces, an iridescent sea-soaked bubble.

“Yes.” He took the towel off and raised my head.

I swallowed.
This is too good to be true. Shouldn't it take more tries than this?
Is he serious?
My head harped away. “How do you know?”

“I'll tell you.” Tom leaned in close, next to my ear, so he wouldn't have to shout over the sounds of the waves and the people around us. “I liked my exes all right. But I was always secretly glad when we were too busy to see each other.” He smiled at me and brushed some sand off my face. “I wake up every morning wondering when I'll get to see you.”

I took another sip of beer out of the soda container. I pictured us walking down the aisle, college degrees in our back pockets. The sand pushed up against me, hot in the sun. He watched me expectantly. A bit nervous. My heart beat like a marching band drum, shaking me head to toe. I was afraid, but I'd tell him the truth. “I would have walked out of that biology class and gone straight to the county clerk's office if you'd wanted me to,” I said softly.

He pushed me down into the sand and kissed me.

One of the first things my sister asked me, after I told her I was engaged, was “How did he propose?” I told her. “Lame,” Drew pronounced. “When I get married, I want a big diamond hidden in a glass of champagne during a trip to Tahiti. Or skywriting. If that's not happening, I'm saying no.”

“Everything you see on television,” I noted drily.

“That's right.”

“Well,” I said, “would you rather have a ‘lame' proposal from a great guy, or a great proposal from a lame guy?”

“I want both,” Drew said. Her eyes turned very light brown. “I want everything.”

•   •   •

I watch the other bride
in the store jump up and down in her dress, seeing, I guess, if her top will stay up. She's got very large breasts, and one slips out, all the way out of her bra. She stops. “Damn. I almost took that one in the chin.” Her mother shakes her head. I giggle and clap my hand over my mouth. A thought pops into my head. I should have invited Drew. Then we could laugh at these things together. Couldn't we? Next time, if Quincy doesn't find a dress, we will do it for real. With Drew. If she wants. She'll probably be back in L.A. by then.