Read Online The Pretty One: A Novel About Sisters by Lucinda Rosenfeld - Free Book Online
Authors: Lucinda Rosenfeld
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Contemporary, Family Life, Contemporary Women, Fiction / Romance - Contemporary, Fiction / Family Life, Fiction / Contemporary Women
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mother. She might even have enjoyed the break from the daily grind. What she objected to was her sisters both assuming that she’d be there whenever it was necessary. Perri felt that, while Olympia and Gus were incredibly different, they had one thing in common: self-absorption on an epic scale. They take me for granted, Perri thought for the umpteenth time as she pulled into her parents’ driveway to pick up her father.
A three-note text alert interrupted her thoughts. She put the car in park, lifted her phone from her bag, and scanned the screen.
Want to see you—when?, Perri read in the front seat—and found her heart beating louder than it probably should have been.
The text had been sent by Roy Marley, her college boyfriend before Mike. The dreadlocked son of a dentist, he’d been the only African American member of the druggie fraternity, where he’d played the role of both token and totem, especially after someone spread the rumor, later proved false, that he was the son of reggae legend Bob Marley. He and Perri had dated for three months of her sophomore year, at which point he’d dumped her without explanation. Twenty years later, he’d found her on Facebook and sent her a message that said, Yo, Hellinger, what’s up? Still think of the GREAT TIMES we had together . Things had escalated from there.
In the past week, they’d texted or emailed at least three times a day. Perri couldn’t stop hitting Reply. She couldn’t stop checking to see if Roy had replied to her reply, either. She’d be in the middle of a business call to Mexico or China and, instead of concentrating on the manufacture of velveteen hangers, she’d be checking her BlackBerry. Every text of Roy’s felt like vindication, proof positive that he’d been crazy about her after alland regretted having split. Was that it? Or was Perri looking for affirmation in some larger sense—affirmation that she was still attractive, still young? Roy was now a doctor, divorced with two kids and living in Bethesda, Maryland.
Maybe not such a good idea, she typed. Then she pressed Send, only to be overcome by a wave of regret and fear that Roy would lose interest and/or give up, followed by guilt and shame that she didn’t actually want him to do so.
Here she had all she’d ever dreamed of. Not just a loyal husband but three beautiful and healthy children; her own company; prime real estate; a still bountiful if recently attenuated stock portfolio (thanks to the stock market crash of early ’09); and possibly the most organized shoe closets, toy bins, and flatware drawer in all of Westchester County. Never mind the Lexus she was driving, or the side-by-side his-and-her sinks in their renovated master bath. Except, suddenly, things weren’t that perfect anymore. Mike had lost his job at the beginning of the year. And while Perri could tell herself he was a victim of the Great Recession, she secretly knew otherwise. The mass layoffs had taken place the year before. In all likelihood, the bank was simply clearing out its least productive rung, just as a gardener clears dead wood in early spring. It humiliated Perri to think of her husband as fitting into that category. Her identity depended on them both being winners in the game of life. She found it especially unsettling to think that she might be the more successful one of the two. Perri considered herself to be a feminist—to a point. But for a marriage to work, didn’t the husband still need to be the chief breadwinner?
For another thing, it had been nearly three months since she and Mike had had sex. And the scary part was: Perri didn’t actually miss it. Vibrators, she’d found, made far more efficientpartners than husbands did. They didn’t require you to look good; or produce vowel-rich soundtracks; or feel self-conscious about how long it was taking you to climax. Yet she feared the things that her abstinence portended. She’d once read an article in Vanity Fair magazine about a
A three-note text alert interrupted her thoughts. She put the car in park, lifted her phone from her bag, and scanned the screen.
Want to see you—when?, Perri read in the front seat—and found her heart beating louder than it probably should have been.
The text had been sent by Roy Marley, her college boyfriend before Mike. The dreadlocked son of a dentist, he’d been the only African American member of the druggie fraternity, where he’d played the role of both token and totem, especially after someone spread the rumor, later proved false, that he was the son of reggae legend Bob Marley. He and Perri had dated for three months of her sophomore year, at which point he’d dumped her without explanation. Twenty years later, he’d found her on Facebook and sent her a message that said, Yo, Hellinger, what’s up? Still think of the GREAT TIMES we had together . Things had escalated from there.
In the past week, they’d texted or emailed at least three times a day. Perri couldn’t stop hitting Reply. She couldn’t stop checking to see if Roy had replied to her reply, either. She’d be in the middle of a business call to Mexico or China and, instead of concentrating on the manufacture of velveteen hangers, she’d be checking her BlackBerry. Every text of Roy’s felt like vindication, proof positive that he’d been crazy about her after alland regretted having split. Was that it? Or was Perri looking for affirmation in some larger sense—affirmation that she was still attractive, still young? Roy was now a doctor, divorced with two kids and living in Bethesda, Maryland.
Maybe not such a good idea, she typed. Then she pressed Send, only to be overcome by a wave of regret and fear that Roy would lose interest and/or give up, followed by guilt and shame that she didn’t actually want him to do so.
Here she had all she’d ever dreamed of. Not just a loyal husband but three beautiful and healthy children; her own company; prime real estate; a still bountiful if recently attenuated stock portfolio (thanks to the stock market crash of early ’09); and possibly the most organized shoe closets, toy bins, and flatware drawer in all of Westchester County. Never mind the Lexus she was driving, or the side-by-side his-and-her sinks in their renovated master bath. Except, suddenly, things weren’t that perfect anymore. Mike had lost his job at the beginning of the year. And while Perri could tell herself he was a victim of the Great Recession, she secretly knew otherwise. The mass layoffs had taken place the year before. In all likelihood, the bank was simply clearing out its least productive rung, just as a gardener clears dead wood in early spring. It humiliated Perri to think of her husband as fitting into that category. Her identity depended on them both being winners in the game of life. She found it especially unsettling to think that she might be the more successful one of the two. Perri considered herself to be a feminist—to a point. But for a marriage to work, didn’t the husband still need to be the chief breadwinner?
For another thing, it had been nearly three months since she and Mike had had sex. And the scary part was: Perri didn’t actually miss it. Vibrators, she’d found, made far more efficientpartners than husbands did. They didn’t require you to look good; or produce vowel-rich soundtracks; or feel self-conscious about how long it was taking you to climax. Yet she feared the things that her abstinence portended. She’d once read an article in Vanity Fair magazine about a
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