The Never Never Sisters

by L. Alison Heller

  Dear Me,

  So, Dr. Pressman is making us write letters to ourselves. But you knew this already because you’re me.

  Love,

  Paige

  I could still conjure the image of Pressman’s waiting room in precise detail in my memory: the walls were light brown and ornamented with generic beach paintings, one of which had footprints imprinted on it, recalling that Psalm about the Lord carrying someone through hardship. I used to stare at it, wondering if Pressman was a closet Jew for Jesus. I had all but ignored the tiny little pencil sketches of a bunny and an old lady hanging on the wall to the right of his door.

  One day, though, I thought I heard the door opening and glanced at the bunny. Instead, there was a duck, his long ears transformed into a beak. I looked again and found the bunny. I was tickled and continued to challenge myself, to see how quickly I could trick my brain into thinking it was a bunny. Then a duck. Then a bunny again.

  I stared at the old-lady sketch next. Her hooded eye could be an ear, her hooked nose became an elegant jawline—and suddenly before my eyes, she was young and dressed to kill. Now I felt left out, as though I’d missed something very crucial.

  The second I perched on his mustard-colored couch, I told Dr. Pressman what I’d finally noticed. Then I prodded him. “So. Which one is it?”

  “Which one is what?” Like some first-draft Lewis Carroll character, Pressman answered every question with a question.

  “Which is the real one—the duck or the bunny?”

  “What does that mean—the real one?”

  “I don’t know. I guess which is the main one, the one the artist sat down to do first?”

  “Hmm. Paige.” He pressed his index fingers together and stuck them directly up to—but not in—his nostrils, unfortunately a gesture he used many times during a session. “Why do you want to know?”

  Pressman had been a horrible therapist, at least for me at twelve. I wish I’d answered his questions with more questions: I don’t know, Dr. Pressman. Why does anyone want to know anything? Instead, even though I hadn’t stopped wondering, I dropped the topic.

  Under that top notebook was a pile of more of the same brand. I counted them. Nine. I certainly hadn’t written enough to fill that many, so whose were they? I flipped through them so quickly the words appeared to be jumping across the page. By the third notebook, I identified the handwriting as my mom’s, although the loops and curls on the page were springier than the flatness I was familiar with, as if the spirit of her script had been eroded over time.

  I had barely recalled that my mom had gone to Pressman too, and that there had been a place and a time that she’d talked about what happened with Sloane. Here was evidence that she’d had opinions and feelings during those months, some tangible enough to put into words and deep enough to fill reams of notebooks. It felt like a slap, a betrayal.

  Perhaps that’s why I felt entitled to read them.

  chapter eleven

  I talked about Frankie too much today. Was wondering with Pressman whether it was possible to heal as a family with Frankie not in the sessions. Pressman shrugged, told me to write down a memory of him.

  “What memory?” I said.

  “Any memory,” he said, pressing his finger to his lips the way he does when he wants me to be thoughtful. “Whatever memory you want. See where it takes you.”

  My Memory

  I left in a great rush. Summer payday Friday, squeezing into an elevator so full with people I didn’t even realize he was in it until, holding open the door onto Lexington Avenue, I saw the glint of his glasses, the bob of his head a few people back. He nodded at me, pressing himself against the door to relieve me from the duty of being a doorstop. I smiled my thanks and walked down Lexington. I was about to cross Thirty-sixth Street when I sensed someone standing next to me at the corner. “Where are you headed?”

  “Oh, hello, Mr. Reinhardt.” I probably smiled my good-employee smile and maybe batted my eyes. “Macy’s.” I omitted mention of my plan, which was to buy an expensive lipstick. “You?”

  “Penn Station,” he said, holding up a small bag. “I’m headed to the beach for the weekend.” He picked up his pace and I kept up with him. This was the longest conversation we’d had. “Six thirty train.”

  “Do you go out there a lot?” Of course he did, I thought. Of course his summer was full of beach weekends. It was disappointing because I’d always assumed he was lonely, but in an appealing way that I could remedy.

  “My cousins do. On the Sound. I have to go at least one weekend each summer.”

  “Have to?”

  “They have a seven-year-old and a one-year-old. Have you ever spent the night with anyone that young?”

  I shook my head. “Cute?”

  “Horrible. Miserable. Loud.” But we laughed, and it got us past the mental barrier that he was my boss, and we talked all the way to Thirty-fifth and Broadway until we heard the sirens. He grabbed my arm, pulling me back from the street corner as a fire truck raced by, skimming close enough that I wondered what would have happened had he not been there.

  Apparently—who knew?—if you are already a bit soft on a boy, having him save your life will only fan the flames. So it was then I noticed Frankie’s eyes up close—sparkling, long-lashed, lovely eyes. (Where have these lashes gone, I wonder? I know where the hair is going, the waistline, the muscle tone, but the lashes? Do they retreat into the eyes with age? Sad if so.)

  I melted a bit, and then reminded myself we worked together, and I looked away quickly at a mother pointing down the street to her toddler. “See the fire truck,” she was saying. “Fire truck.”

  “Fuh truh,” said the toddler.

  “That’s it! That’s it!” She clapped. “Fire truck!”

  “Hope nothing’s happening at Macy’s.” He was joking, but the fire truck was there when we rounded the corner, parked right in front with its lights still rotating. There was a crowd gathered at the gilded entrance doors, and Frankie pushed ahead of me, putting his hand on my shoulder to stop my forward motion. “Let me check what’s happening.”

  “Don’t you have to catch a train, Mr. Reinhardt?” I remember that calling him that felt like a dissonant chord, oddly formal after our friendly conversation.

  He ignored me and pushed through the crowd, and I stayed right behind him, peering over his shoulder to see the scene. Two firemen were talking to a uniformed security guard. My first thought was how overheated they must be, all of them in their dark uniforms, hats trapping sweat and heat. Then I saw the man on the ground, motionless. The security guard was gesturing and pointing at him, saying something, and one of the firemen crouched down next to the man, shouting. He stopped, plugged his nose and waved his hands in front of him dramatically to show how badly the guy stank. Comic relief. A titter of laughs ran through the crowd as it realized this was not a real emergency.

  Frankie, five inches in front of me, turned around. “It’s just some drunk,” he said, and true, there were customers streaming in and out of the store, some of them looking down and hurrying away, some of them ignoring completely the small but growing scene a few feet away. “I guess no need to worry.”

  I stepped closer. I had seen the man’s bald spot, the purplish hue of his pate around the bristly white hair, and when I looked closer, body parts began to click into place like collected clues: the bearlike slope of the arms, the distended belly, the dirty shirt. It could be him. He hadn’t been home in several days.

  “Any ID?” said one of the firemen, the one who had crouched down, now upright again. The second fireman reached out idly with his foot and stepped lightly on the drunk’s shoulder, rocking him back and forth. He didn’t budge.

  “Haven’t wanted to get close enough to check.” The security guard waved his hand in front of his face. “Alls I know, one o
f the customers complained about a half hour ago. So we called yous.”

  “Miss,” said one of the firemen, “can you step away?”

  “But it might be—,” I said. “I might know him.”

  They exchanged looks, and as I approached, the smell—fetid, as though a quart of milk had been poured onto a fire—was overwhelming. The man was facedown, and the fireman put out his foot again, ready to turn him onto his back by rocking him with his boot, but the second fireman reached out, stopping him. With great effort, he leaned down and used his hands to heave the man to the side so his face was visible.

  I recognized the face to an extent: swollen, fleshy, broken blood vessels. Open mouth, cracked teeth. An unfamiliar number of cracked teeth—the two front ones were missing. And this guy had dark bushy eyebrows and dead blue eyes, staring openly past me until the fireman thought to close them with his hands. Immediately after which he wiped his palms on the front of his pants.

  It was not my father. It was probably someone else’s father and now, of course, with the wisdom of years, I realize that it was also someone else’s son, someone else’s baby, but in that moment, I was sickened with relief at not having to do whatever came next—the administrative part of things that would no doubt start by explaining to the firemen, this crowd and Frankie that my father had met his last moments in front of a crowd of gawkers at Macy’s. Three summers later, after my father had disappeared for good, I wondered whether the Macy’s scene would have been preferable to the facts I was ultimately left with: found on Horatio Street by sanitation workers after being severely beaten.

  “No,” I said, backing through the crowd, my desire for that Macy’s lipstick completely dead. “I don’t know him.” I looked at Frankie, who was watching me with concerned eyes. “I don’t know him.”

  He nodded, silent.

  I smiled bright and false. “Have fun at the beach.”

  “Hey,” he said. “Hey, you want to do something?”

  “Now?”

  “Now.”

  He took me to the movie Manhattan. We went out to eat. We didn’t talk about the drunk in front of Macy’s. We talked about work and Woody Allen and the food until he looked at his watch and realized that he was in danger of missing the last train and keeping up his seven-year-old nephew (now a twenty-nine-year-old accountant, certified after four tries at the exam!), who always stayed awake until he arrived. He raced outside to a pay phone but not before hailing a cab and paying the driver for my fare all the way back to Brooklyn. He patted the roof after closing the door and leaned into the open window. “It’s too late for the subway.”

  There’s no doubt that the moment forged something between us. There was little room for pretense afterward, and I wonder if that set up me and Frankie unfairly: Have I been too grateful? Have I found too much meaning in his kindness? The day felt like I’d shown him everything—I’d been quivering, naked, raw—and he’d stayed.

  But I wonder what would’ve happened if I hadn’t kept step with him on that corner. What if I had hung back and taken my time?

  If that moment was what sealed my bond to Frankie, what kind of foundation is that?

  chapter twelve

  Vanessa

  I’D ASKED SLOANE for her number at that first breakfast. Twice, actually. The first time, she didn’t hear. She was tired. Overwhelmed. Taking in her parents’ luxurious apartment after a twenty-year hiatus from our lives, she appeared somewhat stunned. She probably thought we’d made a pact with Satan.

  Conversation loosened up during the meal, so I asked for her number again. An entire wall slammed down in front of her eyes. I could practically hear her internal alarm screaming: Perimeter breached! Perimeter breached!

  I held my ground. “I just don’t know how we’ll make plans if we can’t get in touch.” I was proud of myself for not backing away. I’ve understood Sloane since birth—since her gaze first burned up mine with those dark wise eyes. (They say that newborns are blind as a litter of puppies, but not Sloane. That kid knew what was up from day one.) That doesn’t mean I knew the right methods to reach behind her bravado, of course, but I never doubted that it was there.

  Paige, a mite tone-deaf, excused herself in the middle of this fraught moment. Sloane’s eyes followed her, and she shouted the phone number at me and ordered me not to overuse it before rushing to the elevator after Paige.

  “Scraps,” Frankie muttered, but he’d remembered the last four numbers and I the first three. Once we got it safely written down, we looked up the area code. (Oregon? When was she in Oregon?)

  “They need to spend more time together,” I said. “We have to help them along.”

  “Okay,” Frankie agreed with me, but he was already looking down the hall to where his suit was, empty and waiting for him. I nodded permission. I felt strong; I’d already figured out how to proceed.

  They were close enough in age that they could be friends, like Cherie’s kids were, always dating each other’s roommates and hanging out in one big group. Socializing, telling one another the things they didn’t tell us. A pack.

  I waited until Sunday morning before calling Sloane and when I did, a man picked up. Had she given me a fake number? I had expected hostility but hoped we were beyond the lies.

  “I’m sorry. I’m trying to reach a Sloane Reinhardt,” I said. There was a pause, and the next thing I knew, her voice was in my ear.

  “What.”

  “If you’re not doing anything today, I wanted to invite you on a shopping trip. I mean, you wouldn’t have to actually buy anything if you didn’t want to. You could buy something, of course—I’d be happy to treat—”

  “I have no interest in shopping with you.”

  “This was Paige’s idea.” I would work this like the Parent Trap—tell Paige how much Sloane wanted to be with her, tell Sloane how much Paige wanted to be with her . . . and poof! Reservations would melt. “It could be fun.”

  Her voice softened, I swear, for a moment. “I can’t.” And then it was flinty again. “Bye.”

  “See you tomorrow, then.” As I hung up, I started worrying about who the man was, which of course, having borne witness to Sloane’s high school years, I had very good cause to do.

  chapter thirteen

  “WHEN YOU HAVE kids, make sure you have a daughter.” My mom always said this at least once during our shopping trips. “So you can do this.”

  “I’ll put my order in with the gods.” It was my standard response. Neither of us ever mentioned the obvious possibility of that daughter being an estranged junkie, in which case she’d most likely not be game for grabbing a chicken salad at Barneys every few weeks. I supposed there was also a fifty-fifty chance of winding up with a daughter like me, though, someone who lived for the shopping day tradition to an almost pathetic degree.

  Lunch was my favorite part of the routine, even now that my mom insisted on going to the floors with the expensive designers and buying without regard for price. “Don’t even bother looking at the tags,” she’d say, waving her hand as I imagined Marie Antoinette did after her line about letting them eat cake. I loved the meal despite my mom’s constant dieting, which was always the wacky, demanding, all-in variety, requiring the deletion of at least one layer of the food pyramid. Earlier she had handed back her menu with a packet of dried something and the request that the waiter mix it with rice milk. He had bowed his head deeply and apologized; no rice milk. No almond or cashew milk either, so the two of them negotiated and settled on soy. When he brought her brown shake along with my summer salad, she made me swear I wouldn’t tell anyone. “I’m really not supposed to have soy,” she whispered, as though she were about to dig into an entire chocolate cake.

  I traced a cross above my heart with my index finger, and she winked in response. We felt off our normal groove; I’d been working to click us into track since
we first met up in the shoe department. They were showing dreary colors for fall—mustard and purplish gray and brownish green—but we tried them on anyway, slipping cutoff pantyhose over our toes and pausing in front of low mirrors, exaggerating our attempts to see the style.

  The whole morning I’d been thinking about that raw journal entry, which was, to say the least, a new perspective on my parents’ we-met-through-work story. I had tried to process it, rereading it in my mom’s voice. The tone and cadence were familiar, just not the darkness or the ranting looseness. It was pure, uncalculated: a confession. “Did you hear from Sloane today?”

  My mom dabbed her lip with her napkin in a manner befitting a duchess. “She said she had plans all day.”

  “Oh? When did she say that?”

  “I called her this morning to invite her.”

  “Really? Shopping is pretty clearly not an area of interest for her.” Yesterday, Sloane had looked like an eleven-year-old camper—slogan T-shirt, cutoffs, stubbly bruised legs. Plus, it was our thing, my mom’s and mine.

  “It’s not really about the shopping.”

  As if I didn’t know that. “What’re they doing instead? Seeing those sculptures?”

  “They?”

  “Her fiancé.”

  “Her who?”

  “Fiancé. Yep. I met him.” Her face darkened just a touch, as though someone somewhere had twisted an old-fashioned tint dial on us. “You’re allowed to talk about this stuff, Mom. You can show surprise that she’s engaged.”

  “I’m not surprised. She has a whole life. She’s a grown woman.”

  “You’re not hurt that you didn’t know?”

  “I thought she seemed really good, didn’t you?”

  “Sure.” What I tried to convey with my raised eyebrows was this: That wasn’t an answer, but if you’re not going to ask, I’m not going to tell.

  “When she was talking about the exhibit yesterday, it made me remember how she’d do these nature paintings. She did this whole project when she was eight using fruit slices as stamps. And do you remember the plays?” I shook my head. “To be honest, they were a little lacking as entertainment: not much plot. Just elaborate dress-up and long monologues.”