The Never Never Sisters (20 page)

“Is history,” we all said together.

Sloane and Giovanni turned toward each other. “Hmm,” Giovanni said, stroking his chin
dramatically.

“Story one,” said Sloane, looking straight at me. “I vote for Paige. Plus, there’s
no way Binnie Rabinowitz introduced you.”

“I don’t understand that name,” Giovanni said. “Binnie Rabinowitz? Who would do that
to a kid?”

“It’s from camp,” I said. “She was a great softball player and that was her nickname.
The Binnie is
from
her last name.”

“Ah,” said Giovanni. “Like saying A-Rod Rodriguez. I say story two. I felt the love
in story two. Didn’t you feel the love? Sparkling, sunny day, beautiful stranger . . .
And she”—Giovanni pointed at me and smiled—“is beautiful. It’s a good narrative.”

“Story two,” said Dave. “It was story two.” Sloane snapped her fingers exaggeratedly,
all mock disappointment.

I looked at Sloane. “What did you mean about Binnie?”

“I just don’t like that girl. Never have.”

“Me neither. It’s always been so uncomfortable to be around her. When I was little,
I always just thought the problem was me.”

“Not liking her?”

“I didn’t even realize I didn’t like her. I would just get a stomachache around her.”

Sloane lowered her eyebrows sternly. “How can you not realize that? Especially with
someone like Binnie?”

“I don’t know.” I swallowed. “I guess I figured I was supposed to like her because
our families were friends, so I held out as long as I could. Haven’t you ever gotten
a feeling that lingers for a while before your brain can assimilate it?”

“No, but clearly that’s how you operate.” I could’ve killed her for sliding her eyes,
lashes lowered, in Dave’s direction and punctuating the gesture with a sly wink at
me.

“Really? Why?” Dave hadn’t noticed the wink; he turned toward me, surprised.

“She’s so judgey,” I said.

“Affected,” said Sloane.

“And smug, but honestly, I could deal with all of that if it weren’t for the judgment.”

“Well,” said Giovanni, “she introduced you two, so that’s a good contribution to the
world.”

The pizza came and we were all silent, watching the waiter roll the slicer through
the steaming cheese.

“That was a good icebreaker,” Dave said when he left, although his saying it made
things stale again.

“Yeah,” said Giovanni. “I love it. It just goes to show you can think you have someone’s
story figured out, but you never really know.”

Sloane snaked her arm around his shoulder, dangling her fingers down his chest. “Except
unless you do.”

“Except unless you do,” Giovanni repeated.

I WOKE TO
the sound of a dog yapping.
That’s not right,
I thought before recalling Bandito’s tiny rat nose and quivery body, as well as the
miniature puddle of urine we’d found in the entry hall when we returned from dinner.
Sloane was awake already and was in the kitchen pouring Bandito some food, which made
his little feet skate with excitement on the tiles.

I looked at the clock on my phone. “It’s nine already? Jesus.”

“I know. Giovanni’s still sleeping. I didn’t even hear Dave leave.”

“Me neither, and I was a lot closer than you.”

Bandito rushed to the bowl, munching on his bits of kibble, and Sloane pressed together
the yellow and blue seams of the plastic dog food bag until it snapped. “Where’s your
coffee?”

I pointed to a cabinet and was watching her scoop it out with a spoon into the filter
when the buzzer rang. We looked at each other. I shook my head and picked up the phone.
“Ian’s on his way up,” Bert announced.

“Crapcrapcrap.” I hopped in place. “I forgot I had a meeting with my anal decorator.”

“Your what?”

“My anal decorator.”

“Your
what
?” she repeated, and we heard Ian’s key in the lock and the front door creak open.
“He’s coming in?”

I positioned myself in front of the door as Ian came in. “Hi, Ian!”

He blinked behind his perfect-circle tortoiseshell glasses frames. “You’re in pink
pajamas. With bed head.” He reached out his fingers as if tempted—but too grossed
out—to touch my hair.

“I am. Yes, I am. I—”

“Who’s this?”

“My sister, Sloane. She’s staying with me.”

He nodded, looked around the apartment quickly, scanning. “Where’s the Cocoracci piece?”

“The blue vase? In the guest room.” I had been charged with displaying the glass sculpture
in the living room, but since its arrival the Monday before the Patty Melt, I hadn’t
even removed it from its box. “You want some coffee, Ian?”

“Coffee? No. I had mine”—he looked at his watch—“three hours ago.” With a delicate
twist of the wrist he whipped out a tape measure from somewhere in his pants pocket
and strode toward the guest room.

“Wait—,” I said, but not before Ian opened the door. He stood in the doorway, staring
at the room filled wall-to-wall with boxes and clothes and the pulled-out couch where
Giovanni lay sleeping.

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

“I’m sorry. I forgot you were coming, and we have guests.”

“What am I supposed to do with this?” He said this louder and shrill enough that Giovanni
sat straight up under the sheet like a shirtless haunted-house Dracula.

Ian apparently hadn’t seen him sleeping there, because he jumped backward and screamed,
high enough to threaten Bandito, who yapped, jabbed and weaved at Ian’s wrinkle-free
seersuckers. Giovanni got out of bed, confusedly scratching his curly hair.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” screamed Ian.

“I don’t know,” said Sloane. “What
are
you supposed to do with this?” She said it in a genuine tone—emphasis on the second
word, like she honestly had no idea why he, a stranger, would’ve barged into our apartment
with a tape measure.

I caught Giovanni’s eye while trying not to laugh and he was trying not to laugh and
it was like being nine and in synagogue, where the prohibition against giggles makes
stifling them impossible. I snickered into my hand, my mouth twitching, and Giovanni’s
snorts were escaping out of his nose and Bandito was tap-dancing like he was auditioning
for the canine version of
White Nights
. Every time we looked at each other, we lost a little more control. Sloane and Ian
stared at each other, trapped in the crossfire of their gazes. Keeping one eye on
the dog, Ian finally backed toward the door. Before leaving, he stared at me and said,
“I cannot do the job you hired me to do if
this
is the canvas. Think about it.”

Giovanni and I collapsed on the floor as soon as he left, clutching our stomachs,
and Sloane shook her head with a slight, still-bewildered, smile. “What the fuck was
that?”

I wiped my eyes. “My anal interior decorator.”

“Oh—
that’s
what you were saying.” She poured a cup of coffee and handed it to Giovanni, who
had collected himself sufficiently to find a chair. He sat, blinking in his boxer
shorts, and accepted the cup with a nod. “Yes. That description fits.”

“He’s one of those fragile geniuses.”

“Yeah. Genius. That’s exactly what I’d call him,” Giovanni said, and we started laughing
again. When we stopped, he swallowed a few times. “Do you pay him?”

“Yep.”

“I want that gig.” He stood up, flounced into the kitchen, opened up the cereal cabinet
and screamed,
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
Then he did it with the TV cabinet and in the bathroom and into the coffeemaker.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
By the time he said it to an unimpressed Bandito, I was collapsed on the floor again.

“Hate to break up the party,” Sloane said, “but we should get moving.”

I patted my stomach, which was cramped from laughter. “What are you guys doing today?”

“Gelato and
Eyes
.”

“Sounds like a Dali painting.” We started laughing again.

“What time are you meeting with clients?”

I checked my calendar. “I’m not. No appointments today. Oh. But I have a meeting with
my decorator at nine.”

“I think you can assume that’s canceled.” Giovanni raised one eyebrow, and he and
I broke down in giggles again.

We showered and got dressed and put Bandito in a tote bag, which Sloane slung over
her shoulder. The four of us subwayed down to Houston Street and walked south for
a bit until Sloane pointed to a blue door. “There.” She snapped a picture.

“We’re doing gelato first?”

“I’m hungry,” said Giovanni.

“But it’s”—I checked my watch—“ten forty-eight.”

“If you break it down,” Giovanni said, “sugar, milk, eggs. Perfect breakfast food.”

“Like sweet coffee. And eggs,” said Sloane.

“Without the coffee,” said Giovanni. “Or pancakes.”

“Without the flour.”

“Enough,” I said, pretending to be annoyed when I was really thinking how well Giovanni
lightened up Sloane, while our family seemed to do the opposite.

We all ordered the lemon—Sloane said it was their signature flavor—and watched the
guy scoop the gelato, soft and pliable as taffy, into small paper cups before pushing
them over the counter. Mine came to a mountainous point, and I stuck my tongue out
to lick the peak, which was creamy with a hint of tartness. I ate another bite, spoonless,
before bringing it to a small table.

“This is amazing,” Giovanni said in an Italian accent.

“That sounded legit.”

“It is. He’s bona fide Italy-born.” Sloane sucked on a lump of gelato in her spoon,
eroding it but keeping its humpback whale shape.

“I moved here when I was four—young enough to soak up the surfer dialect from California,
but my parents have thick accents, so I just imitate them when the situation requires
it.”

“Have you been back?”

“A lot. All our family is still there. We’ve been”—he squinted at Sloane—“four times
together?”

“Five,” said Sloane. “Three with your parents and at the end of the France trip and
then the time we just went to the Mediterranean.”

“Right.”

“Wow,” I spoke through a mouthful of gelato. “You travel a lot.”

“We love to travel,” he said.

“I can tell by your blog. It makes me want to go places and eat things.” The day after
we’d eaten at the noodle place, I’d read Sloane’s post on it. The photos had that
professional look—the glossy wash that magazines had—and what she’d written had renewed
my excitement at having eaten there.

“That’s the goal.” Sloane finished the spoonful.

My phone rang. “It’s Mom.” Sloane’s eyes were flat as I picked up. “Hello?”

“Paige? How did it all go?”

“Fine.” In the pause I heard her hunger for information. “We’re downtown now.”

“Would you guys want to come for lunch maybe today? Or I could meet you?”

I covered the phone and mouthed “Lunch?” Giovanni shifted his eyes to Sloane, who
shook her head.

“The thing is, we just ate.”

“Oh. That’s okay. I get it. You probably want to do young-people things.”

“Yeah.” As far as I knew, the youth had not cornered the gelato and public art market,
but if it made my mom feel less left out, I’d let her think we had staged a revolution
to claim it. “I’ll call you later, Mom. Okay?”

“Okay. Go . . . have fun.”

“Are you okay?”

“Sure! Cherie had asked me to get together anyway, so . . .”

When I hung up, Sloane crumpled her empty plastic bowl and tossed it in the trash
can. “Talk about being trapped in an unhealthy marriage.”

“Unhealthy, really? They’re a team.”

“Trust me. It’s all a farce.”

“How so?”

She tossed the bowl into the garbage can. “It. Just. Is.”

I looked at Giovanni. “You’re going to like them.” He smiled quickly and then focused
on smoothing back Bandito’s ears.

“You done, Paige?” Sloane’s voice was a little icy.

“Just a minute.” I concentrated on finishing my gelato, and for a minute, the only
sound was my spoon scratching against the bottom of my paper cup.

When I looked up, Sloane was smiling; the ice had melted. “Let’s keep moving.” She
took out her phone and started scrolling through it.

We stepped onto the street, and Giovanni removed Bandito from the bag with one hand.
Immediately, he squatted from the effects of the gelato.

“Bandito thought the ice cream was yummy,” sang Sloane distractedly, still absorbed
by her phone.

“But it didn’t sit right in his tummy,” Giovanni added, also singing.

They both waited expectantly—for me, I guessed—until Sloane shrugged and grabbed the
reins again. “And in the end, things got pretty runny.”

“Ten points for the pun, babe—in the end. Nice one,” said Giovanni. To me, he said,
“Join in, please. Just so we feel less moronic.”

I changed the subject as we started walking slowly east. “What time are you guys leaving
tomorrow?”

“Whenever,” said Sloane. “Are you working?”

“I have a long weekend. No clients.” I felt a surprising but unmistakable sharp pang
of emptiness in my chest.

“Come with us!” Giovanni bounced up and down right there on the sidewalk.

“Sure,” I said.

While Sloane didn’t jump for joy, neither did she shudder the way she had when my
mom called.

I tried not to sound as enthusiastic as I felt. “I could give you guys a ride out
there.”

“Whatever you want.” Giovanni, who had lapsed back into his accent, was hamming it
up with expressive hands. “You drive us, you take the train, we walk. The transport
is meaningless. It’s being together, the journey, that’s”—he kissed the tips of his
fingers—
“bellissimo
!
”

Sloane and I ignored his performance. I was picturing it: the three of us riding out
to the beach in my car, chased by the golden light as we listened to road-trip music.
I could finally swing in that hammock, nap in the shade. “I do want to see the house.
Maybe just for an overnight, if Dave doesn’t feel too abandoned.”

Sloane’s expression shifted from her default sneer to something more opaque, but I
could still read her thought bubble:
Who gives a crap what Dave thinks
?

“Where are we going?” We’d been ambling east for several blocks, and Sloane, who had
stopped and pulled out her phone, was looking at the map.

She pocketed her phone. “How about the one in Tompkins Square Park?”

“Fine with me,” said Giovanni. “Has Paige seen that one?”

“I haven’t seen any of them.”

“It’s a good starter for you,” said Sloane. “It’s called
Lentoptical
. It’s not supposed to be disturbing at all.”