The Sisters Club Read online

  “Everyone,” Cindy took a deep breath, “this is Eddie.”

  • • •

  “Why do all parties, no matter how much space there is to spread out, always wind up in the kitchen?” Diana asked.

  “I don’t know,” Lise said. “I always figured it was a guy thing. Like maybe they’re waiting for the food to come out of the oven, or so they can be right next to the beer in the fridge?”

  “Maybe it is a guy thing,” Sylvia said, “but Cindy seems to favor the kitchen too.”

  The three women were out on the lawn, listening to the sounds of boisterous chatter from those on the inside.

  “And then I said,” they heard Eddie say, “‘I don’t like blind people, because they can’t drive cars!’”

  The kitchen exploded with laughter.

  “The men all seem to really like Eddie,” Lise observed.

  “It is funny, isn’t it?” Diana said. “I mean, they’re all so different from him. I don’t know what I expected, really. In the beginning, when Cindy first told us about him, I thought he sounded charming. Then, as time went on, I started getting an odd feeling when she talked about him. And then there was her hesitancy to tell him about the baby, as though something weren’t quite right there.”

  “I still don’t like him,” Sylvia said. “There’s something not kosher about that guy.”

  “But he’s so gorgeous,” Diana said. “I can easily see why someone like Cindy would fall for him. Isn’t he the kind of guy all young women dream about? A gorgeous guy who sings in a rock band?”

  “Listen to them all laughing at his jokes,” Lise added.

  “Lise says you play in a rock band,” they heard Tony say. “I always wished I had the guts to do that, put myself out there. It must be great.”

  “Oh, it is great, most of the time,” Eddie said. “But sometimes? It sucks. There was one time, we were playing this club in Brewster and this guy, Mickey, was sitting in front of the stage. Everyone in Danbury knows Mickey. He’s got these eyes that are so red, the cops might as well just arrest him every night, you know? Anyway, there I am onstage, trying to sing, and every five minutes Mickey keeps yelling, ‘You suck! We Break For Dogs’—that’s the name of my band—‘sucks!’ I knew he didn’t really mean it. I mean, he was just being Mickey, right? And the definition of Mickey is annoying. But who can sing with someone doing that? So finally, I leaned down from the stage, microphone in my hand, got right up in his face and screamed, ‘Hey, Mickey!’ Then I tilted the mic to him so the crowd could catch his stoned ‘What?’ before switching it back to myself and screaming, ‘Get your own fucking rock ’n’ roll band!’”

  For a long moment afterward, there was dead silence in the kitchen. Then the room exploded in laughter.

  “Oh, that is wonderful!” Sunny was heard to say. “Perhaps I should try that line on some of my patients who are always second-guessing me?”

  “Or I could use that on the dean,” Tony said. “He’s always talking like he could teach classes better than any of his staff, if only he had time to teach them all.”

  “There’s a man in Japan who’s been giving me grief,” Dan started to say.

  On the lawn, Diana couldn’t contain her glee. “What a perfect thing to say!” she laughed. “I’m going to try that out on Artemis the very next time she gets shirty with me about something. I’ll just say, ‘Artemis, you get your own fucking rock ’n’ roll band!’”

  “But she won’t get it,” Sylvia said. “There’s no context.”

  “So?” Diana was still laughing. “It’s the perfect all-purpose metaphor!”

  “I’d love to hear you play sometime,” Tony said to Eddie.

  “Actually, I’ve got my guitar right in the car,” Eddie said.

  “Oh,” Cindy said, “I don’t think it’s that kind of party—”

  “What are you talking about?” Eddie said. “Every party needs music.”

  “I’d like to hear you too,” Dan said. “Just don’t tell me to get my own fucking rock ’n’ roll band, OK?” he added, clapping Eddie on the shoulder.

  Eddie got his guitar from the car while everyone gathered outside. As he started to sing—a ballad he’d written called “Cindy” that was somehow elegiac and aggressive all at the same time—the women stood off to one side. His eyes shined as he looked at Cindy, and she smiled back at him with pride before turning to Sylvia.

  “So now you’re dating your doctor?” Cindy whispered.

  “We’re not dating,” Sylvia said. “We’re just friends. So we spend a little time together. What’s the big deal? And if I’m ever worried again that I might have breast cancer, I’ll just find another doctor.”

  “Just friends,” Diana laughed, “right.”

  “Do you see the way Sunny looks at you?” Lise said. “I remember when Tony and I were first together, he used to look at me like that.”

  “What do you mean ‘used to’?” Sylvia said. “And anyway, cut it out. This isn’t a date.”

  “That was incredible,” Tony spoke into the silence after Eddie stopped playing. “Your voice is amazing.”

  “You should be on that show all my nurses watch,” Sunny said. “You know the one I am talking about? Where everyone sings, but each week someone gets knocked off the show until there is only one person left standing?”

  “You must mean American Idol,” Dan said. “You’re right. Eddie could easily win that thing.”

  “I don’t think it’s quite that easy,” Eddie said, “and I wish, but there’s an age limit. Still, I keep writing the producers letters, telling them they oughta change that, so you never know.”

  “Do you think the other men really like him?” Diana whispered to Lise. “They’re all being so nice.”

  “Overly nice?” Lise questioned. Then she shook her head. “Tough to say. His stories are funny, and he does sing incredibly well.”

  The air took a sudden turn toward the chill as the sun dipped down below the tree line.

  Tony clapped his hands together. “How about that champagne now?”

  A moment later, he was handing out glasses and filling them.

  “None for me, thanks,” Cindy said.

  “I don’t know what’s up with her,” Eddie addressed the group at large. “She never used to not drink.” He turned to Cindy. “Not even to toast your friend finishing her book?”

  Cindy shook her head.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Tony said with an easy smile. “You don’t need to actually drink anything to take part in the spirit of a toast.” He raised his glass as he looked at Lise, pride filling his eyes. “To Lise, for finishing her book!”

  “To Lise!” everyone echoed back.

  Sylvia

  “It’s not a date,” I told Cindy.

  “A man, a man you’ve been talking to on the phone every day, a man who stops by your shop regularly, a man who you took to Lise’s party, that man asks you to go out to dinner with him—how can that not be a date?”

  “It’s just food,” I said. “We’re just two people who will be eating dinner in the same room together at the same time at the same table. Stop making such a tsuris about it.”

  “You need a new outfit for this tsuris.”

  “You don’t even know what tsuris means.”

  “So? You still need a new outfit.”

  I was offended. “What’s wrong with the clothes I’ve got?”

  “I’ll bet that skirt and peasant blouse you wore to Lise’s are the only things remotely girly you own. I’m right, aren’t I?”

  “Of course you’re right. What would I be doing with girly clothes?”

  “My lunch break is at one. Put the CLOSED sign on the door and meet me outside the lingerie shop at one.”

  “I can’t just close the shop during lunch. Lunch is the busiest hour of the day at Sylvia’s Supper!”

  “Look, you wouldn’t have called me if you didn’t really want my help. Just do it.”

  Two hours later I w
as on time waiting outside Midnight Scandals, as ordered, but apparently Cindy wasn’t ready for me yet, so I went in. Of course I’d walked by the store many times in the past, but I’d never gone in; Minnie and I’d always bought our unmentionables at Sears.

  Look at all that stuff! I thought. Enough red bras to outfit a hundred whorehouses, panties that left no mystery to the game of Hide ’n’ Seek, scary-looking contraptions I could never figure out the proper wearing of, not in a million years. The purple wallpaper alone was enough to make me want to run away.

  Cindy was behind the counter. She had on a black suit—I’d never seen her in her work clothes before—and she was talking to a severe-looking woman who was dressed the same.

  “So I was thinking?” Cindy was saying to the other woman, her voice at least an octave higher than I’d ever heard her speak in before, with a too-bright smile on her face, and every line coming out as a perky question instead of the statements they should have been. “When I get back? I’ll rearrange the front window?” Now Cindy was slinging her satchel over her shoulder. “I promise not to be late?”

  I couldn’t hear what the other woman said, but the tone sounded grouchy. Then Cindy saw me and smiled, a genuine smile, and started walking me out.

  “Who was that woman?” I whispered out of the corner of my mouth.

  “You mean Marlene? She’s my manager.”

  “I didn’t mean her. I meant who was that woman you were when you were talking to her? I’ve never seen you act like that before.”

  “You mean my blithe-spirit face?” She shrugged. “Doesn’t everyone have a different face for work? Different faces for different areas of their lives?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m the same everywhere. I’d confuse myself too much if I ever tried to be different.”

  “Well, today you’re going to be different, because today we’re going to get you new clothes for your date.”

  “It’s not a…!”

  But she wasn’t listening. She was a woman with a mission.

  I tried leading us toward Sears, but she turned me in a one eighty and pointed me toward Macy’s. “You can use my mall-employee discount card,” she said. “You’ll save twenty percent.”

  “Couldn’t I use the same card at Sears?”

  Again she ignored me.

  In Macy’s she was all business, holding up one outfit after another, inspecting each for perfection.

  “You don’t want to look like you’re just wearing any old thing, but you also don’t want to look like you’ve spent too much time on it,” she said. “Know what I mean?”

  “No,” I said.

  At last, not listening to my protests at all, she shoved me in a dressing stall with a straight-line aqua skirt and a white top that came down low in front and wrapped at the waist.

  “This is too low cut,” I said.

  “It’s perfect,” she said. “You’ve got a gorgeous neckline. You should let it show more often. And that skirt? That color is going to look amazing with your hair.”

  A few minutes later, I had to admit she was right. Fifty years old, and I’d never looked so good.

  “And you need gold sandals too,” she said, “but flats. You looked like you were going to trip on those heels you wore to Lise’s.”

  “Hey!”

  Still ignoring me. After getting the sandals, she trapped me in the makeup department.

  “Just enough to bring out her eyes and even out her skin tone,” Cindy instructed the woman behind the counter. “And try to find a lip color that doesn’t clash with her hair, but no frosteds. We’re going for a matte look here.”

  I was beyond protesting, but I knew I’d never be able to duplicate what the counter lady was doing to my face.

  New face in place, Cindy walked us back to Midnight Scandals.

  “Well, thanks,” I said, my new purchases filling my hands. “Even though it’s not really a date.”

  She grabbed my hand and gave it a tug.

  “What are you doing?” I said.

  “I’m not done with you yet,” she said, pulling me back into that purple emporium of bradom.

  “But I already have underwear!” I was back to protesting. “I don’t need any of this…stuff. We’re just going to have salads, a main course, maybe dessert if we’re not too full, but we’re not going to sleep together!”

  “Whether you sleep together or not is not the point. And it’s not about need, or at least not that kind of need. It’s about feeling pretty from the inside out. Really, I promise you, you’ll have a much better time, and you’ll feel much more confident if you’re not wearing old granny underwear that hikes up to your neck.”

  “Hey!”

  • • •

  But as it turned out, Cindy was right, because when I walked into the restaurant and saw Sunny already waiting for me at the table, I felt pretty through and through.

  When Sunny had called that afternoon to say he’d made reservations at La Finesse, I’d been surprised. Somehow, I’d been expecting something less fancy. I’d heard of the restaurant of course, but never been. It was all dark corners but with warm lighting, which was OK: if my food didn’t look so hot, I’d never know it; if I didn’t look so hot, maybe Sunny wouldn’t notice that either.

  I’d also told Sunny I’d drive myself, even though he’d offered to pick me up.

  “How is the TV program progressing?” he asked, once the waitress had taken our drinks order: a scotch and soda for him, straight scotch for me.

  “You should see these women!” I said, falling into the easy rhythm we always had while talking together on the phone, forgetting my own awkward feelings about being dressed up and having makeup on. “Especially Magda. I keep watching her running around—scurrying here, shouting something over there—and I keep finding myself wondering: Does she even know what she’s doing?”

  Sunny laughed, a joyful noise like water racing down a river. “Do you think the show will be ready in time for July?” he wondered.

  “I don’t know if they’ll be ready,” I said, “but I will. I mean, all I’ve got to do is cook, right?”

  The waitress came back. Sunny ordered the braised sole with a side salad, while I asked for the lasagna and another scotch. Usually considered to be a cafeteria dish in Italy, I was surprised to see it on the menu of such an upscale restaurant, but then I noticed they had it all tarted up with truffles. It still seemed like a safe choice and anyway, I figured, who can mess up lasagna? But as soon as the waitress was gone, I began worrying, I could mess it up. I could mess it up all over this white blouse.

  Then I told myself to stop worrying about such foolishness like trying to remain perfect looking. This was just two friends having dinner.

  “Get this,” I said, “they’ve finally settled on a name for the show.”

  “And it is?”

  “The Rude Chef!”

  There was that laugh again. I could happily drown in that laugh.

  “Tell me about your sister,” Sunny said, sobering. “You never say much about her.”

  No, I thought. This was supposed to be a nice social night out. If I began talking about Minnie now, I’d start thinking about what happened when we were both back in college, and I didn’t want to be thinking about that, not now. Besides, I’d never told that story to anyone.

  “No, no,” I said softly, or at least as soft as my voice ever gets. “Every time we talk on the phone, all we ever do is talk about me. Tell me something about you for a change.”

  He shrugged. “What is to tell? My family came here when I was young, I am an only child, I never lost my accent. I am a surgeon, much to my mother’s delight, and I dislike golf, much to my father’s despair, and I am now forty-two years old.”

  He was eight years younger than me.

  I looked inside my drink. If it were tea instead of scotch, I’d have tried to read the leaves. Oh well. At least the ice cubes were interesting.

  “You must feel like you’re out to dinner
with your mother,” I said, still lost in my ice.

  “Hardly,” he said, reaching across the table and gently tilting my chin up with his fingers. “I feel like I am out to dinner with a very beautiful woman who is most definitely and officially no longer my patient.”

  I moved my head so it was out of range of that gentle hand. “Tell me more,” I said as our dinners arrived.

  He picked up his fork, but then looked at me and waited. “How is your lasagna?” he asked.

  I didn’t want to touch it, sure I’d somehow drop the fork, splattering sauce-covered truffles all over myself. Gingerly, I picked up the fork, touched it to the sauce, and then touched the tine to the tip of my tongue.

  “It’s delicious,” I said, even though inside I was thinking, Oregano, basil, too much salt, a little red wine—big deal. I could make better. “So?” I said. “You were about to tell me more. There must be more to you than surgery.”

  He settled back in his seat and sighed. “What else is there to say? I love this country, but after the events of 9/11, some of my patients left, accusing me, although not in so many words, of wanting to fly airplanes into skyscrapers to earn a few dozen virgins to call my own. Is that the sort of thing you have in mind?”

  “That’s awful!” I said.

  “Indeed.”

  “Have you ever been married?” I asked.

  “That is a sudden conversational shift,” he said.

  I waved my empty scotch glass. “Another one of these, and I’ll start talking about politics and religion too.”

  “No,” he laughed, although he didn’t order me another scotch either. “I never married. Did you?”

  “No.”

  “How come?”

  “Because I was too busy being my sister’s sister.”

  “And I never married because I was too busy studying and building my practice. I did not want a trophy wife, attractive as they might look, and by the time I was done studying and practicing, all the smart and interesting women I knew were divorced and bitter about it.”

  “You make it sound as though all the women in the world can be distilled down into a few types.”