I sigh and pick up the titles one at a time.
Well, Charlotte’s Web is always a good one. I like the drawings. And Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH is pretty cool. I like imagining their little outfits. And Old Yeller always brings the house down …
I’m noticing a theme here, he says.
What? Animals? I look down at the names.
Yes, and, well … Maybe you’d like some of the books upstairs too.
Upstairs?
You know, Virginia Woolf. Oscar Wilde. I bet you’d like Dorothy Parker.
I purse my lips. I’ve heard some of those names, of course. I went to college—for a couple of years—but they don’t feel like anything I need.
Maybe when I’m finished here, I say, and I square my stack and give it a pat.
EMILY, LET’S GO to Sal’s.
Emily turns a page of her book.
Emily, Sal’s, I repeat.
Today is her day off, and we’ve had a very civilized, quiet morning of reading and drinking iced coffee in the living room. I’m so restless I want to peel my skin off and wear it as a housecoat.
Emily, Sal’s.
That place is gross, she replies.
Come on, you need some more stuff around here.
I think I can do better than the Salvation Army. She doesn’t look up from her book.
Not better deals. Not better deals.
I can afford new things, she says.
But you might find a real find there. Find a find.
Find a find? I feel like I need a shower after coming back from that place.
Then we could go swimming at your work. After.
Gross.
Please, please, Em. (I’m good at begging, I know. It’s a talent and I like doing it.) Come on, why not?
I don’t feel like it, so why should I?
You know who you sound like, don’t you?
Finally she looks up from her book. She gives me her sweet death eyes—angry but also amused by my brashness, like, Ooh, someone wants to get hurt, do they?
Fine, she says, her smile slow and controlled. I’ll get my purse. You drive.
I KIND OF LIKE to say estranged. We’re estranged. Our estranged older sister. The word feels luxurious, filled with mystery, as though we have a crazy woman up in the attic giggling maniacally and setting fires, a woman trying desperately to kill us. What I wouldn’t give to have spent time in an orphanage!
The problem with Joan was there was never a standard deviation; there was no room for error. You either gave her exactly what she wanted or it was No, no, no. You’re doing it wrong. We don’t like to admit the ways we’re becoming like her. You know who you sound like, don’t you? It’s our greatest insult, but we use it sparingly to maintain its pungency. We discovered rather early on that bitch meant less and less the more you said it.
Three years ago. The morning after Christmas. The four of us crammed around Will and Em’s apartment kitchen table. Red and green and blue lights framed the archway into the living room. We’d just finished our coffee and pecan pie breakfast when Joan carefully pushed her plate aside, cleared her throat, and said, So. (She had such a way with beginnings!)
So. She said it was nearing the one-year anniversary of our parents’ death, and she wanted us to mark the time by putting their remains into the wind. We need to scatter them, she said, like it was a word we didn’t know. She lived two whole time zones away, a coastal extreme, but thought we should meet where our parents had lived the last year of their lives, which would mean a plane ride into the desert for Em and me. The plane our parents had been in returned to the earth soon after leaving it. But the distance was enough. Having us get into any flying machine seemed like Asking For It. We could drive, but Emily would have to reschedule her dress fitting and work wedding shower. She turned to Will for backup, but he’d slid into the living room to play his new single-shooter video game, a pair of headphones over his ears.
Can’t we do it another time? I asked. Does it have to be the exact anniversary? I didn’t say so, but I also had plans. A group of kids from downtown had recently taken a shine to me, and they were gearing up for a rager of a Groundhog Day party. I didn’t want to miss it. I liked how they had no jobs and never talked about their pasts or asked too many personal questions.
It doesn’t mean we don’t love them, Emily said, her voice quiet and explanatory. But surely we can wait. I’ve got so much going on before March.
Joan took a long breath in and out, putting a hand to her forehead. I just know if we don’t do it now, we’re never going to do it, she said. It threw me how strong her feelings could be—her voice a heated whisper—when they were so different from my own.
Months later, at Em’s wedding reception in Gold Room B of the downtown La Quinta, Joan told us she’d done it herself.
I’m sorry that you were too busy having a shower, she nodded to Emily, and partying with children, she wiggled her fingers at me, but I couldn’t wait.
You had no right to do that, Emily said.
I had to.
We asked you to wait.
I told you we couldn’t. They’re our parents.
I wanted to say, Were, were our parents, but I was trying to resist any feelings that might put me in the coatroom for the rest of the night.
And where are you partying? Emily turned to me.
And who uses “party” as a verb anymore? I asked.
They both gave me a look that said, Now is not the time to get smart.
Luckily, Will bounded up just then, his suit jacket missing and his tie threatening escape. Sorry, ladies, he said, but I’ve got to take my lady. Before I could tell him that he needed to work on his delivery, he whisked Emily away to cut the cake into its separate pieces.
One week, two weeks, two months later, Joan didn’t call us, so we didn’t call her. Or, we didn’t call her, so she didn’t call us. I know it’s silly for it to still matter, but it’s hard to break the status quo, no matter the status, and I’m not really the leader of this outfit. It all leaves me with that morning-after-Christmas feeling—seeing our unwrapped presents stacked individually in Em’s old living room, the tree heavy with inherited ornaments. That’s the thing about Christmas. I love the trees and the lights and the garland, but I want to take it all down as soon as it’s over.
I ALWAYS FEEL a little odd driving us anywhere. Like I’m underage or drunk or otherwise unfit.
Emily’s got her phone to her ear, listening to a voicemail, and I can hear a deep voice unfolding from the tiny speaker. She closes her phone and puts it in her bag.
Was that La Quinta? I ask.
I’ve taken to calling her mystery dude “La Quinta,” which brings to mind a man with a thin, dark mustache and bolero jacket. I imagine him saying Emily like Em-ee-lee, each syllable a sexy little secret between the two of them. In reality, he probably has adult acne and wears a lot of polos.
We’re not talking anymore, she says, and looks out the window.
Who was it then?
My doctor’s office.
What do they want?
For me to call them.
What for?
I don’t know. She digs around in her purse and then pulls out a tube of chapstick.
Aren’t you going to call them?