by Greg Johnson
“Your sister is so pretty!” his friends said whenever he showed them the picture. The droll, slow-talking Carter, who lived in the same section of their condominium complex and who had become, Thom supposed, his best friend, had been the first to crack “Yes, she’s really attractive. She doesn’t look a thing like you.”
Thom wondered what Carter would say now—or rather, what he would think, for Carter’s old-guard Southern courtesy would have precluded any critical comment on a friend’s sister, even in jest—if he’d seen Abby emerge confusedly from the gate. Thom had sprung forward, singing out her name, but yes, his face had fallen, and after they hugged, and he thought to himself that she felt lighter than a rag doll, they separated and stared for a long, hungry moment.
“No, you don’t look bad at all,” he said, with deliberate lightness. “I was starting to worry, that’s all. You were the last one off the plane.”
“Well, I—I just waited,” Abby said, briskly running splayed fingers through her short, helmet-like hair. The haircut was awful, he thought. Her clothes were a little grim, too. She wore an ordinary cotton blouse under a pale-blue sweater, both tucked inside her tightly cinched jeans, an unflattering emphasis of her gaunt, boyish figure. Her face was denuded of makeup, and her skin looked drawn and pale, with faint bruise-like shadows beneath her eyes; the eyes themselves were reddened as if from eyestrain or simple exhaustion.
Thom hadn’t planned to mention this until later—much later, in fact—but as they began the long trek toward baggage claim he said, “I was sorry to hear about you and that guy you’d been seeing—Graham, was that his name?”
Abby looked over, more annoyed than surprised. “Have you talked to Mom? When did—”
“No, not Mom,” he said quickly. Damn, he shouldn’t have popped off like that, but at once he’d assumed that Graham—whoever he was—must be the reason for his sister’s weary, forlorn appearance. “I’ve been talking on the phone with Ginger once in a while,” he explained. “She’s been keeping me posted.”
Instantly he regretted that, too. Abby and their youngest cousin had never really gotten along; or rather, they simply had nothing in common. Ginger got the family news from her mother, Lucille and Millicent’s younger sister, and then passed it along to Thom.
“She hasn’t kept me posted. I haven’t seen Ginger or Aunt Grace in years.” She glanced away. “Not since Daddy’s funeral.”
For a few seconds, they trudged along in silence.
“OK,” Thom said, chagrined. “I guess I deserved that.”
Abby looked over, with a ghost of the childlike conspirator’s smile they’d exchanged so often when they were growing up. It was all the encouragement Thom needed.
“My God, Abby, you can’t imagine how I wanted to call, to try and explain, but the timing was so awkward… I was so damned furious at some of the things Mom had said and…and I guess at you too, because you didn’t say much to contradict her. I don’t think you said a word, did you?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. It felt so good, after all this time, to unleash the torrent of words that had swirled madly in his head for so long—explanations and accusations, justifications and denials, all the sheer pent-up emotion he’d experienced after the rift with his mother and sister. He loped along, then saw that Abby was trotting to keep up with him; he forced himself to slow down, adjust to her pace, but the words kept rushing out.
“By the time I did call,” he said, “the phone had been cut off. I don’t know why that was such a shock—you’d told me which day the movers were coming. You left the news on my answering machine, remember? But my God, that same phone number we’d had since we were kids, somehow the idea of its being disconnected…”
He stopped, gulping; an unexpected surge of emotion had choked off his words. He remembered that he’d sat on the side of his bed in a kind of stupor, his prepared little speech dissolving in the wake of that brisk, recorded announcement: “The number you have reached…” (It was the same number their mother had drilled into his and Abby’s memory when they were tiny preschoolers: in case they ever got lost, Mom had explained, or in some kind of trouble.) Though he should have known better, he’d dialed the number again, and again had gotten the recording; he’d dialed another time, and another. It was a moment etched forever in his memory.
“Then I started calling Information in Philly—you know, to get the new listing, but they never had anything, not in Mom’s name and not in yours. I had Aunt Millie’s number, of course, but at some point I thought—well, I figured Mom would call me once she calmed down. Or you would. You know, after you’d gotten moved in and settled. So I went into this waiting mode, I guess, and after a while I got upset and angry all over again. I kept remembering some of the things Mom had said, which I thought were so unfair, and how you hadn’t backed me up. And my phone number hadn’t changed, after all. After a while I thought, well, if that’s the way they want it…”
They’d reached baggage claim, and Thom found the carousel where Abby’s bags would arrive; he realized they were both out of breath. The familiar airport noises eddied around them—garbled announcements over the loudspeaker, the laughing and chattering of other passengers—but an awkward circle of quiet descended on Thom and Abby. They half-turned toward each other, and Thom used the uncomfortable moment to notice again how gaunt she looked, her cheekbones and chin too prominent and her rib cage curved sharply inward, like the sides of a frail violin, under her plain blue sweater. Her cheeks had turned a faint pink from the exertion of their long walk but her eyes seemed unfocused, looking off beyond his shoulder. Maybe she hadn’t listened to a word he’d said.
Then she startled him, reaching in a slow, deliberate gesture to touch his forearm, with a smile that seemed rueful and conciliatory. Or so it looked to his hopeful, hungry stare.
He was wrong. She said quietly, but firmly, “It’s unforgivable, what you did. I knew you were upset about the funeral, and she shouldn’t have done that, but not to call before we left, to just ignore what was happening…”
His stomach turned to lead. “Why didn’t you call me, then?” he said awkwardly.
She gave him the same look, he thought in misery, she might give to one of her students who claimed the dog had eaten her homework. But when she did speak, he was relieved by the mildness of her voice.
“Come on, we’re all grown-ups now. You can’t assume everything will be done for you. Not any more.”
“Look, I’m not expecting sympathy,” he said, “or forgiveness or whatever you think—”
“Don’t expect anything,” she said. “I’m here because Mom wanted me to come, and because we’ve got to figure out how to deal with this…this new situation. In a way that’s best for her.”
He stared down at his shoes. “All right, then. We’ll do that.”
“And in a few days, we’ll fly back up there together, and you can work it out with her. But that’s your job. I’m bringing you home, but then I’m staying out of it.”
He didn’t answer. Her resolution, and the way she had coldly thought everything out, startled him. Was this Abby?
He said slowly, “Well, we have a few days to…to think about it. Like you said…”
He had no intention of flying to Philadelphia. He stood there taking in the fact he’d asked her to come for one reason, and she’d come for a different reason, and the two motives were irreconcilable. How could they avoid, once again, disappointing each other? What had he hoped this would accomplish?
Now she offered him a weary smile, and he tried to let that comfort him.
“We’ll work it out,” he said doubtfully.
“Yes. OK,” she said.
Relieved, Thom let out a sudden gush of air, only now aware that he’d been holding his breath. “Great,” he added.
Beside them, the carousel had begun revolving, suitcases and boxes blundering through the little curtain of black rubber strips, then down the narrow chute to the conveyor belt. One of
the packages was wrapped in bright red paper, but its wide green ribbon had come undone, the half-crushed bow flapping dismally against one side of the box.
“Oh,” Thom said, “and one more thing. Merry Christmas.”
Impulsively, he bent to give Abby a peck on the cheek, but at that moment she turned to him, startled. As nearby travelers watched idly, Thorn’s fleeting kiss alighted—accidentally, but firmly—on his sister’s vaguely parted lips.
After he’d loaded her two bags into his Accord and navigated the expressway in his strenuous do-or-die manner—weaving impatiently among slower cars, cursing softly whenever the traffic slowed—they finally reached his condominium complex, a buff-colored brick structure off Rock Springs Road. Pulling into the lot, Thom saw the place through Abby’s eyes: cracking sidewalks, doorways and trim that needed paint, flower beds thinly planted with a ragged-looking assortment of purple and yellow pansies. Like most real estate agents, Thom frequently suffered these objective, appraising looks at his own home. Until he’d gotten the bad news last month—the date October 19, 1998, was seared into his memory, his private doomsday—he’d been planning to put his unit on the market, but now those plans were stalled. He’d had a couple of good years and could afford a nicer place, but he knew he should conserve his cash. He and Carter had decided they’d try to dress up the complex themselves (their homeowners’ board of directors was notoriously indifferent to routine maintenance, much less permanent improvements) and they’d started one Saturday by cleaning out the flower beds and, at their own expense, putting in the pansies. But within a week the flowers had started to wilt. Carter, who unlike Thom had some gardening expertise, said the soil was poor, and they’d probably done the planting too early in the season. They decided to replace the pansies with monkey grass but then Carter had suffered a bout of pneumonia. He’d been hospitalized for three days, on a respirator, and since coming home he’d been depressed and out of sorts, finding a reason to decline any new projects or outings Thom proposed. Lately, when he arrived home Thom simply glanced away from the sad-looking flower beds. He didn’t have the heart to replace them on his own.
“Sorry,” he told Abby, as he hauled her bags out of the trunk, making a rueful gesture toward the complex and grounds, “but it does look better in the springtime, when the trees have budded out, and the grass—” Hearing himself, he broke off.
Abby smiled faintly. “Born salesman,” she said.
Thom led her along the bumpy sidewalk toward his corner unit. “About a third of them are on the market,” he admitted, “including the one next to mine.”
“Hmm. But you have more privacy that way, don’t you?” In Abby’s words Thom could hear something of their mother’s lilting, reasonable tone, the voice she used when trying consciously to be pleasant. Through their childhood, Lucille had insisted both Thom and Abby made insufficient efforts to be, as she termed it, “agreeable.” She didn’t mean they were disagreeable children, she’d add quickly—not at all. But they were not particularly agreeable, either. Not like John and Caroline, for instance. Lucille had compared her children so often to the Kennedys’ offspring (she’d been pregnant with Thom at the time of the assassination, as she’d reminded him constantly as if he were somehow responsible) that for a while, in their early teens, Thom and Abby had started calling each other “John-John” and “Caro” when their mother was in earshot. Lucille found nothing more disagreeable than her children’s unaccountable habit of ironic behavior.
“Yeah,” Thom said, “but it’s an ominous kind of privacy. It’s the silence of property values going steadily down and down.”
The moment he put his key in the door, he heard the dogs’ frantic yipping.
“Oh, Thom, I almost forgot,” Abby said, with what sounded like genuine pleasure. “How are they, Mitzi and…and Callie?”
“Chloe,” he said. “They’re thriving, as usual.”
The two miniature dachshunds leapt onto Thom the moment he came inside, one dog attaching herself to each leg, as usual. The moment Abby bent down to them, they transferred their ecstatic attentions to her.
Thom laughed. “They’ve never met a stranger, these two,” he said. “If a burglar broke in, they’d lick him to death.” The plump, red-haired Mitzi, eight years old and showing white around her muzzle, quickly calmed and began administering a series of tidy, dignified kisses to Abby’s bent cheek; five-year-old Chloe, more rambunctious and mischievous, snapped playfully at the wiggling fingers Abby held out.
“They’re so adorable…,” Abby murmured.
Though the phone started ringing, Thom lingered a moment: he’d forgotten how much Abby had loved the dogs. Mitzi had been a gift from Roy, and after he died Thom had gotten Chloe to keep Mitzi company. Thom had noticed before how well the dogs served as a buffer against awkward moments, diverting attention from human quandaries. Now Abby had squatted to their level, using both hands to stroke their heads, their elegant snouts; instantly the dogs had stilled, eyes closed in bliss.
Thom hurried to the kitchen, catching the phone just as his machine clicked on.
“Home for Wayward Boys,” he said, loud enough for Abby to overhear.
His old friend Pace was calling, reminding him of the fund-raiser on Friday night at Pace’s house, for an organization focused on violence against gays. Though Thom had heard the spiel before, there was no stopping Pace, whose manic energies were often fueled by good causes. Pace was a tall, slender man in his mid forties, the heir to a South Carolina banking fortune. He spent his weekdays managing his investments, sending and receiving E-mails and faxes, having incessant phone conversations with his brokers, lawyers, business partners. Pace had recently bought a million-dollar showplace in Ansley Park and loved hosting fund-raisers, cocktail parties, random gatherings organized on the spur of the moment.
“So Mitch and Angela will get on my case if I don’t produce a crowd on Friday,” Pace was saying. “Did you see their picture in Southern Voice last week? The article said they’d get matching funds from some endowment or other, if they can raise—”
“Hold on,” Thom said, laughing. “Like I said before, I’ll come if I can, but my sister’s in town. She just got here.”
“Great, then bring her along!” Pace barked, with his deep-voiced exuberance. He paused, then added mischievously, “Is she philanthropically inclined? Does she have lots and lots of money?”
“Yeah,” Thom said. “She’s one of those overpaid high school teachers. I’ll make sure she brings her checkbook.”
“You’d better bring her, goddamn it,” Pace said, with playful belligerence. “I’ve known you for—how long is it, half a century?—and you’ve never introduced me to any member of your family. Not a single one. So who are you ashamed of, them or me?”
“Pace, you know they moved to Philly,” Thom said quickly. They’d had this jokey conversation before. “We’ll try to—”
“Then let’s go to Philly, goddamn it!” Pace cried, good-naturedly. “I need a vacation!”
Thom heard a clicking in the receiver: Pace was getting another call.
“Thom, sweetie, I’ve got to go,” he said. “But you bring along that darling sister of yours—I have seen her picture, at least. It must be me you’re ashamed of, come to think of it. Gotta run. See you Friday night!”
After hanging up, Thom found Abby in the guest room, her two bags opened on the bed. While she unpacked, Mitzi and Chloe sat attentively next to the closet door, their tails wagging as if keeping time with inaudible music.
“That was my friend Pace,” Thom said, “he wants us to—” but he stopped when Abby turned from the closet and he glimpsed her face, which wore that tired, absent look he’d glimpsed at the airport. Just before he left to meet her flight, Thom had spent half an hour in here, vacuuming and dusting, putting fresh linens on the bed, stacking magazines on the night table next to the half-dozen iris he’d bought at Kroger’s last night and arranged in the Waterford vase Abby gave him for Christma
s in 1993, the last time they’d exchanged gifts. Thom felt that she hadn’t noticed any of this.
“Are you OK?” he asked. At once Abby’s gaze focused intently on her brother, as though the question startled her.
“What? Yes, but—is there a phone I can use?”
“Not in here—this room is hardly ever used. There’s one back in the kitchen.” He paused. “Or in my room, if you want some privacy. I keep meaning to buy a cordless, but…”
She gave a vague smile. “The kitchen’s fine. I’ll just be a minute.” She glanced behind her, snatching up her purse from the dresser. Halfway to the door she stopped, turning to face him.
“But I should be asking you. If you’re all right, I mean.”
“Me?” Thom held his arms out, palms up, in a casual gesture. “Sure, I’m feeling great.”
“I didn’t mean to sound callous, back at the airport. I have been worried, but… I don’t want to be intrusive. It’s hard to know what questions to ask—or not to ask.”
“You shouldn’t worry,” Thom said, touched. He’d heard versions of this speech from several of his friends, too. This might be the second decade of the epidemic, but still there was no established “AIDS etiquette,” as Carter had observed. Do you ask about an infected friend’s condition every time you see him, or every other time? Or do you wait for him to bring up the subject? Some people complained their friends now thought of them as “guys with AIDS,” rather than the people they’d always been, and became annoyed if you inquired about their health; others were angry or hurt if you failed to inquire.
“We have plenty of time to talk about that, too,” Thom said, “don’t we?”
