Becoming the Talbot Sisters

by Rachel Linden

  “Beautiful. This lighting is perfect,” the photographer called out, stepping back to capture a series of shots. Emily, the interviewer, sat at the table with Sophie, watching the shoot.

  Waverly ignored them all, intent on her task. She scraped soft cream cheese into the blender with the chilled salmon fillet and added a dash of olive oil and some salt and pepper. She dumped in the prepared juice and zest of a lemon and some fresh chopped dill, and blended the entire concoction until it was smooth and creamy pink.

  “Looks delicious.” The photographer moved in for a close-up.

  Waverly remembered what it was like to have her mother close to her—leaning her head against her mother’s soft bosom clad in a pale peach satin brassiere, listening to her talk on the telephone while she traced her lips with Dior Grege 1947 lipstick. Waverly had worn that lipstick in homage to her mother for every show since Simply Perfect began. It was her signature shade, as iconic as her aprons, but it was her little secret. No one knew it wasn’t her shade at all. It was Margaret Talbot’s, and Waverly was just a little girl playing dress-up with her mother’s makeup box.

  Waverly spooned the mousse into a pastry bag and set out a dozen of her homemade cracked black pepper and sea salt oatcakes. Meticulously she piped a swirl of mousse onto each one, making sure that each swirl was uniform in size and shape.

  The photographer circled her, the click of the camera the only sound in the quiet space. What would it be like to be a mother, Waverly wondered for the thousandth time. When she thought of holding the baby, smelling the downy little head, pressing the tiny body against her own heartbeat, she couldn’t breathe. She was made for motherhood. It was her destiny. And in just a few short months, her dream would come true. It seemed surreal to her, standing piping salmon mousse onto oatcakes, that right at that very moment, far away in Budapest, her baby was growing in her sister’s womb. Perhaps it was awake right now, stretching tiny fingers and toes, squirming in the dark warmth.

  “Can you turn toward me just a little so I can see your face?” the photographer asked, and Waverly complied, turning a few degrees but not breaking the rhythm of her work.

  She had signed up for daily fetal development updates on her iPhone, complete with ultrasound photos and detailed descriptions. In quiet moments alone she would stare at the screen until her eyes blurred, taking in the miracle of fingers and tooth buds and the tiny beating heart. She had an app that compared the baby to fruits and vegetables. Week seven, a small blueberry with a strong heartbeat. Week nine, a cherry with a developing digestive tract and reproductive organs.

  This week Charlie and baby were out of the first trimester. Most of the danger of miscarriage was past now, and both Charlie and baby were doing well. Charlie reported that her fatigue and nausea were lessening, and her energy was back. Waverly had breathed a sigh of relief and ordered a beautiful crib from Restoration Hardware in celebration.

  When the photo shoot was finished, Waverly handed out the salmon mousse canapés to Emily, the photographer, and Sophie.

  “A reward for a job well done,” she said with a warm smile, setting out a plate with the extras on it. “Enjoy!”

  While they clustered around the black marble island and devoured the fruits of her labor, Waverly slipped into her office and took out her phone. She felt a thrill of anticipation as she clicked on the update for week thirteen. Baby was about three inches long, about the size of a peapod, fully formed, with fingerprints. The baby could now even suck his or her thumb. She stared at the last ultrasound photo Charlie had sent, the giant bobblehead and tiny rounded fingers, thinking of the baby in Charlie’s belly, growing by leaps and bounds, oblivious to the outside world or to the fact that an ocean away its mother was waiting with breathless anticipation.

  She had a million things to do for work, but the baby was all Waverly could think about. While she was in front of the camera filming a short promotional video for the Food Network, showing the audience how to make the perfect dumplings for Chinese New Year, she was weighing the merits of various orthodontic pacifiers and organic baby wraps. During the photo shoot for her new book jacket photo, she had posed at her studio kitchen island and considered which was superior, the Munchkin Warm Glow Wipe Warmer or Prince Lionheart Ultimate Wipes Warmer.

  “Hey, Boss.” Beau knocked and poked his head into the office. “Heard it was a great interview. That salmon mousse was fantastic, and you know I don’t even like fish.”

  “Thank you,” Waverly said absently, still staring at the fetal update.

  “You have any plans tonight?” Beau asked. “Some of the crew are heading down to the White Lantern. Wyatt’s band is playing there tonight. Thought you might like to join us.”

  “Oh.” Waverly looked up, considering the invitation for a moment. Andrew was working a long day in the city and wouldn’t be home until late. For a moment she was tempted to say yes, and then she remembered. Charlie had gone to a doctor’s appointment that afternoon and had not yet e-mailed or called with the results. It was late evening in Budapest, but perhaps she would contact Waverly before she went to bed. “I think I’ll stay home and get some work done tonight, but thank you.”

  With a nod of farewell, Beau withdrew. Waverly knew full well that she wouldn’t be working. What she was actually going to do was make herself a cup of ginger tea and spend the hours until Andrew came home trawling high-end baby stores online. She was spending more and more time in this way, trying to prepare for the big event. It allowed her to feel closer to the baby growing so far away in her sister’s belly.

  Charlie was trying to include her in the process as much as she knew how, Waverly understood, but she was busy with work and travel, and growing a human took time. For days on end there was nothing much to report. Charlie called once a week or so and e-mailed with every doctor’s appointment, relaying every detail of new pregnancy symptoms or telling anecdotes about Hungarian culture in regard to babies.

  “My doctor tells me I should drink some red wine because it’s good for the baby, but I can’t take a bath or eat foreign foods. I’m not sure he realizes that for me, everything here is technically a foreign food,” Charlie had told her, chuckling. The calls were usually brief and sometimes a little awkward. There had been so many years of distance between the sisters that trying to bridge it now felt like plowing ground that had long lain fallow. It was hard work for both of them.

  Waverly chafed at each day that passed without news. She was restive, counting down the days to July 11. It seemed so far away. Sometimes she would pinch herself, unable to believe that it was actually happening. She was going to have a baby. At last.

  “Hello, little one,” she said softly, gently pressing a fingertip to the ultrasound photo. The baby looked undeniably human now, with a cute profile, its arms outstretched and feet like little paddles. She checked her e-mail again and her cell phone. Nothing. She would have to wait until tomorrow to hear how the appointment went. She sighed, disappointed.

  “Who will you look like?” Waverly asked, studying the blurry black-and-white outlines of its face.

  Perhaps the baby would have Charlie’s lithe frame and freckles, or the pert nose and soft blond hair that Waverly had inherited from their mother.

  Whatever the combination of genetic traits, Waverly knew she would love this child. It was her family, almost her own flesh and blood, destined to be in her arms. Close enough, she told herself. Close enough to look like her, to seem familiar, to be family, to be her own.

  “Grow big and strong, sweet one,” she murmured. “We can’t wait to meet you.”

  That night as Waverly slipped into sleep, she dreamed that she was sitting at the antique white French dressing table in her mother’s bedroom, the place where Margaret had put up her hair and applied her makeup every morning. Waverly looked at her reflection. She was an adult, the fine lines at the corners of her eyes made her look a little tired. She was wearing her mother’s long peach silk negligee. The dressing table in front
of her was littered with perfume bottles and bobby pins. She reached for a tube of lipstick, her mother’s ever-so-familiar Grege 1947, and uncapped it. She puckered her lips and glanced up at the mirror, then froze. A little girl was standing behind her, watching her with solemn dark eyes. She had curly dark hair and a red birthmark on her cheek in the shape of a strawberry. It was the same girl she had dreamed about before at the train station in Paris. The girl looked at her for a long moment and smiled shyly.

  “Come find me,” she said, holding out her hand. Then she turned and disappeared.

  Waverly woke with a start and sat bolt upright, her heart pounding. The dream had seemed so real. She put her hand to her chest, feeling not the slippery glide of peach silk but the reassuring feel of her own more sensible poplin pajama top. She was in her own bed with Andrew snoring softly beside her. She turned on her side but did not close her eyes.

  Why did she keep dreaming of the same little girl, a child she was sure she had never seen before? She bit her lip. What if it was a premonition, a taste of the future? What if Charlie was carrying a little girl and somehow Waverly was getting a glimpse of her child? The girl certainly bore no resemblance to either Charlie or Waverly, and they’d chosen a sperm donor with similar physical characteristics, but still, genetics were funny things. Perhaps the sperm donor had dark-haired and olive-skinned relatives. Maybe Waverly was dreaming about her future daughter.

  She shivered at the thought, equal parts delighted and unnerved. She took a swallow of water from her bedside carafe and settled back down in bed, but she couldn’t sleep. She lay staring at the ceiling as the minutes ticked by and thought about her future as the mother of a daughter. It felt so very right.

  CHAPTER 10

  January

  Budapest and a Serbian village

  Just the breakfast special this morning.” Charlie slid into a seat at an empty table for two at the First Strudel House of Pest and ordered her usual from Tamas, one of the regular servers. She glanced around the restaurant but didn’t see Kinga. On impulse she swapped her usual raspberry strudel for raisin with a slightly crumbly sweet cheese.

  She was leaving the next day on a two-week work trip through Romania and Serbia. The two slices would have to tide her over until she returned. She had not been to the strudel house for a few weeks. In fact, all of December had passed since she was last there. The Christmas holidays had gone by in a whirl of work parties, events with friends, strolls through the quaint outdoor Christmas markets dotting the squares around Budapest, and long, lazy evenings reading in her pajamas by the glow of candles and Christmas lights.

  Now it was early January. The weather was gray and bitter outside, with a crust of ice on the puddles and leaden low clouds over the Danube. People scuttled past the restaurant, their stoic faces burrowed in scarves and thick fur coats to ward off the icy wind coming off the river. Inside, however, the restaurant was cheerful and warm and smelled deliciously of baking pastry. A few businessmen sat at tables, deep in conversation, empty plates with crumbs in front of them. A family of Japanese tourists, still bundled in puffy down coats, took photos of themselves eating strudel, posing and looking up at their phone attached to a selfie stick.

  Tamas brought her order to the table.

  “Is Kinga here this morning?” Charlie asked. “Or did she already leave for Germany?”

  “She left a week ago, right after New Year,” Tamas confirmed. “Her cousin found a job for her in Munich.” He slid the plate of strudel and a fork down in front of Charlie, along with the accompanying orange juice and coffee.

  “Does she like it?” Charlie asked, eyeing the strudel, her mouth already watering in anticipation.

  Tamas shrugged. “No one has heard from her. I texted her last week but she didn’t text me back.”

  Charlie took a sip of orange juice and picked up her fork. “When you do hear from her, tell her I said hello. I hope it goes well for her.” And then she turned her attention to the waiting strudel.

  “So you slip the condom over the tip of the penis like this.” Five days later Charlie was bending over a spotted brown banana, showing a group of high school Romanian girls how to properly apply a condom, and botching the job fairly soundly. The banana was too ripe and she was having difficulty rolling the condom down its flaccid sides.

  It was sweltering in the school classroom, although outside a January frost was still white on the grass. These Communist-era block buildings had fiercely overefficient heating systems with no temperature control. She wiped her sweaty hands on her jeans and took a second attempt at the banana while Monica, her translator, soldiered on, elaborating to give Charlie time to get it right. The skin on the banana split, and soft banana oozed out the side onto her hands. The girls broke into a chorus of dismayed giggles, and even Monica cracked a smile.

  Care Network was doing a two-week-long series of reproductive health education seminars in local schools in rural Romania. Sex was a subject not talked about in Romanian culture, and the rate of teen pregnancies reflected the lack of any sort of thorough sex education.

  Charlie could hear Duncan in the next room giving a similar demonstration to the boys. From the gales of laughter filtering through the wall, he was either doing an amazing job or completely botching it. Charlie couldn’t tell which. Probably the former. Duncan was as smooth as butter. She forced the condom down over the last inches of the banana and triumphantly held it aloft to demonstrate. The girls tittered nervously as Monica wrapped up the presentation.

  When Charlie glanced toward the back of the room, she was surprised to see that a guest had slipped in sometime during her demonstration. He was standing at the back of the classroom, hands in the pockets of his brown corduroy trousers. He wasn’t tall, just a couple of inches taller than Charlie, but solidly built, with a brawler’s body and thick auburn hair cut short at the sides. He wasn’t handsome in a classical sense, but he had a pleasant face, sturdy and open. He looked dependable, like someone you would want on your side if you were in a tight spot. Charlie squinted, trying to place him. He looked familiar, although she couldn’t quite say why.

  He met her eyes, and his supple mouth twitched. It looked like he was trying to tamp down a laugh.

  She handed the classroom off to the teacher, who began a wrap-up speech in Romanian. A few minutes later class was dismissed and a torrent of dark-haired girls poured from their desks, blushing and giggling behind their hands. Charlie was at the front, gathering up her supplies and vowing to bring her own very green and firm bananas next time, when the familiar stranger approached her.

  “That was quite a demonstration.” He smiled, showing square white teeth. He held out his hand. “Dr. Johan Kruger at your service.”

  Reaching to shake his hand firmly, Charlie froze, his accent transporting her in a moment back to South Africa . . . the intense heat of the afternoon sun on her neck as she sipped bottled water and surveyed the long line of people seeking free medical exams in one of the many townships that sprang like mushrooms out of the parched dust.

  “Johannesburg,” she said abruptly.

  He looked surprised for a second and then nodded. “Yes. How did you know?”

  “I know you.” She realized she was still gripping his hand and released him, trying to think that far back, to pinpoint where exactly she had last seen his face. A hazy image of him in a white lab coat directing an ant hive of doctors and nurses to various stations—immunizations, infant checkups, HIV testing. “At a health camp for one of the townships, nine or ten years ago. I was finishing a degree in public health from UNISA and it was a practicum. You were there helping run the camp, if I remember right. I’m Charlie Talbot.”

  “Is that right?” He surveyed her with a sudden interest. “I thought you looked familiar but I couldn’t place you. Now I remember. You were volunteering with the women’s health clinic, weren’t you?”

  Charlie nodded and chucked the offending banana, still sheathed in its cheerful hot-pink condom, i
nto the wastebasket by the teacher’s desk. She didn’t want to talk any further about Africa.

  “What can I do for you, Dr. Kruger?” She wiped her hands on her jeans and picked up the box of supplies.

  “Call me Johan,” he urged, offering to take the box from her hands. “And more to the point, what can I do for you? I’m your new medical adviser. Anything you need me to help with today?”

  So Dr. Johan Kruger of South Africa was now on the staff of Care Network in Central Europe? What a small world.

  “Nothing I can think of for now.” She led the way out of the classroom. “Our last medical consultant approved this material, which isn’t saying much, but I think it’s pretty sound. We’ve got three more classes to do this afternoon, but I’ve got to find some less ripe bananas.”

  “Might keep the demonstration a bit more on track,” he agreed with a wry smile.

  “How long have you been in Europe?” she asked, amazed by the coincidence and a little shaken by the connection to her past. Anything that reminded her of her years in Africa brought a mixture of emotions—many good, but a few still so painful.

  Johan followed her into the next classroom, carrying the box of supplies. “Only a couple of months. I’ve made a commitment for a two-year term, and then I’ll see how it goes.”

  “Are you here alone?” Charlie thought she remembered that he had been married when she’d last seen him. She had been engaged at that time, a brief mistake with a gentle, earnest environmental activist named Shane.

  “Ah, yes, just me.” Johan cleared his throat. “Been divorced about six years now. And you, any family here?”

  “No, still single,” Charlie said briefly. She hardly thought of her engagement or Shane anymore. The fact that the breakup had not bothered her much spoke volumes on how ill-fitted they really had been for each other.