steamily from between the great white pontoon breasts. Only the tiny pattering feet in elaborately strapped white high-heeled sandals spoke of the real long-ago DeeDee. Those, and the glossy pile of blue-black hair that helmeted her head in an intricate, lacquered hive of puffs and knobs. Mike felt her heart twist with pity, revulsion, and guilt. Beside her own sharpened thinness, her sister must look downright grotesque. She was glad that there was no family resemblance between them; gladder for DeeDee’s sake than for her own. She did not carewhat the hot, jostling throngs of people passing them might think. But DeeDee had always cared.
Under Mike’s fatigue there was a dead spot, as if a great balloon had deflated and collapsed, puddling to earth in an inert rubber pond. She realized that she had, on some subterranean level, been anticipating the comfort of her big sister’s arms, waiting for the bossy but soothing , fluttering ministrations she had not even consciously remembered from her childhood, but that were, nevertheless, there, under the years of annoyance at DeeDee’s nattering letters from Lytton. That comfort, those ministrations, were not going to be extended. Ever since their first formal little hug in the airport lounge, DeeDee had been sniping at her. Tiny, silvery barbs about Mike’s accent, her career, her “New Yorky” clothes and “exciting jet-set life” swarmed like gnats over their first few minutes together. True, she had thanked Mike profusely, over and over, for coming home to “lend a hand,” and she was elaborately solicitous about Mike’s divorce and the task of raising a child alone in a city like Manhattan, which her tone left hanging, depraved and Babylonesque, in the air between them. And she was even more vocally worried about Mike’s all-too-apparent anxiety, which manifested itself in shaking hands and rapid, shallow breathing. But when Mike stopped at an airport water fountain to take another Xanax, the small, cold flare of triumph in DeeDee’s eyes was unmistakable. And her allusions to Mike’s love life, as she phrased it archly, were heavily treacled with insinuation. Mike, knowing that DeeDee could not possibly have heard of Derek Blessing or the others before him, nevertheless found herself bridling as mulishly as she always had when DeeDee had pressed her for information she did not want to give.
“My love life is about as unspectacular as my career at the moment.” She smiled, hoping wearily to propitiate her sister into silence. She wanted some time todeal with the loss of the phantom filial support she had not known she hoped for. She wanted time to assimilate this fat, officious, discontented stranger. Where was pretty, breathless DeeDee, who had taken her part and restored the waters of family serenity after Mike’s extravagant childhood outbursts; who wrote so faithfully, if nigglingly, during Mike’s long years away from Lytton? Not in this ballooned and banal middle-aged woman.
“I really do appreciate you coming home, Mike,” DeeDee said again from the backseat, where she had slipped as if it were her proper place, leaving Mike to slide onto the scorching gold vinyl of the front seat beside Duck. “I know it wasn’t easy for you to get away. You must work all the time; we really are proud of you, even if we don’t tell you so. I bet I’ve got everything you’ve ever written in scrapbooks. I thought you might like to have them some day; I know how bad you used to be about keeping your things straight.”
She patted Mike awkwardly on the shoulder, and the young DeeDee was back again, fleetingly, in the touch. Mike turned and smiled at her.
“It’s not that much of an imposition, Dee,” she said. “Rachel’s with her father this summer, and things are going to be slow for me until fall. If I was ever going to come, this is as good a time as any. And I’m glad if it will give you a breather. To tell you the truth, I really came because I’m
Under Mike’s fatigue there was a dead spot, as if a great balloon had deflated and collapsed, puddling to earth in an inert rubber pond. She realized that she had, on some subterranean level, been anticipating the comfort of her big sister’s arms, waiting for the bossy but soothing , fluttering ministrations she had not even consciously remembered from her childhood, but that were, nevertheless, there, under the years of annoyance at DeeDee’s nattering letters from Lytton. That comfort, those ministrations, were not going to be extended. Ever since their first formal little hug in the airport lounge, DeeDee had been sniping at her. Tiny, silvery barbs about Mike’s accent, her career, her “New Yorky” clothes and “exciting jet-set life” swarmed like gnats over their first few minutes together. True, she had thanked Mike profusely, over and over, for coming home to “lend a hand,” and she was elaborately solicitous about Mike’s divorce and the task of raising a child alone in a city like Manhattan, which her tone left hanging, depraved and Babylonesque, in the air between them. And she was even more vocally worried about Mike’s all-too-apparent anxiety, which manifested itself in shaking hands and rapid, shallow breathing. But when Mike stopped at an airport water fountain to take another Xanax, the small, cold flare of triumph in DeeDee’s eyes was unmistakable. And her allusions to Mike’s love life, as she phrased it archly, were heavily treacled with insinuation. Mike, knowing that DeeDee could not possibly have heard of Derek Blessing or the others before him, nevertheless found herself bridling as mulishly as she always had when DeeDee had pressed her for information she did not want to give.
“My love life is about as unspectacular as my career at the moment.” She smiled, hoping wearily to propitiate her sister into silence. She wanted some time todeal with the loss of the phantom filial support she had not known she hoped for. She wanted time to assimilate this fat, officious, discontented stranger. Where was pretty, breathless DeeDee, who had taken her part and restored the waters of family serenity after Mike’s extravagant childhood outbursts; who wrote so faithfully, if nigglingly, during Mike’s long years away from Lytton? Not in this ballooned and banal middle-aged woman.
“I really do appreciate you coming home, Mike,” DeeDee said again from the backseat, where she had slipped as if it were her proper place, leaving Mike to slide onto the scorching gold vinyl of the front seat beside Duck. “I know it wasn’t easy for you to get away. You must work all the time; we really are proud of you, even if we don’t tell you so. I bet I’ve got everything you’ve ever written in scrapbooks. I thought you might like to have them some day; I know how bad you used to be about keeping your things straight.”
She patted Mike awkwardly on the shoulder, and the young DeeDee was back again, fleetingly, in the touch. Mike turned and smiled at her.
“It’s not that much of an imposition, Dee,” she said. “Rachel’s with her father this summer, and things are going to be slow for me until fall. If I was ever going to come, this is as good a time as any. And I’m glad if it will give you a breather. To tell you the truth, I really came because I’m
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