Джули Салливан - Friends and Strangers

“You sound like the college kids at my work,” Andrew said.

“Good,” George said. “I’m glad the young people get it. Gives me hope. They’re the ones who will suffer the most if things don’t change.”

“They’re self-identified socialists,” Andrew said.

George shrugged.

Looked at one way, he was practically a socialist himself these days. He wanted to dismantle the evils of capitalism. To halt progress in its tracks so that everyone might be equal. Looked at another way, he was almost conservative. George was the only person Elisabeth knew who wasn’t in the least bit excited about Obama.

“He keeps saying small business, that’s the answer,” George had said recently. “How’d that work out for me, huh? Or for you, Lizzy, with your unpaid maternity leave. It’s basically this administration’s way of saying, without saying it, that none of the real jobs are coming back—manufacturing in this country is dead—so you’d better invent your own industry. But you won’t have a job that gives you health insurance, or a pension, or any kind of protection.”

Tonight, when Elisabeth asked him which candidate she should vote for in the upcoming state senate election, George just sighed.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “They’re all crooked. They’re not coming to save us, Lizzy. We’ll have to save ourselves.”

—

When they got home, Andrew said, “My dad seemed even more off the rails than usual with the Hollow Tree stuff tonight.”

“He’s working out his frustrations,” she said. “Just go with it.”

Elisabeth had had another beer with dinner, and eaten only a few bites, sneaking the rest to the dog when Faye wasn’t looking. The alcohol mixed with her usual exhaustion made her eyelids feel heavy.

“My parents are getting old,” Andrew said. “It makes me sad. See, this is why Gil needs a brother.”

“You romanticize siblings,” she said. “Look at Charlotte and me. We have nothing in common. The only thing we ever talk about is what a disaster our parents are.”

“Exactly. That right there. Having a person in the world who knows what it’s like to have your parents. Someone to commiserate with. That’s what I’m talking about.”

“You want Gil to have someone to commiserate with about us.”

“Absolutely,” he said.

“You know, even if we wanted one, I don’t think we could afford to have another kid,” she said. “They’re expensive. Nomi was telling me that she’s looking at pre-K programs that cost thirty thousand a year.”

Andrew didn’t respond. She wondered if he’d taken that last comment as a slight about how little he was earning. She hadn’t meant for him to feel that way. Or maybe she had. Maybe she was being defensive because Charlotte was on her mind and she never thought about Charlotte without thinking about money.

When Elisabeth was twenty-three and Charlotte was twenty, they made a pact: they would never again take one dollar from their father.

This had required sacrifice, especially early on. Elisabeth started waiting tables to supplement her magazine salary, which she had previously spent on clothes and purses. But it was worth it. She was free of him.

From the time she and Charlotte were kids, their father had bribed them into keeping his secrets and accepting his horrid behavior. Elisabeth still remembered the pattern on the sofas in the breezy hotel lobby where he left them with a box of crayons while he went upstairs with some woman, and returned an hour later with a fifty-dollar bill for each of them.

When he lost his temper and punched another father who dared steal his parking spot at Charlotte’s fourth-grade ballet recital, he made up for it by buying Charlotte a purebred Havanese puppy. When he showed up reeking of gin, with a woman he introduced as “a colleague,” to pick Elisabeth up from a friend’s birthday party, he took Elisabeth to Arden Fair the next day for a shopping spree.

He used money as both carrot and stick, threatening to withhold it when he didn’t agree with a choice one of them had made. He said he would pay for Elisabeth’s education only if she attended a school ranked in the top ten in the country, since otherwise there was no point. He refused to let Charlotte study dance.

“Dance isn’t something you study,” he said. “It’s just something you do.”

This led to Charlotte majoring in marketing and ultimately dropping out to go live in Mexico City with a boyfriend she met on spring break.

Their mother would say, He only wants the best for you, and it was true, but the best was however he defined it.

Their father was at once a charming man and a vicious narcissist with a gift for making his victims forget the pain he’d caused. It worked on their mother. There was nothing a diamond bracelet or a last-minute getaway couldn’t smooth over with her.

But fourteen years ago, he did something to Elisabeth that she could not forgive.

Charlotte was living in New York then too. She was at Elisabeth’s apartment the day he showed up at the door to make amends. It was meant to be a grand gesture. He’d had to fly across the country.

Elisabeth was in tears when he walked in. When she saw him, every nerve in her body flared.

“Sweetheart,” he said. “Cheer up. I know it seems like the sky is falling, but trust me, you’ll forget all about this in a week. Know how I know?”

Elisabeth turned her face away from him, wanting to scream.

“Charlotte,” he said. “You’ll want to hear this too.”

“Not now, Daddy,” Charlotte said.

But he barreled on, as usual.

“I’ve arranged for you two to have unlimited use of my brother’s house in Southampton for the summer,” he said. “We worked out a good deal. Five bedrooms, on the beach, you can bring all your friends. Now, I know you’re thinking, But how will we get there? The train is such a hassle. Well, girls. Your new Mercedes convertible is parked outside. Who wants to take it for a spin?”

Elisabeth looked up at him. She’d been awake and crying for forty-eight hours. Her eyeballs ached.

“Get out,” she said. “Just go away.”

She was disgusted by him, but by herself as well. It had come to this because she had been so easy to buy off.

When he didn’t move to leave, she said, “Everything you touch gets twisted. You think you can just meddle in other people’s lives whenever you feel like it. Well, I’m done with you.”

The look on his face suggested that they were only negotiating; that he thought this was a game.

“Okay then,” he said. “Char, I guess this is good news for you. You just went from sharing a new car to having it all to yourself. That is, until Elisabeth stops pouting.”

Elisabeth wanted to punch him.

Charlotte was his favorite, and she adored their father. So Elisabeth was shocked when she said, “No, Daddy. You went too far this time. Elisabeth’s right. We’re done.”

He looked stunned. He opened his mouth to speak, but then turned and walked out instead.

After a long pause, Elisabeth met her sister’s eye. The two of them had never been close. They were too different. But in that moment, she felt the kind of sisterly devotion she had always wanted as a kid.

“Thank you,” she said.

“He deserves it,” Charlotte said. “Everything you said is true.”

Charlotte was drinking champagne on rich old guys’ yachts at fifteen. She traveled the world with all kinds of inappropriate men on their father’s dime. He let her do it. Better to have her out of his hair. She seemed to be having fun, but Elisabeth saw then that it had been a performance. Charlotte knew as well as she did what his behavior had done to them.