Page 2 of Big & Lily

Lily is, and forever will be, the baby of the family. Holding tight to the constructs of our birth order. Born when I was eight, during the time when, my mother was always quick to remind us, my parents were in the throes of a messy divorce. She was a Band-Aid baby, arriving nine months after whatever reconciliation followed a particularly bad fight. But even a baby as beautiful as Lily, with wide eyes and a head of strawberry blond curls,wasn’t enough to stick things back together. On top of the colic, and the little clenched fists, and the crying until she was purple in the face, I remember the shouting, and stomping, and dinners as my mother and I took turns bouncing the baby while the other one swallowed fast bites of food. Then one day, it got quiet. My father was gone. My mother wouldn’t talk about it, despite treating me like an adult in so many other ways. Instead, she ground her resentment into a fine powder, sprinkled it over our lives, and handed the baby to me.

I learned quickly how to change a diaper, shake formula onto my wrist to test the temperature, and play peekaboo on rewind and repeat. “Go to your Big Sister. Where’s your Big Sister? Ask your Big Sister,” Mom would say so often that by the time Lily could talk, no one called me Bridget anymore. It was “Big Sister,” then “Big Sis,” then finally, and to this day, plain old “Big.”

I watch my sister waiting in the line with her back to me. The customer in front of her, a man with the name of a lawn service on his back, turns around to talk to her. Lily tucks her hair behind her ear as she responds to the guy who’s blissfully unaware that he’s now holding up the line. She takes after our father, magnificently tall and lanky, all elbows and knees. My father often reminded me of a baby giraffe, never knowing quite where to put his limbs, but on Lily, it makes her appear fluid and swanlike. I, on the other hand, am all my mother. “You’ve got pulkies, like the women on our side,” she’d say to me as if it were a badge of honor. The last thing I wanted to hear was that I inherited my Russian peasant ancestors’ chubby thighs.

It takes another ten minutes, enough time for me to add three items to my list, for Lily to get her order and sit down. She’s got my drink, as I knew she would, and a slice of banana bread that she slides to the middle of the table for us to share.

“You’re late,” I say. “Mom needs to be at the doctor by eleven thirty.” I unfold my list and run my finger down it. Yup, Number Two:Mom to Dr. Carrazone @11:30. “She’s got three appointments this week I’ve got to bring her to.” It’s been nonstop for me since we took away her driver’s license. “Seriously, if you can take time away from the shop, you can bring her to one of these doctors for me.”

Lily pinches off a chunk of banana bread, but instead of eating it she squishes it between her thumb and finger.

“Shit, Big. Don’t screw with me today.”

Oh right, the smiles and the charm for the door holder, and the customer, and the lawn service guy stop with me. Fine.

“You’re the one who wanted to meet up.”

Lily sinks back into her seat. When a lock of auburn hair falls over one eye, she lets it hang. Suddenly, my lovely, vibrant sister looks deflated.

“What’s the matter? Why didn’t you go to work today? Are you sick?”

She seemed perfectly fine when she walked into the coffee shop. I lean across the table, reaching out my wrist to place it on Lily’s forehead. She jerks her head away from my hand. “Quit it.”

“Lil, if you’re sick, you shouldn’t be out.”

“I’m not sick.” She looks around the coffee shop as if there are spies among us. A woman who has tucked herself in at the end of the line waves to her, presses her palms together and tucks them up to her cheek with a small knowing smile. Another satisfied customer. Lily puts on a wide, fake smile.

“Lily!” I demand. The suspense is killing me. And the drama is unnecessary.

She snaps back to me and sighs theatrically.

“I can’t go to work, Big. I can’t ever go to work again.”

“Never?”

That’s going to be a problem. Lily is the heart and soul of Sweet Dreams. She and Eric run it almost entirely on their own, save for a few part-time employees (with a reluctant me in the background). They have a loyal following of insomniacs, the overworked and overtired, the anxious and the worried, who have come to count on them for their inventory of expensive pillows, high-thread-count sheets, sleep masks, essential oils, and white noise machines. And while Eric is the nuts-and-bolts business side of the shop, it is charismatic and engaging Lily, the woman who looks like she never lost a minute of sleep in her life, who customers count on to sell them the just-right-thing to send them to dreamland.Never going backis not an option.

“Listen, Lily,” I say. “If you need some time off, I’m sure Willa can fill in for you. I’m sure she’d like more hours.”

“No!” she spits back at me. “Stop trying to solve... Jesus, here. Look at this.”

She pulls some folded paper out of the pocket of her sweats and hands it to me. I open it up. And then open it again. And again. It’s a CVS receipt the length of my arm. She’s earned her two-buck bonus. Crest toothpaste is buy one, get one free.

“Oh,” I say. “Can I have this L’Oréal coupon?”

She grabs the receipt out of my hands, shakes it at me, and says, “I found this in Eric’s pants when I was doing laundry this morning.”

She hands it back to me again. “Look what he bought.”

I take out my readers and scan the small print near the top. “Old Spice deodorant,” I read off, “Gillette razors. And... oh...” I stop. Oh no. I put the paper back down on the table.

“Read it,” she says. Her eyes are dark and determined.

“Lily.”

“Read. It.”

“And...” My face flushes and my eyes burn. “. . . Trojan Ultra Thin Lubricated Condoms.”