Names My Sisters Call Me Page 3

  The fact was, I’d always hero-worshipped Raine and only tolerated the more officious, busybody Norah.

  They even looked like polar opposites. Raine was always dying her hair this color or that, wearing outrageous costumes, and engaging in performance art in the middle of family functions. Norah, on the other hand, had been preppy before she discovered business attire, and was a natural blond, which, she claimed, had forced her to be serious and combative from an early age.

  Blonds are treated like idiots, she’d told me more than once. You’re lucky your hair is red.

  It’s titian, actually, I’d replied, because I was all of eleven and was addicted to Nancy Drew.

  I have to prove I’m smart the moment they see me, she’d said.

  And she’d been doing it ever since. She wore black-rimmed glasses and kept her hair in a bun. She refused to suffer fools, preferring to gut them and hang them out to dry. She’d spent her thirty-six years being fierce and uncompromising. She’d be the first to tell you she was the brains in the family. She’d known from a very young age that she wanted to dedicate herself to academics, and so she had. She’d charged right through her undergraduate and graduate degrees without pausing for breath. She’d married Phil in the middle of her postdoctoral study, and hadn’t let Eliot’s birth get in the way of her work at several different universities in and around the greater Philadelphia area.

  And yet, Norah was the one who took care of our cats when we went away. She cleaned out the litter box and never complained about it—which was more than I could say. She was the person to call if I had to go to the doctor or dentist and needed a ride home afterward. She would rearrange her schedule to take me to the airport, even if it was during rush hour. She must have driven down to Baltimore to pick me up or drop me off a million times when I was at the conservatory, and she never appeared without some form of a care package. She was dependable, available, and always conscientious. She was also the first to tell me so.

  God, I loved her, but she was a pain in the ass.

  Raine, meanwhile, had always seemed so free, so alive. She didn’t claim to know anything—in fact, she’d spent her early twenties flitting from job to job, and city to city, without seeming to care much where she landed. She told epic stories about our lost father, and made him sound even more marvelous than Mom did. I held on to those stories, ashamed to remind them that I had no memories of him. Only tales they told.

  I had adored her, and then I’d been so angry at her when she’d gone, and then, for much longer than that, I’d missed her.

  And I knew that no matter what Raine had done at Norah’s wedding, to all of us, it didn’t matter.

  I still wanted her at mine.

  Chapter Two

  My mother jumped on my engagement with all the forward momentum of a runaway train. I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of her extreme interest in my engagement, or her insistence that she plan the engagement party herself. She picked me up from the train station on my next Monday off, and took me on the chauffeured tour of my hometown she’d started planning that day at Norah’s.

  I couldn’t help feeling that this already seemed like a whole lot of work. My expectations of engagements—such as they were—mostly involved montage scenes and smiling people with impressive dental work. Nowhere in said montage scenes was there any hint of labor.

  To be honest, I hadn’t known until recently that there was such a thing as the wedding industry. Or that it was so . . . all-consuming. I found those sixteen-ton wedding magazines terrifying. And my single excursion to TheKnot.com had scarred me for life.

  “We can’t just have it at the house?” I asked Mom now, slumped in the passenger seat for all the world as if I were a disgruntled teen instead of a grown woman. I straightened my spine surreptitiously as my mother swept me a sideways glance.

  “I thought we could take the opportunity to celebrate you and Lucas,” she said in an even tone. The one, I knew very well, she used to avoid an escalation with Norah. “Set it apart from a typical family function. You don’t agree?”

  How was I supposed to respond to that? Especially when her tone indicated she was handling me? Nobody liked being handled—especially when, as now, I suspected I needed it.

  “That sounds great,” I said weakly.

  Which was also what I said as we toured Mom’s favorite restaurant, where the owner raced out from the kitchen and fawned all over her. Very much as if she were a local celebrity instead of . . . my mother.

  “Anything for Bev Cassel’s daughter!” the owner gushed at me, causing me to let loose an inane giggle that would have sounded grossly inappropriate coming from an overwrought thirteen-year-old girl. I didn’t know why I’d returned to my teen years for today’s visit to my hometown, but it was embarrassing.

  “I didn’t know you had a favorite restaurant,” I admitted when Mom and I got back in the car. Though I realized it came out sounding more like a complaint. I also didn’t know people called her Bev instead of the more formal Beverly. It made me feel almost as if my mother had a secret life—a concept so ridiculous it made me snicker to myself, again like a teen.

  “I realize you girls believe that I spend my time sitting endless shiva in the privacy of my home,” she replied, with an arch sort of look my way, “but every now and again I do like to get a bite to eat.”

  I blinked, my mind sort of reeling. Because she’d just called me out. I did, in fact, believe that she did nothing but work and mourn my father’s death almost three decades before. But I thought that because that’s what she’d always done.

  The country club she drove us to next was all grass and flowers in the summer, but in the dead of winter it seemed impossible that either could grow in such a barren place. There was still old snow on the ground, and the trees stood stark and brown. The lake was covered in ice, the swimming floats marooned and forlorn on the empty beach. It was a far cry from the last time I’d seen it, in its full summer glory.

  It had been six years ago, but I still felt the echoes of that summer evening as Mom and I climbed out of the car and made our way to what was called “the Clubhouse.” Norah had had her infamous wedding reception here. This parking lot had its own set of upsetting memories from that evening. I tried to blink them away the same way I did the gust of winter wind that blew my hair in a tangle around my face.

  Mom and I hurried through the doors, out of the February cold, and into the big dining room where Norah’s reception had been.

  “It feels so strange to be here,” I murmured, my voice echoing a bit in the empty space. I looked around. The club served dinners in here during winter, but only on the weekends, so today there were empty chairs and tables laid out before us. The contrast between the dining room now and in my memories struck me as particularly severe.

  Mom set off to find the manager while I stood in the middle of the darkest day in our family’s history, and let it swirl around me. Norah in her white dress, her face red with the only tears I’d seen her shed in the past decade. Raine twirling herself dizzy on the dance floor, despite the fact no one else was dancing. Mom running back and forth between the two as if she could somehow broker a peace between them.

  And me, of course. I remembered what I’d been doing, what I’d been feeling, at Norah’s reception. And the secret I’d never told anyone in my family, not in six years.

  “The manager will be out in a moment, but what do you think about something outside on the deck, overlooking the lake?” Mom called from across the room, near the entrance to the kitchen.

  I plastered a smile on my face and walked over to where she stood by the glass doors. Outside, a wooden deck stretched along the side of the clubhouse. Everything outdoors looked cold and barren, but I knew that in the summer, when the lake gleamed in the sun and the lawn stretched down to the beach, it was gorgeous.

  “It’s pretty here,” I said.

  Though I had always thought so, I’d never spent much time here. Norah and Raine had spe
nt their summers lounging around on the lakeside beach, taunting the lifeguards (Raine) or competing in swim meets (Norah), but I’d always had something musical to do. Camps, or chamber music groups, or tutors to rehearse for. One of the best things about being a professional musician with an orchestra chair was that I finally got the summers off I’d never gotten as a kid.

  “I’m thinking we’ll have a lovely little cocktail party one evening in July,” Mom said then, looking out at the empty deck as if she was envisioning it.

  Maybe it was because she used the word family, but I found myself opening my mouth before I really meant to. Certainly before I thought it through.

  “I think I want Raine to come,” I heard myself blurt out. I felt my face redden, as if I expected the ghost of Norah’s bridal self to appear in front of me, possibly still weeping. “I mean, I want to invite her to the engagement party.”

  Of course, it was more than that. It wasn’t just the engagement party. It was an invitation back into the family. I knew that. Mom knew it, too. But then, she was the only one who hadn’t banished Raine in the first place.

  “If that’s what you want,” she said quietly. “I think that’s a wonderful idea.”

  Norah was a different story.

  “It’s not my place to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do with your own engagement party,” she huffed a few weeks later, pretending to be so consumed with arranging bunches of flowers into various vases in her kitchen that she couldn’t stop to look at me.

  She bought herself big, colorful bouquets of flowers every Monday, not because she secretly wanted Phil to do it and was trying to shame him—as I had been known to do on occasion, because I could be breathtakingly passive-aggressive and childish—but because she genuinely liked to brighten up her home. Since we were currently enduring the lion portion of the month of March in Philadelphia, complete with howling winds and gunmetal gray skies, I thought she was onto something. Flowers felt like the spring I doubted we would ever see again.

  “But I have to tell you,” she continued, snipping at the stems with a pair of kitchen shears, all restrained violence and sharp edges, “I think that’s crazy.”

  That, of course, being my desire to have my entire family at the events leading up to and including the wedding Lucas and I hadn’t even started thinking about in any serious way. I played with the engagement ring on my left hand, worrying at the stone with my thumb. I still wasn’t used to the weight of the band, the unexpected sparkle of the stone.

  “I think weddings should be about family,” I said then. Because deep down I wanted that to be true, despite all cultural and personal evidence to the contrary. Starting with Sixteen Candles. “Everyone acts like it’s inevitable that they become these pageants of dysfunction, but I don’t see why it has to be that way. We can decide, right?”

  Not that my own family had ever done anything to lead me to believe such a thing, but hope sprang eternal.

  “I can’t imagine what Mom was thinking,” Norah said ferociously. She gave no sign of having heard me, with her attention on the wet stems in front of her. “If she really thought it was okay to spend all this time talking to Raine, then why did she keep it a secret? I can’t believe she lied about it!”

  “She didn’t actually lie,” I felt compelled to point out. Not that our mother required a defense. As I had learned, she could be formidable when she felt like it. She’d already booked the club deck area for a Saturday night in July, and had left several ominous messages for me about invitations.

  “By omission, of course she did.” Norah made a noise in the back of her throat. “This is so typical. This is vintage Mom behavior. She can’t be bothered to act like a parent in any traditional sense of the term, but when you least expect it, boom! She’s self-righteous about staying in contact with Raine! I should have expected this.”

  I knew that Norah had a lot of anger toward our mother, but I never liked to see it spill over. But then, it was different for me. I’d had Mom and two older sisters to see to my formative years in their peculiar and separate ways. When one of my trinity couldn’t do the job, another was there to pick up the slack. From all accounts, Mom had spent the first years after our father died consumed with grief and panic about providing for us. I reminded myself that Norah, who felt she’d had to raise herself and me, needed patience and understanding as much as anyone. Maybe more.

  “But Mom’s not the issue here,” Norah continued, turning to look at me with her trademark frown settled between her brows, the kitchen shears clenched in one hand. “Your sudden interest in family time makes me wonder.”

  “Wonder what?”

  “Well . . . ” Norah looked lost for words, which was an alarming first. She shoved an escaped blond tendril back behind her ear. The fact that a tendril dared defy her bun was equally alarming, now that I thought about it. It suggested a level of internal disquiet that Norah usually quelled long before it became visible. “I’m wondering about you, to be honest.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But I’d expected something like this. It was why I’d come over for lunch, despite the fact I normally spent my Mondays off with Lucas. I settled further into my chair at Norah’s kitchen table, and practiced scales and double stops under the table, where she couldn’t see my left hand stretch out as if it were reaching for the lower register on the neck of my cello.

  “I don’t understand how you can pretend she didn’t ruin my wedding,” Norah said, glaring at me. “I mean, you were there. But if you go ahead and start inviting her to things, you’re essentially saying that nothing happened. You’re rewarding her for what she did!”

  “I just want both my sisters at my wedding,” I said, trying to sound soothing and nonthreatening. “This has nothing to do with you,” I continued, exactly the way I’d practiced with Lucas the night before. Tone and expression. “I know it feels that way, but think about it from my perspective. Raine is my sister, too. And it was six years ago.”

  Unlike Lucas-as-Norah, who had been remarkably understanding and much funnier, the real Norah stiffened in outrage.

  “You keep pointing that out,” she snapped. “I wasn’t aware there was a statute of limitations on how long I’m allowed to have hurt feelings. No one informed me that my time had run out.”

  “No one’s saying that. I only want—”

  “After everything I’ve done for you,” Norah threw at me. “No matter what I do, you still like her better!”

  I wasn’t any good at confrontation, especially not with Norah. And especially not when there was a seed of truth to it. I felt guilt wash over me. Was she right? If the situations were reversed, would I be as adamant about tracking Norah down?

  “That’s not true—” I began.

  “Of course it is,” Norah snapped. “I lost this popularity contest years ago. Believe me, I’m perfectly well aware that the only reason you took my side back then is because she managed for once to hurt you too.”

  “What she did was awful,” I said, trying again for the soothing tone. “My thinking so had nothing to do with . . . ” I didn’t quite know how to put it. “It had to do with her behavior, and nothing else.”

  “That is complete bullshit.”

  I hadn’t heard Norah use a swear word since Eliot was born, so I could only stare at her, a little bit shocked.

  “I can’t believe you think I’m so gullible,” Norah continued. She stopped pretending to arrange her bouquets into vases, and slapped the kitchen shears down on the counter. She threw her hands up and addressed thin air as if there were a studio audience hidden in the wallpaper. “Last time I checked, I had a master’s and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, which should be evidence enough that I’m not a moron. But apparently I must be, because my little sister is sitting at my kitchen table treating me like the village idiot.”

  I really hated the studio audience thing. That came from spending a lot of time pretending to be astounded by the stupidity of freshm
en 101 classes, I knew. It was part of her teaching schtick. The fact that I was twenty-eight years old and not one of her students? Clearly irrelevant.

  “Norah—”

  “Lorraine, the sister you suddenly love so much, is a selfish drama queen who couldn’t stand the fact that my wedding wasn’t all about her,” Norah interrupted me. At least she was looking at me, classroom histrionics set aside for the moment. “She hated the fact that there was a single day during which she had to step away from the spotlight. Do I need to remind you about the nasty, slurred speech she chose to make in front of all of my friends and relatives? The one about how I was so high-maintenance and had somehow bullied Phil into marrying me? Or how about when she tipped over the gift table?”

  “She was out of control,” I agreed quietly. A headache was unfurling in my left temple. “I’m not disputing the fact that she acted terribly.”

  “But you don’t care about any of that, do you?” Norah demanded. “You would have forgiven her the next day, since she could never do any wrong as far as you’re concerned. If only she hadn’t involved Matt Cheney, right? He’s the reason you care what she did.”

  “That’s not true,” I protested, but it was like the air had gone out of the room. Like his name was a spell. I didn’t like hearing it. I didn’t like remembering him at all, to be honest. I went out of my way to avoid it.

  “You’re just like her,” Norah said, and I could see the emotion in her face, and read how much of an insult that was supposed to be. “Does your fiancé know what this is really about, Courtney? Maybe someone should give him a little history lesson about Raine and the fact you had a crush on her repulsive best friend for most of your life. What do you think about that?”