The History of Us (23 page)

Eloise made a no-comment face and poked at the ice in her drink.

The door slammed. Theo’s footsteps in the hallway were loud. She came into the kitchen with an air of angry confusion, looked at them with suspicion and surprise, and then turned sharply around to disappear.

Josh and Eloise exchanged a glance. “I think she could use a gin and gin,” Josh murmured, and Eloise nodded. “You know,” he said, suddenly sure that he should renounce the house, ready to divorce himself from ill-tempered Theo and declare himself on Eloise’s side, “I’ve been meaning to tell you—”

But Theo was back in the room, her hands in fists at her sides. “She asked me not to tell you, but I’m going to tell you,” she announced.

“Tell us what?” Eloise asked. Her tone was mild. She seemed
more interested in calming Theo than in getting the information.

Theo pulled a chair out from the table, dragging it some distance from the two of them, and flopped down in it. She looked so miserable, like a good child in the principal’s office, confronted with the inexplicability of her own bad behavior. Josh could tell she was upset, but until she started talking he thought that the problem would turn out to be something small. Somewhere along the line he’d decided that Theo made a big deal out of nothing. This had been a necessary defense mechanism in the Sabrina years, when to take her seriously would have been to end his relationship or hate himself or both. But if he’d stopped to review the sum total of his experience with his sister, he’d have had to face the conclusion that Theo did not, in fact, make a big deal out of nothing. If anything Theo made a small deal out of something, at least when the something concerned herself. When she had appendicitis in high school she carried around a bottle of Pepto-Bismol for two days, insisting that she just had a stomachache, until the morning she couldn’t stand up straight, her body folded around the pain.

In the back of his head he knew all this, but when she’d told them everything she knew about Claire, he still said, “Come on, it can’t be as bad as you’re making it sound.” Theo gave him a look of such incredulous scorn that he went one step farther. “So she doesn’t want to be a dancer anymore,” he said. “That’s her choice.”

“And you’re not the least bit upset about the way she did it?” she asked. “It doesn’t make you sick to imagine her waiting on the other side of security until we left the airport and then sneaking out? It doesn’t bother you that for more than a month we’ve
all thought she was in New York City, when actually she was a kept woman in Hyde Park? You don’t care that she lied to us?”

Of course he cared. His stomach caved in, as though he himself were the disappointment. But he shrugged. “She’s nineteen,” he said. “She’s in love, and right now that probably seems bigger than anything. Bigger than us.”

“Did you know?” Theo asked him.

“Me? Of course not. Why would I know?”

“Maybe she thought you’d sympathize.”

“Because I quit ballet and moved in with a sugar daddy?”

“Sugar daddy,” Eloise repeated, as if she’d never heard the term before. It was the first thing she’d said since Theo began her story.

“What are we going to do?” Theo asked.

“This is so funny,” Eloise said. “I feel like we’re in a Jane Austen novel. A scandalous elopement.”

Theo stared at her a moment, then turned back to Josh. “What about Adelaide? Can you maybe ask her what’s going on?”

“What if she’s offended that I want her to break Claire’s confidence? Or what if she doesn’t know anything and I’m the one who tells her?”

“Also we don’t want Adelaide to know Claire’s so unprofessional,” Theo said, as though she hadn’t been the one to suggest calling her. “They probably all talk to each other, those ballet dancers.”

“I don’t think so,” Josh said. “You make them sound like spies.”

“Well, what if she ends up wanting to audition for the company here? We don’t want them knowing.” Theo pointed at Josh. “Don’t tell Adelaide.”

“I was never going to. You were the one who—” He stopped himself, sighed. “I won’t. I promise.”

“But here’s what you can ask her—what would happen if a dancer didn’t show because of a family emergency and then wanted to come back? Would they let her? I don’t think rehearsals were starting much before now. Would she have to audition again?”

Josh wanted to know how he was supposed to explain to Adelaide why he was asking. “Sure,” he said, although he had no intention of complying.

“I guess you can’t do that. Why the hell would you ask her that?”

“Right,” he said, relieved. “Even I might have trouble making that plausible.”

“So what can we do? What’s our first step?” Theo asked. She looked from Josh to Eloise. “I think I should figure out whether the company would even take her back. That’s number one. And what about her apartment? They must have replaced her with another roommate, right?”

“If this
were
a Jane Austen novel . . . ” Eloise said, but she didn’t finish the thought.

“They must have,” Theo said. “It’s New York. They can’t do without the rent. So we’ll have to find her another place. You know people in New York, right?” She looked at Josh.

“Sure,” he said. “Yeah.” Sure, yeah, he knew people in New York, lots of people he’d met at some drunken party or backstage or over the merch table at one of his gigs. No one he’d call to get his little sister an apartment.

“Okay.” Theo nodded as if something had been settled. “How hard do you think it will be to convince her to go back? Or go
in the first place, I guess. I don’t know if I can do it. I kind of flipped out.” To Josh’s dismay her eyes filled. “I screwed up.”

There was no resisting the sadness in her voice. “It’s not your fault,” he said. “
She
did this. It’s not like it would be different if you’d stayed calm.” Did he mean this? Maybe. He wasn’t sure.

“She can’t marry that man until he’s divorced. How long does it take to get divorced here? How much time do we have?”

“I have no idea,” Eloise said. She didn’t offer to find out, though you’d think with her research on marriage laws she’d have known how to do so. Maybe it was shock, but Eloise was doing a pretty good job of appearing not to care, and that was agitating Theo, who, if Josh didn’t step in, would feel compelled to care enough for all of them.

“Would you like me to go find that out?” he asked.

Theo shook her head. “I can do that. Could you go to talk to her? Things got so ugly between us. She might be more receptive to you now.”

“Okay.” Josh nodded. “Sure.”

“Thank you,” Theo said, with more gratitude than necessary. In the last several minutes he and Eloise must have left her feeling very alone. “I know you haven’t always felt like . . . I mean, I know you . . . ”

She was trying to say something about Sabrina. Whatever it was, he didn’t want to hear it. “I’ll call her right now,” he said, getting up. As he headed for the door Theo called after him, “We’ve got to fix this.”

It was hard for Josh to see how they could possibly do that. But he didn’t argue with her. He took out his phone and made the call.

Claire met him after work the next day at the coffee shop in Hyde
Park Square. She was reluctant to come into Clifton, Northside, or downtown, and by that reluctance he understood that she’d kept her doings a secret from her friends and her teachers at the ballet as much as from her family. He was standing near the counter, studying the menu board, when she came in, and when she saw him she rushed to him so quickly he barely had time to get his hands out of his pockets to embrace her. “Hey,” he said into her hair, which was suddenly very short after a lifetime of being long.

Claire stepped back and gave him a grateful smile. Of course she wasn’t just angry and imperiously withdrawn, the way Theo seemed to think. She’d been as upset as Theo by their encounter. She’d always wanted their big sister’s approval. He and Claire had that in common. “Hey,” she said.

“Until this moment I thought Theo was imagining things,” he said. Then, because she looked so stricken, he added quickly, “I like your hair.”

“Thanks,” she said, one hand going to the nape of her neck. “I always had to keep it long before.”

“I guess that’s a benefit of quitting.”

“I’ve always wanted short hair,” she said, not sounding so sure that was true. “I went to the salon the next day.”

Why?
Josh wanted to ask.
So you couldn’t change your mind?
“Well, it looks good,” he said.

They ordered and waited for their drinks and found a table and all the while Josh tried to decide how he felt and couldn’t. Theo seemed to have no such difficulty, so certain that Claire had made a terrible mistake. She was angry and hurt and sick with bewilderment. Josh for his part understood what Claire had
done, and not just the parts that rhymed with his own history. He understood why she’d hidden her choices from them. He, too, would have liked the luxury of living alone for a while with the decisions he’d made.

Claire toyed with the sleeve on her coffee cup. “Are you mad at me, too?”

“No,” he said. “I was surprised.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I wanted to tell you. But I felt like it would upset Theo and Eloise more if they found out you knew. And I didn’t want them mad at you, too.”

“Theo wondered if I knew,” he said.

She grimaced. “I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

“Don’t worry about that. You should come to me if you need me.”

“Thank you, Joshy.”

She looked so relieved, he wanted to give her more. “There’s no law that just because you’re good at something you have to keep doing it.”

“I knew you’d be the one who understood,” she said.

“I do,” he said and then willed himself to mean it. If dancing had been a burden, shouldn’t Claire look lighter? Shouldn’t she look free? She looked to him like someone in mourning. She looked so terribly thin, without her art to explain her appearance.

“Will you help me with them? Will you talk to them for me, make them see?”

“Sure,” he said, feeling a little sick, because that was the last thing he wanted to do.

Claire relaxed into her chair as if everything was settled. “I’ve been dying to talk to you about Adelaide!” she said. “I’m really glad you’re dating her.”

“Me, too,” he said.

“I’m so curious what she’s like up close. You know, behind her teacher-dancer persona.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, she’s sort of cool and remote. You know. She seems very self-contained. Onstage even when she’s surrounded by others you don’t really feel like she needs anyone else.”

“She’s, well, she’s . . . ” he tried, but Claire’s little speech had left him unable to formulate a thought. He gave her what he could tell was a weak smile. “I’m still figuring her out.”

“We can double-date!” she said. Was she serious? The question must have shown on his face, because Claire laughed, and then looked solemn. “I mean, after a while,” she said.

“Sure,” he said again. Ask me anything! he thought. I’ll say sure!

“But you should meet him now,” she said. “I want you to meet Gary. Do you want to?”

Just to switch things up he said, “Okay.”

The house was way too big for two people, three stories and spacious ones at that. Why rent such a big house for two people in the city’s most expensive neighborhood? What did Claire do alone in these giant rooms all day? Josh moved around the living room, looking at the vacation shots in silver frames and the gray, velvety couches so he wouldn’t have to look at Claire. “All this stuff is Gary’s,” she said, and Josh couldn’t tell whether that was meant as praise of the guy or apology for him. The room looked like he’d set out to reproduce a catalog. “I’m sorry he’s not home yet,” she said. “I thought he’d be home.”

“Where is he?”

“He works late. Or he might have gone to see his daughter.”

“His daughter?”

“She’s three. I haven’t met her yet. We’re waiting.”

“Wow, Claire. You’re going to be a stepmother?”

“I know, right?” She smiled. “It’s crazy.”

Yes, it really is,
he wanted to say. “Where’s the bathroom?”

She made a face. “It’s on the second floor,” she said. “Isn’t that annoying?”

“Well, most of these old houses . . . ” He trailed off, unsure he wanted to comfort her about her concubine house.
Concubine
—a word Theo had used. What was Theo’s word doing in his head? “I’ll be right back,” he said.

He didn’t really have to use the bathroom. He wanted a moment away from Claire’s happy belief in his understanding, her relief at his support. And now that he was up here, he wanted to snoop. He took a quick glance in each of the rooms on the second floor. One was a study, furnished in the same inoffensive style as the living room. One had yellow walls and a bunch of IKEA boxes in it—of course, a room for the little girl. Best, for now, not to think about her, her future presence in Claire’s life, the fact that Claire thought she was remotely ready for . . . Best not to think about that. Another room had a bed but little else. The guest bedroom, he assumed. And then the last was the master. The bed wasn’t even made, the sheets and quilt not just disarranged but disarranged chaotically, and he stepped out quickly, feeling a little sick, and decided to look at the third floor. He crept up the stairs on the balls of his feet, trying not to make a sound.

The third floor was two large rooms divided by a door. In the second, smaller one were two standing full-length mirrors, between them a ballet barre. Josh ran his hand along the barre,
watching himself in the mirror. If Claire didn’t want to be a dancer anymore, what was this doing in the house? He wondered if Gary had set this up, trying to please her. He pictured Claire dancing in this little room and thought of Adelaide’s tiny ballerina in a jewelry box. He hoped that wasn’t what his sister was to Gary—an acquisition, a toy, a valuable object made more valuable by being hidden away.

He jumped at the sound of Claire’s voice, distant and muffled but still unmistakably calling his name. He tried to be both quick and quiet on the stairs, and found her waiting at the bottom of the second flight. “There you are,” she said. “He’s just pulling up.” She said it like Josh was expected to be awaiting the guy the moment he came inside, and perhaps this was why Josh felt like he was standing at attention in the entryway, anticipating inspection by the king.