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Guest
Writer
Sacrificing
something for love
Sister by Amy Nuttbrock
"Kate! Are you there?" Kate fumbled with the stop button on the stereo, knocked a yellow bowl of low-fat potato chips off the coffee table and picked up the phone. Gina was in Chicago visiting friends for the week. She wanted to know if they could get together for dinner or drinks. "I'll pay," Gina said. "I have a shitload of money, and I know you're probably broke." Kate registered a smug tone in Gina's voice that lingered briefly and then disappeared. Kate suggested a swank, inexpensive restaurant for the following night. The place, called Devereau's, was right around the
corner from her apartment and had pretty, cropped hedges shaped
like picket fences framing the entrance. Gina might think it was
cool. Kate gave directions to her place and hoped her sister would
be able to find her way even though she couldn't remember the
names of the minor avenues, and could only tell her to turn left
at this gas station or make a right at that enormous blue house. When she hung up the phone, Kate felt excited and
worried. She twirled a piece of hair around her index finger. Kate had not seen her sister in five years, but she had a picture of the two of them stuck to her refrigerator. Sometimes she would look at it while listening to the television or drinking coffee in the kitchen. Gina was the Puerto Rican girl with the glittery orange swimsuit and matching flip-flops. They were horsing around on the platform of a public pool. Someone had brought a radio. Their pose was deliberate and, Kate thought, emphatic. Gina's mouth was frozen in the wide shape of a top-40 love song and she was bending her knees to knock hips with her younger sister. Next to her, Kate was thin and pasty with fluorescent-framed sunglasses. Kate thought she looked homely next to her sister. But she also looked thrilled, her body tilted towards Gina's in an obvious pose of devotion. Gina and Kate were seven and four years old. This was the only picture Kate had of her sister.
Gina was adopted as an infant, so when Kate was born three years later, both seemed receptive to each other's company. Gina would lean over Kate's crib and press a finger into her pliable cheek, while Kate grabbed fistfuls of her sister's hair. Gina would scream delightfully. They did everything together. When Gina was eight
and Kate five, they would push two couches together and throw
a blanket over the top to make a fort. Inside, Gina would sit
on her ankles and pretend to be a fortuneteller. She'd wear plastic
bracelets and read Kate's palm with adult seriousness. "This is your lifeline," she'd say, tracing
the lines on her sister's small hand. "It looks like you're going to live practically
forever." She sipped grape soda. Kate felt safe within the
stale heat that held them together under the blanket. They laughed
and fantasized about living together on a private island with
lots of colorful flowers. Kate remembered the first time she said
anything about her "other family." Gina was sitting
on the edge of the tub, shaving her legs with the door open. She
yelled into the hallway. "Kate! I have to tell you something."
Kate came into the bathroom, and looked through the drawers and
cabinets while her sister talked. Kate felt important when her
sister revealed things to her. She listened carefully. Gina told
her about her friend Anna who wore T-shirts with cartoon characters
on them, and self-righteous statements, like Bitch or Brat.
"At lunch today, she asked me in front of everyone
if I ever wanted to meet my real parents." Kate could hear
something injured in her voice, but it was far away. She tried
to imagine Gina sitting with her group of bright-faced friends
while they sucked from their juice boxes and stared, waiting for
her answer. "Well, do you?" Kate unwrapped a band-aid
and wound it around her finger, even though there was nothing
there. "Why would I want to do that? They're probably crazy or ugly." Kate was late to the office the following morning because she couldn't find anything to wear. She tried on several combinations of outfits before settling on a gray skirt and a green sweater. She worked as a secretary for an insurance company. Her boss was a cranky woman who wore stiff suits and reminded Kate of a local politician who was responsible for cutting free dental care to homeless people. Kate thought her boss didn't like her very much,
because she always asked her to do boring, mundane things like
seal envelopes and type up spreadsheets. She would sigh bleakly,
but she actually enjoyed the predictable repetitiveness of these
tasks. When she wasn't working at the office, she volunteered
at a battered women's shelter. The women there seemed to like
telling Kate about their lives, while she nodded sympathetically
and smiled. They always offered her soup in a styrofoam cup. She was snacking on dry, high-fiber breakfast cereal
when someone called her on the telephone. Kate could barely get
her name out before an irate male voice spat through the phone
lines. "Look, I know this is going to sound weird,
but my girlfriend said she wouldn't marry me unless I got a face-lift.
Now I'm sitting here like I got nailed in the face with a baseball
bat. My eyes are black and blue, and I have gross stuff draining
into my throat. I look like hell." Kate made vague acknowledgements, mostly inaudible,
while munching her cereal. She wasn't sure where this was going.
As far as she could tell, the man's voice sounded needlessly belligerent. "I understand. But if you submit a claim, I
can see what I can do." Kate's voice sounded weak and ineffective.
She was hot and her armpits were getting wet. "Can I get
your name, sir?" The man didn't seem to be listening. "I made a sacrifice here! My girlfriend and
I can't afford a bill like this." Kate looked around to see
if anyone was nearby. An intern was photocopying something at
the Xerox machine. "Maybe I can have a representative here contact
your surgeon?" "Don't you know what it's like to sacrifice
something for love? I mean, do you have a boyfriend or anything?"
Kate slumped in her chair and stuck the end of a pen in her mouth.
Once, Kate found two copies of female pornography
in a neighbor's dumpster, and brought them home to show her sister.
They lay on Gina's bed in their T-shirts and underwear and looked
at glossy pictures of voluptuous women bending over household
appliances to show off their backsides while coyly peeking over
their shoulders. They giggled and made nasty jokes. "I hope my tits don't get that big."
Kate was adamant and concerned. "Well, I hope mine do!" Gina pulled up
her shirt, and bounced off the bed to get her disposable camera.
They took pictures of each other under the guise of "playing
photographer." Gina would wear brightly colored beads around
her neck and spread her legs to show off her crotch like the women
in the magazines. Kate would hold her face and apply orange lipstick
or white eye shadow. Gina would arrange herself in different poses.
They touched each other's cheeks and thighs and talked about sex.
Kate was fascinated and nervous. Then Gina leaned over and demonstrated
a French kiss. "This is what you have to do," she said.
Her kiss was hard and dramatic, filled with brute need. But Kate
could feel that Gina's hand on the back of her neck was tentative
and shy. She used a lot of tongue. When she pulled away, Kate
wondered why anyone would want to do something so gross. But Gina
looked pleased with her demonstration. She had a huge zit on her
forehead, which made her carnal aggression seem less intimidating.
Kate felt a heavy closeness towards her. She wanted to pick the
zit.
Kate admired the delicate skeleton of her lithe sister, and her sharply angled shoulder bones. She thought Gina was prettier than a movie star. She watched them for a while with alert interest, then went into the bathroom to look in the mirror and try on Gina's makeup. Later, she would sneak into Gina's room to expose the film in her camera. Kate thought of these moments both fondly and with
mild embarrassment. She remembered reading an article about a
pair of fraternal twins who opened a successful French bakery
and lived together for the entirety of their lives. At the time,
Kate wondered if she and Gina could be like that. But then Gina
got to high school and things changed. She became distant and
resentful. She cut her hair short as a boy's, applied lots of
dark eyeliner and wore long, baggy pants. Kate didn't think she
was as pretty as before. Gina could also be catty. She would get annoyed
at their mother for talking loudly on the phone, while she and
Mike sat at the kitchen table, eating candy and drawing pictures
with dark pencils. Gina would sigh dramatically, roll her eyes
and say, "shut up." Their mother would put her hand
over the white receiver and say, "watch your mouth."
Gina took a Spanish class, but only repeated the swear words around
the house. She would call their father a moron whenever he came
into her bedroom and asked what she was doing. If Kate was lying on the living room floor, watching
TV, Gina would walk by and make fun of her clothes and passivity.
"You're such a lump, Kate. You don't really do anything at
all." But sometimes they were friends again. Gina would
allow Kate to come into her room and hang out while she and Mike
read passages from a book called "Murder and Mayhem."
There was a story about a guy who kidnapped teenaged girls and
kept them in his dark basement, where he tortured them with stripped
electrical wires. Apparently, he'd dabbled in necrophilia. "What's necrophilia?" Kate asked. Gina
abruptly stopped reading and turned the book upside down on her
lap. Her face was a mixture of insolence and aggravation, as if
Kate had somehow offended her. "Don't be an idiot." Gina's voice was
harsh, and she wore a nasty smirk. Kate picked at the hem of her
pants. Then Mike leaned over and whispered in her ear: "It's
when you have sex with dead people." Kate giggled and muttered,
"Gross."
"You're not even my real sister," she snapped. Kate's stomach sank. She went to her room, and stroked the corners of a tattered fleece blanket until she fell asleep. On the way home from work, Kate stopped into a novelty shop on Ninth Avenue. The adorable stuffed animals toppling over each other in the display window drew her in. The store was energetic and welcoming. There were lots of colors along with the dueling scents of jasmine and artificial fruit blends. Besides plush toys, the store also sold cards with comical pop-up features, and books about gags you could play on people you didn't like. Kate picked up a stuffed rabbit and looked into its dopey face. She wanted to surprise her sister with something nice. Kate browsed the narrow aisles for several minutes, bumping into people's shoulders and saying "oops" and "excuse me." She admired the display cases. Then she saw a ceramic figurine shaped like a sitting
cat. It was a handsome cat, painted orange with illustrative
blue eyes. Kate liked the thought of someone taking the time and
effort in painting such a superfluous ornament. She imagined the
artist applying the final touches and then leaning back to admire
the work. Kate decided this was a perfect gift. She carried the
figurine up to the register where a blond woman with dark roots
and chapped lips put the gift in a white box with pink tissue
paper. "Isn't this the cat's meow," the woman beamed. Kate thought this was a silly thing to say, but it made her smile. As she exited the shop, a harried man with a pinched
expression was digging in his briefcase. He accidentally dropped
an address book and a tube of lipstick. Kate instinctually picked
the items up and handed them back to the man, who met her with
a quizzical look. He nervously jammed his things back into the
briefcase. Kate felt helpful and generous, even though the man
didn't say thank you. She walked away with a cheerful hop in her
step. When she got to her apartment, she took the cat
out of the box so she could look at it while fluffing her hair.
She was excited to see her sister and walked around the living
room, rehearsing possible conversations in her head. She rolled
the pleats of her skirt between her fingers. Then Gina called
and said she had to cancel their plans. "Eliot will throw a fit if I don't see him
tonight. Can we do dinner tomorrow night?" "But I got you a present!" Kate blurted.
She'd forgotten that the gift was intended as a surprise. On the
other hand, she hoped that she'd sparked her sister's interest. "Ooh," Gina cooed. "What is it?"
Kate picked up the cat figurine. She thought she'd heard something
expectant in her sister's voice, and this made her feel playful. "I can't tell you," she teased. "But
how about I make dinner tomorrow night? You can come over to my
apartment at 7:30. We can have wine." "Sounds like a deal." Gina said she'd bring a bag of chips and some onion dip. When Kate got off the phone, she ran a bath and thought about what she might make her sister for dinner. By the time Kate was in high school, she'd felt
sisterless. Gina spent most of her time driving around in her
car with the windows rolled down, or hanging out with a bunch
of pallid, blank-faced teenagers who wore black. On the weekends,
she worked in a store that sold weird, abstract jewelry. Gina
wasn't around very much. When she was home, she snarled, smoked
and talked constantly about finding her "real parents." "I'm glad I'm not really a product of you assholes," she would say and stomp upstairs to talk secretively on the phone and read morose poetry. Their parents didn't talk much then. Their father would lay around and read the newspaper while drinking beer. Sometimes he would go into the garage and build small wooden birdhouses to hang in the yard. He would swear at the neighbor's dog if it shit on the lawn. Their mother would collect recipes out of home decor
magazines and experiment with them in the kitchen. The meals usually
turned out bland and revolting. They looked nothing like the glossy,
steaming prints in the magazines. But they sat at the table and
ate them anyway. Gina didn't eat at the dining room table. Kate
would hang her head over her plate and grow aggravated by her
father's nasal breathing and the shrill sound of forks scraping
against the ceramic plates. Then their mother would say something
predictable and forced, probably to start a conversation.
"I don't know, maybe I have skin cancer,"
she said. This was meant to be flippant. Kate rolled her eyes.
Then she described the small brown speck on her inner thigh, while
her father stuffed stringed beans into his mouth. "Is it larger than the circumference of a pencil
eraser?" her mother asked. Kate became irritated at her willingness
to continue the mole conversation. "Why doesn't Gina ever come down for dinner?" "I think your uncle Daniel had skin cancer?"
Her mother chewed on a piece of lettuce. "Oh, crap. Do you have to chew that so loud?" After high school, Kate took business classes at
the community college and worked as a waitress at a quaint diner
that had turn-of-the-century antiques mounted on the walls. Later,
she got a small apartment in the city. Gina moved to San Francisco
with her bartending boyfriend who operated a massage parlor. She
would visit once in awhile. Kate remembered answering the door
once, and being surprised to see Gina posing at a fashionable
tilt, her arms extended for a warm embrace. "I thought I'd drop in and surprise you."
It wasn't even a holiday. Gina was thinner and less erect than
she remembered. But her face had the mature angles of a beautifully
alert animal. Her hair was long and there were lines framing her
sharp eyes and edgy mouth. She was wearing a T-shirt advertising
an automotive company. In a fat, exaggerated red font, it said:
"I don't have a license to kill. I have a learner's permit."
Her hipbones stuck out bossily. Kate wanted to link elbows or
wrap her arms around her sister's waist as if Gina were a best
friend that she didn't want to lose to a college summer vacation. "Kate. God, you'll never believe who I ran into in San Francisco. Mitch Dennison from high school. Apparently he runs an Internet business where he designs porn sites. I've seen his stuff and its wild. We exchanged numbers." Kate didn't remember the guy she was talking about,
and thought this was an odd intro to an overdue reunion. She thought
Gina looked antsy and caged in her apartment. She circled the
living room, pulling things off the shelf, inspecting them, then
setting them down in the wrong position. Her speech was multidirectional,
as if she were throwing words out and hoping they'd land someplace
where Kate might pick them up. "Can I use your bathroom?" she smiled. Kate couldn't think of much to say to her sister,
so they watched TV on a tiny resale set with cockeyed bunny ears.
They made popcorn with lots of butter and ate it greedily. At
one point, Gina leaned over and put her chin on Kate's shoulder.
She seemed heavy and absent as a piece of furniture. Her hair
smelled bad. Kate wanted to smooth the hairs that were standing
up on her sister's arms. They were all going in the wrong direction.
On the night of her dinner with Gina, Kate was rinsing bulbous, knobby carrots and heads of lettuce in her kitchen sink. She had a three-bean casserole in the oven and a bottle of merlot on the counter. She hoped Gina liked French vinaigrette dressing. While Kate prepared her modest salad, she tried
to imagine Gina in her apartment. She thought of her wearing glittery
orange and putting her elbows on the dining table while picking
vegetables from her salad and eating them with her fingers. Gina
would talk about her boyfriends and her job. She would have some
problem that Kate could sympathize with, maybe a drug habit or
a mean friend. It would bring them closer. They would hug like
talk show guests and then make fun of their parents. Kate washed her hands and realized that these were
images of what she knew of Gina, juxtaposed with what she heard
about other people interacting with their siblings. She didn't
even know what Gina might look like now. The buzzer went off and Kate took the casserole
out of the oven and let it cool on the range top. Then she went
into her living room to watch a trivia game show on TV. She played
along with the eager contestants, but couldn't get any of the
answers right. The shadows in the room grew stretched and freakish. It was getting dark. Kate turned on a lamp. She thought of the time when she and Gina had been stranded at the day-care center. Their mother was late picking them up. They sat in a quiet rec room and watched a cartoon about an idiotic dog and a resourceful cat who tried to kill each other in violent, animated ways. The day-care attendant wore shades of brown and
wandered around the room arranging houseplants. Kate watched for
their mother's headlights and Gina said, "We'll probably
have to spend the night." Kate worried and played with her
shoelaces. Then Gina wrapped her arms around Kate's ribs in a
warm, protective hug. Their mother eventually showed up an hour
late, looking exhausted in her long gray coat. Kate kept thinking that her sister would arrive
at any moment and wrap her arms around her like she did at the
day-care center. But Gina still wasn't there by 9 o'clock. The
casserole had already formed a cool, hard surface layer, like
a scab. Kate started to imagine her sister in a car accident,
a limp wrist tossed over the dashboard, flashlights beaming. Maybe
she'd been arrested for shoplifting, and was holed up in a bright
police station with mustard-colored walls. She could just as easily
have been lost, led astray by her sister's vague directions.
Kate stared into space. "That bitch," she sniffed. She pulled her knees to her chest and pressed her fist against her teeth. She couldn't even eat her dinner. |
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ate
was lying on the couch, masturbating to her favorite modern jazz
CD, when the telephone rang. She thought it was a telemarketer
selling something she didn't need, so she let the answering machine
pick it up. Her sister's voice came in a sharp, fractured burst.
ast
she'd heard, Gina was a stripper in Seattle. She read tarot cards
for extra cash. Kate wandered around her color-coordinated apartment,
straightening picture frames, fluffing embroidered throw pillows
and thinking about her sister. 
he
did not have a boyfriend, nor did she date often. She thought
the intricacies and procedures that people went through to get
to know each other were trite and exhausting. She was shy, and,
when nervous, had a distracting quality of speaking in fast, clipped
sentences, which annoyed her. The last man with whom she was involved
told her she wasn't "spontaneous enough" and promptly
dumped her for a holistic sex therapist. That was two years ago.
Now she felt fairly asexual. Some people thought she was a lesbian.
hen
Gina broke up with Mike, Kate made her a card out of construction
paper. It had a picture of a mirthful cat rolling over on its
back to receive a welcome rub from a disembodied hand. She had
cut it out of a magazine that advertised pet supplies. Inside
the card, she wrote: "Sorry about Mike. But at least you
still have a great sister!" She drew lots of lopsided hearts
with colored markers and signed her name in huge, swirly script.
Gina was sitting at her vanity, plucking her eyebrows, when Kate
gave her the card. Gina opened it and read it as if it were a
report card. She set it down indifferently.
fter
that visit, Gina only sent ambiguous cards with pictures of landscapes
on them and no note. She signed her name in firm, boxed print.
Kate started calling psychic hotlines and hanging up after one
or two rings.