Always Happy Hour: Stories(59)
I unwrap my burger, scrape a corner of cheese off the waxy paper. I’ve found a whole system that allows me to eat the things I want and not get fat. I worry. I weigh myself every morning, before coffee, after I go to the bathroom. Sometimes I throw up. I’m underweight by some charts.
She stabs a fork into the plastic for ventilation, presses buttons on the microwave. I want to say, Forget that, let’s go out. I want to link my arm through hers and go traipsing down a dark alley, half-drunk on tequila, but I’m not this person. I thought I could be once, by moving to another city or meditating or doing any number of other things. Try pretending, the books said, act for long enough and eventually you won’t have to act. It’ll just be who you are. I once met a girl who wrote these books, a ghostwriter. Her case studies were her family members; she did her research on the internet.
I use a napkin to remove the excess mayonnaise, leaving a fine layer on the bottom half of the bun. I remove the onions and pickles and a thick, pale tomato—a winter tomato an ex-boyfriend used to call any tomato that wasn’t bright red and bleeding, the only thing left on his plate.
My phone rings; it’s our mother. I hit decline even though it’s the second time she’s called today and she panics when I don’t answer twice in a row—she thinks I might be dead—but I talked to her yesterday and felt bad about myself for an hour, at least. The thing I hate most is how I can never recall what she’s said that upset me so much. I try explaining it to people and I’m the one who sounds like an asshole.
The microwave dings.
“Have you talked to Mom today?”
“Yesterday,” she says, “I called her from the airport. I usually call her when I’ve almost gotten to the place I’m going so I can’t talk long.” She hops onto the counter with her tray and looks out the window. It’s how I eat when I’m alone. There’s a lot of counter space and the backyard is full of pecan trees and squirrels, neighbors moving behind the slats of my fence. I like to watch the squirrels bury their nuts. I like it when they catch me watching and give me a long hard look like they will fuck me up if they have to. I paid for this house with my divorce money: two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and an office. A backyard. A big open kitchen connected to the den and plenty of light. I still can’t believe it’s mine. I feel like I’m house-sitting, like the owner will be back any minute and will be disappointed because the plants are half-dead and there are dirty socks everywhere.
“What should we do later?” I ask.
“I have to meet some people for a drink,” she says. “It won’t take long. You’re welcome to come.”
My sister has more friends in this town than I do. I don’t know how it’s possible, seeing as she’s never lived here. I only know one of them, her freshman-year roommate, Leah. We’ve run into each other a few times. She’s tan year-round and wears loose clothes and jangly bracelets.
“That’s okay, I’m pretty tired.”
“What are you going to do?” she asks.
“Watch Mad Men, probably.”
“I haven’t seen it.”
“It’s really good, you should watch it.”
“I’m too busy to get into a series right now,” she says, and sighs like her busyness is something she doesn’t want, though she has always loved creating errands for herself, making plans with too many people in a day so she never has to be alone.
She twists her hair on top of her head and it stays there, a great big knot.
My sister and I are both adopted. She looks like our parents—blond and tall and large-boned. No one would ever know she was adopted; people can’t believe it when they find out. They say, But she has his nose, her mouth. She even walks like them.
My skin is olive; my eyes are shaped like almonds. At thirty-three, I finally like my olive skin—it hasn’t wrinkled like my sister’s. My forehead is smooth and unlined. I only have the tiniest beginnings of one crease on the left side of my mouth. I must smile crooked or something. There are other things: I never had acne; my standardized test scores were always higher. No matter how much smarter I am, though, how much better, I’m the one who doesn’t fit.
“I could eat like four of these,” she says, hopping off the counter and stepping on the trash can’s pedal. She drops the tray in and opens the refrigerator. “Do you eat every meal out?”
“Not every meal.”
She opens the freezer, closes it, and looks at me. I can’t stop noticing her left hand, which is calling attention to itself in a way it never has before. Her diamond is large, princess cut. As a teenager, she bought wedding magazines at the grocery store, kept them under her bed in great dusty stacks. Sometimes I looked at them with her and we’d pick out dresses and cakes, but I never pictured a man attached to any of it. And then I got married at twenty-two while she went on to get advanced degrees and travel the world, making friends all over. She even taught in South Korea for a year.
The man my sister is going to marry isn’t good enough for her. He seems like a guy you might pick up at Target, the kind who took a break from shopping to sit in a plastic booth and eat popcorn. It’s not that she’s gorgeous or anything, but she’s magnetic. If she were on a TV show and America had to vote, she’d win. She’s got star quality, they’d say. She’s got that “it” factor.