My Sister, My Love: The Intimate Story of Skyler Rampike

by Joyce Carol Oates

  “NOW FOR YOUR SURPRISE, CHILDREN! IF THERE IS A SURPRISE.”

  Mummy seemed less certain now. Mummy was clutching the plastic key-card to suite 1822 of the Garden State Marriott to her breast as if she feared losing it. Ascending the glass-sided elevator to the eighteenth floor of the hotel Skyler was both light-headed with fatigue and apprehensive of what might happen next; he and Mummy were holding up Bliss between them. In the foyer downstairs Little Miss Jersey Ice Princess 1996 with her silver tiara still on her head, at a rakish angle, in her red mohair coat and darling little white kidskin boots, had drawn curious glances and smiles from strangers, but Mummy had urged her and Skyler along without wishing to linger. At another time, Mummy would have been thrilled to introduce herself and Bliss and to explain who Bliss was, if necessary; it often happened that Mummy exchanged names and addresses with friendly strangers. But not tonight for it was very late: 10:50 P.M.

  “Skyler? You have the magic touch.”

  Gaily Mummy handed Skyler the plastic key-card to suite 1822. It had long been established between them, and a matter of some small pride to the little man, that he rarely had trouble unlocking hotel doors that confounded Mummy.

  And so Skyler inserted the card now. But without luck: only tiny red lights flashed by the lock, and not green.

  Again, Skyler inserted the card, and withdrew it. Not too fast, and not too slow. Damn, his hand was shaking!

  Tiny red lights, not green.

  Skyler was about to protest, the lock had to be broken, when suddenly the door opened, and—there stood Daddy!

  Sheepish-Daddy. Guilty-faced/boyish-Daddy.

  Daddy’s voice cracked, with emotion. Stooping to hug his astonished children, tears spilling from Daddy’s eyes.

  “You kids! Jesus! Your Daddy loves you, your Daddy made a very bad mistake, d’you forgive your Daddy?”—sweeping Bliss into the crook of one arm, and Skyler into the crook of the other arm, as Mummy looked on smiling as one might smile on the deck of a drunkenly tilting ship in a “storm-tossed sea”—until Daddy managed to include Mummy in his embrace as well, four Rampikes staggering and stumbling together inside the hotel room. Like a desperate man, Daddy kissed and hugged his children; kissed and hugged them harder; covered their stunned faces with hot smacking-wet Daddy kisses; tried to lift both children in his arms but had to settle for just Bliss, who stared at him with slow blinking dilated eyes, the “silver” tiara slipping from her head. Daddy was moaning like a wounded animal—“You kids! Look at you! Beautiful sweet innocent kids, Daddy doesn’t deserve. And my beautiful wife, I don’t deserve. None of you, my precious family, do I deserve. Can you ever forgive me?”

  Yes yes yes! Yes.

  “D’you hate me? You should hate me! God damn, I deserve to be hated, d’you hate me? Loathe me? Bliss?—Skyler?—Betsey?”

  No no no! No.

  The room into which they’d stumbled was a lavishly decorated parlor where Mummy had left suitcases earlier that day, before driving into the city to the War Memorial. Now this room was filled with balloons of every color, some of the balloons twisted into tortured-animal shapes; glittering confetti hung from lampshades, and from the chandelier overhead; a room-service trolley draped with a white tablecloth was crowded with food: cheeses, fruit, shrimp, a large (boxed) pizza, a slab of ham with fresh-cut bread and “gourmet” mustard, chocolate-covered strawberries, chocolate mints, bottles of sparkling water and a bottle of red wine and a large bottle of Dom Pérignon. Mummy laughed at Daddy: “Bix! Aren’t you ridiculous! You look as if you’ve bought out the store,” in a voice of reproach, and Daddy said, “Damn right I bought out the store, darling. And damn more to come.” Clumsily Daddy hugged Mummy who pushed at him, as you’d push at an overgrown child, but Daddy persisted, Daddy kissed Mummy’s mouth fiercely, as Skyler and Bliss had never seen Daddy kiss Mummy before.

  Though they’d been staggering with exhaustion only a few minutes before, now both children were alert, aroused. Skyler’s eyes felt as if he’d been staring into flame. Skyler’s little fist-heart beat hard and rapid in his chest and Bliss was breathing through her mouth as she’d never breathed while exerting herself in such extraordinary maneuvers on the ice. By slow degrees it was registering on the children that Daddy was back, and Daddy was here.

  Sucking a finger, shyly Bliss asked if Daddy was going to stay with them all night here?—and Daddy kissed Bliss wetly again on the mouth saying, “Hell yes. Yes yes yes. All night tonight and every night to come, darling, forever. With God as Daddy’s witness.” Skyler was feeling jealous of the attention Bliss was receiving from Daddy and so Skyler crowded against Daddy’s legs as a much younger child might, tugging at Daddy’s arm, yet for a long frustrating moment Skyler could not seem to dislodge Daddy’s gaze for Daddy was staring intently at his little girl whom he hadn’t seen in—how long?—several weeks, or months?—as if she were a stranger’s child, her small-boned face deathly pale and spittle gleaming on her parted lips. “Bliss darling, I tried my damndest to get to Newark in time to see you skate, God damn I tried. The f–ing* plane was five hours late leaving f–ing Frankfurt, there was nothing to be done. And forty f–ing minutes circling f–ing Newark Airport! But I saw you on TV, honey. Switched on the TV in here just in time, it’s as if God was guiding my hand, these months Bix Rampike has been forsaken by God, suddenly restored to sanity by God, and I saw my li’l gal skate like an angel, and I could not believe my eyes!—and I heard that crowd go wild for my angel; I saw close-ups of my beautiful li’l angel skating as no one at the actual rink could have seen her, and, Jesus!—when the judges gave ‘Bliss Rampike’ five-point-nine points out of six, I knew you would win; I didn’t have to wait for the announcement, I knew. And I bawled like a baby. And when Bliss was crowned ‘Little Miss Jersey Ice Princess’—I bawled all over again.”

  It was so: Daddy’s eyes looked raw and reddened.

  Slowly Mummy removed her coat, that was red mohair (to match Bliss’s little coat) with a mink collar. Mummy smoothed her shimmery-strawberry dress down over her shapely hips, and you could see that Daddy was staring at Mummy, too: for Mummy had lost weight and was now “size ten” and Mummy had carefully repaired the damage to her makeup after her fit of weeping earlier that evening and so Mummy was looking very attractive, Skyler thought. Briskly Mummy said, “Well! Your father is back, children, and we love him; and, as we are Christians, we forgive him of course.” Mummy laughed in a throaty-sexy way that reminded Skyler of—who?—Calvin Klaus’s mother?—and Mummy kissed Daddy lightly on his mashed-looking mouth: you could see that a mysterious strength resided now in Mummy, that the children had not seen before.

  Daddy too was swaying on his feet as if very tired-yet-happy. And it might have been, Daddy’s breath smelled of something fumey-sweet: Johnnie Walker Scotch? Daddy’s stiff hair was disheveled and his skin had that coarse-gray look Skyler associated with Daddy returning home from a trans-Atlantic flight; Daddy’s heavy jaws were dark with stubble. Daddy wore dark pressed trousers badly wrinkled in the seat and Daddy’s long-sleeved white cotton shirt was badly wrinkled and stained. “Did you miss your old daddy, kids? I hope to hell you didn’t, but—did you?” Daddy was staring at them with such a weird hungry look, Skyler was fearful he might burst into laughter.

  “The children missed you, Bix, a bit. And I missed you, a bit. Especially at first.” Mummy spoke with that air of teasing reproach, stroking Daddy’s arm as you might stroke an uneasy dog, to comfort him. “Now everything is perfect again, Jesus has taken our pain from us and replaced it with His grace and you saw the fruits of that grace tonight: our daughter is Little Miss Jersey Ice Princess 1996. Our daughter is launched.”

  “Our daughter is launched. Amen.”

  Daddy uncorked the bottle of Dom Pérignon, with funny-Daddy clumsiness. Mummy lifted the pizza (pepperoni and cheese, Skyler’s mouth watered) out of its box and Mummy opened a bottle of sparkling water for Skyler and for Bliss. It was very late—long past bedtime!�
��but Skyler was very hungry, and began eating pizza; Bliss, who’d eaten virtually nothing all day except yogurt, raisins, and “seven-grain” crispbreads that Anastasia Kovitski fed to her, devoured several chocolate-covered strawberries before ceasing, with a stricken expression. Giddy Daddy poured sparkling bubbly champagne into long-stemmed glasses for Mummy and for himself and Daddy lifted his glass to click against Mummy’s glass as champagne ran down his fingers: “As God is my witness, Betsey. I stand before you abased, and abashed. And I am home.”

  Yet more! Daddy had presents for his little family: for Sky-boy, a thrillingly lifelike eighteen-inch-tall Terminator Boy XXL with “laser-eye” features; for “Daddy’s bestest-best li’l gal” Bliss a child-sized ermine cape, with crimson silk lining; and, for Mummy, a beautiful bracelet of shiny, shimmering-green stones—“Indonesian emeralds.”

  Mummy stared in astonishment. Mummy’s lips parted, and Mummy’s eyes brimmed with tears. Barely audible Mummy spoke: “Oh. Oh Bix. This bracelet is—too beautiful. Jesus has heard my prayers, and He has answered them. My husband is returned. Today has been the happiest day of my life—‘My cup runneth over.’”

  Mummy’s tears were not the wrathful acid-tears of the past several months, that had so frightened Skyler and Bliss, but joyous scintillant tears of the kind usually reserved for the dazzling lights of an ice-skating arena, when Bliss Rampike was being crowned. And Daddy, hugging Mummy hard in clumsy-Daddy humility, Daddy-seeking-forgiveness, hid his large heated face in Mummy’s blushing neck and began to cry, too.

  Deep-chested wracking sobs provoking Skyler to think But this hasn’t happened before and so it can’t be happening again. Can it?* (Editor†: Do we need to know that this is “a deep, exhausted sleep”—“a stuporous open-mouthed sleep”—“an uncanny sleep in which the glassy cobalt eyes were partly open, yet unseeing”?)

  Yet another ending, required for a graceful segue into the next chapter (is “segue” a word?—a kind of cheaply trendy word, but often helpful):

  That night waking abruptly not knowing at first where he was, in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar room, and his sister Bliss sleeping in the twin bed beside his, Skyler heard a sudden sound, a sound of protest, a sound of struggle, a thudding/thumping sound and—was it laughter?—Mummy’s sharp/startled/involuntary laughter, a moaning laughter, and what had to be Daddy’s deep-baritone response, poor Skyler had no idea what he was hearing, should he be frightened, should he knock on the door between the rooms, or is it just Mummy laughing, Mummy laughing at one of Daddy’s silly jokes?—so Skyler presses a pillow over his head, if Mummy is happy, and Daddy is back to live with them again, then Skyler would be happy, Skyler would be very happy, and Bliss would be happy, too.

  You can see why I excised this ending: it’s overwrought, and communicates its meaning too clearly. We prefer indirection.

  * My original title for these linked chapters transcribing the events of November 30, 1996, was “Cheap Suspense” but my editor insisted that I change it. And I have to concede, when is suspense not cheap? Is there a “costly”—“expensive”—“classy” suspense? Also, the outcome of Bliss’s competition at Newark is a matter of public record so, technically speaking, there can be no suspense: you know that Bliss won the coveted title Little Miss Jersey Ice Princess 1996 which was the “high point” and the “end point” of her career.

  * “F–ing”: pronounced “f”-“ing” to spare the tender ears of Bix Rampike’s children. A linguistic circumlocution sometimes employed by crude assholes like Bix Rampike.

  * Poor Skyler! As guts can become fatally twisted, and thus suppurating, in the abdominal cavity, so an overtaxed child’s brains can become twisted, and suppurating. And yet, I think we know what Skyler means here, at the end of this particularly overwrought scene of “domestic realism.”

  Not that the scene ended here. No scenes in literature, as in movies, end as indicated, but trail on and on like broken-backed snakes. Here is the fuller, original ending:

  And what of Skyler, shoving a slice of clammy-cheese-clotted pizza into his mouth, wildly ravenous as if he had not eaten in days?—Skyler staring at his demon-parents thinking helplessly But this hasn’t happened before and so it can’t happen again. Can it?

  Beyond this, a “poignant” ending:

  On a sofa in the hotel suite, wrapped in the snowy-white ermine cape as in a child’s blanket, sucking her thumb and several fingers Little Miss Jersey Ice Princess had fallen asleep.

  † (No editor responded to this query! Which means, I guess, that no editor actually read it. So I think I will let it remain, out of spite.)

  SEX TOYS?

  IN THE LOWERMOST DRAWER OF THE HEAVY CARVED MAHOGANY BUREAU IN THE Rampikes’ “master bedroom” beneath Daddy’s (ironed, folded) boxer shorts, astonished little Skyler discovered, one day when Mummy and Bliss were gone for the afternoon, and the new housekeeper Lila-from-the-Philippines was occupied far away downstairs in the laundry room, these baffling items:

  • a rumpled crimson silk scarf about thirty inches long, less than six inches wide, faintly stained

  • ladies’ lingerie, black silk, lacy crimson, near-transparent champagne-colored: panties large enough to be Mummy’s but—so strangely!—lacking crotches; “brassieres” large enough to be Mummy’s but made of an impracticably flimsy material that could never support Mummy’s heavy breasts, with strategically placed holes

  • a black silk garter belt, black silk stockings twisted together

  • two masks: a black silk half-mask, and a crimson silk half-mask

  • several chains of a lightweight metal meant to resemble gold, with heart-shaped links

  • a flesh-colored replica of what looked, to Skyler’s astonished eyes, like a monstrously enlarged boy’s “thing” with a mysterious leather strap attached to its base

  • Gaspard de la Nuit “Oil of Eros” in a six-ounce bottle that looked as if it had never been opened

  • Gaspard de la Nuit “Chocolate Licker” in a similar bottle, that looked as if it had been opened, since less than half of the “chocolate licker” remained

  Entranced, Skyler dared to lift one of the black silk half-masks, to peer through the eyes; and Skyler dared to sniff (but did not taste) the Gaspard de la Nuit “Chocolate Licker”; and Skyler dared to loop the crimson silk scarf around his neck, and wipe his warm face with it, and inhale its fruity/perfumy scent. Tyler McGreety would know what to make of such things! But not Skyler Rampike whose small heart beat so rapidly, he felt he might faint.

  “Sky-ler?”—away downstairs a female voice lifted.

  Mesmerized by what he’d discovered, knowing only that these items were, like the master bedroom itself, forbidden to him, quickly Skyler shoved the things back beneath Daddy’s underwear, and fled.*

  * Was Skyler’s intrusion ever discovered, you might wonder? No. But then, yes.

  “Sex Toys?” as a chapter title is provided by the nineteen-year-old S.R., not the nine-year-old who hadn’t a clue what he was looking at.

  CONFABULATING KIDS

  IF SKYLER IMAGINED WHAT WAS, BLISS IMAGINED WHAT WAS NOT.

  Nothing so upset Mummy as those occasions when Bliss “made things up”—“confabulated”—in the presence of outsiders. Especially, Mummy had to be vigilant in public places: if, for instance, an aggressive interviewer prodded Bliss into saying “wrong things” on live television which Mummy could not censure, or even edit, as in this remarkable interview with a slyly malicious female interviewer following Bliss’s Newark triumph:

  Interviewer: You are such a natural on the ice, Bliss! How old were you when you learned to skate?

  Bliss (long pause, shy):…before I was here, in that other place.

  Interviewer: And where was that “other place,” Bliss?

  Bliss (long pause, finger in mouth):…it was dark. I wasn’t there yet.

  Interviewer: I don’t quite understand, dear. You weren’t “there yet”—?

  (Seated clos
e beside Bliss, an arm around Bliss’s small shoulders, Mummy registers unease, though Mummy continues to smile happily.)

  Bliss:…before I was born.

  Interviewer: Why, Bliss! Do you remember before you were born?

  Bliss (nodding, so vehemently the silver tiara on her head nearly falls off ): It was a quiet time, no one was mad at me. No one yelled at me. There was ice, everywhere it was ice where the Turnpike is, you could skate and skate and…

  Mummy (laughing nervously, adjusts the tiara on Bliss’s head, gently tugs Bliss’s finger from her mouth): What Bliss is trying to say is “a long time ago”—when she was four. And that very first year Bliss Rampike was crowned Miss Tots-on-Ice Debutante 1994—the youngest ever!

  Funny? Chagrined Betsey Rampike didn’t think so.

  Another time, earlier in Bliss’s career, and quite a surprise to Skyler (watching the telecast at home, alone with one of the Marias), following Bliss’s victory at the StarSkate competition, another female interviewer was complimenting Betsey Rampike on how “angelic”—“radiantly beautiful”—her daughter was, and Bliss suddenly became agitated, shook her head vehemently from side to side and, before Mummy could stop her, managed to pry off something small and pearly-white from one of her front teeth, to reveal, in glaring TV close-up, a tiny chip in the tooth.

  Giggly/stricken Bliss stammered into the TV camera: “I was bad, I fell. I broke my tooth. I am not how I look.”