with, “Is Sylvia bringing the girls?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe not. She’s stopping to pick up Celeste. Are you two going to be okay?”
There. Lay it right out on the cutting table, pin it down repeatedly, pick up the sheers and rip through the fabric. Nataly felt it was hotter than it had a right to be, this early February afternoon. Up ahead it was blindingly blue, a shimmer of shore appearing sporadically through the marine layer.
“Are we going to be okay?” Nataly echoed.
“It would mean so much if you two could just, you know, be kind to each other. Is that asking so much?”
The traffic stalled. Nataly’s Altima shook. She thought of Celeste—Celeste under the tree, blossoms falling around her. Celeste and Michael at their wedding. Skye. By the time of Celeste’s graduation from Humboldt State, Nataly felt Celeste had abandoned them, her most of all. Celeste, all brains and money and contempt.
“I am always kind,” Nataly said, shifting gears and exiting the crammed freeway, sure of an alternate route.
Sylvia passed the statue of John Wayne twice before spotting the spiky short hair of her sister Celeste, head tilted downwards, tapping on her PDA, a deceptively simple beige coat over her arm (Sylvia knew it was cashmere), the ever-present black Longchamps bag hanging on a shoulder. Sylvia rolled down the car window and called, “Hey, lady, you want a ride!” Celeste looked up, the hint of a wry smile starting.
“I meant to meet you at the gate, I’m so sorry,” she said, as Celeste threw a bag in the trunk.
Celeste, peering in the back seat. “Where’s the rest of you?”
“Honestly, it just seemed like an endurance event. Jack’s busy, of course, but my friend Tamara said to leave them with her and not to worry.”
“New car?”
Another sigh from Sylvia, “Yeah, long story, Jack says it’s cheaper in the long run.”
Celeste left that unchallenged. Jack certainly had an idiosyncratic approach to money. It was too soon to bring all that up. Celeste just wanted some time with Sylvia. She didn’t want to talk about the money, about what she’d found, about what she was worried about.
Sylvia frowned. “I’m so happy to see you it hurts. Why do you live so damn far away?” Sylvia shook her head and squeezed her sister’s hand. Here was sanity, here was composure. “You up for today?”
“I really feel bad that you made this detour for me. I could’ve gotten a taxi, a shuttle, something.”
“I couldn’t let you do that. I would feel like a terrible sister. Really, I’m doing this for me. You staying the night?”
Celeste nodded.
“In that case I’m not going to be able to drive you back here. How you doin’? You gonna be all right? With Nataly, I mean?”
Celeste looked at the clock on the dash. “We’ve got plenty of time. But whenever we get there, I’m stopping at the bar for a drink first.”
Sylvia nodded. “Oui, mon capitaine.” Sylvia signaled and looked over her shoulder. Their new van had terrible rear visibility, but Jack liked the size of it, its statement.
“Tea at the Ritz was Nataly’s idea?” Celeste said, fussing with the seat belt, flipping down the visor to check her eye makeup, glancing left at Sylvia, wondering if Sylvia would bring up the money or if she would have to. Why was it that whenever she came home, she wanted immediately to be somewhere—anywhere—else?
“Oh, you know, we get to talking with Mom, she says one thing to me, one thing to Nataly, it gets confused mid-translation and here we are, at the far edges of nowhere, convenient to no one. But with a beautiful view. Provided the sun pops out.”
During the forty-minute drive, the two women spoke of Sylvia’s children, Celeste’s business, books, movies, their mother. Neither sister brought up the pages of accounting that Sylvia had faxed Celeste two weeks earlier.
Celeste went directly to the bar.
“Ketel One martini, dry, with a twist.”
She watched Sylvia in the wide mirror. Sylvia stood in the lobby, unable to decide whether to wait there for Nataly and their mother or to go with Celeste into the bar.
The bartender shook the ice and alcohol, lips together in concentration. Celeste enjoyed this moment, the anticipation of the drink, the adroit curl of the lemon twist onto the rim of her cocktail glass. She felt the frozen stem between her fingers and tasted a little bit of icy heaven. Not too much vermouth, the vodka softened, not watered down, by the shaking.
Celeste loved the grandeur of luxury hotels, the elaborate flower arrangements, plush furniture, ornate fixtures. It all fostered an illusion of benevolent, impersonal wealth. A challenging pose to maintain.
Sylvia tugged at her shoulder bag. “They’re here.”
And so they were. They came into the bar to greet her—her mother in lilac and silver. Nataly in black with embroidery up the seam of her pants, bursts of range red and yellow, a sheer black top. Stunning. Gorgeous. Did Nataly know how beautiful she was?
Why had Celeste worried? It was all right. It was fine. They could try again.
“Are you two sisters?” Celeste said, repeating the line that had given her mother so much pleasure since they were tiny girls.
Her mother giggled in response. “Today, maybe we are,” she said.
Nataly scowled at Celeste. “You had to order a drink before we got here?” she asked in that familiar tone of judgment, as if she were in any position to judge anyone. All the love Celeste felt an instant earlier curdled and evaporated.
Celeste picked up her martini from the bar, took a sip, and smiled at Nataly. I could ask you how waiting tables is going or mention the failed exhibition you recently had, she thought. Instead, she turned to her mother and hugged her close, feeling her mother’s breastbone against her chest. “I’ve missed you,” she said.
“Ay, sweetheart, but not enough to move back home.”
Celeste stiffened, disentangled herself, picked up her martini and walked with it to the elaborate table set for four.
Nataly inspected the chintz teapot, the silver tea strainer, the black lapsang souchong that the server poured. The server did a deft job of it too, not a drip or a trickle down the teacup or teapot to disturb or distract from the floral pattern. Nataly dissolved a misshapen lump of brownish sugar into her cup with a heavy silverplate teaspoon and sipped. The table, the settings, the people around her, her sisters, her mother, dissolved into amber. Even Celeste. The tea was warm, smoky and sweet. She inhaled the amber and felt herself about to dissolve as well until she heard Celeste talking to their mother about another bill she had gotten in their father’s name. “Just send it to me, I’ll take care of it.” Celeste said.
And she would too. She did everything she said she’d do. People like that, like Celeste, were fierce and frightening. But not to Nataly. She knew Celeste had constructed and surrounded herself in a plaster artifice. It was difficult to look at this Celeste. She wasn’t
