In the elevator Verne commanded: “Game face only.” I was bemused. Which game is that? Bride and Seek – ancient party game – Does not end well, as I recall. We decanted at the penthouse floor. Battle of Rich Men, I thought, Who forecast how my Weekend would devolve?
But this man’s apartment seemed really his – As opposed to Verne’s Antiseptic rented rooms – Each gaudy piece was carefully curated, Trucked in from God knows where; Art deco friezes, Naked ebony statues Bows & arrows Brass and torchieres. And that’s just the hall!
Leather paneled, copper nailed door Broached before we even rang the bell and A handsome, shorter, older man stood before us in silk robe and slippers. Mirabel with this guy? I froze my face – What’s the use of beauty If this is all it gets you – Verne’s at least good-looking.
“Why, Verne,” he said in a voice even I Recognized as jovially false: “What brings you at this hour? Please come in.” Bizarre foreign accent I couldn’t place. He took my hand, mauled it like many An unbalanced teacher at my School for Introducing Adolescents to Adult Subject matter Looooong Before They’re Ready.
I am practiced at mind-closing Even as they woo me. “You can only be Mirabel’s lost sister.” “That’s just it,” I said, “It’s Mirabel who’s lost, not me.” “I’m Ravi Krutupian,” said the man, refusing to let go. I felt my first flicker of Actual fear – I was alone in the world With two strange men who wore Compulsive need like designer logos.
I don’t blame Mirabel for Disappearing rather than marry among this ilk but Where does that leave me? Krutupian’s inner rooms weren’t reassuring. Dark, hand-carved, probably fake Tree branches projecting from the walls Displayed a riot of glittering objects. “Welcome to my enchanted forest,” Says the man in sleeper gear.
“Please leave your shoes by the door.” He slid the bolt as We came through. “I know it’s late,” Verne began, Ravi said, “I never watch the time. Drink? Pot of coffee?” A steel black kitchen offers coffee from A wall recess, so why not? Spiked mine with hot milk and brown lump sugar.
“Where did Mirabel SAY she was going? Shouldn’t you be on your honeymoon?” Was that a tinge of glee I heard? I’m sure Verne heard it too. He might go off on any moment – I didn’t think he was coping well “Game face” was not in evidence. We sat in an upholstered leather booth Dragged from some café. “She didn’t say,” said Verne.
“She was late for dinner,” I told this strange new man. “I just arrived at six o’clock.” “Sisters can be difficult,” said Ravi. “Or so I’ve heard. Your relationship was good?” Wow! Mirabel wasn’t great at giving folks The basic facts about her family. Was he implying Mirabel left because of ME?
Two Marshott girls can’t breathe at once? I decided not to go there. “She seemed fine when we tried on clothes together,” I allowed. I began to feel hopped up on coffee. Better quit before the shaking hands. I Banged my mug upon his shiny table. Verne seemed content to let me Handle this.
“I heard you knew her well.” Let him think she’d squealed – I smiled in a way that forecloses Further questions and He blinked at me indulgently. “I haven’t heard a word Since her going away party.” Ripple of surprise from Verne. “Going-away party” unknown to groom? Ravi kept smiling. He had a lot of teeth.
Too many, I’d say. Must be A rich man thing. “Maybe she needs a honeymoon alone,” He offered – “I heartily recommend Falling in love with yourself first of all.” We did not believe him for a minute – He was needling Verne. This bad conversation Kept getting worse.
“She certainly had the means – I gave a generous parting gift Then found she helped herself to more.” His face hardened, steely-eyed. “I didn’t know until she tried to fence my stones.” “Mirabel stole from you?” Verne spluttered. “Who knows what was going through her mind,” Ravi spread his hands – “She may have been confused about my gift. No harm done. Jacobson returned my stones.”
What did all this mean? Don’t concern yourself with Mirabel, she’s just a petty thief? Disappeared from exposure, vanished From the shame? I felt surge of prosecutorial passion: Was it possible to get to the bottom of this? Never had “game face” seemed so Dangerous and unappealing. “She worked for you?” I tried to clarify.
“She was my scout. She brought me – Things I might want to buy.” Verne’s boil burst. “She never needed cash to flee!” He sounded ready for a fight But in defense of his money and his charm and Not my sister. Ravi skirted the issue With old-world politesse.
“Women always keep some expenses private.” My mother calls it “mad money”. A hundred-dollar bill tucked inside Your bra. Verne would never best this man Except in hotness and Eligibility. Although someone Needed to tell him he was plenty I’m not the one to explain to him. Instead I pursued my investigation.
“Did she call you?” Ravi pulled out his phone. Flicked through content. “I don’t see it.” “She took a car to the wilds of Brooklyn,” Verne asserted, coming back up A feisty Bobo doll. “Know anything about that?” He was too combative – this Wouldn’t get us anywhere. “What address?”
Ravi seemed interested. Luckily Verne recalled it. “Gravesend.” Ravi agreed impassive. “I’ve got no information.” Verne stood up. This felt bad. “Sure she isn’t hiding here? Using some old key?” Ravi rose too. Short but still impressive.
“She never had a key. She couldn’t enter Without my knowing. I’d rather My house guests weren’t disturbed.” Verne veered away. Fisticuffs avoided. Ravi walked us – still miming helpfulness Towards the door. “I suggest missing persons. Get police involved.”
He seemed to know this would insult Verne further It did but Verne could shake it off, Punch-drunk as he was. “What good are they?” Ravi pushed his luck. “Troll the basics – hospitals and morgues.” Verne’s face melted like a gargoyle.
Turning to me Ravi backtracked – “Bridal nerves? Their engagement was So sudden.” “We’ve been together forever!” Verne barked. I took his arm. “Sorry we’ve inconvenienced you.” Somehow that door got opened. “No problem. Let me know if she turns up.”
I shoehorned Verne outside. “You’ll tell us if she calls?” “If that’s what Mirabel wants.” I got the door shut before Verne Attacked him. “I hate that guy! He’s so disgusting! How I wish we hadn’t come!” I thought he might weep.
The elevator opened without being Summoned. This whole place Intent on ridding itself of us. But Verne resisted. “I bet she’s in there.” He looked back longingly. “I bet she’s not.” I muscled him Into the elevator. “How do you know?” He looked to consult my Magic powers.
“He accused Mirabel of stealing!” Verne blew that off. “Mirabel’s light-fingered. He steals from the world, she steals from him.” He didn’t seem to realize This philosophy could apply to him.
Why marry someone you can’t trust? One more thing I still don’t get About Adult World. I reassured politely. “She’s burned that bridge. I could tell.” Verne taxed me how I knew – Sneering, “Woman’s intuition?” Since he couldn’t trust Mirabel How could he trust me? Needing me made him hate me. I would have to manage him Like a parent. Luckily He relaxed into the car without fuss. I said, thoughtlessly – “I’m psychic.” I say that to my parents because They’re so clueless about Others’ vital signs – If you have to explain the obvious! His whole face changed. He became Pathetically excited. “Of course!” he said. “The sister thing! It creates A Psychic link. I have no siblings. So Tell me what you feel? Where’d she go?” The driver also needed to know: Where to? We put him on pause while I equivocate. “I haven’t seen her in so long, Our connection’s fogged.” The only thing I knew for sure was Mirabel hated Ravi as much as I did. “I need to get to know her again.” “Tell me where to go,” said Verne. Then he spoke the magic words. “I’ll do anything.”
Too many emotions To remember — Depression, disgust, anger, Amazement. But am I safe to say I’m not “alt-Mirabel” And I never will be?
When this journey began I sort of envied Mirabel – I think We all enjoy imagining A Perfect Life – I’ve even caught parents & teachers doing it. How delicious doing only Everything you want!
Relief to feel above it all! But now I saw her slavery. When had Mirabel learned to pretend? It must have happened early – why She and never me?
Thesis, antithesis Synthesis – if I’m not Mirabel, then I’m her rival. Of course he tried to kiss me. “I’m changing,” I said abruptly. I saw by his face he thought My statement transcendental – but – “Getting out of this idiotic dress.”
“He’s downstairs,” said Verne. “You don’t have time. He’ll take us where she went.” “Then go without me,” Of course he waited- I knew he would – This rigamarole Could be staged for me alone.
When I joined them downstairs I wore my oldest jeans and Three Mad Cats t-shirt. Turned out she’d gone to Brooklyn, – a long, long way away. The driver was unhelpful – Mirabel’d said nothing and He was a glum fellow by himself. We halted in the warehouse district. Verne coaxed him to wait while we stepped out of the car. Pessimism back.
“Nothing here. I was hoping she’d get sloppy.” I had my own ideas. Behind one of these doors could be a place Where Mirabel changed In that transcendental way From one facade to many? Unlabeled doors were locked – Loading docks bereft.
No numbers, no bells, no camera and No speaker phones. I began gaining a special sense of her – Inhaling like faint perfume – Lending me a heady sense of Power I had never known.
I wasn’t alt-Mirabel But I did know her In a way denied to others – Because I’d seen her Just beginning – before She polished up her act And took it on the road. I knew what shaped her – Knew what it took to make her cry.
The question was never – When did Mirabel get wily? Because She’d always been this way – but Now I wondered Whether her plans had Ever included us. “Maybe she met another car,” Verne offered, hopefully “Parked in there.” I smelled his nemesis again – He preferred to live in a world Of dastardly rivals.
“One chance left,” said Verne. “Humiliating, but What’s to lose?” I looked him up and down Thinking how many on this planet – Would change places right this moment With this guy. My mother’s drill-sergeant snapped Inside my head, demanding we “buck up.”
Verne gave the driver another address The Upper East Side this time, and We settled in for another ride. “So…what’s this place?” “Mirabel had a job – personal assistant to… This man and they Were friends. Too close for me. They shared secrets, I just know it. He might know something.” “Was he invited to the wedding?” I inquired all ingenuous.
“No. His wife thought they Were too close too. Let’s say he gave Mirabel Too many gifts.” Aha. Torn between two rich men, Only one of them Unmarried. Picture becoming clearer. Verne drummed his fingers, Grim but cheered. “She might be there. If we take him by surprise.” His eyes raked me over.
“You were smart to change. I apologize for rushing you. Button up your coat. I want you Front and center.” I understood he Planned to use the Adolescence he’d Once forgotten – Most would blame my “sexy dressing” – But now he wanted me young and Vulnerable.
“I’m just the jilted groom. He won’t care About me – I’m the person she complained about – But you’re the abandoned sister summoned up to town.” Both would look to me for clues to what Mirabel had been.
As it happened Surprise was impossible. At another golden barracks Doorman demanded purpose for our visit. Verne said, “Emergency.” He flashed a picture From his phone. “Seen this girl tonight?”
Doorman shook his head, listening to the phone. “Penthouse Suite on the top floor. Mr. Krutupian will see you now.”
She must have known we’d come After – the apartment was empty. Furniture gazed Forlornly as I wandered through – Expensive accommodations crying out For individuality, for life. Closets still packed but Some clothes could have disappeared; How could I tell?
Bathrooms littered with impersonal cosmetics – Everything replaceable. In the long, bare white kitchen I Ignited a pot of coffee. The refrigerator was particularly sad: champagne, A month’s supply of celery juice.
And three kinds of wedding cake in origami boxes. Mirabel must have returned – however briefly – Because someone drank the last champagne. Her dress lay discarded on the floor One flounce torn, stepped on, Ground beneath a fleeing heel. When the coffee was ready I sampled cake – Choosing lemon though Everyone likes coconut and Some people cleave to raspberry. Verne was collapsed in the bedroom, Clutching Mirabel’s dress.
“I didn’t think she’d really do it,” He said. “I suppose the wedding’s off.” “Maybe she had an errand,” I stupidly proposed. “She’ll be back.” I bundled the fantasy dress into its slick bag; a glittering Promise too fragile to stand up to actual wear. “Don’t you see what’s happened?”
Verne demanded. “She doesn’t want to marry me. Probably she never did. All along There’s been this game. Some other man; Using me as leverage.” “What other man?” Was this the double life he’d mentioned?
Crazy stuff. I sat beside But not to comfort him. Let’s get some facts. “Who?” I demanded. Those fiancés were bad at facts. He held his head. “There were too many.” Now seemed the time for Comforting. “She’ll return – of course she will – Or why on earth invite me here?”
He turned to me a tear-stained face – Grabbed my shoulders and Sucked me into a kiss – That real “adult” kiss I’d pined for – Dreamed of – Oh those lonely nights After Ricky Stoekels ghosted me – But not this one – A probing invasion Shutting off my air.
I jerked away with so much force I landed on the floor. Verne threw himself On the bed, face down Wracked with sobs While I wiped my face Amazed. Kisses you don’t want Are no reward. “Love the one you’re with” – Isn’t that what Ricky Stoekels says? “She cheats, you cheat,” Bastards all. I’d received No compliment.
“Forgive me,” shuddered Verne, “I’m out of my mind. I don’t know what I’m doing.” Maybe. I recognize excuses. Having used them. “Don’t do it again,” I said. “Where would she go? You have some guy in mind?” “Maybe,” said Verne. He looked so childish, shoulders dropped, Unresponsive iPhone fallen to the floor.
I felt sorry for him but also Old; sophisticated; Like he was fourteen and I was thirty-seven. I pushed coffee. Always been my favorite panacea. He sipped in new docility. “You know the way I like it.” I corrected brusquely, “There is no cream or sugar.” “I mean strong. I like it Strong.”
There only was espresso in the house but Why proceed with this? Trying to apologize? I muted so He studied me ironically. “I suppose you’ll go home to Mama?” I felt a chill. Unconsidered horror. After grasping at Independence – Something to actually write in my break essay – I’d return A powerless teenage nobody.
And there were Further Problems were My folks convinced I’d screwed this up somehow. Or I could stay here, Indulge my favorite sport; Figuring out What The Hell Is Going On. It’s true that Verne A loose cannon now but I could always arm myself and Lock my door. Best to grab that bull by his You Know Where.
“No more kissing. OK?” He flushed a dirty red. “No. Hell no.” “Then I want to stay. Maybe she’s in trouble.” He shrugged this off. “Impossible. She’s just a tease.” But why tease ME? Did not feel right.
Of course, I don’t know Mirabel – must Remind myself – But realizing Verne was Verne he’s Probably the last to know. I’m only second-last. “You really think she’s left you?” He writhed. “We play hurt To the top of our bent. This could Be her winning shot.”
So why keep score? Did she owe me or – Did I owe her? “Well, if she left you She left me, too.” Why couldn’t I believe Mirabel would ghost me? Wasn’t that what she’d always done? It seemed different now – We’d been “sisters” together – For one split second.
A fresh chill fevered me – what if – She was handing off her bridegroom? Those matching dresses were just too weird. On the other hand, fashion is transgressive – They always try to break the rules. No. no. Let’s not go there. “It’s on till Mirabel calls it off. This could be nothing. She might come back. She’ll call. Let’s sleep. Or try this lemon cake.” He shuddered grumpily. “I chose the Hazelnut.”
We ate companionably together. He’d fed me, now I fed him. That’s called “relationship”. He fixed me with A gnarly eye. “Did she warn you? She must have said something. What did she tell you? Anything about him?” I always hated third degree.
I blush as if I’m guilty. “She told me nothing,” I said coldly. “I “Was invited to a wedding.” “She’ll never call,” he moaned. “She’ll keep the tension up Until the victim dies. That’s her way.” “Then you should call it off.” I scraped the rest of my cake Into the trash – I only Like the frosting – Hardening myself against their Craziness.
Verne rose so decisively His plate fell to the rug. “I’m going to find her,” He said. “Game on. She chose me. She doesn’t get Another choice.” What was the matter with this man? Physically attractive – Probably wealthy – Why so insecure?
The only game is not to play. Mirabel had always coveted those She could manipulate. Was That my own knowledge – or Did my parents tell me? That’s the benefit of growing up – it slowly dawns that All you’re told is nonsense. A dose of sense is Obviously required. “I think you’re looking at this wrong, Mirabel’s frightened Of our dad. He’s your “other man.”
Verne gaped at me, Focus readjusting as if He saw me for the first time. “Explain.” “Don’t you know the story? She pretended to go to college but really cashed all Daddy’s checks and lived the high life. She got in trouble with student loans, Forging dox. We haven’t heard from her for Years and Dad’s still angry.
I thought something was up when She wanted to come home.” “I didn’t know. Quite little scamp.” He seemed cheered. “Should we wed in church? I don’t know one marriage that’s survived ten years.” This man could certainly surprise me. “Mom and Dad have been married forever,”
It was more than that – They were unimaginable without each other; A true team – like Laurel & Hardy or Abbott & Costello. I could imagine no other human Who’d put up with either of them. How to convey this? “Maybe you shouldn’t get married When you are so uncertain,” I suggested. Would I get kissed or Slapped for interfering?
Adults don’t like second-guessing but Mirabel forced my hand. “All our bridges burned,” He sighed. “The only way is forward.” Depressing thought! Cheering this guy’s mood is work.
“Let’s figure out where she Could have possibly gone. Like, How would she travel?” Verne sat straight up. “Car service,” he announced. “I pay the bills. Let’s track her.”
He worked his phone. “I’m so glad “You’re staying. We need you – Alt-Mirabel.”
I felt played. It’s what they do to children. Couldn’t shuck the memory of
My own mother– Lofty & deceitful – Briskly turning “road trips” turned into “Summer camp” and “one night” Into seven.
I was being “managed”, but Could I blame Mirabel? Quoting Mom – again – “ Guests must Be adaptable, obliging – a guest has No one to blame but herself For her bad treatment.” Was it the expression on my face When she showed me that dress? Snarky baby sister punished for it now.
Mirabel had something Better to do than me. I was startled by The driver’s admiration As the Stanhope – he looked at me As if I’d matured. Had I insulted the bride By overreaching? I blame those heels – She must have secretly hated them.
Regretted her choice of bridesmaid. I was chastened as I joined Verne in splendor at the bar. He rose at the sight of me His face a tribute To a beauty that I didn’t want – I felt on the edge of a childish scene. Why didn’t his jaw set at the sight of me alone? Were they sick already Of each other?
His arm was decidedly un-brotherly: Squiring me away – He enjoyed them seeing he was meeting Some strange woman. “Let’s get you dinner.” Anything better than a bar That looked me over like Some Russian call girl.
As we turned I was confronted By the mirrors: I looked like Some Russian call girl. Blame the champagne that allowed Mirabel to paint me up. In my best-guest manner, I said, “Should we wait for Mirabel?” He demurred. “Waiting for Mirabel’s never good. It only encourages her.”
As the headwaiter flashed his menu Verne snuck angry glances At his darkened phone. “Turtle soup’s good here,” Said Verne: he knew my weakness – I yearned to sample everything. I sucked water greedily As martini-bearing waiters Smothered and assessed. I ordered pineapple juice before Verne could countermand.
He insulted me – “I heard you were religious.” I enlightened him. “Famiglia’s religious but My life’s my own free choice.” He breathed relief – I switched it up – “What kind of ceremony will you have?”
He seemed stunned I’d propositioned Then vague. “Some judge. A ballroom. Mirabel’s in charge of that.” I teased, I needled – “Mirabel says you proposed The first night you met.” Let him fear our confidence! He laughed sharply. “I was waiting for trustees to die.” Well THAT was tough to follow up.
Verne could switch it up as well. “Mirabel can be very shattering, can’t she?” I shirked disloyalty at this God’s honest truth. Chose vagueness as He had. “Life comes at us so fast.” “I tried to free her from the life,” said Verne. “I don’t believe she really let me.” This was depressing – parents hoping For good news, bride and groom stuck In mutual complaining.
“Mirabel proposed to me.” He said coldly. “It’s the title. They all do that.” I was stung on her behalf – who wants his Moth-eaten aging royalty? I almost choked On sugared juice: doesn’t sugar Wreck your palate?
I braced myself against Verne’s Un-subtle desire To put me in the “wrong”. Too bad for him – I was used to disapproval. “I think people should make themselves,” I argued everything Too fiercely.
Soup arrived, bread slathered with Mozzarella, pesto & tomato. Mini-pizzas! I sighed ecstatically and felt from him An answering thaw. “When you inherit an ancient world,” He pontificated, “you learn to value the past.” “Do you have a castle?” I asked through my full mouth.
Turtle soup OK. Too much sherry – Too much curry – He checked his phone. “It’s a ruin with tourists crawling Everywhere. Mirabel doesn’t care for it.” His phone lit up. Mirabel ‘s texts? I studied mine to be Companionable. But it was folks again – Always, with the questions. “She’s not answering,” he sighed.
“We’re not as charming as Her double life.” This jolted me. “She has a double life?” “Probably triplicate by now.” He snorted. I tried my lawyer father’s ploy; Let ‘em talk. “Tell me about it.” “She’d been so hard to pin down lately.” Did he blush or blanch? His throat was raw With pent emotion.
My face betrayed my armoring. “She seemed so ready To be a wife. Said my time Had come to meet the family.” Did he know of The Great Silence? Perfidious to squeal yet how else Could I find out What was going on? Beef wellington arrived But I was full.
“I’m amazed you were real, most frankly. I thought “the little sister” Was another of her stories. Kudos to your parents.” This – and the beef wellington – Maybe I’m vegan after all – Made me gag. “I was afraid she’d hire stand-ins but, “You’re just like her yet so Unspoiled.”
Never had a compliment Felt more like an insult. Creepy and revolting. “Mirabel and I are opposites,” I stressed Angrily before I thought. “How can that be?” He was smug. Superior. “You’re litter-mates.” “She cares what others think and I just don’t.”
That should have stopped him but – He smiled. “Sisterhood is powerful.’ Unable to read him, Know him, change him, I felt the dawning of Despair. It makes me hate The grown-up world.
“I’m becoming vegetarian,” I said. And pushed my plate away. I was trying to be polite and now I’d stopped. “Americans think food fuss Makes them interesting,” He snarled. “It doesn’t.”
But it turned out His disgust was not for me. “Imagine that,” snorted his Lordship scornfully, Still looking at his phone.
“We’re on our own, Mirabel can’t make it. And now her phone is locked! We’ll see about that! I’m ordering the car. Time to find out just what Our bride is playing at.”
Mirabel cinched me tight. “There!” The mirror exposed a stranger. I was a new person. “Too much dress” said Mirabel, “But with skyscraper shoes…” From the closet she threw out bundles.
“I’d rather wear flats,” I told her. She reproved: “Verne is very tall.” Who cares how tall HE is? “Bridesmaid shouldn’t tower over bride!” I suggested; Reining in the Clashing egos.
In weird familial telepathy Mirabel declaimed, “Princess Richenda To the Dark Tower came. Just like Tarot cards.” I admired my nude, mirrored Ribboned back. “But how about your dress?” “You’ve seen it.” Like breath went out of her – She tossed it out – they were identical.
How could that be? Wasn’t that too strange? I was gobsmacked – Never heard of bride and bridesmaid Wearing the same dress – Think of the confusing pictures – People getting entirely Wrong ideas.
“Isn’t that bad luck?” I questioned; “The groom will see the gown Before they’re hitched” – Ending Lamely, “If you believe That sort of thing.” I petered out because No one DOES believe that sort of thing. “My dress is size “zero” –“ Sniffed Mirabel –
Competitive, Combative Mirabel, and I was silenced. She knocked my phone right out of my hand – Sussing out my efforts to bring in troops – Mom would NEVER approve of this! “No pictures till the wedding.”
Her pressured speech rushed on – And on – “And now – we dress for dinner.” More fantasy clothes. I looked embarrassed at my Wrinkled skirt Discarded Carapace along the floor – shriveling Like my pride.
Mirabel threw open mirrored Doors to reveal another bedroom – This one stocked with girlish stuff. “This room is yours -” She told me – “He’s staying at The Stanhope.”
I blushed – I don’t know why – He’d called this residence “his” – But these closets were packed With Mirabel clothes so Where did I fit in? My sister unbound my dress –
I’m not used to Clothes that need assistants. There’s no getting out of these gowns Without help. “These are yours -”
Blue slits whose ruffles Matched my eyes – A dress with scales – Peekaboo and baby-doll Price tags proclaiming The less the dress the more the cost.
No bras here either – And everything my size. What was going on? Angrily I chose heels to tower over Mirabel – we’ll see who’s boss – But she didn’t seem to mind.
Her makeup kit delivered smoky eye, nude mouth and Emerald glitter. “Verne hates the kiss of Lipstick.” Who cares? These people kiss the air – I couldn’t Get the hang of this.
She wore cherry red chinoiserie – Now I’m impostor too. “He’s waiting at the Stanhope Bar.” We were silent in the elevator. I clutched the fur I’d borrowed Feeling naked –
Summoning up my nerve but Maribel seemed depressed. Deflated. Encumbered? With me? With Verne? With family obligation? Traditions I could Only guess at? I tried to play my role. “So… how did he propose?”
My query’s gaucheness seemed Amplified by elevator doors Whose golden mirror Bent our beauty so Unflatteringly we seemed Haunted.
“It’s not about when he proposed,” she Told me crisply, “but “When I accepted. He Proposed the first night we met – Five years ago – Said we’d marry – If he could get approval From his trustees.” Much to puzzle out in here! So trustees must propose to Mirabel?
O Bad New World that has Such creatures in it. “Five years ago? Was this a secret?” Why didn’t anyone – snoopy Richenda in fact – Find this out? “He hates the press – “ says Mirabel,
Whose explanations Don’t explain. “He Wants me to himself. And I was so unready – seeing other people…LOTS of other people.” Poor Verne! We nodded at the doorman, Safe beside the limo
I whispered, “How’d he win You over?” But Mirabel Did not seem to want to discuss This sacred aspect of their story. She dismissed me. “He was so adoring.”
She bundled me inside the car then Backed away confronted by a ghost. “I forgot something. Tell Verne I’ll be along.”
The car swept away, leaving Mirabel Huddled by the curb – overwhelmed by Her mink coat.
On Fifth Avenue; nonstop parade of glittery storefronts & Entitled shoppers.
Glamorous trousseau fun! . Our limo pulls up to Questrina, Sets off parking lights; A woman rushed through the double doors offering Glossy green dress bags in outstretched hands-
Driver swept them to the car and we were off again. “Your clothes,” explained Verne. Excitement, confusion; the Disappointment that Always follows bait and switch:
You get SOMETHING Just not what you expected. Had my dress been chosen for me? “I thought Maribel and I-“ “Oh, there’s lots for you to do,” He dismissed.
Surprised he didn’t offer Lollies to distract me. “Here we are,” says would-be groom. “My place.” A skyscraper on Fifth Avenue?
Shiny red and black doorman – general Of a third world country – Rushed the curb. “Your lordship.” I thought my ears unplugged. Had I heard this right? Did he speak American and was Verne in fact, “a lord”?
I should have watched those damned Downton Abbey episodes my folks begged me to see instead of proudly sequestering with Japanese anime. Limo driver brought all bags – He had to use a different elevator.
43 floor ride, black & gold enameled door thrown open on the penthouse there stood Mirabel.
Chapter Four : The Lost Sister
My eyes filled with tears and I realized How much I’d feared that This was all a scam. “Darling!”
She waved her skinny arms and kissed the air. “Mwah! Mwah! You escaped!” I couldn’t touch her – We laughed and laughed. She gave Verne a burning look – “Get us drinks”
And dragged me – Literally DRAGGED me into A double-doored bedroom and Swept me down upon a white flokati rug. We were children again – Conspiring & strategizing together or She played all the parts and I Gazed on adoringly.
She took control with those hypnotic eyes While my school self asked, IS this really Mirabel? So much smaller than my memory – Disappearing before my eyes in fact, As she had managed to do my whole entire Life; darker – blond all gone –
I know I’m taller now, but how could this tiny thing Have ever been a supermodel? Someone rattled at the door – Mirabel called – “We’re dressing!” Pulled me into giggle – “Leave it!”
Covered my mouth signalling with her Humongous eyes – Crawling to the door she – Peeked out – Pulled in a Champagne bucket and a pair of flutes.
“Grooms get in the WAY!” She laughed and toasted me. “But men! You know!” She gasped and gagged as if She’d never had such wine. I sipped sedately.
Judgingly As I’d learned to do with grown-ups. Who was this Mirabel? The way she carved me With her eyes She must be real Yet something smelled Imposture.
I just don’t know – I’m far too new – It’s far too weird. She leaned to touch my hair. “I always thought They should have named you Anne.”
The door opened and Verne stood over us Looking down reprovingly. Mirabel blanched – I thought because she’d said He’s not to enter – But he was mild enough
Laying dress bags along the bed Reproachfully As if to ask “How can you dress without dresses?” Then he was gone The door slightly left ajar. Mirabel clicked it closed with her foot. She called, “See you at dinner!”
I felt sorry for poor Verne But when we heard the outer door click Mirabel rose and unzipped the bags. She topped off her glass with Vodka from a bottle by the bed. “It’s such bad champagne,” she excused, “In Europe, babies drink this stuff.”
I studied the bottle – Beau Joie Brut Special Cuvée – A brute champagne. Tasted fine to me – like Sharpest winter air.
Mirabel offered her bottle. “No thanks.” She drained her tulip glass. ”You’ve certainly changed,” she commented. Did I drink vodka at eight years old? I said, “So have you.”
“I’m darker now. Verne wouldn’t look at blondes.” Too bad, I thought. I’d hoped she’d find a different type of guy. “Is he really a lord?” Maribel rolled her eyes. “Unfortunately.” At my surprise she added – “It always seems to mean you can’t do Anything you want.”
She shrugged. “At least the restaurants like it.” “And you’ll be –“ “Lady Verne.” She shrugged; unexcited By the prospect. Seemed The opposite of what Old Maribel would have thought.
“So, you just met?” “Oh no, we’ve been together FOREVER – And only now we tie the knot. But you!” She spun me all around. “You’re so tall! And thin!” “I eat like a horse” I apologized
I grow too fast – all my friends are vegan But I eat Everything – “I can’t seem to fast.” “Wait till after the wedding,” Said Maribel
“Then just do a purge. “Think you’d fit a four?” The dress she pulled was pale gold, fairytale dress with endless puffy skirt. My gasp relaxed Mirabel’s face. She smiled.
“I’m sure I could!” almost dropped my wineglass in my excitement to try it on. Stripped down to my unsightly sports bra And boy’s brief pants.
“Can’t wear a bra with this one,” says Mirabel. “I’ll do you up.” She gazed too long – A man’s gaze I thought – I turned away.
I followed all her modeling pages But there’s been nothing for the past Three years.
I was smart enough to know that airbrushed people don’t look like that in real life. Mirabel had been so gorgeous;
those huge eyes and perfect Roman nose seemed to promise a matching depth of soul. We all want to believe that beautiful people Get everything they need from life;
yet I remembered the Mirabel I’d known. She’d never come back to this family fold unless something had gone horribly wrong. As my train slid into the darkness of the Grand Central tunnel I texted the number I’d been given with “Train on time”
followed by a happiness emoji. Then of course I wanted to delete it But wasn’t I – as the only bridesmaid – Obligated to act excited? I’d never done any of this before – It’s Brave New World to me.
The response wasn’t from Mirabel at all but labelled @Valerian: “I’m meeting you. Mirabel otherwise occupied as usual. Look out for red hunting coat.” Who was Valerian? Where was Mirabel? Was this the fiancé who had her phone? If that was the deal from the beginning Mom and Dad would never let me come.
Here’s Mirabel at her core – proficient In the art of “softening people up” Which never meant the truth. Dad says Mirabel always “plays the inside straight” Some disparaging poker term.
As the train lurched to a stop I stood up and studied myself in the Mirrored windows. The girl “Valerian” would see Looked good enough in gray skirt with shiny thigh high patent leather boots and recently highlighted auburn hair. Nothing like Mirabel’s blond gorgeousness of course. But Out from beneath Mom’s thumb
I’d added to my eye makeup – Mom frowns on false lashes – Because looking ready for my moment gives me hope. I hadn’t answered the text: Stranger Danger just too strong. I’d Uber myself – if I knew where I was going. But I wanted the chance to Look at him before he looked
At me. That would work Unless He was the one who’d tried to Friend me – Meaning he’d seen all my pictures? Ugh. You want to be seen and yet somehow Not.
We project ourselves into others’ eyes – I want to be seen in a certain way – Where I control reactions! Of course it makes no sense And that’s what diaries are for – endlessly Trying to reshape Cellphone diary fantasy. But There he was
right by the escalators, standing out in his red coat. Mirabel would never descend to the tracks. A tall, distinguished looking man in his thirties probably, very thin – dark pants and a red down jacket. The closer I got the more Startlingly handsome was that weathered knife-planed face –
Beneath dark glasses – he broke into smiles at the sight of me. No hope of escape – If I thought anything it was – “He’s better than I dreamed!” Made it easier forging some new Relation with my uncomfortably lost sister. He reached for my bag
Kissed the top of my forehead Dry lips – tasting sweat and foundation. “Richenda?” English accent. “I Recognized you immediately. You look just like Mirabel. It’s the eyes.”
I felt a gush of pleasure at Such baseless flattery – Wanted to argue “I am not!” but Zines do say we girls must learn accepting compliments. Sooner rather than never. “Er, thanks.” So ungraceful.
“What happened to Mirabel?” “Unavoidably detained.” He swept both me and bag away from the escalator Down the platform. “We’ll take the elevator to the car service.” Actually, a limo. The driver rushed to take my pathetic flowered bag. Did the driver and this so far unintroduced man know each other – casually or permanent – hard to say.
“You’re the fiancé?” I stuttered out. He seemed surprised. “Sorry,” he said, bundling me into the limo, “It’s Wedding nerves. I’m Philip Valerian. Everyone calls me Verne.” I couldn’t stop laughing.
“Mom thought your name was Rupert Golden!” Verne didn’t find this amusing. “Some previous swain,” he huffed. Wedding nerves? Exactly right. He was jumpy, Fingers drumming on my knee. I was alone with @Valerian.
Fourteen and I used to be bored. Winter breaks were especially glacial
Till just recently –
Right before dinner Mom Put her head around my door : “You won’t believe what happened!” What could excite such A dull person?
But I lacked comparisons because This never happened before. Slammed my book shut because – Geometry is paralyzing – And joined the Guessing game.
“We won Powerball?” “Your sister’s coming home! To get married!” I hadn’t seen Mirabel –ten years older – in eight years. Truth to tell, I could barely remember her. A lifetime ago. “Why?”
Mom – never invited in – Leaned against the INSIDE Of my door. “Make up for the past.” Is that even possible? Or does she want a free wedding?
Mirabel was ALWAYS Always always always About the money. “So who’s she marrying?” “I think his name was something like Rupert Golden.”
“I didn’t want to ask her to wait while I got a pen. She said she’d send details. You know how she hates Snooping.” Everyone hates snooping, I thought.
Mirabel hates Accountability. Snooping can be fun If you’re the one doing it. Addictive. “Rupert Golden’s no real name,” was all I had To contribute. Mom gave me her “Like you’re the expert” face.
But fourteen year olds DO Know everything. We just forget Distracted so easily. We’ll be a whole family again for the first time in – ages.” So she can leave us again, I thought.
I knew. I’d always been Weirdly tuned from Mirabel “Murble” I called her When I learned to speak The dazzling goddess of my Dappled infancy.
Parents are nonsensical. All they cared was that She was willing to pretend for whatever short period that things are copacetic at the family manse.
Parents love pretending. “When’s this happening happening?’ “Unsettled,” said Mom. “She wants your help to buy a dress.” “Me?”
Up to that second I’d been a Peeper at The Family Drama. Did I want to participate? What choice did I have?
“You’ll be her only bridesmaid so she wants your dresses to match,” said Mom, But slowly as if just realizing What stupidity she spoke.
“You go up tomorrow night and the two of you come back Sunday.” How had she agreed to this? She still wasn’t happy.
“Unless… perhaps I’d drive you?” “I’ve taken trains before,” I said, trying to keep the baby whine Out of my voice. “I’m fourteen years old!” “But it’s the city,” wailed Mom
Panic flaring. “I’ve been to the city before, too,” I said. School field trips!!! Alone? First time for everything.
“She said she’d meet the five o’clock train,” sighed Mom, Obviously wondering How had she agreed to this? I almost didn’t like it.
So some strange woman Could call Mom up and Gain more freedom for me Than I’d ever managed?
It’s a gift. Don’t criticize its teeth. “It won’t be dark yet,” I said blithely.
“So is that where she’s living? In the city?” Rumors of international travel had reached us when Mirabel’s modeling cancelled. And all this time she’s Twenty miles away?
Mom seemed so unhappy. “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “Maybe it’s Rupert’s place. I’ll be trusting your good sense.”
She certainly can’t trust Mirabel, I thought. Someone in this family Needs to do some serious snooping.
That night someone named Philip Valerian Tried friending me on Facebook. I turned him down Like a bedspread, I Don’t talk to strangers.
He banished me to Skylar’s room to sleep alone. I wandered into my old room, but someone had been camping out in there. Must be Spike, judging from the camouflage sleeping bag and the mustache grooming tools. I wondered why. If his mom or his girlfriend kicked him out, couldn’t he just tell us?
As I tossed and turned in Skylar’s old bed, I wondered if Spike moved in to protect me, the way Trevor used to sleep on the floor outside my room so many moons ago. I admit it comforted me to think so. Several times I snuck out and put my ear to Trevor’s door. I could hear him in there. Sometimes he played Haydn. There was light beneath his door.
Toward morning my body betrayed me and fell asleep. I awoke all of a sudden, propelled out of a bad dream as out of a cannon, sitting up fearful and guilt ridden. I’d killed Colleen. Someone killed Colleen.
Then I remembered. Trevor killed Colleen; the same way Oz murdered my mother. It came on the sound of an echo; a short, sharp sound like a shot. Had I dreamed it or was it real? I bolted out of bed. Jake’s door was open, his music playing, but he and Shelley were gone. Was it a door slam that I heard?
How Shelley, Spike and Jake be so clueless as to eat breakfast? Couldn’t they taste the air and just know it changed forever? How could they act like it was just another day?
I put my ear to Trevor’s door and listened. Violins. Haydn’s Creation. A very bad sign.
I worried what was he doing in there. He used to cut himself when he was younger, but I didn’t suspect he’d regressed that far. Working on a plan to turn himself in? I couldn’t let that happen. I hammered on the door.
“Trevor!” I shouted. “Don’t do it! Let me in!”
Nothing. I could feel him alive in there. I swear I could feel him, I could still feel his love for me. I would make him listen. I ran through Jake’s room and bathroom to the other door, but Trevor had thought to lock that one as well.
“If you don’t open this door,” I lied, “I’m going to do something terrible to myself!”
He opened it instantly and leaned out. I was so relieved. Did I think he had killed himself? He seemed at peace. I drank in his beautiful face and tired unfocused eyes fading to pewter-color. He wore just a t-shirt. Not yet dressed for court.
He kissed my forehead.
“Don’t you dare do anything terrible to yourself,” he said, smiling as if making a joke. “What a loss that would be to literature. Don’t you realize everything terrible has already been done? Now it’s time for the wonderful things.” He looked me up and down, leaning out of the death room into the light. Into life. Kissed me, right on the lips. His lips were so real, so warm. For the first time ever he broke away before I did.
“I was crazy to think I could pass you off to another man,” he said.
He sniffed the air, hungrily, like a patient recovering from illness. “I’m starving. I could eat anything.”
“Egg foo yung?”
“Sure. Whole-wheat toast. No jelly. Bacon, if you can find it.” He closed the door and I heard him lock it.
I walked toward the stairs, just in case he was listening. I didn’t believe him for a second. I knew he was lying to get rid of me. In Skylar’s bathroom door there’s an old-fashioned skeleton key. Fortunately Vermillion has such antique locks they are easy to pick. In a house where every key is a skeleton key, every day is Halloween.
I thought I heard the music stop. Then I heard the door unlocking. I peeked around the stairs.
The door opened, then closed again. Re-locked.
There was now a note on the door. I tiptoed up.
On a plain white sheet of paper, written in capital letters, this is what it said:
BRONTË, THIS IS YOUR BIG BROTHER SPEAKING. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO COME INTO THIS ROOM. CALL 911 IMMEDIATELY.
I was still reading it when I heard the shots. There were two of them. So the shot that woke me was a prophecy, not an echo.
Spike said afterward that people think you can’t shoot yourself twice in the head with a pistol, that it’s just a reflex, but he says he’s known of cases where it’s happened. You just have to be very determined and have plenty of follow-through. Trevor was always gifted in that department. He was on the bed, the bed he would never let us share because it so enshrined his self-disgust.
His head was mush – the eyes were gone – and there was blowback – what had they called it in the courtroom? – high velocity spatter along the white wall. Whatever had been Trevor was gone, now, his brain and his future blasted into space. Trevor my father, my mother, my lover, my brother, the giver of all my life’s good gifts, was no more. In a world without Trevor, who would ever know who I really was?
That dead thing was still his body, his so-familiar body lying half along the bed and half along the floor, but I didn’t touch it. I should have been afraid of him before; but I was much more afraid of him now. Poor Trevor, this death was foretold from the moment he killed Colleen. He had grown up cutting away pieces of himself he thought he could live without; this time he guessed wrong. The Luger had spun away from him along the once-polished floor. I stepped over it on my way to the mantelpiece.
You couldn’t miss the envelopes, lined up neatly in a row. Four of them. One was marked, The Prosecutor, one was marked For My Father, one for Jake and one said, Brontë. I was thinking fast and clearly. Who was the poet that said death is the silver backing on the mirror that allows us to see anything at all? I knew what I had to do, and there was no time. I owed him. In spite of what he had said our guilty pleasures were my responsibility. I especially regretted using Jake’s come-on line. And I owed Oz. Maybe it was revenge, the way Craig said, but what did I have left? Oz took away my mother. That is the crime beyond forgiveness. I would have to make sure he would never get away.
I grabbed all four envelopes and the pad he had written them on. I found the note Oz wrote in Trevor’s wastebasket, a basket empty of false starts—because Trevor knew exactly what he wanted to say. I locked in Skylar’s room when I heard feet on the stairs, and voices. “What was that?”
“Brontë? Trevor?”
I could hear them running and whispering. Pounding up and down the stairs. Someone screamed. Shelley’s voice.
They would be in here in a minute.
I turned on the Skylar’s shower for the noise and sat down on the tiled floor next to the toilet exactly as if I was about to vomit. But what I planned to regurgitate was Trevor’s last words.
I opened the letter to me first. It was written in Trevor’s backward sloping hand, the penmanship he hated because he thought it made him look “dumb.” He could never master Oz’s confident loops and swirls. It read,
Cherry Vanilla, Forgive me for everything. I write this knowing that you will, because I know for certain that you love me. Knowing that makes it all worthwhile, even the things that I did that were wrong and I regret. I don’t so much regret what I did as who I am, but what I do next will wipe regret away. Last night you wouldn’t listen to me when I told you of your absolution. Let me once again emphasize that fact. Go, be free, and spread your wings. God loves you as much as I do. He made you the way you are to have the best of everything. And I know you will. Bless you. I demand you have a joy filled life. I die happy in that certainty. None of this was ever your fault (underscored many times). I kiss you and hug you. I wish I could be with you on your wedding day the way I always imagined, but from heaven or hell or wherever I’m going, know that I will be looking back on you with pride. I’m eternally grateful to you for being born and for making me so happy. Trevor
I put that letter in my shirt. I was so glad he didn’t mention the murder. If he had I would have destroyed this letter, too, because that has to be erased, but as it was I could save it forever, pack it away in my “trousseau” trunk with my poems and diaries.
The letter to Jake began with “Brace yourself, bud,” said Oz told him the prosecution would announce in court that Shelley and Brontë were his sisters, and abjured him to start conducting himself accordingly. There was no reference to the murders except for the oblique closing line: “Forgive me. Remember, nothing is bad or good but thinking makes it so.”
He hadn’t been able to believe that himself. Well, at least that letter was OK, too. I decided to give it to Jake later, and tell him Trevor told me to.
I destroyed the note from Oz. Tiny pieces, flush flush. The other two letters were longer. Both were full confessions. He told Oz he never intended to let him take the fall and he just couldn’t believe the jury would convict him, but now that it looked as if they might, he had to take action. He didn’t mention the death of my mother. He didn’t mention finding out that I was his real sister. Right at the end he was protective of Oz’s feelings, Oz, who used his son like a canary in a mineshaft.
Flush, flush. The letter to the prosecutor was the same confession he had given me, but in more stilted language. He added some details he hadn’t told me. For example he said he looked in the window and saw Oz sleeping on the sofa. I’m pretty sure that was a lie he thought up in his effort to get Oz off the hook, otherwise he would have mentioned it.
I found it much easier to picture Oz standing in the darkness, watching the inevitable unfold, feeling smug and safe. Somebody allowed Colleen to bleed out while Trevor rushed back to the party. In the unacknowledged war between father and son, Oz must have felt he was the lifelong victor. Was it his plan that Trevor would stand up in court at the eleventh hour and rescue him?
Ironic that the son who couldn’t trust his father was so trusted by that same father! But Oz’s solipsistic universe can’t envision suicide. Probably he pictured to himself a sensational last minute public confession to the delight of jury and press.
He fatally underestimated his son’s sense of shame because it was an emotion he couldn’t feel himself. Was the suggestion that I get pregnant an end run around this very possibility, subtly trying to undermine Trevor’s right to take his life if it became unbearable?
The letter didn’t even mention my mother, didn’t mention our newly exposed connection. He told them Oz was an innocent man and they should let him out right now.
Flush, flush to all of it, even the envelopes, even the first blank sheets of Trevor’s writing pad. Far from grudging Skylar her updated amenities I welcomed them. My toilet would have clogged, but Skylar’s Quadraflush swirled everything effortlessly away down into darkness.
The sirens grew stronger. Why were they in such a hurry? They couldn’t put Trevor back together. Not all the king’s horses or all the king’s men could ever do that. Did they think we were all the captives of a crazed gunman, were they sending the SWAT team, what Spike calls “the green boys”? Spike himself had worked his way through the first door and found out my hiding place. Now he was shouting, hammering on the bathroom door.
The door splintered under his weight and Spike fell into the room. His stricken face melted at the sight of me.
“Jesus! I thought he killed you!”
Poor Trevor! Barely dead and already subject to misinterpretation. This too, was Oz’s fault. It was a good thing I hadn’t left the fate of his memory in his own hands.
Spike picked me up and rocked me like a baby, murmuring, “Dangerous, dangerous man.”
Did he mean Trevor, or Oz? No sense in arguing. Like a rabbit in the mouth of a very big dog, I felt it best to go limp.
It’s pleasant to be rocked. I am the baby after all. Still, the Brontë in me challenged him. “Why would Trevor ever kill me?”
“Well, obviously he could never really have you,” said Spike.
Poor Spike! Imagine being that big and that strong and that old and still not realizing you can never really have anybody. He nuzzled my neck like a mother bear trying to recognize a cub feared gone for good.
Jake appeared wild eyed in the doorway. “Why did he do it? Why? Why?” I roused myself for one last volley.
“Oz confessed to him,” I told them both. “He’s as guilty as hell of both those murders. Trevor was sure he’d be convicted and die.”
Jake and Shelley both began to cry. I closed my eyes and felt the vertigo of a future in which my mother’s and my father’s, murderer and murderee’s tendencies warred within me. But even if temperament and talents are inherited, isn’t what I do with them entirely my own choice? No more court for me, not ever. At last I was free to leave this place and become myself. I was finally all grown up.
Spike was kissing, kissing my face and neck. Who would have thought such a big man, a Hulk, a Python, capable of such butterfly kisses? Men are eternally surprising. If I closed my eyes I stretched out again on that hot dock years ago, when Trevor kissed me back to life. Trevor had won after all. Death locked me into his template harder than his life could have. And if I wasn’t finished with Trevor, I was free to seek him still. He laughed at reincarnation, but said that love is immortal. Aunt Shea says someone you love is inside you always. So I lay there smiling while Spike kissed me with Trevor’s lips.
It was a single sheet of paper. I read it over his shoulder.
Dear Trevor, it read, I strongly suspect the following information will not be news to you. Tomorrow Buford will announce in court that DNA results prove Brontë and Shelley are my blood daughters, and therefore, your sisters. You truly share designer genes. Both Renée and Mary Elizabeth asked me never to tell a soul, and I gave them my gentleman’s word, but circumstances have clearly conspired to relieve me of that pledge. It was simple, it was logical and it was planned. Mary Elizabeth was frustrated in her efforts to become pregnant through her husband, was impressed by my bloodline, and so solicited my help through my wife, your mother, Renée. I was glad to oblige. Mary Elizabeth wished to have a daughter and so I accommodated her by coming as close to coitus interruptus as is humanly possible to still deposit seed. Scientifically it is well accepted that deep thrusting produces males. Female sperm may be slow, but by an amusing trick of fate they have far more stamina than the male of the species! Our efforts were successful; resulting in the birth of Shelley and Mary Elizabeth was so pleased that when she judged her time was right she requested my services again. I know you love those girls as I do and therefore alert you to use your best judgment, either to prepare them for a fact I suspect will secretly delight them, or even to keep them from court if you think it best. In haste – your loving father – Oz.
I saw Trevor’s face literally empty of blood. His eyes shuttered, his color fell away. His skull poked out of his face and gasped at me.
“Jesus Christ,” he moaned, “We’re white trash.”
I thought he would fall. In grabbing for him I dropped my glass of wine. It spilled red across the floor, running in bloody rivulets between the wide, uneven floorboards. I pushed him down into a sitting position in an armchair, trying to get his head between his legs.
He seemed to have stopped breathing. A rasping noise exhaled from his exoskeleton. His past and future were sucked right out of his body. His waxy, frozen skin rubberized at my touch. I tried to make him drink my but my own hands were shaking too much to hold it to his lips.
The death’s head spoke.
“I knew this day would come,” he said.
He was blaming himself. Trevor’s so predictable! I could see it happening and I was helpless to prevent it. I was mad enough at Oz to murder him, myself, right here, right now.
“I knew this would happen. Carnal desire got in the way.”
“But Oz knew the truth all along,” I reasoned. “He knew, but he didn’t he tell us. Ask yourself why.” Trevor flicked away my question like a bug. He always was pigheaded.
“He gave his word.” He looked away from me, out the window, beyond the world. What did he see?
“He could have discouraged us. Instead, he did the opposite. We were just his experiment. His little bit of fun.”
“You’ve always been unfair to him,” said Trevor colorlessly. “It’s weird, because of all of us you’re the most like him. You go your own way. You have his life force. You always get what you want and that’s a fact.”
I just don’t lie about it! Trevor tried to get what he wanted too, and look at him now, dying right in front of me.
“Oz makes mistakes – I’m not denying he made mistakes,” Trevor went on, “Don’t you see they come from his exuberance? That life force. He didn’t understand that we couldn’t live up to it.” “Oh yes he did!” I spluttered. “He knew you had a conscience. Stop apologizing for it.”
I couldn’t believe it. He was making excuses for his father! Abruptly I stopped talking about Oz. I’d reach him another way. It was my turn to save him.
“We made a mistake,” I said. “We were lied to. We didn’t know. In the absence of truth we have to carry on as best we can. Come on. Let’s make a pact not to be ruined by this.” Trevor had collapsed in his chair, folded his shoulders and put his head in his hands. A little boy again. Was this the first time roles had been reversed and I had comforted him? It seemed impossible but I couldn’t remember another occasion. I knelt beside him trying to worm my hot hands into his closed, cold ones. I ran through everything I could think of that might make him feel better.
I knew it wasn’t the time to debate about civilization, its conventions and its discontents, to tell him that Lord Byron loved his sister all his life and it was a good thing, otherwise he never would have loved anybody, or to argue that because we were only half-sibs it was only half as bad. If I couldn’t get him angry at Oz, the author of all our misery, there still had to be something I could say. “We can make up for it,” I suggested as gently as I could manage. “We can atone. Aren’t the Christians big on redemption? Now that we know the facts, all we have to do is promise that we’ll never touch each other – that way – again.” It was going to be hard, but if we were in different states obviously it could be done.
He rendered me a scary smile.
“You’re just looking for an excuse to leave,” he said. “So we can have a relationship in letters, like Heloise and Abelard. “From the flame to the flame.” Don’t you see it’s too late for that? It’s too late for everything.” He rose and began prowling restlessly around the room, leaving me still sitting, helpless and uncertain, on the floor. He began picking things up and putting them down again, a candlestick, a paperweight. He went to stand by the window, looking out. His back to me. He muttered something to himself, but I couldn’t be sure what it was. It sounded like, “I’m so fucking worthless.”
“I seduced you,” I reminded him. “I talked you into it. Remember?”
He glanced over at me with a horrible leer.
“Brontë the rapist?” Hollow laugh. “I don’t think so. I groomed you. I plied you with drink, I wooed you with gifts. It was always my responsibility. It was always my idea. My obsession.” He shuddered. “I knew it was wrong. Your conscience is the part that hurts when everything else feels good.”
He opened the window and shouted out into the rainy afternoon, “I fucked my little sister!”
I pulled him back and slammed the window. This craziness was disturbing.
“You have to calm down. It was an accident. A mistake. You’re always saying sins can be forgiven. It’s not the sin against the Holy Ghost.” Trevor’s told me no one agrees what that sin is, but whatever it is, it can’t be incest.
For a frightening moment he seemed to contemplate striking me. Then he gave me a terrible, sly look I will never forget. It was a look of contemptuous abandonment. He thought I was abandoning him because my love had never been as big as his.
“Remember how I spanked you and you hated me? Turns out that’s the only thing I did right. I should have spanked you and spanked you, even if it drove you away. Instead, I fucked you.”
I recoiled. You can’t argue with a person who’s out of his mind. Plus, he’s way stronger than me. “That’s the kind of big brother I am,” he went on. “You can come to me for anything, but you’ll only get one thing. Now I have to challenge myself to a duel.”
He laughed. “What a worthless loser.”
Those were Oz’s favorite insults. Worthless. Loser.
I was still casting about for ways to save him. He liked church so much. He believed in it. He always wanted to go more than any of the rest of us, even Colleen.
“Why don’t we get a priest?” I offered. “Tell him everything. Confess and repent. Don’t you believe that? The priest can’t tell on us, he has to keep it secret. We say we’re sorry and he absolves us. Then we separate and promise never to do it again.”
He looked into my face hungrily.
“I don’t think I can promise that,” he said, and he began kissing me. Not like an older brother. For a scary minute I thought we might end up having sex right there.
At that point I didn’t know what to do. It’s not like I had never heard of addiction, but how do you manage it? I was afraid of him now. He was too much for me. It’s seductive to love someone who knows you so well, but they also know your defenses. There’s no retreat, no privacy.
Time to make up my mind. Who did I want, anyway, the older brother who cared for me, sheltered me, promoted my interests, looked after me but saw himself justified in correcting me, or the lover who adored my body and whispered eternal devotion in my ear? Restless under bondage, I had chosen the lover, but only because like the vine that’s part of pole it clings to, I couldn’t imagine myself without him.
Fortunately his powerful will stopped him just in time.
“See?” he said, “You’re just bursting with self-control.”
It wasn’t fair of him to accuse me! I was fighting for air, trying to stay on top, riding his madness the way Oz rode the bulls, rode the hurricanes. I did it because I had to; Oz did it because they were the most dangerous things he could find. Besides himself.
Trevor began slamming his fist against the wall, so hard his knuckles bled, crying with each blow, “We—knew—it—was—wrong.”
I was afraid someone would hear us and come in. Where were Shelly and Jake, anyway? Probably down in the gym fighting over the oblique machine.
I no longer knew if I was winning or losing.
“Let’s go to Reverend Beasley,” I urged, “We’ll tell him. Ask him to forgive us.”
“Yes, someone will have to know,” Trevor agreed. The old Trevor looked desperately out at me, a prisoner behind the shadowed eye sockets. “Come here.”
I didn’t want him to see my hesitation as he reached out, enfolded me in his arms and hugged me. I tried not to shrink away.
“I’m sorry about you,” he said. “This has all been so terrible for you. I promised always to take care of you and never to hurt you, and look what I did.”
This latest persona caught me so off guard I burst into tears. It felt good to cry.
“It’s been terrible,” I agreed. “Don’t you see it isn’t our fault? Oz lied to us on purpose. He played with us like he always plays with people.”
“Children think untruth is the worst thing,” Trevor assured me, stroking my hair. “You know what’s worse? Being in charge and making the wrong decision. Having to live with that.” His pain seemed to have eased, so I pressed on.
“I know there’s a way out of this,” I said. I think I had some kind of confused vision of shaved heads and saffron robes. We should leave this place, this accursed haunted house. Burn it to the ground. Give Skylar the money. Writers work better when they’re dispossessed. Some would argue it’s a precondition.
“Of course there is,” said Trevor, kissing the top of my head. “You’re absolved. You were always innocent. Go in peace.”
I was so scared for him. Did he think he was God, or at the very least, Reverend Beasley? Trevor was the last member of our family I would have speculated was in any danger of going insane, but here we both were in looney-town.
I tried agreeing with him. Maybe that would work. “You’re absolved, too.” I echoed. “I mean, it’s not one of the worst sins, is it? It’s a sin of love. Don’t they call sex one of the “warm” sins? I mean, it’s love. It isn’t murder.”
He stared at me intently. “Oh, it’s murder all right,” he said. “It’s murder, too. Go over there and sit down. You need to be very grown up right now.”
I was beginning to cringe like a dog at this “sit down” command because something terrible always followed, but in truth I was glad to get away from him.
I pulled up a chair. We were eye-to-eye, face-to-face. He held my hands.
“I’m sorry about all of it,” he said. “Believe me; I didn’t intend for any it to happen. Not this way.” “What?” I tried to brace myself for something awful. What could be more awful than what we had already lived through?
“I killed Colleen,” he said.
At first I couldn’t comprehend the actual words. I could see his mouth moving, but it didn’t seem to be English. I creased my forehead, making a supreme effort to understand. “I killed Colleen,” he emphasized.
Then I got it. Then I understood. It was the Jesus thing. He was going to take on Oz’ sin and rescue Oz. He was feeling damned, so he would offer himself up as a sacrifice to get his soul back. That would be his penance. If he was in jail for the rest of his life he wouldn’t have to worry about self-control, or lack of it, would he? On top of that he’d be getting constant punishment all over the place.
Now it was Trevor who needed rescue. It would be so cruel if Trevor’s fetish for playing the knight in shining armor became his own undoing. Oz had blinded his son with lies, replaced him with this sacrificial mock-up. Trevor was the replicant.
Our father. No, his father, I rejected that DNA. How Oz must have exulted in his good fortune at having a son so hungry for serious responsibility, so much easier to manipulate than that not-very-bright, self-obsessed clone Jake.
I knew I had to choose my words carefully to find the ones that were most effective. Get him to see that in his father’s lifelong quest to sharpen and rarefy his own exquisite appetites, Oz had turned into a monster. Oz’s deliberate wildness meant he alone reserved the right to teeth and claws. Could I sell this concept to poor blind Trevor? He’s too accustomed to thinking that he’s the only one who can see things clearly.
Couldn’t he understand that we had already suffered enough, that even our most memorable celebrations were games played in a graveyard?
Now the puppeteer was in jail where he belonged. With luck there would be no money for appeals. I refused Oz’s fathership. Now I treasured the elusive Mr. Barringer – in the permanence of his absence, he was anyone I wanted. Even if I was in truth my father’s daughter, I must be also my mother’s.
So I had to try.
“This is all Oz’ fault,” I began. My hands were hot; his hands were so cold, lying passively in mine. He stared into my eyes, downloading his soul into mine, as if he’d have no need of it again. “Maybe,” agreed Trevor. He continued smiling in that oddly distant manner. Was he drifting too far from me? “Don’t you see that’s a ‘chicken and egg’ argument? Maybe it’s all Oz’ father’s fault. Maybe it’s Cain’s fault. Maybe Cain was Adam’s fault. At some point somebody has got to accept responsibility.”
It’s usually a bad sign when a conversation goes Biblical. I felt dizzy, as if the oxygen in the room was slowly being replaced by some poisonous substance.
I tried changing the subject.
“I think Oz may have killed my mother,” I suggested.
“Oh, I know he did,” said Trevor. “He told me. But he didn’t kill Colleen. He shouldn’t go to jail for a crime that I committed. That wouldn’t be right.”
I just stared at him. Speechless.
“Colleen was contemplating abandoning us,” said Trevor. “I protected you from knowing how bad it was. She had already abandoned you.”
There seemed no way to stop this runaway craziness. My mind was a blank. I massaged his limp hands, trying to push life into them, the way he had pushed his life into me. Isn’t love a question of balance, of who at any given moment has more to give? This time he was the needy one. “You can’t have done it,” I told him. I’d boss him, the way he bossed me.
“I gave her chance after chance. I gave her plenty of chances. It was bad enough that she wouldn’t put you through Napier—“
“I hated Napier,” I interrupted. “I didn’t want to go. They threw me out, remember? I was happier in public school.”
He shushed me. In his upside-down world what I thought or wanted was of no importance. “This is not about happiness, you poor idiot,” he corrected. “Or we would never escape the sty. You needed to graduate from a decent school and she didn’t care. She could have gone to bat for you, could have talked them out of it. Other parents do it all the time. She chose not to. I overlooked the real pearls just for Skylar, all the designer clothes. Always Skylar had to have everything just a little bit better. When Colleen said you should go to the University of Arizona just because it was free, when she said she wasn’t going to sell any more stock options but was keeping them for retirement, that was it for me. That’s when I lost it.”
“I didn’t mind any of it,” I protested. How to explain to him about writers and dispossession? “It was OK with me, OK with Shelley, too. We got it. Skylar was Colleen’s real daughter.”
He looked at me as I’d just said I’d be perfectly happy eating junk food for the rest of my life. “Unfortunately your tastes are notoriously degraded,” he lectured. “It isn’t up to you to see what you can live without. It’s up to me to get the best for you.” His face contorted. “Oz did fail us. Oz was a wimp. He couldn’t stand up to her. And that wasn’t all of it. She wanted to sell this house. She was angry about the termites. She as much as said our family wasn’t worth it. She actually had a realtor come over and give her a quote. She said once we were all in college there was nothing keeping them here.”
“But the house was Oz’ too. They would have to make the decision together.”
“But don’t you see? She was manipulating Oz. It’s like blackmail.”
“No one could manipulate Oz,” I scoffed.
“She could. She called the police on him. She knew all about him and she had all the money. He’d already spent all his money, buying this place, taking care of her. Of us. He was too generous.” I certainly understood Colleen wanting to flee to some small apartment. If she wanted a rest, she was entitled to one. It’s harder picturing Oz in a condo. He requires an estate, a kingdom. A principality. But how to get Trevor to see that a hovel is better than a blood-spattered swimming-pool?
Trevor continued, “Oz told me what he had done to your mother, all those years ago. For exactly the same reason, I might add. She was threatening to separate us. She had no idea what a proper upbringing was all about! She was going to take you to the States – thanks for all your assistance, bye bye and have a nice life. She would have raised you Catholic! She knew he couldn’t afford to follow. She just looked on him as a stud. Of course it made him angry. What she didn’t know was that he had set himself free from the “cult” of the “mother”. He knew he was the better parent.
“You’re above that, Brontë, you were raised better, you’re not familiar with the way those women think. It’s greed. They misinterpret gentility as docility. They force men to get rough with them. “What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is mine.” A man takes up arms. That’s the definition of a man; he’s a tool-using animal.
“So he stood up to her, and she wound up dead. Tell some people the truth and their heads explode. He knew he’d been clever. He knew I was the only one who could appreciate what he’d done, knew I was the only one he could tell. Seemed foolproof to me. Your mother didn’t even have an autopsy! Of course people would think it was an accident. Brilliant! It happened overseas, years ago, so I didn’t think there would be anyone besides Oz who even remembered it.
“That’s why I suggested we get the pool repaired before your graduation. The Urquhart’s party was the perfect opportunity. I knew Colleen wouldn’t go because, after all, it was only for the kind of people whose children go to public school. I thought Oz would be out, or at least spending the night on his computer like he always does.
“Pretending to get drunk was easy. No one even knows what you’re drinking if you never put down your glass. Fayette didn’t want anything to do with me because I acted like I might throw up on her. When all eyes were elsewhere, I ran through all the back yards and no one saw me except Woofer and Tweeter. They’d never bite me. They’re my buddies.
“Colleen always stepped out for a smoke before going to bed, and I thought I could rely on her to be too cheap to turn the pool lights on. I was exactly right. I went up to her and said I had something important that she ought to see. She came right away. When she asked me what I was doing home I just said it was a bad party and I’d left early. She thought I’d had a fight with Fayette. She—“
“What about Oz?”
“What about him?” Trevor halted in full spate. “It never even occurred to me that he would be suspected. I figured actual innocence is always the best defense; I never thought the police would frame an innocent man just because they didn’t like his lifestyle. Call me naive. I admit it. The only evidence against him that amounts to anything is in your mother’s case.
“What happened to the benefit of the doubt? I mean it could have been an accident. We’ve got all those experts to say so. What are they, idiots? If it has to be murder, then why couldn’t someone break into the back yard to kill her, climbing the fence, which is what really happened?
“But they never gave a damn about anything except proving it was Oz. Without me stepping in, that jury is going to convict him. It’s been a real education in American jurisprudence I can tell you. Forget ever being a lawyer. I don’t know how those guys can stand themselves. Being a used car salesman would be far more honorable.”
“As he spoke his inner rage was building. His face had darkened under ancient bruises. I thought suddenly of the time a deer wandered through the gates and got trapped in the pool house. It went crazy in its new environment; we found skin and blood and broken glass everywhere. Oz said later it fought to the death against its own reflection.
I believed Trevor now. I had to. It was a depraved heart murder after all. Trevor was the lion Oz teased and tormented, then loosed upon the world.
At last I saw the threat Trevor tried protecting me from for all those years. He had met the enemy, and he had become him.
“How could you call yourself a Christian and kill Colleen?” I demanded. Everyone’s a freakin’ hypocrite! Even Trevor.
He sighed. “People won’t read scripture. They’ll do anything to get out of it, and as a result, they’re uninformed. God says, sometimes what’s necessary is not peace, but the sword.” I turned away so he couldn’t see the tears in my eyes.
“It couldn’t have been a sword. So what did you hit her with?” Ten thousand spots of blood. How could anyone actually do something like that to another human being? Someone who’d loved them? How could he?
He worked his jaw furiously, remembering.
“One of Bobby Urquhart’s titanium golf clubs,” he said. “At least, it was supposed to be titanium, but do you know it broke? It was probably adulterated – everything’s worthless nowadays. That scrappy Colleen wouldn’t die. I had to keep hitting her. I was so surprised when I heard those two women had the same number of cuts on their heads. Made me feel close to Oz. I thought I hit her at least a hundred times. I had to keep hitting her because she kept getting up. It was like we were mechanical figures, marionettes on a cuckoo clock. I was committed to keep hitting her as long as she was committed to getting up. My arms ached for days.
“Looking back on it, she should have pretended to be dead. That would have fooled me because I was so eager to get out of there. All that courtroom crap about waiting for her to bleed out was bull. I’d worked the timing out to a half an hour. Nobody thinks anything about losing sight of somebody at a party for a half an hour. As far as all the other drunks know, you’re still there. People lose all sense of time.
“Plus they automatically lie about where they are, who they’re with and what they’ve been doing, at a party. God knows how long that killing really took. While I was in the thick of it I was so afraid you’d come out at sunrise and I’d still be there, slugging away. You’d think these women would be delicate. Oz said after the initial push he scarcely touched your mother at all.
“But with Colleen I was up against that white-trash ancestry, that half-Injun great-grandfather of hers who worked along the railroad. The minute she stayed down I gave thanks and lit out running. I put the golf club safely in the Urquhart’s trash, but old Mrs. Urquhart actually saw me in my bloody clothes. Asked me if I’d had an accident. I said Fayette had thrown a vase at me, and that was almost true. It just happened on another night. Mrs. Urquhart was the one who insisted on getting me Bobby’s clothes to wear. Said he wouldn’t even miss them and I guess he didn’t because he never asked for them.
“Blue shirt, blue blazer, khaki pants, striped tie. Everyone has those. I knew old Mrs. Urquhart would never think of talking to the police. She said something about “going to the beach house” so I assumed she’d be out of town. I just put my bloody clothes in a garbage bag with rest of the Urquhart’s party trash. Must be in a landfill somewhere. The ridiculous thing is that the police could have found everything they were looking for if for one second they’d opened their minds to the possibility that it might have been anyone but Oz. They just took against him from day one.”
People do have that reaction, and that’s definitely Oz’s fault. Oz cultivates it. I walked to the window. I was afraid if Trevor touched me, he would feel my fear of him.
“I saw you in different clothes,” I said wonderingly. “But I figured you’d been sick. There was a lot of that going on.”
Trevor, the designated driver, can play a terrific drunk when he has to. He sure fooled me. I remember putting my arms around him, helping him upstairs. That was the first time I’d taken care of Trevor.
Had I fallen for him at that second, as I contemplated the power of role reversal? Funny how many true things come out of lies. Lies are hard as cement, but the jungle of truth keeps growing insistently up right through it. The deeper I fell into Trevor, the less I really knew him. I had lost the writer’s advantage, being on the outside looking in.
“They’re not going to convict Oz,” he told me solemnly. “Don’t worry, I won’t let it come to that.” I felt completely helpless. Oz had finally done it. He had committed the perfect crime, the one where you get someone else to do it for you without even asking them, and then they’re glad to take the fall. How had Trevor not realized that of course they would come after Oz in force? He believed what he wanted to believe, just like the rest of us. Face it — Oz absent, me in Trevor’s bed and himself helming the household, wasn’t that irresistible, lifelong dream? He would never see it but I couldn’t give up.
“Oz made you do this, don’t you see? He used us. He made us do everything.” Thus I threw to the winds those magic nights. I had to.
Trevor’s face took on that frozen Praetorian dog-like stare. Impenetrable by such as me. “With his hypnotic powers?” Trevor shook his head. ”That’s not the way it works, Brontë. I don’t hold with this fashion of being the victim, blaming authority for everything and you shouldn’t either. Of course we’re programmed, we’re all programmed. But we also have free will. I’ve had more of that than most. I’ve always been able to do whatever I wanted to do. No one put that golf club in my hand. I’d like to be sorry. I’d like to wish it all away. Every time I think of those things Colleen was saying about you—if you knew—“ his jaw worked angrily. “When she saw you with that dreadlocked dude, she said you’d gone “native”.”
I couldn’t believe Colleen would ever badmouth me to Trevor. The most she would have done was compare me unfavorably to Skylar. He should have taken it in stride. “I bet Oz told you that, right?”
Oz had played him, no mistake. Oz knew Trevor’s weakness. And Trevor’s weakness was me. “Oz told me everything,” said Trevor confidently, conveniently forgetting that something Trevor could have really benefited from knowing – namely that we were brother and sister – was a deep-dyed secret until only yesterday. If I reminded him, he would only make excuses, better ones than Oz could be bothered to think up for himself.
That withholding look suffused Trevor’s face. He would never let me win this argument. He retreated from me, cutting off my power like yanking a light cord.
Alysse Aallyn 