“Stepbrother,” I say.
1983. January 1, New York City.
If I eat another dumpling I will burst. We are in a crowded dim sum restaurant in Chinatown, sitting at a big round table. Mum and Leo are hung over and are being mildly unpleasant to everyone. A waiter with a big metal steam cart is bashing around the restaurant flinging small white plates of unrecognizable food onto tables. The air is thick with cigarette smoke, sweat, and din. The waiter puts a beer down in front of Mum and she gulps it straight from the bottle.
“Hair of the dog,” she says. “Not even twenty-four hours and I’ve already broken my first resolution.”
I look over at Anna and groan. “I’m so fat.”
“Please,” Anna says. “I feel like a tick.”
Anna is home from college. She’s a freshman at UCLA. She’s sharing my room over the break, since Conrad has her room now. Mum set up the folding bed for Anna, but the mattress is lumpy, thin in the middle – you can feel the metal bar coming through. So, I’ve given her my bed instead. At night, we lie there talking until we pass out. Ever since I visited her at boarding school, when she confided in me for the first time, we’ve become friends.
“Who wants a pork bun?” Leo grabs two plates off the cart. Conrad reaches out to take one, but Leo bypasses him—Conrad has been gaining weight. “Rosemary?”
Rosemary is spending the holidays with us. She’s still mousy, with dull dirty-blond hair. Small for her age. Sad. She’s fourteen, but she wears sensible brown lace-up shoes and pleated wool skirts. She looks like her mother dresses her. Rosemary didn’t want to come for Christmas, but Leo insisted. He’s happy having both his children under one roof again, but Mum is going out of her mind. She keeps finding reasons to go to Gristedes. For Christmas, Rosemary gave each of us a different ceramic souvenir bell from Graceland. Leo played carols on his saxophone and we all sang. Then Rosemary asked if she could sing her pageant solo, “Lully, Lullay,” which always sounds to me like someone playing the recorder. Rosemary insisted on singing every verse, eyes closed, rocking back and forth to the music. At one point, tears began to roll down her cheeks. Anna pinched my thigh so hard I almost screamed.
“It’s like she never grew up,” Anna says later that night when we are lying in bed. “Her skin is translucent. It’s probably all that religion.”
* * *
—
“We should talk about the summer, Rosemary,” Leo says now. “It would be wonderful if you could come for a proper long visit this year. We’ve missed you.”
I can see Mum mentally kicking him under the table, but she smiles at Rosemary, nods in agreement, polishes off her beer, and waves to a waiter.
“I can’t. I have band camp in June,” Rosemary says. “And then Mom and I are going to Lake Placid.”
“Mom didn’t say anything to me about Lake Placid,” Conrad says.
“It’s a girls’ trip. You’re not invited.”
Conrad takes the pork bun off her plate and bites into it. Small bits of liquid brown meat ooze from the white, doughy corners.
“Are you sure you need that, Conrad?” Leo asks.
February
The playground is still full. It’s freezing out, and dusky evening is setting in, but Mrs. Strauss, the woman whose daughter I babysit after school, insisted I take five-year-old Petra to the park for fresh air, even though I’m sure Mrs. Strauss could see I had frostbite and my nose was about to fall off. She’s one of those women who only seems nice—the kind who shops at snotty stores like Bendel’s and Bergdorf’s, but not Bloomies. The Strausses live in a modern white-brick building on East Seventy-fifth, with a beige awning that stretches all the way across the sidewalk to the curb, so the tenants can step into a cab without getting wet in the rain. Their apartment has sliding doors onto a balcony that overlooks the park. When Mrs. Strauss and her husband are too lazy to walk their Weimaraner, they let it shit out there, and then the shit freezes in horrible gray-brown clumps.
I follow Petra around the playground, from jungle gym to slide to swings. Children run around in thick wool coats and mittens, scarves tied around their necks, noses running with snot. The nannies sit together on a park bench, ignoring them, trying to fill the gap between after school and dinnertime with the least effort possible.
“Push me!” Petra says.
I’ve forgotten my gloves. My hands are turning blue as I push the metal chain of the swing, flinging her higher and higher into the wind. The trees are bare. Inside my coat pocket, I can feel the weight of the roll of quarters I have stolen from the kitchen drawer where Mrs. Strauss leaves change for the housekeeper to use in the basement laundry machines.