Two Sisters: A Novel (16 page)

“She’s pulling your leg,” Pia said to the salesgirl’s befuddled expression, flashing the most genuine smile Muriel had seen all day. In its glow, Muriel felt radiant. “I’ll be over in accessories,” she said, beaming.

While Muriel sauntered away, Pia said, “That gray satin in the window. Do you have it in a size four?”

The salesgirl nodded and left to fetch the dress. “The dressing rooms are at the back of the store,” she said. “Go on in. I’ll bring the dress to you.”

Overhearing, Muriel thought,
Toto, we’re definitely not in T.J.Maxx.

“Muriel?”

Muriel looked up. “Yes, sis?”

“Come with me?”

“You’re done already?”

“To the dressing room.”

“The dressing room?”

“I need you.”

Muriel scoffed. “Since when do you need my help buying clothes?”

“Today. I need you today.”

Briefly wishing she’d drunk that second glass of wine after all, Muriel sighed and followed her sister to the back of the store.

Unlike the shower-stall versions she was used to, with their muslin pull curtains that never quite reached the end of the rod, this dressing room felt like a walk-in closet. Plenty of room for two. There was even a slatted wood bench. Still, there was no way to avoid the accusing three-way mirror and interrogation lighting. Muriel felt compelled to confess she was premenstrual. “Nature makes you
fatter
when you’re fertile? Like it isn’t hard enough getting a date?”

Rustling up a courteous laugh, Pia gently touched Muriel’s hair. Involuntarily, Muriel pulled away. Then, feeling ashamed, she returned her head to the palm of her sister’s hand and left it there, hoping the dress would arrive to save her. Instead, Pia removed her hand and turned to examine her face in the mirror. A grim expression stiffened her lips. Muriel sucked in her stomach. When she crossed her legs, she was horrified to notice she’d missed a spot while hastily shaving earlier. In the water balloon bulge of her white calf, tiny black dashes looked like an asphalt scrape.

“Here you go.” Politely, the salesgirl
tap, tapped
on the dressing room door. “I also brought you a size two. They run a little large.”

Muriel uncrossed her legs and tucked her Yeti feet beneath the bench. To give Pia privacy while she slipped out of her clothes and into the dress, she memorized the contours of her lap, wondering if they made Spanx in white.

“Zip me?”

When Muriel looked up, she was startled to see the bony spine in Pia’s back. As she zipped up the dress, she noted that it was the size two.

“Well?” Pia asked, turning around. She smoothed the front, angled to the right, then left. Form fitting, the sleeveless, slate-colored satin dress fit her well. A bit gaping in the armholes, but perfectly suited to her slim frame.

“I like it,” said Muriel.

“Me, too. Wow, that was easier than I thought.” Pia exhaled hard and ran her hands down the front of the dress again.

“What’s it for? Does Will have some work thing or something?” Noting that her lip gloss could use refreshing, Muriel sat back down and poked around in the bottom of her purse. “You taking a cruise or something?”

Pia stood absolutely still, her gaze lingering on the scalpel-straight part of her hair. Muriel said, “Aha!” and brandished the lip gloss like a trophy.

“Muriel—,” Pia started. Then she stopped.

“Too shiny?” Muriel tilted her puckered, freshly glossed lips up at her sister. “Too pale?”

Said Pia, solemnly, “We need to talk.”

Letting her head fall forward, Muriel blew air through her sticky lips. “Here we go,” she said. Finally. Lecture time. Pia had waited until they were trapped in a dressing room beneath the incriminating overhead light to launch her dissertation. Wasn’t that just like her!
Don’t you think it’s time you grew up? Seriously, Muriel, don’t you? The Bible clearly states you must be fruitful. Multiply. Fertility declines dramatically after thirt—

Alarmed by a strange guttural sound, Muriel’s head popped up. Pia was facing her. Her right hand rested on the left side of her chest as if she was about to say the Pledge of Allegiance. “Ah, Muriel,” she said, “I’ve been dreading telling you this.”

“It’s not like I haven’t heard it before.”

Pia took a deep breath but said nothing. She sat on the bench next to her sister and rested her free hand on Muriel’s knuckles. Tears rose in her eyes. All of a sudden Muriel felt a surge of blood rush to her cheeks.

“What is it?”

Pia’s mouth opened and closed like a carp.

“What? Is it Mom? Will?
Emma?”

Muriel could feel her heart hit her sternum. Her cheeks burned. Tears had spilled over Pia’s lower lashes and were slowly rolling down her cheeks. One heavy drop landed on the lap of her satin dress and quickly spread in a dark circle. The overhead light baked the top of Muriel’s head.

“You’re scaring me, Pia. What’s wrong?”

“I’m sick,” she said so quietly Muriel thought she’d misheard.

Noting Pia’s hand still on her chest, Muriel asked, “Your heart?”

Pia slowly shook her head no and let her hand fall away. Her lips hung loosely on her face. Without meaning to, Muriel stood up and grabbed Pia’s clothes from the hook on the wall. She held them out to her. Insanely, she wanted Pia to put her own clothes back on. If they moved quickly, they could run back to the Plaza. Richard and Edward might still be there. The chef would clack his tongs again. They could order dessert. Another round of drinks.

“I don’t want Will to pick out my dress,” Pia said softly. “Or Mom. I want it to be perfect, and I’ve lost so much weight lately.”

Still holding Pia’s clothes, Muriel flicked her head as if a gnat buzzed past her ear. Pia stood and gently took her clothes out of her sister’s grip and set them on the bench behind her. Then she lifted both hands and placed them on either side of Muriel’s warm, magenta-colored cheeks. Her hands felt cool, like their mother’s. Her touch was so soft it was almost not there at all.

“It’s God’s will,” she said. “There’s nothing we can do.”

Speechless, Muriel gaped at her sister. The bones on top of her arms were round knobs, the hollows on either side of her neck were so deep they could hold water. Her shoulders were hunched and their blades were as curved and sharp as a boat’s propeller in dry dock. Actually, her skin was more green than yellow. Greenish gray. How had she missed that outside? And Pia’s eyes were recessed so far into her skull they cast a shadow. With her lipstick faded, her lips were nearly white. She’d vomited at the hotel, coughed on the bus and in her apartment. Plus, those were
ribs
on either side of that skeletal spine. My God, was it possible she’d been looking at her sister all day and not seen her at all?

“I don’t understand.” Muriel’s voice sounded like it was coming from down the street.

“My breast. Now lungs and liver. Some bones. I didn’t know until it was too late.”

Dizzy, Muriel’s brain crashed. She missed the meaning of her sister’s words. Something about her bones? Had she broken one? Too late for what?

“I need your help,” Pia whispered, suddenly looking so fragile it was as if
Muriel
was the strong one. “Can you help me?”

Unable to trust her mouth to release a coherent word, Muriel nodded.

“I’m going to buy this dress and give it to you to hold for me. This is the dress I want to wear. Period.” Pia looked down at the dark teardrop stain. “That should disappear without leaving a mark. If it doesn’t, can you have it dry-cleaned?”

Muriel blinked and swallowed as Pia went on. “Natural polish and natural lips, none of that thick makeup they trowel on you. Will has to deal with Emma. He won’t know how to handle these things. He won’t care about them. But I do. I
care
. Do you understand? I need to make sure I can count on you to make it happen.”

“What are you telling me, Pia?” Muriel felt the heaviness of the very air around her. With no preliminary welling of tears, she simply started to cry.

“It’s going to be okay.” Pia’s arms encircled her younger sister. Softly she cooed, “I need you to be strong for Emma. Can you do that for me?”

Again Muriel nodded, though she was nowhere near telling the truth. Pia was the strong one in the Sullivant family. And Lidia. Muriel was the afterthought.

Pulling back, Pia stroked her sister’s hair and said matter-of-factly, “Don’t let them restyle my wig. I have it done every week and it’s exactly the way I want it.”

Wig?
Muriel looked at her sister’s shiny blond hair, the way it brushed against her shoulders so evenly, so flawlessly. Even after being bent over a toilet bowl, after clothes mussed it up. Her hair fell perfectly back in place. Shame bowed Muriel’s head. It was true: she’d been so full of herself she hadn’t seen her sister at all.

“One last thing.” Lifting Muriel’s chin with her cool, bony hand, Pia gazed deeply into her younger sister’s wet eyes. “This is the most important thing I’ve ever asked of anyone. I trust you, Muriel. Will you grant me one last wish?”

She sniffed hard, nodded, steeled herself as Pia inhaled the whole world into her chest.

“Don’t tell Mama.”

“Wait. What?
No.”

“You know it will kill Mama to lose me. And it will kill me sooner to watch that happen. I can’t bear it. I’m asking the impossible, I know. But, please, Muriel, can you keep my secret?”

With the fullness of her body and soul, Muriel wanted to flatly refuse. She wanted to shake her head and sheepishly confess she was one of those people who blurted out the truth no matter what. Honesty occupied every fold of her heart. That’s what she longed to say. It pumped through her veins, formed the sinew that bonded her muscles to her bones. “Sorry, Pia,” she wished she could utter, “I’m not your girl.” No way could she be counted on to keep a confidence. Not her. Pathetic, but true. No chance it could be done. But of course that was a lie. Keeping secrets was Muriel’s specialty.

Part II

None So Blind

Chapter 17

I
T WAS ABSURD
the way it happened. If the scene had played out in a movie or a book, Pia would have groaned and thought it contrived. Funny the way life can shake your beliefs down to their skeletons, make you realize you don’t know anything at all.

On the very morning of her thirtieth birthday, when Emma was eight and her love for her mother still glowed around the edges like a tourist painting of Jesus, Will Winston handed his wife a plain white envelope.

“A flat diamond?” she asked, playfully.

“Open it.”

Inside, neatly clipped together, were two first-class plane tickets and a spa brochure. Pia sucked in a mouthful of air. “You didn’t.”

“We leave tomorrow morning.”

She kissed her husband softly on the lips. “You’ll love it. I promise.”

Will smiled. It felt good to please a woman who was so hard to please.

It had been an ongoing issue in their marriage, the way Pia so often felt like a single parent. Even with Blanca there every day vacuuming, dusting, emptying the dishwasher, refilling it, making Emma’s lunches, marinating dinner in the fridge for Pia to sear on the grill pan when Will got home late, she felt alone in her beautiful home. Sometimes, when her husband sat across from her at the kitchen table, she felt most alone of all. It was the jiggle in his knee. The way he vacantly smiled at her and nodded when she hadn’t even asked him a question.

“It’s so obvious you’d rather be elsewhere,” she said, more often than she wanted to.

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

“I want you to
want
to be with me. With us. Even when you’re home, your mind is at the office.”

Will said, “The mortgage will pay itself?”

“You wanted this huge house, not me.”

“And yet I notice how quickly you and Emma settled in.”

The bite in their voices alarmed her. Not so long ago, they’d kissed each other in doorways.

Before sunrise most mornings, Will was up, eating toast in three bites and scrambling to catch the early train into the city. Foreign currency exchange markets were active twenty-four hours a day; a missed few hours could cost millions. Particularly with the euro in such flux. If he wasn’t on top of it, a younger, smarter trader would be. The firm’s investors were fickle. Long term, to them, meant a full day. Panic set in overnight. The fact that he’d already made them wealthy, well, that was to be expected. What had he done for them
lately
? The pressure never let up.