The Good Sister Page 6

  “I’d have to agree with that.”

  No one, not even Ty, knew Roxanne better than Elizabeth.

  On the first day of student orientation at San Diego State University, a searing hot Friday blowing up a Santa Ana wind, Roxanne met Elizabeth Banks: best friends forever, soul mates, the daring duo. If they had met a few years earlier Roxanne would have been distracted by Simone’s demands; a few years later and their lives would have veered off in different directions. Instead they stood next to each other in line on a day when each was carbonated with excitement, full of hope and a little scared but eager too for new experiences and someone to share them with.

  They were as different as two eighteen-year-old girls from the poles of California could be. Roxanne tall and thin, buttoned-down and orderly, Elizabeth a blue-eyed blonde, pretty in a preppy way, but with a flamboyantly slapdash personality that completely contradicted her appearance. She lived by a collection of New Age beliefs she seemed to make up as she went along. Her parents, Santa Cruz academics, and her two ungoverned younger brothers took Roxanne in like a stray and found in her orderly ways much to amaze and amuse them.

  Elizabeth persuaded Roxanne to ditch orientation. They bought sodas and sprawled on a patch of yellowing lawn outside the Aztec Center.

  “Tell me everything about your life,” Elizabeth said.

  No one had ever made such a request of Roxanne. She started talking and couldn’t stop. At one point she surprised herself, saying, “If Mom had her way, I’d stay home and babysit Simone for the rest of my life.”

  “Omigod! I’d die. I’d slit my wrists.” Elizabeth fell back on the grass, arms spread wide like a sacrifice, then sat up. “What do you do for a life?”

  For a long time that question had been living in the suburbs of Roxanne’s mind, but she had only surveyed it from a distance, never let herself visit the possibility that life might hold more than caretaking her sister. The mantra that had calmed her down and restored her patience when it flagged was all about the future. There would be time for that when she was out of high school, was out of college, had a job and could support herself. On that hot day Elizabeth invigorated her like a breath of Arctic air, announcing with the one hundred percent confidence that seemed to characterize her, “Your future begins today!”

  Riding the energy of her new friend’s outrage, Roxanne went that same night to her stepfather, BJ, and asked him to intervene for her with Ellen and persuade her to let Roxanne live in a dorm on campus instead of at home as originally planned. He agreed, and following several noisy discussions with Ellen behind closed doors, he prevailed. As if Roxanne were moving to South America and not just across town, Simone wept and screamed; and from then on she nagged Roxanne to come home, calling at all hours of the day and night. She was relentless. Ellen offered money and a new car if she came back. In retrospect, Roxanne was surprised she hadn’t succumbed and knew she had Elizabeth to thank.

  A sluggish waitress in a hairnet and a ruffled white apron over a uniform the color of dried blood paused to refill their coffee mugs.

  When she had moved on, Elizabeth said, “You should have gone to Chicago. If Eddie were here I wouldn’t let him out of my sight.”

  Elizabeth’s husband was a Marine in Afghanistan and had been gone for seven months. Early in his deployment Elizabeth had gone through a time when she was fragile and couldn’t speak of Eddie without tearing up; now, after months apart, she had learned a stoic resignation unimaginable in the vibrantly impatient girl Roxanne had met the first day of orientation.

  “I’m such a jackass, Liz, going on and on when you’ve got real things to worry about.”

  “This morning I thought I heard him say my name. It was a dream, of course, but you’ve got to pay attention to dreams. You never know what they might mean. I keep thinking maybe his spirit might be trying to get through to me.” Under the fluorescent light her eyes shimmered. “What if he’s dead and I don’t know it? No, I’m sure I’d know. We’re too connected. I’d know, I’d have to know.”

  Roxanne didn’t know what to say to this. Her own concerns seemed trivial compared to her friend’s.

  Elizabeth said, “There are a lot of hard things about military life, but the one you don’t hear so much about is the way it stalls your life. Couples like Eddie and me who don’t have kids or a lot of years together, we have a hard time believing in our marriages sometimes. I mean, how long did we have together, just normal married life? Not even four months. And now we’ve been apart twice that long. We’re missing out on all the little things that build a marriage….” She stared down at her plate. “Sometimes it makes me so sad, thinking about the years we’re wasting.”

  “I don’t know what that means. Build a marriage?”

  “Sure you do. It means going to Chicago or wherever. If you had a great job offer in Fargo, he’d go with you. That’s right, isn’t it?”

  Now she was cross with Elizabeth. At this rate she’d end up with no friends and no family except Simone.

  “I love my sister.”

  Elizabeth groaned. “I am so sick of hearing you say that, Roxanne. The loving thing to do would be to let that girl go.”

  Roxanne saw Simone overboard, the Oriole flying past. Even Elizabeth could not understand how she was her sister’s life jacket.

  “You’re on his side.”

  “Side, shmide. Listen to me, Roxanne. It’s time for you to take care of yourself.”

  Conversations going on in other booths were a low, congenial hum occasionally syncopated by laughter. It seemed that only Roxanne had brought her troubles to breakfast.

  “Angels are real,” Elizabeth was saying. “I’m convinced of it, only they don’t have wings and halos and all. They take the form of the people who come into our lives. Like I was an angel for you when we first met because if that hadn’t happened, you’d probably still be living at home.”

  They had talked about this before. Roxanne liked the idea of Elizabeth as a pretty blond angel flying into her life, tucking her wings and robe away, putting on jeans and a glittery T-shirt.

  “And then Ty came and he was the angel who told you it was okay to get married and have a family of your own.” She laughed. “An angel named Tyrone. But I think you’ve had your share of heavenly assistance. Now it’s up to you, Roxanne. You have to be your own angel.”

  Chapter 6

  During the rest of July and most of August Roxanne often paused to be thankful that Merell’s 911 call and Ty’s Chicago trip had occurred in the same week, forcing a crisis that, however difficult, seemed to have given new and stronger life to her marriage. When Simone whined that Roxanne hadn’t been to see her, when she nagged Roxanne to shop for her, read to her, play rummy, or wash her hair, Roxanne could say aloud that breaking free of Simone was the most difficult thing she’d ever done, but it was happening.

  There were times that August when Roxanne was aware of the slow unfolding, untwisting of herself. She slept late and read on the deck while she drank her morning coffee and worked in the garden, up to her elbows in compost and mulch. She’d read somewhere that gardeners were by nature optimistic because they believed in the future. That described Roxanne that summer. On weekends she and Ty hiked all their favorite trails in the Cuayamaca and Laguna Mountains, explored shops and restaurants in beachfront towns from San Diego to Dana Point. They laughed, made love, and were happier together than they had ever been. They talked about having a baby. No longer yoked to Simone, no longer the always-responsible sister-caretaker, Roxanne would be a wife and mother, as ordinary and wonderful as that.

  They did not say much about Chicago as they waited for the formal job offer they were sure would come. But as days became weeks and no word arrived, the subject became a tender spot, a pinched nerve they favored by avoidance. When the call finally came from a biologist who would have been Ty’s colleague and who had been particularly supportive of his candidacy, it took less than three minutes to lift up their life and drop it down
in a new direction.

  Ty put down the phone, went into the kitchen, and poured himself a tall glass of ice water from the refrigerator. Roxanne stayed where she was in the living room, folding laundry, biting the inside of her lip.

  “They gave it to a guy from Harvard.” He stood in the arch between the two rooms, his expression unreadable. “Edgar Lessing.”

  “Ty, I’m so sorry.” She had never wanted to go to Chicago, but equally as much she wanted Ty to be valued by the world as he deserved to be.

  “I know him. He’s a good man. Probably a smart choice.”

  “They should have given it to you.” She threw a T-shirt into the basket unfolded. “Were there any reasons?”

  “They didn’t think my heart was in it.”

  “Your heart?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I think it’s a way of saying something and nothing at the same time.”

  A look of puzzled disappointment flickered across his expression and was gone, like the shadow of a moth by candlelight. Then, as she watched, his expression reshaped itself into a mask of neutrality. She understood and didn’t blame him for not wanting to deconstruct his time in Chicago, for not wanting to analyze the interviews or parse the conversations. Roxanne knew the kind of thing that might have been said in public twenty years ago: If a man’s heart was in the job, where was the wife? Why wasn’t she there to support him? Probably the same thing was said now in private and unofficially.

  Days passed and Ty had almost nothing to say beyond the smallest of small talk, which was somehow worse than if he had not spoken at all. It seemed to Roxanne that either the house had shrunk around them, or they had grown large and clumsy as they hadn’t been before. They stepped around each other carefully, were excessively polite, and apologized for things that didn’t matter—mail left in the box out front, a single unwashed glass abandoned on the kitchen counter. She had no idea if this was how Ty normally processed disappointment or if he was angry with her or, as she thought more likely, a combination of the two ate at him. His thoughts had voices. She heard him accusing and regretting her. Finally she could stand it no longer.

  “You’re disappointed, Ty. I know. I feel like it’s my fault. If I had gone with you…”

  “It’s over, Roxanne. Let it go.”

  “Please, talk to me.”

  “There’s no point, Roxanne.”

  His curt responses infuriated her and she began to harden against him. Conversations were like rooms, she realized. She had opened the door but it was up to him to walk through, and when he wouldn’t she felt as insulted as if he’d looked in, seen nothing of interest or importance, and walked away.

  Roxanne began spending more time with Simone just to get out of the house, and although she knew she was moving backward, that the distance between her and Ty grew in relation to the hours she spent with Simone, she did it anyway.

  She wasn’t going to beg.

  One day at the end of August Roxanne was getting ready to go home after spending the afternoon with her sister while Nanny Franny took the children to SeaWorld. As she was leaving she met Johnny coming into the kitchen from the garage. He opened his arms wide, enveloping her.

  “Rox, what’re you doing here?”

  “I took the twins to the dentist. Nanny Franny took them to SeaWorld for a reward. No cavities.”

  “That girl makes them brush morning and night.”

  “I made an appointment for Simone. I don’t think she’s had her teeth cleaned in years. You can see the tartar.”

  “You’re a good sister, Roxanne. I really appreciate all the stuff you do. Come on in to the study and have a drink with me.”

  “I’m on my way home.”

  “Gin and tonic, right?”

  He was a big, handsome, smiling bulldozer with a nearly irresistible flash, an incandescence that stopped conversations when he walked into a room. In the beginning it had been hard for Roxanne to trust a man so charming, so good-looking; but over the years her doubts had been vanquished by his obvious devotion to Simone and his family. He had a temper, of course, a streak of meanness that could cut; but Roxanne had learned to avoid that.

  In his study the desk was littered with building plans and specifications, envelopes, files, and stuffed manila envelopes. Roxanne hoped he never had to find anything fast. Pictures of Johnny with the governor, the mayor, and both California senators hung on the wall beside photos of Simone and the girls, Johnny’s sisters and parents.

  Roxanne let herself be guided to a comfortably worn leather chair.

  “Put your feet up,” Johnny said, shoving the hassock toward her. “You’re a schoolteacher. Schoolteachers have tired feet.”

  It was a very Johnny thing to say. He wanted her to feel welcome and appreciated, but Roxanne doubted if he knew when school started or if he’d ever given teachers and tired feet a moment’s consideration before the thought came conveniently, charmingly, to his mind.

  He spoke from behind the wet bar. “How was Merell today?”

  “Every time I looked for her, she had her nose in a book.”

  He handed her a crystal highball glass bubbling with tonic water. “That stuff last month, I knew it’d blow over, although I still don’t know quite what happened. You and me both know Merell’s too smart to call 911 for no reason.”

  What Roxanne knew was that smart children could do crazy things in a family where there wasn’t enough grown-up attention to go around. The best nanny in the world could not take the place of a loving parent.

  She said, “I think… It’s possible that maybe she’s feeling a little lost. All the babies… and Simone. She probably wanted attention.”

  Johnny frowned and stared into his drink.

  “I see it all the time, Johnny.” Roxanne wanted to take away any hint of blame. “It’s so easy to overlook smart, capable kids. We tend to forget they’re still children.”

  She told Johnny about a harried single mother she’d met at a parent-teacher conference. Though her boy had just turned thirteen, he was already taller than six feet, pushing two hundred pounds, and shaving twice a week. But he was a good kid, academically and socially one of the best.

  “I asked his mom what her secret was. She said, ‘Just because he’s big doesn’t mean he don’t need hugs.’ ”

  As she spoke she thought of Ty, of the unresponsive mask he had worn since the call from Chicago. It was hard to believe in love when it was hidden.

  Johnny said, sounding miffed, “Merell knows I love her.”

  “It wouldn’t hurt to remind her.”

  Not for weeks had Roxanne and Ty looked at each other in the way that said I see you, I know you, I love you.

  Johnny said, “You know, I can almost tell you the exact moment when I fell in love with your sister.” His smile was neon, melting worries about the 911 call and little girls in need. “The parking lot at Mesa was completely empty except for this little yellow BMW convertible sitting by its lonesome under one of those sulfur-colored parking lot lights, and this incredible girl was standing next to it looking so vulnerable. She’d locked herself out and her cell phone in. I woulda helped her no matter who she was, but you can’t imagine how beautiful and helpless she looked. I fell in love right then.”

  Roxanne thought, you wanted a helpless wife and that’s what you got. Ty wanted just the opposite, an independent woman who loved her work. At least that was what he said. Now it seemed he would prefer a wife willing to drop everything and follow him like a pet dog. Oh, it wasn’t so, he didn’t want that, and she hated thinking this way.

  Johnny didn’t notice her distraction.

  “After I got the door open, I asked her to have coffee with me. I didn’t think she’d say yes. I mean I was a total stranger to her and she was so young. Eighteen, yeah, but a young eighteen. I was what? Twenty-nine? I’d been dating a long time, and I’d never met any woman so feminine but what got me was her innocence. It was like some
one clobbered me.”

  For the first time in days Roxanne wanted to laugh out loud. What would Johnny do if someone told him he’d been duped, that Simone’s innocence was an act? Right away she knew the answer. He wouldn’t believe it. Roxanne barely did herself.

  On the night Simone and Johnny met in the parking lot and after they’d spent an hour at Starbucks, Roxanne was in the apartment she shared with Elizabeth. It was close to midnight and she hadn’t finished grading a pile of essays. Elizabeth was in her room, surfing the Web, visiting the various reincarnation and angel visitation sites she favored.

  Someone pounded on the front door, Roxanne dropped her red pencil, and Elizabeth came out of her bedroom followed by her barking miniature schnauzer.

  Roxanne looked through the peephole, opened the door, and stepped back as Simone ran into the room.

  “Roxy, I’m in love. I met the most wonderful man.”

  Elizabeth laughed, picked up the dog, and went back into her room.

  “He’s twenty-nine years old and he has his own business and he’s the most handsome and so polite. He’s a gentleman like BJ, you know. He opens the door and that kinda stuff. He made me feel like a doll, like I could break.” She wrapped her arms around Roxanne, squeezing hard enough to bruise. “I’m going to marry him. He wants to take care of me.”

  “He said that?”

  “No. But I can tell.”

  She danced around the small apartment, spinning and dipping and pirouetting, singing his name over and over. “Johnny Duran, Johnny Duran, he’s the sexiest man, Johnny Duran.”

  Somewhere in the house Celia was running the vacuum cleaner and the television was on in the family room though no one was watching it. Roxanne started to say it was time for her to go home but Johnny interrupted her, switching back to Merell.

  “After that 911 shit I talked to the chief and God almighty we’re lucky he’s a good friend. He said if Merell was his he’d get her a shrink. You think that’s a good idea?” Before she answered, he went on. “I don’t like the idea of psychiatrists, bringing a stranger into the family doesn’t sit right, you know? It’s like when you’re measuring and by accident you add an extra inch. It throws everything out of whack.”