A Gift for My Sister: A Novel

by Ann Pearlman

  Aaron narrows his eyes when he sees the flowers. “What you tell him?”

  “You know, like, I told you.”

  Levy runs and grabs me around the legs. “Mommy. Mommy.” I pick him up and squeeze him to me, inhaling his scent. “Butterfly!” and he flutters his long lashes on my cheek, tickling me. I wind his soft curls around my fingers.

  Aaron shakes his head, “What’s going on?” His hand sweeps around my dressing room, and then points to me, to Levy, to himself. “You going to risk all this?”

  “I haven’t done a thing.” I stand there, Levy on my hip, my fingers buried in his hair, my legs planted strong, meeting Aaron’s glare. “Don’t be paranoid.”

  After the concert, in all the Vegas hubbub and buzz, Aaron talks in the corner with one of the babes hunting for some action. He stands inches from her, and she slides her fingers into his front pocket. Yep. She sure does. My neck pounds in fury. His back is to me as he leans into her.

  And then there’s King. Right there again with his army of fit dudes.

  King revolutionized hip-hop, embraced gangsta rap, and caught the wave into crossover, owning himself and his own record label, bringing on new talent and developing them. He created his own clothing label, too, King Kloz. Baggy clothes for men, and skin-tight half-there clothes for women.

  He asks if I got his flowers and what’s on my mind.

  There’s so much going on I can’t begin to sort it all out. I could escape everything . . . Troy’s death, Sky’s sadness, rushing back to Venice Beach after each concert to help Sky pack while she just sits staring into space with Troy’s ashes on her lap. And now this tug-of-war between Aaron and me.

  Before I went off to try to help Sky, Aaron had held me close. We were in our bus and he threw the pencil he was using to write lyrics down on the desk, so happy to see me. “Hey, babe. Is it working like you want?”

  “I don’t know what Sky’s going to decide,” I said into his neck.

  “I didn’t mean her. I meant us. This. Our crew. Our family. Us.”

  “It’s better than I thought it would be.” I snuggled close to him and then told him the rest: “That’s the truth. But it’s a taste of how amazing it could be. How far we could go.”

  “We’ll get there,” he promised.

  I got very quiet and he could feel me stiffen.

  “I’m not going anywhere, babe,” he said. “Unless you push me away.”

  How did he get so wonderful, so mature? Or was it all some game?

  Now, standing there with King in front of me and some woman hitting on my man, I think about how I could escape all this and simply focus on stardom.

  Just then, the woman with Aaron points at King. Aaron turns around and our eyes meet. He only sees the piece of me that isn’t hidden behind King’s large body. But when our eyes meet, I recognize sorrow in his, a sickening look that lingers. He told me once I was his angel. A miracle. I helped him believe in his own dreams, the strength of our team.

  I look up at King and say, “Look, dude. My brother just died. I’m . . . well . . . I’m at sea.” I glance at Aaron and he leans toward the woman. He’s shifted so I can only see his back, but I know he’s close enough to smell her, to feel warmth from her body.

  Something has been stirred up by Troy’s death. Even if everything is fine with Aaron, I have a more vivid fear of being left, being alone again. There’s a greater sense of my own vulnerability and my importance to Levy. King’s attention hints at a way to solve some of that and have complete freedom. He might be right. I may need to prepare to take care of myself and Levy.

  King tilts his head and shrugs, under a matte black jersey jacket with a stand-up collar, his own label. “You’re young, just starting. Don’t you want to see where you could go? Beyond being part of a crew?” He waits for me to say something, but I don’t. “You could be mega like Beyoncé, or have Madonna power and solo stardom. Go places you haven’t even dreamed. You just need to be developed, directed. I see it.” He points to his eye. “And you need it.” He points to me.

  “What do you get?”

  “A cut. I’m a businessman.” He raises his eyebrows. “And some fun.” He strings out the word so I can make the fun be anything I want.

  I don’t want to slam doors. I meet his eyes and turn my voice as intimate as I can backstage with the crew watching. “I have a sister to take care of, and my family is . . . well . . . counting on me. I need time. Can you back off while I sort things out?”

  He slides his palm so that his fingers touch mine and his electricity courses through my arm. He nods. “You have my number. But just like you’re unpredictable, I’m impatient.”

  “A month. Can you give me that? I need to finish up this tour, get my sister and her daughter back home. Sort things out.” I nod to the entire crew. “Then I’ll call you.”

  Smoke watches.

  T-Bone is watching, too.

  Red Dog’s eyes shift from me to Aaron.

  I’ve disrespected Aaron in front of his crew. I inhale and roll my shoulders back. No, maybe they’ll respect me more as an artist rather than the baby-mama tag-along that Aaron stuffed down their throats.

  But not with King holding my hand and making it look like it’s about sex. Not with his melty dark eyes looking at me. Not with his lips, full and dotted with freckles. He licks the lower one and purses them together, a gesture that Troy used to make.

  I drop King’s hand and step back.

  That night, I say to Aaron, “You gonna be a prick? Going to flirt and carry on with some other woman and make all this worse? I can always get another cheating son-of-a-bitch.” I don’t want a bad boy. I want a good man, one who loves me, who’s honest with me, but that’s the scariest thing of all. In a way, a jerk is a chicken choice. It doesn’t carry the risk of hope.

  “Looks like you already got one next in line.” My back is to him, I’m about to crawl into bed, but then he turns me to face him. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “He wants to make me a star.”

  “I want us both to be stars.” He spits the words out.

  “I, like, told him to back off. I’m here, too.” I thought Aaron was that all-the-time loving, forever man. Sky thought that about Troy, too, and he died. They die or they leave; either way you can’t rely on them. I think again about Sky’s and my conversation on Magic Mountain.

  “He better watch himself. He’s stepping on my toes.”

  “I’m not your territory. He’s helping me be me.” I point to my chest. “It’s a business proposition.”

  I know Aaron worries that we won’t become what we’ve dreamed, that I won’t be by his side. I’m vital to it all. Integral to his dream. He considers me almost as he considers himself. I wonder if it’s in the width of that almost that it all falls apart. As we stand there facing each other these thoughts flash, and I know I’m at a pivotal moment. For the first time, we are really tested.

  “Not that I trust you after what I saw tonight, anyway.” With a father like mine, how could I trust any man? But I’m not going to throw us away. I want to see where this new place leads. And so I say, “I love you.” I don’t say it casually like we do every morning and every night. Like we say it instead of hello and goodbye. I say it slow and deliberate. I reach my hand up to touch his cheek. And say it again. “I love you.”

  He wraps me in his arms and holds me tight to eradicate the flesh that separates us.

  The next day, I return to L.A. to help Sky pack. Allie is off visiting a friend. I start on Rachel’s toys. Levy is with us. The two children pick up toys and drop them in the box. “You want this one?” I ask about a Sesame Street toy that doesn’t pop up anymore. Rachel nods, Levy throws it in the box. I try to make it fun, talking in the voices of the stuffed animals. The kids get into my game and pretty soon the plastic toys tell us, “Bye-bye, I’ll see you in Ann Arbor.” Levy sings about each plastic ring, “I’m a ring wanting a bigger ring. Here it is. Here it is.” And then drops the c
omplete tower of rings in the carton. I label each box; Levy scribbles pictures on the cardboard.

  “Will Daddy be there? In Ann Arbor?” Rachel looks at me, crouched among the few toys that are still unpacked.

  “No. Daddy’s gone.” I say it as softly as I can. “Except for your memories.”

  “I want my daddy.” Rachel’s lower lip trembles.

  I don’t know what to say, so I just continue packing. And then I say, “Me, too. I miss him, too.” And Rachel comes to me and pats my shoulder. And we hug each other. Levy joins in.

  Downstairs, Mom packs up the kitchen while Sky slowly wraps the plates in paper. I swear it takes her ten minutes for each plate. She stares into space. Lost in her thoughts, distracted by visions.

  I make myself coffee.

  “I can’t figure it out.”

  I know she’s not talking about her plates. Sky has been making statements like this for days.

  Sky examines her hands, turning them back and forth. “I brought it home from my visit with Mia.” She then nods. “I didn’t mean to.” Her voice breaks up and she starts crying again.

  “No.” Mom puts her hand on Sky’s shoulder. “It was that medication that weakened his immune system. It was an extraordinary, one-in-a-million reaction. That’s what the doctor said.”

  “Why look for a cause, a reason? It’s just bad luck. Really terrible, sad, tragic bad luck.” I finish wrapping the plate Sky began.

  Tears dribble down her cheeks. “It can’t be just fucking luck.” She chokes on the word. “It’s unfair. There has to be a reason. I hate every living man just for being alive.”

  Mom stacks the plates in a box. “I guess you should have agreed to that autopsy. Then we might know more.”

  “Another of my mistakes,” Sky says, bitterly.

  I smear peanut butter on whole-wheat bread and then cover it with raspberry jam Mom made last summer. The peanut butter is homemade from honey-roasted peanuts and the jam is flavored with almond Torani syrup and extract. It’s the best peanut butter and jelly in the world. I carry sandwich halves to the children and leave a plate of them on the kitchen counter for us to eat as we work. No one but me and the kids touch them. Sky has forgotten about food.

  “Am I being punished?”

  “For what?” Mom says.

  I know sins are secret, sometimes just thoughts or wishes. “Wouldn’t it be great if all the evildoers got punished and the rest of us, who try to be good and fair and just, only reaped rewards?” I nestle a plate on top of another.

  “You just get good things. Success. Money. A man who is still alive.” She says this with more energy than I’ve seen since Troy’s death. “You get it all, regardless of how much fear and turmoil you’ve created.”

  I bite my sandwich and wrap another plate, ignoring her anger. I’m not going to fight with her. Not now. My heart goes out to her.

  But she won’t stop. “You were such a bitch.”

  “That was years ago. I was a teenager.”

  Her fist pounds the kitchen counter. “You get away unscathed. Unpunished.” Her eyes are narrowed.

  I bite my lower lip and consider what to say. Any other time, we’d be at it. I’d say, “You’re jealous of me? Well, it’s a turn of the screw because I envied you my entire childhood, followed you around, was pushed away like the ugly duckling, the pesky, nerdy, annoying little sister. You were mean and resentful.” That’s what I would have said. Any other time. I’m surprised she envies me. And I guess a part of me is glad. But I can’t fight with a sister whose husband died a week ago. So instead I say, “It wasn’t just luck. I worked hard for my success. You know that.” I struggle to maintain an even tone. “I just haven’t felt the need to make everything nicey-nicey.” I hunt for the proper words, grab more air, and measure my voice: “I haven’t conformed to everybody else’s ideas of how I should live. And I’m sorry you’ve had so much tragedy and I’ve had better luck. And maybe I’m the one that deserves the tragedies because I was such a terrible teenager.” I stop. I’m not going to justify my decisions and my actions to her. Not now. “But you’ve had it all, Sky. And you and Troy made a wonderful life for each other and together. You have an incredibly sweet and beautiful daughter.” I don’t know if reminding her how good it was is the right thing to do.

  “Why me? Why am I being punished?”

  Sky thinks I was, or am, a bad daughter. But maybe Mom was wrong for not accepting me. She never paid attention. For me, it just was the way it was from the beginning. “Each of us did what we had to do. And it is what it is now.”

  “Please, girls!” Mom warns in the voice she used when we were children.

  Later, Mom and I finish up the kitchen, wrapping glasses. Rachel and Levy watch Yo Gabba Gabba. Sky stares at the TV.

  Mom says, “When you were a baby, I rocked you to sleep and you sang a song. A two-note song. ‘Ah oh ah oh ah oh,’ you sang over and over.” Mom’s voice imitates my infant tones. She stuffs paper into the bowl of a glass and nestles it beside the others in the box. “You were just a newborn, a tiny thing, but you sang that little song. When I put you in your crib, you continued, ‘Ah oh ah oh ah oh.’ You sang yourself to sleep.” She gazed off in the distance as though my tune conjured up a newborn me. And then she turned to me, “You did that for years. The music comforted you. I didn’t. It was always the music.”

  I don’t know what to make of this. I don’t know why she told me this then. As though I had my music, and I didn’t need her? Is she jealous of my music? Is she telling me how unneeded she felt as my mother? I busy myself encasing a wine goblet. There was too much going on with my father for her to be happy with me. I had to learn to comfort myself. Thank God I could make my own music.

  I was lonely even then, even as a little baby. We don’t exist without each other. What are we but animals with language? And what is the point of language if it isn’t part of a connection with someone else?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Long Road Home

  Sky

  I’M IN THE car with Allie, driving from Los Angeles. I don’t know if this is the best thing, going back to Ann Arbor. I was happy here, in San Diego and L.A. But I can’t seem to make a decision and there’s no point in sitting in that rental without a job, or friends.

  I’m without a plan. A goal. I don’t know what I want or what I should do. My life has been ripped out from under me. I don’t recognize it anymore. Or me. Not without Troy.

  I used to know where I was going and why. I wanted Troy, I wanted to be a lawyer, and then I wanted a baby. I got all that. And lost two out of three. Well, I still have my degree and can pass the bar in Michigan.

  I won’t be alone. I’ll have Mom and all her friends. Tara, for whatever she is worth, is close by. Jennifer and Marissa are both there.

  But Mom might try to take over.

  No. I just have to draw lines.

  In Venice, at least I was with Troy.

  And I feel like I’m leaving him.

  Our life together seems a long time ago. And just a minute ago.

  Rachel is in the backseat. When I turn to look at her, Maddie is on her lap and the dress-me monkey and turtle face her, spread out on the seat. Maddie acts as a teacher, telling them they have to be good. Can’t mess up their toys. Must pee-pee and poo-poo in the potty. Rachel has been so good with her toilet training. I haven’t paid enough attention. I need to give her more praise and support.

  As we drive away, a woman stands on the side of the road. At first I assume she’s hitchhiking, or begging for money. When we get closer, I notice that she’s a middle-aged woman, dressed in a creased pair of pants and a tucked-in printed blouse, her short hair neatly coifed. She holds a poster that says, YOU MUST HAVE SELF-RESPECT TO EARN RESPECT.

  And then we’re out of the city on I-40 and a sign says it’s 2550 miles to Wilmington, North Carolina. The other side of the country. From the Pacific to the Atlantic. There are messes of tangled dusty shrubs beside the highway.<
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  Maddie says, “I know you don’t like it, but it’ll be okay.”

  Turtle answers in a squeaky voice, “No it’s not! No it’s not! No it’s not!” Behind them, out the rearview window, I see our U-Haul and, when we round a bend, I see the bus with Tara, and Special Intent, and Red Dog, and T-Bone and Thumble inside. What peculiar names, like characters from a make-believe world as bizarre as whatever goes on in Rachel’s mind that allows Turtle and Maddie to talk.

  I think all this while staring out the window at the curving, looping road, still hazy from L.A., the landscape strung with rusty power lines.

  I’m glad Tara’s on the bus. At first we thought we women and the children would ride together, but Tara wanted to stay with Aaron. Maybe later we’ll switch up. But right now I’m glad it’s only Rachel and Allie in my black Honda Accord. It has only 50,000 miles on it and was tuned up a month ago. It should be able to make the trip without a problem.

  “How ya doing?” Allie asks. Usually I like to talk with her, but I glance at the mirrors, making sure my furniture and clothes are still behind me.

  “I don’t know.” I look out the passenger window.

  “It’ll get better.”

  “That’s what everyone says.” Troy’s box is on my lap. I place my palms on either side of it.

  Even Allie, who usually has words of wisdom and advice, doesn’t know what to say to that. So she watches the yellow line. It’s flat desert. Rectangular bundles of hay stacked on top of each other and covered with blue tarp, just in case it rains. But it doesn’t look like it rains much.

  I’m reassured by the sight of the U-Haul in the side mirror. As though the truck with its burden of sofa, TV, books, desktop, clothes, toys, high chair, mattress, dining table, and crib are Troy. Maybe Troy’s DNA, minute bits of him, are scattered in the mattress, on the sofa. Mixed with mine. A nail clipping maybe. I picked up his brush, woven with his hairs, from the bathroom counter. It smells like him. Then I saw him standing in front of the mirror, trying to slick down his cowlick and complaining about going bald. He existed only in my seeing, and immediately faded away. And I was left holding his brush. I tried putting it in the box with his ashes, but it didn’t fit.