16
JUST AS OLYMPIA WAS EXITING THE KITCHEN, following her unpleasant confession to Carol, Perri’s name flashed across the screen of her phone. Happy for the distraction from her own problems, Olympia took the phone into the living room with her, and said, “Hello?”
What she wasn’t expecting was the fusillade of vitriol that greeted her left ear. “For nearly forty years, I’ve stood by you!” said the furious person who was apparently Perri on the other end of the line.
“Perri?” said Olympia.
“In high school, when everyone was calling you a slut, I told them to go jump in a lake!”
“Jump in a lake? I don’t think anyone’s used that expression since the nineteen-fifties,” said Olympia, her casual banter belying her now pounding heart. Had Mike told Perri about their sort-of kiss?
“And when you were struggling in your twenties,” Perri went on, “I sent you that check for five hundred dollars—which, for the record, you never paid back. But that’s beside the point.”
“Well, then, what is your point?” asked Olympia, now fearing the worst, even as she felt enraged. Perri had some nerve in raising the issue of Olympia’s ancient, unpaid debts! Besides, what was five hundred dollars to a rich person?
“My point is that whatever secret hostilities you’ve been harboring toward me for the last thirty-eight years, this is one shitty way of expressing them! Though on that note, if you really want my idiot husband, you can have him.” She let out a high-pitched laugh. “Really, he’s yours!”
Olympia’s heart rate had gone berserk. So Mike had told her, she thought—the bastard! Clearly, he’d just been using her to get back at Perri, Olympia decided. He’d caught Olympia at a vulnerable moment and turned that vulnerability into a cudgel to use against his jealous wife. What a fool Olympia had been to fall for it! Even so, she wasn’t ready to hand him (or Perri) the victory just yet. “So, now I’m taking the hit for the fact that I had to haul my ass all the way to Larchmont after work on Friday because you decided to split on your family and on Dad?” she said. “Only to have your husband come onto me in the bathroom out of nowhere and, to be honest, to my complete and utter horror. I wasn’t going to tell you, because I didn’t want to embarrass you.” Olympia realized that she wasn’t being entirely honest. But maybe her version wasn’t that far from the truth?
“That’s not what I heard happened,” said Perri in a more subdued voice.
“Well, what did you hear happened?” asked Olympia.
“Gus told me that—”
“Gus?!” Olympia felt heat on her face. So it had been her younger sister, not Mike, who had betrayed her. Olympia couldn’t believe it. Or maybe she could. Growing up, Gus had been her most loyal and consistent playmate. The two of them had even had their own secret society—the Kangaroo Club (headquarters: Bob’s shoe closet). But now Olympia wondered if she and her younger sister had ever been as close as she’d thought. She’d never forgotten that Gus had “come out” as a lesbian to Perri rather than to her. Clearly, Gus had been Perri’s Chief Confidante (and Snoop) all along.
“Well, she saw everything,” Olympia heard Perri saying.
“Well, if you want to know what actually happened, why don’t you ask your estranged husband,” said Olympia, her anger welling up.
“How dare you presume to know my marital situation!” declared Perri.
“Well, how dare you presume to know what happened when you weren’t there!”
“I don’t want to have this conversation anymore.”
“Me, neither.”
“Then let’s hang up.”
“Fine with me. Happy f*cking birthday.”
“Thanks—and f-f-f*ck you!”
Olympia hung up the phone stunned not only by her sister’s fury, but by her use of the f-word, itself a rarity if not a first. Turning to leave the room, she found Carol standing there next to the hunk of gnarled wood that passed for a coffee table. Tears shimmied in her eyes like water sloshing around the bottom of a rowboat. At the sight of them, Olympia felt even more wretched. The only thing more awful than having a screaming fight with one’s sister was feeling as if one had simultaneously ruined the life of one’s parent. “What?” said Olympia. “Why are you staring at me like that?”
“Be angry at me all you want,” Carol answered in a shaky voice. “But please don’t fight with your sisters. You’ll need them someday—after Dad and I are gone.”
It was too heavy a concept to entertain in daylight (and without alcohol). So Olympia turned the conversation back to her mother. “Well, why do you think we fight?”
“You’re all strong-willed, I suppose. I don’t know.” Carol shook her head, bit her lip.
“Yes, and did it ever occur to you that all your labeling and comparing and boasting has made us all insanely competitive?”
“I never compared you,” insisted Carol.
“Well, maybe you never compared us directly. But telling us all how perfect and successful Perri was all the time; and how passionate and committed Gus was in her quest to raise a thousand dollars for the starving children of Biafra; and how beautiful and artistic I was—didn’t exactly help.” Olympia wasn’t even sure if she believed half the things she was saying, but the words tumbled out of her mouth now as if her life depended on it. As if they’d waited four decades to come out (maybe they had).
“I’m sorry for being proud of you!” cried Carol.
“Proud—or not as proud as you wish you could be of me?” asked Olympia.
“Proud of you just the way you are.”
“Well, there are ways of being proud that don’t turn us all into caricatures.”
“You defined yourselves. I had nothing to do with it. Dad and I gave all of you the same opportunities.”
“But you were always push-push-pushing for us to achieve something, be something! It made all of us neurotic messes. You want to know why I never made it as an artist? Because the expectations in this family were too high. I couldn’t handle any kind of rejection. And you know why I never found a great guy and got married? No one was ever good enough, because you taught me to believe that I was special in some way, better than other people. And you taught me to be critical, too. That’s why I’m being such a Huge Bitch right now.”
This time Carol didn’t answer. She pursed her lips, hung her head.
Out of accusations, and filled with shame at all the people she seemed to have hurt and disappointed in one day, Olympia ran up the stairs and into her childhood bedroom, or what was left of it. Now it was more like a storage locker. In one corner there were National Geographic magazines piled nearly to the ceiling, their skinny yellow spines cracking like late autumn leaves. In the other corner was a picture window with views into the Romanos’ backyard, with its neatly planted azalea bushes all in a row like Civil War soldiers ready to do battle. Growing up, the Hellingers had been the North to the Romanos’ South, with disputes regularly breaking out over everything from overly bright Christmas lights (the Romanos) to maple trees whose untrained branches created unwanted shade (the Hellingers). The previous fall, however, Carol had been delighted to announce that a new family had moved in, a young Serbian couple with a baby. Meanwhile, the Romano elders, who’d once toiled in the chemical factories on the Hudson, had retired to the Gulf Coast of Florida with the proceeds from their house sale. A happy ending for all, if only…
Stretching out on her old twin bed, which was half covered with garment bags, Olympia felt exhausted and disoriented. It wasn’t just the thought that she no longer knew anyone who lived on Edmarth Place with the exception of her own parents. It was the fact that she was no longer on speaking terms with anyone in her family with the exception of Lola and Bob, neither of whom were fully verbal. For the second time in twenty-four hours, tears cascaded down Olympia’s face and dripped into her mouth. She’d never felt so alone.
But single mothers don’t have much time for self-pity. Minutes later, Lola appeared in the doorway, claiming to be hungry and demanding spaghetti—and wondering why Mommy’s eyes were all red.
“Mommy’s got hay fever again,” Olympia told her. “But I’m fine now.” And so she was, because she had to be.
Five minutes after that, three generations of Hellinger women (Carol, Olympia, Lola) were back in the kitchen, talking about trivial matters in strained voices (“Does she want butter with that?”), when the doorbell rang. “This darn leg,” said Carol, trying to lift herself off her chair.
“Don’t bother. I’ll get it,” said Olympia.
“I want to come!” said Lola, rising too.
“Eat your pasta,” said Olympia, pushing her daughter’s tiny shoulders back down.
“Maybe it’s the boogeyman,” offered Lola, before exploding into giggles.
“At this point, I wouldn’t be entirely surprised,” said Olympia. On her way out of the room, she snuck a glance out the bay window, which afforded views of the driveway. Parked behind Carol’s Honda was a navy blue VW Jetta, seemingly fresh off the assembly line. No doubt some faculty member from Hastings High, coming to check on Carol or some such, Olympia thought. But what if it wasn’t? For a fleeting second, she imagined that Mike had sent a hit man to kill her off, so he’d never have to see her again, never have to face the temptation. She could already see the headlines: “Sister Murdered in Love Triangle Drama.” Then again, the Internet had killed the newspaper headline. Now they came and went every two hours. It was sad in a way, Olympia thought. She cracked the door.
Standing there, her shoulders thrown back and chin lifted, was an extremely attractive Asian female, about five feet eight inches, of indeterminate age. She was wearing a trench coat, a black V-neck shirt, black pants, and ludicrously high, very expensive-looking, black patent leather stilettos. Her shiny black hair hung practically down to her waist; a tiny butterfly barrette held it off her forehead. Fine lines fanning out of the corners of her mascara-caked eyes were the only evidence of time’s passage. “I’m so sorry to bother you,” she began with a smile that fell somewhere between shy and officious. “My name is Jennifer Yu. And I’m looking for Robert Hellinger?”
It had become a beautiful spring day. Even the crabgrass in the front lawn looked verdant and lush. Birds called to one another. Olympia could have sworn they were saying, “The-o-dore, the-o-dore.” (Theodore?) In her twenties, she’d dated (that was a nice word for it) a bartender named Theo who had green-tinted glasses, was obsessed with anal sex, and called her “O.” As if she were the protagonist of that dirty French novel from the 1950s with which everyone in college was obsessed. Olympia couldn’t imagine what this “Jennifer Yu” could possibly want. She held no clipboard containing a petition, no flyer to indicate a fund-raising request. Olympia was stumped. It was her impression that the only people who ever came calling for her dad these days were the UPS man and, on occasion, Bob’s old friend and onetime bluegrass band mate, Jim, a mustachioed biochemist who moonlighted on the mandolin. Feeling protective of her father, Olympia assumed her haughtiest art world voice, and said, “May I ask what this is in reference to?”
Jennifer lifted up her shoulders. As if it pained her to have to admit “It’s sort of a personal matter.”
A personal matter?! Bob Hellinger didn’t have a personal life. Or at least he didn’t have one outside of Carol. Olympia’s imagination ran wild with the possibilities. Was Jennifer some kind of nuclear activist about to deliver a Unabomber-inspired package that, when opened, would blow up in her father’s face, punishment for all the years he’d spent splitting atoms? The strangest part was: there was something familiar about the woman’s smile. Olympia wondered if they’d met somewhere before, maybe at an art opening or wedding or even daycare holiday party? In that event, she didn’t want to be rude. “Oh, right,” she said. “Well, do you want to come in while I go get him?”
“It’s fine. I’ll wait outside,” she said.
“Okay, well, I’ll be right back.” Olympia left the door ajar.
But as she climbed the stairs to Bob’s study, she wondered if she should have closed it, even locked it.
She found her dad fiddling with her old Rubik’s Cube, his legs elevated and extended on the desktop, his satellite radio tuned to what sounded like a Quebecois station. Olympia had studied French for ten years but couldn’t understand a single word apart from oui. She’d never had a gift for languages. Maybe she’d never had a gift for anything. “Dad,” she began. “There’s a woman here to see you.”
“A woman? What kind of woman?” he asked, looking up.
“The kind with two breasts.”
“Ho-ho. I mean, who is she?”
“Beats me,” said Olympia, shrugging. “She says it’s personal.”
“How strange.” His brow knit, Bob turned down the volume on his radio, let down his legs, and pulled himself up and out of his leather chair. “Maybe she’s an old colleague from Nevis. What color hair?”
“Black, and shiny. She looks Asian, or maybe part Asian.”
Bob made a final adjustment to Olympia’s old Rubik’s Cube, producing two simultaneous rows of orange. “That’s better!” he declared.
“And she’s waiting outside,” said Olympia. “So can you hurry up?”
“Here I am.”
The stairs creaked and groaned as the two walked single file down them, Bob in front. Though it was Olympia who reopened the door to its full capacity.
Jennifer was bent over Carol’s lilac bush, apparently enjoying the scent of its fledgling blooms. At the sight of Olympia and Bob, however, she quickly straightened her posture, then extended her arm to Bob. “Are you Robert Hellinger?” she asked, blinking.
“Indeed I am,” said Bob, meeting her hand. “And you are…?”
She pursed her lips primly and said, “Jennifer Yu.” Then she released his hand. “My mother was an old… friend, I believe. Shirley Yu?”
“Shirley Yu from Los Alamos?!” Bob looked somewhere between fascinated and horrified.
“She worked there until the early seventies. We moved to Palo Alto after that.”
“Well, I have to admit I haven’t heard her name in, well, it must be forty years!” He let out an ostensibly jolly laugh that revealed jagged edges.
“My mother died in the early nineties—just after I finished college—of breast cancer.”
Bob stopped laughing. “I’m very sorry to hear that. I didn’t know.”
Jennifer glanced away from the house. Olympia’s eyes followed. A squirrel darted across the front yard like a flasher at a Broadway show. “I’ve spent many years looking for my father,” she said. “She never told me who he was… only that he was a postdoc at Alamos named… Bobby.” She turned back toward Bob. “It’s taken me many years to figure out who Bobby was.”
Just like that, Bob turned ashen. “You’re not saying—”
“I’m saying exactly that.”
“That I’m your father?!”
“Most likely so, yes,” she said quietly.
“But how can you be sure?”
“I hired a private investigator. There was only one Robert working in the lab as a postdoc in nineteen sixty-eight. And it was you.”
Bob tried to form the word “incredible,” but he couldn’t get past the syllable “cred.”
“Which means I’m your half sister,” Olympia cut in. The words seemed to be coming out of someone else’s mouth. And yet her own lips were forming the words, and it was her own voice that emerged, albeit a squeaky and strangulated version. Her father had slept with a woman who wasn’t her mother? It seemed impossible. And yet, if Jennifer Yu was to be believed, she and Olympia were living proof of it.
“I guess that’s true, too.” Jennifer smiled almost sweetly.
“It’s Olympia, by the way,” Olympia said, extending a hand. It seemed only right and, at the same time, so incredibly wrong. Olympia’s whole identity was founded on being sandwiched between two sisters and therefore desperate to escape, yet somehow unable ever to do so. Finding out now that the top slice had slid off to make room for yet another sister left her feeling exposed to the point of nakedness. Her only consoling thought was the realization that, if this woman’s story panned out, Perri would be stripped of her title as Sister Superior. What’s more, Olympia might find out she got along better with Jennifer Yu than she did with her original sisters. At the moment, she couldn’t get along any worse.
“Call me Jenny, please,” said Jennifer.
Just then Carol appeared in the doorway. Perhaps predicting conflict, Jennifer was suddenly all business; whatever softness she’d displayed with Bob had been extinguished like a birthday candle after the song had ended. “And you must be Carol Hellinger,” she said quickly.
“And who are you?” said Carol, who kept her hands on her crutches.
“I’m Jennifer Yu. I’ve been looking for your husband, Robert—or, rather, Bob—for years.” She smiled a strange, almost giddy smile, it seemed to Olympia. As if she relished the opportunity to destroy someone else’s family, just as her own family had been destroyed before she’d ever had the chance to see it whole. “I believe I’m his daughter,” Jennifer went on.
“WHAT?!” screeched Carol. She turned to Bob. “Is this true?”
“I—I don’t know the answer to that,” he said, his eyes on his Wallabies. “I can’t honestly remember that far back.”
Carol glared at Jennifer. “When exactly were you born?”
“June thirteenth, nineteen sixty-nine,” she answered.
Carol looked aghast as she turned back to Bob. “But that’s only a week after our wedding!” There was silence. Bob wiped his brow. Carol looked as if her brain were about to burst out of her skull. “You filthy swine!” she snarled at her husband. And then, since she couldn’t stomp off, she hobbled away down the slate path that led to the street.
“Mom,” cried Olympia, her own irritation rendered null and void by her mother’s distress. “Don’t leave.” She grabbed her mother’s sleeve.
“Why not?” said Carol, shaking her off. “I just found out that my husband of nearly forty-one years is a liar!”
“You don’t know that for a fact,” Olympia said quickly. “And, come on, whatever happened, it was a long, long time ago. And you know Dad loves you.” Did Olympia even believe the things she was saying? Did it matter? In that moment, all she wanted was for the family to be whole again, for everyone to be talking to everyone else as if they were mild nuisances to whom they were eighty-five percent resigned to tolerating and even, on occasion, finding amusing—not mortal enemies they wanted to see struck dead by lightning.
“And he apparently loved his secretary, or whoever she was, too!” declared Carol. “Unless it was what we used to call a one-night stand. Which is an equally disgusting thought to entertain.” Olympia was now blocking her mother’s way. Carol poked her calf with her crutch. (It hurt.) “Let me walk, please.”
Sighing, Olympia got out of the way, then returned to the front step, whereupon Jennifer cleared her throat, as if to remind everyone of her existence. (They didn’t need reminding.) “Well, it sounds like you all have a lot to discuss,” she said, in what struck Olympia as an inappropriately upbeat voice. “I’m actually here for the year—up at Columbia Presbyterian.” She extended her business card to Bob. “If you’d like to be in touch, and I hope you will, here’s my contact info. I’m living on the Upper West Side.”
Bob took the card out of her hand as if he were receiving a parking ticket. “Thank you—Jennifer,” he said lugubriously.
Jennifer next turned to Olympia. “And it would mean a lot to me if I could meet you again, Olympia.” She handed over another card.
“Of course,” said Olympia, quickly scanning it. It read, “Jennifer Yu. Associate Professor of Pediatric Oncology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota.” Another telephone number, presumably Jennifer’s cell phone, had been written beneath the printed information in tiny, precise, right-slanted numerals. Both her handwriting and her French-manicured fingernails were Neatness Incarnate. How would Perri ever cope with a sister who was even more “together” than she was? Olympia wondered. For a moment, she almost felt sorry for her—until she remembered that Perri wasn’t speaking to her.
“I understand there are three sisters?” asked Jennifer.
“There are,” said Olympia.
“I’d love to meet them, too.”
“Of course.”
“Well, I should be going.”
“I’ll be in touch for sure.”
“Great. Well… bye now.” Jennifer started back to her car, handbag held firmly against her slender side.
As Olympia watched her go, she tried to hate her for disturbing the family peace. But then, at present, there wasn’t much peace for her to disturb. And none of this was Jennifer’s fault, Olympia thought. She hadn’t asked to be born any more than she or Gus or Perri had. And it was only natural to want to find out who your father was: How could Olympia pass judgment on Jennifer’s mission when she’d been making similar inquiries on Lola’s behalf? And she seemed perfectly nice. She was also stunningly attractive. It was on that last count that Olympia felt hostility rising within her. It seemed grossly unfair that Jennifer should get to be impressive and beautiful.
Jennifer slowly backed her Jetta out of the driveway and pulled out onto Edmarth Place. Then she was gone. Alone now at Bob’s side, Olympia searched for something apt to say to fill the space but came up with nothing. Her embarrassment at the mere fact of her father’s sexuality was too deep. She thought back to the time in late childhood when she’d accidentally walked in on him in the changing house of a family friend’s pool. He’d had one leg in his bathing trunks but his genitals had been fully exposed. And the sight of them, flapping between his legs like a sprig of giant wrinkled raisins, had shocked and disgusted her. “Sorry,” she’d mumbled and quickly turned her back—and he’d done the same. But it hadn’t been quick enough. Even hours later, Olympia had been too mortified to look him in the eye. Somehow, the whole thing had felt like her burden, just as it did now…
Just then, Carol reappeared, audibly weeping. If only Perri were here to take charge, Olympia thought. Except she wasn’t. She was busy destroying her own family. Bob wasn’t in any position to comfort his wife, either. It was therefore left to Olympia—despite her lingering anger over Carol’s reaction to the news of Lola’s paternity—to escort her mother inside, take her into her arms, and cradle her head against her shoulder, supporting her weight as best she could. “Mom, it’s okay,” Olympia said, patting Carol’s coarse hair. “Forty-one years was a long time ago. And Dad loves you. You know that. And the woman died of cancer.”
“We were already engaged.” She wept.
“Well, maybe Dad wanted to have a”—it pained Olympia to have to use this phrase, but she couldn’t think of an alternative—“last hurrah before he tied the knot. It was the late sixties.”
“Shirley Yu was an ugly slut who answered the phone!” cried Carol.
“Carol, please,” murmured an agonized-sounding Bob, who was now standing in the corner.
“I know, I know, women didn’t have the same opportunities back then. We were all basically glorified secretaries. That, or schoolteachers.” She laughed bitterly. “But she should have left my fiancé alone.” She paused, swallowed. “I’m sorry, of course, that she died a premature death.”
“But not that sorry,” offered Olympia.
“If the woman hadn’t died and left the child with no family, the child might not have felt compelled to come find us,” said Carol. “So I’m sorrier than you even know.” She blotted her eyes with an ancient Kleenex she must have located in some pocket.
“Mom, the child is forty and has a name,” said Olympia.
“Jennifer—fine.” She spit out the word as if it had cooties.
Bob sheepishly touched his wife’s arm, and muttered, “Carol.”
But Carol was having none of it. “Don’t touch me,” she said.
“I just want you to know that I’ve been true to you ever since our wedding night.”
“Maybe I’ll let you guys talk this out,” said Olympia, taking a step backward. There were some things that daughters didn’t ever want to hear their parents talk about.
“Or we can never talk about it again,” said Carol.
Bob looked helplessly from his wife to his daughter. And Olympia looked helplessly back. She wanted to feel angry at her father too. But she felt as sorry for him as she did for her mother (and herself). We’ve all made mistakes, Olympia thought: Who was she to judge? “Well, maybe you’ll feel differently at some later point,” she said to her mother.
“I doubt it. Meanwhile, I still haven’t had lunch.” Apparently done with the topic, at least for now, Carol began to totter in the direction of the kitchen. “There must be something to eat in this house—”
“Maybe Lola and I can do a big grocery shop before we leave,” offered Olympia.
“In the meantime, I can order us some pork lo mein from New China,” Bob said, tagging after her. “Or I can pick up a carton of eggs and some English muffins. Whatever you’d like.”
“I’d like you to be honest with me!” cried Carol.
“I am being honest with you. It was so many years ago, Coo-Coo,” said Bob, employing one of his affectionate old nicknames for his wife.
“Don’t call me that…”
Olympia let them go. Detouring to the living room, she was surprised to find Lola standing there. Upon closer viewing, Lola was using a nail scissors to cut up Carol’s copy of I, Claudius. Scores of tiny triangular paper scraps littered the floor. “I’m making confetti,” she explained. “For my birthday party.”
There were crimes—and there were crimes. Olympia saw that now as she’d never seen it before. “Cool,” she said. “The only thing was—that was Grandma’s book. And it’s going to be a little hard to read now.”
“Who was the lady at the door?” asked Lola.
“Just an old friend of Grandpa’s,” Olympia replied, before removing the scissors from her daughter’s hand and placing them on a high shelf, out of reach.
On further reflection, Olympia found the revelation about Jennifer Yu’s existence far too distressing to handle by herself. She needed her real sisters. That much was clear. It was also true that, while she prided herself on being the opposite of a gossip, even she had to admit there was something exciting about having explosive news to relay. Unfortunately, the only sister to whom she was currently speaking was Jennifer herself. Later that day, the two exchanged friendly if generic emails. “It was great to meet the Hellingers!” Jennifer wrote. “Great to meet you, too,” Olympia felt compelled to write back. But surely Gus and Perri needed to be notified about this major new development in the family. It seemed unlikely that Carol would provide them with an unbiased picture, or that Bob would provide them with any information at all. Olympia also saw that it was in her interest to tell them sooner rather than later. With any luck, the sensational revelation of Bob having sired a fourth daughter would dull the news that Olympia had picked Lola’s father out of a sperm bank catalogue.
Even though Olympia felt betrayed by Gus, she decided to begin with her younger sister on the grounds that she was less likely to hang up on her. She waited until Lola, Bob, and Carol had all gone to sleep that night.
Gus picked up on the first ring. “It’s Olympia,” she said quickly.
“We’re using our full names now?” asked Gus, with a quick laugh.
“In about five minutes, we’re not using any names,” said Olympia, inflamed all over again.
“And why is that?” asked Gus.
“Because you ratted on me to Perri, and I’m not actually speaking to you?” Olympia could feel her heart beating through her shirt. She’d always hated conflict. But she’d reached a point in her life where she wasn’t always able to repress her rage for the greater good.
There was silence on the other end of the phone, then a long sigh. “She told you that I told her I saw you and Mike in the bathroom on Saturday night?”
“Yes, in the bathroom at the same time. Big deal. I was upset about something, and he was trying to be nice. Whatever you think you saw, you’re wrong. So, how about minding your own business next time?”
There a long sigh. As if the imposition had been on Gus. “I’m sorry, okay?” she finally replied. “She had me backed against a wall. If it’s any consolation, she’s furious at me, too, for telling Jeff about her South Beach fling.”
“It’s no consolation at all, actually.” (Though in truth it was.)
Suddenly there was a choking sob on the other end of the phone. “Ohmygod, now you both hate me!”
“You should have thought of that before you went around blabbing,” said Olympia, unmoved.
“You’re right, I should have. I’m sorry. I’ll never say anything again. It’s like my whole life is upside down, ever since Jeff walked into it. I don’t know what I’m doing. Even my clients are furious at me.”
“So you’re blaming Jeff?”
“I’m not blaming Jeff. I’m just—”
“My heart bleeds for you.”
“Pia, please!”
“I’m actually calling about something else,” said Olympia.
“You are?” There was a relieved-sounding sniffle on the other end of the phone.
“A woman showed up in Hastings this afternoon looking for Dad.”
“What kind of woman?”
“That’s exactly what Dad asked.”
“Well, what’s the answer?”
“A woman named Jennifer Yu who says she’s Dad’s daughter from an earlier relationship. That’s the polite way of putting it. The less polite way is that Dad and Mom were already engaged at the end of nineteen sixty-eight, when Dad apparently thought it would be fun to go screw his secretary at Los Alamos.”
“What?!”
“So if the story pans out, we basically have another sister, who’s actually older than Perri by ten months.”
“Holy crap,” gasped Gus, tears apparently forgotten. “Does Perri know?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, she’s going to freak. I mean, I’m freaked too. But whatever. I guess I’m not entirely surprised. All men are basically dogs. Right? I just happen to be dating one of them.” She laughed.
“You’re right. Let’s make this about you,” said Olympia, anger returning.
“I didn’t say it was about me!” said Gus. “I was just saying that it turns out Dad was kind of a dog, too.”
“I guess. It was also forty-one years ago. Anyway. I have to go call Perri and tell her the news. Though thanks to you, she’ll probably hang up on me before I actually have a chance to tell her.”
Gus sighed again. “Pia, I’m really, really sorry.”
“Thanks—and go f*ck yourself.” If Perri could use the f-word with Olympia, it seemed only fair that Olympia could hurl it at Gus. Gus had betrayed her. Olympia didn’t know if she could ever feel close to her again. She hung up the phone, knowing that the next call would be much harder.
That Perri didn’t pick up the phone when Olympia called didn’t entirely surprise her. It didn’t displease her, either. At least Perri couldn’t hang up on a recorded message. Olympia took a deep breath and said, “I know we’re not speaking anymore because you mistakenly believe that I’m hot for your husband, but I thought you’d want to know that a woman just showed up in Hastings claiming to be our fourth sister. Call me if you want to hear details.”
The phone rang approximately sixty seconds later. “Hello?” said Olympia, hoping against all reason for the near-instantaneous make-ups of her childhood, when the bitterest of tugs-of-war and screaming matches over toys and clothes would lead directly back to giggling camaraderie. Back then, nothing ever seemed to stick.
“Excuuuuuuuse me?” was Perri’s opening line.
Olympia proceeded to tell her older sister what she’d already told her younger one.
“And why should I believe anything you say?” was Perri’s response.
“So don’t believe me,” said Olympia.
“Dad cheated on Mom? Our dad?”
“They weren’t married yet. But they were engaged.”
“Is this some kind of April Fools’ joke? Because if it is, I don’t see where you get off trying to be funny.”
“I wish it was an April Fools’ joke,” said Olympia. “No such luck.”
There was silence. Then Perri cried: “The philandering frigging bastard!” Perhaps realizing the hypocrisy of her complaining about straying spouses, she added, “That’s no way to start a marriage, engagement, whatever. If this is true, I’m never speaking to Dad again. And I’m never speaking to the ho’s daughter, either.”
“Just like you’re not speaking to me?” ventured Olympia.
“I’m only speaking to you because you called here leaving a message that our entire family is a lie. After I hang up, we’re going our separate ways for a long while. I’m honestly done with our relationship, done with your sabotaging and undermining, done with all of it.”
“Whatever you want,” Olympia said dryly. As if her sister were just being difficult. As if it were all a big joke. But what if Perri wasn’t kidding, and this was it? What if the two of them were to be estranged forevermore, their daughters never to bury an American Girl Doll or Littlest Pet Shop Walrus again? Olympia saw the poverty of a life with no sisters. Yes, their endless calls and messages sometimes felt like a burden. But she’d also probably miss it bitterly if and when they stopped prying. “I was actually thinking that maybe you, Gus, and I could get together another day and talk about everything,” she said in a pained voice, figuring she had nothing left to lose.
“You mean, talk about her—or us?” asked Perri.
“Both, I guess,” said Olympia, encouraged. At least she hadn’t said “No.”
“Sorry, not interested,” said Perri and abruptly hung up.
Yet again, tears sprang to the corners of Olympia’s eyes. It was turning out to be the worst weekend of her life, even worse than the one when she and Patrick broke up. At least then she could say she had her family to be grateful for. She thought back to Perri’s parallel-parking lessons in late high school—how she’d barked instructions and withheld praise but nonetheless turned out to be an expert teacher. After failing her driver’s test two times, Olympia had finally passed.
But thirty seconds later, the phone rang. It was Perri again. Had she had a change of heart? “Hey, it’s me,” she said gruffly.
“You called back,” said Olympia, relieved.
“No, it’s just someone who sounds exactly like me,” said Perri. It was a tone of voice that Olympia knew well from even before high school. (Perri might as well have just said “Duh.”) “And when exactly were you hoping to host this Sisters’ Summit?” she asked.
“I guess that depends on when you’re coming back,” said Olympia, treading carefully.
“I haven’t decided yet. Not that it’s any of your business!”
“Well, let me know when you decide.”
Perri cleared her throat. “I’ll probably be back midweek.”
“So what about next Sunday for lunch?” asked Olympia. “Location t.b.d.”
“I’ll do it on the condition that we discuss only the situation concerning this Jennifer person,” said Perri.
“Fine. Should I invite her to join us later in the afternoon?”
“Over my dead body!”
“Okay, I’ll hold off. But for the record, she seemed pretty nice.”
“Nice, my ass. What kind of woman shows up uninvited to someone’s home, claiming to be someone’s long-lost daughter! Is there no such thing as email? Never mind the U.S. Postal Service.”
“In case you were curious, she’s a pediatric oncologist at the Mayo Clinic.”
“Oncologists are a dime a dozen,” said Perri. “Plus, they all go into it for the money. Big Pharma showers millions in bogus speaking fees on those people for promoting their bullshit drugs.”
“I didn’t know that,” said Olympia, allowing herself a brief smile. She’d been right. Big Sister wasn’t taking the Jennifer news very well.