“Forget it,” she laughed. She actually laughed.
“Rain . . .” I said. That’s right, let’s pause to register that my sister’s name was Rain. Sunshine and Rain. My father was a musician (and perhaps high at the time of our births) and he’d made a deal with God that if he named us in that way, his art would be protected. It’s too bad he hadn’t been interested in a deal protecting us.
“I want to be perfectly clear with you about this,” my sister said. “I don’t have any desire to help you.”
“I have nowhere else to go.”
“You have nowhere else to go? Why don’t you try Georgia? Isn’t that where you’re from?”
I looked away, not wanting to enrage her further. She blamed me for leaving her here with our father. She blamed me for leaving Montauk at all. It didn’t seem like a good moment to remind her that she was the one who had chosen to stay. It didn’t seem there was ever a good moment for that.
“Or, here’s an idea. Hang out in your gorgeous Manhattan loft. Order takeout until things calm down.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Danny sold the apartment right after everything happened . . .”
“So . . . when he found out you were sleeping with someone else?” She shook her head, laughing a little. “He sold the place out from under you? Well, not the nicest thing to do. Can’t say you didn’t deserve it.”
She picked up her phone and started texting. I was hoping it wasn’t the police. I couldn’t handle another five-hundred-dollar no-visitor fee.
“I don’t particularly care that you’re guilty of plagiarism on a major scale. Or that you deceived thousands of true fans who believed in you. And I’ve always liked Danny, but that’s really your business too. Just to be clear, I’m not helping because you’re a lousy fucking sister. And you were long before you did anything wrong to any of those people.”
She stopped texting, returned to pulling the peanut butter from her hair.
“I don’t hear from you until you need something.”
“That’s not true, Rain.”
“A card on my kid’s birthday isn’t hearing from you.”
“It’s not like my phone has been ringing off the hook either.”
“And if it had been?” she said. “What would’ve you done? Swooped in and helped out with the house?”
I looked around her shitty guesthouse and tried not to think about what it must have been like when she and Sammy ended up here.
“I don’t even know why I’m getting into all this. I don’t have the time. Sammy! We’re leaving.”
“She goes with you to work?”
“Tonight she does.”
I touched her arm. “Why didn’t you tell me you had to sell the house?”
She moved her arm away, as though my touch actually stung her. “In our many lengthy conversations?”
“Wasn’t there another option? I would’ve helped. Or, if you didn’t want my help, you could have rented it out, made a fortune doing that.”
“Thank you for the brilliant financial advice! That didn’t occur to me.”
“I’m not saying . . .”
“I had to sell the house, okay? The maintenance was too much. And I needed the money for Sammy’s education.”
I looked at her, confused. Great public school was one of the few advantages of being in the Hamptons year-round.
“What do you mean?” I said, concerned. “Does she have learning issues?”
She shook her head, more offended that I might actually have the nerve to care than about anything else I’d done. “Why are we even discussing this? You want your share of the house?”
I did, as a matter of fact. “I told you, I just need a place to stay until everything quiets down.”
She pulled at her hair, free of gum and peanut butter, soaking wet. “No.”
“Can I just stay here until you get back?” I said. “Please? Use the computer. Get organized. If I go back out there, I’ll probably get arrested.”
I held up the ticket as proof.
“Who do you think called the cops?”
“Seriously?”
“I’m sorry, are you outraged? Did I, like, offend your moral compass?”
I shook my head, exhausted by her narrative—her same narrative that cast me in the role of evil villain. And she must have registered it on my face—my anger at her. Which only made her more angry. And, like that, there we were again, right where we’d left off, convinced that the other person was wrong and impossible.
“Hello.”
We both turned to see that Sammy was standing in the loft (her bedroom apparently), wearing wire-rim glasses and overalls, her hair in two braids, Pippi Longstocking–style. The glasses took up most of her face—which, combined with the braids, made her look older than she was. Or maybe it was neither of those things. Maybe it was the way she was tilting her head, studying me. Like, at six years old, she had the ability to study anything.
“Sammy, where’s your jacket?” Rain said.
“I checked the temperature. I’m fine.”
That stopped me—the way she spoke. Grown-up, pitched. Her eyes still laser-focused on my face: piercing blue eyes, stunning and mildly absurd behind those glasses. And then there was how much she looked like my sister. Rain was two years older than me, and I had spent my childhood looking at her and trying to decide how I should be. It was bizarre to look at this small version of her, trying to figure out who I was.
Sammy climbed down the loft’s ladder and stood right in front of me, studying me more intently. She might have been six, but I wanted to look away.
“Are we related?” she said.
“What makes you ask that?” I said.
“Well, we look alike, for starters.
Rain hoisted up her daughter. “Sammy. We’re leaving.”
They headed for the door, Sammy hanging over her shoulder.
“Just be gone before we’re home,” Rain said.
“Thank you, Rain.”
Then she did look at me. “Don’t thank me,” she said. “Just don’t come back.”
She opened the door, a bag over her shoulder, Sammy still dangling, a balancing act she had mastered. And, yet, her face gave her away. My sister had always been the classically beautiful Stephens sister: five foot eight (to my five foot three), with shiny blond hair and strong features, a smile that lit up her face. But she wasn’t smiling now, her eyes creased, her hair short and uninspired. Now she just looked tired.
As they headed out the front door, I heard Sammy say, “Who is that, Mommy?”
“That,” she said, “is nobody.”
15
I intended to find a place to stay for the night and leave as promised. I had no money and no good options—though staying with my sister was proving to be impossible. It would be one thing if we had a five-thousand-square-foot house to avoid each other in. There was no avoiding each other in six hundred square feet. Except I fell asleep with the laptop right on top of my stomach. And I hadn’t been searching last-minute, reasonable hotel deals, like I should have been. I was trying to write an email to Danny, something that would make him understand—maybe something that would make us both understand. I hadn’t gotten too far. This was what I had written before I fell asleep.
Dear Danny, so you’re probably