Shake Down the Stars

by Renee Swindle

She gives me one last hard stare before deciding it’s okay to leave. After she closes the door, I walk over to the girls and join them on the couch. They have blankets up to their chins as they stare at the TV. They are identical down to their dusty-colored skin and elongated faces; their light brown curls and hazel eyes are remnants of the hockey player. “Should I order soup?”

  “Yeah,” they mumble simultaneously.

  Sophia says blandly, “I want celery root with porcini.”

  Little Margot says, “I want the butternut squash with marjoram.”

  “When I was a kid, we had the choice of tomato, bean, or chicken noodle.”

  “Ew!”

  I love the girls, of course, but they’ve grown up in a way that has afforded school lunch menus with choices like pan-seared tuna sandwiches and organic mashed potatoes. Even now, at ten years old, they carry the world-weary attitude of the rich, where only trips to Paris or Italy will suffice.

  I call room service. On TV, a tween with an eighties-style blond do holds court in front of her locker. She’s in a dither about—what else? A boy.

  “What are you watching?”

  “Dena Delaney,” they reply in unison.

  Margot says, “We own, like, the entire series.”

  “Seasons One through Six,” Sophia adds.

  “We’re watching, like, every episode starting from Season One.”

  “It’s our Dena Delaney marathon.”

  “We’re, like, already halfway finished with Season Three,” says Margot.

  “So are you two upset that you can’t go to the ceremony?”

  “I am,” Sophia says. “Margot isn’t.”

  Margot says, “The wedding is, like, way more important—that’s why. I’d rather be sick for this than the wedding. We can’t miss the wedding for anything. We’ll be pissed if we do.”

  “Yeah, pissed.”

  I start to watch TV along with them, but one minute in, I’m shocked at how everyone is behaving as if they’re much older. And while the twins are in the habit of overusing the word like, this show, like, takes it, like, to a whole other, like, level.

  “You guys wanna play a game of cards?”

  “No.”

  “Monopoly?”

  “No.”

  They don’t bother looking my way. They’re, like, transfixed.

  I reach out and simultaneously touch their foreheads. “Are you feeling any better?”

  “We are,” Margot says. “It’s Britney Bartles-Smith’s fault we’re sick in the first place. She had it, and now almost everyone in our class has it.”

  “Every. One,” Sophia says. She’s the quieter of the two, watchful and old-lady acting since birth. She says, “I’m feeling better. I think I’ll have some ice cream after I finish my soup.”

  “You can’t,” Margot says. “We’ll have ice cream tomorrow with some of Mom and Curtis’s cake. Besides, if we have it tonight, we might throw it up.”

  “Yeah, we’ll be like Ashley Burrows.”

  I gather from their high-pitched giggles that they’re feeling better.

  “Ashley throws up on purpose,” Margot explains. “She doesn’t want to get fat.”

  “How old is Ashley Burrows?”

  “Ten.”

  Margot says, “She has a therapist she sees every week.” She looks toward the television. “We’ll have cake tomorrow when we’re feeling better,” she announces as though speaking aloud to herself.

  Sophia says, “Yeah, when we’re feeling better.”

  They perfected their relationship as zygotes swimming in Margot’s uterus. I imagine when they’re much older, they’ll continue to function like a well-mechanized impenetrable team. At ninety, after long lives with their husbands and their own kids, they’ll share a house, locked in a comfortable routine of TV watching and gossip. The only person missing, of course, will be Hailey.

  I sigh quietly and reach for the phone. “Soup. Coming right up.”

  • • •

  The sound of people applauding wakes me. I’d meant to sneak out and watch the ceremony from the beginning, but I must have fallen asleep. I check on Sophia and Margot. Seeing that they’re sound asleep, I find my sweater and quietly make my way downstairs and outside.

  I stand close to the main building, far enough away that I won’t be noticed. Almost every single seat is filled, and all eyes are glued to the gazebo, which is lit up with soft pink trellis lights. The sun is setting, right on cue, the wind has died down, and the sky is magically clear of rain clouds. It’s as if even the weather knows to obey my sister or else.

  The football player takes Margot’s hand and gazes into her eyes. Both he and Margot are miked. “I want you to be my woman. I wanted you to be my woman from the second I saw you.”

  I wait to see if he might beat his chest and drag her off by the hair, but instead he bends to his knee. His suit strains against all his muscles. Applause breaks out as he takes Margot’s newly de-ringed hand and he reaches into his pocket. A woman in the back yells, “Aw, right now!” and everyone laughs.

  “Margot, I want you to be my woman for life.” He opens the small velvet box, and Margot screams and covers her mouth in a way that signals Curtis has gone off script.

  She goes for the ring, much like Curtis chases down a football, all hands and speed, and before Curtis pops the question (again), she’s already put the ring on her finger and is waving it to the audience. “Can you all believe this? He got me a new ring!” There are a few chuckles in the back as Margot fans herself as though she might faint. She manages to settle down, though, and finally gazes at the football player who is still on his knee with a big dopey grin on his face. “Margot Marie Wright, will you marry me?”

  In the silence that follows, Margot reaches down and takes the football player’s chin between her fingers. “Curtis, I am your woman and you—you are my man. In front of God, in front of our family and friends assembled here today, I humbly accept your proposal of marriage.” Curtis brings her to his knee, and they put their tongues through a kind of roping exercise.

  Mom and the Reverend stand up in the front row and begin to applaud. Everyone joins in, and Margot and the football player finally come up for air. Margot grins and holds up an I’m-not-finished-here-yet finger. She then takes the football player’s hand and stares deeply into his eyes. “I will love you till I’m old and gray. You are mine and I am yours, Curtis Francis Randolph, and I want everyone here to know how much I love you.”

  He looks at her adoringly. “Oh baby,” he says with a sigh, going in for a deep kiss.

  “Oh God,” I moan. I can’t take another second and sneak off to the side of the main building, past the front parking lot, and down the path that leads to one of the lookout benches surrounding the grounds. I sit near a pathway next to a secluded wooded area. The sky is clear enough that I can see Venus and Hercules to the south of Serpens. If I had my telescope, I’d focus on Jupiter and its three satellites—Callisto, Ganymede, and Io. It’s a perfect night for Jupiter.

  When I was young, I was called more than a few names for my obsession with astronomy, but I never cared. Looking at the stars has always been one of the few things in life that’s given me a sense of calm. Mr. Hoffman, a man Mom dated for nearly three years, introduced me to astronomy. He taught science at an all-boys Catholic prep school in Manhattan and would dress fastidiously each morning in a suit and tie. It was weeks before I realized he was a teacher and not a banker or office employee.

  He lived in a two-bedroom house one block from our apartment building, and while Mom worked her night job waitressing, Mr. Hoffman would babysit. He loved Mom with the kind of love that’s painful to watch, even for a nine-year-old girl, but when I asked her one night when she was going to marry him, she laughed like I hadn’t seen her laugh in months. “Now where did you go get that idea fro
m? Me and David? Marriage? Child, you have gone and lost your natural-born mind.” She’d just come home from her job at the department store. When I pressed her on the matter she said, “He’s a nice man, Piper, I’ll give you that, but nice doesn’t pay the bills. I’m looking for someone who can help us out of this shitty situation we’re in, and marrying a Jew who doesn’t make good money makes no sense.” She laughed again and flipped off her shoes as she headed toward her bath.

  But she continued to see Mr. Hoffman just the same. We spent most nights at his house, in fact. He’d have dinner waiting for her when she came home from work; he’d massage her feet while we watched TV, and he’d take her out whenever he could, usually dinner and a movie.

  On the nights when Mom worked late, Mr. Hoffman would heat up TV dinners, and we’d watch our favorite sitcoms, followed by tapings of Cosmos or Nova. Mr. Hoffman always talked excitedly about space; he’d give me books on the solar system and astronomy and would tell me about the laws of planetary motion and measuring space through light. He’d often take out his telescope, too, a Meade TX with auto star, and we’d go into his backyard and spend hours stargazing. He’d often say he’d love for me to grow up to become an astronomer or astronaut, as easy as Mom would say she’d love for me to grow up and find a job in a nice office that paid good benefits.

  When Mom started cheating on him, we both pretended nothing was going on. But I’d already met the other guy, Uncle Gerald, and when she’d call late and say she’d have to work, I knew she was lying. Eventually, while we watched TV one night, Mr. Hoffman admitted he knew what she was up to—“She’s with the other guy, isn’t she?”

  I was devastated when they broke up. Not only was she dumping Mr. Hoffman, but we were moving to Maryland to live with her sister—our eighth move since my birth. On the day we were set to leave, I imagined things would play out as dramatically as they did on TV. I envisioned two different scenarios while Mom and I loaded the U-Haul. In scenario one, I waited patiently for Mr. Hoffman to show up, teary-eyed and begging us to stay. I imagined Mom recognizing how much she loved him and announcing that we would always be together. To celebrate, he’d give me his old telescope after buying a new one for himself. Here, Piper, I want you to have this. I love you as much as if you were my very own. In the second scenario, the sadder of the two, Mom would tell him we were moving no matter what, at which point he’d get his telescope from his car and hand it over to me. Here, Piper, I want you to have this. I’ll miss you.

  But Mr. Hoffman never showed up that day, and Mom and I loaded the U-Haul and started the drive to Maryland without a good-bye or a telescope. I wrote Mr. Hoffman within a week of our arrival. The gist of my letter was I hate it here and miss you more than anything. Can I at least have your telescope? His reply arrived in less than a week, written on the prep school’s stationery. The gist of that letter, which was more than three pages long, was I miss your mother more than anything. Is she seeing anyone?

  • • •

  I’m half watching the news, half dozing, when I hear a knock at the door. Danielle, Margot’s event planner, greets me by saying, “Tell them to serve the champagne right after the second speech. Not a fucking second later. Got it?”

  I’m tempted to nod yes, but then I notice she’s speaking into the phone clawed around her ear.

  “And the waiters need to enter stage left. Just like we discussed. And tell Walter not to dim the lights until they’ve started pouring. I’ll have his fucking head if there’s a single spill.”

  Danielle is all height thanks to the ten-inch stilts posing as shoes she wears. Her form-fitting, shell-colored suit highlights her red hair, swished tonight into a seashell-shaped pinwheel that rests on the top of her head. She’s the dame in a Raymond Chandler novel, the vamp in a 1940s thriller. She’s also Margot’s best friend. Their friendship almost ended recently when Margot told Danielle that she’d hired the one-name wonder Firth to oversee the wedding.

  “We need you downstairs in exactly ten minutes flat.”

  It takes me a second to realize she’s talking to me.

  “Curtis has put together a video montage, and we need all family members present. That means you. Front table.”

  I look down at my sweats and socks. “I’m supposed to watch the girls.”

  “Not anymore. We’re switching things up. I’ll watch the twins while you’re downstairs.”

  “Why don’t I know anything about this?”

  “It’s a surprise. Curtis had it in the works for weeks but didn’t want anyone to know. Piper—” She exhales a smile. “He’s written a song for her, ‘We Are a Family Built on Love.’ He’s going to sing it while showing the video he put together. It’s so romantic. He’s releasing the song as the first single from the new album. His people are already saying it’s going to be a hit. Wait—hold a sec.” She’s suddenly all business again and begins pacing the room as she bosses around the unfortunate person on the other end of the phone.

  Danielle and Margot met when they were cast together in the music video for the hit “Black Bitch/White Bitch: It Ain’t No Thang.” By the end of the video, Margot and Danielle were hosing each other down with water while the star rapper and his cronies sat on a fake stoop, pointing and laughing. But Margot and Danielle hit it off, despite the circumstances, and now go on annual Best Friends Forever vacations and talk and text incessantly. Seeing that her video and modeling days were numbered, Danielle used the money from her second divorce to start a catering business, which led to her gig as event stylist. No one would know from looking at her elegant hair and makeup that she’s capable of doing the wide splits while hanging upside down from a pole, as seen in the heavy metal video “Five Licks of Your Cherry Pie.”

  Off the phone, she rests her hand on her hip with a straightforward no-nonsense look in her eye. “Did Margot tell you why she didn’t pick me?”

  She means for the wedding. Luckily, I don’t have to lie. Margot may have told Mom her reasons for choosing Firth over Danielle, but she said nothing to me—although it’s easy to assume that she’s going for name over friendship.

  I reply with the oft-used “Well, you know Margot.”

  “Yeah,” she mutters. “But I don’t care what anyone says, damn it; I would’ve made her wedding as beautiful, if not more beautiful, than that fucking Firth. Fucking bigheaded twit. I’m her best friend, after all, and if anyone knows what she needs, it’s me. Shit. Hold on.” Her finger pops up, and the pacing resumes. “That is not acceptable. He was hired for his fucking expertise, so he should have a plan B. Everyone has a fucking plan B. Wait. Hold on. What are you waiting on? We’ve got to get you dressed and downstairs!” Even though she’s looking right at me, it takes me a moment to realize she means me. “The song and video presentation should only take fifteen minutes tops. And please greet people, Piper. No one has seen you all day. And don’t be too embarrassed to cry when Curtis sings. He wants it to be a moving experience.” Before I can respond, she takes me by the shoulders and ushers me toward the door. “Go, go, go!” she gunfires. I wait to feel her five-hundred-dollar shoe in my ass before she shuts the door behind me.

  • • •

  The ballroom is decorated art deco style with miniature Chrysler buildings and Model Ts made from finely cut crystal on every table. The male waitstaff wears spats and coattails; the females, beaded flapper dress with feathered headbands. A quartet plays jazz tunes near one of two gurgling champagne fountains. The lighting is low enough that everyone has a warm, golden glow. The football player and his teammates huddle around one of two makeshift bars, their huge round bodies stuffed into their tuxedos until they look like steroid-pumped penguins huddling before a play. Girlfriends and wives cluster at tables. Their barely-there gowns show off their well-oiled skin and firm bodies shaped by personal trainers and silicone. There are enough weaves in the room that I imagine whole villages of Chinese and Indian girls running a
round newly bald.

  I’m helping myself to a few hors d’oeuvres when Mom walks over, decked out in silk organza, cut to show off her bare shoulders and cleavage. Even now that she’s a self-proclaimed child of Christ—or whatever—her old ways still tend to make themselves known: low neckline, a skirt above the knee, too-tight sweaters. She can’t help herself. Mom has gotten by on her looks even more than Margot has. And I suppose it would be hard not to; she’s always reminded me of those classic beauties—the Dorothy Dandridges and Sophia Lorens. Growing up, she’d wanted to be an actress, and she even starred in a few off-off-Broadway plays. Her first and only Broadway play, the short-lived Cat’s Cradle, starred an up-and-coming actress named Piper Michaels. Mom loved Piper’s acting and her name. Mom’s career as an actress ended when she turned nineteen and met my dad, a wannabe playwright and all-around loser.

  Her smile fades as she looks over my dress. “What’s with the burka?”

  I’ll admit that I’m a tad underdressed, but what do people expect from a high school teacher? Besides, my dress is still nice, in a sixties-style, post-mod kind of way. “I like my dress just fine.”

  “That makes one of you,” she quips. “How are the girls?”

  “Fine. They were asleep when I left. Danielle is with them.”

  She leans in close to my ear. “Did you see the mother?”

  I have no idea what she’s talking about.

  “Curtis’s mother. To your left. Tacky silver dress? Braids.”

  I spot her in no time, laughing with a group of women. Her dress is the silver and black of Curtis’s team, and her tiny synthetic braids are cut into a bob.

  “What about her?”

  Mom lowers her voice. “She brought collard greens.” She points to the buffet table against the east wall. I notice three large gray pots that don’t fit in with the buffet-style service platters and crystal glasses. “Collard greens,” Mom repeats. “And corn bread.”

  “Oh my God,” I say in mock horror, “collard greens and corn bread. What’s next? Chit’lins?”