CROSSED knives set out on the dinner table means there’s bound to be a quarrel, but so do two sisters living under the same roof, particularly when one of them is Antonia Owens. At the age of sixteen, Antonia is so beautiful that it’s impossible for any stranger seeing her for the first time to even begin to guess how miserable she can make those closest to her. She is nastier now than she was as a little girl, but her hair is a more stunning shade of red and her smile is so glorious that the boys in the high school all want to sit next to her in class, although once they do, these boys freeze up completely, simply because they’re so close to her, and they can’t help embarrassing themselves by staring at her, all googly-eyed and moon-faced, infatuated beyond belief.
It makes sense that Antonia’s little sister, Kylie, who will soon be thirteen, spends hours locked in the bathroom, crying over how ugly she is. Kylie is one inch short of six feet, a giant, in her book. She’s as skinny as a stork, with knees that hit against each other when she walks. Her nose and eyes are usually pink as a rabbit’s from all the sobbing she’s been doing lately, and she’s just about given up on her hair, which has frizzed up from the humidity. To have a sister who is perfect, at least from the outside, is bad enough. To have one who can make you feel like a speck of dust with a few well-chosen mean words is almost more than Kylie can take.
Part of the problem is that Kylie can never think of a smart comeback when Antonia sweetly inquires whether she’s considered sleeping with a brick on her head or thought about getting herself a wig. She’s tried, she’s even practiced various mean putdowns with her one and only friend, a thirteen-year-old boy named Gideon Barnes, who is a master at the art of grossing people out, and she still can’t do it. Kylie is the sort of tender spirit who cries when someone steps on a spider; in her universe, hurting another creature is an unnatural act. When Antonia teases her, all Kylie can do is open and close her mouth like a fish that has been thrown onto dry land, before locking herself in the bathroom to cry once more. On quiet nights, she curls up on her bed, clutching her old baby blanket, the black wool one that still does not have a single hole, since it somehow seems to repel moths. All up and down the street the neighbors can hear her weeping. They shake their heads and pity her, and some of the women on the block, especially the ones who grew up with older sisters, bring over homemade brownies and chocolate cookies, forgetting what a plateful of sweets can do to a young girl’s skin, thinking only of their own relief from the sound of crying, which echoes through hedges and over fences.
These women in the neighborhood respect Sally Owens, and what’s more, they truly like her. She has a serious expression even when she laughs, and long dark hair, and no idea of how pretty she is. Sally is always the first parent listed on the snow chain, since it’s best to have someone responsible in charge of letting other parents know when school will be closed in stormy weather, rather than one of those ditsy mothers who are prone to believe life will work itself out just fine, without any intervention from somebody sensible. All over the neighborhood, Sally is well known for both her kindness and her prudent ways. If you really need her, she’ll baby-sit for your toddler at a moment’s notice on a Saturday afternoon; she’ll pick your kids up at the high school or lend you sugar or eggs. She’ll sit there with you on your back porch if you should find some woman’s phone number written on a slip of paper in your husband’s night-table drawer, and she’ll be smart enough to listen rather than offer some half-baked advice. More important, she’ll never mention your difficulties again or repeat a word you say. When you ask about her own marriage, she gets a dreamy look on her face that is completely unlike her usual expression. “That was ages ago,” is all she’ll say. “That was another lifetime.”
Since leaving Massachusetts, Sally has worked as an assistant to the vice principal at the high school. In all this time, she has had fewer than a dozen dates, and those attempts at romance were set up by neighbors, fix-ups that went nowhere but back to her own front door, long before she was expected home. Sally now finds that she’s often tired and cranky, and although she’s still terrific looking, she’s not getting any younger. Lately, she’s been so tense that the muscles in her neck feel like strands of wire that someone has been twisting.
When her neck starts to go, when she wakes up from a deep sleep in a panic, and she gets so lonely the ancient janitor at the high school starts to look good, Sally reminds herself of how hard she has worked to make a good life for her girls. Antonia is so popular that for three years running she’s been chosen to play the lead in the school play. Kylie, though she seems to have no close friends other than Gideon Barnes, is the Nassau County spelling champion and the president of the chess club. Sally’s girls have always had birthday parties and ballet lessons. She has made absolutely certain that they never miss their dentist appointments and that they’re at school on time every weekday morning. They are expected to do their homework before they watch TV and are not allowed to stay up past midnight or idly hang out on the Turnpike or at the mall. Sally’s children are rooted here; they’re treated like anyone else, just normal kids, like any others on the block. This is why Sally left Massachusetts and the aunts in the first place. It’s why she refuses to think about what might be missing from her life.
Never look back, that’s what she’s told herself. Don’t think about swans or being alone in the dark. Don’t think of storms, or lightning and thunder, or the true love you won’t ever have. Life is brushing your teeth and making breakfast for your children and not thinking about things, and as it turns out, Sally is first-rate at all of this. She gets things done, and done on time. Still, she often dreams of the aunts’ garden. In the farthest corner there was lemon verbena, lemon thyme, and lemon balm. When Sally sat there cross-legged, and closed her eyes, the citrus scent was so rich she sometimes got dizzy. Everything in the garden had a purpose, even the lush peonies, which protect against bad weather and motion sickness and have been known to ward off evil. Sally isn’t sure she can still name all the varieties of the herbs that grew there, although she thinks she could recognize coltsfoot and comfrey by sight, lavender and rosemary by their distinctive scents.