The Never Never Sisters (8 page)

One day, though, I thought I heard the door opening and glanced at the bunny. Instead,
there was a duck, his long ears transformed into a beak. I looked again and found
the bunny. I was tickled and continued to challenge myself, to see how quickly I could
trick my brain into thinking it was a bunny. Then a duck. Then a bunny again.

I stared at the old-lady sketch next. Her hooded eye could be an ear, her hooked nose
became an elegant jawline—and suddenly before my eyes, she was young and dressed to
kill. Now I felt left out, as though I’d missed something very crucial.

The second I perched on his mustard-colored couch, I told Dr. Pressman what I’d finally
noticed. Then I prodded him. “So. Which one is it?”

“Which one is what?” Like some first-draft Lewis Carroll character, Pressman answered
every question with a question.

“Which is the real one—the duck or the bunny?”

“What does that mean—the
real
one?”

“I don’t know. I guess which is the main one, the one the artist sat down to do first?”

“Hmm. Paige.” He pressed his index fingers together and stuck them directly up to—but
not in—his nostrils, unfortunately a gesture he used many times during a session.
“Why do you want to know?”

Pressman had been a horrible therapist, at least for me at twelve. I wish I’d answered
his questions with more questions:
I don’t know, Dr. Pressman. Why does anyone want to know anything?
Instead, even though I hadn’t stopped wondering, I dropped the topic.

Under that top notebook was a pile of more of the same brand. I counted them. Nine.
I certainly hadn’t written enough to fill that many, so whose were they? I flipped
through them so quickly the words appeared to be jumping across the page. By the third
notebook, I identified the handwriting as my mom’s, although the loops and curls on
the page were springier than the flatness I was familiar with, as if the spirit of
her script had been eroded over time.

I had barely recalled that my mom had gone to Pressman too, and that there had been
a place and a time that she’d talked about what happened with Sloane. Here was evidence
that she’d had opinions and feelings during those months, some tangible enough to
put into words and deep enough to fill reams of notebooks. It felt like a slap, a
betrayal.

Perhaps that’s why I felt entitled to read them.

I talked about Frankie too much today. Was wondering with Pressman whether it was
possible to heal as a family with Frankie not in the sessions. Pressman shrugged,
told me to write down a memory of him.

“What memory?” I said.

“Any memory,” he said, pressing his finger to his lips the way he does when he wants
me to be thoughtful. “Whatever memory you want. See where it takes you.”

My Memory

I left in a great rush. Summer payday Friday, squeezing into an elevator so full with
people I didn’t even realize
he
was in it until, holding open the door onto Lexington Avenue, I saw the glint of
his glasses, the bob of his head a few people back. He nodded at me, pressing himself
against the door to relieve me from the duty of being a doorstop. I smiled my thanks
and walked down Lexington. I was about to cross Thirty-sixth Street when I sensed
someone standing next to me at the corner. “Where are you headed?”

“Oh, hello, Mr. Reinhardt.” I probably smiled my good-employee smile and maybe batted
my eyes. “Macy’s.” I omitted mention of my plan, which was to buy an expensive lipstick.
“You?”

“Penn Station,” he said, holding up a small bag. “I’m headed to the beach for the
weekend.” He picked up his pace and I kept up with him. This was the longest conversation
we’d had. “Six thirty train.”

“Do you go out there a lot?” Of course he did, I thought. Of course his summer was
full of beach weekends. It was disappointing because I’d always assumed he was lonely,
but in an appealing way that I could remedy.

“My cousins do. On the Sound. I have to go at least one weekend each summer.”

“Have to?”

“They have a seven-year-old and a one-year-old. Have you ever spent the night with
anyone that young?”

I shook my head. “Cute?”

“Horrible. Miserable. Loud.” But we laughed, and it got us past the mental barrier
that he was my boss, and we talked all the way to Thirty-fifth and Broadway until
we heard the sirens. He grabbed my arm, pulling me back from the street corner as
a fire truck raced by, skimming close enough that I wondered what would have happened
had he not been there.

Apparently—who knew?—if you are already a bit soft on a boy, having him save your
life will only fan the flames. So it was then I noticed Frankie’s eyes up close—sparkling,
long-lashed, lovely eyes. (Where have these lashes gone, I wonder? I know where the
hair is going, the waistline, the muscle tone, but the lashes? Do they retreat into
the eyes with age? Sad if so.)

I melted a bit, and then reminded myself we worked together, and I looked away quickly
at a mother pointing down the street to her toddler. “See the fire truck,” she was
saying. “Fire truck.”

“Fuh truh,” said the toddler.

“That’s it! That’s it!” She clapped. “Fire truck!”

“Hope nothing’s happening at Macy’s.” He was joking, but the fire truck was there
when we rounded the corner, parked right in front with its lights still rotating.
There was a crowd gathered at the gilded entrance doors, and Frankie pushed ahead
of me, putting his hand on my shoulder to stop my forward motion. “Let me check what’s
happening.”

“Don’t you have to catch a train, Mr. Reinhardt?” I remember that calling him that
felt like a dissonant chord, oddly formal after our friendly conversation.

He ignored me and pushed through the crowd, and I stayed right behind him, peering
over his shoulder to see the scene. Two firemen were talking to a uniformed security
guard. My first thought was how overheated they must be, all of them in their dark
uniforms, hats trapping sweat and heat. Then I saw the man on the ground, motionless.
The security guard was gesturing and pointing at him, saying something, and one of
the firemen crouched down next to the man, shouting. He stopped, plugged his nose
and waved his hands in front of him dramatically to show how badly the guy stank.
Comic relief. A titter of laughs ran through the crowd as it realized this was not
a
real
emergency.

Frankie, five inches in front of me, turned around. “It’s just some drunk,” he said,
and true, there were customers streaming in and out of the store, some of them looking
down and hurrying away, some of them ignoring completely the small but growing scene
a few feet away. “I guess no need to worry.”

I stepped closer. I had seen the man’s bald spot, the purplish hue of his pate around
the bristly white hair, and when I looked closer, body parts began to click into place
like collected clues: the bearlike slope of the arms, the distended belly, the dirty
shirt. It could be him. He hadn’t been home in several days.

“Any ID?” said one of the firemen, the one who had crouched down, now upright again.
The second fireman reached out idly with his foot and stepped lightly on the drunk’s
shoulder, rocking him back and forth. He didn’t budge.

“Haven’t wanted to get close enough to check.” The security guard waved his hand in
front of his face. “Alls I know, one of the customers complained about a half hour
ago. So we called yous.”

“Miss,” said one of the firemen, “can you step away?”

“But it might be—,” I said. “I might know him.”

They exchanged looks, and as I approached, the smell—fetid, as though a quart of milk
had been poured onto a fire—was overwhelming. The man was facedown, and the fireman
put out his foot again, ready to turn him onto his back by rocking him with his boot,
but the second fireman reached out, stopping him. With great effort, he leaned down
and used his hands to heave the man to the side so his face was visible.

I recognized the face to an extent: swollen, fleshy, broken blood vessels. Open mouth,
cracked teeth. An unfamiliar number of cracked teeth—the two front ones were missing.
And this guy had dark bushy eyebrows and dead blue eyes, staring openly past me until
the fireman thought to close them with his hands. Immediately after which he wiped
his palms on the front of his pants.

It was not my father. It was probably someone else’s father and now, of course, with
the wisdom of years, I realize that it was also someone else’s son, someone else’s
baby, but in that moment, I was sickened with relief at not having to do whatever
came next—the administrative part of things that would no doubt start by explaining
to the firemen, this crowd and Frankie that my father had met his last moments in
front of a crowd of gawkers at Macy’s. Three summers later, after my father had disappeared
for good, I wondered whether the Macy’s scene would have been preferable to the facts
I was ultimately left with: found on Horatio Street by sanitation workers after being
severely beaten.

“No,” I said, backing through the crowd, my desire for that Macy’s lipstick completely
dead. “I don’t know him.” I looked at Frankie, who was watching me with concerned
eyes. “I don’t know him.”

He nodded, silent.

I smiled bright and false. “Have fun at the beach.”

“Hey,” he said. “Hey, you want to do something?”

“Now?”

“Now.”

He took me to the movie
Manhattan
. We went out to eat. We didn’t talk about the drunk in front of Macy’s. We talked
about work and Woody Allen and the food until he looked at his watch and realized
that he was in danger of missing the last train and keeping up his seven-year-old
nephew (now a twenty-nine-year-old accountant, certified after four tries at the exam!),
who always stayed awake until he arrived. He raced outside to a pay phone but not
before hailing a cab and paying the driver for my fare all the way back to Brooklyn.
He patted the roof after closing the door and leaned into the open window. “It’s too
late for the subway.”

There’s no doubt that the moment forged something between us. There was little room
for pretense afterward, and I wonder if that set up me and Frankie unfairly: Have
I been too grateful? Have I found too much meaning in his kindness? The day felt like
I’d shown him everything—I’d been quivering, naked, raw—and he’d stayed.

But I wonder what would’ve happened if I hadn’t kept step with him on that corner.
What if I had hung back and taken my time?

If that moment was what sealed my bond to Frankie, what kind of foundation is that?

Vanessa

I’D ASKED SLOANE
for her number at that first breakfast. Twice, actually. The first time, she didn’t
hear. She was tired. Overwhelmed. Taking in her parents’ luxurious apartment after
a twenty-year hiatus from our lives, she appeared somewhat stunned. She probably thought
we’d made a pact with Satan.

Conversation loosened up during the meal, so I asked for her number again. An entire
wall slammed down in front of her eyes. I could practically hear her internal alarm
screaming:
Perimeter breached! Perimeter breached!

I held my ground. “I just don’t know how we’ll make plans if we can’t get in touch.”
I was proud of myself for not backing away. I’ve understood Sloane since birth—since
her gaze first burned up mine with those dark wise eyes. (They say that newborns are
blind as a litter of puppies, but not Sloane. That kid knew what was up from day one.)
That doesn’t mean I knew the right methods to reach behind her bravado, of course,
but I never doubted that it was there.

Paige, a mite tone-deaf, excused herself in the middle of this fraught moment. Sloane’s
eyes followed her, and she shouted the phone number at me and ordered me not to overuse
it before rushing to the elevator after Paige.

“Scraps,” Frankie muttered, but he’d remembered the last four numbers and I the first
three. Once we got it safely written down, we looked up the area code. (Oregon? When
was she in Oregon?)

“They need to spend more time together,” I said. “We have to help them along.”

“Okay,” Frankie agreed with me, but he was already looking down the hall to where
his suit was, empty and waiting for him. I nodded permission. I felt strong; I’d already
figured out how to proceed.

They were close enough in age that they could be friends, like Cherie’s kids were,
always dating each other’s roommates and hanging out in one big group. Socializing,
telling one another the things they didn’t tell us. A pack.

I waited until Sunday morning before calling Sloane and when I did, a man picked up.
Had she given me a fake number? I had expected hostility but hoped we were beyond
the lies.

“I’m sorry. I’m trying to reach a Sloane Reinhardt,” I said. There was a pause, and
the next thing I knew, her voice was in my ear.

“What.”

“If you’re not doing anything today, I wanted to invite you on a shopping trip. I
mean, you wouldn’t have to actually buy anything if you didn’t want to. You could
buy something, of course—I’d be happy to treat—”

“I have no interest in shopping with you.”

“This was Paige’s idea.” I would work this like the
Parent Trap
—tell Paige how much Sloane wanted to be with her, tell Sloane how much Paige wanted
to be with her . . . and poof! Reservations would melt. “It could be fun.”

Her voice softened, I swear, for a moment. “I can’t.” And then it was flinty again.
“Bye.”

“See you tomorrow, then.” As I hung up, I started worrying about who the man was,
which of course, having borne witness to Sloane’s high school years, I had very good
cause to do.