The Weird Sisters - Eleanor Brown [56]
After dinner, Bean climbed out her window and sat on the roof, smoking and staring up at the stars. In New York she had never noticed their absence, but here she could see them clearly, constellations and the punctuation marks in between, the creamy swirl of the Milky Way, pushing through the thick summer darkness like the lights at the Coop prom so long ago. The sounds were strange, too; no horns, no sirens, no shouting, no electric hum, just the urgent calls of the crickets and a few early owls.
“Can I join you?” Cordy asked, sticking her head out the window and peering awkwardly up at Bean.
“Of course,” Bean said, and scooted over. Cordy climbed out, legs first, and clambered along the gentle slope of roof beside the dormer. The slate had worn down to a smooth flow where we lay in silence together.
“She looked awful,” Cordy said finally. An owl hooted its mournful agreement from one of the trees at the bottom of the backyard. “I didn’t think she’d look so bad.”
Bean shrugged, exhaled a plume of smoke that hung in the thick air for a moment, and then dissipated. “I think she’s going to look pretty crappy for a while if she has to do chemo again.”
“Yeah,” Cordy said. “I know. It was just weird to see her that way. You know. Weak.” Bean knew. We all knew. The sturdy peasant stock we all resented was what made our mother seem formidable. She wasn’t, of course, she was subject to the same flights of fancy as all of us, maybe more, and we had all seen her cry. She wasn’t one of those iron women who would have been able to raise a dozen kids during the Potato Famine and still make it to Mass every Sunday. But she had always looked like one of those women. “Do you think we’ll get it?”
“Guar-an-teed,” Bean said in a slow drawl. “No point in even quitting smoking. The boobs are going to get me first.”
“Rationalize all you want,” Rose said, poking her head out the window and climbing clumsily out to join us. “It’s still a nasty habit.”
“Life’s a nasty habit,” Bean replied, nonchalant. Cordy elbowed her and she moved over, and Rose sandwiched in on the other end. We lay in a neat row, staring up at the sky together.
Once, long ago, our parents had gone out to a faculty dinner and left the three of us alone. Rose, sixteen; Bean, thirteen; Cordy still trailing along at ten. It was a cool night, it must have been late fall, and Bean had just bought a 45 of a pop song that had enchanted her completely, one of those one-hit wonders with a synth-pop backbeat and an infectious chorus.
We did the dishes together and then Bean put on the record, opened the front door wide, and danced on the porch below the yellow light, moths beating anxiously against its warmth. By the end, she had pulled Rose up from the porch swing, and they danced together, breathless and wild, sweating in the chill air. “Again!” Bean cried, and Cordy scampered inside to place the needle back at the beginning, her corduroys whisking above her bare feet. We played it again and again and Cordy stood at the door and watched us dancing together, running back and forth each time the song wound to a close, and finally we pulled her out with us and the three of us whirled and spun until we knew all the words and were breathless as much from singing along as from dancing. “They dance! they are mad women!” Bean cried, grasping Rose’s hands and spinning her into dizzy oblivion. And then we climbed up on this roof and looked for falling stars together until Cordy fell asleep and nearly slid off.
Being on the roof again made us think of that night, but now we were older, if not wiser. “I’m going to get a job,” Cordy announced.
“So you’re staying,” Rose said.
“Yar. Is that a problem?” Cordy turned, her braid snagging on a loose tile, and she tilted up to set herself free before lying back