Danielle Steel - Sisters

“No, I don't. I think they're bigger out west than here. I have a friend on Match Point who does them all the time. Do you do them, Tammy?”

“Actually, no, I don't. I'm a junk-food addict. My idea of gourmet food is KFC, and I have an incredible Ho-Ho and Twinkie habit. I've been that way since I was a kid. High colonics would be wasted on me.”

“That's too bad.” He looked sorry for her and then lowered his voice. “Have you found Jesus yet, Tammy?” Where? Under her desk? In the attic? Was he kidding? Did she have to “find” Him? Wasn't He everywhere?

“I think you could say I have,” she said politely. “Religion has been important to me since I was a child.” She didn't know what else to say to him, and it was somewhat true. They had gone to Catholic schools as kids, but she was no longer devout, although she believed.

“But are you a Christian ?” He was intense as he looked at her, and she tried not to stare at his hair, which was badly dyed too. She made a mental note to get a decent hairdresser for him too. She didn't know why she'd never noticed that his hair color was this bad. She had been too distracted by the bad weave.

“I'm Catholic,” she said easily.

“That's not the same thing. Being Christian is a lot more than that. It's a whole way of thinking, of being, of living. It's not just a religion.”

“Yes, I'd agree with you on that.” She tried to glance at her watch discreetly. She had a network meeting in four minutes, to avoid a strike. It was a big deal. She couldn't miss it. “I think we should talk about it some other time. I have a meeting in four minutes.”

“Exactly. So how about dinner? There's a great vegan restaurant on West Fourteenth Street. How about tonight?”

“I…uh…no…remember my policy? No men from the show. I've never broken that rule, and I have to go home to take care of my sister.”

“Is she sick?” He looked instantly concerned.

Tammy hated herself for what she was about to do. But it might get him off her back. With silent apologies to Annie, she looked up at him mournfully. “She's blind. I really don't like to go out and leave her on her own.”

“Oh, I'm so sorry …I had no idea … of course … what a saintly person you are to take care of her. Do you live with her?”

“Yes, I do. It happened this year, and she's only twenty-six.” It was pathetic to use her sister's handicap so shamelessly, but anything in a pinch. She would have invented a dying grandmother too.

“I'll pray for her,” he assured her, “and for you.”

“Thank you, Ed,” Tammy said solemnly. And went to her network meeting. He was probably a perfectly nice human being, just unattractive and creepy. Her specialty. Men like him were the only ones who ever asked her out, on either coast.

She told her sisters about it that night as they were doing the dishes after dinner. Annie was rinsing and putting them in the dishwasher. Sabrina had checked the dogs' bowls, and Annie had fed the dogs. Annie said Sabrina treated her like Cinderella, which her older sister didn't comment on. Tammy had them all in hysterics describing Ed.

“See what I mean? Those are the only guys who ever ask me out. Weird teeth, hair weaves, vegan diets, and high colonics in L.A. I swear, I haven't had a date with a normal one in years. I'm not even sure what that looks like anymore.”

“I'm not sure I do either,” Candy admitted. “All the men I meet are bisexual or gay. They like women, but they like boys more. I never even see straight guys anymore.”

Annie said nothing. She felt completely out of the running, and had since her accident this summer. Normally, after breaking up with Charlie, she would have started dating again within a few months. Now, she felt that it was over for her. The only man she had talked to in months was her friend Baxter at school. His love life was a lot happier than hers. He had a boyfriend. She was sure she never would again.

“The only one in the family who can't complain is Sabrina,” Candy commented. “Chris is the only normal man I know.”

“Yeah, me too,” Tammy agreed. “Normal and nice. It's an unbeatable combination. When I meet normal ones, or at least men who look that way, they turn out to be assholes, or married. I guess I could always start dating one of the participants on the show.” She told them about the incident with the one that morning, and Sabrina shook her head. She still couldn't believe that Tammy had taken a job producing that show. Giving up the job she'd had had really been the ultimate sacrifice for her. She said very little about it, but they were aware of it. The show she was working on instead was at the opposite end of the spectrum, from the sublime to the ridiculous. Tammy never complained, she was a good sport about it, and she was happy to have found work. And Irving Solomon, the executive producer, was a fairly decent man to work for.

Another man asked Tammy out the following week. This one was extremely attractive, married, and cheating on his wife, although he explained they had an open marriage and she understood.

“She might,” Tammy had said brusquely. “I don't. That's not my style, but thanks.” She brushed him off, and more than flattered, she was insulted. She always felt that way when married men asked her out, as though she were a cheap slut, that they could have a good time with and then go home to their wives. If she ever wound up with anyone, which was beginning to seem unlikely, she wanted it to be her own man, not one she had stolen or borrowed from someone else. She had just turned thirty, and wasn't panicked about it.

On Sabrina's thirty-fifth birthday, she and Chris had gone away for the weekend, and he had given her a beautiful gold Cartier bracelet that she never took off her arm. Things were, as always, comfortable between them, although he was sleeping over less often than he had when she lived alone. She reminded him regularly that it was only for a year, until Annie got adjusted, and he rarely commented or complained. The only thing that got to him occasionally was Candy wandering around the house half naked, oblivious to the fact that there was a man in their midst. So many people saw her naked or at least topless during couture shows or on shoots that she didn't really care. But he did. And although he loved them, their flock of dogs occasionally got on his nerves. That and the lack of privacy, with Tammy now living on the same floor. That was challenging for him at times.

The only thing that unsettled all of them was the man Candy came home with in early November, when she got back from a three-day shoot in Hawaii. Sabrina said she had read about him. Tammy had never heard of him, and Annie said he gave her a creepy feeling, but since she couldn't see him, she couldn't pinpoint why. She said he sounded phony, like Leslie Thompson when she had visited their father with the pie. Kind of drippy and oozing sweetness, as Annie put it, when he had something else on his mind.

He said he was an Italian prince and he had an accent, Principe Marcello di Stromboli. It didn't sound real to Sabrina, and they were all shocked to realize that he was forty-four years old. Candy said she had met him the first time in Paris, at a party Valentino gave, and she knew another model who had dated him, and said he was very nice. He took Candy to all the trendy hot spots in New York, and some fabulous parties. They were in the tabloids almost immediately, and when Sabrina questioned her about it with a worried look, Candy said she was having a great time.

“Be careful,” Sabrina warned her. “He's a very grownup guy. Sometimes men his age prey on young girls. Don't just go off somewhere with him or put yourself in an awkward situation.” Sabrina felt like the anxious mother hen of all time, and her baby sister laughed.