The Other Sister

by Dianne Dixon

  She thought about it for a moment. “Probably not.”

  Matt laughed. “That’s you all over, isn’t it?”

  Danielle rinsed her hands in the water flowing from the center of the fountain. Her tone was matter-of-fact. “I didn’t expect you today. I’m going out in a little while.”

  Matt’s smile wavered. He picked up a small stone, briefly held it in his hand, and then skipped it hard across the surface of the water in the fountain’s basin. “If I said I needed you right now, Danielle…would you still go?”

  Danielle was drying her hands on the hem of her skirt. “Back when this started, I told you exactly when I’d go. After we both came out all right and had our lives on track again.”

  There was a feeling of dread in Matt—the fear that he was losing something he wasn’t ready to let go of.

  “After we were both all right. That’s what you said.” Matt touched his fingertips to Danielle’s; hers were uncharacteristically cold. “But what you actually meant was that you’d leave after I had my life on track.” He was quiet for a second. “I have the feeling yours always was. Wasn’t it?”

  She shrugged and pulled away. “Pretty much.”

  Matt watched her perch at the edge of the fountain, elf-like and beautiful—the mist from the fountain’s spray settling on her hair and glittering like a crown on a fairy queen.

  He knew she was finished with him. That she could be so calm about it drove him crazy.

  “Why did you do it?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “Why did you give so much, accept so much, and never say what you wanted in return? What did you get out of it?”

  Danielle scooped a handful of water, letting it drip through her fingers. “A long time ago, I figured out the truth about me. I don’t have the face, or the tits. I’m cute, but I’m not dream-girl material. I’m way too short, and way too freaky in the way my mind works. Definitely too freaky for most guys.” When she spoke again, it was with absolute tranquility. “But I always knew I had bigger things to do than be a hot chick.” She glanced at Matt. “Do you have any idea what I’m talking about?”

  He skipped another stone across the water, annoyed. “Why don’t you tell me?”

  “I’m pretty satisfied with who I am,” Danielle said. “I’m happy almost all the way through, so it’s easy to offer myself without any strings attached. I like doing it. I like seeing what it does. I like watching how good I can make people feel.”

  “That’s what you’re all about? Giving to the other person and wanting nothing of them in return?” Matt’s question was filled with bitterness. “You enjoy sitting back, uninvolved and clinical, like what you’re doing isn’t anything more than a lab experiment?”

  “It worked for you, didn’t it? You said it was what you wanted. You seemed to like it.” Danielle’s reply was mild. But buried in the mildness there was something combative.

  Her tone irritated Matt. “I liked it. I liked everything you did for me. But for Christ’s sake, Danielle, I liked you, too.”

  “Just so you know…I meant what I said about wanting to give you comfort and understanding, and not wanting to break up your marriage. But I guess I had you figured wrong.”

  “How?”

  “I figured you were like most guys. And eventually we’d get around to fucking.”

  She’d said fucking—not being intimate, not making love—just generic, garden-variety fucking. Matt suddenly understood everything. He ached like he’d been sucker punched.

  “While we were together…you were seeing other people.”

  Danielle seemed amused. “Weren’t you crawling into bed with your wife every night?”

  Her focus had gone back to the fountain. She was flicking leaves from the surface of the water. “In the interest of full disclosure, I’m ready to be with somebody, head over heels in love. I’m ready right this minute.”

  There was the slightest stutter in Matt’s heartbeat. Some irrational part of him hoped to hear her say he was the man she wanted. But the fantasy evaporated before it had taken shape. Matt belonged to Ali. Completely. Emotionally and physically. He would never, for any reason, hurt her, or leave her. His relationship with Danielle hadn’t been about unhappiness with Ali; it had always been about Matt’s unhappiness with himself.

  The person he needed to leave was Danielle. Matt understood it was over between them. Yet he couldn’t move. He was immobilized by a sad-sweet feeling of commencement. The ending that marks the beginning. The moment of letting go where there’s both anticipation and mourning.

  Danielle slipped her arm through his and walked him toward his car. “I’m definitely ready to fall in love,” she said. “With somebody who doesn’t care about strings…a guy who can share himself with me, and other people, just for the happiness of it.”

  “It sounds like you’re waiting for a saint.”

  “I’m waiting for what everybody’s waiting for,” Danielle said. “I’m waiting for my soul mate.”

  • • •

  When he thought about it later, Matt couldn’t honestly say how much, if any, of what Danielle had told him was the truth. Her version of love was probably just as passionate and clinging and messy as everyone else’s.

  But the bottom line was that they were done.

  Danielle had cut him free.

  And Matt was back in a familiar place. Alone with his secrets.

  Morgan

  “My goodness, Morgan, you’re absolutely beautiful.” Her mother stared at her in wide-eyed surprise.

  Morgan loved the compliment, hated the surprise.

  “I can’t believe how good you look…the muscle tone in your legs.” Her mother was taking in every detail. “You have highlights in your hair. And that outfit…it’s fabulous. I’ve never seen you in anything like it. And, honey, your skin…it’s—”

  “Stop it,” Morgan snapped. “All that happened is I’ve been spending time outdoors, with Ralph.”

  “Ralph?”

  “Ralph’s my dog. On the weekends, we go running. And because of that, I’m in better shape. And being out…running…I made some new friends. One of them’s a stylist. She goes shopping with me, gives me advice on clothes.”

  “Simply having a dog brought about all these wonderful changes? It’s like you’re a completely different person, inside and out.”

  For a fleeting second, Morgan was about to say, Ali changed me. Without even knowing she did it, she showed me how much better I needed to be. But it seemed too personal. Sharing her innermost thoughts with her mother wasn’t something Morgan was comfortable with.

  Her mother gazed at Morgan, fascinated. “Honey, you look incredibly lovely.”

  “Do you really have to act so surprised?” Morgan bit her lip to keep from crying. “Didn’t it ever occur to you that I could look good?”

  “Oh, honey, no. I just meant—”

  “Mom. I made a couple of friends, bought some new clothes, and started exercising. It’s no big deal.” Morgan quickly turned away and began brushing the curls back into Sofie’s sleep-flattened hair. Sofie had just woken up from a nap. And the three of them—Sofie, Morgan, and Morgan’s mother—were in an upstairs bedroom in Jessica’s magnificent hilltop house. Downstairs, there was a party going on.

  Morgan hadn’t expected to find her mother in the room when she came to look in on Sofie. The tension had been immediate—and in the fifteen minutes they’d been alone together, it had steadily escalated.

  “You know, Morgan, I loved my job in retail,” her mother was saying. “I loved the clothes and the customers, but I was counting the days till I could retire, just so I could come to California and have a nice, long visit.”

  Morgan put down the hairbrush and let Sofie scamper away.

  The fight was on. And, unable to stop herself, Morgan threw the first punc
h. “About that nice, long visit…who did you really come out here to see, Mom?”

  “Well, I—”

  “You didn’t come to see me. You were here for almost a week before you—”

  “Morgan, you had stopped speaking to me for the better part of a year. I didn’t know what to do…didn’t know whether you wanted me to contact you or leave you alone.”

  “Face it, Mom. The reason you came to California was because you wanted to see Ali. And you wanted to meet Sofie.”

  “Of course I wanted to be with Ali and Sofie, but…”

  Morgan’s expression was hard as stone. But she sounded fragile, vulnerable—like a little girl. “Would you have come if it was just me?”

  “Honey, of course I would.”

  Her mother reached for her, and Morgan pushed her away. “Go downstairs, Mom. Go help everybody celebrate the end of summer.”

  “I will. In a minute. First, I want to catch up. I want to know what’s happening with you.” Her mother sat on the arm of Morgan’s chair. “Are you dating anyone? Anybody special?”

  Morgan shook her head no. She didn’t want to talk about Ben Tennoff. He might not seem big and bright enough. Ben hadn’t ever been in the Hollywood fast lane, the cocreator of a hit television show like Matt. And he wasn’t a big-time businessman like Jessica’s husband, Logan, driving a Porsche and playing country club golf. Ben taught high-school history and loved opera.

  Ben was a great guy. Morgan truly liked him, but she was still ambivalent about his appearance and his lack of a high-powered job. Handsome and high-powered had always been the first things Morgan looked for. That was the kind of man who was attracted to Ali. And Morgan hadn’t wanted to settle for second best. But now Ben Tennoff was making her wonder about all of that. It wasn’t something she was ready to discuss. Especially not with her mother.

  “I worry about you,” her mother said. “I worry that you’ll waste too much time looking for the wrong man and end up spending the rest of your life in an extra chair at somebody else’s dinner table.”

  Her mother had touched a nerve. “If I do end up alone, it’ll be because of you.”

  Her mother took a step back, didn’t say anything—but Morgan knew she’d hurt her.

  “Mom, you never showed me how to have a decent relationship. You couldn’t even hold it together with Dad long enough for me to get out of elementary school.”

  “Oh, that’s not fair, Morgan. You had examples of strong, loving relationships. You had my parents, and you had—”

  “I didn’t have what I needed!” Morgan was caught in the emotional firestorm that had been going on since childhood. She was still grieving over her parent’s divorce and her father being gone, married to somebody else. She was still envious of, and intimidated by, her mother’s green-eyed beauty. And she was still furious that her mother was never able to understand what it was like to live in Morgan’s skin.

  And in the midst of all of this, she was longing for her mother’s touch.

  The longing was so intense, it made Morgan say something she didn’t really mean: “I’ve never been loved the way you love Ali. And I hate you for that.”

  Before Morgan could take back what she’d just said, her mother was in tears.

  Seeing her mother’s pain broke Morgan’s heart. “Mom, I—”

  “Go away, Morgan,” Her mother’s tone was flat. “For a little while, please, just leave me alone.”

  Still feeling the sting of the hurt she’d caused, Morgan went downstairs. Desperately wishing she knew how to turn around and ask her mother for a hug.

  • • •

  Morgan had finished crying but was still hiding. On Jessica’s terrace. Sitting on a plush patio lounge, behind a wall of ferns. For several minutes, she’d been there in total silence. Then the wind shifted, and she heard Matt’s voice, and Logan’s.

  Morgan immediately ducked down. It was silly, but she didn’t want Logan to see her with her eyes puffy from crying. Ever since their brief encounter on his wedding night, she’d been fascinated by his magazine-cover looks, and by the idea that he had been briefly attracted to her. Keeping low to the ground, she scooted closer, peering through the ferns. Logan was only a few feet away with Matt—drinking margaritas and firing up the barbecue.

  Logan nodded in the direction of the pool, where Ali and Jessica were playing with Logan and Jessica’s twin boys. “So how do you like suddenly having a kid?” he asked.

  “Still getting used to it,” Matt said.

  “Let me tell you, buddy, having kids changes things.” Logan took the plastic wrap off a platter of steaks. “Before the twins, my wife was moderately good at giving me orders and occasionally mentioning my failings as a husband. But now? It’s nonstop orders and constant harping. Mostly about how supremely shitty I am at being a dad. Apparently fatherhood’s opened up a whole new category for me to fuck up in.” Logan’s laugh had an undercurrent of real hostility.

  Morgan was startled by it.

  Yet Logan appeared to be completely calm, laying out a line of steaks on the grill and telling Matt, “The company has offices everywhere from Palm Springs to the Sierras. It’s good that my work keeps me on the road. All I can take is maybe twenty minutes of Jess yakking about earth-friendly diapers and stuffy noses before she has me ready to put my fist through a wall.”

  Matt gazed across the lawn toward the pool, toward Ali. “At least your wife still talks to you. All those months I was out of work, Ali hardly said a word to me. I’ve never been so alone.”

  “Men and women are wired completely differently,” Logan said. “If it wasn’t for sex, I don’t think we’d have any interaction with them at all.”

  “You’re wrong.” Matt seemed thoughtful. “During the time I’m talking about, there was a woman…somebody I never slept with. I couldn’t have survived without the connection we had. In a way, I think she saved my life.”

  “And you never fucked her?”

  “No. It wasn’t like that. It never got to the point where it was about sex. It was…it was something different. When we were together, it was always at her place, and only for a few hours. Mostly we talked. Sometimes we listened to music…or cooked a meal. She lived in the gatehouse of an old mansion. We’d take long walks through overgrown gardens that were like jungles, and…” Matt shook his head, as if bewildered by what he was about to say. “With her, there was never any judgment. No criticism. I felt totally free…had this amazing openness. I’ve never experienced anything like it.”

  Morgan couldn’t believe what she had just heard. Matt, Ali’s perfect husband, had been cheating on her.

  For the first time in her life, Morgan felt lucky not to be her sister.

  Not wanting Matt to catch sight of her, Morgan carefully sidestepped out of her hiding place and headed toward the pool.

  Ali was at the shallow end, guiding one of Jessica’s little boys through the water, telling Jessica, “It felt like Matt was having an affair. I was sure of it. There were lots of times I’d call his cell, and it went straight to voice mail. He’d never done that before. He’d always pick up, even if it was just to say he was busy and couldn’t talk.”

  “Was he?” Jessica asked. “Having an affair, I mean.”

  Ali shook her head. “He was trying to hide that he was out of work. After his show was canceled, he didn’t tell me for weeks.”

  “Okay, but what does that prove? He could’ve been out of work and having an affair.”

  “No. That would’ve been too much.”

  Morgan was now close enough to the pool to hear how frightened Ali sounded. Jessica had obviously touched pain in Ali that was very personal. It was clear to Morgan that her sister was wrestling with something bigger, and far worse, than Matt being unfaithful. Morgan couldn’t figure out what it was. But from the look in Ali’s eyes, it was devastating.
/>   Jessica lowered her voice and asked, “How could you not know Matt didn’t have a job? You never called his office number…only his cell?”

  “The truth is, around that time, I was hardly calling him at all. We didn’t have a lot to say to each other after the…” Ali faltered. “After a problem I’d had.”

  What problem? Morgan wondered. What could’ve happened that was dreadful enough to leave such a haunted look in Ali’s eyes?

  Jessica seemed not to notice Ali’s distress. “Wow…so the issue was you and Matt. For a while there, right after your housewarming, I thought you were pissed at me for some reason. You wouldn’t answer my calls, my emails. Then you had Matt blow me off about the Perfect Ten…in a text. It pretty much killed me.”

  “There was no way I could’ve gone on a ski trip right then, Jess. Everything was just too weird.”

  Ali had put a shiver into Morgan. Even though they weren’t as close as they used to be, Ali was still Morgan’s twin. And Morgan suspected that whatever her sister was covering up wasn’t over. An aspect of it was still a threat to Ali.

  “So that’s it? That’s all you’re gonna give me…that around Christmas, something weird happened?” Jessica said. “No details?”

  “No details.” Ali’s smile was tense, as if she was trying not to cry.

  “But everything’s okay with you now? Right?”

  Ali gathered her hair onto the top of her head and let it fall free again, giving herself time to regain her composure. “Yeah. Things are looking up, but…” Her voice trailed away. Then she said, “Money’s a problem. Matt has been getting his office ready, but classes at the college don’t start until next week. We’re still a month away from his first paycheck.”

  One of Jessica’s sons splashed past, and Ali wiped pool water from her eyes. “We’re selling the house. Even with what Matt will make as a teacher and what I’m bringing in from the restaurant…there’s no way we can afford to stay.”

  Morgan dropped down onto one of the lawn chairs, shocked. She’d had no idea Ali and Matt were about to lose their house.

  “Oh God,” Jessica said. “I know how much you love that place.”