by Hazel Yeats
“If you must know,” Myra said, “we’re honoring your home with our presence because once a week it’s Sister Day at Casa Inge. And this week, it happens to be today.” She smiled at Alice. “I mean, of course, Sister and Sister-in-law Day.”
“Yes.” Alice sighed. “I know I owe my place in your sister posse to Arend.”
“If Arend and I ever split up,” Myra said, “heaven forbid, then we will keep you on as a member of the family, I promise. We’ll adopt you as our own sister. I’m sure my parents would love to have another daughter. We never give them any trouble, and never have.”
“So basically you’re banning me from my own house?” Bart said.
“That’s right, honey.” Inge dipped a meatball in mustard.
“Which isn’t to say that we wouldn’t appreciate your input,” Alice said.
“You’re just being polite, aren’t you?” He smiled.
Inge nodded. “We are.”
“I see,” he said. “I will make myself scarce, then. But if you should change your mind, I’ll be in the back yard. Holler if you need me, okay?”
“So, why a department store?” Alice asked, as soon as Bart had closed the door behind him. “Why couldn’t you have delivered the papers to her house?”
“I actually thought that was a little weird myself,” Cara said. “But my instructions were clear. I guess that maybe they had tried her house and she was never there. We deliver documents to the weirdest places.”
“Poor you,” Inge said with an evil grin. “You were so close to finding out where she lives.”
“Shut up, okay?” said Cara.
“So why did you quit?” Alice asked.
Cara shrugged. “The thrill wore off.”
“After two weeks?”
Cara couldn’t recall a time when she wasn’t expected to explain her every action to her much older sisters. And after Myra married Arend and they all became friends with Alice, she joined the pack, so then there were three to gang up on her. It wasn’t always easy being the baby of the family. Her sisters seemed to regard her as an improved version of themselves, someone who wasn’t allowed to make mistakes or to go through phases of doing stupid things. Mothering her was second nature to them. And though Cara was, on occasion, quite happy to turn to them when she needed someone to talk to, she didn’t care for the way her chosen path in life (or her inability to choose a path in life) tended to be criticized. They expected her to make nothing but sensible choices and grown-up decisions. They expected her to be responsible. To commit. And she wasn’t ready to commit. Not to a job, not to a woman. She knew she would always get edgy when her time wasn’t her own to squander. She needed a bit of breathing space, and she didn’t think there was anything wrong with a little job hopping or even a little girlfriend hopping. She was thirty-two, what did they expect? Wasn’t she supposed to try things out before she settled on anything permanently? Then again, she may never commit. Maybe she was just that kind of person—restless, adventurous.
“The thing is,” she said, “I didn’t have a clear picture of what the job was all about. I thought I was going to be like this really cool private eye, hunting down criminals, driving my convertible along the coastline, the scent of the sea my only company.” She bowed her head. “Instead, I kept finding myself on the doorsteps of shabby family homes, serving my papers to tired housewives whose asshole husbands’ cars were being repossessed.”
“So?” said Myra. “Doesn’t every job have its downside?”
Cara shrugged. “It was depressing, not to mention that the pay doesn’t become interesting until you get a case that poses a serious threat to your safety.”
“So basically, you thought you were going to move to California and be Kinsey Millhone.”
“Who?”
“Kinsey Millhone,” Inge said. “Beloved private eye in Sue Grafton’s alphabet series of thrillers!”
They all drew a blank.
“Jesus,” she said finally. “What’s wrong with you people? Would it kill you to pick up a book once in a while?”
“Sorry,” Cara said. “Perhaps you should give us some reading advice.” She pushed her sister playfully. “I hear you’re quite the expert on Jude the Invisible.”
“I can hardly find the time to breathe,” Myra said. “Let alone pick up a book.” She rested the palm of her hand lovingly on her stomach, currently home to her fourth child. Cara and Alice were sitting next to her on the couch, fighting for the available space.
“Anyway,” she said, turning to Cara. “I guess what we’re trying to say is that we’re a little worried about you. I thought that with Kelly in your life and the new job…”
Her voice trailed off, and Cara could just tell that her oldest sister was picturing her wheeling a pram down the street, or giving a closing argument in a courtroom.
“Kelly has found solace in the arms of another,” she said. “who brings light to her life where I brought nothing but darkness.”
“Really?” said Myra. “What a horrible thing to do. And you two seemed so content together. Like two kittens.”
“It’s fine,” Cara said. “The kitten left some nasty scratches, but they’ve healed and now I’m perfectly okay. There’s absolutely no need to worry about me.”
“It’s just that you don’t seem to be…going anywhere,” Myra insisted.
“Nobody’s going anywhere,” Cara said. “Where we’re all going, is to our graves. What’s important is that we have a bit of fun until that day arrives.”
“So are you?” Alice asked.
“Am I what?”
“Having fun.”
“Sure.” Cara nodded, as Inge pointed to her empty wine glass—yes, she wanted a refill. Being interrogated like this was always easier with a little alcohol to take the edge off.
“Sure, I’m having fun,” she said. “No more or less than any one of you.”
Inge filled the wine glasses and teacups. When she helped herself to a big wedge of cheese her sisters started screaming, keeping their promise to help her lose weight.
“Oh, shut up,” she said. “Bart told me, only yesterday, that he likes a bit of meat on me.” She looked smug. “There’s more of me to love.”
Alice ran her hands over her hips, as if to make sure they were still as slim as she needed them to be.
“If you ask me,” Cara continued, “this whole concept of going somewhere is a typically unenlightened, western-culture way to deal with mortality. Or rather, to not deal with it. To try and push it away. Instead, we have to embrace it. Because it keeps us on our toes. And because it won’t be ignored. There’s no such thing as being in control of your life; no matter how big your house, or how steady your job, or how healthy your diet. It ends when it does. A blood clot, a car crash, a nuclear disaster—something will be our undoing. We have no say in the matter.”
“You’re overthinking things,” said Myra. “We’re talking about instinct here. It’s very natural to have goals in your life. To want a family. A home. Maybe you’ll even want a home here—in the suburbs. Or at least in a better part of the city, with fewer gunfights and muggings. You need some security.”
“Security makes me feel as though somebody is sitting on my chest, making it impossible for me to breathe,” said Cara. “And I’ll have you know that I’ve never been mugged or shot. I simply can’t afford to spend 4,000 euros a month on a studio apartment, and I’m not ready to live the life of a Stepford wife in some ghost town that was reclaimed from the sea no more than a couple of decades ago.”
“We’re all different, I guess,” remarked Alice. “I, for one, find an incredible sense of security in the thought that I’ll be picking up my new car later today.” She looked at her Rolex. “In less than three hours, to be exact.”
“Finding your sense of security in possessions isn’t healthy either, if you ask m
e.” Myra cast Alice a disapproving look. “You and Arend are so different that way.”
“Arend used to be like me.” Alice said. “But then you guys had all those kids and he had no choice but to shift his priorities.”
“I find my sense of security in food,” Inge confessed. It was something that she had obviously made her peace with.
“Let’s just say,” Cara concluded, “that we’re all dealing with life’s issues in unhealthy ways, okay? I’m too flaky, Inge eats too much, Alice spends too much, and Myra has too much unprotected sex. So what? I say we’re all just fine the way we are, and I for one love you guys no matter what.”
“Hear hear,” said Myra, before she gulped down the last of her tea.
“So anyway,” Inge said, wiping the bread crumbs off her shirt, “remember this Santa woman we were talking about? Our Cara’s got a thing for her.”
“I do not have a thing for her,” Cara said to herself as she drove home. “Far from it. She was obnoxious, she was hostile, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she had to stand trial for killing off the Easter bunny.”
She knew that her words were hollow. If she couldn’t even believe them herself, how would she convince someone else? Okay, the woman had been obnoxious, but she was also funny, and pretty gorgeous from what little the Santa suit had revealed of her. And the truth was that Cara hadn’t exactly been a ray of sunshine herself that day.
What if Jude had been fired because of her? Had Cara not totally disrupted the peace, yelling at the boy and arguing with Santa? Kids had started crying, parents had given her angry looks. What if Jude had lost her job because of it, through no fault of her own? She had been so good at what she did. And what if the performance she had referred to as her once-a-year gig was her only gig? What if playing Santa was like her career, and her sole source of income? As her heart swelled with compassion at the thought that Jude Donovan might be penniless, Cara suddenly realized that her own circumstances weren’t any less dire. The process server position wasn’t at all what she’d expected. It was supposed to be a fast-paced job, exciting and dangerous, and she was looking forward to the thrill it would bring. But it didn’t. At all. She served people who didn’t want to be served, who were often aggressive and frequently desperate—it was the opposite of what she’d thought it would be. She wasn’t cut out for it. She gave it a chance, hoping it would grow on her, but when it started keeping her up at night she decided to quit, having lasted less than two weeks. She handed in her badge and went home with her last pay check. She’d have to find a new job, but since nobody was hiring staff so close to Christmas, she decided to take a couple of weeks off and not look for employment until the new year. She supposed she could devote her time to trying to find Jude Donovan, but she wasn’t sure where else to look for her except at the store where she’d found her. She parked her car and walked home, pulling her scarf up to her ears. It was probably time to leave the incident behind her.
The next time she caved and went to De Bijenkorf to try and find Jude, she was shocked to find that the previously live Christmas show had been turned into a set of props. The elves were gone, and so was Santa. The packages lay motionless under the trees. The reindeer were there, but the absence of people in the enclave made them look every bit as lifeless as they were.
Cara swore under her breath. Somewhere in the universe, someone, or something, was doing everything in their power to keep her and Jude apart. It seemed that Jude was drifting further away from her with each passing day.
As she stood there feeling bleak, her eye suddenly caught a person in a Santa suit going up the escalator. She would have to move fast. She ran across the store, past the Louis Vuitton, Hermès, Burberry, and Gucci shops. She excused herself to everybody she almost knocked down in the process. She stepped on the escalator, walking up the moving steps to try and catch up with Santa, who was kind enough to stand still, so that she was gaining on him. They stepped off the escalator at the same time. Santa hurried away, but Cara followed him—or, as she was feverishly hoping, her—and as she came up from behind, she tapped Santa on the shoulder.
“Excuse me.” She leaned forward to catch a glimpse of Santa’s face.
As soon as Santa turned, Cara’s heart sank. This was most definitely a guy. And not exactly the sort of guy that was a credit to his gender, either. He was scrawny, kept pulling at his beard, and had bloodshot eyes.
His head shot up. “What?”
“I’m very sorry,” Cara said. “But I was actually looking for a colleague of yours. Do you work on the ground floor?”
A store customer, with her arms full of bags, elbowed Cara out of the way to get to the escalator. Cara almost lost her balance.
“Do I what?” Santa snorted. He eyed her suspiciously. “Don’t tell me you’re with the Tax Office!”
Cara shook her head. “I just need some information. Do you know who else has been playing Santa here at the store?”
I sound like an idiot, she thought. A desperate, lovesick idiot.
Santa shook his head. “How the fuck should I know who does what here, lady? What do you think I am, a fucking information board? Don’t you think I have better things to do with my time?”
“I thought you might belong to some kind of collective,” Cara explained. “You know, working in a group, taking turns.”
“Some kind of collective?” Angry Santa scratched his cheek. “What are you, nuts?”
“I’m probably mistaken.” Cara was beginning to fear he would smack her, which is why she smiled amiably. She hated him, but he might be her very last link to Jude.
“Would you mind telling me who hires you?” she asked.
“Queen Maxima hired me, okay? She called me up herself.”
“I see,” Cara said. She sighed.
Santa belched. “You know what? Maybe we should discuss this later.” He looked Cara up and down and it was clear from his smirk that he liked what he saw. “I’m a little pressed for time right now, but my evening happens to be wide open. So how about sharing a little…you know…eggnog later. Just you and me, okay?”
Cara looked at him with a face full of loathing. Then she turned around and stepped back on the escalator.
Going down.
Christmas came and went. Cara drove to her mother’s house, in a blizzard, on Christmas Eve and spent two seemingly endless days trying to pacify her expanding family. Even Myra and Arend were arguing, and Inge, the great peacemaker, unfortunately wasn’t there to help her bring any festiveness to the mood. She was glad when it was finally over.
She spent New Year’s Eve with Inge and Bart, who had invited a lot of people, most of whom were strangers to her. She sat next to a guy with a moustache and a passion for model trains. He talked too much, and he smelled funny. Not necessarily bad, but funny. Like cotton candy. After his third beer, he moved closer and put his hand on her knee, the alcohol giving him the courage to make a pass at her. She protested only lightly when he planted his lips on hers at midnight.
She was beginning to forget about Jude Donovan.
CHAPTER 3
In the second half of January, she found a job delivering pizzas. Alice called it an all-time low, but Cara had found the ATM machine empty, and she was in dire need of some cash.
For some reason, she liked her new position, humble though it may be. It felt good, after the process server job, to have people actually be glad to see her when she rang their doorbells. In a nation, as tiny as the Netherlands was, that ordered five thousand take-out meals a day, her future at Cara Mia was quite secure. What she did was so much more than simply deliver food. Not everybody would greet her wallet in hand and slam the door in her face. Many of her customers had to find money first—rummaging through pockets, looking for purses. Cara waited patiently, watching their kids stare at her, listening to their dogs bark at her, smelling their smells, stealing looks at their interiors, g
racefully accepting their tips, and being appalled at the filthy rags some people were comfortable answering the door in.
There were definitely people who couldn’t get rid of her fast enough, but some struck up conversations, even confided in her. Many excused themselves for the state of their apartments, although generally not the ones who had the most reason to. Some didn’t credit her with so much as a look, but quite a few made a pass at her. All men, never women. Some subtle, some not so subtle. Some were grown men, whose wives she could see setting the table in the background. But mostly it was young men—students with an attitude, whose expression would change dramatically the minute they laid eyes on her; or teenage boys, clumsy and sweaty, always knocking things over or dropping their change.
There were horrible ones too—condescending ones, rude ones, drunk ones, dirty ones, broke ones.
The pay was moderate, but the tips made up for a lot.
Delivering pizzas was so much more than handing over a grease-stained cardboard box—it was a study of the human condition.
“Another day, another lunch.” Inge rubbed her hands together.
It was Friday. Alice was the only one who was supposed to go back to work. For the other three, there was no curfew today.
They were at their favorite deli, a little restaurant in Amsterdam’s Nine Streets district—a collection of narrow passages which traverse the city’s canals. It was an elegant place, with original wooden paneling, upholstered walls, and oak flooring. Inge liked to say that the food was almost as good as hers.
“Wonderful.” Alice leafed through the menu, although she knew it by heart. “I’m starving. I think I’ll have the small goat cheese salad.”
Inge snorted. “That’s what you have when you’re starving? So what do you have when you’re just a little hungry?”
“A glass of water,” Alice said.
