Chương 11
“Victoria said you hated crowds.”
“I don’t hate them.”
“You always left early.”
“I had work.”
“She said you used work as an excuse.”
Maya smiled without amusement. “She was thorough.”
Becca looked down.
“I stopped talking to her,” she said.
“That’s your decision.”
“I know.”
“Are you telling me because you want credit?”
“No. Maybe. A little.”
Maya appreciated the honesty.
“Why did you stop?” she asked.
“Because she asked me to lie.”
“About what?”
“She wanted me to say Aunt Helen never mentioned money. That you canceled the transfer because she criticized the cake.”
Maya looked at Becca.
“She said if people asked, we should make it sound like a normal sister fight.”
“What did you say?”
“I told her it wasn’t normal.”
“And?”
“She said I was jealous too.”
Maya stirred a wooden stick through the untouched water Becca had placed near her seat.
“Victoria thinks jealousy is the weather,” she said. “It explains every unpleasant condition.”
Becca laughed.
The sound reminded Maya of the party. Her face must have changed because Becca stopped.
“I’m sorry.”
“You already apologized.”
“I know.”
They sat for a moment.
“Khloe still talks to her,” Becca said. “Lauren too. Janet is polite at work.”
“Good.”
“You don’t want everyone to abandon her?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Maya considered the question.
“Because isolation would prove her favorite story,” she said. “She’d become the person everyone betrayed instead of the person who lied.”
Becca leaned back.
“That’s generous.”
“No. It’s practical.”
“Those can be the same thing.”
Maya looked at her.
Becca raised both hands. “Sorry. That sounded like something printed on a mug.”
“It did.”
They both smiled.
Before leaving, Becca asked, “What happened to the scrapbook?”
“It’s on my table.”
“Will you give it to her?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’d keep it.”
“You haven’t seen it.”
“I saw the cover. It was beautiful.”
Maya wrapped both hands around her water glass.
“Beauty didn’t help the cake.”
“No,” Becca said. “But the cake wasn’t the problem.”
In November, Victoria listed the townhouse.
Maya learned from an automated real estate alert she had forgotten setting when Victoria bought the place.
The photographs showed the kitchen from angles that made it look larger. The marble island shone beneath chandelier light. No frosting remained. The gold balloons were gone.
The description called the property meticulously maintained.
Maya read it twice.
Then she closed the listing.
Five minutes later, Victoria called.
Maya answered.
“I assume you saw,” Victoria said.
“Yes.”
“You could sound less pleased.”
“I don’t know how I sound.”
“You sound pleased.”
“I’m not.”
“Then what are you?”
Maya looked around her apartment. The radiator made a metallic knocking noise although the heat was not on.
“Relieved,” she said.
Victoria exhaled sharply.
“I’m not selling because you won.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“I got an offer to transfer to Chicago.”
Maya sat straighter. “For work?”
“Yes.”
“Is that what you want?”
“I don’t know.”
“When did they offer?”
“Last month.”
“Before or after you listed?”
“Before.”
“Are you taking it?”
“I said I don’t know.”
Maya waited.
Victoria hated silence when she could not control its meaning.
“They’d increase my salary,” she said. “And there’s a relocation package.”
“That sounds useful.”
“I don’t need you to evaluate it.”
“All right.”
“The house may not sell for asking.”
“It might not.”
“I’ll lose money after fees.”
“Possibly.”
“You don’t care.”
“I do care.”
“You have a strange way of showing it.”
Maya rubbed a spot on the table where icing sugar had hardened weeks earlier.
“What would caring look like?” she asked.
“You could offer to help.”
“With what?”
“I don’t know. Packing. Repairs. Talking through the offer.”
Maya almost said yes.
Packing was practical. Repairs were familiar. Talking through offers was what sisters did.
Then she remembered arriving at the hospital lobby and seeing Victoria with an envelope, dressed for battle.
“Send me the listing agreement and the job offer,” Maya said.
“Why?”
“If you want advice, I need information.”
“You want to inspect my life.”
“No. I want facts before I help.”
Victoria was quiet.
“You’ve changed,” she said.
“I’m trying.”
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
“I know.”
The next day, Victoria emailed the documents.
The job offer was real. The salary increase was substantial. The relocation package included temporary housing and moving expenses.
The listing agreement showed that Victoria’s estimated proceeds, even at a lower sale price, would cover the remaining mortgage and leave several thousand dollars.
She was not facing ruin.
She was facing a smaller life than the one she had displayed.
Maya studied the papers at her dining table.
The blue scrapbook lay nearby. She had begun repairing the spine but stopped after replacing one loose thread.
She called Victoria.
“You should take the transfer,” she said.
“That is your conclusion?”
“You asked.”
“I asked what you thought.”
“That’s what I think.”
“Because then I leave.”
“Chicago has airports.”
“You know what I mean.”
Maya did.
Distance would make the current separation visible. It would remove the possibility that one unplanned dinner or holiday could return them to normal without either sister naming what normal had cost.
“You’d earn more,” Maya said. “The company pays for the move. You can sell the house without rushing into another purchase.”
“You sound like Aunt Helen.”
“She’d tell you to read the tax section.”
“She already did.”
Maya smiled faintly.
Victoria continued, “What if I hate it?”
“Then you decide what comes next.”
“That’s easy for you to say.”
“It isn’t.”
“You like being alone.”
Maya looked at the empty chair across from her.
“No,” she said. “I’m used to it.”
Victoria did not respond.
Maya heard traffic through her sister’s phone, then a car horn.
“I haven’t accepted,” Victoria said.
“When is the deadline?”
“Monday.”
“Then you have four days.”
“I know how calendars work.”
“There you are.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing.”
“Maya.”
“It means you sound like yourself.”
Victoria’s voice softened slightly. “Is that good?”
May you like
“Sometimes.”
The house received an offer in December.
