The Last Romantics(30)

“We don’t need to worry about Joe,” I said now to Caroline. “I’m not Sandrine’s biggest fan, but he loves her. He’s getting married! His job is demanding, but it’s what he does. And he’s got tons of friends. Renee is overreacting. Maybe he smokes some pot or drinks too much on the weekends, but give him a break. He works a lot of hours. He’s an adult. We all have our vices.”

Caroline sat up, raised the cigarette with a wry twist of her mouth.

“See?” I said.

“But Renee thinks he’s spending too much money.”

“He’s got so much money.”

“He bought a car and a parking space. Did he tell you? And they’re looking at four-bed apartments on the Upper West Side. Central Park West. Do you have any idea what those cost?”

“He works in banking. It’s a different world. Renee spends all her time around sick people. Of course she’ll think he’s sick. Joe is not sick.”

I saw Caroline hesitate. We had always followed Renee on questions of significance. It wasn’t that we saw her as infallible, only less fallible than we were.

“I know Joe better than Renee does,” I continued. “If something bad were happening, he would have told me.” Even as I said these words, I knew they weren’t true, not anymore. When had Joe and I last seen each other alone, without Sandrine? Or Noni? When had we talked about something other than his job, my job, how much money I needed to borrow?

Caroline sighed. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, and rubbed her eyes. And in that moment my sister Caroline, who wanted always to assume the best of a house or a person, began to believe me. Joe was okay. An intervention was completely unnecessary.

“Well, you’ll have to convince Renee,” she said. “You’ll never reach her on the phone. Talk to her at the engagement party. She promised Joe she’d be there.”

As Caroline weakened, I felt a sort of relief, that I had saved Joe and he would in time be grateful. It was also a reprieve from an understanding that had begun to sink in: That what I thought was true about Joe was not true. That I was a little sister who worshipped her big brother and would never see him clearly. I could barely admit this to myself; I would never admit it to Caroline.

We sat in silence for three minutes, five, ten, as Caroline smoked another cigarette.

“Caroline, the cat?” I said at last. I inclined my head toward the house.

“Oh. Right.” She flicked a butt out the window. “Let’s go deal with the fucking cat.”

In the kitchen Caroline pounded three oxycodone tablets with her shoe and sprinkled them over a plate of tuna.

At first the cat ignored the plate.

“Come on, it’s tuna. When have you eaten this well?” Caroline said.

Some of the kittens were asleep, translucent lids covering eyeballs the color of sky, their bodies downy and plump. Others kneaded the cat’s belly as they nursed. Caroline waved the plate beneath the cat’s nose, and at last it lifted its head and sniffed the tuna. Delicately it nibbled, and then, with a handful of bites, the plate was clean.

“Now we wait,” said Caroline.

“How long?”

“Well, with me maybe fifteen minutes. But that’s just one pill.” Caroline paused, considering the three. “I hope we didn’t kill it,” she said.

It took five minutes. The cat’s eyes wavered, then closed. Its head tilted back.

I found a cardboard box, and together we picked up the cat, its body heavy and difficult to grip, liquid concrete in a sack of fur, and dropped it inside. We loaded up the kittens, and then Caroline carried the box downstairs and slid it into the back of the car. Clouds had moved in. Across the lawn fallen leaves jumped and spun with the wind. One lodged in my hair, which was longer than it had been at Christmas, dyed a deep brownish red that was richer and darker than my natural color. Caroline plucked the leaf from my hair.

“So are you dating?” she asked.

“Um, yeah, you could say I’m dating,” I answered. Maybe Caroline would have understood about the blog, but I wasn’t ready to tell her. Not yet. I needed some unmistakable, tangible sign of success to put before my family. I had never played a sport or excelled academically or been popular in school; I had only ever written words into secret books, and now this, The Last Romantic.

“Anyone special?” Caroline asked.

“No, definitely not.”

“You’ll meet someone soon enough,” she said in a soothing way, “don’t worry.”

“Oh, I’m not worried,” I said. “I’m not really looking for someone special.”

Caroline raised her eyebrows. “How did you get your cheeks to look like that?” she asked me. “Makeup?”

“No,” I said. “Not makeup.”

“And your eyes look different, too.”

“I’ve lost weight, Caroline. Almost fifty pounds”

“Oh.” Caroline gazed at me, standing in the overgrown yard of this dirty, disappointing house, and I saw on her face a jealousy so pure it took my breath away. By the time Caroline was my age, she’d already had three children and been married to Nathan for eight years.

“Let me take the cats, Caroline,” I said. “You’ve got enough to deal with.”