Five(7)

For example, observe her at her grandmother’s ninetieth birthday party. The whole extended family is present. Emma is wearing her signature black, high-necked sheath, cut from fine crepe. It’s conservative, not sexy or revealing, but it cannot help itself on Emma and clings to her like liquid latex. She is not conventionally beautiful or voluptuous. She is angular and sharp, slim and severe, with a face like a Byzantine saint. And somehow she wears her plain dress like a scandal. She is not pretty. She doesn’t want to be. She is powerful instead.

Her sister, her cousins, and the wives of other relations put effort into their outfits for the party, but they deflate inside their fuchsia cashmere Boden cardigans and redden with shame at their deliberations over their hopelessly middle-aged leopard-print belts, and despair at their sadly maternal metallic sneakers with the utterly styleless star motifs that were so cute this morning but that mortify them to their core when they see Emma. And worse, when Emma sees them.

Emma has arrived just in time to see her pretty, good-hearted, normal, boring sister Anne stand hand in hand at the front of the room with the nice and bland Ollie, who compensates for his mediocrity with a handlebar moustache, a T-shirt with a stupidly deep V-neck, and a conspicuously placed, ironic tattoo.

“And so, Nanna, and everyone,” Anne says to the silent room, with a tremulous voice, champagne glass raised, “Ollie and I would like to announce…”

“Yawn,” Emma says loudly, rolling her eyes. She takes no notice of her aunts and cousins directing raised eyebrows and darting glances at her as she flips her very tight, very high, very blonde and glossy ponytail during Anne’s long pause for effect.

“We’re engaged!” and everyone but Emma and Nanna cheers and applauds. Emma leans down to her grandmother and speaks into her ear.

“Are you all right, Nan?” she asks.

“I thought this was my party,” the old woman says.

“It is your party, Nan. She thinks it’s a present for you,” Emma explains.

“Well, no thank you. Ridiculous moustache. For God’s sake, he looks like my father,” Nanna says, “and he’s been dead for seventy-five years.” She looks at Ollie and knocks back the rest of her neat whiskey. “Get me another one of these, would you? And tell that boy to park his penny farthing somewhere else,” she says.

Emma weaves through the happy crowd and dodges her cousins and aunts and their exclamations of wonder at lovely Anne’s lovely news on her way to the kitchen. Her mother stops her.

“Emma,” she says, curtly by way of greeting, her own once-blonde hair framing her face in a perfectly straight precision bob, like a silver Anna Wintour.

“Mother,” Emma responds, coldly.

“It’s lovely, isn’t it?” her mother says, in a way that isn’t lovely, locking eyes with her. “Don’t ruin it for her,” she says, coming close to her daughter’s face.

“It’s so dull, Mother, I couldn’t possibly make it any worse,” Emma says. “I need to congratulate her, Mumsy, excuse me,” and as Emma moves past her, her mother grabs her arm. “Let go of me,” Emma says quietly, sharply.

“Do the right thing for once,” her mother says through gritted teeth.

“Or what? I won’t be your favorite anymore?” Emma says, and pulls away forcefully, downing her plastic flute of champagne on the way to the kitchen. Any interaction with her mother requires alcohol. She pretends to herself it is instant anger her mother provokes, and she ignores the hurt beneath the fury, the pain only a mother can inflict that never goes away.

Emma stops in the doorway of her grandmother’s kitchen, Anne’s back to her, and as she eyes the bottles she listens in on the hushed feminine tones.

“I hope Emma can be happy for me. I mean, I know this can’t be easy for her,” Anne says to their married, frumpy cousin Phoebe, mother of three, who is pulling self-consciously at her cold-shoulder blouse. She’d thought it was slimming this morning when she finally decided on it after she’d tried it on, then thrown on the floor every other blouse in her wardrobe, but when Emma arrived she wished she’d worn anything else. Phoebe refills Anne’s glass.

“It’s so true, it must be tough when everyone around you is getting engaged and you don’t even have someone you’re serious about,” says Phoebe.

“I know,” says Anne, unbuttoning the top button of her denim shirt dress, then thinking better of it and buttoning it again.

“I mean, I know she’s got her career or whatever, but when was the last time she even had a boyfriend?” asks Phoebe.

“It was before the baby slowed your metabolism and your husband started cycling every weekend, Phoebs,” Emma says, picking up a platter of pigs in a blanket and holding it out to her. “His name was Nicholas. Huge penis. It was good while it lasted. Sausage?” she offers.

“God, Emma, why are you always like this?” Phoebe says, pretending not to look at the sausages, a flush rising up her neck.

“What do you mean, Phoebs? You look great by the way. That blouse is so clever. So, like, they cut out the shoulders, is that the look? Cute,” Emma says, as Phoebe dies inside.

“Anyway, soooo happy for you and Ollie, Sis. Really,” Emma says, turning to Anne. “It’s adorable.” She puts the platter down on the counter and pulls her sister into a stiff hug. Over Anne’s shoulder Emma watches Phoebe sneak a sausage, catches her eye, and winks.