Sisters (32 page)

“I…uh… that's very sweet of you, Ed. …I make it a policy never to go out with men on the shows I work on. It's such a mess if things don't work out.”

“Why wouldn't they work out? I'm a great guy.” He beamed at her. He had seven children by all four wives, all of whom he supported, which was honorable of him, and as a result, he drove a twenty-year-old car, and lived in a fourth-floor walk-up on the West Side. Getting shot in the gut had improved his financial situation immeasurably. He had said he was moving to a better neighborhood next month. “I thought maybe we could have dinner after work. You know, something simple. I'm on a vegan diet right now.”

“Oh, really.” She tried to look interested, if only to be kind. “Do you do high colonics?” Every freak she'd met in L.A. did them. It was her first clue he wasn't the man for her. She didn't want to date a man whose prize possession was an enema bag. She'd rather have entered a convent, and at this rate, might one day. It was becoming more appealing by the hour.

“No, I don't. I think they're bigger out west than here. I have a friend on
Match Point
who does them all the time. Do you do them, Tammy?”

“Actually, no, I don't. I'm a junk-food addict. My idea of gourmet food is KFC, and I have an incredible Ho-Ho and Twinkie habit. I've been that way since I was a kid. High colonics would be wasted on me.”

“That's too bad.” He looked sorry for her and then lowered his voice. “Have you found Jesus yet, Tammy?” Where? Under her desk? In the attic? Was he kidding? Did she have to “find” Him? Wasn't He everywhere?

“I think you could say I have,” she said politely. “Religion has been important to me since I was a child.” She didn't know what else to say to him, and it was somewhat true. They had gone to Catholic schools as kids, but she was no longer devout, although she believed.

“But are you a
Christian
?” He was intense as he looked at her, and she tried not to stare at his hair, which was badly dyed too. She made a mental note to get a decent hairdresser for him too. She didn't know why she'd never noticed that his hair color was this bad. She had been too distracted by the bad weave.

“I'm Catholic,” she said easily.

“That's not the same thing. Being Christian is a lot more than that. It's a whole way of thinking, of being, of living. It's not just a religion.”

“Yes, I'd agree with you on that.” She tried to glance at her watch discreetly. She had a network meeting in four minutes, to avoid a strike. It was a big deal. She couldn't miss it. “I think we should talk about it some other time. I have a meeting in four minutes.”

“Exactly. So how about dinner? There's a great vegan restaurant on West Fourteenth Street. How about tonight?”

“I…uh…no…remember my policy? No men from the show. I've never broken that rule, and I have to go home to take care of my sister.”

“Is she sick?” He looked instantly concerned.

Tammy hated herself for what she was about to do. But it might get him off her back. With silent apologies to Annie, she looked up at him mournfully. “She's blind. I really don't like to go out and leave her on her own.”

“Oh, I'm so sorry …I had no idea … of course … what a saintly person you are to take care of her. Do you live with her?”

“Yes, I do. It happened this year, and she's only twenty-six.” It was pathetic to use her sister's handicap so shamelessly, but anything in a pinch. She would have invented a dying grandmother too.

“I'll pray for her,” he assured her, “and for you.”

“Thank you, Ed,” Tammy said solemnly. And went to her network meeting. He was probably a perfectly nice human being, just unattractive and creepy. Her specialty. Men like him were the only ones who ever asked her out, on either coast.

She told her sisters about it that night as they were doing the dishes after dinner. Annie was rinsing and putting them in the dishwasher. Sabrina had checked the dogs' bowls, and Annie had fed the dogs. Annie said Sabrina treated her like Cinderella, which her older sister didn't comment on. Tammy had them all in hysterics describing Ed.

“See what I mean? Those are the only guys who ever ask me out. Weird teeth, hair weaves, vegan diets, and high colonics in L.A. I swear, I haven't had a date with a normal one in years. I'm not even sure what that looks like anymore.”

“I'm not sure I do either,” Candy admitted. “All the men I meet are bisexual or gay. They like women, but they like boys more. I never even see straight guys anymore.”

Annie said nothing. She felt completely out of the running, and had since her accident this summer. Normally, after breaking up with Charlie, she would have started dating again within a few months. Now, she felt that it was over for her. The only man she had talked to in months was her friend Baxter at school. His love life was a lot happier than hers. He had a boyfriend. She was sure she never would again.

“The only one in the family who can't complain is Sabrina,” Candy commented. “Chris is the only normal man I know.”

“Yeah, me too,” Tammy agreed. “Normal
and
nice. It's an unbeatable combination. When I meet normal ones, or at least men who look that way, they turn out to be assholes, or married. I guess I could always start dating one of the participants on the show.” She told them about the incident with the one that morning, and Sabrina shook her head. She still couldn't believe that Tammy had taken a job producing that show. Giving up the job she'd had had really been the ultimate sacrifice for her. She said very little about it, but they were aware of it. The show she was working on instead was at the opposite end of the spectrum, from the sublime to the ridiculous. Tammy never complained, she was a good sport about it, and she was happy to have found work. And Irving Solomon, the executive producer, was a fairly decent man to work for.

Another man asked Tammy out the following week. This one was extremely attractive, married, and cheating on his wife, although he explained they had an open marriage and she understood.

“She might,” Tammy had said brusquely. “I don't. That's not my style, but thanks.” She brushed him off, and more than flattered, she was insulted. She always felt that way when married men asked her out, as though she were a cheap slut, that they could have a good time with and then go home to their wives. If she ever wound up with anyone, which was beginning to seem unlikely, she wanted it to be her own man, not one she had stolen or borrowed from someone else. She had just turned thirty, and wasn't panicked about it.

On Sabrina's thirty-fifth birthday, she and Chris had gone away for the weekend, and he had given her a beautiful gold Cartier bracelet that she never took off her arm. Things were, as always, comfortable between them, although he was sleeping over less often than he had when she lived alone. She reminded him regularly that it was only for a year, until Annie got adjusted, and he rarely commented or complained. The only thing that got to him occasionally was Candy wandering around the house half naked, oblivious to the fact that there was a man in their midst. So many people saw her naked or at least topless during couture shows or on shoots that she didn't really care. But he did. And although he loved them, their flock of dogs occasionally got on his nerves. That and the lack of privacy, with Tammy now living on the same floor. That was challenging for him at times.

The only thing that unsettled all of them was the man Candy came home with in early November, when she got back from a three-day shoot in Hawaii. Sabrina said she had read about him. Tammy had never heard of him, and Annie said he gave her a creepy feeling, but since she couldn't see him, she couldn't pinpoint why. She said he sounded phony, like Leslie Thompson when she had visited their father with the pie. Kind of drippy and oozing sweetness, as Annie put it, when he had something else on his mind.

He said he was an Italian prince and he had an accent, Principe Marcello di Stromboli. It didn't sound real to Sabrina, and they were all shocked to realize that he was forty-four years old. Candy said she had met him the first time in Paris, at a party Valentino gave, and she knew another model who had dated him, and said he was very nice. He took Candy to all the trendy hot spots in New York, and some fabulous parties. They were in the tabloids almost immediately, and when Sabrina questioned her about it with a worried look, Candy said she was having a great time.

“Be careful,” Sabrina warned her. “He's a very grownup guy. Sometimes men his age prey on young girls. Don't just go off somewhere with him or put yourself in an awkward situation.” Sabrina felt like the anxious mother hen of all time, and her baby sister laughed.

“I'm not stupid. I'm twenty-one years old. I've lived alone since I was nineteen. I meet men like him all the time. Some of them are a lot older. So what?”

“What do you suppose he's after?” Sabrina asked Tammy with a worried look a few days later. They had been in
W,
several tabloids, and on page six of the
Post
in the past two weeks. But there was no denying that Candy was a famous model, and he was a familiar socialite in New York. He had a famous mother who had been a well-known Italian actress. And he had a title. Princes were in high demand in lofty social circles, and made people overlook a multitude of sins. He had come to the house several times to pick Candy up, and treated her sisters like the maids who opened the door. He didn't even bother to speak to Annie, since she couldn't see how devastatingly handsome he was. And he was indeed remarkably attractive and aristocratic looking and exquisitely dressed in a European style. He wore beautiful Italian suits, perfectly starched shirts, sapphire cuff links, a gold ring with his family's crest on it, and his shoes were custom made by John Lobb. And with Candy on his arm, he looked like a movie star, and so did she. They made a dazzling couple.

“You don't suppose it's serious,” Sabrina asked Tammy in a panic one night after he'd picked her up in a black Bentley limousine he had rented for the evening. Candy had been wearing a silvery-gray satin evening gown and silver high heels. She looked like a young queen.

“Not for a minute,” Tammy said, without concern. “I see men like him in the movie business all the time. They go after famous actresses, supermodels like Candy. They just want an accessory for their narcissism. He's no more interested in Candy than he is in his shoes.”

“She said he wants to meet her in Paris next week when she's there on a shoot.”

“He might, but it won't last long. Someone bigger and more important will come along. Those types come and go.”

“I hope he goes soon. There's something about him that makes me nervous. Candy's such a babe in the woods. She may be one of the hottest models in the world, but underneath all that gorgeousness and glamour, she's just a child.”

“Yes, she is,” Tammy agreed. “But she has us. At least he knows we're around, like parents, keeping an eye on her.”

“I don't think he gives a damn about us,” Sabrina said, still worried. “He's a lot slicker than we are. And we're no one in his world.”

“I think Candy can handle it,” Tammy said confidently. “She meets a lot of men like him.”

“I sure don't,” Sabrina said, smiling ruefully. Chris was light-years away from the Italian prince, and a much finer man. Chris was a man of substance and integrity. All of Sabrina's instincts told her that Marcello wasn't. It was easy to spot. But Candy thought he was exciting, even if her sisters found him much too old.

And when she got back from Paris, she said they had had a fabulous time. He had taken her to a string of parties, including a ball at Versailles, and introduced her to all of Paris. Everyone he knew had a title. He had turned her head much more than Sabrina liked, and she was looking thinner again. When Sabrina commented on it, Candy said she had worked hard in Paris. But Sabrina called her shrink anyway. The shrink made no comment but thanked Sabrina for her call.

Thanksgiving was the following week, and they all went out to their father's house in Connecticut. He looked thinner too. Tammy asked him if he felt all right, with a look of concern. He said he did, but he seemed quiet and lonely and grateful to see the girls.

They went through their mother's things that weekend, at his suggestion, took the clothes they wanted, and he was going to donate the rest. It was hard to do, but he seemed to want to clear it all out. And they helped Annie make selections from what they described to her. She had always particularly loved her mother's soft pastel cashmere sweaters, and they looked beautiful on her. She had the same color hair.

“How do I look?” she asked them, after she put one on. “Do I look like Mom?”

Tammy's eyes had filled with tears. “Yeah, actually, you do.” But Tammy did too, although her red hair was brighter and much longer. But there was a definite similarity between their mother and those two daughters.

It was a quiet, easy weekend, and they had no social plans. The girls made the turkey dinner themselves, and had fun making the stuffing and all the vegetables. Annie helped too.

Chris had come out for Thanksgiving Day, and then went skiing in Vermont for the weekend with friends. Sabrina had opted to stay with her sisters and dad. It was a family weekend, which was important to them, especially this year.

It was Saturday when Tammy came across a pair of women's sneakers in the room off the kitchen where her mother used to arrange flowers. They were a size nine, and her mother had worn a size six. And they didn't belong to any of the girls. And his housekeeper had small feet too.

“Who do these belong to, Dad?” Tammy asked after they had gone through her mother's clothes all day and sorted them in piles for each of them and to donate. “They're not Mom's.”

“Are you sure?” he said vaguely, and Tammy laughed.

“Not unless her feet grew three sizes this year. Should I throw them out?”

“Why don't you just leave them wherever you found them? Maybe someone will claim them.” He was preoccupied with fixing something when she asked, and had his back to her so she couldn't see his face.

“Like who?” she asked, curious now, and then decided to be brazen. She'd had a sudden thought. “You're not dating, are you, Dad?” He spun around as though she had shot him and looked at her.