Three Sisters (8 page)

The mail was on the counter. Bills, catalogues, magazines, and a single letter, an oversize sky-blue envelope addressed to Tobi. On the back flap, the return signature: Jason Wade Wilson. Then Tobi’s name scrawled across the face of the envelope in green ink, looped and full of flourishes, as festive as a bunch of green balloons sailing into a blue sky. Karen thought, If Davey wrote me a letter, it would have a black border and disappearing ink.

She threw the banana peel into the sink. It was full of dishes; the morning pots were still on the stove. She stared at the mess. Her mother would come home and say, “Why didn’t you wash the

dishes? Scrub potatoes for tonight? Set the table, at least! Doesn’t anybody do anything in this house but me?” Karen stuck her fingers into the jam jar, licked them. How come Liz hadn’t cleaned up? Or Tobi? Both so dopey in love they didn’t even see what was under their noses?

She picked up the letter, traced her fingers across Tobi’s name. A love letter. You could tell just from the way Jason had sent Tobi’s name flying across the envelope. That, in itself, was a love message. She thought with a kind of awful despair of how much Jason must love Tobi.

Karen had never had a love letter from anybody. Certainly not from Davey. Now and then a note passed in school, a few words scribbled on a torn piece of paper, none of them memorable. “Can U meet me at trophy case? … Dr. B. gave me I hr detention. … I need 2$, pay you back Fri.” A man of few words. With a few words, he’d broken them apart as easily as snapping a stick in half. And she, the original cooperative kid, had meekly and sweetly agreed. Okay, Davey, if that’s what you want. Her little voice. Her reasonable voice. Why hadn’t she screamed in his face? You traitor! No, it’s not all right, turkey dip! It’s all wrong! We’re friends! Friends don’t act this way!

What if he was already regretting it? What if he was home right now writing her? His first real letter to her, the most important letter of his life.

Dear Karen, Is it too late? Are you still speaking to me, or have I ruined everything? I don’t know why I said what I did. Of course, I don’t want to break up with you! I think you’re fantastic. You’re

the best friend I ever had. So whatever I said today, just forget it. Love, D. P.S. You can call me Davey from now on, if you want to.

Dear David, I just this minute got your letter. Thank goodness! I was horribly hurt, David. I cried when I got home. I know we have our differences, but I always thought we would go on being friends, no matter what. So, no, it isn’t too late. It’s never too late for friends like us. Love, Karen.

She was still ferociously hungry. She looked in the refrigerator, rummaged in the cupboards. Fudge—that was what she wanted. She melted butter, dumped cups of sugar and cocoa into a pot, stirred and tasted. Only fudge so chewy and sweet it would make her teeth ache and her father howl could satisfy that gnawing in her stomach. She poured the dark liquid mixture into a pan to cool and sat down with the pot scrapings.

Davey was a fool for fudge. Maybe she should call him up and invite him over for a fudge party. She reached out for the phone, dialed his number, then hung up in horror. What was she doing! Where was her pride? Her backbone? Where was all that anger? Was this the way she told him off?

Tobi came in, her face red and sweaty. She drank a glass of cold water, then took a tiny fleck of fudge from the pot. “Better destroy the evidence before Dad gets home.”

“You got a letter, Tobi. On the cupboard.”

Tobi tore open the envelope.

“Why did Jason write you? Doesn’t he see you at school?”

“Every day.” She allowed herself a smile, then went to work on a sandwich. A light coating of mustard on a slice of bread, a paper-thin slice of cheese, then enough lettuce to feed a hutch of rabbits.

“Aren’t you going to read Jason’s letter?”

“Not here. No offense meant.”

“Tobi—do you really love him?”

“You’re not going to start on me, are you?”

“I wouldn’t!” Karen felt hurt. Tobi knew she was loyal.

Tobi sat down at the table and picked up the newspaper. “What’s Brenda Starr up to today? Oh, poor Basil, he’s got himself into trouble with his sister, Anise.”

Basil! Brenda Starr! Anise! Karen was ready to scream. She told herself, Don’t say anything about Davey. Tobi doesn’t confide in you, why blab to her? And the next minute, she said it. “Davey and I broke up today.”

“Ohhh.” Tobi squeezed her arm. For a moment tears came to Karen’s eyes at Tobi’s sympathy. “Look at her face,” Tobi said. “Look at that face.” Then she had to ruin it. “Karen, he gave you the heave-ho?”

She pulled away. “Tobi! What a rotten way to put it, like I’m some kind of old garbage.”

“No, I didn’t mean that. Don’t be—”

so sensitive, Karen finished, scraping back her chair so she wouldn’t have to hear the words. She shoved a chunk of fudge into her mouth, tasted the melting sweetness going down her throat. This was terrible. She felt so sorry for herself! She scored the fudge in the pan with a sharp knife, down and

across, like a chess board. Or Davey’s heart.

After Tobi went upstairs, Karen kept eyeing the phone. Would it be so terrible to call him? What was the big deal about pride, anyway? Saving face? Wasn’t that half the trouble with the world? If more people could just say, “Hey! What are we fighting about, anyway?” wouldn’t the world be a much better place to live in? Suppose the Soviet Union and the United States could get together like that? White House to Kremlin. Just made a pan of terrific fudge. Come on over and share. The Premier and the President scraping the pan out together. But how was that supposed to happen if people like her and Davey couldn’t even make up their troubles?

Suppose she called, said hello? Kept it cool and friendly. Just checked out the situation. She reached for the phone again. “Karen, what you are doing is okay,” she reassured herself, listening to the phone ring in Davey’s house. He wasn’t home yet. Or … he was in the bathroom, washing off the mud. Or he was with another girl. Oh, the rat! One more ring and that was it. He’d just have to miss out on the fudge.

“Hello?”

“Oh! … Hello Davey.”

“Karen?”

“Did you just get home?”

“Yeah. You?”

“A while ago. … I just made fudge.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s cooling now.”

“How’d it come out?”

“Good.”

With that, the conversation died. They both

breathed for a few moments. Not that different from fifty other conversations of theirs. Ordinary and nice. Had she imagined everything? The touch football game and the mud … Davey’s voice… . “Davey? Why did you say that?” “What?” “You know—”

“Karen, you said okay. You agreed.” “I didn’t have much choice…. Don’t panic, I’m just asking you why.”

“Well, you know, don’t you?” “I’m asking, Davey. If I knew, I wouldn’t ask.” “I want out, Karen.” “I figured that part out, Davey!” “Listen, Karen, you’re making me say it—” “Say it. Say it. I don’t give a damn!” “We don’t see eye-to-eye on certain things.” “Things? What things? Eye-to-eye? What does that mean? Could you please explain yourself?” “Karen, do you have to talk like a machine gun?” “Thanks, Davey, I’ll always treasure the memory of your tender words.”

“Don’t be so sarcastic, Karen.” “Sarcastic! I’m not sarcastic. I’m just pretty upset. You gave me quite a surprise today. An actual Sunday punch! Somebody I’ve known and been close to for two years pops up in the middle of a game with a little message for me. By the way, Karen, we’re not friends anymore… . That kind of stuff can be confusing, Davey. So, now I’m just trying to find out why. I wouldn’t have called you otherwise. Believe me, I wouldn’t have bothered you, Davey. Not for the world!”

“Look, Karen, the best way I can tell you is that

we’ve hung out together too long. Nothing was happening. The same old stuff all the time. Even the same old arguments. It was getting boring! BORING.”

“Oh,” she said.

“You made me say it.”

“That’s okay, Davey. You’re right. I made you say it.” She hung up.

In the middle of the night, Karen bolted up in bed, seeing Davey’s smile when he gave her the kiss off, the old heave-ho. Seeing that toothy white smile, ashamed and gloating, as clearly as if it were floating over her head.

It was no use trying to go back to sleep. She got out of bed and went downstairs. There was a light under her mother’s study door. She rapped. “Mom?”

Her mother was at her desk, writing on a yellow pad. A cigarette burned in the ashtray. “What are you doing up, sweetie?”

“I couldn’t sleep. Maybe I’ll make cocoa.”

“I couldn’t sleep, either. It must be the full moon or something.” She patted her lap for Karen to sit down. “Want to talk?”

“I don’t know.” Karen sat in her mother’s lap. “Davey and I broke up.” Her voice wobbled. She hadn’t meant to say anything.

Her mother didn’t seem surprised. “You feel really bad about it?”

Karen shrugged and moved uncomfortably. She was so huge to be sitting on her mother’s lap!

“Maybe it was time for it to happen,” her mother suggested. She stroked Karen’s hair. “You know, just because Davey initiated the break-up—” But

how did she know that, Karen thought, unless Tobi had told her? “It’s not always good to be so exclusive, Karen; you cut yourself off from a lot of interesting people—”

She went on in this vein, but Karen only half listened. What right did Tobi have to talk behind her back? Mom, guess what, old Davey gave our little monkey the heave-ho.

She picked up the yellow pad her mother had been writing on. “Marjorie Quaker’s new book, The Stars, is a comprehensive survey of—”

“Karen, put that down, please.”

She went on reading the review. “Very well written, Mom. But a little obscure right in the middle.” She was giving her mother her honest opinion, no bland pats on the back, nothing boring, an honest, insightful comment.

Her mother reached for the pad. “Karen, you know what my rule is on reading things before they’re pub—”

She jumped off her mother’s lap, holding the pad out of reach.

“Please give that to me,” her mother said.

Karen continued to hold up the pad, away from her mother. A peculiar, pleasing warmth filled her stomach, as if she’d just eaten a bowl of hot oatmeal: the spreading, satisfying warmth of being a bully, the one who shoves other people around. For once, the kiss-off-er, the rude heave-ho-er, not the pathetic heave-ho-ee. “Why do you have that rule?”

“I don’t happen to be very secure about what I write.”

“Why? Why is that? Why?”

Her mother’s face flushed. “Give that to me! Just

because you don’t feel good, Karen, is no excuse for taking it out on other people.”

“I don’t know what you mean. I just wanted to read your stupid, boring little review!”

Her mother took off her glasses and looked at her without speaking, a look like Tobi’s, a cold, ferocious look that could kill.

Say something, Karen told herself. / didn’t mean it, Mom. ‘Your reviews aren’t stupid. They’re not boring. It’s me, Mom. She dropped the pad on the desk, pulled the cord on her bathrobe tighter, like pulling a cord around her neck. In the face of that look, she couldn’t speak, couldn’t apologize, couldn’t take back the words.

Fourteen

Karen lay on her belly under the mulberry tree, listening to the rise and fall of Liz’s and her mother’s voices. They were strolling through the yard with their arms around each other, their voices twining together like the buzzing of flies. Karen liked lying there listening to them. She and her mother had sulked at each other for a day or two, then made up their quarrel. First her mother had smiled ruefully at her. “Are we going to talk?” Then they hugged and Karen said, “I’m sorry,” at the same moment her mother said, “We were both tired.”

Now her mother and Liz were talking about having a vegetable garden this summer. “There’s nothing like getting your hands in the soil,” her mother said. “In my next incarnation, I’ll be a gardener.”

“But who’s going to do the work? Scott says—”

Karen rolled over. Scott… .

“—he’d have a garden, but—”

… sitting next to him in the truck … looking at the blueprints… .

“—he did enough weeding when he was a kid.”

… then the hug… .

She looked up at the sky through the branches of the tree. Blue, blue sky… . blue skies smi-iii-iling at meee… . How could she feel so bad about Davey still and yet go on thinking nonstop about Scott?

It had been such a weird week. Seeing Davey every day and not exchanging a word, a glance, not so much as a sneer. It was as shocking as opening a favorite book, a story you knew by heart, to find nothing there but empty pages.

Her mother called over, “Karen’ll do our weeding, won’t you?”

She leaned up on her elbow. “I won’t have time to weed. I’ll be working.”

“Working.” They both looked at her. “This is the first I’ve heard of that,” her mother said.

Surprise. It was the first Karen had heard of it, too. “Yes. In a diner, maybe … or maybe a store in the mall.” She was improvising. She had no idea, hadn’t done anything about finding work. She didn’t even know she was thinking about it until she said it. Maybe Scott would hire her. Qualifications? I took shop. I can hammer nails, use a band saw. I’m strong and willing to work. I’ll learn anything you want to teach me.

On TV, she’d seen a woman construction worker. The woman’s boss had said, “She’s a good worker and we all like her.” At night the construction worker took off her hard hat and became a photographer’s model: lacy dresses, long eyelashes, posing with her hair blowing in the wind.

At lunch, Scott and Karen would sit on the deck

sharing their sandwiches. At night she would take off her hard hat and they’d go some place for a cool drink. They’d sit next to each other on stools at a counter, their legs touching, and talk over the absurd and serious things that had happened on the job that day. Every once in a while she’d remember Davey and laugh lightly. A light laugh of amusement. … Maybe she’d mention him to Scott. Lightly. Ironically. Oh, yes, she’d say, my adolescent love life