“Or look!” Dad flipped the page and motioned to me to sit down. “A rococo chandelier! For over the dining table, yes?”
Mom was distracted for a moment, peering down at the chandelier with bright interest. As I took the seat across from her, she seemed to remember herself and shook her head, saying, “No, it won’t help… Won’t help at all…”
“Mom?” I ventured, clutching my purse protectively in front of my chest. She’s been known to throw things, and that Restoration Hardware catalog was heavier than a brick. “Is everything okay?”
“Should have listened to me.” She blinked up at the ceiling, dabbing at her mascara with her pinkie. “If she had stayed with Robbie Steinberg…”
“Ah.” I was slowly catching on. Robbie Steinberg was Jane’s boyfriend before Owen. He’d been pathetically obsessed with her. He made her life very dull. Even girls like Jane need a bit of excitement.
“But Mom, she didn’t love Robbie Steinberg.”
“… could have been married with three children by now.”
“Three—?” I spluttered.
Dad was rubbing circles on Mom’s back, shaking his head in apparent agreement that it was a real shame Jane had let Robbie Steinberg get away.
“Jane is thirty-three years old.” Mom’s voice became choked with tears. “And she has been dating Owen Foster for twenty-one months. That is nearly TWO YEARS.” At this she crumpled forward and sobbed onto the image of the rococo chandelier. “It’s hopeless. All her potential w-w-wasted.”
I tried to catch Dad’s eye to share a sardonic look—after all, Jane had a successful career and a full life—but his eyes filled with tears too, as though he’d just realized his eldest daughter was, in fact, a failure.
“Look.” I crossed the kitchen and filled the kettle. “Most people date for years before they get engaged. Two years isn’t long at all.”
“NEARLY two years,” Mom screamed. “Don’t exaggerate, Rachel, for God’s sake!”
“Sorry!” I wiped at my shirt with a dish towel—I had splashed water from the kettle down my front when Mom screamed. “I just meant it’s a perfectly normal amount of time. He probablywillpropose. Don’t worry.”
“Probably. Probably?” Mom’s voice had gone cold and calculating. It was a chilling transition. She fixed me with an intent gaze. I backed into the counter beside the stove. The water warming was the only sound, hissing in the sudden, eerie silence.
“W-where are the twins?” I asked, finally noticing the absence of chaotic teen energy.
“Out driving with friends,” Mom said. I shivered deep in my soul.
The kettle whistled, and I bustled around making tea, hoping the other shoe wouldn’t drop but knowing that it would. I handedMom and Dad their steaming mugs and sat down again, noting with dread that Mom’s expression had changed to one of alert politeness. It was the sort of expression she wore when she was about to ask a neighbor not to leave their dog’s poo on the median in front of their houses.It is communal property, after all.Gracious, wide-eyed smile.
It was this smile that she turned on me now. I hastily gulped down some Earl Grey, scalding my tongue.
“What is Jane doing tonight?” she asked.
“I don’t know…”
“Perhaps you should go have dinner with her. At her condo.”
“Um… what if Owen’s there? He lives there too.”
“That won’t stop you taking a peek around. It might even make it easier. You could just get him alone andaskhim, instead of snooping.”
“Snooping? Ask him… what?”
“Oh, Rachel.” She gave me a fond look, her head tilted, as though I were an idiot child she had a soft spot for.
Twenty minutes later, I was ringing the bell at Jane’s Green Lake condo. She answered, looking bemused, wrapped in a soft cream-colored cardigan with leggings and fluffy slippers. Her orange cat twined around her ankles, glaring at me.
“Hi!” Jane ushered me in at once. “Everything okay?”
“Everything is great!” I hung my coat and scarf on a hook by the door. “Just felt like hanging out with my favorite sister.”
“Okay, well… Owen, look who’s here!” Jane called over her shoulder. “We were just making dinner.”
