My Sister, My Love

by Joyce Carol Oates

  “‘Bli-zz’?”

  “‘Bliss.’ ‘Bliss Rampike.’”

  Names were so strange! Why is any name what it is, and why is any name attached to any person, or thing? Little Edna Louise, now little Bliss, smiled uncertainly as if she’d been presented with a gift—as often, when you are a child, you are presented with gifts from beaming adults who have been very good to you and wish to be acknowledged as very good—she didn’t comprehend but understood that it was a very special gift, and she must be grateful for it.

  “And so, darling, when people ask your name, especially at the skating rink, you will tell them ‘Bliss.’ Spelled ‘B-L-I-S-S.’ It is a vision from God. Do you understand?”

  Vehemently Edna Louise nodded. Yes Mummy!

  FOR HADN’T SHE BEEN PRACTICING HER “FIGURES” UNDER THE FROWNING tutelage of Miss Zuev, whose face, though not old, was crisscrossed with lines of impatience; hadn’t she and Miss Zuev been skating together at the Halcyon rink, days in succession as the buoyant melody “Over the Rainbow”—chosen by Mummy!—was played; and hadn’t everyone at the rink who noticed them lingered to stare, and to praise the remarkable little skater? Now the reason had been revealed: on the ice Edna Louise hadn’t been “Edna Louise” at all but “Bliss.”

  Yes Mummy!

  BRISKLY MUMMY CAME INTO SKYLER’S ROOM, WHERE MARIA WAS HELPING him dress for school on this chill February morning. “Skyler? Maria? There will be a change in the Rampike family from now on: ‘Edna Louise’ has a new name, ‘Bliss.’”

  Bliss? Skyler scowled. Though it can’t be said that Skyler was exactly surprised.

  “From now on, Skyler, Maria—you will call Skyler’s little sister ‘Bliss’ and not ‘Edna Louise.’ Not ever again, ‘Edna Louise.’” Mummy shuddered, and laughed, as if they’d all narrowly escaped something very unpleasant.

  Accustomed to Fair Hills gringa whims and edicts which were never pronounced in tones other than profound, Maria-from-Ecuador politely murmured Yes ma’am. While Skyler in brattish-boy mode, for his broken-in-two-pieces-slow-to-heal leg was hurting like hell, and his knee, too, and his morning Nixil dose hadn’t yet kicked in, had to ask Why?

  “‘Why’? Because Mummy says so, dear. Mummy has explained: your little sister is no longer ‘Edna Louise’ but ‘Bliss.’ You will call her ‘Bliss’ from now on.”

  “‘Bliss.’” Skyler swiped at his runny nose with the edge of his hand as street urchins do, in crude documentary films. Not as Fair Hills boys do just shrugging into their Fair Hills Day School navy-blue blazers embossed with the Fair Hills Day School heraldic shield involving a lion rampant, crossed staves or maces, a sacred book out of which flames sprung, in miniature. “‘Bliss’ is a goofy name, Mummy. People will laugh at ‘Bliss.’” Skyler laughed, not very mirthlessly, as if to demonstrate, but Mummy wasn’t in a mood to be amused by her little man, not right now. “No one will laugh at your sister, Skyler, I assure you. The name change will be legal as soon as our lawyer can file papers at the courthouse and in the meantime just call your sister ‘Bliss’—a much prettier and more special name than ‘Edna Louise.’ And don’t make silly baby faces.”

  Silly baby faces! Skyler was shocked, his mother would so insult him in the presence of the nanny.

  Skyler saw that Mummy was anxious to leave, yet Skyler plucked at Mummy’s arm to ask: “Do I have a new name, too?” though knowing damned well that he did not; and Mummy laughed and said, “Honey, no. Why would Daddy and I want to change your name?—‘Skyler’ is a beautiful special name, a ‘questing’ name of which you should be proud.”

  But shrewd-sullen Skyler knew, there would be nothing of which Skyler should be proud.

  “MISS TOTS-ON-ICE DEBUTANTE 1994”

  “THE HAPPIEST DAY OF MY LIFE.”

  Or was it a nightmare? Take your choice!

  NOT PLAIN/UGLY EDNA LOUISE RAMPIKE BUT BEAUTIFUL/TRANSFIGURED Bliss Rampike made her skating debut, aged four, at the Meadowlands ice rink on the windblown snowy evening of Valentine’s Day 1994. Mummy wept with gratitude that Tots-on-Ice officials were willing to make the last-minute change of names for a penalty fee of just fifty dollars.

  There were no printed programs at the rink. There were no pre-assigned seats. Tickets were twelve dollars for adults, six dollars for children, you pushed your way into the bleachers. The air was chill yet stale-smelling: in a corridor outside the rink, Skyler had seen stacks of grim wire cages, kennel cages, to the ceiling. (Must’ve been a dog show the day before. A stink of dog-hair, dog-excrement, dog-panic prevailed.) Underfoot, the stained concrete floor was sticky from spilled drinks and food. There were vendors noisily hawking drinks, food, skaters’ gear. Overhead were blinding fluorescent lights. Out of booming loudspeakers, sugary-deafening Tchaikovsky: “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies.” The doors to the rink had opened by 6 P.M., by 6:45 P.M. a considerable crowd had pushed inside. Few ushers were visible and these were shapely young girls in skating costumes, pink satin high heels and pink satin caps with TOTS-ON-ICE 1994 in white. There appeared to be few security guards and these were elderly black men. The atmosphere was shrill, festive. There were numerous children running and shouting unsupervised. Photographers milled restlessly about, individuals with videocameras, a bemused three-man TV crew from New Jersey Network filming some of the older and more glamorous girl-skaters in their short skirts and snug-fitting bodices like swimsuits. Mummy had arrived at the Meadowlands early driving the Chevy Impala at cautious, halting speeds on the Turnpike, whispering fervent prayers as traffic crept along in windblown snow; Mummy had organized us—Bliss, Skyler, and Maria—to leave home by 4 P.M. and so we’d arrived early and secured front-row seats but these choice seats were in constant danger of being claimed by aggressive strangers: “You sittin’ here? All these seats, here?” Apart from a scattering of men and boys the skating crowd was female, mothers and relatives of young skaters: not Fair Hills–type females but what Mummy called, with a look of disdain, “a coarse New Jersey element.” The heft of these females was considerable. Even the younger women, even girls and children were heavyset. In such a melee Betsey Rampike in her dark mohair coat with a mink collar, in expensive Italian boots and with her brunette hair shinily styled, appeared relatively slender, youthful. Mummy’s lips were very red, and Mummy’s eyes were damp with excitement. Repeatedly Mummy dialed a number on her cell phone that failed to go through. To Bliss she said, “Daddy will make it here, I’m sure. He’ll drive directly from his office. ‘Can’t miss my bestest little gal’s ice-debut!’ Daddy has said. He knows where the Meadowlands is, I’ve given him directions to the rink. All those banners for TOTS-ON-ICE, you can’t miss it. Daddy is anxious to see you skate, Bliss! He is. But his new office isn’t close to the Turnpike like the old office. ‘Scor Chemicals’—it’s almost in Paramus—so big, it has its own zip code!” Mummy was chattering nervously, Bliss seemed unaware, hunched in her seat, in her coat, glassy-eyed and shivering. So much noise! So many people! The Tots-on-Ice Capades was nothing like the family-oriented Halcyon Winter Carnival. Why was there no one here Mummy knew? None of the other young skaters, who took lessons with Bliss? It seemed that Trix Chaplin was snubbing Tots-on-Ice this year for little Carrie wasn’t good enough to make her debut. (Had Mummy hoped that her friend Trix would bring her daughters to Tots-on-Ice to watch Bliss skate? To provide moral support for Betsey and Bliss?) Mummy was excited, anxious. Mummy kept standing, to peer into the crowd. Mummy could not keep from primping Bliss’s hair, which was fine, somewhat limp, and of no distinct color; Mummy combed and fluffed out Bliss’s bangs, and adjusted pink satin butterfly-barrettes. Beneath her coat, Bliss was wearing a little-girl skater’s costume which Mummy had ordered from Junior Miss Lady Champ: pink satin, a short pleated skirt and pink panties beneath, a tiny red heart above Bliss’s left breast, or what would have been a left breast in an older girl, and transparent wings. Mummy had not made up Bliss’s face for Bliss was only four years old and Trix Chaplin had remarked to
Betsey how “vulgar” it was, how “unacceptable,” that certain mothers made up their child-skaters to look “luridly glamorous” but now, at Tots-on-Ice, Mummy saw to her alarm that the other debut girl-skaters, who would be competing with Bliss, seemed to have been made up with lipstick, rouge, even eyeliner. (Maybe then, hurriedly, just a touch of Mummy’s cherry-red lipstick? And, so that Bliss didn’t look so ghastly pale, as if she were suffering from some dreadful wasting-away child disease like leukemia, a discreet touch of blush to both cheeks? Bliss feebly pushed at Mummy’s hands, but soon gave in.) Skyler too had been noticing the other little-girl skaters and their hefty mummys who were crowding the Rampikes and Maria on their bleacher seats. And Skyler had been noticing a scattering of lone men, of varying ages but mostly middle-aged, in the audience, with cameras. Skyler was becoming frightened for his baby sister who was going to skate before such a rowdy audience. It was so, Skyler hadn’t liked his sister so much lately since she’d acquired her new, special name but seeing her now so tiny in her seat, her feet in skates not touching the floor, wan and resigned like one of his fellow outpatients at the children’s rehab center, Skyler reached over to take her cold, limp hands to comfort her: but Bliss only shivered in response. Her strange, stark, glassy eyes were fixed on the ice, she seemed scarcely aware of her surroundings. Skyler saw that Mummy seemed unaware that Bliss was so frightened for Mummy was distracted by the other girl-skaters (polished fingernails! pierced earrings! such garish costumes! what were their mothers thinking!) and by her need to continually stand, and peer toward the back of the arena hoping to see a familiar face. (But Skyler knew: Daddy wasn’t coming. If Daddy couldn’t make it back home for dinner much of the time, Daddy wasn’t likely to drive to the Meadowlands; nor would Daddy set foot in such a “lowlife”—“cruddy”—atmosphere.) “Mummy? Maybe we should go home? Before the program starts?” Skyler tugged at Mummy’s coat sleeve, but Mummy paid Skyler not the slightest heed for Mummy had finally sighted someone she knew—a woman?—a few rows back in the bleachers, Mummy was on her feet waving and calling and yet: no one waved back.

  Abruptly in mid-note the high-decibel Tchaikovsky ceased. Deafening announcements regarding emergency exits, evacuation in case of fire were made over the speaker system. A mammoth lizard-faced individual in a shiny black tuxedo with a broad cummerbund of valentine hearts stood in a spotlight at the edge of the rink, smiling broadly, microphone in hand. His eyelids looked inflamed, his manner with the crowd was jocular, familiar. His shoulder-length dyed-jet-black hair had been parted in the center of his large head. Simply the sight of this striking individual provoked applause in the audience, cheers and good-natured catcalls. The lizard-faced man acknowledged such attention with a show of mock-modesty. His voice—gravelly baritone, subtly mocking—scraped against the microphone like fingernails: “Hel-lo ladiez ’n’ gentz ’n’ all the rest of you”—pause for laughs, titters—“I am your ’umble ’ost for this perspercarious non-puerile Tots-on-Ice Capades 1994—Jeremiah Jericho!” A louder wave of applause, laughter, and whistles washed through the arena like sudsy water, before which, with some discomfort because of his girth, the lizard-faced Mr. Jericho bowed. “And our esteemed judges—world-renowned VIPs of the skate world—returned to the glorious Meadowlands for another momentous evening—” At Jericho’s bidding, three individuals of indeterminte sex and age, each solidly built, attired in black with gaudy red roses in their lapels, rose from their front-row seats to smile and wave at the crowd. Skyler wasn’t sure he’d heard the judges’ names clearly: Krunk, Snicks, D’Ambrosia?

  While Mummy and the other debut-skater mothers nervously prepared their daughters for the first competition, the lizard-faced master of ceremonies introduced Miss Hot-Tot-on-Ice 1993, the “Grand Prix” winner of the previous year’s competition Tiffany Pirro of Jersey City who began the program with a flashy presentation of skating/dancing to a strong sulky-sexy disco beat—“I Will Survive”—and explosive applause. Tiffany was a short, curvy, busty girl presumably no more than twelve years old but very mature for her age, with brass-colored hair, a shiny royal blue spandex leotard and rhinestone-studded cowgirl vest, teasingly short flared skirt over leopard-skin spotted panties, numerous pierced earrings, pouty cherry-red lips. In dramatic lunges Tiffany executed figure eights, glided backward lifting one sinewy leg behind her, abrupt turns and spins and a sudden somersault that left her panting and spread-eagled on the ice, intentionally or unintentionally it seemed not to matter. As the lizard-faced Jeremiah Jericho urged the crowd: “Go crazy for Tiff! Let’s hear it!”

  There was a Jersey City contingent that went especially crazy for Tiffany and seemed reluctant to let her go, to be replaced by far less showy/sexy girl-skaters between the ages of four and eight, in the competition for Miss Tots-on-Ice Debutante 1994. There were nine very young girls competing among whom Bliss Rampike came seventh alphabetically. The first six skaters were older than Bliss but shaky and frightened and drew sympathetic murmurs and mild laughter from the crowd. Two fell down almost immediately. One plump little Hispanic girl, seven years old, an olive-skinned little beauty with shiny black plaited hair, managed to skate through her routine to the beat of “I Wanna Be Loved by You” without falling or stumbling and was greeted with an enthusiastic response. Then, in Jeremiah Jericho’s grating, intimate voice, “‘Miss Bliss Rampike’—four years old—of Fair Hills, New Jersey! Wel-come, Bliss! And isn’t Bliss—oh my!—isn’t this little gal lit-tle! And beau-ti-ful!” Though Fair Hills had no contingent at the rink, and may even have drawn some titters of disdain, as soon as Skyler’s little sister skated out onto the ice, shakily at first and then with more confidence, in a frilly pink satin costume with a lacy bodice, a pleated skirt, white eyelet stockings, and translucent butterfly wings, or fairy wings, attached to her shoulder blades, the crowd was wildly enthusiastic. So young! Four years old! So small. The shock of it was, as the crowd registered by quick degrees, that this tiny tot skater could actually skate, with the grace and skill of a much older child; it soon became evident, to the buoyant beat of “Over the Rainbow,” that she could skate better than Tiffany Pirro, in long steady glides, turns and slow spins executed with the precision of a mechanical doll. Bliss’s eyes were somber beneath fluffy blond bangs, and the rosebud mouth Mummy had painted over her pale little mouth was fixed in a small shyly-sweet smile that never wavered. It was Bliss’s backward skating, a graceful if somewhat studied backward figure eight, that most astonished the crowd and provoked bursts of applause. So many times at the Halcyon rink had Bliss practiced her six-minute “Over the Rainbow” performance under the sharp-eyed tutelage of Ivana Zuev and Mummy, so fiercely had she concentrated on each required movement, by the end of the six minutes Bliss seemed to have forgotten her surroundings entirely and was startled by the applause, which endeared her yet more to the enthusiastic audience. Skyler who’d been watching through narrowed eyes waiting for the inevitable slip, stumble, fall, Ohhh! of the crowd, blinked in astonishment, as surprised as his sister, when the applause washed through the arena, and numerous spectators rose to their feet.

  Even Jeremiah Jericho seemed startled: “Ladiez ’n’ gents that was a truly perspercacious day-beyoo! New Jersey’s answer to Sonja Henie! Right here at Tots-on-Ice Capades 1994! My oh my.”

  Was Bliss’s performance over? So quickly? Those photographers who’d taken little interest in the previous child-skaters now pushed forward to take Bliss’s picture, frightening her with their flashes. The NJN TV crew was galvanized into action, filming the dazed-looking little girl and her beaming mother who declared, into a microphone thrust at her, “Thank you, thank you for your applause, my daughter is a born skater, my daughter will be the next Sonja Henie, we are so grateful for this wonderful opportunity, this is the happiest day of our lives, and most of all thanks to—” but the NJN microphone was withdrawn before Mummy could say God.

  Returned to their seats beside Skyler and Maria, as the crowd gradually quieted down and liz
ard-faced Jeremiah Jericho announced the name of the next little-girl skater, Mummy continued to hug Bliss and drew her clumsily onto her lap, skates and all. Tears streaked Mummy’s cheeks, Mummy was so happy. “Bliss, Mummy is so proud of you. And Daddy!—wait till Daddy hears. You were so much better than those other little girls, you must win. But whether you win or not, honey, Mummy loves you. And God loves you, tonight has been proof.” Close beside them Skyler tried to insinuate himself into Mummy’s embrace, too. Tried to feel happy and proud and excited, too.

  And yet: hadn’t Bliss fallen on the ice? Skating backward, showing off for the crowd? Hadn’t Skyler seen his brazen little sister stumble, start to fall?—quickly then he’d shut his eyes, to be spared seeing. Hadn’t that happened?

  THE REMAINDER OF THE EVENING PASSED IN A DELIRIUM OF CONFUSION, excitement, mounting anticipation. Several times Mummy tried to call Daddy on her cell phone, but could leave only a message: “Bix darling! Bliss has just skated, and she did so well. Darling, the crowd went wild for her! Our daughter! If you can get here by ten, Bix, please come. You still have time, the winners won’t be announced until the end of the evening, and if Bliss wins her competition—”

  Ravenous with hunger they bought food from vendors—the kind of food Mummy never allowed at home: hot dogs, French fries, slices of gummy pizza, giant Cokes. Bliss stared at the glittering ice without seeming to see it, Skyler became very restless in his seat. In a pretense of needing to use the men’s room he prowled the arena looking for—was it Daddy, whom he knew he wouldn’t see? (Yet: we must look.) In the dingy men’s room a youngish man with rust-red hair and an eager smile approached Skyler who was scowling into the grimy sink wondering should he wash his hands or return to his seat with contaminated hands asking, “Little boy? Are you lost? Or—looking for your dad?”