ing away from her like a crowd on a bus, and she
remembered a couple weeks ago, Jackson closing
Harlan’s door: “She doesn’t think you understand
her.”
“Huh?” Nina had been thinking of Jason Karl,
specifically his hands, comparing his long, thin
fingers with her own. No resemblance.
He’d begun again. “She doesn’t--”
“Sometimes I don’t.” She pushed Jason Karl to
the back of her mind, focused on Jackson, if only
because he’d noticed her distraction and looked
ready to ask about it. “We’re still saying no,
right?”
“Yes. Still no.”
“Sometimes--” she began, still intent to shift
the focus, even if it meant an argument. She’d
been short with Jackson for weeks, short with
everyone; time at home felt like a diet, like when
she quit smoking.
“This time I didn’t.” Jackson flopped on top of
the bedspread and flipped on the television.
“It would be easier on me if you were a little
harder on her.”
He dropped his head and stuffed his hands in
his pockets.
“You confuse the easy way out with compassion,” she’d said.
It was an old argument—good and bad cop,
spanking and talking, little girls and young ladies. Amazing how quickly things got complicated and how complicated they seemed to stay.
But Jackson had grinned and refused the
bait. “You two--cut from the same cloth.” She’d
grinned back at him and let it drop, as if he’d
scored a point. As if a homily could contend for
the last word. As if it said something true.
Nina stood sideways and examined her profile,
the phone pressed to her ear.
As if he knew the first thing about me.
“How am I different today?” she asked her
sister.
“How could you not be?” Erin asked.
“Maybe I’m just different to you.”
“You’re still my sister.”
“Good to know,” Nina said.
“Don’t act brittle.”
“We grew up with the same father and mother,
same house, same time. That’s me.” She’d put a
little lipstick on, maybe a nice top and capris. No
reason to run around the house like a hobo.
“But we have different fathers.”
“Maybe.” A little of that eye cream might help.
“OK, maybe. But I feel like it explains some
things.”
“Is that so? Things?”
“Just things, OK?” Nina set the phone down
and pulled the rubber band out of her hair, let it
fall. She pushed up the sides. Maybe a wedge
cut would set off her jaw, maybe something more
striking and masculine. Something like Isabella
Rosselini or Louise Brooks.
“Are you even listening to me?” said a tinny
voice from the floor.
She grabbed the handset. “What things?”
“Your restlessness, maybe.”
“Mom was restless.”
“Well, that’s obvious,” Erin said.
Well, fuck you too. “It’s not a puzzle,
Erin. We’re not here to figure each other out.”
“My experience implies otherwise.”
Now who’s brittle? “I’m not a cheerleader with
an eating disorder,” Nina said, taking another
glance at herself in the mirror, then heading back
into the kitchen to finish the dishes. “Maybe
we’re all strangers.”
“Well, some are stranger than others, that’s for
sure.”
Nina always wondered how things happened,
if it was indeed the accretion of small accidents--close calls and short cuts that lead to the
burst dam, the airplane crash, the one-night
stand. Jackson, the insurance adjustor, would talk
of the “paper trail,” whether there was paper or
not. Her sister would refer to “pre-existing behaviors” or “signals.”
She spent a year telling herself her life was good
and under control, until it wasn’t. For so long,
her life was like everyone’s, a copy of a copy.
She’d modeled for months—it was February. Again. Almost a year and she’d never mentioned her mother to Karl. Erin had stopped
calling to pry.
Several times, she’d opened her mouth to talk
to him about why she was there, but it seemed
less important, the was he or wasn’t he? replaced by
does he or does he not?
She started smoking again; she’d quit in college. She started reading poetry again; she’d quit
that in college too.
She brought a copy of Blake to one of the ses-