Page 21 of The Starfish Sisters

Chapter Seven

Phoebe

It was actually Ben’s idea to pick up Suze. I’d been texting with him, as we often did in the middle of the night, talking about movies or books or politics or the world, whatever, and I mentioned that I was worried about Suze because all the lights were on. He suggested he could bring her down to me, and the way that landed in my gut, I knew he was right.

That’s a big favor, I said.

Not really. Will you make me some of that rose petal tea?

Rose?

It smells like roses. You made it with honey.

I remember, and smiling, type,Rose tulsi. You got it. I’ll call her right now.

They arrive less than a half hour after the phone call. The cat, in his enormous, padded, beautiful carrier, is a big Himalayan Ragdoll who seems perfectly calm. “He’s gorgeous.”

“He’s a great cat,” Suze says.

Ordinarily I would have met him by now, but her last cat, Melvin, died not long after Beryl did. It occurs to me for the first time that she lost her partner, Beryl, and Melvin within a couple of years.

And me, I realize. A river of mingled anger and guilt—It’s not my job to take care of her! But who else does she have?—travels through my body.

Yul Brynner winds around my ankles. His fur is as soft as a breeze, thick and long. “Wow, he’s so pretty!”

“Ragdolls always are,” she says, stroking Yul Brynner’s tail. “They’re good travelers, too.”

She’s woven her long hair into a braid, and her face is devoid of makeup, revealing the circles below her eyes and the paleness of her lips. Ben comes in, carrying a bag. He’s a little unkempt himself, his dark hair mussed, his shirt untucked. “Come in, both of you. Let’s keep our voices down. Jasmine is sleeping.”

Maui rounds us into the kitchen, and Yul Brynner crouches near the sink, wary. “Maui, give him some space,” I say.

“You sit,” Ben says. “I’ll make the tea.”

I smile. “You’re the master now, are you?”

He winks at me. “Best teacher around.”

I pat his back, taking comfort in his solidness, his reliability. It’s been so long since there was anyone around for me to depend on. For all that Suze needs me, she’s not the most consistently available presence. I know it’s not her fault, but sometimes you want more than a voice on the phone. “Thank you.”

A deck of cards sits on the counter, left over from the rummy I was playing with Jasmine. “Poker, anyone?”

Suze nods. “I’ll play.”

“Deal me in,” Ben says.

I shuffle the cards, feeling something akin to peace. It’s a single moment, but it’s real—the camaraderie of my friends, Jasmine upstairs, tea and snacks at our elbows. I feel Amma there, too, approving. As she would have, I say, “Five-card stud, nothing wild.”

Suze’s eyes twinkle. “Not even tens?” It was always the card she wanted to be the wild card, one of the few things that irked Amma, who liked her poker straight up.

“Not even tens,” I say, smiling, and deal.

When I get up in the morning, Suze is fast asleep in the bedroom that used to be hers, tucked under the eaves on the north end of the house. It’s always too cold, but she loved the refuge it offered. Amma took her in after Joel burned the church down, and she lived here for the final two and a half years of high school. I was deeply resentful at first—or rather, jealous. My family was falling apart, and I wanted to live with Amma, who wouldn’t let me. But she let Suze, saying she had nowhere else to go.

One of her posters,The Rocky Horror Picture Show, still adorns one wall, and she made the paisley quilt her final year of high school. Her braid peeks out from under the covers, and it pierces me. I was pretty evil for a while there. Not that Suze was exactly all sweetness and light. But probably no one would have been under the circumstances. Her father beat her nearly to death, she was sent away in disgrace, and her best friend—that would be me—kept a secret from her that I’ve still never shared.

It has come to me in the vacuum between us after the fight to wonder if my keeping this secret is partly what created so much distance between us.

A piercing sense of longing fills me. I miss our closeness. For all that is wrong between us, she is still like the other half of me, the missing half I found one day on a beach when we were twelve.