Names My Sisters Call Me

  Back in the day, Verena had been forever sleeping with cast members in rehearsals and then having to pretend to fall in love with them every night onstage for the duration of the show, having long since finished with them offstage. It was this sort of thinking that had prompted her to decide that despite her extensive training and experience in musical theater, she should become a stand-up comic instead, a field in which she had neither training nor experience. Her whole life had been a monument to the spontaneous decision.

  Then she turned twenty-eight, and decided she had to Grow Up. She’d toasted her youth the night of her birthday several months ago, bid it farewell, and yes, it was exactly as melodramatic as it sounded. And here we were.

  I blamed the media, and the endless “news” stories that claimed women would end up alone and it was all, somehow, their own fault. Because they were too fat, or too thin, or too needy, or too aloof, or too career-driven, or too relationship-obsessed. Though I knew better than to advance this theory to Verena when she wore that pissed-off little dent between her brows.

  “What about Matt Cheney?” she asked. My appeal to her former self was, apparently, unheard. Or simply ignored.

  “What about him?”

  “What do you mean, ‘what about him?’” Verena gaped at me. “You know exactly what about him. How are you going to handle seeing him again?”

  “I don’t know why you’re assuming I will,” I said with a sniff.

  “Of course you will, and you know it,” Verena said dismissively. “I don’t like to bring it up, but you lost it when he bailed on you. You turned into an orchestra pod person.”

  “I focused on my career,” I corrected her. Testily.

  “You only just came out of that funk.” Verena looked fierce. “And that’s all thanks to Lucas. Your fiancé, Lucas. I don’t understand why you would risk it. Does he know why you really want to go out there?”

  “Is it really that hard to believe that I want to find my sister?” I asked, a little bit bewildered by the strength of her objection.

  “Do you expect me to buy that?” she asked me right back.

  “Since when do you and Norah see eye-to-eye on anything?” I demanded. She didn’t like that—I could tell by the mutinous tilt of her chin. “And yes,” I said, very distinctly, “I expect you to buy that I want to find Raine. Because it’s true.”

  “I believe that you want to find Raine,” Verena said, studying me from across the table. “I also believe that you want to find Matt Cheney. I believe they are inextricably linked.”

  She didn’t say whether the they she referenced were Raine and Matt themselves, or her belief that I wanted to see Matt as well as Raine. I didn’t ask her to illuminate me.

  “This is not a stable, settled person we’re talking about here, Verena,” I pointed out. My voice was testy again. “This is Matt Freaking Cheney. He could have taken off for Tahiti years ago.”

  “When did Matt Cheney ever stray more than five feet from your sister’s side?” She threw it out there. It was a deliberate hit. I winced at the truth in that question, but then, times changed, and so did truths. “You’re going to see him, Courtney. You need to be ready.”

  “Six years is a long time.” I rolled my eyes. “I think it’s crazy to assume they’re still living the way they did when they were teenagers, all in each other’s pockets.”

  “Six years ago they were what? Almost thirty?” Verena sniffed. “I think the way they were living is just the way they live.”

  “They were twenty-eight, and this isn’t about him,” I insisted. “It’s about Raine.”

  Verena remained silent. Pointedly silent.

  Our panini cooled on the table between us, untouched.

  “And who cares about him, anyway?” I was warming to the topic. “I’m not going out there to deal with Matt Cheney or any of his bullshit. I don’t care where he is or what he’s doing. This is a journey about sisterhood. This is about family.”

  “You’re engaged to Lucas now,” Verena said. “Look at that beautiful ring on your finger. Why would you want to go digging around in the past when you have that?”

  I looked at my ring, and then back up at Verena’s face. She was watching me closely, almost as if she was looking for something in particular. Some sign, or clue.

  “It’s just something I have to do,” I said, shrugging helplessly.

  “I would do anything to have what you have,” Verena said in the same sort of tone. “You should think about that.”

  “I just know that I want my family back together,” I told her, willing her to understand. “Some girls spend their whole lives planning their wedding ceremonies down to the last detail. I never did that. But I know I want this. It doesn’t make sense to me that Lucas doesn’t know Raine at all. That he’s never even met her.”

  Verena looked at me for a long moment, and then she sighed.

  “I guess you have a point,” she said. She reached over and cut off a piece of the panini. Cheese oozed slowly from the molten center toward the plate. “But I’m still suspicious about the Matt Cheney proximity.”

  “Duly noted,” I assured her.

  “You don’t remember what you were like when you were all hung up on him,” she continued darkly. “But I do.”

  “You’re talking about someone who no longer exists,” I told her breezily. Though she was wrong. I remembered, too. “I’m a grown-up. I know what I’m doing.”

  “Funny,” Verena said, her brows arching. “That’s what you said to me when you started dating him. Secretly dating him.”

  Something she was still pissed about, clearly.

  “I’m beginning to think you’re jealous that you’re not coming with,” I teased her. “I can’t think of another reason why you’d be bringing up ancient history—unless, of course, you want to talk about your romantic decisions six years ago.” I cocked a brow right back across the table and waited.

  “Point taken,” Verena said dryly, and shuddered. “Ew.”

  “I’m going to be fine,” I told her after a moment. More softly.

  Her eyes were still dark as they met mine.

  “I hope so,” she said. “I really do.”

  In the weeks that followed, Lucas and I bought plane tickets and spent hours poring over travel guides and itineraries. I dreamed about hills and fog, Victorian row houses, and the bright blue California sky.

  June snuck into Philadelphia with chilly mornings that gradually heated into sweet, spring days. I wallowed in my vacation, demanded breakfast in bed daily, and received only laughter in reply—our summer tradition. I couldn’t wait to feel even more relaxed out in sunny California.

  “I want you to know that I am completely opposed to this trip of yours,” Norah bit out at me as I was helping tidy up after a particularly delicious pot roast. It was the Sunday before our trip, and I was only surprised that she hadn’t exploded at the dinner table.

  “I figured you would be,” I said mildly. I stacked the plates next to the sink. “I’m not trying to hurt anybody, you know. This is just something I have to do.”

  “Don’t expect me to be here for you when she does something to rip your heart out,” Norah said in a low voice. “Last time she ruined my wedding. If you think she’ll stop there, you’re kidding yourself.”

  Norah gave me a look that suggested she pitied me, and that I was incredibly naïve.

  “She likes to top herself,” Norah said, crossing her arms over her chest. “You’re a fool if you let Lucas anywhere near her.”

  “I get it,” I told her, holding my palm out in the stop position. “You don’t have to keep throwing these things at me. I know how you feel about her.”

  “How we felt about her, until a few months ago!” Norah’s lips pressed together and thinned. “You say this is about family, but you already have a family.”

  I searched her face, but she was like stone looking back at me. I didn’t know how to make her see that I could love the both of them. I
knew she didn’t believe it.

  “I want to see her, and see if there’s anything to salvage.” I shrugged. “That’s all. It has nothing to do with you.”

  Norah made a small noise in the back of her throat.

  “Of course it has to do with me,” she whispered. “Don’t kid yourself.”

  “I love both of you,” I said, helplessly, but she had already turned her back to me and returned to her dishes.

  Chapter Five

  We took an early flight out of Philadelphia, switched planes in Dallas, and were in San Francisco by early afternoon.

  It was amazing to me that a place like San Francisco could be so easy to reach, after a lifetime spent imagining those famous hills and the fantastic red bridge against the bright water below. It seemed as if fairy tale places should involve long and perilous quests, not a simple transfer in an unremarkable airport.

  “I definitely don’t miss carting the cello around,” Lucas said as we lugged our two huge duffels out toward the taxi queue.

  “I don’t even have to lift weights,” I bragged. I flexed one of my arms, as if there was anything to flex. “I’m so used to carrying it everywhere I go. Do you want me to help carry your bag for you? You look tired.”

  “You look like you’re about to be single,” Lucas replied. “Watch it.”

  “You better watch it,” I retorted, because we were both twelve.

  “Uh-huh.” Lucas dropped his bag when we reached the end of the taxi line and poked it with the toe of his sneaker. “Are you sure you didn’t pack the cello in this body bag of yours? It’s heavy enough.”

  “You can either carry heavy things or you can’t,” I drawled. “It’s what separates the men from the boys, honey.”

  “The hotel reservations are in my name,” he said, grinning. “One more slur against my manhood and you’re on the street.”

  “But—”

  “There’s a time to push boundaries,” Lucas told me, cutting me off. “This is not that time.”

  Clearly, I’d won. Triumph allowed me to be quiet until we were in the taxi and headed into the city.

  I’d never been to California before, much less beautiful San Francisco. I shoved the ghosts of my sister and Matt from my head as I oohed and aahed over every glimpse of bay or curve of hill, and by the time we reached our hotel in the touristy, pretty Embarcadero district, I was in love.

  “We have to move here right now,” I told Lucas when we checked in. “You think I’m kidding but I’m not.”

  “I love this city,” he agreed in the elevator. “Did you see all those people? On the bikes? All crunchy?”

  “This is basically ground zero for hippies,” I said expansively, feeling very knowledgeable because I’d watched Charmed for its entire run. More than once, if cable reruns counted. “If you feel the urge to grow out your hair and wear patchouli, holler. I’ll wave your credit cards under your nose and bring you back to capitalist life.”

  “That’s my girl,” he said with a grin. “Always looking out for me.”

  Inside our room, we could see the city towering above us, waiting to be discovered.

  “Grab your walking shoes,” I told him, with the Rice-A-Roni jingle already polluting my brain. “We have serious ground to cover.”

  Later that night, we’d taken no less than one hundred and fifty-three pictures with Lucas’s fancy digital camera, and I’d managed to exercise parts of my thighs I’d never known existed on San Francisco’s famous—and freaking steep—hills. We’d eaten some of the best sushi I’d ever had and were a little bit giddy from too much sake when we fell into the California king bed I suspected was larger than the floor space in our living room back home.

  “Have I mentioned that you’re the love of my life and I adore you with every fiber of my being?” I asked as I stretched against the sheets.

  Lucas smiled, and crawled across the bedspread so he could look down at me.

  “I think it might have been implied once or twice,” he said, and kissed me.

  Outside our window, the skyscrapers gleamed in the dark, and the world felt alive all around me with possibilities.

  It was already the best trip ever, and it had barely even begun.

  In the morning, Lucas went into his client’s offices even though it was a Saturday, and I took an extremely long bubble bath, because I wanted to feel decadent and pampered. And also because I wanted to think about my options. It had been fun to scamper around the city last night with Lucas, but it was morning now and I had to face the fact that I hadn’t, actually, flown across the country to play Stepford fiancée.

  I lay in the warm, slick water and thought about what would happen if I opened the door to my past. The fact was, I didn’t know. But there was already so much else I didn’t know. I didn’t know why Raine had gone to California in the first place. Why Matt had left me. Why neither he nor Raine had ever gotten in touch with me after they’d taken off.

  At first, when I realized they’d really gone to California together, I’d been devastated—but down beneath the frozen, horrified part of me there was a tiny kernel that had refused to accept it. That tiny part of me had whispered that Matt would call once he got there, that he couldn’t have abandoned me so easily. The fact we’d been together had been a secret, that part of me had argued, so he couldn’t have called me while he was on the road with Raine in that junky old Nissan Sentra of his. I’d made up complicated mathematical equations—this many days of driving plus this many days of sightseeing plus this many days of house-hunting or settling in. The trees were bare and the first snow was on the ground before I’d accepted the fact that he wasn’t going to call me. And I had spent so long being brave, holding on to that little kernel inside, that when I gave in and finally called his cell phone, it made me cry with some toxic combination of shame, rage, and pain. But that was nothing next to the way I felt when the call couldn’t be completed because his line had been disconnected.

  He had disappeared. He had abandoned me.

  As time passed, I assumed that my sister would call me sooner or later. She and I hadn’t been in any battle that I knew of. While I couldn’t bring myself to call her and possibly hear about Matt, there was no reason she shouldn’t call her favorite sister. Norah thought the same, in those early days, and had often fired questions at me—as if hoping to catch me talking to Raine on the sly. But Raine never called. And the longer she maintained radio silence, the more it hurt my feelings. Why didn’t she want to talk to me? What had I done that led family members and boyfriends to disappear? Knowing, now, that she’d stayed in touch with Mom made it worse. It had also spurred me into coming out here, if I was honest with myself.

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to go through with my grand plans. As I lay there in the hotel bath, I wasn’t sure of anything. I felt small and a little bit scared. Maybe there was a very specific reason neither one of them had spoken to me since that day, and maybe they would be surprised that I didn’t know what it was. Courtney, they would say with a shared laugh, we thought you knew how much we needed to escape you—

  I was being ridiculous. And I hadn’t come all this way to be a gigantic drama queen in a bubble bath. I sat up with a great sloshing of water and shook it off. I was still on East Coast time, which meant I had soaked myself into a pickle and it was still morning when I finally got out and got dressed.

  I took special care with my appearance. It was important to strike the right note. I didn’t want to look too severe; I wasn’t Norah, who liked to bludgeon people with her intelligence and thus disguised her looks in strict buns, stern clothes, and her Very Serious glasses. Nor did I want to look like the fine arts college student I’d been when I last saw my sister, all rags and bad hair.

  I wore my favorite pair of Levi’s and a white T-shirt. Over that, I layered the black cashmere, zip-front hooded sweater Verena had given me for Christmas. She assured me that this single garment managed to be pulled-together, chilled-out, and cool all at once (thus makin
g me appear to be the same), and I never argued with Verena about clothes. I pulled on my boots, fluffed up my hair, and added mascara to draw attention away from the freckles all over my nose and face. It was time to do what I’d come all this way to do.

  Mom had said Raine worked nights in a bar to support her art, though she’d been fuzzy on the details of what Raine’s art entailed these days. Knowing my sister, it could be anything from impromptu street performances to full-on metal sculpture pieces. Nothing would surprise me. What I was counting on was that people who worked nights tended to be home during the day, so I was likely to find her in, even on a Saturday when people might otherwise have daytime activities.

  It occurred to me in the taxi across the hilly, windy city that I hadn’t exactly planned what I wanted to say. I’d convinced myself that even though I couldn’t manage to string sentences together to make a decent letter, I would be inspired when Raine swung open her door. Seeing her would cause the perfect words to appear on my tongue like magic. My belief that this was so had carried me across the country, and it completely deserted me as I sat, terrified, in the back of that taxi.

  I was an idiot.

  Norah was right—this was a stupid thing to do, and Verena was right, I was going to get hurt.

  What could I possibly have been thinking?

  But the car came to a stop, I handed the driver money, and then there I was out on the street. I blinked up at the numbers on the buildings.

  According to Mom, this was it.

  The street wasn’t particularly picturesque, which was disappointing, since I believed that every square inch of San Francisco was supposed to be postcard-perfect. Even so, the cool air smelled of eucalyptus and cedar, and it made me want to fill my lungs completely.

  I walked up to the door, taking care on a set of uneven steps, and rang the bell. The place appeared to be a townhouse stuck up over a garage, which sounded far more aesthetically pleasing than it looked. I rang the bell again. I knew that if Raine didn’t answer, it was entirely possible that I’d never gather the courage to return. I rang the bell a third time, and then stepped back.