Forty-Seven

Back in her teens, Bonnie smoked. Not for all that long. Couple of years when she was in high school. Gave up cigarettes when she went on to college—mostly she couldn't afford them, and only smoked when she could bum one off a friend—but she remembered the pleasures of drawing smoke into her lungs and blowing it out slowly, how soothing it was. She used to hide them in the garage when she still lived with her parents.

God, how she wished she had a pack stashed away someplace in the house right now.

Richard should have bailed on that school meeting tonight. They needed to talk more, figure out what their next steps could be. There had to be something that would allow them to put all this behind them.

Bonnie stood there in the kitchen a moment longer, imagining a Camel between her index and middle fingers.

Enough of this.

"Rachel!" she called out.

"Yes?" she shouted back from the family room.

"Bed!"

"But it's only—"

"Bed!"

Bonnie could hear her daughter scrambling up the stairs. Bonnie would go up in a few minutes, make sure she was actually getting ready. Brushing her teeth, putting on her pajamas.

The doorbell rang.

"God, what fresh hell is this?" Bonnie asked of no one in particular. She went to the front door and found her sister, Marta, standing there.

"You're back."

"I'm back," Marta said, stepping in without being invited. Bonnie stepped out of the way, and closed the door once her sister was inside. "Richard off to his school thing?"

"Yes."

"Where's Rach?" Marta asked.

Bonnie pointed to the ceiling. "Getting ready for bed."

"Let's go to the kitchen."

Where, it occurred to Bonnie, all important discussions are held. She didn't feel good about where this one might be going.

"Can you make us some coffee?" Marta asked when they got there. "Decaf, if you prefer, given it's kind of late in the day. But I'm good with either."

Bonnie decided to make the real stuff. She wasn't going to get any sleep tonight, anyway.

Marta made a show of unclipping her badge from her belt and setting it on the counter. "Don't let me forget that."

"I don't understand," Bonnie said.

"Right now, I'm not a cop. I'm just your sister, and it's just us. I'm going to do something right now that could very likely get me fired, because I should really turn this over to someone else, shouldn't even be talking to you at all right now, but I don't care, because I love you, and fuck it."

Bonnie fumbled the sugar bowl, spilling some onto the counter.

"Let me do that," Marta said, directing Bonnie to a chair.

Bonnie didn't fight her, took a seat, and watched as Marta took off her jacket, hung it over the back of a chair, and waited for the water to drip down through the coffee filter. She filled the two cups, adding a touch of cream to her own, and half a teaspoon of sugar to her sister's.

"You remember," Bonnie said.

Marta brought the two cups to the table and said, "You got any cookies or anything?" Bonnie pointed to a cupboard. Marta found a bag of biscotti. "Ooh, fancy." She brought them to the table and sat down at an angle from Bonnie. She pulled out a biscotti, smiled when she saw that the end was dipped in chocolate. "I love these."

Bonnie hadn't said a word.

"I was thinking about when we lived in the house on Breakneck," Marta said. "I was eighteen, and you were sixteen, and Mom and Dad had to drive up to Boston when Dad's best friend from college died. You remember that?"

"Yes," Bonnie said, taking a sip of her coffee. "His name was Lenny. They were on the football team."

"They were worried, leaving the two of us on our own. The arguments we were famous for. Borrowing each other's clothes without asking. Fighting over that one computer that was connected to the Internet, how you even yanked my hair so you could have a turn. Plus all the stories about teenagers throwing crazy parties when their parents were out of town, and they were worried that even if we didn't intend to throw a party, all the neighborhood kids might descend on our place, anyway. I think you were going out with Roy somebody at that time."

"Roy Knightley," Bonnie offered.

"Right. Not a bad-looking guy."

Bonnie smiled. "You always remember your first."

"That you do," Marta said, taking a bite out of the chocolate end of the biscotti. "You tried to set me up with his older brother, Fletcher. He was, if I recall correctly, even better-looking than Roy. And I wasn't the slightest bit interested. I think you must have seen him as a kind of test. That if Fletcher didn't get my motor running, no boy could."

"Busted."

"I hadn't come out. I couldn't. Mom and Dad, I was sure they'd never be able to handle it. Anyway, while Mom and Dad were off in Boston, you were going out with Roy, and I'd told you I was going to the movies with some friends or something, so you figured the house was empty and you came home. You and Roy were going to get it on."

"But the house wasn't empty," Bonnie said. "I heard noises in the TV room."

"Where you found me and Sandra Jane Wiler. Kind of making out."

"Kinda?"

"Okay, maybe even more than that. Gettin' into it."

"Why are you telling me this story?" Bonnie asked.

"Just wait. So we pulled ourselves together, and it was all pretty awkward, and I took you aside and tried to explain. That we weren't really making out, but Sandra Jane's brother had this VHS porn tape with two women fucking around with each other and it was just the dumbest thing she'd ever seen and we were just reenacting it and killing ourselves laughing because it was so ridiculous, that we weren't really doing anything, and that what you'd seen wasn't what you thought you'd seen. And do you remember what you said?"

Bonnie slowly shook her head.

"You said, ‘Bullshit. You think I'm an idiot?' That was what you said."

Bonnie said nothing.

"And so I told you what you pretty much already knew, but confirmed it for you. That I was gay, that I didn't know how long I could keep it from Mom and Dad, and you put your arms around me and said you loved me and that you would support me in whatever way I wanted to handle it. And I felt this great weight lift off my shoulders, that whatever happened, you had my back. I've never forgotten that, to this very day."

A tear welled up in Bonnie's eye.

"So now, after all these years, it's my turn," Marta said. "This is what I have to say after talking to you and Richard. Bullshit. You think I'm an idiot?"

Bonnie's mouth moved, as though she were trying to say something, but the words would not come out. Marta put her hand atop Bonnie's and said, "Something's going on, and you're going to tell me what it is. Because I'm your sister, and I love you, and if you don't, I'm gonna yank your hair out by the roots."