Summer with My Sisters (9 page)

P
eeling carrots. An oddly satisfying employment, Poppy thought, watching the pile of orange strips grow. She had decided to make her mother’s famous carrot-raisin salad for dinner. The recipe was very simple, but Poppy had shied away from attempting the dish. The few times she had tried her hand at one of the old family favorites both of her sisters had barely touched their food. Maybe it was because she had badly over-salted. Maybe it was because memories could take an appetite away. Well, she would give it one more go and if the carrot raisin salad wasn’t a hit with Daisy and Violet, she would try to feed them dishes with no associations good or bad. But what?

Poppy began to cut the pile of peeled carrots in chunks; they, in turn, would be shredded in the food processor, and the rest of the ingredients mixed in later. The task was simple enough to allow her mind to dwell on more important matters, like the fact that it had only occurred to her that morning as she was taking her birth control pill that while she had been focusing on things like buying health insurance (with Freddie’s help) and budgeting for daily and monthly expenses (ditto) and making sure that her sisters were eating properly (she had caught Daisy drinking soda for breakfast the other day; since when did Daisy drink soda?) she had entirely ignored the potentially explosive subject of their sexual lives.

Speak of the Devil,
Poppy thought, as Daisy came loping into the kitchen and grabbed a chunk of carrot from under Poppy’s knife.

“Daisy, I need to ask you something.”

“Okay,” her sister responded around a mouthful of carrot. “Ow. I bit my tongue.”

“Will you be honest with me? It’s important.”

Daisy shrugged. “I guess.”

“Are you having sex with anyone?” Poppy asked.

“What!” Daisy cried, her hand halfway to snatching another piece of carrot from the cutting board. “No way. I don’t even have a boyfriend, you know that.”

“Girls in high school have sex with people who are not their boyfriends. Hookups, I think they’re called, or they used to be.”

“Well, I’m not one of them,” Daisy said emphatically. “I think hookups are pathetic. What ever happened to self-esteem?”

Poppy felt relieved, but also realized that she wasn’t really surprised. Daisy might be prickly and perverse at times, but she had always been levelheaded. “Good,” she said. “So, you know all about sex, right? I mean, did Mom talk to you?”

“Of course she did,” Daisy responded. “Jeez, Poppy, I’m sixteen. I’ve known all about sex for years.”

“Well, that doesn’t mean you don’t have any questions. Do you?”

“And you’re the expert?” Daisy laughed.

“No, but I’ve had sex and—”

Daisy put her hands over her ears. “Stop right there! I don’t want to hear any details. And no, I don’t have any questions.”

“I wasn’t going to give you any details,” Poppy assured her, “and okay. But if you
do
someday have a question you know you should come to me. And when you need to get birth control—”

“Poppy!”

Poppy sighed. “I just want you to know you can count on me.”

“Look, I won’t be needing birth control any time soon, okay? I’m not planning on messing up my life. Really.”

“Good. I mean, not that sex is wrong or bad. You know that, right?”

“Yes, Poppy,” Daisy said, rolling her eyes skyward. “I know that. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. I think. Look, what does Violet know about the birds and the bees?”

“I’m not sure,” Daisy admitted. “I don’t think Mom talked to her about sex. Violet was only nine when Mom died. And as for Dad . . . But I know she had a sex ed class in school. So did I. So did you.”

“Hmm. But that doesn’t mean she knows everything. Or that she knows enough to keep her safe.” Poppy sighed. “I guess I’d better talk to her.”

“None of this is easy for you, is it?” Daisy asked suddenly.

Poppy smiled ruefully. “No. It isn’t. I feel like a pretender to the throne. Like a fake. Who am I to be counseling my sisters about life?”

“You’re the one Dad put in charge.”

Lucky me,
Poppy thought. What she said was: “And how do you think I’m doing so far?”

It took Daisy a long moment to answer and when she did, she didn’t quite meet her sister’s eyes. “Okay,” she said. “I think you’re doing fine.”

Poppy didn’t believe her for one second—Daisy had always been a terrible liar—but she said, “Thanks. Dinner at six thirty.”

Daisy turned to go and then looked back. “Is that Mom’s carrot-raisin salad you’re making?” she asked.

“Yes,” Poppy said.

Daisy nodded. “Good. Just watch the salt, okay?”

“M
ay I come in?”

Violet was polishing a chunk of some purple and white stone Daisy had never seen before. “Sure,” she said.

Daisy stepped inside her sister’s bedroom and as always, was struck by how vastly different it was from her own. The walls in Daisy’s room were white. There were no floaty scarves or bowls of crystals. There were no books more esoteric than the King James Bible. The contrast always made Daisy wonder how she and Violet could be related and have such different tastes and interests. And then, of course, there was Grimace, who was draped across the back of an old armchair that used to live in the study. The chair had seen better days, and not only because Grimace used it as a scratching post, but for some reason Daisy couldn’t fathom her sister was attached to it.

“I’m giving you a heads-up,” Daisy said. “Poppy is probably going to ask you about sex.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, what you know and do you have any questions.”

“I know all I need or want to know right now,” Violet stated firmly.

“Yeah, but she’s still probably going to want to talk to you.”

Violet shrugged. “That’s her job now, watching over us.”

Like a hovering buzzard,
Daisy thought. But that was unkind. “Are you doing okay?” she asked, sitting on the edge of her sister’s bed. “Like, in general, you know . . .”

“Do you mean am I handling the fact of Dad’s death in a healthy way?”

Daisy felt a bit embarrassed. Violet never seemed to shy away from or dance around the difficult subjects, the way Daisy often did. “Yeah,” she said. “That’s what I mean.”

Violet nodded and sat in the old armchair. Grimace grunted. “I think that I am,” she said. “I’m sad. I miss him, and Mom. But I’m not afraid. So many people are afraid of death, but I’m not. And I’ve got a home. I love it here. I really do. And Grimace. And you and Poppy and Freddie and Sheila. So, I’m okay.”

For a moment Daisy wondered if her sister was protesting a bit too much. But that wasn’t Violet. She didn’t lie or hide things. “Don’t you miss not having any friends your own age?” she asked suddenly. “Sorry, but I’ve wondered about that.” And sometimes, she had worried.

Violet smiled. “How can you miss what you’ve never had?”

“Yeah, but . . . Don’t you ever look at other girls around town or at the beach or in school and think it might be fun to hang out with them and talk about your teachers and cute boys and what bands are cool and just—stuff?”

“No,” Violet said simply. “Don’t
you
miss not having girlfriends? What happened to that girl you used to hang out with, the one you went to Girl Scouts with for a while?”

“Marla? She and her family moved away, like, four or five years ago. Anyway, I’ve got Joel.” Daisy didn’t want to think about what might happen to their friendship when Joel got a serious boyfriend, and he was far more likely to get one before she did—if she ever did.

“So, you’re okay, too?” her sister asked. “About Dad?”

Daisy smiled sadly. “Not really. I keep thinking that, I don’t know, that I could have saved him somehow. Don’t ask me what I might have done! But I was in the house with him when . . .”

Violet got up from the armchair—Grimace grunted—and came over to put a slim hand on Daisy’s arm. Daisy was startled. Her younger sister rarely touched another living creature but for Grimace. It hadn’t always been that way. “It was his time,” Violet said. “It was meant to happen the way it did.”

Daisy wasn’t sure she could believe that, but if it helped Violet to think so then she wouldn’t argue. “Yes,” she said. “I guess so. Hey, do you remember when Dad would go away on business, how he would always bring back something for each of us, even if it was just a pen from the hotel where he stayed?”

Violet smiled and sat down next to Daisy. “Once he brought me his name tag from a conference in London.”

“I think that was the time he brought me a bag of peanuts from the plane! I loved getting those little gifts. It was so funny and so like Dad.”

“I know. I wonder if Poppy kept anything Dad gave her.”

Daisy shrugged. “I don’t think Poppy’s sentimental.”
In spite,
she thought,
of her wearing Dad’s watch and Mom’s bracelet. In spite of her moving into Mom and Dad’s room. Maybe I’m misjudging her
.

“We don’t really know her at all,” Violet pointed out. “I mean, she’s a Capricorn, but I don’t see her as a self-assured go-getter. A lot of Capricorns are that way, though.”

“They are? Anyway, you’re right,” Daisy said, “we don’t really know her. I used to think that I knew her. When I was growing up. Before you were born, even. I adored her. I followed her everywhere. Isn’t that weird?”
My beautiful older sister ...

“It’s not weird.”

Daisy shrugged again. She was sure of one thing. Her younger sister didn’t
adore
her. Or Poppy. Really, she knew very little about what Violet felt for the people in her life. She was certain that Violet liked her, and Poppy, but did she actually
love
her sisters? Did she love anyone, now that her parents were gone? Because she
had
to have loved her parents. It was normal to love your parents. Besides,
everyone
had loved Annabelle and Oliver Higgins.

“Remember,” Daisy said then, “how when Dad would come home from his business trips, Mom would say, ‘Hail, the conquering hero!’ ”

Violet shook her head. “I don’t remember that.”

“Really? It always made Dad laugh. The last thing I am or want to be, he would say, is a conqueror. Too much work.”

“Do you think Dad was a hero, though?”

“Yes,” Daisy said promptly. “I do.”

“So do I. Mom was a hero, too.”

Suddenly, Daisy felt a surge of great big love for her little sister. How much harder for Violet it all must be, losing Annabelle and Oliver, at so young an age. How brave she was. Children could be heroic, too. Violet always seemed so calm and insightful, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t feeling all the emotions Daisy was feeling—sorrow, fear, loss. She was just better at handling those emotions.

“Poppy might be our legal guardian,” Daisy said now, “but I hope you know you can count on me, as well.”

Violet answered quite solemnly. “Yes,” she said. “I know. And . . .”

“And what?” Daisy asked gently. It was unusual for Violet to hesitate when speaking. Most often she was pretty emphatic, sometimes disturbingly so.

Violet got off the bed and walked over to pet Grimace on his perch. “And it means a lot to me. I want you to know that.”

Daisy looked at her sister, whose back was to her. Suddenly, she seemed so frail and vulnerable. “I do know that,” she said over the catch in her throat. “And I won’t ever forget it.”

“S
o, sign here and initial there,” Freddie instructed. “Once they cash your check you’ll be the proud owner of a life insurance policy.”

Poppy smiled. “I never thought that at the age of twenty-five I’d be worth so much money to anybody.”

“You wouldn’t have been, not if your father was alive. Now, let’s go to the kitchen for some tea.”

When the two women had settled in the kitchen’s breakfast nook with cups of tea and a plate of petit fours, Freddie’s favorite pastry, Freddie looked closely at Poppy. “You look as if you haven’t been sleeping well,” she said. “What’s wrong?”

Poppy laughed. “Everything.”

“Be more specific, dear. And less dramatic.”

“All right. It’s just that it’s been a horrible week. I forgot that Violet had a dentist appointment. Seems there’s a financial penalty for missing an appointment. I keep meaning to buy one of those whiteboards, specifically so I can keep better track of things like that. But I keep forgetting to buy one!”

“Violet could have reminded you,” Freddie pointed out. “She’s probably thrilled that you forgot. She may be special, but she is still a kid.”

The thought hadn’t occurred to Poppy that Violet might have reminded her the way she had reminded her about Grimace’s appointment with the vet. “Well,” she said, “be that as it may, then I left the laundry in the machine for two days before I remembered it was there. Everything smelled of mildew. I had to wash it all again and then clean the machine with bleach. I can’t believe I was so stupid.”

“You’re not the first person to be thwarted by laundry,” Freddie said, taking a petit four from the flower-patterned plate between them. “And you won’t be the last.”

“It’s not only the laundry,” Poppy went on, determined to convince Freddie of her ineptitude. “I had a fairly disastrous chat with Daisy about sex. Turned out I was worrying about nothing. And last night I burned the rice. The pot is still soaking, but I suspect it’s a lost cause. And it’s too bad because it’s one of the good pots Mom got at her wedding shower. All those years and it was just fine—until I got my hands on it.”

“A pot can be replaced. And I never knew your mother to have an emotional attachment to her kitchen tools.”

Poppy sighed. “That’s not the point, Freddie. The point is that I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know how to run a household. I don’t know how to be a parent.”
God,
she thought,
I don’t even know how to be an adult
. “I’ve never had to take care of anybody but myself, and I had help with that. Mom, Dad, the housekeeper we had for all those years, my teachers. I’ve never even had a pet I had to be responsible for. For that matter, I’ve never even had a plant of my own!”

“Poppy, no one knows how to get things properly done until they do. And they know only after they’ve made a thousand and one mistakes.” Freddie leaned across the table and put a hand on Poppy’s. “Look, here’s one of my favorite quotes. I repeat it to myself every night. When I remember. ‘Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could.’”

“Who said that?”

“Ralph Waldo Emerson.” Freddie took her hand from Poppy’s and sat back. “And it makes a good deal of sense.”

“Unless you know that you could have done more. Or done it better.”

Freddie sighed. “I see you’re determined to be miserable.”

“Why did my father make me legal guardian?”

“You’ve asked me that before. Who else would he have chosen? Neither of your parents had siblings, so no aunts and uncles, and certainly no long-lost relatives that I ever knew of. And don’t make me repeat why I wasn’t a candidate. Besides, he always had great faith in your abilities.”

“I wish he hadn’t. I wish he’d considered me an idiot.”

“Then what would have happened to your sisters?” Freddie argued. “They would have been sent into the foster care system. They might have been sent to different homes. Violet would have had to give up Grimace. Would you have wanted that?”

“No. No, of course not. It’s a horrible thought.”
And Mom and Dad would have been so disappointed in me. . . .

“Then let’s move on. There’s something else I want to talk to you about. There’s a town meeting next week and I think it would be a good idea if you attended. As a representative of the Higgins family.”

“Oh,” Poppy said, with absolutely no enthusiasm. “What do you mean by representative? Please don’t tell me I have to take on some formal role.”

“Of course not. What I mean is that by your presence you demonstrate that the Higgins family of Willow Way cares about Yorktide.”

“What goes on at a town meeting exactly?” Poppy asked, not at all reassured by Freddie’s words.

“Talk—debate, really—about matters that affect the town. Anything from local conservation issues to development issues. This meeting’s agenda happens to include the case of one Will Mantel. He owns a large tract of wooded property on the outskirts of town and is requesting a permit to build a cell phone tower on a hill.”

“And?” Poppy asked. “What’s the big deal with that?”

“The big deal is that cell phone towers are hideously ugly and his neighbors oppose having an eyesore looming over them.”

“Oh. That’s a point. Who goes to these meetings?”

“Any year-round resident is welcome, though there are some who are expected to attend, the old families, the ones who have been here for generations. And the members of the Board of Selectmen, of course. They run it all.”

Poppy sighed. “Honestly, Freddie, I have no interest in development issues, and definitely no interest in cell phone towers.” Conservation, she thought, was another matter, but you didn’t have to go to a town meeting to support the cause.

“It’s not really about your personal interests. Being part of a community means making an effort.”

Did it? Poppy wondered. Living in a city it was easier to, well, to be unconcerned, not entirely, but largely. It was easier in some ways to be lazy about your neighbors, whom you might hardly ever see, and even about your neighborhood, which you might likely leave every morning for your job in another neighborhood entirely.

“But you did say I don’t have a formal obligation to Yorktide. I mean, aside from paying taxes and not breaking any laws. I don’t have an official role in the town, so no one can expect me to”—she had been about to say “to care”—“to get involved.”

Freddie laughed. “People can expect all sorts of things from other people, reasonable or not. The point is that your parents were always informed about community affairs and more often than not, they got involved.”

“But I’m not my parents,” Poppy pointed out. “And I don’t want to be. Oh, that sounds childish. You know what I mean.”

Freddie put her hand on Poppy’s arm. “Try not to always say no, Poppy. Try saying yes once in a while. Throw open a door every now and then.”

“I’ll think about it,” Poppy said, aware that she was probably lying. “The meeting, I mean.”

“Good. I’ll be there, by the way. It’s not like there won’t be a friendly face. Jon Gascoyne will be there, too, if he’s true to form. Following in his father’s footsteps.”

“What do you mean?” Poppy asked.

“Albert Gascoyne is a good old-fashioned pillar of the community. Without, I might add, the creepy dark side that so many of them seem to have, at least in books and on TV. I don’t think he’s ever missed a town meeting since he started going when he was in his teens. And he gives generously to the food bank in Oceanside and to our own here in Yorktide. Sad to say, but even in our relatively affluent parts there are those who would go hungry if it weren’t for people taking an interest in their welfare.”

“I had no idea,” Poppy admitted. “About Mr. Gascoyne or about the food banks.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know yet about Yorktide and its inhabitants. A town meeting is a good way to start.”

Poppy laughed. “Freddie, you’re the most persistent person I know.”

Freddie raised an eyebrow. “Sheila,” she said, “would say I’m the most annoying.”