The Pretty One: A Novel About Sisters (2 page)

Olympia also dreaded the inevitable day when Lola would ask who her father was. What would Olympia say?
He was a doctor who moved to remote Bangladesh to aid cholera victims?

Little wonder that she’d begun to fantasize about finding the man behind the number. On one level, she knew it was a terrible idea and that she was better off idealizing a set of disembodied statistics than going through the inevitable heartbreak of locating someone—if it was even possible—who didn’t want to be a father except maybe in the most abstract sense. According to his listed birth date, #6103 was nearly ten years younger than Olympia; in all likelihood, he’d donated for the beer money. But curiosity and longing had proven stronger than reason. And so Olympia had taken to picturing the three of them—herself, Lola, and Lola’s virile young father—engaged in wholesome outdoorsy activities of the kind she imagined he must like (e.g., rowing across an algae-infested lake in New Hampshire). Not that Olympia had ever enjoyed sports or the outdoors, but maybe she could learn to do so.

She’d also taken to imagining #6103, a reluctant father at first,
being won over by Lola’s undeniable adorableness. These visions fixed in her head, Olympia had already started to make inquiries. She’d combed various message boards and donor registries—so far to no avail. But maybe there was another way…

Olympia woke the next morning to find that it was flurrying outside. Considering that she could locate only a single pink polka-dotted mitten, she bundled Lola up as best as she could—and instructed her to keep one hand in her pocket. (“Bad mommy,” Lola told her for the second time in twelve hours.) Then, just as she’d done countless times before, Olympia wheeled her daughter the six blocks necessary to reach the Happy Kids Daycare Center, where she turned her over to two sexpots from Brighton Beach who appeared to be barely out of high school; wore low-cut glittery tops and sweatpants with words like “Player” and “Foxy” spelled out in script across the ass; and seemed utterly indifferent to children. Then again, Happy Kids charged only ten bucks per hour, which made Olympia a Happy Grown-up.

After dropping off Lola, Olympia caught the 4 train to the Upper East Side. Exiting the 86th Street station, she walked east to the modern town house that contained the museum. The director and chief curator was Viveka Pichler, a barely thirty possible android with a Cleopatra haircut who wore four-inch-high gladiator sandals all seasons of the year. Viveka had never been seen eating anything except eel sushi. She was also legally blind, a point of fact that, for obvious reasons, she kept a secret. Rumor had it that the money for Kunsthaus New York had been provided by Viveka’s father, who’d made his fortune inventing a high-performance tire rubber for Formula One
racing cars and other speed machines. Three years earlier, despite limited familiarity with the region and only rudimentary knowledge of the native language, Olympia had been delighted to accept a job at the museum.
How bad could it be?
she’d thought. Maybe she’d even score free airfare to Europe. And weren’t Gustav Klimt and his protégé, Egon Schiele, two of her favorite painters? What’s more, she’d left her previous position to spend time with Lola, then an infant. And her checking account had been hovering dangerously close to zero.

The museum’s curatorial offices were to the right of the galleries. Viveka worked in one of them. The other three employees—Olympia and Viveka’s assistants, two unsmiling twenty-something Austrians named Annmarie and Maximilian—worked in the other. The walls, chairs, desks, and computers were all white. For any measure of privacy, one had to leave the museum entirely or barricade oneself in the bathroom or supply closet, which, naturally, was filled with white paper clips and white pencils.

Later that morning, unable to forestall her curiosity until lunchtime, Olympia found herself crouched in the closet and calling the Cryobank of Park Avenue in search of Dawn Calico (now Cronin), her old high school classmate turned head nurse.

Four-plus years earlier, Olympia had been prostrate and in stirrups—and about to be inseminated—when she’d discovered the connection. “Wait, don’t tell me you’re
the
Pia Hellinger I used to know at Hastings High?!” Dawn had crowed excitedly from between Olympia’s legs.

Olympia had wanted to disappear under the examining table. How soon before her entire high school graduating class knew it had come to this? “That’s me,” she’d said in a tiny voice.

“So, if you don’t mind me asking,” Dawn had gone on as she
parted Olympia’s thighs and inserted a catheter. “How does ‘Miss Most Likely to Become a French Movie Star’ end up in need of sperm?”

“I wasn’t ‘Most Likely to Become a French Movie Star,’ ” Olympia had protested meekly. “I was ‘Most Likely to Live in France.’ ” A founding member of the high school improv troupe, Dawn herself had been voted “Most Likely to Have Her Own TV Talk Show by Age Twenty-five.” Though, if Olympia had had any say in the matter, Dawn’s crowning superlative would have been “Most Annoying Person in All of Westchester County.”

“All I know is that Brad Gadzak was hot for you,” Dawn had continued. “And he was the hottest guy in high school.”

“Brad Gadzak. Wow. I haven’t thought about him in years. Do you know what happened to him?” asked Olympia, flinching on all fronts.

“Last I heard, he was an Outward Bound instructor in Alaska with a harem of Inuit supermodels. Anyway, that’s it!” She withdrew the catheter.

“Great!” Olympia had said, while fighting the urge to flee to the frozen north herself.

“Does Dawn still work here?” she now asked the receptionist, her back pressed to the supply closet door.

Within seconds, Dawn came on the line, and said, “Hello?”

“It’s Pia… Hellinger!” she said, trying to sound upbeat.

“Hey, Baby Mama,” said Dawn. “How the heck are you?”

“We’re all great. How are you and your brood?”

“Haven’t pulled an Andrea Yates yet.”

“Well, that’s good.” Olympia laughed lightly as she ran through the accumulated tabloid stories in her head and tried to recall to which one Andrea Yates owed her notoriety. Was she the woman who drove off a bridge with her kids? Or
was that Susan Something? “So listen,” she began again in a faux-casual voice. “I’m sure you don’t remember this, but I used six-one-oh-three.”

“Ah, the ever-popular six-one-oh-three.” Dawn sighed, alarming Olympia. Exactly how many of his “motivated, thoughtful” progeny were toddling around Brownstone Brooklyn and the Upper West Side?

“Right, him,” said Olympia. “Anyway, this is kind of embarrassing, but I’ve sort of been obsessing about the guy. And I was wondering if there was anything you could tell me about him that isn’t on the profile, even if it’s just a first name.” She held her breath.

“Listen, sweets: nothing would make me happier than dishing dirt,” said Dawn. “But I can’t. Bank policy.”

“I totally understand,” said Olympia, already wishing she’d never asked.

Before she hung up, Dawn made Olympia promise to stop by “the bank” some time with Lola to say hello.

Olympia would rather have run naked through Times Square.

Exiting the supply room, she was further distressed to find Viveka standing there, hands on her nonexistent hips. Had she overheard Olympia’s conversation? “We promote the fine art of Austria here,” was all she said before stomping away in her gladiators.

“Too bad you can’t see it,” Olympia muttered to herself on her way back to her desk.

And then, two weeks later, the Inevitable Day arrived. It happened to be January 1. Olympia was getting herself and Lola
ready for the Hellinger family’s annual New Year’s Day brunch. (Olympia looked forward to and dreaded the event in equal parts. She fitted Lola’s arms into her favorite pink polyester-velour jumper dress with the rubberized heart decal. Lola’s closet was filled with beautiful European fashions by Jacadi, Catimini, and Bon Nuit, most of them purchased secondhand on eBay. But the child’s most cherished dresses were from Target and the Disney store. Olympia was wearing skintight dark-wash cigarette jeans, a black wool turtleneck, gray suede booties, a short fake-fur jacket, and oversized square sunglasses. Which is to say that she still cared about keeping up appearances in front of her two sisters—namely, the appearance that she led such a busy and sophisticated existence that she lacked both the time and energy to care what they thought of her, even though, in truth, she obsessed about them constantly. “Mommy, who’s my daddy?” Lola asked.

“You don’t have a daddy, cookie,” Olympia replied in the most lighthearted voice she could summon.

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because not everyone has a mommy and a daddy. Some kids have just a mommy. A few have just a daddy… There, you’re all zipped!” How could she lie? If she made up someone, Olympia had decided, Lola would just ask to meet him. In preparation for this moment, Olympia had bought her daughter picture books about “modern families.” But the child seemed completely uninterested. Apart from
Madeline,
her favorite titles were
Olivia
and
The Story of Babar,
both of which featured mommies
and
daddies, all of the four-legged variety, but still.

“And a few kids just have gymnastics teachers,” Lola said.

Olympia had no clue what her daughter was talking about. But not wanting to disappoint any more of her expectations, she
said, “That’s right. A few just have gymnastics teachers.” Then she lifted up Lola’s dress and yanked her bunching turtleneck down over her Tiana underpants. Tiana was Lola’s favorite Disney Princess, a fact that Olympia advertised widely, believing it reflected well on her own parenting since Tiana was the only African American in the stable.

Seemingly unfazed, Lola soon moved on to a new line of questioning: “Mommy, what day comes after Friday, again?”

But the earlier inquiry haunted Olympia the whole way from Brooklyn to Larchmont. That was where Olympia’s sister, Perri, almost forty, lived with her husband, Mike, forty-one, and their three
naturally
conceived children: Aiden, nine; Sadie, six; and Noah, just two.

To pass the time it took to get there, Olympia suggested that Lola try to count the number of people in their Metro-North car. “One… twoooo… threeeee,” the child began in a high-pitched cheep, standing up in her seat as she pointed at the various domes in her line of vision. “Foooour… fiiiive… six… seven… eight… nine… ten… eleven… twelve… thirteen… fifteen… sixteen.”

Olympia sighed and tutted with undisguised frustration. “After thirteen comes
fourteen. Then
fifteen.” How many times did she have to go over it? She knew you weren’t supposed to judge children at this age. And yet Lola’s inability to count to twenty had left Olympia secretly dubious about the child’s intelligence, and, by association, the mental faculties of #6103. What if he’d lied about his Ivy League degree and was actually a high school dropout who worked in a supermarket parking lot, corralling shopping carts? Or maybe he didn’t even have a job, not
on account of the recession but because he’d never even tried to get one, preferring to spend his days on street corners making lewd remarks at passing women—when he wasn’t busy relieving himself at sperm banks. Or maybe it was all the infant formula that Olympia had fed Lola when she was a newborn. Olympia had managed to breastfeed for only four weeks, and even then she’d supplemented. No doubt that was ten points erased from Lola’s IQ right there. Olympia fretted, then scolded herself for obsessing.

Mount Vernon East was the next stop, followed by Pelham and New Rochelle. Finally, the train pulled into lily-white Larchmont. The doors slid open. Olympia grabbed Lola’s hand, and the two stepped down and out. BMW’s 5 Series ruled the station parking lot. Olympia flagged an idling taxi. Five minutes later, she and Lola were turning up North Chatsworth Avenue, past a fake stone well, into a woodsy development with big old homes. Perri and Mike’s circa-1930 “stockbroker Tudor,” as they were locally known, sat up high on a hillock. Pristine snow blanketed the sloping front lawn. A silver late-model Lexus SUV was parked at the end of a neatly shoveled, S-shaped driveway. Another well-defined path led to an oak front door with miniature yellow square windows and a giant brass knocker. “Here we are,” chimed Olympia in as enthusiastic a voice as she could muster.

“I want to ring the bell,” said Lola.

“Hold on,” said Olympia, lifting her into the air.

With difficulty, Lola pressed her tiny thumb into the opalescent button.

Moments later, Perri appeared in the doorway. “Well, look who’s
shockingly
on time!” she declared.

“Happy New Year to you, too,” said Olympia, leaning in to greet her big sister.

“Same to you, Anna Wintour,” said Perri, returning the air kiss.

“Try to be nice,” said Olympia, sighing as she lifted her sunglasses to the top of her head. Did her sister ever stop?

“It might kill me,” conceded Perri as she closed the door behind them.

“Try anyway,” said Olympia.

“And how’s my favorite niece?” asked Perri, squatting to embrace Lola. “You know, your aunt Perri has missed you.”

Lola dutifully clutched Perri around the knees before she announced, “I want apple juice.”

“Lola, say ‘please’ before you ask for something,” said Olympia.

“Please I want apple juice,” said Lola.

“I’m sorry, sweetie,” said Perri, making a clown face. “We don’t keep juice in the house for kids.” She glanced up and over at Olympia. “You know, juice is terrible for their teeth.”

“She doesn’t drink very much of it,” said Olympia, irked again. “Besides, it’s mostly bourbon for this girl.” She patted Lola’s head.

“Excuse me!” said Perri, eyes bugging.

“That was a joke.”

“Oh. Funny!” Perri flashed an exaggeratedly bright smile as she stood up.

While Olympia removed her jacket, she glanced around her. To the left of the entrance, a silver-framed botanical print hung over a mahogany console topped with an alabaster lamp fitted with a silk shade. She thought of the many guided tours
through the Great Homes of the Hudson Valley to which their mother had subjected them while they were growing up.
The writing desk to the left is a Chippendale original, purchased by Josiah Archibald Stanhope III, Franklin Roosevelt’s great-uncle once removed, in
1761. Olympia still remembered getting chewed out by a guard for trying to swing on a velvet rope…