The Sunshine Sisters by Jane Green
“You don’t look like the kind of man who fades into the background,” Lizzy says.
“Trust me, I am.”
She peers at him. “You look kind of familiar. Have you ever been to one of my supper clubs?”
“No! I can’t get a ticket! If you’re offering, I’d love to come. Everyone says they’re ridiculous.”
“You know flattery will get you everywhere.”
“I’m a journalist. I do know,” he says. “But I don’t have to tell you how hot the tickets to your supper clubs are.”
“We can figure something out. You’re sure we haven’t met?”
“I don’t think so.”
“What’s your name again?”
“Billy Hart.”
“Oh, my God. Weren’t you married to Veronica?”
The color drains from his face. “How do you know Veronica?”
“I catered her wedding. Her . . . second wedding.” She grimaces. “Is this where our budding friendship goes totally south?”
“That depends.” Billy is shaken but refuses to show it. “What do you think of her?”
“She’s gorgeous. And sweet. But the husband is a bit of a nightmare.”
“We can be friends,” says Billy, as the tension disappears, and the front door opens again, Nell, River, and Daisy walking in.
“Where’s your mom?” Meredith asks Daisy. “She’s not coming?”
“She said she didn’t want to intrude on a family night,” explains River. “Mom said it would be fine, but she wouldn’t come.”
“Oh,” says Meredith, as Nell walks to the other side of the room.
Oh? thinks Lizzy, watching the flush fade from Nell’s cheeks, before a thought snakes into her head. No, she thinks. Surely that can’t be the explanation. Nell? Surely not.
River and Daisy go upstairs to see his grandmother, as Lizzy calls Nell back to the counter, where Billy is pulling down a bottle of tequila from the top shelf and dusting it off.
“Tequila?” Lizzy is impressed. “Now we’re talking. Shots? Do we have limes and salt?”
“I wasn’t planning on shots,” says Billy, after introducing himself to Nell. “I’m allergic to wine, and vodka gives me headaches. Tequila is the only thing that I seem to be okay with.”
“Now this is my kind of man!” Lizzy grins at Meredith, who gives her a hard glare.
Why is Lizzy flirting with Billy when she has a husband and child at home? A husband and child she seems barely to mention or even think about. “How is James?” Meredith says. “And Connor? Isn’t it his birthday soon?”
Lizzy says, “My husband and son are both fine, thank you for asking. Ice, anyone?” She leans in to Meredith as she walks past her and whispers, low, so no one else can hear, “Don’t worry, he’s all yours,” and walks on before Meredith has a chance to say she isn’t interested in Billy.
She’s not interested in Billy. How could she be interested in Billy when she’s getting married to Derek? Also, Billy isn’t interested in her. He’s far too handsome to be interested in her. Granted, once upon a time someone like Billy might have been interested in someone like her, but that was over ten years ago, when she was gorgeous for about five minutes, when she looked, and felt, worthy. Not now that she is approaching forty with eye bags and extra poundage, not to mention a fiancé. How lucky she is to have Derek, she thinks.
She looks up to find Billy watching her, raising his glass to her, and smiling. She returns the smile and finds herself holding his gaze just a little longer than feels altogether necessary. What is this? she thinks. He can’t be interested in her, surely not. She thinks of Derek, of how she finds him less handsome than . . . nice. Approachable. Easy. Of how grateful he is that she is with him, will be his wife.
Derek, she tells herself. My future happiness and peace lie with Derek. This young man may be handsome, and he may be paying me attention, or pretending to pay me attention, but it means nothing. He probably just wants to get closer to my mother or get information out of me. I will not flirt with him. I will not be that gullible.
“Excuse me,” she says, going upstairs to her bedroom and looking at all the makeup she applied earlier, which now looks slightly desperate and wholly ridiculous. Grabbing a cotton ball, she rubs the eyeshadow off, smudging it into a big mess that makes her appear to have two black eyes. With a sigh she scrapes her hair back with an elastic and scrubs her face with soap and water. There. No one could accuse her of flirting with Billy now.
There is a knock on the door, which Meredith opens to find Lizzy. “What’s going on?” says Meredith as she pulls the hair band off.
“Mom’s not so good,” says Lizzy. “She can’t get out of bed.”
“I know. She couldn’t this afternoon either. I keep thinking she doesn’t want to, like that time she wouldn’t get out of bed for the whole year.”
Lizzy rolls her eyes. “Did anyone ever actually give her a diagnosis for that year?”
“I believe Dr. Sunshine diagnosed herself with mono, until she read about Lyme disease and suddenly it was Lyme.”
“If memory serves correctly, it wasn’t just Lyme disease, it was chronic Lyme,” says Lizzy, as they both smile.
“Naturally,” says Meredith. “But this time it’s different. I’m beginning to think this is far beyond her old antics. It started dawning on me today that this is really bad. Like, I think she might be dying, bad. But that doesn’t make sense, does it? We have known about every ache, pain, illness, fever, and it was always a near-death experience. I keep thinking there’s no way she would be seriously ill and not make it all about her, but . . . this is different. Do you think it’s . . . like, MS or something?”
“Yes. I do. I don’t know what else it could be, with the tingling and weakness and all that stuff. I want to talk to her doctors. I want to know why the hell they aren’t testing for that stuff.”
“I totally agree,” says Meredith. “Let’s tell her we want to meet with her doctors. Let’s see if we can go and see them tomorrow.”
“Okay. Good. That makes me feel better. I can’t in the morning, though. I have one of my waitresses coming up to talk to me about some crisis.”
Meredith stares at her sister. “Does she know you’re the least compassionate person in the world and a terrible person to come to in a crisis?”
“Clearly not. But she’s about to find out.” Lizzy gives a crooked grin. “God, these young girls. They need so much babysitting. By the way, I wasn’t flirting with your boyfriend down there, and I’m sorry if that’s how it seemed. I wouldn’t ever do that.”
Meredith blushes. “First of all, he’s not my boyfriend. Secondly, it’s fine for you to flirt with whoever you want, even though I think it’s kind of weird, given that you are married and you do have a child, which, granted, is kind of hard to believe, given that you have barely mentioned them.”
Lizzy stares at her. “You’re right,” she says eventually, sinking onto Meredith’s bed. “I’m a shitty fucking mother and a terrible wife, and I am royally screwing up my life.”
Meredith shuffles from foot to foot, astonished that Lizzy didn’t attack her with insults. Worse than that, she’s utterly disconcerted that Lizzy now has tears in her eyes.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Lizzy says as she shakes her head. “I never thought I’d end up like this.”
Meredith sits gingerly down next to her, laying an arm awkwardly around her sister’s shoulders. “What’s going on?”
“It’s all so complicated. I’m not happy. James and I are barely speaking, and I just don’t know how to fix it. We’ve been in couples counseling, but honestly, my heart just isn’t in it anymore. I feel like—” She pauses and takes a deep breath. “I feel like my marriage is gasping its last breaths, and maybe it’s better for everyone if we just quit now, admit it’s not working, and figu
“You’re asking me? I’m not exactly an expert on relationships,” says Meredith. “Anything but. I think you and James probably need to decide what you want. No one can do that for you.”
She pauses, looking at her sister, thinking of how envious she has always been of her, the baby of the family who was handed everything on a silver platter, who never seemed to struggle or find life difficult, the way Meredith did. She was extroverted, gorgeous, and slim, and everything was always easy for her. Or so Meredith thought.
“Is there someone else?” she asks, not thinking about the words until they are out there.
Lizzy looks up. “No,” she says quickly.
A little too quickly, perhaps, thinks Meredith, but before she has a chance to ask anything else, Lizzy is standing.
“Come on,” she says. “Better get back to the others.”
thirty-three
Lizzy sidles up to Daisy in the kitchen.
“So, Daisy.” Lizzy leans against the counter next to her. “You seem like a very normal person. What are you doing hanging out with our crazy family?”
River grins from across the room. “The family might be crazy, but I’m not. Thanks to my very stable mom, I’m a great boyfriend, wouldn’t you say?”
“You’re the best,” says Daisy, toasting him with a bottle of beer.
“Didn’t you say you’re twenty?” Meredith eyes the bottle of beer. “I’m not sure you should be drinking that.”
“Meredith!” say Nell and Lizzy at the same time.
“I’m twenty-one next month,” says Daisy. “I think I’ll be okay.”
Lizzy turns her head so Meredith doesn’t see and rolls her eyes surreptitiously at Nell, who suppresses a smile.
“So what’s your story, Daisy?” Lizzy asks. “I like your mom. Tell us three interesting things about you that we don’t know.”
“Hm. Good question. I don’t usually get asked stuff like that. Okay. I have tattoos.”
“Interesting,” says Lizzy. “Where and what? I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
Daisy pulls the shoulder of her T-shirt down to reveal a small “om” sign on one shoulder and a penguin on the other.
“The om I get, but what’s the significance of the penguin?”
Daisy shrugs. “I just like them. What’s yours?”
“Since when do you have a tattoo?” asks Meredith, frowning.
“Tattoos.” Lizzy grins. “Plural.” She pushes a sleeve up to reveal a carving knife, delicately drawn and finely shaded so it looks like a pen and ink sketch rather than a tattoo.
“Wow,” breathes River, walking over. “That’s very cool.”
“And this . . .” She pulls the neck down and turns around to reveal a whisk on her shoulder blade. “And this . . .” She unbuttons her pants, pulls them down, and turns around to show a wooden spoon on her left butt cheek.
Meredith blushes, noting that Billy is in the room, even though he’s politely not looking. “Lizzy! Don’t pull your pants down.”
“What? It’s a tattoo. I have panties on, for God’s sake.”
“Barely,” says Meredith, wondering how Lizzy stays so slim, how her body is so perfect, envious of how she has no qualms about dropping her pants in a room filled with people, two of whom are relative strangers. One of whom is a very cute man, who, much to her relief, still isn’t looking. “A thong isn’t exactly panties.”
“For God’s sake, Meri. Relax. Have another glass of wine,” says Lizzy, buttoning her pants back up.
“Those are awesome,” breathes Daisy.
“Thank you. Anyone else have a tattoo? Meredith?”
Meredith shakes her head.
“Nell?”
Nell shakes her head as Lizzy turns to see Billy at the counter, making notes.
“You’re not writing down our conversation, are you?” Lizzy asks.
He looks up, startled. “I am, but I wouldn’t ever write anything without your full approval. I’m mostly scribbling my own observations about the house, the family. I still haven’t decided whether I’m going to film this, or write a piece. Or, in fact, whether there is even a piece to write.”
“Can we have it in writing, that we have full approval?” says Lizzy, who is always suspicious of journalists.
“You already have it. I gave a letter to your mom. But I’m happy to do one for each of you. Does that work?”
“It does. What about tattoos? Anything? You look too clean-cut to have a tattoo.”
Billy shrugs before standing up, lifting his T-shirt, and turning around as Meredith suppresses a gasp. The tattoo is small, on his shoulder, an old Corona typewriter. Everyone moves closer to admire the delicacy, what a cool tattoo it is.
“I got it when I got divorced,” Billy says. “Something of a midlife crisis, perhaps, but I wanted to remind myself of the first great love of my life, which is writing. I wanted to remind myself never to get sidetracked again.”
“Nice,” says Lizzy approvingly.
Meredith feels like she can’t breathe. He lifted his shirt, and just before he turned around she saw his abs, his stomach, the line of dark hair that stretched from his navel down under the waistline of his pants, and she is almost vibrating with lust, in a way so unfamiliar to her, she doesn’t know what to do.
“Hey, Meri? You okay?” Lizzy notices. Of course Lizzy notices.
“I think I’ve had a bit too much wine,” says Meredith, standing up abruptly. “I’m just going to the bathroom.”
She leaves, as Daisy directs attention back to Lizzy. “When did you get your tattoos?”
“I got the one on my back just before I turned eighteen, but no one knew. My parents would have killed me. How about you? When did you get yours?”
“Also at eighteen. My mom came with me.”
“I knew I liked her,” says Lizzy. “That’s very cool.”
“She wanted to make sure it was a good tattoo. She had a friend who went to a tattoo parlor in New York when she was on vacation, and walked in off the street on impulse, and the guy was terrible. She has a terrible tattoo that she never would have picked. My mom wanted to make sure I got something delicate, and her ex-girlfriend had tattoos, so we got suggestions from her.”
Lizzy perks up, as Nell takes a deep breath. She hadn’t expected this topic to come up quite so soon, but now that it has, she knows her sister: there’s no way she will let this one drop.
“When you say ‘ex-girlfriend,’” Lizzy inquires, “do you mean ex-girlfriend as in, your mom is gay?”
Daisy bristles. “Why? Is that a problem?”
“Oh, my God, no!” says Lizzy. “The opposite! Are you kidding? I think that’s amazing. I’m just surprised because your mom seems so . . . momlike. I don’t mean that as an insult. I just wouldn’t have guessed. Do you mind me asking about your dad? Was your mom always gay? What’s the story?”
Daisy relaxes. “You should really ask her; she’s happy to talk about it. I can tell you that she says now she always knew, but she wanted to be like everyone else. She thought if she got married and had a child—and she wanted kids, anyway—she would be ‘normal.’” Daisy makes quotation signs with her fingers as she says the word.
“And?”
“I think as she got older it became harder to live a lie. And she met someone. A woman. And . . . that was it. My dad and her are still really good friends, and she’s so much happier now.”
“Does she have a partner now?”
“No. She likes being in a relationship, but she’s been on her own for a little while. She’s happy. She’s in a good place.”
Lizzy sees Nell out of the corner of her eye, focused on her beer. “So what’s her type?” she asks innocentl
Lizzy always thought this was a reaction against their mother, who turned into a sex kitten whenever a man walked into a room. Her mother would practically purr, whether it was a friend, a plumber, or her agent. She knew exactly what to do to wrap every man she met around her finger, so Lizzy spent her whole life presuming Nell was consciously doing the opposite, that it was precisely because of her mother that Nell was deliberately so sexless.
Lizzy knows herself to be a huge flirt, but it is charming, rather than sexual. She is tough at work, but can sweet-talk anyone into anything. Nell can’t do that, not with men. Perhaps, perhaps, this might help explain why she has always been so shut down. God, could her sister find a way to be happy?
“She doesn’t have a type,” Daisy says, laughing. “Why? Do you know anyone?”
“Maybe,” says Lizzy slowly as she lifts the bottle of beer to her lips and takes a swig. “Although my favorite lesbian just got married.”
“To a woman?” clarifies Daisy.
“Yes. She was married to a man, and has kids, and then, like your mom, realized it was a part of her that couldn’t stay suppressed. I think it’s awesome, by the way,” says Lizzy. “Honestly? I don’t think it matters who you love, just as long as you love. Who cares whether it’s a man or a woman? Why does that have anything more to do with the person inside than the color of someone’s skin? Personally, I’m pretty fucking disappointed that I seem to be one hundred percent heterosexual.”
“I don’t know,” says Daisy. “I kind of think it’s a continuum. I mean, most people say they’re one hundred percent heterosexual, but they probably aren’t. Some people might be more open, some less. Most people live somewhere on the continuum. Of course, when you’re one hundred percent, you find it impossible to imagine there’s a continuum, because you believe everyone must be the same as you.”