But her sense of relief surely doesn’t last long. As soon as Gillian begins to talk, Sally knows that something is seriously wrong. Gillian’s voice is squeaky, which isn’t like her at all. Gillian has always been able to think of a good excuse or an alibi in seconds flat because she’s had to soothe the egos of all her boyfriends; usually she’s cool and composed, but now she’s all but jumping out of her skin.
“I’ve got a problem,” Gillian says.
She looks over her shoulder, then runs her tongue over her lips. She’s as nervous as a bug, even though having a problem is nothing particularly new. Gillian can create problems just by walking down the street. She is still the kind of woman who cuts through her finger while slicing a cantaloupe, and then is rushed to the hospital, where the ER doctor who has stitched up her finger falls head over heels for her before she’s even been sewn back together.
Gillian stops to take a good look at Sally.
“I can’t believe how much I’ve missed you.”
Gillian sounds as if she herself was surprised to discover this. She’s sticking her fingernails into the palms of her hands, as if to wake herself from a bad dream. If she weren’t desperate, she wouldn’t be here, running to her big sister for help, when she’s spent her whole life trying to be as self-sufficient as a stone. Everyone else had families, and went east or west or just down the block for Easter or Thanksgiving, but not Gillian. She could always be counted on to take a holiday shift, and afterward she always found herself drawn to the best bar in town, where special hors d’oeuvres are set out for festive occasions, hard-boiled eggs tinted pale pink and aqua, or little turkey-and-cranberry burritos. One Thanksgiving Day Gillian went and got the tattoo on her wrist. It was a hot afternoon in Las Vegas, Nevada, and the sky was the color of a pie plate, and the fellow over at the tattoo parlor promised her it wouldn’t hurt, but it did.
“Everything is such a mess,” Gillian admits.
“Well, guess what?” Sally tells her sister. “I know you won’t believe this, and I know you won’t care, but I’ve actually got my own problems.”
The electricity bill, for instance, which has begun to reflect Antonia’s increased use of the radio, which is never for an instant turned off. The fact that Sally hasn’t had a date in almost two years, not even with some cousin or friend of her next-door neighbor Linda Bennett, and can no longer think of love as a reality, or even as a possibility, however remote. For all the time they’ve been apart, living separate lives, Gillian has been doing as she pleased, fucking whomever she cares to and waking at noon. She hasn’t had to sit up all night with little girls who have chicken pox, or negotiate curfews, or set her alarm for the proper hour because someone needs breakfast or a good talking to. Naturally Gillian looks great. She thinks the world revolves around her.
“Believe me. Your problems are nothing like mine. This time it’s really bad, Sally.”
Gillian’s voice is getting smaller and smaller, but it’s still the same voice that got Sally through that horrible year when she couldn’t bring herself to speak. It’s the voice that urged her on every Tuesday night, no matter what, with a fierce devotion, the kind you acquire only when you’ve shared the past.
“Okay.” Sally sighs. “Let me have it.”
Gillian takes a deep breath. “I’ve got Jimmy in the car.” She comes closer, so she can whisper in Sally’s ear. “The problem is ...” This is a hard one, it really is. She has to just get it out and say it, whispered or not. “He’s dead.”
Sally immediately pulls away from her sister. This is nothing anyone wants to hear on a hot June night, when the fireflies are strung across the lawns. The night is dreamy and deep, but now Sally feels as if she’s drained a pot of coffee; her heart is beating like mad. Anyone else might assume Gillian is lying or exaggerating or just goofing around. But Sally knows her sister. She knows better. There’s a dead man in the car. Guaranteed.
“Don’t do this to me,” Sally says.
“Do you think I planned it?”
“So you were driving along, headed for my house, figuring we should finally see each other, and he just happened to die?”
Sally has never met Jimmy, and she can’t say she’s ever really spoken to him. Once he answered the phone when she called Gillian in Tucson, but he certainly wasn’t talkative. As soon as he’d heard Sally’s voice, he shouted for Gillian to come pick up.
“Get over here, girl.” That’s what he’d said. “It’s your goddamn sister on the phone.”