11
OLYMPIA WAS AT WORK when the next call from Larchmont came in. But this time it wasn’t from Perri. It was from Mike. In the twelve years since he’d been married to Perri, he’d never once phoned Olympia. She immediately concluded that it was something serious—unless he was planning some kind of surprise party? Olympia was on the other line with a performance artist named Eberhard Fuchs, who was complaining that he hadn’t received the promised stipend in connection with his latest masterpiece, Military-Agricultural Gang Bang. From what Olympia had been able to tell, the work consisted of Eberhard parading around the gallery space in a Viennese sausage costume, pretending to have sex with a series of giant paper plates with holes cut out of them. Olympia had found the performance offensive. At the same time, the insecure, self-doubting part of her wondered if it was her eye that was at fault and if the genius was apparent to everyone but her. In his home country, Eberhard was a star. “I’m sorry, Mr. Fuchs. Could you hang on one second?” she asked him.
“Pia, I need to talk to you,” her brother-in-law announced in a grave tone.
Olympia’s first thought was that her mother had had some kind of relapse. “Is my mom okay?” she asked.
“I’m not calling about Carol.”
“Then what’s going on?” Had something happened to one of the kids? Had Sadie sprouted horns?
“Perri walked out.”
“WHAT?!” cried Olympia. Surely there was some kind of misunderstanding. Perri had probably gotten a flat tire on her way back from the Container Store, and AAA was running late. Or maybe she and Mike had just had a bad fight. The few times in recent months that Olympia had seen her sister and brother-in-law together, they seemed to be at each other’s throats. Which had secretly tickled Olympia at the time, but didn’t seem so amusing anymore.
“She came home early from Passover. We were at her friends’ house,” Mike went on. “She was acting really strangely. I thought she wasn’t feeling well. She was asleep when I got home with the kids. The next morning when I woke up, she was gone.”
“Did she leave a note?” asked Olympia, astounded.
“Yeah, she left a note.”
“Well, what did it say?”
“That she needs time away from the family.” He laughed bitterly. “Lovely.”
“Time away, where?!”
“She didn’t say.”
“And how long does she plan to be gone for?”
“She didn’t say that, either.”
Olympia still refused to believe it. Women like Perri didn’t walk out on their husbands. They built a terrarium, took a spin class. “Jesus,” she said. “I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry. But listen, I’m actually on the other line right now. Can I call you back later?”
“Is there any way you could come out here?” Mike asked plaintively.
“When?”
“Now.”
“Mike, I’m at work!” said Olympia, bristling. The only people who were allowed to pressure her were Lola and, by no choice of Olympia’s own, Viveka.
“What about after work? Olympia, I’m begging you! I honestly can’t handle this by myself. I got three kids to deal with. Your dad is still here, too, in case you were wondering. And he’s demanding Ovaltine. Like that’s really high on my list of priorities right now!”
“Can’t Gus come?” asked Olympia, searching for an out. “She’s a lot closer, and she has a car.”
“She’s in court in the afternoons,” said Mike. “Plus, she doesn’t know anything about kids. The other weekend I caught her trying to teach Noah how to stick paper clips into electric sockets.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Mostly. But not entirely.”
“Fine,” said Olympia, sighing in defeat. “I have some stuff I need to take care of up here. Then I need to go back to Brooklyn and pick up Lola. We’ll try to catch the seven thirty-seven out of Grand Central. That’s the earliest train I can manage. Can you pick us up at the station? It’s going to be kind of late by the time we get to you.”
“Would you mind taking a taxi?” asked Mike.
In fact, Olympia did mind. Taking a taxi meant tacking another ten dollars onto the train fare. The actual money was possibly irrelevant. It was the principle. What had Mike ever done for her, other than mock and patronize her at family functions? Olympia hadn’t forgotten the Thanksgiving when he’d sidled over to her, and asked, “So, how’s the Sex and the City lifestyle treating you?” (Smirk, smirk.) As if the sole reason she’d failed to marry and move to suburbia was her fondness for having casual sex in nightclub restrooms. In fact, casual sex had never interested Olympia. She preferred making her men work for the privilege of bedding her; she felt she deserved that courtesy at least.
Just then, Olympia heard a high-pitched sob on the other end of the line. “Mike, are you okay?” she asked.
“I’m not okay, actually.” He began to cry in strange, sneezy bursts. “My life is falling apart. First my job. Now my crazy wife walks out on her fortieth birthday.”
“Ohmygod, it’s Perri’s birthday. I completely forgot!!” Olympia gasped, as guilt consumed her. Traditionally, it was Carol who kept everyone abreast of upcoming milestones. (Bob couldn’t be counted on to know what month it was—never mind year—unless you meant “light-years.”) But Carol was still in the hospital without her Metropolitan Museum of Art page-a-day calendar featuring Edgar Degas’s Dance Lesson and Vermeer’s Maid Asleep to consult. “Out of curiosity, had you planned anything for tonight?” she asked.
“I was going to make strip steaks after the kids went to bed,” he said.
“Sounds festive,” said Olympia, not bothering to disguise the sarcasm in her voice. A part of her suspected that, had Mike hinted that he was planning to make even the smallest fuss over Perri’s fortieth, the entire mess might have been avoided.
“It’s not my fault Perri hates restaurants!” he cried. “She thinks all the bus boys are urinating in the food.”
I bet she wouldn’t have hated Per Se, Olympia was tempted to reply but refrained.
“I had a present for her, too,” Mike went on.
“And what was that?”
“An Hermès scarf.”
Olympia couldn’t help herself. “Mike, that’s what you give your corporate secretary on the last day of work before the holidays!”
“She loves Hermès.”
“Whatever. It’s a moot point now. I’ll see you later.”
After she hung up with Mike, Olympia reconnected with Eberhard. “I apologize profusely,” she said, trying to refocus. “Where were we?”
“You morons haven’t paid me,” he said, sounding even more peeved than before. “That’s where we were.”
Olympia was taken aback. “I’m sending an email to our billing department right now,” she said. “But I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call me or anyone else here a moron.”
“I’ll call you what I like, you dreckige Hure,” said Eberhard.
Had Olympia just been called a “dirty old whore” in German? A vast storehouse of rage welled up inside her, then exploded into the open air—not just at every egomaniacal artist she’d ever had to deal with at the museum, but at Mike for making her come out to Larchmont; at Patrick for letting her fall in love with him; at #6103 for not jotting down his first and last names and home address in the “Additional Facts about Myself” section of his profile; at Carol for turning her and her sisters into butterflies in a museum, their wings immobilized, their identifying labels sealed to the wall; at Bob for being impossible to pin down at all; at Gus for not respecting her; at Perri for patronizing her; at the Monsanto Corporation for injecting hormones into cows; and at herself for not being more ambitious, or less defensive, or whatever it was that kept her from even trying to be the things she dreamed of being. “Well, then, I’ll call you what I like,” Olympia told the guy. “You’re a pathetic old pervert. Honestly, you’re lucky anyone’s willing to pay you two cents to perform your bullshit, so-called artwork. You think you’re so radical. Well, you have the mental capacity of a sausage! I wouldn’t be surprised to hear you were a rapist. Also, need I mention that you people were on the wrong side of the war…” Olympia couldn’t believe the bile that was coming out of her mouth.
Not entirely unpredictably, the line had gone dead. “If you’d like to make a call,” said a recording, “please hang up and try again.”
Olympia’s heart was now beating so hard that it actually hurt her chest. She felt elated and terrified at the same time. After Viveka found out what had happened, would she get fired? And if she was unemployed, how would she ever afford health insurance for her and Lola? Never mind nice clothes. These questions in her head, Olympia gathered her belongings and headed out.
Maximilian and Annmarie kept typing, as if they hadn’t heard, even though they clearly had.
A low ceiling of dense fog hung over the city, obscuring the tops of the tall buildings. It was still unseasonably cold. But Olympia didn’t mind. She found the saturnine vistas to be soothing. On Second Avenue, it started to drizzle, and Olympia opened her umbrella. With her other hand, she dialed Perri’s cell number. She was curious about where her sister was. She also felt guilty that she hadn’t already called to wish her a happy fortieth. And she was keen to let Perri know that, counter to her older sister’s impression that Olympia was selfish and unhelpful, she was on her way out to Larchmont that very evening to help take care of Perri’s kids. If points couldn’t be scored on this count, how could they ever be scored?!
But her sister didn’t pick up. Olympia was secretly relieved. In many ways, she found it easier expressing herself to automated answering services than to actual people. Even so, she strained to achieve a tone of voice that sounded subdued without being phlegmatic. “It’s Pia,” she began. “I just want to wish you a happy birthday, wherever you are. I’m going out to Larchmont to help Mike with the kids tonight. If you want to talk, give me a call. I’ll have my phone on. But no pressure. I hope you’re doing okay, wherever you are. We’re all fine. Bye.” She paused before declaring, “I love you.” It had been years since Olympia had uttered those words to Perri. And she wondered where the burst of affection had come from and whether it had anything to do with the fact that, for possibly the first time in the history of the Hellinger family, and despite Olympia’s career-ruining outburst in the museum, Perri had claimed the F*ck-up Sister trophy for herself.
It was nearly eight thirty when Olympia and Lola arrived in Larchmont. The rain was even heavier in the suburbs than it had been in the city. Luckily there was an idling taxi in front of the station house. Olympia climbed into the back with Lola. The smell of wet rubber filled the cab. As they approached Perri’s house, Olympia begrudgingly handed the driver her last ten-dollar bill.
Mike opened the front door. He was wearing jeans, a UPenn T-shirt, and bedroom slippers that appeared to be made of crafting felt. His face was less pink than usual—more like beige with hints of green. “Thanks for coming out,” he said gravely.
“Of course,” said Olympia, fighting the urge to ask him for reimbursement for her travel expenses.
Aiden was playing Fruit Ninja on his father’s phone with the dim-eyed gaze of a professional drunk, his pointer finger frantically waggling. Noah, dressed in tiny elastic-waist jeans and a Yankees jersey, was fast asleep on the couch, albeit at a strange angle, his legs elevated higher than his head. Bob was nowhere in sight and presumably already in bed. Sadie was eating Cheerios and milk and watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
“Scary!” said Lola, hiding behind her mother’s leg as a giant serpent sank its fang into the boy wizard’s flesh.
“Sadie, turn that garbage off,” said Mike. “You’re scaring your cousin. And you’re going to get nightmares.”
“No, I’m not,” said Sadie, munching away happily. “And it’s not garbage.” She took another bite. “Besides, it’s not like Harry dies. Dumbledore’s phoenix, Fawkes, saves him.”
Mike narrowed his already sliverlike eyes, shook his head. As if the misery were all-encompassing.
“Speaking of nightmares,” said Olympia. “I need to try and get Lola to sleep. Is there room for her in Sadie’s bedroom?”
“There’s a trundle under her bed. I can get some sheets for it if I can remember where Perri keeps them.” He scratched his head, glanced over at Sadie. “Yo, Sade, where does Mom keep the twin sheets for your room?”
“Hall closet,” came the reply.
“I’m sure I can find them,” said Olympia, walking toward the stairs.
“It’s fine, I’ll get them,” said Mike, knocking into Olympia’s shoulder as he tried to beat her to the landing. It actually hurt. Was the man made of rock?
“I can make the bed,” she said, following him upstairs.
Mike turned the knob to the linen closet, whereupon Olympia suppressed a gasp. Even the fitted sheets, impossible for the average mortal to tame, had been expertly folded into perfect squares. What’s more, a black satin ribbon encircled each sheet set.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Mike mumbled as he knelt and sorted through the pile.
“Maybe she’s just upset about turning forty,” offered Olympia, who dreaded the day herself. “It’s kind of a traumatic birthday—at least for women. I mean, George Clooney is allowed to be a sex symbol in middle age, whereas women his age are basically told to disappear.”
“Maybe,” said Mike. “But—no disrespect to Perri—being a sex symbol was never her thing.”
Although Olympia secretly agreed with the assessment, she was startled by his words and by the betrayal that seemed to be implicit in them. “I guess,” she replied, struggling to think of something to say that would sound neutral. “So, have you tried calling her?”
“I’m not going to chase after her,” Mike announced defiantly. He picked himself up off the floor, one knee at a time, a pale pink sheet set with a French rose motif in his arms. “If she wants to be part of this family, she can come back on her own account.”
“Right,” said Olympia, even though it seemed to her that he was taking the wrong approach. Wasn’t this the time for Mike to show Perri how much she meant to him?
“Have you talked to her?” he asked.
“I just left a message,” said Olympia.
She followed him into Sadie’s bedroom with its outrageous canopy bed, fit for a royal. Again descending to his hands and knees, Mike yanked out the trundle. Olympia, in turn, bent down to help secure the fitted sheet across the mattress. Her face was now a foot away from his. Curious somehow, she found herself glancing over at him. She’d never noticed the yellow-green speckles in his eyes before. “You look like Perri right now,” he said, returning her gaze. “I hadn’t seen it before just now.”
Olympia quickly looked away. The comparison felt too intimate. It felt strangely threatening, too. Olympia still hated to have her looks contrasted to those of her sisters, if only because it brought her back to a time in adolescence when differentiating herself had been paramount. Back then, clothes had often felt like her only weapons. Olympia had lived in oversized Ts, low-slung belts, long winter underwear, and a Levi’s jean jacket she’d decorated with campaign-style buttons advertising the names of various West Village boutiques. Perri had favored white canvas Tretorns, bleached jeans, and giant Benetton rugby shirts that she’d paid for with money saved up from her after-school job at a local jeweler’s. (Gus, though still in junior high at the time, had already perfected the art of androgyny with the help of Doc Martens, black jeans, and a black leather motorcycle jacket with lots of unnecessary zippers.) Somehow the three of them had still managed to be in and out of one another’s closets, pulling things off hangers, cutting deals. “Guess button-flies for your CP Shades mock?” They’d managed to hurt one another’s feelings, too. Olympia still recalled the time she’d worn a shirt with a Nehru collar to school, and Perri had addressed her as “Yo, Gandhi.” Even though Olympia had considered Perri’s own fashion sense to be the antithesis of cool, she’d never worn the top again.
“No one has ever said we look alike before,” she told Mike. “It’s probably just that we were talking about her.”
“Maybe,” he said.
“Anyway, I can finish up here.”
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
Relief flooded Olympia’s chest at the sight of her brother-in-law lumbering away.
But there was no escaping him after the kids were all finally asleep. Since Bob was in the guest room, Olympia’s bed for the night was the living room sofa. Which was also the TV couch. Then again, it was Mike’s house. He plunked himself down in a club chair across from her and cracked open a beer. She was watching 2001: A Space Odyssey. “You gotta love the nineteen-sixties idea of advanced computer technology,” Mike offered at the spectacle of Hal the talking computer telling one of the astronauts that the spaceship was about to malfunction. “Hal,” he went on. “How come no one uses that name anymore? Hal Sims. Not bad. Right?”
“You thinking of having a fourth?” Olympia joked.
“Not likely to happen at present, since my wife doesn’t appear to live here anymore.”
“I’m sure she’ll be back,” said Olympia, who wasn’t sure of anything.
Mike took a sip of his beer and sighed a world-weary “Who knows.”
“Speaking of walking out,” Olympia told him. “I basically quit my job this afternoon after I talked to you. Like, I’m not sure it’s going to be waiting for me on Monday.” She had to tell someone.
“No shit.”
“Yes shit.”
Mike folded down his lips. “Wow. Well, welcome to the unemployed people club. It’s not that bad once you get used to it.”
“I guess,” said Olympia, unconvinced.
“Hey.” He paused, took another sip of his beer. “I appreciate you coming out here.”
“Of course.”
“It’s nice having you here.”
Olympia couldn’t, in good faith, tell Mike that it was nice being there, so she said nothing.
A few minutes before eleven, he wandered off with a “ ’Night.”
“Sleep well,” she told him. She watched a few more minutes of the movie. Then she flicked off the power button, curled up under her blanket, and attempted to shut out the world and all its myriad confusions, if only for the night.
It couldn’t have been much more than six a.m. when Olympia woke. The kids weren’t even up yet. Her back ached. Yet there was something strangely calming, even copacetic, about lying there staring at the ceiling beams. The silence was as heavy as the velvet drapes in the dining room. The morning light was just beginning to filter through the bay window that looked out into the backyard. It was early spring, and crocuses and daffodil buds were poking through the thaw. Olympia thought back to her earliest love affairs. All of them had started in late March or early April. It made her think that human beings were eighty-five percent biologically programmed and, to that extent, completely predictable. As for the remaining fifteen percent, there was no saying where it would lead.
Or where it had led her sister Perri. The Rocky Mountains? Rio de Janeiro? A thought struck Olympia: Was it possible that she really didn’t know the first thing about her older sister? What if the roles we assumed in our families had little to nothing to do with the people we actually became in the outside world? A mutual acquaintance in New York had once described Perri as “such a sweetheart,” and the description had shocked Olympia. Was that how her older sister came across in public? And was Perri’s critical streak reserved only for her younger sisters and husband? And had it really been so intolerable here in Larchmont? Olympia wondered as she gazed around her at the creamy walls, plush carpets, iron chandelier, leather upholstery, and solid wood furnishings. Olympia had yet to graduate from the Ikea stage of home furnishing, the particleboard and MDF interspersed with the occasional flea-market find.
Bob was up next. Olympia saw him before he saw her. He was dressed in his flannel bathrobe, and his upper body was bent at a seventy-degree angle. Scurrying down the hall, his eyes darting this way and that, he reminded her of a frightened bandit. Clearly he couldn’t wait to go home, Olympia thought with a heavy heart. And why did it so upset her to see her parents looking needy or vulnerable in any way? Growing up, she’d hear the two of them talking in the kitchen in low voices about how her father had been passed over for yet another plum assignment. Carol would express outrage at the head of the lab. Quietly defensive, Bob would try to justify the decision to make Kit Furlong or Dan Lieblich, rather than himself, the team leader of the Booster Neutrino Oscillation Experiment, or some other initiative. As Olympia understood it, her father, while a young atomic scientist at Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexico, had once been deemed a rising star in his field. There had even been talk of a future Nobel. What had happened since then (to change his fortunes) was unclear. Bob never talked about that period of his life. And Olympia didn’t have the nerve to ask, not wanting to be nosey or to upset him.
In truth, it was strange to think of her father having ever had a life outside his wife and three daughters and in a place other than Hastings. Still, Olympia always longed to know more about the man he once was. And had he been a virgin when he’d married Carol? It seemed unlikely, but who knew. Clearly, he’d been a serious nerd. “Hi, Dad,” she called to him.
Apparently startled, he froze in place before his head swiveled to face her. “Perr-Gus-I-mean-Pia—what in the world are you doing here?!” he asked, his eyebrows up near his hairline.
“I came out last night,” she said. “Lola’s up in Sadie’s room.”
“And where’s Perri? She’s usually the first up.”
“She went on a last-minute business trip,” Olympia said, improvising. “Some kind of closet organization conference in San Diego, I think. She would have said good-bye, but she didn’t want to wake you.”
“I see.” Bob furrowed his brow. “Well, it’s nice to see you! Maybe you’ll come to the hospital with me today to see Mom.”
“Of course.”
“Though I don’t know how we’ll get there. Perhaps someone can drive us.”
“We’ll figure it out,” said Olympia, conjecturing that Perri and her Lexus were the glue that kept the Hellinger family from splintering into four disparate units.
Noah and Mike appeared soon after that, Noah in the same Yankees jersey and jeans from the previous night and Mike in the same T-shirt—and now sweats. As the latter lumbered down the stairs, his son hanging off his neck, Olympia could just discern the outline of his penis swinging to and fro. “Morning,” he mumbled.
“Hey,” she said, suddenly as embarrassed by her own semidressed state as she was by his—and glad now that her father was nearby. “Hey, Pops,” she said, turning to him. “Do you want me to go get the newspaper for you?” Perri still got home delivery of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, though it was unclear if anyone read them.
“Please,” replied Bob.
Olympia took her time walking to the front door, then walking back, so as to avoid sharing counter space with Mike. Indeed, by the time she made it to the kitchen, he was already on his way back upstairs, both bottle and baby in tow.
Sadie appeared shortly after that, followed by Lola.
“Good morning, you two!” said Olympia.
“I want pancakes,” said Sadie.
“Me, too,” said Lola.
“You’re just saying that because Sadie wants them,” said Olympia, then realized she was being unnecessarily critical of a not-quite-four-year-old.
“No, I’m not!” cried Lola, sounding hurt.
Olympia couldn’t blame her. “You’re right. That was bitchy. Sorry,” she said.
“What’s bitchy?” asked Lola.
“Mean,” said Olympia.
“Supermean,” said Sadie. “I love being supermean!”
“Why?” asked Lola.
“I don’t know,” said Sadie, shrugging.
At least she was honest, Olympia thought. “Well, if Sadie shows me where the ingredients are, I’m happy to give the pancakes a go,” she said.
“Mom keeps the organic buckwheat mix over here,” she said, leading her aunt to a pullout pantry that made the linen closet look haphazard. The twist ties that accompanied already-opened products such as rice and pasta appeared to have been color-coordinated to their packaging. What’s more, all the cereal boxes were lined up so that no box stuck out farther than any other. Olympia felt as if she needed a double dose of her anxiety medication. It wasn’t just the perfection of Perri’s pantry that unnerved her. The very idea of cooking filled Olympia with dread and self-doubt. She never understood how other women she knew all seemed to know how to make braised lamb shanks and turnip puree. When had they learned? And who had taught them? Carol, a would-be women’s libber in her day, had seen cooking as a form of servitude and had done as little of it as possible while her daughters were growing up. The Hellinger sisters had therefore subsisted on TV dinners, pizza, raw carrots, and macaroni and cheese.
But Olympia’s own generation had turned the business of producing edible calories into a higher calling. Not infrequently, Olympia would find herself at dinner parties in Brooklyn where everyone would be sitting around talking about naturally evaporated sea salt or herb-infused olive oil, and she’d feel as if she were visiting from Mars. Neighbors of hers had built a cheese cave in their backyard; another guy she knew in the neighborhood had a giant beehive from which he extracted honey while wearing a black bag over his head that looked eerily like the ones used to humiliate prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison during the War in Iraq. “Wow, your mom is really organized,” Olympia murmured to her niece.
“Yeah, she’s kind of a control freak,” said Sadie.
“What’s a control freak?” asked Lola.
“Someone who likes to be really neat,” said Olympia.
“And who freaks out if it’s not neat and has to take her medication,” added Sadie—to Olympia’s shock and fascination. Was her sister on Zoloft too? And, if so, why hadn’t she ever told Olympia? Then again, why had Olympia never told Perri about her own prescription? What if the two sisters had more in common than either would ever be willing to admit?
Eggs, milk, and oil all found their way onto the countertop. “Are you girls going to help me?” asked Olympia. “Because, truth be told, Old Auntie Pia isn’t much of a chef.”
“Can I break the eggs?” Sadie said excitedly.
“Can I mix?” said Lola.
The project was a roaring success. Olympia managed to flip at just the right moment and without excessive splattering. For once, Sadie was being almost sweet. And Lola seemed ecstatically happy to have a “big sister” for the day—so much so that, for a brief moment in time, Olympia allowed herself to imagine they were all one big happy family and that this was her four-bedroom Tudor; her toile-upholstered kitchen nook; even her (god forbid) husband sitting in it, flipping through the Weekend Journal, Noah on the floor next to him zoom-zooming a toy digger around a pretend building site. Her brother-in-law was no one’s idea of tall, dark, and handsome, Olympia thought. But he was all man. His hands in particular had a certain meaty appeal. His wedding ring and neatly clipped nails aside, she could almost imagine Mike as a caveman in prehistoric France, pulling apart an animal carcass.
In the afternoon, they all went to the hospital to visit Carol. At the sight of her broken leg still suspended in traction, guilt consumed Olympia. She suddenly grasped the discomfort that her mother must have been in all that month, as well as her own failure to have made that month any more bearable for her. Olympia couldn’t precisely say what had kept her away from Yonkers other than sheer lassitude. If Carol was miffed at her, however, she didn’t let on. “It’s lovely to see you, Pia,” she said, to Olympia’s surprise and relief.
Then she relayed the joyous news that, if all went as planned, her doctors were promising to release her on Sunday or Monday.
“Well, isn’t that something,” said Bob, looking so happy that Olympia thought he might burst.
It didn’t seem like a good time to tell Carol (or Bob) what was going on in Perri’s marriage, or at Olympia’s job. So Olympia repeated her previous lie about how her older sister had left at dawn for a closet conference in San Diego.
“How strange. She didn’t mention it when I saw her,” said Carol. “But you girls are so in demand! I don’t even try to keep up anymore.”
Saturday evening, Gus and Jeff came over for pizza. Just as Perri had feared and suspected, the two were now a couple. The thought crossed Olympia’s mind that Perri’s motives for leaving town included some deep-seated dread of seeing her sister and her brother-in-law romantically entwined. Since Jeff was sitting across from her, Olympia had plenty of opportunity to study his face. Stunningly handsome was the verdict, she decided, if in a highly studied way. Clearly, he’d put a lot of thought into making his hair appear as if he’d just climbed out of bed. Or maybe he really had just climbed out of bed—with Gus. Or had they not slept together yet? Olympia couldn’t tell. Either way, Olympia was surprised to find herself feeling resentful, as well: Why should she have to deal with Perri’s mess while Gus spent the weekend gallivanting with Perri’s husband’s handsome brother? Wasn’t Olympia supposed to be the Pretty One in the family? Didn’t that count for anything anymore?
Or had the tiara been passed down? Olympia had to concede that, if anyone was looking stunning that evening, it was her younger sister, Gus, who had pulled her hair back in a tiny ponytail and was wearing—was it possible?—eyeliner and lip gloss. Until just then, Olympia had never noticed how fine her sister’s features were. The loss of her nose ring definitely enhanced the picture, as well. And why was she smiling like that and giggling at everything Jeff said? Olympia liked to think of herself as someone who didn’t begrudge others their happiness and especially not her sisters—so long as they didn’t gloat. But with each passing minute, she found the sight of Gus and Jeff more and more unbearable.
On account of (a) Perri’s glaring absence and (b) the need to keep the truth about that absence from Bob, the conversation at the dinner table that evening was as desultory as it was stilted. Bob remarked on how tasty the crust was before asking if the rest of them were aware that pizza dough operated on similar principles as standing-wave ultrasound, providing insight into the motors used in micro-actuator technology? No one was aware. At another lull, Olympia asked Aiden, “So, what’s your favorite movie these days?” (Having already eaten dinner, the younger kids were in the adjoining den, watching Mary Poppins.)
“Transformers,” he said, without skipping a beat.
“An excellent film,” said Jeff. “I thought Megan Fox really brought depth to the character of Mikaela Banes, the all-knowing auto mechanic.”
“I guess,” said Aiden, who still didn’t like girls.
“What about you, Dad?” asked Olympia.
“Let’s see. I enjoyed What’s Up, Doc? with Barbra Streisand. I suppose it was many years ago now. But Carol and I have never laughed so hard in a movie theater. I also enjoyed Woody Allen’s Sleeper. A very amusing film.”
“Interesting choices from yesteryear,” said Olympia. “Jeff?”
“Let’s see. I remember digging The Shawshank Redemption when I saw it. On a lighter note, I definitely enjoyed Wedding Crashers.”
“That was a seriously funny movie,” offered Mike, chuckling for the first time all weekend. “That scene when the weird gay brother climbs into Vince Vaughn’s bed and tries to seduce him—hilarious.”
Gus took the opportunity to shoot her brother-in-law an angry look and mutter “Homophobe” while an apparently newly sensitized Jeff added, “Easy there, bro.”
Meanwhile, Olympia’s mind traveled at the speed of a flying pizza back to Brooklyn and her black file cabinet, whose bottom drawer she mentally pulled open to reveal the donor profile of #6103. They were his favorite movies, too. A coincidence, she hoped. Only, what did that coincidence say about Lola’s father? To the best of her abilities, Olympia had blocked out Dawn Cronin’s New Year’s missive, refusing to believe that her daughter’s father could possibly be a second-tier underwear model named Randy from Las Vegas.
Or what if, by some freak chance, it wasn’t a coincidence at all? What if Jefferson Sims, in need of cash for a new pair of Rossignols or the like, had paid a few visits to the Cryobank of Park Avenue five or six years ago, en route to Stowe? Olympia suddenly recalled Perri’s saying that he’d spent one semester at medical school in the Caribbean before quitting to start a T-shirt and Boogie Board business on Venice Beach. Plus, he was over six feet tall with blue eyes and brown hair. Moreover, #6103 had listed skiing as one of his favorite sports, albeit the cross-country variety.
Olympia thought she was going to be sick. She put down her fork and reached for her wine. “Jeff,” she said, swallowing. “I have a strange question. By any chance do you like the Boston Red Sox?”
“The Red Sox?” he asked, squinting.
“Yeah.”
He shrugged. “I’m not really a team sports kind of guy. But the Sox are pretty awesome if you like baseball. They’ve got Big Papi—”
“Right. Excuse me,” said Olympia, rising from the table.
Each of her legs seemed to weigh a thousand pounds as she mounted the stairs. Closing the door to the kids’ bathroom, she sat down on the toilet seat, pulled an emergency pack of American Spirits out of her handbag, yanked open the window (so Sadie’s and Aiden’s monogrammed towels wouldn’t reek), and then, her hands trembling, lit up. Surely she was just being paranoid. Lola and Jeff looked nothing alike. Or did they? Flipping from one disturbing thought to another, she thought of Patrick and wondered what he was doing just then and if he ever thought about her, ever missed her, ever realized the heartache he’d caused her. She also thought of Perri and how crazy she was to be throwing away this life of bounty, this life that Olympia actually wanted. There, she’d finally admitted it to herself. She was tired of going it alone, tired of pretending to be brave and sleek and free of neediness, like some honey trap in one of her beloved John le Carré spy novels. She was getting too old to keep up the act. Her eyes filled with tears, but she kept them at bay for as long as she could. Then she couldn’t anymore and began to weep—not loudly, but apparently loudly enough for Mike to hear.
Whether he was worried and had come to check on her, or just happened to be walking by, she never knew. But there was a knock on the door. “I’m in here,” Olympia called out in a thin voice, as she instinctively stood up, lifted the toilet seat, and pitched her cigarette into the bowl. As if she were a teenager about to be grounded, even though, while she was growing up, Bob and Carol regularly pretended not to notice the smoke that billowed out of Gus’s bedroom and hers. (Even in middle school, Perri was violently antismoking.)
“Pia?” came the tentative response. “You okay?”
By then she was crying too hard to answer.
Mike cracked the door, peered at her in silence for a few moments, then took a step in and closed the door behind him. From there, he slowly walked over to where she now sat, slumped on the floor beneath the window. “Hey,” he said. Squatting before her, he laid a tentative hand on her upper arm.
“I’m okay—thanks,” Olympia finally choked out, both embarrassed to have been discovered in such a pathetic state and, in truth, thankful for the sympathy. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. A fluttery breeze danced in circles over their heads.
“You don’t look okay.” He handed her a tissue.
“I’m just—it’s nothing,” she said, blotting her nose and eyes.
Mike stood up, slipped his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, and appeared to examine a bottle of scented moisturizer on the glass shelf over the toilet. Then he let out an acid chuckle, and said, “I thought I was the one who was supposed to be crying.”
“Go ahead,” said Olympia, laughing herself now, if secretly disappointed that he’d already turned the conversation back to himself. Why were men always doing that?!
“Nah, I’m done with that part,” he said, turning to lean his backside into the edge of the sink, one sneaker foot lifted onto its toe. “To be honest, a part of me is kind of enjoying this in some sick way.”
“You are?” said Olympia, startled by the admission and furrowing her brow.
“I don’t know”—Mike shrugged—“maybe everyone wants what they don’t have.”
“Maybe,” she said, unsure what he was getting at.
A few more moments of silence passed between them. Then he glanced sideways at her, visibly swallowed, his Adam’s apple shooting up and down his neck like a pinball that couldn’t break through to the next corridor. “What about you?” he said in a strange voice. “What do you want, Pia?”
“What do you mean?” she asked, sensing a new intention.
Suddenly he was right next to her, kneeling before her, as if he were about to pray to Mecca. But he wasn’t. He was looking right at her, looking at her longingly and clutching her upper arms with his caveman hands. He was so close that Olympia could see the little lines that ran up and down his lips. She could smell him, too. And he smelled like pepperoni and aftershave and beer. And he was warm. She could tell that from his hands alone, tell that he was an ideal furnace to be wrapped around on cold nights in January. “Pia,” he whispered. “You’re so beautiful. I never felt I could tell you that before now.” And his chest was going in and out. And his words felt like the prick of a pin. Olympia winced in pain or pleasure—she could no longer tell the difference. All she knew was that this wasn’t supposed to be happening.
Except it was. And in that moment, she wanted so badly to reciprocate, to fall into Mike Sims’s chest and let him have her. It had been so long since she’d felt desired. And she felt so comfortable with him. As if they’d known each other their whole lives. (In a way, she supposed, they had.) She trusted him, too; however ironically, he felt like a safe bet. Plus, there was no denying the comfort of his words, familiar words that she still needed to hear, that still made her feel special, even as she acknowledged the hollowness of an accolade that was slipping further and further out of reach.
But she couldn’t do it, couldn’t do that to her sister. Even if Perri didn’t want him anymore, that didn’t mean she wanted Olympia to have him. Olympia couldn’t bear the thought of incurring Perri’s eternal wrath. She had pride, too. And she hated the idea of Perri imagining that Olympia had spent the previous thirty-eight years coveting what her older sister had already achieved, trying to be just like her. Also, she didn’t want to prove Gus right again; she could still hear her younger sister the night of Carol’s accident, saying she’d “always been into married guys.” “Mike—stop!” she squeaked in a puny voice, standing up to escape his clutches.
But he stood up, too. Their bodies were inches apart, their groins nearly touching, his beer breath on her neck. “Pia,” he said again, his chest cratering. “Let me kiss you—”
She felt so torn—and also, in that moment, so starved for love. Why should she be the only one in the family without it? And Mike wanted her so badly. How could she deny him? Men had their needs. Well, so did women. And it could be just one time. As he moved closer, she felt powerless to everything that came next. She closed her eyes and felt his lips brushing against hers, her breasts melding into his volcanic chest, his crotch hardening against her thigh…
“Mommy?” came a tiny voice from outside the door.
Lola!! Olympia felt as if she’d touched an electrified fence and jumped away from Mike as fast as she could. “Coming, sweetie,” she trilled. She wiped her lips against the back of her hand, tucked her hair behind her ears, and exited the bathroom, failing to close the door behind her.
“Mommy, have you been crying?” asked Lola. Gus stood next to her, looking probingly at Olympia, then at Mike, who was now standing by the window, his back turned, his head down.
Then she looked at Olympia again.
“No, sweetie, just allergies,” said Olympia, taking her daughter into her arms and doing her best to ignore her sister’s suspicious glances. Except she couldn’t. “What?!” she said accusingly, turning to Gus.
“Nothing!” cried Gus. “Lola was just looking for you, that’s all.”
“Well, here I am.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine. Why?”
“Sadie says we can have popcorn,” said Lola. “But Aunt Gus and I can’t find it. And Grandpa doesn’t know where it is.”
“Well, let’s go look for it,” said Olympia, shuttling her daughter and sister back down the hall and trying to pretend that what had just happened never had.
This time it was Olympia who lay awake long into the night, trying to make sense of what had happened. In her mind’s eye, she could see Perri and Mike walking down the aisle at Lyndhurst Castle, while Eric Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight” played in the background, both of them beaming and round-faced. She also saw herself and Perri as children playing “ship” in their bunk bed. Perri, on the top bunk, was directing Olympia to raise the ladder before the pirates could climb aboard, then berating her for having done it too slowly and at the wrong angle and then placing it on the wrong side of the bed. It wasn’t just that Perri was bossy. It was that she seemed to need Olympia to f*ck everything up. And Olympia was no longer willing to play the role. It followed that, the more convinced Perri became that she had all the right answers, the more loath Olympia was to reveal any doubts or questions about her life whatsoever, including those surrounding her decision to have a child on her own.
Olympia had also learned her lesson. In her twenties, following a breakup and leave of absence from yet another graduate school, Olympia had admitted to Perri that she felt aimless and depressed. In response, Perri had suggested that Olympia consider an inpatient treatment program for insane people. That, or she should lower her expectations and get a minimum-wage job as a toll taker at the Tappan Zee Bridge. Or maybe Perri hadn’t actually said those things. Yet that had been the message with which Olympia had come away. She’d felt judged rather than supported.
Still, she didn’t hate Perri. On some level, yes, she was jealous of her older sister’s professional success. She also considered Perri to be a semi-absurd figure. At the same time, Olympia had always taken a strange sort of pride in having a sister like her. She even recalled feeling tickled when Perri had married at a relatively young age. It had made Olympia feel grown-up by association. It had also felt like further permission to stray and to fail. Only now Perri had called in sick, and Olympia was being offered a chance to play her sister’s understudy. Was that what was happening here? Or did this have nothing to do with Perri? Had Mike been secretly enamored of Olympia all these years? Olympia did a quick mental vetting of their interactions over the last ten years of Hellinger family functions. Sometimes he’d look at her sideways and make provocative, even suggestive comments. But he did that with everyone, didn’t he?
Olympia felt confused and agitated. All night, she waited for Mike to appear in the living room. What had happened between them felt like one step removed from incest. Mike was practically her brother! At the same time, she longed for him to climb under her blanket and smother her with kisses…
He never did.
And in the light of early morning, she was glad that he hadn’t. The same scenario that had kept her up half the night seemed ill-advised, even absurd. She longed to flee the premises—and her crazy urges—as soon as possible. Unfortunately, she’d already promised Sadie and Lola that she’d take them ice-skating in the morning. So there was no chance of a graceful exit until the afternoon. At breakfast, Olympia avoided all communication and even eye contact with her brother-in-law, who kept his own distance as well, directing all his conversation at the kids (and Bob).
The skating expedition was yet another exercise in frustration. Sadie had taken lessons and even knew how to skate backward. But Lola was so petrified by the sensation of unsteady ground that, even with Olympia holding her in a full body lock, she refused to let her skates touch the ice. Instead, she lifted her bent knees into the air, and panted, “No, no, no!” while Olympia cried, “Ohmygod, do you have to be such a wimp?” Ten minutes later, her back and brain aching from the strain, Olympia gave up hope and accompanied Lola off the ice.
Back at the house, Olympia quickly stuffed her and Lola’s belongings into an overnight bag, while Lola and Sadie played with Sadie’s Littlest Pet Shop collection. “Sweetie,” Olympia said in a low voice. “I’m afraid we have to go back to the city now.”
“No!” cried Lola. “I want to stay with Sadie.”
“I know, sweetie. But I have stuff I need to take care of at home. I promise we’ll see Sadie again soon.”
Lola folded her lower lip over her chin. It was a face that Olympia had seen before, on someone else. But who? “We haven’t even had the funeral yet,” she said.
“Funeral?” asked Olympia.
“The walrus died.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“You’re not sorry.”
“I am. But we have to go.”
“I’m not leaving!” announced Lola.
“You are leaving,” said Olympia, struggling to keep her cool.
“Am not.”
“Are so.”
“Am not.”
Her patience worn thin, Olympia grabbed Lola by the elbow and began to drag her toward the door, Lola moaning in revolt. That was when Olympia caught sight of Bob. Embarrassed by both her display of aggression and the fact that she was leaving already, she quickly released Lola. She’d seen her father lose his temper only once, decades ago, after a family of Italian tourists cut them in the line to buy tickets to the laser light show at the Hayden Planetarium. “Excuse me, you fascist sympathizers, but we were here first!” Bob had said. “So SHOVE IT!” At the time, Olympia had been mortified. But during the years that followed, “Shove it, you fascist sympathizers” had become yet another oft-repeated joke-phrase in the Hellinger family.
“Leaving already?” asked Bob. The sight of Olympia’s overnight bag in the middle of the living room must have given her away.
“Unfortunately, I have some work stuff I need to take care of,” said Olympia.
“Well, that’s a real shame because I just got word that Mom’s being released this afternoon,” said Bob. “I know she’d be thrilled if you were part of the welcoming party.”
Olympia’s guilt metastasized. “Wow, I forgot she was getting out so soon,” she said, lamenting the timing, even as she was thrilled and relieved to think that her mother was on the mend. It occurred suddenly to Olympia that Hastings via Yonkers was as good an “escape route” as any other. Plus, she couldn’t very well leave Mike to deal with getting her parents home from the hospital. “You know what—I can let work slide for a day or so,” she said. Never mind that she didn’t actually know if she had any work waiting for her next week. “Why don’t we go over to Yonkers with you right now and get Mom. Then all four of us can go back to Hastings together. Lola and I will spend the night. The museum is dark on Monday, anyway.”
“What a wonderful idea!” declared Bob. “It will be a real homecoming for Mom.”
No sooner had Olympia made the offer, however, than she began to regret having done so. Sleeping in her childhood bed always made her feel as if she were nine inches tall. But it was too late. Olympia helped her father pack up his two pairs of pants and rusted beard trimming kit.
Lola was still whimpering when the taxi honked.
Olympia kissed her niece and nephews good-bye. She and her brother-in-law exchanged no such formalities. “Good having you, Bob—and let me know if you need help at the hospital,” Mike announced while gripping his father-in-law’s hand.
“Will do,” Bob replied. “And if you don’t mind me saying, you have some handshake there! My right hand feels as if it were just mauled by a brown bear.”
“All those years of football training.” Mike smiled congenially. Then he turned to Lola, and said, “See you later, Deep Sea Diver.”
“Bye, Uncle Mikey,” she said lugubriously. Then “Bye, Sadie. I love you.”
Sadie didn’t answer. Olympia tried not to take it personally.
The three of them walked to the waiting taxi. Mike and the kids stood on the front step, watching them go. “Bye, Grandpa,” Aiden called out.
“Remember, kiddo, develop knights toward the center!” Bob called out the window. As the car snaked down the driveway, Olympia glanced out the window and thought she saw Mike mouth the words “I love you.” A roiling, nauseated feeling overtook her gut. Or was she projecting? Maybe he was just telling Aiden to put some shoes on. And why was it that, throughout Olympia’s life, all the men to whom she was most attracted were unavailable? Was it possible that what made them attractive to her was the fact that they weren’t in a position to reciprocate? Olympia tried not to think about it.
Bob, Olympia, and Lola walked into Carol’s hospital room just as Carol was signing release forms. She still had a cast on her leg, albeit a smaller one. She was going to be on crutches, it seemed, for three more weeks. She’d also lost what appeared to be a considerable amount of weight, especially in the bosom. Her favorite plum chenille sweater hung off her like a scarecrow’s plaid shirt. Olympia didn’t notice the excess fabric until her mother turned around and said, “Pia, what a lovely surprise!”
Olympia was suddenly pleased she’d made the effort. (Everyone liked to play the Dutiful Daughter sometimes.) “Wouldn’t miss your homecoming,” she said.
“And Lola, too,” Carol went on. “Hello, sugarplum. Did you come to see your grandma home?”
“Look, Mommy!” cried Lola, who was excitedly pressing the button that made the bed go up and down.
“Grandma’s talking to you!” said Olympia, wishing that Lola had said something charming in reply to Carol’s question. Then again, she and Lola were both here, and her other children and grandchildren weren’t. Maybe that was enough. “Here, let me put these in a bag,” Olympia said, as she began to stuff novels, socks, and a sodden-looking bag of yogurt-covered pretzels into a large brown Bloomie’s bag.
“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” said Carol, waving her hand.
“But I want to.”
“Well, then, I won’t stop you.”
As they started toward the door, a plump Filipino nurse whose name tag read CINDY said, “We’re all going to miss you, Mrs. Hellinger.”
“Forgive me for saying that the feeling is not mutual!” said Carol. “Six weeks in captivity was long enough.”
“Mom!” cried Olympia, aghast if not entirely surprised. Gus had been going on lately about how much “nicer” their mother had gotten since the accident. (Olympia and her sisters regularly dissected Carol’s personality with all the squeamish fascination of a seventh-grade science class dismembering a fetal pig.) In any case, Carol was apparently back to her feisty old self. Which was comforting news in its own way.
“It’s okay,” said the nurse, chuckling. “You’re not supposed to miss us.”
“Well, I’ll be delighted if and when I run into you in the frozen food aisle at ShopRite,” said Carol. “How’s that?”
“That’s just fine.”
As they walked down the corridor that led to the door, Olympia held one of her mother’s elbows—a largely symbolic gesture since she was using crutches. “Good-bye and good riddance, hospital,” said Carol, taking a last look at the peach walls and rubber plants before they stepped into a waiting elevator.
“Hear, hear!” said Bob, who hadn’t stopped beaming since they’d arrived in Room 310.
Olympia had called yet another taxi to fetch them. When they walked out into the daylight, they found it idling by the curb. The four of them climbed in, Bob in front and the women and Lola in back. Within minutes, Lola was slumped against Olympia’s shoulder and on the verge of dozing off. Lola rarely took naps anymore, but Olympia suspected that she and Sadie had barely slept the night before.
They weren’t the only ones.