The Pretty One: A Novel About Sisters (26 page)

Luckily, this time, all Lola asked was: “Mommy, why are you yelling at that man?”

“Because he nearly ran us over, sweetie,” Olympia told her. “And also because, even though Mommy believes global warming is a dire threat, she also thinks that the guys who ride around Brooklyn acting as if they’re in the Tour de France just because their carbon emissions are lower than mine are really annoying.”

When Olympia arrived at work, later that morning, she encountered a monastic level of quiet. Annmarie and Maximilian failed even to greet her with a
Guten Morgen,
as they usually did. Instead, they kept their eyes on their screens. The door to Viveka’s office was closed. After twenty minutes, Olympia couldn’t take it anymore, and muttered, “Jesus—it’s like a funeral home in here.” Still, Annmarie and Maximilian didn’t answer. Clearly something was amiss. “Also, is there a reason no one’s talking to me?” Olympia asked.

Annmarie looked at Maximilian. Maximilian looked at Annmarie. Finally, Maximilian spoke: “Viveka said you were to retrieve your belongings and exit the building immediately.”

“Right,” she said. So that was it. Humiliated and relieved in equal parts, Olympia began to empty the contents of her desk. The only question left was whether she should say
Auf Wiedersehen,
or screw you—or some combination of the two—to her boss. Her bag packed, Olympia decided to knock on Viveka’s office door. Receiving no answer, she turned the knob anyway. She found Viveka leaned over a birth control wheel with a giant magnifying glass. For a split second, Olympia actually felt sorry for her.

“Have you not heard of knocking?!” Viveka screeched as
she snatched the disk off her desktop and slipped it into the pocket of her parachute pants.

“I did knock.”

“And I did not answer. Which means you were not welcome to enter.”

“I just wanted to say good-bye,” Olympia told her.

“My family fires you,” said Viveka.

“You can’t fire me because I’m already leaving,” Olympia pointed out.

“Well, you will not be receiving a recommendation from me,” said Viveka.

“If you don’t give me a recommendation, I’m going to tell everyone in the art world that you’re blind.” Olympia couldn’t believe her gall. Was she blackmailing the woman? And if so, was that okay?

Viveka narrowed her eyes at her. “Good luck finding your sperm donor.”

Olympia winced before she regained her composure. “Good luck finding Tuesday’s pill,” she said. “And good luck promoting crappy, misogynist art. Oh, and for the record, Eberhard Fuchs called me a
dreckige Hure.
Which is why I freaked out on him.”

“Do you not have a bastard child?”

“You’re a terrible person.”

“Eberhard is a visionary. Please close the door behind you.”

“There’s just one thing.”

“What?”

“You have two different gladiator sandals on. I thought you might want to know.”

Viveka looked down at her feet, then back up at Olympia, her face contorted. “EXIT THE PREMISES!!” she cried.

After she left Viveka’s office, Olympia said farewell to Maximilian and Annmarie.

“Good-bye,” they muttered in unison.

“I just have one question before I leave,” Olympia said, pausing at the front door. “How come you guys never smile?”

“What do you mean by smile?” asked Maximilian, stony-faced.

“Never mind,” said Olympia. She shut the door behind her and exhaled.

The unemployment rate was close to ten percent. In two weeks’ time, she’d have no source of income. Plus, she had a daughter to support. But she had enough savings to make ends meet for three months at least, and she could always apply for unemployment benefits. Maybe she’d finally be able to devote herself to her watercolors. But first, she was going to treat herself to a café au lait at her favorite Eurotrash bistro on Madison Ave. She’d read the newspaper and catch up on what was going on in the world. The truth was that she was tired of thinking about herself, tired of thinking about the Hellinger family too. She needed a week off. She’d be seeing her sisters again on Sunday, anyway.

19

G
US FELT ALMOST AS
anxiety-ridden about what to wear to the Sisters’ Summit as she had been when selecting an outfit for her rendezvous with Jeff. Today’s choice had come down to: her court outfit (i.e., a men’s suit) or one of her new “girlier” ensembles, if only so her sisters would find her easier to relate to. Right now, they were treating
her,
not Jennifer Yu, as if she were the interloper fourth sister. Multiple messages to both Perri and Olympia had gone unreturned. Meanwhile, Gus was no longer speaking to Jeff, ostensibly for the crime of having told Mike exactly what she’d asked him not to, but also because she’d suddenly become repelled by the very idea of him. The one time they’d spoken since Gus had chewed him out, Jeff had claimed to be suffering without her. Though Gus had read between the lines that he’d already started flirting with a SoHo housewife whom he’d met at the tennis bubble. And so, while she felt sorry for him, she didn’t feel all that sorry. Clearly, he was obsessed with her only because she’d dumped him.

Figuring that it was in her best interest to remind her sisters
of her “old self,” Gus settled on black jeans, a striped boatneck jersey with a shredded bottom, and a black suit jacket. She was already in her car when she glanced at the radio and realized that she was running ahead of schedule. In need of a time killer, she detoured south to Fairway. Gus had never cared much for cooking, but she enjoyed strolling down the produce aisles of upscale supermarkets, examining the brightly hued pyramid-shaped pilings.

She liked to examine the customers, as well. She was feeling up a Georgia peach when she became aware of a man standing next to her with a strong nose, a sculpted chin, lightly freckled cheeks, and golden brown eyes. His light brown hair had an auburn tint. He was wearing a canvas jacket, blue jeans, and tennis shoes. Objectively speaking, he was cute, if in a slightly weather-beaten way. Not that Gus was interested! She’d had enough of men for the moment and possibly forever. But something kept her gaze fixed. He must have seen her looking. “Hard as a rock,” he muttered while attempting to gain traction in a peach of his own. Was he flirting with her?

“Yeah, these things are tough,” said Gus. Even worse, did he think she was flirting with him?! She cleared her throat. “I know this sounds like a line, but you look so familiar.”

“Oh,” he said, seeming amused as he lifted his eyebrows. “Well, I’m Patrick.” He stuck out his free hand.

“Gus,” she said, meeting his, while her mind thought: Patrick?
The
Patrick?! Was
that
why he looked so familiar? “Wait, do you know my sister Olympia?” she asked, squinty-eyed.

An emotion that resembled anxiety crossed with wistfulness and softened by time came over his slim face. He parted his lips, then pressed them together again. “Olympia Hellinger?”

“That’s the one.”

“I know her well,” he said, nodding. Having placed his peach back in its pyramid, he’d taken to pulling at his ring finger, on which—Gus couldn’t help but notice—there was no ring. Which also seemed strange. Wasn’t the whole tragedy of Olympia’s love for Patrick Barrett that he was married to a woman he couldn’t abandon because she’d bungee jumped off a volcano, or something? “We go a ways back, actually.”

“I
know,
” Gus said pointedly. So he would know that she knew. Patrick pursed his lips and looked even more uncomfortable. “Hey, I’m not here to judge,” she went on.

“Thanks,” he said, half smiling. In doing so, dimples formed in his cheeks, and his eyes sloped down as if to meet them. The expression was uncannily like Lola’s. Or was Gus’s mind playing tricks on her? Her heart raced with excitement and fear at the thought of exposing a closely guarded secret. “Well, please send her my best,” Patrick continued.

“I will,” said Gus. “You know—she has a kid.”

“Right,” he said vaguely. “I heard something about that.”

“She’s turning four next month. Her name is Lola.” Gus paused. “Do you want to see a picture?”

Patrick looked shell-shocked at the request. “Sure,” he said. Not that he had a choice. Gus had already whipped out her phone and was scrolling through her digital album. She stopped at her favorite shot of her niece, grinning in a pink party dress with a heart decal, and stuck it in Patrick’s face.

“Sweet,” he said. Then, “A redhead, no less.”

“I wonder how she got that,” Gus shot back.

“What do you mean?” asked Patrick, his face scrunched up.

Gus didn’t answer, lifted one eyebrow.

“I’m honestly not following,” said Patrick.

Gus shot him another pointed look and left it at that. How
could he not suspect what she did? “Anyway, sorry to bother you,” she said. “Go ahead with your shopping.” But no sooner had she given Patrick permission to flee than she had second thoughts. What if she never saw the guy again? Moreover, her middle sister was still barely speaking to her. What did it matter now if Olympia got even angrier? For that matter, what if Gus’s meddling were to bring love into the life of her romantically challenged sister, who would be eternally grateful for said meddling and resume speaking to Gus as if she were a human being, not a piece of dung? It had taken the events of the past few weeks for Gus to realize how much her sisters mattered to her and how dependent she was on their alternately comforting and critical presences. “I was just wondering,” she added. “Do you have an email address I could use if I wanted to get in touch for any reason?”

Patrick visibly recoiled, as if she’d just announced her intention to become his stalker. “Um, sure,” he said cringingly. Who could blame him? Patrick rattled off the address.

“Great!” said Gus, making a mental note of the address. “I mean, thanks. Oh, and it was nice running into you.”

“Same here.” He scurried away. Gus grabbed two unripe peaches, tossed them into her cart, silently repeated Patrick’s email address to herself, and pushed away, toward the cheese section…

He had to be Lola’s father,
she was thinking as she examined a hunk of fresh mozzarella. The only question was whether her sister realized this, or not. Carol had recently broken the bizarre news that Lola was a sperm donor baby. But Gus suspected that the “revelation” was just another of Olympia’s elaborate ruses, designed to throw off those who dared to seek the truth.

The Hellinger sisters had finally decided to conduct their summit in Hastings because it seemed like the most neutral of all potential locations. The only problem was, of course, the presence of Carol and Bob, who were still barely speaking to one another. But at Perri’s request, Carol had begrudgingly agreed to sit next to her husband for the duration of a community performance of
Death of a Salesman.
(She considered Arthur Miller to be the only twentieth-century playwright who came close to achieving Sophocles’s grasp of catharsis and remorse.) It was Perri who opened the door to Gus that afternoon. “You’re late,” she said in a voice as cold as the instant ice packs she kept in her freezer by the dozen.

Gus glanced at her watch. “It’s only two minutes after one.”

“Well, that’s two minutes late,” said Perri.

“That’s not actually late, but whatever,” said Gus.

“I guess it depends on your perspective.”

“I guess,” said Gus, noting that her oldest sister’s obsession with promptness was almost as pathological as her middle sister’s inability to arrive on time. In fact, Perri had the maddening habit of showing up early and then asking where everyone was. “Speaking of late,” Gus went on. “What’s Pia’s ETA?”

“Naturally, she sent word of a delay.” Perri made mock air quotes around the word “delay.”

“Well, I might as well make myself a sandwich, then,” said Gus. She followed Perri into the kitchen. “Is there anything to eat in this house that isn’t Ming Dynasty stir-fry?” It was one of the Hellinger sisters’ favorite themes of recent years—i.e., how their parents’ never threw out the Chinese food containers that cluttered the fridge.

“Beats me,” said Perri, refusing to play along.

It was the first time that Gus had seen Perri since Perri had
returned from Florida. Her scoop-neck T-shirt was scooped practically to the waist, while her skirt was so short that her crotch was visible through her underpants when she sat down. Gus was no expert in fashion, but it seemed clear to her that, if her sister was going to wear minis that mini, she needed to wear shorts or tights underneath. Under the circumstances, however, Gus decided to keep her opinion to herself. Instead, she crammed her Fairway groceries in the fridge, then made herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with some questionable Jif.

Perri sat in silence reading
Fortune
magazine. Forty minutes went by.

Finally, Olympia arrived. She was wearing dark sunglasses and clutching a high-end shopping bag. “Sorry I’m late,” she said, removing her glasses and shaking out her luxurious mane like a movie star sitting down to lunch at Nobu. Upon closer viewing, however, she appeared to have some kind of huge zit on her forehead.

“Since I’m not officially speaking to you,” began Perri, “I can’t ask you the question I’m tempted to ask you right now. Which is ‘Why bother apologizing for being late when you’re always late?’ ”

“Great unofficial question,” said Olympia, pouring herself a glass of water.

“And since
you’re
not speaking to
me,
” Gus said to Olympia, “I guess there’s no point in asking you the question I’m dying to ask you, either,” said Gus.

“And what’s that?” said Olympia.

Gus couldn’t help herself. “What’s on your forehead?”

“Could you be any ruder?” asked Olympia.

“Probably not,” conceded Gus.

“It’s a hive.”

“That must be itchy.”

“It is.”

“I have another question, too. Were you serious when you told Mom that Lola’s a sperm-bank baby?”

“I was,” said Olympia, blasé even under fire, it seemed to Gus.