The Sisters Club

by Lauren Baratz-Logsted

  Great, I’d thought at the time. Somehow I’d got myself into a situation where I was going to have two young women, practically girls, under my roof. Girls who said things to each other like, “Told you.” This was going to be just peachy.

  And so we began. We worked out a schedule where Carly covered the shop for me briefly midmornings while I dropped Cindy off at Midnight Scandals, picking her up again at the end of the day. I made our meals, they cleaned up afterward—sort of—and everything was just peachy.

  • • •

  It took Eddie a little over two weeks to find out Cindy was staying with me, which could mean that he wasn’t trying very hard or maybe he just wasn’t all that bright.

  Or maybe he was too busy barking up wrong trees.

  Lise had told me he’d already shown up at her place, and then he’d showed up at Diana’s; Diana’s husband being a famous CEO and all, they weren’t hard to find.

  That just left me.

  It stands to reason that he knew I was a caterer—it’s the kind of seemingly innocent detail that Cindy or anyone would tell a boyfriend, just like Lise would tell Tony about Diana’s weight-loss surgery or even I’d tell Sunny about Cindy being pregnant, only in my case making the mistake of forgetting to tell him not to say anything in front of Eddie about the baby—and from knowing that it’d be just a simple hop, skip, and a jump through the Yellow Pages and a look-see under “Caterers.” In the greater Danbury area there’s only one caterer with “Sylvia” as part of the business name and that would be me.

  He showed up at the business one night just prior to closing, demanding to know where Cindy was. I lied, of course, and said I hadn’t a clue. But I’ve never been the best of liars and maybe he sensed that because, the next night, as I was driving home, I saw a beat-up old car trailing me from two cars back. When I got to the condo, I made a dash for the door, locking it behind me.

  “Cin-DY! Cin-DY!”

  “Who the fuck does he think he is,” I said, listening to him howl outside the door like a wolf howling up at the moon, “Stanley Kowalski?”

  Carly laughed. I’ll say this for Carly: she was a great audience. But Cindy wasn’t laughing. No. She was peering out the slats in the mini blinds.

  When she first heard him yelling, she looked scared, but then her expression softened and she walked toward the door.

  “Don’t let him in here!” I said. “I will not have that man in my home.”

  “Fine,” she said, and now it sounded like she was actually angry at me. “Then I’ll talk to him outside. I have to at least hear what he has to say.”

  Of course, Carly and I couldn’t hear what he said, or what she said, not with the door closed. But we could certainly see through the crack in the blinds as Cindy walked outside, as Eddie handed her some flowers he was holding, as the two of them sat down on the stoop, as Eddie started to cry.

  Seeing him cry like that, something in me softened too. I’d never seen a guy cry in my life, not unless it was in a movie. Maybe he was sincerely sorry for what he’d done?

  “Just like Daddy and Mama,” Carly said in a hushed voice at my side.

  “What do you mean?” I looked at her.

  “Every time Daddy would do something bad to Mama, every time he still does something bad, out come the flowers and the tears.”

  “How often does this happen?” I asked.

  “Sometimes monthly, sometimes weekly, sometimes daily, sometimes as much as a few months will go by without an event. It all depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On how bad things are.”

  “How bad is bad?”

  “Drinking, hitting, beating, humiliating—mostly humiliating.”

  That thing that had softened for a minute? I felt it hardening right back up again as I glimpsed a pattern. I never took any psychology classes in college, but even someone like me, with little experience of men, could see exactly what Cindy was doing, had been doing: she was living what she knew. I wondered if Eddie had ever beat Cindy. There were never any signs of it, that I could see, but who knew what I wasn’t seeing? Who knew what went on that she wasn’t admitting, not even to herself?

  Cindy and Eddie must have sat on that stoop a good half hour or more, Carly and me watching all the while. A part of me felt like it was wrong to watch. Cindy was, after all, an adult, had been one for a long time. She was old enough to make her own decisions and mistakes. But a part of me couldn’t stop looking because I wanted to make sure, if he tried anything funny or bad, I’d be there to stop it.

  But nothing bad happened. They just kept talking, even laughing occasionally, and when Cindy came back inside, Eddie having left peacefully, she had a smile on her face as she leaned back against the closed door, sniffing her flowers.

  “Those are pretty flowers,” I said, keeping my voice neutral.

  “Aren’t they gorgeous?” Cindy said.

  “Oh, shit,” Carly said. “She’s going to get back together with the prick.”

  “Did I say that?” Cindy said.

  “You didn’t have to,” Carly said. “I can see it in your eyes. So, tell me, what did schmucko say?”

  As Cindy spoke, her eyes took on a misty quality. She told us how sorry Eddie was for everything, not just for being rude to her friends the night of the party she’d so looked forward to, but for every bad thing he’d ever done. He wanted to make amends. He’d even cleaned the apartment himself. If she wanted, he’d get a part-time job, in addition to the band, so maybe they could move up in the world a bit.

  And, as she spoke, I felt myself going along for her ride. I wanted to believe Eddie could change for her. I wanted to believe she could still have a happily ever after with him, if that’s what she wanted.

  “He did say I’d have to give up the classes,” she said. Then she shrugged as if it was nothing. “But that’s only because he worries about me so much. He doesn’t want me doing too much, working and trying to take classes at the same time.”

  I didn’t say anything, and Carly, give her credit, didn’t either. But we certainly did look at one another.

  “He even apologized for the cherries,” Cindy said.

  “Cherries?” I said. “What cherries?”

  Cindy never had told me before just what exactly happened after the night of her party, only something vague about them fighting, but she did now, making it sound like just another one of Eddie’s amusing stories about getting a job because he didn’t like blind people or telling people to get their own fucking rock ’n’ roll bands. Finishing up, she said with a laugh, “That’s funny, right? Isn’t it? The whole thing with the cherries?”

  “No,” I said evenly, “it’s not funny at all. In fact, it’s the most degrading thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”

  She stiffened. “What do you know about men?” she said, obviously meaning to sting me, and it did. But I ignored the feeling of being stung.

  “You should listen to me,” I said. “I’m old enough to be your mother.”

  “Actually, if you want to get technical about it, you’re older than my mother.”

  In the months since I’d met her, I had always felt older than her—stands to reason, right?—but I’d never felt old, not until that minute.

  But it didn’t matter. I had to push that feeling away too. Because I saw the future clearly now. Eddie hadn’t worn her down tonight, not enough to make her go back with him right then and there. But give him time. He would.

  I saw the future and I made a promise to myself.

  I hadn’t done right by Minnie. I hadn’t been able to stop her from getting gang-raped, hadn’t stopped her from throwing her life away when she was. And afterward, when she was dying, I hadn’t been able to stop that either.

  But Cindy was here and she was alive and I could do right by her.

  I had to.

  Lise

  I closed my checkbook. The July bills were paid and I felt that perverse satisfaction one feels after shelling out a few
thousand dollars because at least I’d been able to do the shelling all on my own.

  It had been nice of Aunt Tess, even though her own money-management plan was unorthodox, to offer to subsidize me while I got my writing career off the ground. But I was too old to have someone else support me. I’d lived fairly conservatively for the last decade or so, had a small nest on reserve in the bank; not in jars in the ground or in paper bags in the top of my closet. I’d be OK, at least in the short term. Still, it was nice to know the net was there should I ever need it.

  I suppose I could have told Tony about my safety net, my parents too for that matter, to allay their fears that I was leaping into a financial void. But it just rankled too much: the idea that, old as I was, I couldn’t make an adult decision about my future without others leaning over my shoulder, needling, “Are you sure you’ve thought all this out?”

  And Aunt Tess had agreed with me: it was right to make them squirm.

  I put the checkbook back in the drawer, got up, stretched, and then went to the kitchen to put some TV-watching snacks together.

  “Those look good,” Tony said a short time later, stealing a piece of melba toast with tapenade across the top. It wasn’t exactly like I’d cooked anything: the toast came from a box, the tapenade from a jar.

  “Diana is coming over to watch the debut of Sylvia’s show,” I said. “Remember, I told you?”

  “Oh. Right. I think I’ll go out.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It’s just that, ever since you’ve met these women, they’ve started to slowly take over your life.”

  “They’re my friends!”

  “I know. But that doesn’t mean I have to spend all my free time with them. Catch you later.”

  And he was gone, without even a kiss.

  When Diana arrived, she had on white slacks with a red top and a jaunty red hat on her head.

  “You look terrific,” I said, meaning it.

  “Thanks,” she said, doing a little turn. “You like it?”

  It got tiresome at times, always having to positively reinforce. I’d already said she looked good once, hadn’t I? Why did I have to say it again? And it got tiresome always having to say, “Did you lose another pound?” and things like that. I liked Diana. I loved Diana. And it wasn’t that I didn’t want to see her succeed at her goals, because I did. But did it all have to be so all-consuming?

  “Yes, I do,” I said. “I like it very much.”

  “I just got it this morning,” she said. “I’m glad you like it.” She gave me a hug and that at least was good. Then she looked into the room behind me. “Where are Cindy and Sylvia?”

  “They’re not coming,” I said, gesturing her into the living room where I already had the snacks set up on the coffee table in front of the TV. “Cindy wanted to stay home in case Eddie called, and Sylvia wanted to stay and keep an eye out, make sure Cindy didn’t run off with Eddie.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Well,” she said with a deep sigh, “I guess it’s just the two of us then.”

  I understood her disappointment. Things had grown strained between us ever since that phone conversation in which I’d questioned her behavior toward her sister, Artemis. I hadn’t intended to hurt Diana with my words, but I had meant them. Why always look at the failings in a relationship, sisters or otherwise, as being wholly the other person’s fault?

  I’d been giving a lot of thought to my relationship with my own sister lately. When she’d been gone, away, out of the country, I’d missed her so much. But now that she was back, she was just so…Sara. It’s funny how when someone’s gone, you think only of the good things they represent. But when they’re in your face? All the old things start to rankle, all the old jealousies and petty competitiveness rear up again. I’d been inclined, all my life, to think it was her. But now I was beginning to wonder: Was it me?

  “Tony’s not around either?” Diana said, looking around as though she might find him under the couch. It made me sad to think that, close as we’d grown, she was now desperate to have at least one other person, any other person, there with us.

  “Sorry,” I said. “He went out.” Then, because it’s only natural when someone asks you about your man to ask about theirs, I asked, “How are things going with Dan?”

  “Dan.” She sniffed. “Do you know he’s been getting e-mails all the time from this Layla person he’s known since back before we met?”

  “Are you jealous of her?”

  “Of course not. I just don’t see why she has to e-mail him practically every day.”

  “But don’t you get e-mails from Dirk every day?”

  As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. Even though Diana had been the one to put me in touch with Dirk, for which I was grateful, she’d become weirdly competitive about it, as though she resented the time he spent on me.

  She stiffened. “That’s different.”

  “Here,” I said, reaching for the remote and clicking on the TV. “Why don’t we just watch the program? It’s about to start.”

  “Welcome to the debut of The Rude Chef,” the voice-over said. “The Rude Chef has been taped before a live studio audience.”

  “Oh my God! There’s Sylvia!” Diana squealed, impulsively grabbing onto my hand, forgetting the differences between us. “She looks fantastic!”

  “Her hair looks gorgeous, at least what I can see of it,” I said. “But look at her apron and that toque. They’re so big, she’s practically swimming in them.”

  On the screen, Sylvia didn’t say a word. Not one. She just got to work slicing and dicing. In front of her work area was a high semicircular counter, in front of which in turn were six barstools with people in the seats, both men and women. They looked like they were in Vegas getting ready for blackjack, and they all looked like they’d done this sort of thing before. I figured they were Sylvia’s tasters.

  “Isn’t she supposed to be talking?” Diana asked me after a bit.

  On television, just a half-minute of silence can seem like an eternity. Just watch any host try to fill airtime on a show that’s run short. But The Rude Chef had been on for far longer than a half-minute and Sylvia had yet to say a word.

  One of the tasters delicately cleared her throat as Sylvia threw some black and blue shells into a massive boiling pot. “Um, aren’t you supposed to tell us what you’re doing as you go?”

  “Nobody said anything about that when they hired me,” Sylvia said, not even moving her eyes up from her work. “I’m Sylvia. I’m making supper. What more do you want from me?”

  The taster laughed nervously. “OK, Sylvia. But what are you cooking?”

  “Herb steamed mussels with rice pilaf. Are you satisfied? I hope you’re not allergic to shellfish. I’d hate to kill someone on my very first show.”

  “That looks good,” Diana said a few moments later as Sylvia slapped bowls down in front of her tasters. “It’s going well, I think, don’t you?”

  “But that one taster is right,” I said. “Shouldn’t Sylvia be talking more?”

  “No,” Diana said, “I’m starting to think it’s better this way. If she talks less, then she can’t offend everybody, right?”

  Then we sat through a commercial break in which it was strongly suggested that we buy pharmaceuticals to prevent erectile dysfunction.

  “What are you making now?” one of the male tasters asked when the program came back on.

  “Asparagus and shellfish salad,” Sylvia said.

  “Are those mussels you’re putting in there?” the woman taster who’d been so inquisitive before asked. “Isn’t that a bit…redundant? And isn’t that doing things in reverse order: giving us the main course and then throwing a salad at us?”

  “I can throw a lot more than a salad at you,” Sylvia suggested.

  “You’re not very nice, are you?” the woman sniffed.

  “Of course I’m not nice. I’m the rude chef. I
t’s what they pay me for. You want nice, go on that Nigella person’s show.”

  “I’m not sure I want to know what she does for an encore,” Diana said, as the show cut to another commercial break. “Do you think she’ll try to serve them some form of mussels for dessert? And now I’m certain of it: she definitely does better when she doesn’t talk.”

  Dessert had nothing to do with mussels and everything to do with ladyfingers.

  “Oh dear God!” Diana said. “Did Sylvia just throw a ladyfinger at that woman?”

  “You don’t like the way I do things,” Sylvia said, “get your own damn cooking show.”

  And then the food fight broke out.

  “Is it just me,” I asked, “or is this the strangest show you’ve ever seen?”

  “For reality TV?” Diana shrugged. “I’ve seen stranger.”

  While the credits were still rolling, I went to call Sylvia. No matter how awful the show had been, she was my friend. It was my job to congratulate her on her success. But the phone rang against my hand just as I went to pick it up.

  “Hello?”

  “We have to do something.” The voice, while still a masculine form of feminine, was hushed.

  “Sylvia? I was just about to call you. Diana and I wanted to tell you how great the show—”

  “Never mind that now. Who cares about the stupid show? We need to get Cindy out of town. And fast.”

  Road Trip

  Recommended Reading:

  Cindy: Grand Avenue, Joy Fielding

  Diana: Margaret: The Last Real Princess, Neal Botham

  Sylvia: Like Water for Chocolate, Laura Esquivel

  Lise: Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon

  • • •

  “I’ve booked us a house right on the Georgia coast!” Diana crowed into the phone, obviously pleased with herself.

  “Isn’t that taking a bit much on yourself?” Sylvia asked. “Deciding where we’ll go without consulting anyone else first?”

  “Do you have any idea how hard it is to get seaside lodging with four bedrooms at the last minute?” Diana’s voice stiffened with offense. “Thank God the economy’s so bad, and the most expensive places aren’t all taken as the booking agent told me they would be in most seasons, or we might have had to settle for New Jersey.” Then she brightened. “And it’ll be perfect! A friend of mine is going to be there around the same time in Atlanta—”