Two Sisters: A Novel
Read Two Sisters: A Novel Online
Authors: Mary Hogan
To Diane Barbera Coté
1953–2010
Contents
Part III: Gone Today, Here Tomorrow
Young Adult Novels by Mary Hogan
I
USED TO
think writing was a solitary profession. It is.
Publishing
, however, is not. To the creative, caring, brilliant people who made this book better than it ever would have been without them, my deepest gratitude. First, limitless thanks to my agent, Laura Langlie, who is invaluable from beginning to end. To an extraordinary editor, Carrie Feron—smart, sensitive, slyly funny, and possessing just the right touch. Her assistant, Nicole Fischer, is a professional, cheerful delight. And I am over the moon with Emin Mancheril’s haunting cover design.
For her help with Polish spelling and usage, thank you, Martyna Sowa. For letting me tap into her infinite reservoir of creativity, love to the late Liane Revzin. And to the goddess and author Adriana Trigiani—an amazing alpha female—thank you for inspiring and advising this lone wolf.
Finally, there are two people who merit more than thanks. First—and always—my husband, Bob, who fills my heart with joy and my life with uninterrupted hours to work. Second, my late sister, Diane, who inspired some of the character of Pia. Wherever you are in the Universe, Diane, I know you would be pleased to see how many times I used the word “perfect” to describe Pia.
That which ye have spoken in the ear in closets
shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.
—L
UKE
12:3
M
URIEL UNFOLDED THE
old bath towel and flung it open with a snap of her wrists. Gently, it floated over her duvet like a jellyfish, the frayed ends dangling in a tentacled kind of way. Each time she washed that towel the ends unraveled more, ensnaring socks and underwear in a knotted mangle. The dryer load was a mass of hapless intimates. Yet she loved the way the nubby rectangle looked so rugged and outdoorsy. So very make-do. It was the most absorbent towel in her apartment, perfect for the task at hand.
Guy Fieri was shoving an obscene amount of food into his mouth. Its contents dribbled down the back of his hand and clung to the hieroglyphic stubble around his chin. Both eyelids fluttered as he moaned, “Seriously, man, off the
hook
.” Jalapeño, he said, added the perfect kick, while raw red cabbage cut the fattiness with its spicy crunch.
Barefoot, Muriel scurried into her kitchen. The soles of her feet slapped across the parquet floor onto the faded linoleum. A huge tin of Garrett’s popcorn—half CheeseCorn, half CaramelCrisp—sat on the kitchen counter like a grain silo. Still in her pajama shorts and cotton cami she cursed her late start. The
Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives
marathon had begun nearly half an hour ago. She’d forgotten to program the DVR. Guy’s vintage red convertible had already motored into the drowsy town. The local chef had plopped ingredients into a vat of spitting oil. Brined pork butt had already practically shredded itself. Guy had taken a second sloppy bite and offered his official stamp of approval: a fist bump and man hug that he pulled into his keg-shaped chest.
Muriel hated when a perfect Sunday got off to an imperfect start. Grabbing the popcorn tin, she dashed back to her bed and popped the lid with a metallic
bwang.
She slid beneath the covers. Two pillows and a sham propped up her back. Atop the raggedy bath towel she balanced the open tin between her thighs and plucked one plump kernel of cheesy popcorn between two fingers. She inhaled the cheddary smell, let her eyelids flutter. Then she placed the popped kernel between her lips and sucked lightly, feeling the explosion of flavor excite the taste buds along the length of her tongue. “Seriously off the hook,” she said out loud, feeling the day realign. Like a carp on bait she gulped the kernel to a back molar and bit down, hearing the satisfying crack of the truly well popped.
Sunday was Muriel’s favorite day of the week. She used to prefer Saturdays with her mother/daughter excursions downtown, but that was a long time ago. Before everything went awry. Now, while New Yorkers strolled with children and walked dogs and met for brunch and read the real estate section of the
Times,
Muriel swaddled herself in bed inside her apartment on a vicarious road trip through middle America with a stringy towel spread over her comforter to keep the neon orange cheese oil from staining the bedding she’d bought on clearance at T.J.Maxx.
The phone rang. Muriel ignored it. Who would be foolish enough to call during a Triple D marathon? Moaning luxuriantly, she nestled into the soft crater of her mattress and awaited Guy’s next segment with a fistful of Garrett’s nirvana. After two more rings, the caller gave up.
Robocall
, she decided, searching her palm for the next bite. With each crack of a popcorn kernel, a memory floated into Muriel’s mind: scampering across a crew-cut lawn, executing a flawless cartwheel, selling pink lemonade from a rickety folding table (“Ice cold! Only twenty-five cents!”), shooing away a pillow-footed puppy energetically licking cookie crumbs off the hem of her sleeveless white dress. None were her memories, of course. They were a cinematographer’s version of childhood, Vaseline lensed and shot in the tangerine light of sunset. Muriel preferred manufactured memories to her own. Unfettered by the recriminations of real life, fantasy flashbacks comforted her.
The phone rang again. Now she was sure it was Joanie. Only Joanie Frankel, her boss and best friend, would know exactly what she was doing. She was probably watching the same show and knew it was a commercial break. Wiping her hands on the ratty towel, Muriel fished around the bedding for her cell. “Talk to me,” she said, her mouth full of popcorn. “Porkapalooza is next.”
“You’re home.”
Her heart went flaccid. It wasn’t Joanie. Oh, why hadn’t she looked at the caller ID?
“I was thinking I might drop by after mass.”
“Might?” Muriel tried to swallow but her mouth had become the Gobi Desert. Guy Fieri was back on the air introducing a Georgia pit master and his barbecue. Andouille sausage from scratch.
Dude!
“Just a minute.” Muriel put the phone down and hoisted herself out of bed, duck-walking into the bathroom to spit the half-chewed popcorn into the toilet. She swished tap water around her mouth and spit again. She washed her hands with soap. Splashing cold water on her face, she dabbed it dry with a hand towel the way they do in moisturizer commercials. By the time she got back to the phone, she hoped her sister had hung up.
“I’m relieved you’re home,” Pia said in a clipped sort of way. Muriel sat on her bed and watched the popcorn tin wobble.
“Is everybody okay?”
“Fine, yes.”
“Good.” She swiveled her neck left and right and evaluated her surroundings. Then she sighed a silent sigh. Muriel wasn’t nearly prepared for a visitor. Certainly not her impeccable older sister, Pia. The limes in her fridge were green rocks and the club soda was flat. A brownish ring encircled the inside of the bathtub. Her fingernails needed filing and were truck driverish with their grubby edges. She’d been meaning to manicure them, do a whole evening of beauty maintenance and repair. But it was all so dreary and futile. Leg hair regrew instantly, teeth yellowed with the first cup of coffee, a décolletage crease formed whenever she slept on her side, and nose pores darkened overnight like freckles after a day at the beach. Nature was clearly out to get her. It began its annoying downward pressure after she turned twenty. Twenty! Didn’t normal women start their disintegration a full decade or two later?
“You’ll be home in a couple of hours, won’t you?” Pia asked.
Muriel didn’t want to answer. Not once had Pia failed to exhale an accusatory puff of air through her perfectly narrow nostrils when she saw her younger sister. Never had she forgotten to notice Muriel’s untidy life, the way her rent-stabilized studio on New York’s Upper West Side was a weaver finch nest—elaborately woven from found objects: a three-legged bedside table, a squat hand-painted pine dresser with brown, black, beige, and latte-colored coffee rings, two splotchy framed mirrors, and a spindled corner bathroom shelf missing half of one spindle.
