The Other Sister

by Dianne Dixon

  Ali reached for the door handle, ready to bolt. Then out of nowhere—so fast it confused her as to whether or not it had actually happened—Aidan kissed her. The kiss was warm and firm. It terrified her. Ali scrambled out of the truck, slamming the door, shooting him a lethal glare through the open passenger window.

  It wasn’t until after Aidan had driven away that she discovered the taste of his cigarettes on her lips. It made her feel dirty, violated.

  Ali was trembling as she walked up the driveway toward Jessica’s house, trying to make sense of Aidan Blake. Was he was simply an idiot, an adult with the crude impulses of an adolescent? Or was he something much worse?

  • • •

  “It’s like you’ve been hit in the head with a hammer. No matter what I say, you’re only half listening to me. Where are you?”

  “I’m listening to every word, really. I was just thinking about…um…being in California,” Ali lied. “I’m not you, Jess…the tall blond with yards of style. I’m not sure I fit in.” She wasn’t ready to talk about what had been preoccupying her—Aidan Blake and his unwelcome kiss.

  “You were born for California. Everyone is,” Jessica said. “It’s paradise.”

  Ali and Jessica were having lunch: curried shrimp salad served on wafer-thin coral-colored plates paired with sea-green linen napkins. The salad had been accompanied by a perfectly chilled white wine for Ali and sparkling water for Jessica, served in stemware the color of dusty-pink rose petals.

  The view from the patio was breathtaking—sweeping from the hilltop where Jessica’s house was located across the downtown Los Angeles skyline, all the way out to a hazy strip of the Pacific Ocean, glittering in the distance.

  “Just look at this. We’re having lunch outside, Ali. In January. Try that back in Rhode Island. You’d be freezing your ass off.” Jessica laughed her bawdy, tough-girl laugh, a raucous guffaw that belonged on a fun-loving waitress in a biker bar.

  Hearing that familiar laugh, Ali relaxed, felt safer. “Want to know something, Jess? One of the best things that ever happened to me was you showing up as my college roommate.”

  “Damn straight,” Jessica agreed.

  After that, they scooted their chairs back from the table, and Ali let herself enjoy the rest of the afternoon.

  She talked to Jessica for hours—about Jessica’s pregnancy and old friends and Rhode Island and what it was like to be married.

  “All I thought about was getting married,” Jessica said, “never about being married. But, hey, I was lucky. I landed a California boy who makes a ton of money in health care and loves me like crazy.” She stopped to refill Ali’s wineglass. “Did I tell you Logan got a big promotion? I’m a little pissed that now he’s spending so much time in his company’s regional offices…traveling all over the state instead of all over me but…” Jessica gave an apologetic giggle. “But enough about me. What about you? What did you focus on in the beginning, the wedding or the marriage?”

  Her marriage, Matt—the jumble of blame and disconnection—it was too painful to discuss. Ali took a deep breath. “What I thought about was how great it would feel to finally be taken care of. I wanted it so much…to be protected, looked after. I was tired of always being the one taking care of somebody else.”

  “So. How sweet is life without the human ankle monitor?”

  Ali’s shrug said Go ahead, tell me I’m crazy, and at the same time, she was trying not to cry. “I haven’t seen my sister, haven’t heard a word from her, since the day after my housewarming. And I miss her.”

  “I can’t believe you said that!” Ali’s comment had Jessica choking on the sip of water she’d just taken. “Maybe it’s because I’m an only child, but from how I see it, the hold Morgan’s got on you is totally nuts.”

  “Jess. Morgan and I were born eight minutes apart. A few hundred seconds, at the very beginning of my life, was the only time I couldn’t actually feel Morgan’s breath on the back of my neck.”

  Jessica arched an eyebrow. “And you’re offering this up as a good thing…or a bad thing?”

  “I guess what I’m talking about is something that’s in a photograph my mom has of me when I was a baby, taking my first step. I’m half tipped over, with this look on my face that’s sort of scared and sort of crazy determined, all mixed together. And it’s because Morgan’s right behind me, trying to take her first step, too. She’s grabbing on to the back of my shirt. And you can see how much I feel her being back there, weighing me down. Making me know I’m going to fall…at the same time making me know that I can’t fall, because I’m not allowed to. Because I’m the stronger one, and she needs me…she needs me to keep standing up…for both of us.”

  Jessica’s Salvadoran housekeeper had cleared the lunch plates and was now bringing out a tray filled with miniature, intricately frosted cupcakes.

  Jessica waited until the housekeeper went back into the house before saying, “That sister of yours isn’t a little kid anymore. Shake her loose. Make her stagger through life on her own. The same way the rest of us have to.”

  “It’s not that simple, Jess. I can’t just ‘shake her loose.’ I owe her.”

  “Bullshit.” Jessica yawned and popped one of the cupcakes into her mouth. “You haven’t run around deliberately shoving her into the shadows. No crime. Therefore, no guilt.” She waited for Ali to agree, and when she didn’t, Jessica said, “Okay. So you think you’re on the hook for how shitty her life has been. But do you honestly believe you can run up a debt to another person that’s so monumental it can’t ever be repaid? Shouldn’t there be a time, after you’ve done your absolute best, when you get to slap an expiration date on the damn thing and be done with it?”

  Ali was remembering the last glimpse she’d had of her sister—the devastated look on Morgan’s face as she was tossed out into the hallway of Ali’s new house. “If there is an expiration date, Jess, how could I ever be heartless enough to use it?”

  Just as Jessica was about to answer, both she and Ali were surprised to see Logan coming across the patio toward them. The instant he arrived at the table, Jessica gave him a kiss—and he told Ali, “You’re looking good. As always.”

  “Hey, aren’t you supposed to be on a plane to San Diego?” Jessica asked.

  “I’m on my way to the airport. Forgot my laptop.”

  Jessica quickly headed toward the house. “You left it on the dresser. I’ll get it. Grab some wine and say hi to Ali.”

  Logan relaxed into the seat Jessica had just vacated. Ali scooted her chair an inch or two farther from the table. For a second time in the same day, she was alone with a man who made her uncomfortable.

  Her initial introduction to Logan had been at the wedding in Newport. Since moving to California, Ali had only interacted with him a few times, and never without Jessica. She was trying to think of something to say—all she could come up with was “This view is spectacular.”

  “That’s what I was thinking.” He looked at her and smiled. “Where have you been keeping yourself? What is it with you and that husband of yours? You’re like hermits. All of us should get together.”

  “Well, it’ll be a while before we can plan anything…”

  “Right. Jess mentioned that Matt’s job has him pretty busy. She says you told her a lot of nights he doesn’t get home until one or two in the morning.” Logan chuckled. “Hard to believe he never takes any time off to go a little nuts, have a little fun.”

  There was an undercurrent of sexual innuendo in what Logan had just said. Before she’d been slammed onto the floor by her attacker, it probably wouldn’t have bothered her—but now, Logan’s comment made Ali’s skin crawl.

  He was stretching his legs out, casually crossing them. He rocked his heel and tapped Ali’s ankle with his foot. “Not exactly a fan of mine, are you?”

  “I guess I don’t know enough about you to be on
e. The most time I’ve ever spent with you was at your wedding. And that was what? Maybe an hour or two?”

  Ali didn’t like Logan. He was too arrogant, too self-involved. And there had been talk that at his Newport wedding, someone thought they’d seen him on one of the mansion terraces, “going for it” with a woman who wasn’t Jessica. It was only a rumor, but the minute she’d heard it, Ali’s instincts about Logan made her believe it was true.

  “So what are you guys chatting about?” Jessica asked. She had returned with the laptop.

  Logan pushed away from the table. “We were talking about Ali’s opinion of the view out here.”

  Jessica slipped her arm around Logan, saying to Ali, “We were so lucky to get this place. We—”

  Logan had taken the laptop from Jessica, telling her, “Gotta go.” Crossing the terrace, making his exit, he added, “I’ll call you tonight.”

  Jessica watched Logan until he disappeared from view, tracking him like he was a wilderness she was trying to map. Then she asked Ali, “Okay, where were we? What were we talking about before he interrupted us?”

  “A million different things. Morgan. And marriage. You were telling me about living in California…that it’s been paradise.”

  “Yeah. It has been. Pretty much.” A frown flitted across Jessica’s brow.

  “What do you mean…pretty much?”

  Jessica sat at the table, picked up her glass, and took a swallow of water. “It’s just that, right after we bought this house, something really sick happened.”

  Ali was startled by the sudden shift in Jessica’s mood. The playfulness was gone, replaced by something worried and tense.

  “There were rapes,” Jessica was saying. “A bunch of them.”

  The word rape cut into Ali like a razor.

  “And the thing that made it truly creepy? All the victims seemed to be describing the same guy. His trademark was a name he called all the women, the name of a summer wildflower. And he always took their underwear.” Jessica shuddered. “When one of the attacks happened a couple of blocks from here, I went totally bonkers…started collecting articles from newspapers, downloads from the Internet. Information about assaults that occurred all over the state. Anything that sounded even vaguely similar to the local ones.”

  “Why did you do that?” Ali couldn’t believe the weirdness of this conversation.

  “I don’t know.” Jessica seemed lost in thought. “I really went off the deep end for a while. Logan was ready to have me committed. All the stuff is in a file folder I have somewhere.”

  Ali was on the edge of her seat, her heart pounding. “Did they find out who he was? Did they ever catch him?”

  “I don’t know. After a while, I told myself I needed to stop thinking about it.” Jessica shook her head, sounding bewildered. “I’m sorry. I don’t even know why I told you all of that.”

  Aidan Blake’s cigarette-sour kiss and now this unnerving story from Jessica. It was too much.

  Ali had to grip the arms of her chair to keep herself steady.

  She felt like Alice, plummeting down the rabbit hole.

  Morgan

  Morgan flattened herself against the living room wall. Hoping they hadn’t seen her.

  But they must have heard her moving around. The walls were thin in her new home—the rear half of an old Craftsman-style duplex on Garfield Road in South Pasadena.

  Now the people outside were knocking again. Harder. Louder.

  Morgan edged toward the door, painfully aware that when she opened it, the people on the other side would see how undone and pathetic she was. The whole place was visible from the front door. The empty living room. The bedroom with nothing in it but an air mattress, a TV, and a shadeless lamp Morgan had found in the back of a closet. The kitchen, with its chipped Formica-topped table and chrome-legged chairs, castoffs the former tenant hadn’t bothered to throw away.

  Just before she opened the door, Morgan stopped, looked over her shoulder, nervously catching his eye and saying, “Shhh.” Then she swung the door open and faced the tanned, athletic-looking couple on the porch.

  The man was clutching one of Morgan’s signs.

  A few weeks ago, when she’d put up those signs, she’d been fervently hoping somebody exactly like these two would appear. When nobody did, she was terribly upset. But now that somebody was finally here, Morgan wanted them to go away.

  “This is the right place, isn’t it?” The man held up the sign. Morgan wasn’t seeing it.

  She was back in the moment when it all began…walking home from the grocery store in the early evening. Taking a shortcut down a tree-lined alley. She knew she was being followed; she could feel it. Her pulse was racing. She was picking up the pace, breaking into a run. So was her pursuer. The end of the alley was only a few yards away. It might as well have been miles. She’d never make it. He was gaining on her so fast she could hear his panting breath. She had to find a way to save herself. She stopped and whirled around to face him—pleading. “Don’t hurt me. Please don’t hurt me.”

  And out of the blue, she was laughing, hysterically. Collapsing. Weak with relief. Seeing that she wasn’t being stalked by someone trying to hurt her. She was being followed by a small, biscuit-colored dog.

  The dog was looking up at her expectantly, tail wagging, vulnerable and sweet. The moment of fright had passed. And now all Morgan wanted was to get home, close the door, and go back to trying to survive the pain of being locked out of Ali’s life. Heartache was the only thing she had room for.

  For several blocks, Morgan determinedly shooed the dog away, and he happily ignored her. Which eventually left Morgan with no choice but to talk to him.

  It was the end of the weekend, and other than a brief thank-you to the clerk who’d bagged her groceries a few minutes ago, the dog was the only individual Morgan had spoken to since leaving work on Friday. At first, she said things like “Go away” and “Get out of here.” Then, while he waited patiently for her to unlock the door to her duplex, she explained, “I’m not crazy about animals. I never have been. Go hook up with a nice PETA person.” But he followed her into the house, gazing at her with those big, brown eyes…begging her to take care of him.

  She went into the kitchen to put down the grocery bags, and the dog went with her. She kept talking to him; he kept listening. She reminded him that she expected him to leave. He lay down at her feet and gave a little sigh.

  Morgan had a pang of concern, wondering if he was hungry, and wondering what she had in the kitchen that she could feed him.

  As she kneeled to stroke his head, surprised by how soft and warm his fur was, she told him, “I’ve never been responsible for taking care of anything that was alive, anything with feelings. The whole idea makes me really uncomfortable.”

  In response to that news, he licked her hand.

  And Morgan told him he could stay…but only until she found him a good home.

  The next day, she had put up “Dog Found” flyers with the dog’s picture and her phone number, hoping his owner would come for him. A week later, she switched to flyers that announced “Free Dog to Good Home.” She’d done it because, as she’d already explained, the idea of being responsible, being the leader, made her uncomfortable.

  But now she’d gotten to know him. They were friends, and things were different. Morgan wasn’t sure what she wanted to do.

  The man on her porch was reading aloud from the sign she’d posted. “Healthy dog. Free. To good home.”

  Morgan was panicking a little.

  The man craned his neck, trying to see into the house, while the woman asked Morgan, “Is there a problem?”

  As if sensing Morgan’s distress, the dog had appeared out of nowhere. Resting against her leg, warm and loyal—making her think about how nice it was to come home to him. How her spirits lifted every time she walked in the door
and saw how happy he was to see her. How she wasn’t so lonely anymore.

  The people on the porch exchanged impatient glances.

  Morgan was about to say, Maybe those signs were a mistake. My dog depends on me. He needs me.

  She bit her lip, thinking about money. About the job she’d managed to find at a local museum known for its collection of fine art and rare historical documents. Her new boss, Mr. Dupuis, a dapper gentleman in a well-tailored suit, had hired Morgan for a position that came with an extravagant title and an extremely small paycheck. She was thinking about the price of dog food. And vet bills. And leashes and chew toys. And pooper-scoopers. And dog groomers. She was thinking about how much work it was to take care of another living thing—how much easier it was not to have to.

  “We can take him right now, if that helps.” The man was enthusiastically reaching for the dog.

  Morgan blocked him—remembering how things were before that walk home from the market. How dead the duplex had been. And how, from the moment the dog arrived, he’d lit up the place with energy and life. How he’d transformed three desolately empty rooms into a cozy place where Morgan was loved.

  Morgan swallowed hard. This was a turning point. A decision that would, on some level, define who she was as a human being.

  She glanced away, then looked back at the man on the porch.

  Her voice cracking as she said, “Okay.”

  Ali

  Being hit with a lead pipe. Then being hit again. Not knowing how you’re still standing. And the only thought in your head is Please God, don’t let this be true.

  That’s was what it was like for Ali, holding the phone to her ear, in the darkest part of the night—listening to a woman named Marcie say, “Well, I guess I’ve told you everything. I should probably let you go.”

  Ali was staring at nothing, continuing to hold the phone until, at some point, it dropped to the floor.