Starr Bright Will Be With You Soon

by Joyce Carol Oates

“Deirdre, get into the cab with me! We’ll ride to your house.”

  And so, like an enchanted child in a fairy tale, Deedee got into the cab with her beautiful blond aunt Sharon, forgetting even to wave goodbye to her friends, and whoever else had come along to join them on the school steps, staring after the departing yellow-checkered taxi in amazement.

  No warning!

  Sudden as lightning striking.

  On that day, a Tuesday like any other, Lily had been out of the house for much of the morning, attending a committee meeting at the college, doing errands, shopping; contentedly driving in the bright gusty air of March that smelled still of winter though with each passing day the sun was rising more confidently in the sky, cutting a broader swath. She discovered snowdrops, those exquisite, beautiful miniature flowers, newly opened amid the nacreous strips of snow bordering her front walk. At midday, the thermometer rose well above 32° F and the icy streets turned to slush; pedestrians were bareheaded, and some were without coats; reckless boys pedaled by on bicycles, eager to hurry the season. Spring! Spring in upstate New York!

  This time, Deedee came bursting into Lily’s workroom, smiling as she rarely smiled. Even before Lily saw the flowers in her daughter’s hand, and absorbed the fact that they were Easter lilies, she knew that something irrevocable had happened.

  “Mom? These are for you.”

  “For me?” Lily wiped her hands on her jeans and took the flowers from Deedee. Fresh-cut waxy-white lilies, long-stemmed, fragrant. But why?

  Deedee was saying, excited, “Somebody’s come to see you, Mom. To see us!”

  Lily looked up to see Sharon in the doorway.

  Sharon—“Sherrill.” Her twin sister she hadn’t seen in—how many years.

  And how altered! Almost, in that first astonished instant, unrecognizable.

  Sharon was smiling nervously, turning a pair of dark-rimmed sunglasses in her hand. “Lily, hello.”

  “Oh my God! Sharon.”

  Afterward Lily would think how ironic, she’d had no preparation after all. No premonition. At the time of their birthday she’d been thinking obsessively of Sharon, awaiting a call, or even a visit—but nothing. The nightmares had subsided, or she’d grown accustomed to them; absorbed them with such stoic determination they were forgotten by daylight. If, as it’s popularly thought, twins have the psychic power to send each other messages, Sharon had sent her none.

  The sisters stumbled together to embrace. If for a fraction of a second each had held back stricken, shy, not knowing if the other loved her, now they hurried together with such urgency that Deedee, a witness, was deeply embarrassed. Her mom she could understand getting all teary and sentimental, that was what you’d expect from Lily, but Aunt Sharon who was so glamorous, sophisticated! In the taxi Aunt Sharon had told Deedee a little of her professional career in Miami and Los Angeles and Deedee had been impressed, a bit dazzled. But now both women were crying; crying messily, as people really do and not as they pretend on TV or in movies. The waxy-white lilies Lily was holding slipped from her fingers and fell onto the floor, so Deedee, grateful for an excuse to get away, deftly retrieved them and hurried to the kitchen for a vase: one of Mom’s slender clay vases, perfect for long-stemmed lilies.

  She was thrilled, enraptured. So this was her mother’s “twin sister” Sharon! The most fantastic aunt, ever.

  There were Sharon’s several suitcases, an overnight bag and a heavy, bulky leather shoulder bag, carried by the taxi driver into the front hall. Quickly Sharon explained that she meant to stay in a hotel, or a motel; of course Lily protested, for Sharon must stay with them—“We have plenty of room, Sharon! I wouldn’t hear of you staying anywhere else.”

  Sharon said, apologetically, “I know—I should have called before coming. But—I guess I was afraid.”

  “Afraid?”

  “You wouldn’t want me.”

  “Oh, Sharon!” Lily was hurt. “What a thing to say.”

  “I mean—your husband might not want me. You have your own life, your family—there wouldn’t be room for me.”

  An air of childlike self-pity, so at odds with Sharon’s glamor and poise! Lily seized her sister’s hands—cold, thin hands—and squeezed them, protesting, “Of course there’s room for you! How long can you stay?”

  “Just a few days. Until Monday, I think.”

  “No longer? You’ve taken time off from work?”

  “Yes, I mean no—I mean, I’m on leave. I’m a dance instructor at a school in Pasadena, but our spring session doesn’t begin for—a while.” Sharon spoke carefully, wetting her lips in an odd compulsive manner.

  “Dance instructor! Pasadena! That sounds very interesting, Sharon, why didn’t you let me know?”

  “But I did, I’m sure,” Sharon said, staring at Lily. “I called you, I told you. Or I sent a card.”

  In the kitchen, Deedee was preparing a quick tea. She saw with relief that her mom and her aunt had stopped crying, at least for now; Sharon had carefully dabbed at her eyes, preserving most of her mascara. Strange that, if you took into account Sharon’s two-inch heels, she and Lily were about the same height, approximately five feet eight; Sharon naturally appeared so much taller than Lily—so much more poised, intimidating. Lily was the kind of woman you saw but didn’t see—just sort of took for granted.

  How elegantly thin Sharon was: though removing her quilted black satin jacket reluctantly, knowing Lily would be mildly shocked, disapproving of her thinness. “Oh, Sharon, are you—well? You haven’t been ill, have you?” Lily asked, and Sharon said quickly, “No, no, I’m fine,” sitting at the kitchen table, fumbling through her shoulder bag for something she couldn’t seem to find, “—but if you had some aspirin, or painkiller—” So Deedee went to fetch some Tylenol, and Lily offered her sister tea, coffee, fruit juice, diet soda, and Sharon took coffee, black coffee, though saying, laughingly, she wouldn’t mind something a little stronger: wine, maybe? So Lily said, “Of course! What am I thinking of, this is a special occasion.” And took a bottle of red Italian wine from a cupboard, a very good wine, so far as Lily knew, and poured Sharon and herself two quite full glasses, and Deedee said with a playful pout, “Mom, what about me? I’m here, too.” So Deedee was given a small amount of wine, and she and her mother and her aunt raised their glasses ceremoniously, and drank. And Lily said, smiling, though with an edge to her voice, “But why did you go to Deedee’s school first, Sharon? Why didn’t you just come here?”

  It was an odd question, Deedee thought. Or maybe it was Lily’s way of asking.

  Sharon said, vaguely, “I—wasn’t sure what the address was.”

  Deedee said, “Aunt Sharon recognized me right away! Didn’t you, Aunt Sharon?”

  So they talked for a while of that; of the meeting at the school; Deedee in such a thrilled, extravagant manner it was clear that the story would be told, and told, and told; for it had been, after all, very like something in a movie. Lily said she’d sent Sharon snapshots of Deedee over the years, and Sharon said yes of course, but not recently—“I’d have recognized Deirdre, anyway. Anywhere. I’m sure.”

  Deedee said warmly, “I’d have recognized you, Aunt Sharon. Mom has all your photos and things in an album, I’ve looked through it lots of times.”

  “Really! How sweet.”

  Lily was smiling her small fixed smile. The wineglass trembled in her fingers.

  Lots of times? But why?

  Sharon said, as if to placate Lily without seeming to do so (for to seem to placate Lily would be to indicate that Lily required placating), “—I just wasn’t absolutely sure of the address. I didn’t want to arrive at the wrong house. But I should have telephoned first, I’m so sorry.” She was fumbling again in the shoulder bag, searching for cigarettes perhaps. The shoulder bag was made of a beautiful soft leather, russet-red; obviously very expensive, though much the worse for wear. Lily saw without meaning to stare that Sharon was wearing expensive-appearing jewelry, several rings including a larg
e blue gem on her left hand, a sapphire?—and a platinum wristwatch that slid about on her thin wrist like a bracelet. Her throat was lined, more visibly than Lily’s, and so she’d tied a black-and-gold silk scarf about it; a tiny label showed—Yves Saint Laurent. In the whorl of one ear there gleamed a cruel-looking silver clamp and around Sharon’s neck there was a conspicuous gold chain, glittering like scales. Her platinum-blond hair had been skinned back so starkly from her face that the shape of her skull was evident; the hair was surprisingly thin, and did not have a healthy lustre. Lily felt a stab of apprehension for her sister, and for herself. Was Sharon ill? It would do no good to inquire directly; if you wanted to know any fact from Sharon, you would only learn it indirectly if at all. You would probably never learn it from Sharon herself.

  Sipping wine, Sharon explained how she’d been traveling—traveling for weeks—and had mislaid Lily’s exact address; in fact, she’d blanked out on Lily’s married name—“I mean, I know it of course; but I know so many names, they crowd one another out of my head.” She and her dance troupe had been touring on the West Coast, most recently in Seattle, and had had quite a success; though, ironically, it looked as if the group was fated to break up—“We have so many competing careers. Our agents are at one another’s throats.” Still, Sharon was smiling as she spoke; baring her perfect teeth in a smile of childlike hope, expectancy, yearning; the dazzling spotlit smile of “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows”; a smile calculated to melt the hardest of hearts, the most skeptical of judges. Here I am! Don’t send me away! I’ve come to you helpless.

  Lily had all she could do to keep from suddenly gripping her sister’s hands, and hugging her again. Here was Sharon, returned to her! So unexpectedly.

  Lily dreaded the moment when they would speak of their father. And of the Shaheen property. She hoped Deedee wouldn’t be present, or Wes. She hoped she wouldn’t break down into wracking sobs.

  Lily poured Sharon a second glass of wine, for Sharon had finished her first quickly, swallowing down two of the painkiller pills; she was hoping, she said, to ward off a headache. Lily asked if Sharon would like to lie down, take a nap before dinner?—and Sharon said at once, no, she was fine; she’d flown into Buffalo the evening before, a long flight from Seattle, and had taken a Greyhound bus to Yewville today, wasn’t accustomed to bus travel any longer, the sort of Americans you meet, how real America is from the perspective of ground travel; but she was fine, fine. “‘Starr Bright’ sees America via Greyhound!” Sharon said, laughing, raising her wineglass to click against Lily’s, and Lily laughed, too, but was puzzled—“‘Starr Bright’?—why do you say that?” And Sharon, searching again in her shoulder bag, ignored the question, or hadn’t heard; she was saying, chiding, “Lily, you should have warned me how changed everything is! The bus trip to Yewville was like a dream, one of those nightmares where things are familiar but changed, distorted. So much of the countryside is gone, the farmland! So many new houses, shopping centers—the highway is four lanes wide—the new bridge at Edgarsville—Fairfield Park still looks the same. Yewville is a real city now, almost, isn’t it?—like any other city in the U.S. The identical McDonald’s, Wendy’s, a Holiday Inn—gas stations, car dealers. The high school looks so different, I finally figured out it has a new facade, and an addition at the rear. And the old train depot—a restaurant! If the First Church of Christ is changed, too, or vanished, Lily, please don’t tell me just yet, I don’t want to know.” Sharon was smiling at Lily and Deedee, that dazzling forced smile; making a joke of her own agitation. “And, coming into town, everywhere I looked I saw names I knew, on billboards, signs—‘Reigel Plumbing’—‘Hendrickson’s Fruit & Produce’—‘Dwyer’s Fence City.’ All our old classmates, grown up.”

  Carefully Lily said, ‘’It isn’t Michael Dwyer—Mack—who owns Fence City, it’s his brother Steve. His younger brother.”

  “‘Michael’—?”

  “That’s what he seems to be called, now. Michael. He works for the mayor, heads one of the municipal departments. A few years ago he ran for state senator on the Republican ticket but lost—by a narrow margin.” Lily paused, awkwardly. She’d never known why Sharon and Mack Dwyer had broken up and had never dared to inquire and now after more than two decades she would not have been able to surmise, seeing her sister’s composed, slightly ironic expression. “It’s Steve I know, from PTA. Michael Dwyer I don’t know at all.”

  Sharon said evenly, “He’d be married, of course. With a family.” When Lily vaguely nodded, Sharon said, laughing, “Everyone is married in Yewville! Of course.”

  “Well, some are divorced. Among our classmates. It seems to be going rapidly past us—life.”

  “Past some of us,” Sharon said, sighing, “more rapidly than others.”

  Now she will speak of Father’s death, Lily thought.

  Instead, Sharon said brightly, “But you’re happily married, Lily. And with a daughter.”

  Lily laughed, embarrassed; felt her cheeks burn, not altogether pleasantly; not knowing if Sharon was patronizing her? teasing? With such an elegant person, sincerity could seem artificial. Yet Sharon seemed sincere enough, inquiring after Wesley, whom she’d never met, listening as Deedee proudly explained her father’s work, building houses and restoring older houses like the one in which they lived; Sharon said, smiling at Deedee, “You must be proud. D’you take after your father?”

  Deedee glanced at Lily, and said, shyly, as if she’d only now just recalled, “Daddy’s my stepdad. Actually.”

  “Oh. Yes. Of course.”

  There was a pause. Lily felt her temples throb. Her elation at Sharon’s appearance was effervescent, like gassy bubbles that, burst, released a sickish aroma. I am in danger Lily thought.

  But Sharon was smiling, and sipping her wine—“This is delicious, Lily. May I have a little more?” And talking of Yewville, and the neighborhood in which Lily lived; and of old classmates whom she hoped to telephone, perhaps even visit; if she had time. She was going to stay for only a few days, she was en route to New York to meet with her new agent. She’d begun to search again, more purposefully, in her shoulder bag; and Lily prepared herself to object, politely but firmly, if she brought out a pack of cigarettes. Excuse me, Sharon, do you mind not smoking in the house? Sharon had begun smoking as a young teenager, a secret from their parents of course; a secret in which Lily had been a reluctant accomplice. In emulation of her precocious sister Lily had tried smoking, and had hated it. “Here! Lily, Deirdre—for you,” Sharon said gaily, bringing out of the bag two gaily wrapped packages, gifts for Lily and Deedee.

  Deedee, with girlish pleasure, opened hers: it was an exquisite necklace of emerald-green glass beads, turquoise stones and filmy speckled-golden feathers on silver links. “A Navajo keepsake,” Sharon said. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

  “Oh yes.”

  Lily’s gift was a heavy silver bracelet inset with turquoise stones. She slid it on: how inappropriate it looked on her wrist, glittering, regal. “I picked them up in Santa Fe,” Sharon said, “on my way to”—laughing suddenly as if the very whimsicality of her words struck her—“wherever. Here.”

  Deedee thanked her aunt Sharon profusely, and, except for shyness, would have hugged and kissed her. Lily thanked Sharon, and did kiss her sister’s dry, heated cheek.

  I should call Wes Lily thought. To prepare him.

  Deedee stood at a wall mirror trying clumsily to fasten the necklace around her neck; the silver links, and then the feathers, caught in her thick springy hair. Sharon leapt up to help her with surprising energy. “Like this, Deirdre. Lovely!”

  “Thanks, Aunt Sharon. Wow.”

  Deedee regarded herself with pleasure in the mirror, turning her head from side to side. The unusual necklace, silver, emerald-green, turquoise and fine, floating feathers, gave to her plain features a look of the exotic. Sharon stood close behind her, several inches taller than the girl, gazing intensely, almost greedily into the mirror. Her thin, beringed fing
ers rested on Deedee’s shoulders. Lily expected Sharon to lower her chin to rest it playfully on Deedee’s shoulder as she’d done years ago when they were girls together, with Lily.

  We can’t ever be lonely like other people.

  We have each other.

  Sharon said excitedly, “Lovely, isn’t it? Lily, look: it brings out the greenish-blue in Deirdre’s eyes.”

  Lily called Wes several times at his office, finally connected with him by way of the phone in his pickup truck as he was driving somewhere north of Yewville. The connection was poor, and Lily had to raise her voice, which was quavering with excitement, a strange wild elation. “Wes? My sister is here. My sister Sharon. She just arrived, she’ll be staying a few days—” Wes said genially, as if from a long distance, “Well, honey, that’s a surprise, but of course she’s your sister—she’s welcome.” There was a pause, Lily could envision Wes creasing his forehead, rubbing fiercely at his nose. “As long as she wants to stay. Fine.”

  Lily felt immense relief. Lightly she said, “Wes, you don’t need to say that,” and Wes laughed, and said, “I was just hoping to impress you.”

  “Oh, Lily. It’s lovely.”

  The lavender-and-cream guest room on the first floor, rear, had windows overlooking a side lawn of shrubs, evergreens and oaks; its own private door to the outside; a spacious closet and adjoining bathroom with gleaming fixtures and tile and a shower curtain smelling of newness. Lily realized, flushed with pleasure, helping Sharon hang some of her clothes in the closet, that she’d decorated this room with Sharon in mind. Unconsciously waiting for Sharon to come, to stay in this room.

  Deedee had helped her pick out the floral cotton-and-silk bedspread in a vivid lilac print; matching pillows, curtains; the Laura Ashley wallpaper; the rich purple wall-to-wall carpeting that, though a bargain at a local rug store owned by a friend of Wes’s, looked wonderfully luxuriant, expensive. Deedee had said it was a room for Princess Di.

  You see, Sharon? For you.

  Sharon said, her eyes widened, in a voice of utter sincerity, “Lily, how lucky you are! And how lucky I am, to be here.”