Two Sisters: A Novel (24 page)

Without looking up, Logan replied, “Not sure.”

Like his father, Logan prized silence. Words, they both believed, were best served as appetizers, never a main course. The truth was, Muriel barely knew either one of them. By the time she came along, Logan and Owen lived in a muted testosterone world, with Lidia and Pia chattering around them. Circling bodies in the asteroid belt. Collisions occurred, though infrequently. Muriel—a product of one such celestial accident—rotated in her own orbit, tumbling through her family in a slapdash sort of way.

After Muriel saw her mother kiss Father Camilo she felt confused and scared and sorry for her dad. Then it faded away because during those years Owen didn’t seem as if he felt anything at all.

On that do-nothing day, Muriel pressed her nose against the jamb of the swinging dining room door, peering through the crack, watching a flushed Lidia dart around the entryway stuffing things into her purse. Keys jangled and tissues flashed white. In the wall mirror, she flattened her eyelids to check her shadow, rubbed her index finger over her front teeth. Just because Muriel didn’t go into the city with her anymore didn’t mean Lidia didn’t go on her own. She probably drove her car over the bridge and skipped Times Square altogether now that she didn’t have to drop her daughter off at a show. Maybe she met Father Camilo in a dim downtown alley that smelled like wet dirt and beer. Smoking a cigarette, he would be waiting in the shade of a Dumpster. Or they flat out met in a hotel and immediately hung the
DO NOT DISRURB
sign on the doorknob. Together, they would end each visit by crafting an alibi.

“MoMA’s new exhibit is so fabulous I could have stayed all night.”

Lidia often picked a fight with her husband on Saturday mornings. Not every Saturday, just the days when she’d stomp upstairs afterward and change into a flowing dress and spray her hair all stiff and puffy at the top and carefully apply eyeliner and leave the house in a huff.

“Just because you make me
live
in Queens, Owen, doesn’t mean I have to spend my life here. I’m not in prison; it only
feels
like it!”

Even as a twelve-year-old, Muriel saw right through her. Owen merely looked away.

Honestly, Muriel wondered why her mother said anything at all. It didn’t appear as though Owen cared. His lips were usually pressed into a horizontal line. His eyes looked out of focus. He, too, had begun disappearing on Saturdays. Sometimes Sundays, too. Work, he said. A cooling project using solar power, he said.

“But isn’t the sun super
hot
?” Muriel had asked him. Slightly curving his lips, Owen pinched his daughter’s chin on his way out the back door.

Grown-ups, Muriel had come to believe, were two faced. They insisted their kids tell the truth when they themselves rarely did. More often, they said the
opposite
of what they really meant.

“That’s a lovely thing to say,” Muriel once overheard her mother growl at her father.

“I tell you what you want to hear.”

“What I
want
is to hear what’s really on your mind.”

“You’re truly interested?”

“Of course I am. You’re my husband.”

Owen sucked in a deep breath. “Okay, then. At the moment, I’m mulling over a possible
vertical
loop of geothermal circulation. I’ve been developing one at work. It’s for a new plant that manufactures candles and other wax-based products. As you might imagine, they have particular challenges with calefaction. That’s
heating,
of course.” He stopped. “You sure you’re interested in this?”

Lidia said, “
That’s
been on your mind?”

“Well, not every minute. I’ve also been considering the base blueprint. If a beta test holds up, we could produce a viable prototype by the next ICMSE convention.”

From her hidden perch on the stairs, Muriel could see her mother’s lips stiffen into a twig. Her eyes stared so far into nothingness she appeared blind. When Owen paused to take a breath, she leaped in with, “Fascinating!” then felt for dried spit at the outer edges of her mouth.

Weddings vows should be changed from “I do” to “I’ll
say
I will but I won’t.” That’s what was on Muriel’s mind.

On that warm Saturday Muriel watched through the crack in the door as Lidia readied herself to leave the house. Pia leaned against the foyer wall and stared at her mother through sexily overgrown bangs. She retracted her foot just enough to let her mother pass. Lidia curved around her sulking daughter’s slouch with the slightest sway of her hip. Together, as always, they moved as fluidly as seahorses in the ocean.

“God, Mama, what am I supposed to do with her all day?”

“Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain, Pia. How many times have I told you that?”

“Too many,” Pia said, petulantly, shifting her weight to the other foot. Lidia shot her a reprimanding look before adding, “It’s too hot to play outside.”

“What, I’m supposed to stay
in
with her?”

A ravishing twenty-year-old still living at home, Pia would rather be anywhere but in Middle Village, Queens, with a twelve-year-old gnat named Muriel. Barefoot, Muriel watched through the crack in the door. She felt the grit of the hardwood floor on the soles of her feet. Her shorts pinched at the waist. The tank top she wore felt snug. Babcia Jula called her soft flesh “baby fat” even as Lidia and Pia rolled their eyes. Could you still be called a “baby” if you were very nearly a teen? Certainly not if you were such a grown-up secret keeper. With her sliver of sight, Muriel coveted her sister’s long, straight legs. Even with one crossed over the other, Pia’s cargo shorts didn’t bunch up in the crotch. Her wispy haircut—striped with white blond highlights—framed her tanned face. The hot pink polo shirt and matching Crocs were so stylish she could step right into
Seventeen
magazine. Merely looking at Pia made Muriel feel like a slug.

“This once,” said Lidia, “let Muriel play dress-up with my clothes.”

Pia moaned as Muriel’s heart lurched. Had she heard correctly? Dress up in her mother’s clothes? Though she was too old to officially play dress-up, pretending to be someone else was Muriel’s favorite thing to do. Especially in her mother’s sparkly dresses. On the rare occasions when she was home alone, she would sneak into Lidia’s forbidden wonderland. Long and narrow, Lidia’s closet was organized by color and style. Probing its depths was like entering a kaleidoscope—so many exciting combinations, all hung on padded pink hangers. Each dress in the formal section was shrouded in its own garment bag with a peekaboo plasticine window. Ever so silently Muriel would slide the zipper down, lift the heavy dress off its padded perch, step into it, then prance about her mother’s bedroom as if onstage—where life was lit to blur flaws and music rose joyfully out of the ground and goodness always, always won in the end.

In the entryway, as Lidia rushed to leave, Pia whined, “Why me?”

“She’s your sister. Let her have a little fun. You can watch a DVD in my room. I bought
Legally Blonde
for you. Reese Witherspoon is supposed to be darling. Only don’t let Muriel eat a
thing
while she’s wearing my clothes. And make sure she puts everything back exactly where she found it. I don’t want to find reds mixed in with blacks and whites. Understand?”

“When will you be home?”

Lidia dug for something at the bottom of her purse. “Hopefully before your father gets home.”

“Do I
have
to?” Pia whined.

“Yes. You have to. Watch the movie. I left it in front of the TV.”

If Pia had had her way, they never would have spent that afternoon together in the first place. Pia would have called a friend or a boy and met at the mall or taken the train into the city. Muriel would have sprawled on her bed, reading. Or sneaked into her mother’s closet on her own. Really, she couldn’t possibly blame her sister for what happened that day. Not when Pia never wanted to be anywhere near her from the start.

“Do this for me.” That’s what Lidia had said.

It wasn’t your fault.

Leaving only the faintest scent of perfume behind, Lidia scurried out the front door. Muriel waited for her mother to yell, “Good-bye, Muriel!” but she said not a word, as if they’d never taken the train beneath the East River on matinee Saturdays, never smelled the dank air together, never read graffiti tags or dashed through Times Square holding hands, never watched love unfold upon a stage. As if Lidia had never needed Muriel at all.

“I’m trying on the beaded dresses first.” Muriel pushed through the swinging door.

“God, Muriel,” Pia sneered. “You’re such a spy.”

“Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain.”

Pia shot her little sister a disdainful look. Had Muriel not witnessed the dress-up offer, she was quite sure Pia never would have honored it. Even in college she acted like she was the most popular girl in high school. God.

With her bare feet slapping the hardwood, Muriel skipped up the stairs into her mother’s bedroom. The air conditioner was running full blast. The room smelled like freezer frost. Lidia’s blue satin bedspread was like Lidia herself: icy, smooth, perfect. On top of her dresser was an oval mirrored tray, its gold-filigreed edge containing twinkling bottles of amber-colored perfume. Standing sentry in the corner was a wooden valet where Owen neatly hung his jacket every night and deposited his coins. It was the only visible evidence that he shared that bedroom at all.

Skulking in behind her, Pia plopped on her mother’s bed, caring not one bit if she dented the satin. She chose a magazine from the stack on Lidia’s bedside table and lazily flipped through it. Dashing into the magical closet Muriel chirped, “Remember that dress with the shiny beads that Mom wore to that Christmas party? Remember?”

Pia, being Pia, didn’t answer. Not that Muriel expected her to.

Inside Lidia’s closet, Muriel inhaled her mother. She closed her eyes and breathed in every exciting place Lidia had been. Manhattan, mostly, though Italy once when her parents went on a vacation that took them away for an entire week. Pressing her face into the row of hanging fabric, she grabbed as many clothes as she could, hugging them to her body. Her heart felt full. Muriel knew what Pia didn’t know.
This
was her mother’s way of apologizing. Lidia regretted all those times she’d left her alone in a theater. She was sorry to end their special Saturdays. She trusted her youngest child never to tell a soul what she’d seen. And Muriel would never let her mother down. She would pray that Lidia’s sin would be forgiven. Though she didn’t fully understand what she’d seen that day, Lidia’s reaction let her know that God would be upset. If not, why not continue matinee Saturdays as they were?

Unhurriedly, Muriel ventured into the depths of her mother’s closet. She ran her right hand lightly along the sleeves. Some clothes were soft, some woolly, some stiff with topstitching. “I forgive you, Mama,” she whispered. “And God will forgive you, too.”

Muriel knew exactly which dress she was looking for. From Lidia’s bedroom, she heard Pia turn on the TV.

One day when I’m grown up
, Muriel imagined,
I will have a row of fancy dresses.
Matching shoes and handbags, as well. In her mind she could picture holding her hair up with both hands as her husband zipped up the back. He would nuzzle her neck the way she’d seen so many times onstage. “That’s
my
wife,” he’d say to everyone who admired her. Muriel’s heart thrummed with the very notion of belonging to someone. She’s mine. I’m his. We’re
one
.

Eyes alight, Muriel found what she was looking for. She hoisted the heavy bag off its hanger and set it flat on the floor. No need to sneak today. On her knees next to the garment bag she lowered the zipper, careful not to snag any of the beads. Lovingly, she ran one hand down the front of the dress. Black satin, with spiky clear beads that dangled like icicles. Letting her eyes fall closed, she remembered the night her mother first wore it.

“How do I look?” Lidia had asked, twirling at the foot of the stairs.

“Stunning,” Pia said, honestly.

Clasping both hands over her heart, Muriel had gasped, “Oh, Mama, you look like a movie star.” Logan had nodded in his silent way, while Owen, in a black suit with a stiff bow tie had said, “Lovely.” Then he went outside to warm up the car.

Even then, Muriel vowed that when she grew up and wore a dress like that her husband would be unable to turn away.

The bespangled dress made a noise like pennies in a change purse when Muriel lifted it out of the garment bag. Unzipping the back, she lowered the dress to the ground so she could step into it. She pulled the straps up over her tank top and shorts, felt the fringe at the bottom tickle her shins. It was heavy, like a shimmering suit of armor. Inside that dress, Muriel felt completely protected. Like a princess in her very own tower.

“Pia,” she called out, “zip me up?”

Posing in the full-length mirror at the far end of the closet, Muriel turned this way and that. Then she scanned the Polaroid photos attached to the boxes overhead to find a suitable pair of shoes. Music floated in from the TV.

“Pia.”

No answer.

“Pia!”

“What?”

“I can’t reach the shoe box.”

“So what.”

“Give me a boost.”

As always, Pia took her own sweet time. While she waited, Muriel held the shoulder straps in place. She imagined how she would look when she was old enough to highlight her hair.

“Pi-
a
!”

Suddenly, Pia stood in the doorway of the closet, smirking, holding a book in her hands. “Lookie what I found,” she said in a singsongy way.

“Those.” Muriel pointed up to one of the shoe boxes on the shelf. “And zip me up please?”

“Don’t you want to see what I have in my hand?” Pia asked.

“Mama would let me try on her shoes, too.”

“Are you
sure
you don’t want to see it?”

An impatient Muriel said, “Pia. Zip me up.”