Stay With Me

by Garret Freymann-Weyr

  I was totally relieved when I gave him some babysitting money and he said I could consider my debt canceled. But right this second I wish he'd thought to charge me for sounding as if I were a moron. Why couldn't I have said, You were of great assistance. I hadn't grasped the novel's many nuances.

  Of course, now I think of it. But Eamon doesn't look as if I sounded especially moronic.

  "I don't think you missed it so much as it didn't jump out," he says. "And maybe I've missed what it's really about."

  "Oh, no," I say, thinking carefully. "Failure does resonate throughout the book."

  He smiles, saying, "I'll see you next week, Leila."

  "Bye, Eamon."

  And while saying his name feels like a prized and rare occurrence, for many months what I remember about that day—what I write down—is that Rebecca's reason might be related to some kind of big disappointment that we haven't uncovered. Am I looking for one big disappointment? Or were there a lot of little ones that became, all at once, too big? Or will the secret I find be a failure? In the end, what will it matter, as neither of those things can have killed her.

  After all, I always thought that Janie and Julian's great love was ruined because it ended. I never thought there was a secret failure to it. The story I tell myself is of a big, consuming love which produced my sisters, but could not continue. A great love ending was failure and disappointment enough.

  But as Da and Janie proved, it was nothing to die over. Instead, it made Janie work more than usual and Da listen to sad music. So what happened to my sister? In my notebook, I write down the date and what Eamon told me. I underline the word ruin and put a question mark after Rebecca's name.

  And another one after the word June.

  Thirteen

  FOR CLARE'S BIRTHDAY, which is the last Friday in April, Raphael has helped me to make a cabinet. I didn't need the help as much as he thought, but I was glad to have it while drilling mortises. My mother had shown me how, but a good three years ago. In this way, I didn't mess up and Raphael got to feel useful, which is pretty much what he lives for.

  We designed the cabinet to fit between the living room windows and to hold pillows and blankets. A kind of portable linen closet.

  "It's beautiful," Clare says. "Oh, and we can put these on the top."

  Raphael has given her white lilies in a vase made of heavy blue glass. It's from the same German glassware company that Clare negotiated with when she started working for Edward Schweitzer. He's her boss who owns all the hotels.

  "That was ages ago," Clare says. "How on earth did you remember?"

  "You had quite a lot to say," Raphael tells her. "About the glasses used in hotel bars."

  I wish I had been there to hear my sister holding forth on which glasses hotels have and why. Last month, I went to dinner with Clare and Gyula at the hotel where he stays. When I said I didn't want to order eight-dollar orange juice, they both made a list of all the nice details in the hotel's restaurant. The waiters' jackets, the red wallpaper, the dark tables, and how my water glass sat on a ribbed coaster.

  "All of it is the result of contracts," Clare told me.

  "Contracts designed to create a refuge for people," Gyula added. "Charge anything less for juice and nothing gets reupholstered, the jackets lose their shape, and—"

  "Slowly but surely everything falls apart," Clare finished for him.

  It was definitely one of the best nights of my life. I knew I'd never go into a restaurant or a hotel or a bar without thinking of Clare and Gyula's lesson on contracts and prices.

  "I was so happy when that deal came through," she says now, holding the vase up for inspection. "Edward was very impressed. He thought I'd never get the price down, but I'd researched it to death."

  It's becoming possible to imagine Clare happy. You can see it in bits. Like when she's with Gyula or had a good day at work or spent time with Raphael. I wouldn't say she's totally happy now, but for the past couple of weeks she hasn't been crying in the bathroom. She told me that on her last business trip, something had shifted. Or cracked.

  "I've started noticing things again," she said. "The way certain kinds of soap come wrapped in tissue paper. The shape of espresso cups. Dried flowers in bowls. You know, stupid little things that shouldn't matter, but that I like."

  I thought that maybe her brain had been foggy too (not in the same way as mine, but in a Clare-ish way) and that because she's smarter than I am, she'd been able to shake it off. I loved her for finding her way back to soap and cups.

  She puts the vase on the shelves and steps back a little.

  "It's all so perfect," she says, putting her hand on my shoulder and looking at Raphael. "So we're still on for tomorrow?"

  "Yes," he says. "Of course."

  We're going ice-skating. There's an indoor place called Sky Rink down at the Chelsea Piers. When Clare and Rebecca had figure-skating lessons, Sky Rink was still in midtown. Decades ago, as Clare said. I was little then. She's going out with Gyula tonight. He was in Toronto this week and found a way to get here for the day, but he has to go back to Canada first thing in the morning.

  I hand Clare the earrings Gyula sent when he still thought he was going to miss her birthday. They're little pearls arranged around a diamond in a gold mesh setting. When Clare opened the box, she simply stared at them before finally saying,

  "How odd."

  "They're beautiful," I said. "God, they're like ... beautiful."

  At least I know I'm not articulate. Beautiful is as bad as nice. I've got to learn not to sound so ... limited.

  "They're exquisite," Clare said, picking one up. "It's just Mama always told us you never accept jewelry from a man you've no plans to marry."

  This is exactly the kind of information my mother would never give me. There's a rule about men and marriage and jewelry other than the engagement ring? Well, now I know. And it sounds more important than Janie's what-to-order-on-a-date rule.

  "I've told Gyula that," Clare said. "He wanted to give me a necklace a year after we met."

  "What did he say?" I asked her, guessing that Gyula isn't that much fun when he doesn't get his way.

  "He said he wasn't giving it to my mother, and then he was truly offended when I wouldn't take it," Clare said, with a buried laugh. "Not one of my more shining moments."

  "Do you think the earrings mean he wants to marry you?"

  I sort of hoped they did, which was disloyal to Raphael, but I thought there was something in Gyula—something hard and glittery and far away—that suited Clare. You could tell that Gyula, unlike Raphael, didn't long to protect her; he assumed he already did. And I thought she was sparkly around him. When together, they didn't just remind me of how a chandelier was arranged, but of how it gleamed.

  "No, the earrings do not mean that," Clare said. "Believe me."

  She opened the card and translated from the German, which is what she and Gyula speak when he doesn't trust his English. So glad you were born. Please allow them. Yours, etc., G.

  I said that I thought this was the best love note I'd ever heard, and she smiled, saying, "Yes, he does these very well."

  At the time, this did not sound like a ringing endorsement, but tonight, wearing them, she looks like sparkly, happy Clare in the earrings. And a dress she's pulled from the back of her closet. It's light green, zips up the side, has a square neckline and no sleeves.

  "You're going to freeze," Raphael says. "Take a sweater or something."

  "It used to have a matching jacket," Clare says. "But I lost it. Mama was furious."

  So this is one of the Janie dresses. According to Rebecca, Janie had given them both insanely beautiful clothes to wear to opening nights of shows she had worked on. They were clothes to admire, Rebecca told me. Not to wear. And yet, here is Clare all decked out in one for her thirty-seventh birthday.

  "You look beyond lovely," Raphael says, handing her a black raincoat from the closet.

  "Not too old?" Clare asks.

&nb
sp; When Da called, he told her she was now old enough to start lying about her age. A bit of information she could probably have done without. I know he was trying to make conversation, as Da usually says the worst things when he has no idea what to say.

  "Certainly not," Raphael says.

  The coat, while not matching, looks elegant. Have a good time, we say. See you tomorrow. Happy birthday.

  In the kitchen, Raphael puts on water for pasta and I grate cheese.

  "Did you see the earrings?" I ask, wanting to warn him in case the jewelry gift means what Clare says it does not.

  "I did," he says. "My mother has a pair like them."

  I try to picture Aunt Ingrid in Clare's earrings but can't. These earrings are their own unique pair. I can so easily see Gyula picking them out, his hand hovering over different pairs. I had even imagined the small, quiet store where jewelry is brought out from locked cases and displayed on velvet for selection.

  "Just like them?" I ask.

  "Maybe not exactly," Raphael says. "Pearls, gold, you know."

  "These have diamonds," I say. If he doesn't want to be warned, fine.

  "I hope it goes well tonight," Raphael says.

  "Why won't it?" I ask.

  What did I fail to notice? She looks good and is with Gyula. Can it go badly?

  "It's only that this is the first time he's been with her on her birthday," Raphael says.

  They've been going out for five years, so this does not reflect well on Gyula. What can he have been thinking? Even after the divorce, William would call Rebecca on her birthday.

  "How come?" I ask.

  "I suspect she always told him it wasn't important and he finally doesn't believe her," Raphael says. "It's also her first birthday without Rebecca."

  So this is what's worrying him. Not Gyula or earrings, but Rebecca's absence. It's likely to make Clare miserable when Raphael wants her to be happy. My brain immediately jumps to August 30, which will be Rebecca's first birthday without Rebecca. That's going to be horrible. I remember that on Janie's birthday last year Da called both girls and was very quiet in a loud sort of way. Mom came home early and took him out to dinner even though it was her night to work late. It was smart of her, because when they came back he was more himself.

  "Clare's doing better," I say to Raphael. "She's not crying as much in the bathroom."

  "She still goes in there to cry?"

  Well, how would I know from "still"? His old news is my fresh information.

  "I think so," I say. "Yes."

  "God, those girls," he says. "Abranel masterpieces."

  In this instant, for the very first time, I see that I am not the only one who looks at my two sisters as one. A thing apart from who they are or were. That my sisters are also people makes them, to me, that much more interesting. That much more deserving of my attention and the stories I've given them.

  "Gyula might help her forget," I say. "You know, that it's another day Rebecca has missed."

  "He might," Raphael says. "He will. Let's get dinner on the table."

  After we're done eating, I do the dishes and, in return, Raphael says we can skip math. Do I want to learn gin rummy? He and his father taught my sisters years ago.

  "I know you and Ben play crazy eights," Raphael says. "Or is it 'played'? I'm not sure how much time you spend with him now."

  "We still play," I say.

  But only during lunch instead of for hours after school. On weekends, we sometimes used to deal my parents in even though we were pretty sure my mother cheated. I like the idea of playing cards with someone from here in the new now.

  "Gin is a little different," Raphael says.

  We sit at the table, playing with all the cards face-up, waiting until I get the hang of it enough to play for real. What we are really waiting for, of course, is sleep. Each evening of the past five months has ended with the hope that the next day will be easier. That it will finally be a day less heavily shaded by Rebecca.

  Fourteen

  CLARE COMES HOME A LITTLE AFTER TEN. And, as she's putting away coat and shoes, says she and Gyula have broken up. That she'd thought of checking herself into a hotel until she could pull herself together, but that that's the kind of thing Rebecca would do. So, instead, she's going to take a very long bath and go to bed. She's fine. Really.

  "Can you tell us what happened?" Raphael asks, and I know he's trying to keep her out of the bathroom.

  "I don't want to talk about it," she says. "I want to kill him."

  "We don't have to talk," Raphael says. "We can sit and plan a murder. Leila, get your sister some tea."

  "Water," Clare says. "Can I have some water?"

  I bring her a bottle of water and a glass.

  "Gyula's become an investor in the Vivfilli," she says. "He heard I was researching it, thought I might like it, and bought into it. Oh, joy."

  The Vivfilli is the name of the lost hotel in Barcelona.

  "Researching it?" Raphael asks, somehow managing to get her to sit down by pushing a chair close to where she's standing.

  "I have contacts in Spain," Clare says. "A law firm. They got me the Vivfilli's bank records. The renovation contracts."

  "Yes, of course," Raphael says, indicating he knows what research means but his question is "Why?"

  "I don't know," Clare says quietly. "When we were little, Rebecca and I used to play hotel owner the way normal girls played house."

  She peels the blue and white label from the bottle and starts to shred it, saying,

  "I must have wanted to be in touch with whatever's left of her. It's stupid, I know."

  "It's not," I say. "Not at all."

  I'm thinking of my job at Caffe Acca and of bringing Eamon cake because his table was close to where Rebecca once sat. Of all the fear and longing that goes into touching her things.

  "He says"—here Clare's voice breaks, but she puts her hands up like stay away signs—"he says I can have a job there now. That he can put me in charge of the renovations. Let me run the deal."

  "You know he meant to show you he understands," Raphael says. "That's the only reason he bought the Vivfilli."

  "Invested in it. He can't afford to buy it," Clare says. "If he could afford to buy it, it would make him happier than my moving to Budapest ever would."

  "You're moving to Budapest?" I ask.

  She's speaking so fast and there's too much to follow. Raphael defending Gyula, Clare almost crying somewhere other than the bathroom, a lost hotel becoming found, and ... I can't keep track.

  "I guess he thinks Barcelona is a compromise between Budapest and here," Clare says. "We've been talking for years about how one of us has to move."

  "Years," Raphael says.

  His voice is quiet, but he looks almost entertained at the idea of this endless talk that has obviously gone nowhere.

  "Well, Gyula should be the one to move," I say. "You have a job here."

  I'm not anxious for my remaining sister to pack up for Budapest. Although, that seems unlikely if they've really broken up.

  "I was never going to go," Clare says. "We knew he could never leave his business and I could never leave, oh, God, I could never leave while Mama and Rebecca were here."

  And she's crying for real now. Enough to be unable to keep us away. I somewhat ineffectually pat her knees while she almost crawls up against Raphael, crying and crying and crying. Shhhh, he keeps saying. Shhhh. I like that he's not telling her it will be okay and that everything will look different in the morning—all things I've been told while crying.

  Shhh. Shh. Until she quiets down and pulls away from him to snatch as much Kleenex from the box as she can.

  "I'm so sorry," she says. "I should clearly have hit a hotel."

  "And let us miss this?" Raphael asks lightly. "Leila and I were just sitting here saying, I hope Clare comes home and falls apart because it's been such a long time since we've had anything to do."

  It gets her laughing, and she wipes her eyes with the
backs of her hands, saying,

  "I probably cried mascara into my contacts."

  "At least it didn't run down your face," Raphael says.

  "I don't even want to think about all the creepy ways he could have found out I was researching the Vivfilli," Clare says.

  "Maybe he knows your lawyer in Spain," Raphael says.

  It sounds better than the idea of Gyula checking up on her. Or spying or whatever other creepy ways Clare has in mind.

  "On top of everything else, he told me I shouldn't make a major decision like this until Rebecca had been dead a year."

  We're all quiet. I'd have thought Gyula would know better than to try to prevent Clare from breaking up with him by reminding her of Rebecca's death.

  "As if it's because of her that I've had it," my sister says. "He thinks a hotel will fix everything? Or a job?"

  Fix what? What was broken before they broke up?

  Clare stands up and laughs in a high, nervy way, saying, "I thought I was going to throw something at him."

  She stalks off and I guess Raphael thinks it's safe to let her have her long bath. He looks kind of wrecked. I pick up Clare's discarded tissues and ask if he wants some tea.

  "I think I need a drink," he says.

  "They don't have anything," I tell him.

  I still think of the kitchen as belonging to both of my sisters. They have flour, two kinds of salt, tea, coffee, and bottled water. They don't have alcohol.

  "Rebecca kept Scotch behind the good plates," he says, following me to the kitchen and locating the bottle.

  I watch him pour it, take a sip, put ice in it, and take another sip before pouring the whole thing down the drain.

  "That never does what it's supposed to," he says.

  My mother sometimes has wine at dinner. Rebecca always did. I knew Janie drank brandy at the end of the workday and, on occasion, to sleep. Da likes vodka on ice, but only every now and then. Does Gyula drink? I can't remember. He probably is tonight. Before she started crying, I kept waiting for Clare to reveal his true crime. He invested in a hotel she loves to distraction. Is that so awful?