“Gin and bitterness?” Beth asked.
“Sounds great.”
She grinned and went into the kitchen like a good friend.
I sat down next to my sister. Like Beatrice, she was dressed beautifully, in a yellow silky top and a white skirt with tiny yellow triangles all over it. Perfect makeup.
Funny that she’d said the other day that she was ugly. Yes, her nose was long and crooked, but so was Meryl Streep’s, right? No one called Meryl ugly. But I’d been thinking of our childhood days together, and while I mostly remembered my own contentment, there were flashes of Hannah’s misery. Her hunched posture to hide her height. How she’d been a cheerleader for exactly one practice before quitting and weeping into her pillow. She’d had a boyfriend in college, but she’d never had a serious relationship since. I assumed it was by choice, since she projected confidence and success. Each year, she took a vacation in January, somewhere exotic like Kauai or Thailand. Unless Beatrice went along, she’d go alone, or on one of those women-only tours.
Could my übersuccessful, superclassy sister be lonely?
“Beatrice,” I said as Beth came into the room and handed me a drink, “Beth was wondering if she could tour your closet, get some ideas for her wardrobe.” I knew Beth would leave with an armful of castoffs. Beatrice was French. She didn’t keep things that weren’t perfect for her.
“Bien s?r! Elizabet, come, come! Perhaps you will do me this favor and take some of the things I must part with, yes? Hannah is so blissfully tall, the clothes do not fit her, and Lillie is delightfully petite. You, though, are the same size as I, so voilà!”
“Oh, thank you,” Beth crooned. “I’d be delighted.” She threw me a gleeful smile.
“Do you need any makeup? I have just been sent Chanel’s new line . . .”
“This is better than Sephora,” Beth said as they went up the stairs, Beatrice glancing back.
“Take your time up there,” Mom said. “I have to talk to my daughters.”
Was it my imagination, or was there an emphasis on the word my?
I took a sip of my drink. I wasn’t puritanical. More of a lightweight. I drank wine, didn’t I? Mom and Beatrice, though . . . a cocktail or three every night, a bottle of wine with dinner. Hannah seemed to keep up, but I had never seen my sister drunk, either. She was the very portrait of self-control.
Silence settled around the three of us. Hannah and I looked at each other. She shrugged.
“Well, there’s no easy way to say this,” Mom said. “Beatrice and I are getting divorced, and she’s moving back to France after Christmas. Sorry, Hannah.”
My mouth dropped open. I glanced at my sister. Shit. Her face was white, and her red lipstick made her look like a stunned vampire.
“What . . . what happened, Mom?” I asked. “You’ve been married so long.”
“So we’re too old to divorce, then? Isn’t that ageist, Liliana, or is divorce reserved for you and that idiot you married?” She rattled the ice cubes in her glass. “Any questions?”
“Yes! A thousand,” I said. Hannah’s eyes were wide. “What happened? You left Dad for her. She’s fantastic. Did you cheat on her, too?”
My mother rolled her eyes. “Honestly, you’re so provincial. Is that the only reason people divorce? It’s simply time for us to part ways.”
Brad had said the same thing, and he was cheating. I took Hannah’s hand and squeezed it.
“Excuse me a minute,” she said. She went upstairs. A door closed.
I looked at my mother. “Anything else you’d like to share?” I asked.
“No.”
“Why is Beatrice going back to France? This is going to ruin Hannah.”
“Well, maybe Hannah shouldn’t have imprinted on Beatrice quite so hard. No one told her to crawl inside Beatrice’s uterus and become a clone.”
“She’s not a clone, Mom! She’s . . . she loves Beatrice. It’s hard not to.”
“You managed to avoid it. I need another drink. You?”
I’d barely touched mine. “I’m fine. I also love Beatrice. Just not in the same way.”
“Right. You’ve had Vanessa Fairchild to worship for the past twenty years. How’s that going?” She got up and went into the kitchen, and I looked down to see if there was a knife sticking out of my chest.
Beth came down the stairs with an armful of clothes and a Chanel bag swinging from her hands. “Your sister is in Beatrice’s closet, sobbing her eyes out.”