Sisters

by Danielle Steel

And when she got back from Paris, she said they had had a fabulous time. He had taken her to a string of parties, including a ball at Versailles, and introduced her to all of Paris. Everyone he knew had a title. He had turned her head much more than Sabrina liked, and she was looking thinner again. When Sabrina commented on it, Candy said she had worked hard in Paris. But Sabrina called her shrink anyway. The shrink made no comment but thanked Sabrina for her call.

  Thanksgiving was the following week, and they all went out to their father's house in Connecticut. He looked thinner too. Tammy asked him if he felt all right, with a look of concern. He said he did, but he seemed quiet and lonely and grateful to see the girls.

  They went through their mother's things that weekend, at his suggestion, took the clothes they wanted, and he was going to donate the rest. It was hard to do, but he seemed to want to clear it all out. And they helped Annie make selections from what they described to her. She had always particularly loved her mother's soft pastel cashmere sweaters, and they looked beautiful on her. She had the same color hair.

  “How do I look?” she asked them, after she put one on. “Do I look like Mom?”

  Tammy's eyes had filled with tears. “Yeah, actually, you do.” But Tammy did too, although her red hair was brighter and much longer. But there was a definite similarity between their mother and those two daughters.

  It was a quiet, easy weekend, and they had no social plans. The girls made the turkey dinner themselves, and had fun making the stuffing and all the vegetables. Annie helped too.

  Chris had come out for Thanksgiving Day, and then went skiing in Vermont for the weekend with friends. Sabrina had opted to stay with her sisters and dad. It was a family weekend, which was important to them, especially this year.

  It was Saturday when Tammy came across a pair of women's sneakers in the room off the kitchen where her mother used to arrange flowers. They were a size nine, and her mother had worn a size six. And they didn't belong to any of the girls. And his housekeeper had small feet too.

  “Who do these belong to, Dad?” Tammy asked after they had gone through her mother's clothes all day and sorted them in piles for each of them and to donate. “They're not Mom's.”

  “Are you sure?” he said vaguely, and Tammy laughed.

  “Not unless her feet grew three sizes this year. Should I throw them out?”

  “Why don't you just leave them wherever you found them? Maybe someone will claim them.” He was preoccupied with fixing something when she asked, and had his back to her so she couldn't see his face.

  “Like who?” she asked, curious now, and then decided to be brazen. She'd had a sudden thought. “You're not dating, are you, Dad?” He spun around as though she had shot him and looked at her.

  “What makes you ask that?”

  “I was just wondering. The shoes seem a little odd.” He certainly had the right to date anyone he wanted. He was a free man, but it seemed a little soon to her. Their mother had been gone for five months, shy of a week.

  “I had some friends over a few weeks ago, for lunch. One of them may have left her shoes here. I'll call.” He hadn't answered her question, and she didn't want to pry. She just hoped it wasn't Leslie Thompson. She hadn't brought over any pies that weekend, and there was no evidence of a woman in the house. She mentioned it to her sisters in the car on the way back. They had left early Sunday morning to beat the weekend traffic.

  “Stop spying on him,” Candy scolded her. “He has a right to do what he wants. He's a grown man.”

  “I'd hate to see him fall into the clutches of some conniving woman just because he's lonely without Mom. Men do that sometimes,” Sabrina said with genuine concern. He seemed so vulnerable right now, and had been since July. And at least during the summer he'd had his daughters with him. Now they hardly ever had time to go out and visit him. Although they were planning to spend Christmas with him too. It had been a nice Thanksgiving for all of them, although they all missed their mother. The holidays were really tough.

  “I think Dad's too smart for some gold digger,” Tammy reassured them. She had more faith in him than that.

  “I hope you're right,” Sabrina said.

  And as soon as they got back to the house, Candy dressed to go out.

  “Where are you going?” Tammy looked at her in surprise.

  “Marcello invited me to a party.” She mentioned some socialites whom Tammy had read about frequently in the papers, and she smiled.

  “You lead a mighty fancy life, princess,” Tammy teased her.

  “I'm not a princess yet,” she teased back. But she felt like one with Marcello, and she didn't say it to her sisters, but he was incredible in bed. They had taken Ecstasy a couple of times, which made sex even more exciting. She knew he did coke once in a while, and he didn't need it, but he used Viagra to stay hard, so he could make love to her all night. He was a very intoxicating man, and she was beginning to think she was in love with him. He was hinting about marriage. She was too young of course, but in a few years …maybe…he said he wanted to have babies with her. But right now it was more fun just having sex. She was planning to stay at his place that night, and mentioned it vaguely to her sisters as she walked out the door. She was meeting him at his apartment so she could drop off a small bag. She wondered if they would even make it to the party. Sometimes they never made it out the front door, and wound up in bed instead, or on the floor. She didn't mind that at all.

  “I may not be home tonight,” she muttered vaguely over her shoulder, halfway out the front door.

  “Hey wait a minute …,” Sabrina said. “What was that? Where are you staying?”

  “Marcello's,” Candy said blithely. She was twenty-one, had been on her own for two years, and her sisters didn't have the right to tell her what she could and couldn't do, and she knew it. So did they, although they worried about her.

  “Be careful,” Sabrina said, and came over to kiss her. “Where does he live, by the way?”

  “He has an apartment on East Seventy-ninth. He has fantastic art.” Sabrina wanted to say that that didn't make him a nice guy, but didn't. Candy was wearing a crotch-length black leather miniskirt and thigh-high black suede high-heeled boots. She looked incredible with a skin-tight black cashmere sweater, and a gray mink jacket.

  “You look knockout gorgeous,” Sabrina said with a smile. She was such a beautiful girl. “Where on East Seventy-ninth Street? Just in case something happens, it's nice to know where you are. And cell phones don't always work.”

  “Nothing's going to happen.” It annoyed her when Sabrina acted like a mother instead of a sister, but she indulged her just this once. “One forty-one East Seventy-ninth. Don't drop by!”

  “I won't,” Sabrina promised, and Candy left.

  Chris came back from his ski weekend, and they retired to her room to talk and cuddle and watch a movie on TV. He slept there that night, and Tammy slept in Candy's room, so they'd have the floor to themselves. She stuck her head in to see Annie before she went to bed. She was doing homework in braille.

  “How's it going?”

  “Okay, I guess.” She looked frustrated, but at least she made the effort. All in all, things were going well for her, and they all agreed it had been a nice Thanksgiving weekend, even without their mom.

  Chapter 21

  The Monday after Thanksgiving, life went on as usual. Sabrina and Chris left for work together, Tammy had another network meeting to rush off to. And Annie left for school in a cab. She was planning to start taking the bus soon, but didn't feel ready yet. She had been at the Parker School for three months. Things were slightly more complicated that day because it had snowed the night before, which made the ground slippery and treacherous, and this time she slid on an ice patch in front of the school and wound up on her bottom instead of her knees. But unlike the first time, when she was near tears, this time she laughed.

  She had just said hello to Baxter, who heard the sound she had made as she fell.

  �
��What happened?” he asked, mystified by what was going on. Her voice was coming from lower to the ground, and she was laughing.

  “I'm sitting on my ass. I fell.”

  “Again? You klutz.” They were both laughing as someone helped her up. It was a firm, strong hand.

  “No sledding in front of school, Miss Adams,” the voice teased her, and she didn't recognize it at first. “You'll have to do that in Central Park.” She realized as he helped her up that the seat of her jeans was wet. And she had nothing to change into. And then she remembered the voice. It was Brad Parker, the director of the school. She hadn't spoken to him since the first day.

  Baxter could hear him talking to her, and they were late, so he told Annie he'd meet her in class and told her to hurry up.

  “I take it you two are friends,” Brad said pleasantly, as he tucked her hand into his arm and walked her in. There was ice on the ground. It had snowed early that year. And there were always mishaps outside school when it did, even if they were careful to shovel it.

  “He's a great guy,” she said about Baxter. “We're both artists, and we both had accidents this year. I guess we have a lot in common.”

  “My mother was an artist,” Brad Parker said pleasantly. “She painted as a hobby actually. She was a ballerina, with the Paris ballet. She had a car accident at twenty, and it ended both careers. But she did some wonderful things in spite of that.”

  “What did she do?” Annie asked politely. It was amazing how many lives were destroyed or lost with car accidents. She had met several in the school, some of them artists like her. With eight hundred people in the school, there were countless stories and people from all walks of life.

  “She taught dance. And she was very good. She met my father when she was thirty, but she taught even after they got married. She was a hard taskmaster,” he laughed. “My father had been blind since birth, and she even taught him how to dance. She always wanted to start a school like this. I did it for her after she died. We have dance classes here too. Both ballroom and ballet. You should try it sometime, you might like it.”

  “Not if you can't see,” Annie said bluntly.

  “The people who take the class seem to like it,” he said, undaunted, as he noticed that she touched the wet seat of her jeans. She was soaked from her fall, and wondering if she should go home. “You know, we have a closet with spare clothes in it for times like this. Do you know where it is?” She shook her head. “I'll show you. You're going to be miserable in those wet jeans all day,” he said kindly. He had a gentle, easygoing voice, and sounded as though he had a sense of humor. There was always laughter just beneath his words. He sounded happy, she decided, and nice. In a fatherly sort of way. She wondered how old he was. She had the feeling he wasn't young, but she couldn't ask.

  He took her upstairs to a storeroom with racks of clothes in it. They donated them to some of their scholarship students, or used them for incidents like this. He looked her over and handed her a pair of jeans. “I think these might fit. There's a fitting room in the corner, with a curtain. I'll wait here. There are others if you want.” She tried them on, feeling slightly self-conscious, and they were big but dry. She came out looking slightly like an orphan, and he laughed. “May I roll them up for you? You're going to fall again if you don't.”

  “Sure,” she said, still feeling self-conscious. He did, and they felt fine. “Thank you. You're right. My jeans are really wet. I was thinking about going home to change at lunchtime.”

  “You'd have caught cold by then,” he said, and she laughed.

  “You sound like my sister. She's always worried that I'm going to hurt myself, fall down, get sick. She acts like a mom.”

  “That's not an entirely bad thing. We all need one at times. I still miss mine, and she's been gone for almost twenty years.”

  Annie spoke softly when she answered, “I lost mine in July.”

  “I'm sorry,” he said, and sounded genuine. “That's very hard.”

  “Yes, it was,” she said honestly. And Christmas was going to be rough this year. She was grateful they had gotten through Thanksgiving. But they were all dreading Christmas without their mother. They had talked about it when they divided up her clothes.

  “I lost both my parents at once,” he said, as he walked her out of the storeroom and toward her classroom. “In a plane crash. It makes you grow up very quickly when there is no one between you and the great beyond.”

  “I never thought about it that way,” she said pensively. “But maybe you're right. And I still have my dad.” They had reached her classroom then. She had braille that morning, and kitchen skills that afternoon. They were supposed to make meat loaf, which she hated, but Baxter was in the same class and they always had fun clowning around. She could make perfect cupcakes now, and chicken. She had cooked both at home, to critical acclaim. “Thank you for the jeans. I'll bring them back tomorrow.”

  “Anytime,” he said pleasantly. “Have a good day, Annie.” And then he added, “Play nice in the sandbox,” and she laughed. He had a major advantage over her. He could see what she looked like, and she couldn't see him. But he had a nice voice.

  She slipped into her seat in braille class, and Baxter teased her mercilessly. “So now the head of the school is carrying your books for you, eh?”

  “Oh, shut up,” she chuckled. “He took me to get dry jeans.”

  “Did he help you put them on?”

  “Will you stop? No. He rolled them up.” Baxter hooted softly under his breath and continued to razz her about it all morning.

  “I hear he's cute, by the way.”

  “I think he's old,” Annie said matter-of-factly. Brad Parker hadn't been hitting on her. He was just being helpful, and acting like a head of school. “Besides, I didn't see you helping me get off my ass outside when I fell on the ice.”

  “I can't,” Baxter said simply. “I'm blind, you ninny.”

  “And don't call me a ninny!” They were like twelve-year-olds. The teacher called them to order, and a little while later, Baxter added, “I think he's thirty-eight or thirty-nine.”

  “Who?” She was concentrating on her braille homework, and was furious to discover she had gotten almost half of it wrong. It was harder than she thought.

  “Mr. Parker. I think he's thirty-nine.”

  “How do you know?” She sounded surprised.

  “I know everything. Divorced, no kids.”

  “So? What's that supposed to mean?”

  “Maybe he has the hots for you. You can't see him. But he can see you. And three people have told me you're gorgeous.”

  “They're lying to you. I have three heads and a double chin on each. And no, he was not hitting on me. He was just being nice.”

  “There's no such thing as nice between men and women. There's interested and not interested. Maybe he is.”

  “It doesn't matter if he is,” Annie said practically. “Thirty-nine is too old. I'm only twenty-six.”

  “Yeah, that's true,” Baxter said matter-of-factly. “You're right, he is too old.” And with that, they both went back to work, trying to master braille.

  When Annie got home from school that evening, both her older sisters were still out, and so was Candy. And Mrs. Shibata was about to leave. Annie fed the dogs, and started her homework. She was still working on it when Tammy came home at seven. She heaved a sigh as she came through the door, took off her boots, and said she was exhausted when she saw Annie, and asked her how her day was.

  “It was fine.” She didn't tell her that she had fallen. She didn't want her to worry, and they got nervous about things like that, and worried that she might hit her head. After brain surgery five months before, that would not be a good thing. But she had only hit her bottom. Sabrina came home half an hour later and asked if anyone had seen Candy. She had called her on her cell phone several times that afternoon, and it went to voice mail every time.

  “She must be working,” Tammy said practically, as she started dinn
er. She wasn't a baby after all, even if they treated her that way, and she had a major career. “Did she tell you what she was doing today?” she asked Annie, who shook her head, and then she remembered. “She was doing some kind of shoot for an ad this afternoon. She said she'd come home this morning and pick up her portfolio and her stuff.” She usually carried a bag full of makeup and other things with her when she worked.

  “Did she?” Sabrina asked, and Annie reminded her she'd been at school so she didn't know.

  “I'll look,” Sabrina said, and ran up the flight to Candy's room. The portfolio and work bag, a giant Hermès tote in dark red alligator, were still there. She carried Zoe around in it sometimes too. But Zoe had been home all day with the other dogs. It gave Sabrina a strange feeling to see the portfolio and bag in her room. She wondered if she should call Candy's agency to see if she had checked in, but she didn't want to act like a cop. Candy would have been furious if she did, even if her intentions were good, which they were. She just worried about her baby sister.

  “Well?” Tammy asked when Sabrina came back down to the kitchen. They were all downstairs by then except Candy, who still hadn't appeared.

  “Her stuff is all in her room,” Sabrina said, with a worried look.

  They called her several times after dinner, but her phone still went to voice mail. It was obviously turned off. Sabrina wished she had asked her for Marcello's phone number, but she hadn't, only his address, and she couldn't drop by to ask him where her sister was. Candy would have gone insane. He lived in a good neighborhood at least, if that meant anything. And at midnight they still hadn't heard a word from her. Tammy and Sabrina were still up, and Annie had gone to bed.

  “I would hate being a parent,” Sabrina said miserably to Tammy. “I'm worried sick about her.” Tammy didn't want to admit it, but she was getting concerned too. It was unlike Candy to just disappear like that and not check in. They didn't know what to do. And then Tammy remembered that there was a hotline at her agency to call anytime day or night, for models who had problems. Some of them were still very young, came from other cities or countries, and needed help or advice. Tammy looked it up in Candy's address book and found it. She dialed the number, got an answering service, and asked to be put through to the head of the agency if that was possible. A sleepy voice answered two minutes later. It was Marlene Weissman herself.