Big Girl: A Novel

“Too bad Mrs. Bernini didn’t teach freshmen. And I’ve got a double dose of seniors with two classes.”

“They’ll eat you for breakfast if you let them,” Helen warned her. “You have to kick ass. Don’t be too nice, and don’t try to be their friend. Especially as young as you are. The kids at Madison can be great, and most of them are smart, but a lot of them are very manipulative and think they own the world. They’ll clean the floor with you if you don’t watch out, and so will their parents. Don’t take any shit from them. Trust me. You need to be tough.” Helen looked serious as she said it.

“I guess you’re right. Less than half of them did the assignment and they sat around the class texting, writing messages, and listening to iPods. They couldn’t have cared less.” Helen knew how hard that was for a young teacher, and had been there herself.

“You’ve gotta be tough,” she said again, as she followed Victoria out of her classroom and headed back to her own. “Give them big assignments, challenge them, give them an F when they don’t turn in an assignment. Kick them out if they’re not paying attention or doing the work. Confiscate their stuff. It’ll wake them up.” Victoria nodded. She hated to be that way, but she suspected Helen was right. “And forget the little creeps over the weekend. Do something nice for yourself,” she said in a motherly tone. “And first thing Monday morning, kick their asses. Mark my words, they’ll sit up and take notice.”

“Thanks,” Victoria said, and smiled at her again. “Have a nice weekend.” She appreciated Helen’s advice, and it made her like her better than she had at first.

“You too!” Helen said, and went back into her classroom to pick up her things.

Victoria walked home from school with a heavy heart. She felt like an utter failure with her two senior classes, and the juniors and sophomores hadn’t gone well either. It almost made her wonder why she had wanted to be a teacher. She had been all idealistic and starry-eyed, and she wasn’t doing them any good. The end of the week had gone badly, and she was afraid that she wouldn’t be able to control them, as Helen suggested, and it would get worse. Thinking about it, she stopped to get something for dinner, and she wound up buying three slices of pizza and three pints of Häagen-Dazs ice cream in different flavors, and a bag of Oreo cookies. She knew it wasn’t the answer, but it was comfort food for her. When she got home, she put the pizza in the oven, and opened the pint of chocolate ice cream first. She was more than halfway through it when Bunny came home from the gym. Victoria had been planning to go with her all week but hadn’t had time, while she worked on her plans for her classes. And she was too tired at night. Bunny didn’t comment when she saw her eating the ice cream, but Victoria felt guilty immediately, put the lid back on, and put it back in the freezer with the rest.

“How was your week?” Bunny asked kindly. She thought Victoria looked upset.

“Hard. The kids are tough, and I’m new.”

“I’m sorry. Do something fun this weekend. The weather is going to be great. I’m going up to Boston, Bill is at Julie’s, and I think Harlan is going to Fire Island. You’ll have the apartment to yourself.” That wasn’t entirely good news to Victoria, who was feeling lonely, homesick, and depressed. She missed Grace.

After Bunny left to catch her flight to Boston, Victoria ate the pizza and then called home to talk to Grace. Her mother answered and asked how she was. Victoria said she was fine, and then her father got on the phone.

“Ready to throw in the towel and come home?” he asked with a hearty laugh. She wouldn’t have admitted it to him, but she almost was. She had felt completely inadequate in the classroom and like an utter failure. What he said jolted her back into reality. She wasn’t about to give up.

“Not yet, Dad,” she said, trying to sound happier than she felt. And then Gracie got on the phone, and Victoria almost burst into tears. She really missed her and was suddenly lonely in the empty apartment in a new city with no friends.

They talked for a long time. Gracie told her what she was doing in school, they chatted about her teachers and her classes, and there was a new boy she said she liked. He was a junior. There was always a new boy in Gracie’s life, and never one in her sister’s. Victoria hadn’t felt this miserable in a long time, and she was feeling sorry for herself. But she didn’t say anything to Gracie about what a mess the week had been. After they hung up, Victoria took out the vanilla ice cream, opened it, walked into her room, turned on the TV, and got into her bed with her clothes on. She put on a movie channel, and finished the ice cream as she watched a movie, and then felt guilty when she looked at the empty ice cream carton next to her bed. It had been her dinner. And she could almost feel her hips growing as she lay there. She was utterly disgusted with herself. She put her pajamas on shortly after, got back in bed, and pulled the covers over her head. She didn’t wake up until the next morning.

To atone for her sins of the night before, she went for a long walk in Central Park on Saturday, and jogged partway around the reservoir. The weather was gorgeous, and she noticed couples strolling all around her, and she felt sad not to have a man in her life. Looking around, she felt as though everyone else did, and she was the odd person out, and always had been. She was crying when she jogged to the edge of the park, and then walked home in her T-shirt and gym shorts and running shoes. And she promised herself she wouldn’t eat any more ice cream that night. It was a promise she intended to keep. And as she sat home alone in the empty apartment and watched another movie, she didn’t eat the ice cream. She ate the bag of Oreo cookies instead.

She spent Sunday correcting the assignments that some of the seniors had done. She was surprised by how good they were, and how creative. A few of her students had real talent, and the essays they’d written were very sophisticated. She was impressed, and said so when she faced her first class on Monday morning. They had slouched in and sprawled in their seats with obvious uninterest. There were at least a dozen BlackBerrys evident on their desks. She walked around the room and picked them up one by one, and put them on her own desk. Their owners reacted immediately and she assured them they could have them back after class. Several of the BlackBerrys were already vibrating with messages on her desk.

She praised them then for their essays, and they were pleased, and then she collected the rest. All but two students had done them. The two who hadn’t were tall, good-looking boys, who appeared cocky and cynical when they said they hadn’t done the assignment, again.

“Is there a problem? The dog ate your homework?” Victoria asked calmly.

“No,” a boy named Mike MacDuff said to her. “We were out in the Hamptons and I played tennis all day Saturday, and golf with my dad on Sunday. And I had a date Saturday night.”

“I’m thrilled for you, Mike. I’ve never been to the Hamptons, but I hear it’s great out there. I’m glad you had such a nice weekend. That’ll be an F on your assignment.” And with that, she turned her attention to the rest of the class and handed out copies of a short story she wanted them to look at, while Mike scowled at her. The boy sitting next to him looked uncomfortable, and had figured out that he was getting an F too.

She helped them dissect the short story, and showed them why it worked. It was a good story, and they seemed to enjoy it, they paid closer attention to her this time, and she felt better about the class. Even Becki had contributed some remarks about the story. And Victoria asked them to write a short story as their assignment. Mike stopped at her desk on the way out, and in a gruff voice he asked whether, if he did the assignment he’d missed, she’d drop the F for his failure to write it.

“Not this time, Mike,” she said pleasantly, feeling like a monster, but she remembered Helen’s warning on Friday not to let them get away with anything. She had to make an example of Mike and the other boy who hadn’t bothered to do the first assignment.

“That sucks!” he said loudly as he strode out of the room and slammed the door on the way out. Victoria looked undisturbed, and got ready for the second class, which started a few minutes later.

They were tougher than the first group. And there was a girl in the class who was determined to take Victoria on and humiliate her. She made several comments about women who were overweight before Victoria started talking. She pretended not to have heard the girl’s remarks. Her name was Sally Fritz. She had dark red hair and freckles, and a tattoo of a star on the back of one hand.

“Where did you go to school anyway?” she asked Victoria rudely as she started to teach the class. She had totally interrupted what Victoria was saying.

“Northwestern. Are you thinking of applying?”

“Hell, no,” Sally said loudly. “It’s too cold there.”

“Yes, it is, but I loved it. It’s a good school, once you get used to the weather.”

“I’m applying to California and Texas.”

Victoria nodded. “I’m from L.A. There are some terrific schools in California,” she said pleasantly.

“My brother went to Stanford,” Sally volunteered as though they weren’t in class, and she didn’t care if they were. She was very brash. Victoria went on with the class then, and shared the same short story with them that she had gone over with the first class that morning. This group was livelier and more critical of the piece, which made for some interesting discussions around the room, and they got into it, in spite of their intention of torturing her and being difficult. She swept them all into the analysis of the story and a lively exchange, and some of them were still talking about it when they left the room, and Victoria looked pleased. She didn’t mind being challenged by her students, or even argued with if they had valid points. The goal of her teaching was to make them question what they knew and thought they believed in. The short story she had exposed them to had done that. It had been a victory for her. And she stopped in to see Helen on her way to the teachers’ lounge to correct papers.

“Thanks for the tip the other day,” she said shyly. “It helped.”

“To kick their asses?”

Victoria laughed in answer. “I don’t think I did that. But I gave two F’s in my first class for failure to hand in the assignment.” It was a lot tougher than she thought she would be in the second week of school.

“That’s a start.” Helen grinned at her. “I’m proud of you. It’ll wake up the others.”

“I think it did. And I’m confiscating iPods and BlackBerrys whenever I see them.”

“They hate that,” Helen confirmed. “They’d much rather send text messages to their friends than listen to you, or me, for that matter.” The two women laughed. “Did you have a nice weekend?”

“Nice enough. I went to the park on Saturday, and corrected papers on Sunday.” And ate two pints of ice cream, pizza, and an entire bag of cookies. But she didn’t say it. She knew it was a measure of how discouraged she was. She always ate more when she was unhappy, even though she promised herself she wouldn’t. She could see an imminent return to her size fourteen and sixteen wardrobe in her future. She had brought all four sizes with her. She wanted to avoid winding up a sixteen, which could easily happen at the rate she was eating. She knew she had to start dieting again. It was a constant merry-go-round she could never seem to get off. With no friends, no boyfriend, and no social life, feeling unsure of herself in her job, she was at high risk for putting on weight in New York, despite her good resolutions not to. They never lasted. At the first sign of a crisis, she dove into a pint of ice cream, a bag of cookies, or a pizza. And she had done all three that weekend, which had set off an alarm in her head to be careful before it got out of hand.

Helen could sense that she was lonely, and she seemed very young and innocent to her, and like a nice girl. “Maybe we can go to a movie next weekend. Or a concert in the park,” she offered.

“I’d like that,” Victoria said, looking happy. She felt like the new kid on the block, and she was. And she was the youngest teacher in the school. Helen was twice her age, but she liked Victoria. She thought she was bright, and Helen could tell she was trying, and was dedicated to teaching. She was naïve, but Helen thought she would learn the ropes in time. It was challenging for everyone in the beginning, especially teaching older kids. High school students were the toughest. But Victoria looked like she could handle it if she kept the kids in control. “Are you going to the lounge?” she asked Helen hopefully.

“I’ve got another class. I’ll catch you later.” Victoria nodded, and walked down the hall to the lounge. It was deserted. Everyone had gone to lunch, and she was trying not to. She had brought an apple in her briefcase and had vowed to be good. She sat munching it as she read the papers. And once again, they were surprisingly good. She had some very bright students. She just hoped she was bright enough to teach them and hold their interest for the entire year. She was feeling very unsure of herself. Now that she was faced with a classroom full of real people, this was much harder than she had anticipated, and it was going to take more than just discipline to keep them in line. Helen had given her some helpful hints, and Carla Bernini had set up the syllabus before going on maternity leave, but Victoria knew that she had to infuse her classes with life and excitement in order to keep the kids hooked. And she was scared to death that she wasn’t good enough to do it and would fail. She wanted to be good at it more than anything. She didn’t care how little the job paid, this was her vocation, and she wanted to be a great teacher, the kind kids remembered for years. She had no idea if she could do it, but she was trying her best. And this was only the beginning. The school year had just started.

For the next two weeks, Victoria fought to keep her students’ attention. She confiscated cell phones and BlackBerrys, she gave them tough assignments, and one day when her sophomore class was too restless, she took them for a walk around the neighborhood, and made them write about it. She tried to come up with every creative idea she could, and to get to know every one of her students in all four classes, and she began to get the feeling after two months that some of them liked her. She racked her brain on the weekends searching for ideas for them, new books to read, and new projects. And sometimes she surprised them with unexpected quizzes and assignments. There was nothing dull about her classes. And by late November, she felt like she was beginning to get somewhere with them and win their respect. Not all of her students liked her, but at least they were paying attention and responding to her. By the time she got on the plane to go home for the Thanksgiving holiday, she had a feeling of accomplishment, until she saw her father. He looked at her with surprise when he met her at the airport with her mother and Grace, who hurled herself into Victoria’s arms with glee, as her big sister kissed her.

“Wow! The ice cream must be good in New York,” he commented, grinning broadly, and her mother looked pained, not at his comment but at Victoria’s appearance. She had gained back everything she lost, while correcting papers at night and on weekends and working on her classes. She had been living on Chinese takeout, and double chocolate milk shakes. The diet she kept meaning to start just hadn’t happened. Her whole focus had been on her classes and her students and not on herself. And she kept eating all the wrong foods to give herself energy, comfort, and strength.

“I guess so, Dad,” Victoria said vaguely.

“Why don’t you steam fish and vegetables, dear?” her mother said. Victoria marveled that after not seeing her for almost three months, her weight was all they could think about. Gracie just looked at her and beamed. She didn’t care what size Victoria was, she just loved her. The two sisters walked off arm in arm toward the baggage claim, happy to be back together.

On Thanksgiving day, Victoria helped her mother cook the turkey, and she enjoyed the day and the meal with them, miraculously without negative comments from her father. The weather was balmy and warm, and they sat in the backyard afterward, and her mother asked her about her teaching.

“Do you like it?” She was still puzzled why her daughter would want to be a teacher.

“I love it.” She grinned at her sister then. “And my sophomore students are horrible. They’re all little monsters like you. I confiscate their iPods all the time, so they’ll listen to me.”

“Why don’t you make them write lyrics?” Gracie suggested as her older sister looked at her in amazement. “That’s what my teacher did, and we loved it.”

“That’s brilliant!” Victoria could hardly wait to try it on them. She had been planning to have her juniors and seniors write poetry in the weeks before Christmas. But lyrics for the sophomores was a great idea. “Thank you, Gracie.”

“Just ask me about the sophomores,” she said proudly, since she was one herself.

Her father managed to stay off the subject of her weight for the rest of the visit, and her mother discreetly said that she should go to Overeaters Anonymous, which really hurt Victoria’s feelings, but other than that, it was a warm, comfortable weekend, especially with Gracie. And they all drove her back to the airport on Sunday. She was planning to come back in four weeks to spend Christmas with them, so this time their goodbyes weren’t tearful. She was going to spend the whole vacation with them, since they had two weeks off school. And on the plane on the way back to New York, she thought again about Gracie’s suggestion to have the sophomores write lyrics.

She presented the idea to her sophomore class on Wednesday morning, and they looked ecstatic. It was something they could really wrap their minds around, and for once they looked enthusiastic about an assignment. Her juniors and seniors were less thrilled with the poetry they had to write, and she was starting to help some of them with their essays for their college applications. She had her hands full.

The lyrics the sophomores wrote for her were terrific. One boy brought a guitar in, and they tried to put music to some of his words. The assignment was a huge success, and they asked if they could extend the project until Christmas vacation, and she agreed. And she gave most of them excellent grades for what they did. She had never given so many As. And the poetry assignments were surprisingly good too. By Christmas vacation, Victoria felt as though she had won their confidence, and all of them were behaving better in her classroom. Helen had noticed it too. The students looked happy and enthusiastic now when they left her room.

“What did you do to them? Give them drugs?”

“I took my fifteen-year-old sister’s suggestion. I’ve had the sophomores writing lyrics,” Victoria said proudly, and Helen was impressed by her creativity.

“That’s pure genius. I wish I could do that in my class.”

“I stole the idea from my sister’s teacher. But it worked. And the older kids have been writing poetry. A few of them really have talent.”

“So do you,” Helen said with a look of admiration. “You’re a damn good teacher. I hope you know that. And I’m happy that you’re learning to control the class. It’s better for them, and you. Even at their age, they need boundaries, discipline, and structure.”

“I’ve been working on it,” Victoria said honestly, “but sometimes I think I really screw up. There’s a lot more creativity to teaching than I originally thought.”

“We all screw up,” Helen said candidly. “That doesn’t make you a bad teacher. You keep trying and you find what works till you win them over. That’s the best you can do.”

“I love what I’m doing,” she said happily, “even if they drive me crazy sometimes. But they don’t seem as cocky lately. One of the kids even wants to go to Northwestern because I said I loved the school.” Helen was smiling at her as she listened. She could see Victoria’s passion for her profession in her eyes, and it warmed Helen’s heart.

“I hope Eric is smart enough to hire you permanently after Carla comes back. He’ll be crazy if he loses you,” Helen said warmly.

“I’m just grateful to be here. We’ll see what happens about next year.” She knew that contracts would be offered in March and April, and she didn’t know if they’d have an opening for her. She hoped so, but nothing was sure. For now, it was working, for her and the kids and the school. Eric Walker, the headmaster, had been hearing good things about her from the students. And two of the parents had commented that they liked her assignments. She really inspired the kids, and when necessary she pushed them. She thought outside the box, and wasn’t afraid to try new things. She was exactly the kind of teacher they wanted.

And she had stopped eating quite as voraciously after Thanksgiving. Her father’s comment, and her mother’s suggesting Overeaters Anonymous, had slowed her down a little. She hadn’t started any crazy new diets yet, and she was planning to do that over Christmas. She had thought about going to Weight Watchers, but she told herself she didn’t have time. But for now she had eased up on the ice cream and pizza. And she was buying salads and cooked chicken breasts to eat in the kitchen with the others when she got home, and she made sure she had fruit for an afternoon snack. She still hadn’t developed a social life, other than the occasional movie date with Helen, but she enjoyed her roommates. She saw more of Harlan than anyone, because Bill was always with Julie, and Bunny had been going to Boston almost every weekend to be with her boyfriend. She was thinking of moving to be with him. But Harlan was around almost as much as she was. He was single and unattached too. And he worked as hard as she did. When he came home at night, he was exhausted and happy to crash in front of the TV in his room, and meet her for a snack in the kitchen.

“So where are you going for Christmas?” she asked him one night over a cup of tea.

“I’ve been invited to South Beach. I’m not sure if I’m going. Miami isn’t really my scene.” He was a serious man who worked diligently at the museum. She knew he wasn’t close to his family, and wasn’t planning to go back to Mississippi for the holidays. He said his parents were still upset that he was gay, and he wasn’t welcome, which she thought was sad for him.

“I’m going back to L.A. to see my parents and sister,” Victoria said pensively, thinking that her parents had never fully accepted her either. She had been a misfit and an outcast in their midst all her life. Even her size upset them and made her look different. Her mother would have preferred to die than be the size she was, and would never have let that happen. And her father still couldn’t resist remarks at her expense, with no awareness of how hurtful they were to her. She never believed that his cruelty was on purpose.

“Do you miss them when you’re here?” Harlan asked, curious about her family.

“Sometimes. They’re familiar. Mostly I miss my little sister. She’s always been my baby.” Victoria smiled at Harlan as he poured them both another cup of tea.

“I have an older brother who hates me. Being gay was not the thing to be in Tupelo, Mississippi, when I was growing up, and it still isn’t. He and his friends used to beat me up all the time. I didn’t even know why till I was fifteen and figured out why they did it. Up until then, I thought I was just different. After that, I knew. I left the minute I turned eighteen, and came to college up here. I think they were as relieved as I was. I only go back once every few years, when I run out of excuses.” It sounded sad to her and very lonely. But her life at home would have been too, without Gracie.

“I’m the odd man out in my family too,” she admitted. “They’re all thin people with brown eyes and dark hair. I’m the family freak. My father always gives me a hard time about my weight. My mother leaves clippings on my desk about new diets.”

“That’s mean,” Harlan said sadly, although he had noticed the things and quantities she ate when she was tired or depressed. He thought she had a pretty face and great legs, despite the generous middle. But in spite of it, she was a good-looking woman. He was surprised that she wasn’t dating. “Some parents do so much damage,” he said thoughtfully. “It makes me glad I’ll never have kids. I wouldn’t want to do to anyone what they did to me. My brother is a real jerk. He works in a bank and he’s dull as dishwater. He’s married and has two kids. He thinks being gay is like a disease. He keeps hoping I’ll get over it, like amnesia, and remember that I’m straight, which would be less embarrassing for him.” Harlan laughed as he said it. He was twenty-six years old and comfortable about who he was. He was hoping to become a curator at the Met eventually, even though the salary wasn’t great. But he was very dedicated to his work, just as Victoria was to teaching. “Will Christmas be fun in L.A.?” he asked with a wistful expression, and she nodded. It would be because of Gracie.

“I loved it when my sister was little, and she still believed in Santa Claus. We still put out cookies for him, and carrots and salt for the reindeer.” He smiled when she said it.

“Do you have plans for New Year’s Eve?” he asked with interest, trying to imagine her life there. She never said much about her parents, only her little sister.

“Not really. I usually stay home with my sister. One of these days she’ll be old enough to have a serious date, and then I’ll really be up shit creek.”

“Maybe we can do something if we’re both back here,” he said, and she liked the idea. “We can go to Times Square and watch the ball drop with all the tourists and hookers.” They both laughed at the image.

“I might come home from L.A. in time to do that,” Victoria said thoughtfully. “I go back to school a few days later. I’ll see what’s happening out there.”

“Text me and let me know what you’re doing,” he said, and she nodded, and they put their cups in the dishwasher.

Victoria left little gifts on each of their beds for all three of her roommates when she went to L.A., and she had presents for Gracie and her parents in her suitcase. She was happy to go home and be with her family and especially to see Gracie. When they got home from the airport, they all decorated the tree and drank delicious rum punch. It was pungent and burned her tongue a little, but she liked it, and her head spun slightly when she went to bed. It felt good to be home, and Gracie slipped into bed next to her, and they giggled and talked until they fell asleep. And both her parents seemed in good spirits. Her father said he had landed an important new client for the agency, and her mother had just won a bridge tournament. And Gracie was thrilled to be on vacation and have Victoria home for the holidays. She was happy to be there.

Everything went smoothly on Christmas, and her parents and Gracie liked their presents. Her father gave her a long gold necklace, because he didn’t have to worry if it fit, he said. And her mother gave her a cashmere sweater and two books on exercise and a new diet. Neither of them noticed that she had lost weight since Thanksgiving. Gracie did and complimented her, but her praise was never as potent as their parents’ insults.

And two days after Christmas, Gracie got invited to a party on New Year’s Eve, given at the home of one of her friends in Beverly Hills. Victoria had nothing to do. The people she knew were all working in other cities, and two of them who still lived in L.A. had gone skiing. All Victoria did over the holidays was spend time with Grace. And Gracie offered to stay home with her on New Year’s Eve.

“Don’t be silly—you should be with your friends. I was thinking of going back to New York then anyway.”

“For a date?” Gracie looked at her with interest. This was the first she had heard of it.

“No, just one of my roommates. I don’t know if he’ll be there, but we were talking about doing something on New Year’s Eve.”

“Does he like you?” Gracie asked with a mischievous look, and Victoria laughed at the question.

“Not like that. But he’s a good friend, and we have fun together. He works at the Metropolitan Museum.”

“How boring,” Gracie said, and rolled her eyes. She was disappointed that he didn’t sound more promising. She could see that Victoria didn’t consider him an option as a romance.

In the end, Victoria left L.A. the morning of New Year’s Eve. Gracie was going to the party at her friends’, and her parents had been invited out to dinner. She would have been alone at the house, so she decided to go back to New York. She needed to get ready for school anyway. And she texted Harlan, hoping he would be back in New York. Her father drove her to the airport, while Gracie and their mother were getting their hair done. Victoria and Gracie had said goodbye that morning.

“Do you think you’ll come back after you finish the year in New York?” her father asked her on the way to the airport.

“I don’t know yet, Dad.” She didn’t want to tell him that she didn’t think so and was happy there. She didn’t have a wide circle of friends yet, but she liked her roommates, her apartment, and her job. It was a start.

“You would do so much better in another field,” he repeated for the thousandth time.

“I like teaching,” she said quietly.

And then he laughed and glanced at her. “At least I know you’ll never starve.” She marveled at the fact that he never missed an opportunity to take a dig at her or cut her down. It was an important part of why she was in New York. She said nothing to him after that, and sat quietly as they drove to LAX. And as he always did, he helped her with her bags and tipped the porter for her. And then he turned to hug her, as though he had never made the comment in the car. He never got it.

“Thanks for everything, Dad.”

“Take care of yourself,” he said, and sounded sincere.

“You too.” She hugged him, and then walked into the security lines. She boarded the plane and just as she did, she saw that she had a text from Harlan.

“I’ll be back in New York by six o’clock,” he had texted her. She was landing at nine P.M., local time.

“I’ll be at the apartment by ten,” she texted back.

“Times Square?” was his response.

“Okay.”

“It’s a date.” She smiled as she turned her phone off. At least it was nice to know that she’d have something to do on New Year’s Eve, and someone to spend it with. She had lunch on the plane, watched a movie, and slept for the last two hours of the flight. It was snowing when she landed in New York, tiny gentle flurries that made it look like a Christmas card as she rode into the city in a cab. She was excited to be back, although always sad to leave Gracie, and she had promised to let her come to visit for spring break. And her parents had said they might come with her. Victoria hoped not.

Harlan was waiting for her at the apartment, with a tan, fresh from Miami. He said he didn’t like the gay scene there, it was too glitzy and superficial, and he was happy to be back too.

“So how was L.A.?” he asked her as she walked into the apartment.

“Okay. I had fun with my sister.” She smiled back, and he opened a bottle of champagne and handed her a glass.

“Did your parents behave?”

“No better or worse than usual. I had a good time with my sister, but I’m happy to be back.”

“Me too.” He grinned and took a sip of the champagne. “You’d better wear your snow boots for Times Square.”

“Are we still going?” The snow was swirling outside, but it was a gentle snow that hung in the air before it fell to the ground.

“Hell, yes. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. We have to watch the big ball fall. We can come back and get warm afterward.” She laughed and finished her glass of champagne.

They left the apartment in a cab at eleven-thirty, and got to Times Square ten minutes before midnight. There was a huge crowd watching the giant mirrored ball, and Victoria smiled at Harlan as the snow fell on their hair and lashes. It felt like the perfect way to spend the night. And then on the stroke of midnight, the mirrored ball plummeted, and everybody cheered. They stood there laughing and hugging, and he kissed her on the cheek.

“Happy New Year, Victoria,” he said, smiling happily. He loved being with her.

“Happy New Year,” she said as they hugged and looked up at the sky like two children, watching the snow come down. It looked like a stage set, and the moment felt perfect to both of them. They were young, and it was New Year’s Eve in New York. For now anyway, it didn’t get better than that. And it felt good to both of them to spend the evening with a friend. They stood there until their hair and coats were covered with snow, and then they walked a few blocks along Times Square among the bright lights and people, and hailed a cab to go home. It had been a perfect evening for both of them.

Chapter 11

Victoria’s senior students were tense in January. They had two weeks after vacation to finish their college applications, and many of them hadn’t done it, and needed help. She stayed after school every day to advise them on their essays, and they were grateful for her excellent guidance and advice. It brought her closer to the students she worked with, and some of them talked about their hopes and plans, their families, their lives at home, their dreams. Even Becki Adams asked for help, and several of the boys. A few of them admitted that they needed scholarships, but most of the kids at Madison had no worries about money. And all of them were relieved when they finished their applications and mailed them off. They wouldn’t hear back until March or April, and now all they had to do was finish the school year without flunking out or getting into trouble.

On the last two days in January, Victoria attended an education conference at the Javits Center with several other teachers. There were a number of panels they could sign up for, group discussions, and lectures by well-known educators. She found it very interesting, and was grateful the school had let her participate. She had just left a lecture on early identification and warning signs of adolescent suicidality, by a child psychiatrist, when she collided with a man who wasn’t looking where he was going and nearly knocked her down. He apologized profusely and helped her pick up the pamphlets and brochures that he had knocked out of her hand, and when he stood up, she was startled by how handsome he was.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to knock you down,” he said pleasantly with a dazzling smile. It was hard not to stare at him, and she noticed several other women looking at him too. “Great lecture, wasn’t it?” he said with a friendly smile. The lecture had opened a whole new line of thought for her. She had never worried that any of her students might be suicidal or secretly troubled, but she realized now that it was a real concern.

“Yes, it was,” she agreed.

“I teach juniors and seniors, and it sounds like they’re the most at risk.”

“So do I,” she said, as they drifted in the same direction toward a buffet that had been set up for their breaks. It had been a fascinating conference so far.

“Where do you teach?” He seemed perfectly comfortable chatting with her, and he was inclined to continue as they both stopped at the buffet.

“The Madison School,” she said proudly, smiling at him.

“I’ve heard of it. Fancy kids, eh? I teach public school. That’s a whole other world.”

They went on chatting for a few minutes, and he introduced her to Ardith Lucas, a woman he knew who joined them, and then he invited Victoria to sit at a table with them. Everyone was jockeying for seats before they went to the next panel or lecture. And there were several tables set up around the room with free literature and books they could buy. He had a bag full, and Victoria had already collected the stack of brochures of most interest to her, which she’d dropped and he’d helped her pick up. He said his name was John Kelly, and he looked a few years older than she. Ardith was considerably older and said she couldn’t wait to retire. She said she had done her time as a teacher for forty years and was longing to be free. Victoria and John were just starting out.

The three of them talked all through lunch. John was dazzingly good looking, extremely nice, and very bright. And after lunch he jotted down his phone number and e-mail for her, and said he’d love to get together sometime. She didn’t get the feeling he was asking for a date, but wanted to be friends, and she had a feeling he was gay. She gave him her information too. She didn’t know if she’d hear from him again, forgot about it, and a week later she was surprised when he called and invited her to lunch on a Saturday.

There was a new Impressionist exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum, and they both wanted to see it. She met him in the lobby, and they went through the exhibit, enjoying it together, and then went to the cafeteria for lunch. She was having a very nice time with him, and then mentioned that one of her roommates worked at the Costume Institute and was setting up a new exhibit that day. And after lunch they decided to drop by and see Harlan. He looked surprised to see Victoria, and was impressed by her new friend. It was impossible not to notice John’s blond good looks, and his extremely athletic body, and when she saw them look at each other, her earlier impression of John was confirmed. The two men were drawn to each other like magnets. Harlan gave them a private tour of the Costume Institute, and when they left, John looked as though he hated to leave. And as they walked down the steps of the museum, he commented on what a terrific guy Harlan was, and Victoria agreed. She felt like Cupid suddenly, and loved the idea of introducing them. And on the spur of the moment, she invited John to dinner at the apartment on Sunday night. He looked very happy to accept, and then he took a bus downtown to where he lived, and Victoria walked home.

Harlan didn’t come home till eight o’clock that night, after setting up the exhibit, and he wandered into her room when he got in. She was lying in bed watching TV.

“What was that vision of gorgeousness you brought to the Costume Institute today? I nearly fainted when you walked in. How do you know him?”

Victoria laughed at the look on his face. “I met him at a teachers’ conference last week. He nearly knocked me down, literally.”

“Lucky you. He seems like a really great guy.”

“Yes, I think so too,” she said, smiling at Harlan, “and I think he plays on your team.”

“So why did he ask you out?” Harlan looked suspicious, and was worried he might be straight.

“To be friends, I think. Believe me, he doesn’t look at me the way he looked at you.” Men never did, not in her experience at least. “And by the way, I invited him to dinner tomorrow night.” She laughed out loud at the look on Harlan’s face. He looked as though she had just told him he’d won the lottery.

“Is he coming?”

“Yes. And you’d better cook dinner. If I do, I’ll poison us all, unless we order pizza.”

“I’d love to,” Harlan said happily, and went back to his room, looking like he was floating on a cloud. He had never seen anyone as handsome as John. Harlan was a good-looking man too, and Victoria thought they looked like a good match. She wondered if some premonition or instinct had led her to introduce them to each other. It had been a spur-of-the-moment idea but now seemed like divine inspiration to her, and to Harlan as well.

He was a very proficient cook, and spent the whole next day in the kitchen, after buying a leg of lamb, potatoes, string beans, and chocolate cake at a nearby bakery. And by dinnertime, the smells emanating from the kitchen were delicious. John Kelly arrived right on time. He had brought a small bouquet of flowers and a bottle of red wine. He handed the flowers to Victoria, and the wine to Harlan, who opened it and poured them each a glass, and then they went to sit in the living room. And the two men got on like a house on fire. They never stopped talking until dinner, which was an hour later. And Harlan had set the table nicely with place mats and linen napkins, and candles on the table in the dining room. He had gone all out. And by the end of dinner, Victoria felt as though she were intruding on a date, and left them alone. She said she had papers to grade before school the next day. She closed the door softly, after telling Harlan she’d help him do the dishes later, and she turned on her TV and lay down on her bed. She was dozing when John knocked on her door to say goodbye and thank her. And when she heard the front door close, she went out to the kitchen to help Harlan clean up.

“So, how was it?” Victoria asked him with a smile.

“Wow!” Harlan said, smiling broadly. “He’s the most terrific man I’ve ever met.” He was twenty-eight years old and seemed extremely grounded, serious, and responsible and was fun to talk to as well. Harlan said he’d had a great time.

“He likes you too,” Victoria commented as she rinsed the dishes Harlan handed her.

“How do you know?”

“Anyone can see that,” she reassured him. “His face lit up every time you looked at each other.”

“I could have talked to him all night,” he said dreamily.

“Did he ask you out?” she asked, enjoying the romance starting right beneath her eyes, and she loved the idea that she had introduced them.

“Not yet. He said he’d call me tomorrow. I hope he does.”

“I’m sure he will.”

“We have the same birthday,” Harlan said as she laughed.

“That must be a sign. Okay, now you owe me big time. If you two wind up together, I want a street named after me or something.”

“If I end up with him, you can have all my autographed baseball cards from when I was a kid, and my grandmother’s silver.”

“I just want you to be happy,” she said kindly.

“Thanks, Victoria. He seems like such a great guy.”

“So are you,” she said warmly.

“I never feel that way about myself. I always feel like everyone is better than I am, smarter, nicer, better looking, cooler.” He looked nervous as he said it.

“So do I,” she said sadly. She knew the feeling, and why she had it. It came from years of her parents telling her how inadequate she was, and her father letting her know that he thought she was fat and ugly. It had undermined her confidence and self-esteem since birth. And it was a cross she had to bear now. Deep down, she always believed that he was right.

“I guess our parents do that to us early on,” Harlan said quietly. “I don’t think he’s had an easy time of it either. His mother committed suicide when he was a kid, and his father won’t see him because he’s gay. But he seems pretty healthy and normal in spite of that. He just got out of a relationship he’s been in for five years. His partner cheated on him, so they broke up.” Victoria was happy for Harlan and hoped that something came of it for both of them. He thanked her profusely again, and then they turned off the lights and went to their rooms. It had been a delicious dinner and a lovely night. And she had enjoyed talking to both men, although not as much as they had enjoyed talking to each other.

She left early the next morning, and didn’t see Harlan that day, or the next. It was Wednesday when she ran into him in the kitchen when they both got home from work. She was afraid to ask if he had heard from John, in case he hadn’t, but he volunteered the information very quickly.

“I had dinner with him last night,” he said, beaming.

“How was it?”

“Amazing. I know it’s too soon to say it, but I’m in love.”

“Just go slow, and see how it goes.” Harlan nodded but didn’t look capable of following her advice.

She met John again in their kitchen that weekend. He and Harlan were cooking dinner, and John had brought over his wok and offered to leave it with him. They invited Victoria for dinner, but she said she had other plans, and went to a movie by herself so they could be alone. And they were out when she got back. She didn’t know where they’d gone, and she didn’t need to know. This was their story now, and their life. She just hoped it would turn out to be a loving relationship for both of them, and it looked that way for now. They appeared to be off to a terrific start. She smiled to herself as she thought about it and went to her room. As usual on the weekends, everyone was out. It reminded her that she hadn’t had a date since she’d been in New York. No one had asked her out since the summer before in L.A., at least six months.

She didn’t go anywhere where she was likely to meet men, except the teachers’ conference where she’d met John. Other than that, she didn’t go to a gym or belong to a club. She didn’t go to bars. There were no single, straight, age-appropriate teachers at her school. No one had introduced her to anyone, and she hadn’t met anyone on her own. She thought it would have been nice if she had, but so far all she had to fill her life was her work. And this time it was Harlan’s turn, and John’s. She was happy for them. And she knew that sooner or later she would meet someone. At twenty-two, it was unlikely that she would be alone for the rest of her life, no matter how overweight her father thought she was. She remembered her grandmother’s old saying that there was a lid for every pot. She hoped that Harlan had found his. And with luck, she hoped that one day, she’d find hers.

Chapter 12

In March her parents and Gracie came to visit Victoria in New York during Gracie’s spring break. They stayed for a week, and the two sisters had a ball, while their parents visited friends and kept busy on their own. And several times they had dinner together. Victoria picked the restaurants from a guide someone had given her, and they enjoyed them all. And Gracie loved being in New York with her. She stayed at the apartment with Victoria, and their parents stayed at the Carlyle, which was just down the street from the school where Victoria taught. The school was on spring break too so she had lots of time to spend with them. They came to her apartment several times, and met her roommates. Her father liked Bill, and thought Bunny was beautiful, but neither of her parents was enthused about Harlan. Later, over dinner, Jim made several negative comments about his being gay, and Victoria sprang to his defense.

By the time they left, Gracie was convinced that she wanted to move to New York too, and even go to college there if she could get in. Her grades were not as strong as Victoria’s had been, and for the moment Victoria doubted that she’d get into NYU or Barnard. Still, there were several other great schools in New York. Victoria was sad to see her leave at the end of a week that had been fun for both of them.

Two weeks after they’d been there, Eric Walker called her into his office, and she felt like a kid who had done something wrong. She wondered if someone had reported her, or one of the parents had complained. She knew that several of the parents thought that she gave too much homework, and had called to negotiate with her. She was nonnegotiable. Her students had to do the work she gave. Helen had taught her well, and her motto was “Be tough.” Victoria was never as tough as Helen was, but she made her students toe the line, and they had come to respect her for it in the past six months. She no longer had problems with any of them in class, thanks to Helen’s good advice.

“How do you think your classes are going, Victoria?” the headmaster asked her with a pleasant expression. He didn’t look angry or upset, and she couldn’t imagine why she was there. Maybe he was just touching base. The school year was coming to a close, and her time at Madison would be up in June.

“I think they’re going well,” she said. She sincerely believed they were, and hoped she was right. She didn’t want to end her time there in disgrace. She knew that if they didn’t hire her for the coming year, she would have to start looking for a new school soon. But she was going to hate leaving the job she had. Madison was just her kind of school, and she loved how bright the kids were. She was going to miss them all.

“As you know, Carla Bernini is coming back to school in the fall.” He went on, “We’ll be happy to have her back, but you’ve done a great job, Victoria. The kids all love you, and they rave about your classes.” And he’d had good feedback from the parents too, despite her fears about the homework. “I actually asked you to come in today, because we’ve had a change of plans. Fred Forsatch is going on sabbatical next year. He wants to take classes at Oxford and spend some time in Europe. Normally, we’d need to replace him.” He was their Spanish teacher. “But Meg Phillips has a double major, and she’d like to take over his classes for next year, which leaves us with another year to fill in the English department. She only teaches seniors, as you know, and I hear you have a real gift with them. I was wondering if you’d like to take her spot next year, until Fred comes back. It means you could stay with us for another year, and who knows after that. How does that sound to you?” Her eyes were wide as she listened to him, and it was the best news she had had since he’d offered her the job a year before. She was thrilled.

“Oh my God, are you kidding? I’d love it! Are you serious?” She sounded like one of her students, and he laughed.

“No, I’m not kidding. Yes, I’m serious. And yes, I am offering you a job for next year.” He was pleased that she was so enthusiastic about it. It was exactly what he had hoped to hear. They chatted for a few more minutes, and then she went back to the teachers’ lounge and told everyone there.

She thanked the Spanish teacher profusely when she saw him later that afternoon. He laughed when he saw how happy she was. And he was just as pleased at the prospect of being in Europe for a year. It was something he had wanted to do for a long time.

Victoria floated all the way home, she told her roommates when they came in, and they cheered. When she called her parents that night to tell them the news, their reaction was more or less what she had expected, but she wanted to tell them anyway. She still felt obliged to report on her life to them, despite their predictably disappointing reactions, and this time was no different.

“You’re just deferring getting a real job, Victoria. You can’t live on that salary forever,” her father said, but actually she was living on it. She hadn’t asked him for help since she left home. She was careful about what she spent, and she still had some savings left. The small rent she paid kept her budget in good shape most of the time.

“This is a real job, Dad,” she insisted, knowing it was pointless trying to convince him. “I love my job, the kids, and the school.”

“You could be making three or four times what they pay you, at any ad agency out here, or just about any company that would hire you.” He sounded disapproving, and he was not impressed that the best private school in New York had offered to hire her for a second year, and was pleased with her performance.

“It’s not about the money,” Victoria said, sounding disappointed. “I’m good at what I do.”

“Anyone can teach, Victoria. All you do is babysit those rich kids anyway.” In a single sentence he had dismissed her abilities and her career. And what he said wasn’t true, she knew. Anyone couldn’t teach. It was a very specific skill, and she had talent at it. Not everyone was able to do what she did. But it meant absolutely nothing to her parents. She didn’t speak to her mother since she was out playing bridge, but Victoria knew she wouldn’t have been impressed. She never was, and she took her cues from her husband. She echoed every opinion he had, on every subject. “I’d like you to give this some serious thought before you sign that contract,” he urged her, and she sighed.

“I already have. This is what I want, and where I want to be.”

“Your sister will be very upset that you’re not coming home,” he said, playing the guilt card. But Victoria had already warned her during spring break that she might stay another year if she got the chance, and Gracie had understood. She also knew first hand why Victoria was unhappy at home. Their parents never missed a chance to make her feel bad. It always made Gracie feel guilty that they were so nice to her, and never had been to their older daughter. Gracie had observed it all her life. It was no wonder that she had thought Victoria was adopted, when they were younger. It was hard to believe that they would be so critical and uncharitable with their own child, but they were. Nothing she did impressed them, or was ever good enough, and this was no different. Her father was annoyed, not proud of her. And as usual, only Gracie celebrated for her and with her when she called her about the job.

Harlan and John were excited about it for her too. They both gave her a big hug to congratulate her. John was a regular feature at the apartment now, and had been for two months. And the relationship was getting solid. And Bill and Bunny liked him too.

She had dinner with John and Harlan that night, and she told them about her father’s reaction, and said that it was nothing new, and typical of him.

“You should go to a shrink and talk about it,” John said quietly, and Victoria looked shocked. She didn’t have any mental problems, didn’t suffer from depression, and she had always managed her problems on her own.

“I don’t think I need to do that,” she said, looking horrified and a little hurt. “I do just fine.”

“Of course you do,” John said easily, and he believed her. “But people like that are very toxic in our lives, especially our parents. If they’ve been saying things like that to you all your life, you owe it to yourself to get rid of the messages they’ve left in your brain and your heart. That can really hold you back and hurt you in the long run.” She had told Harlan about being named after Queen Victoria, and why, and he agreed with John. “You might find it very helpful.” And they were also both convinced that her weight problem was due to the constant put-downs of her father. It seemed obvious to them. And her mother sounded no better, from what Victoria said about her. Harlan hated the stories she told about her parents and her childhood, and the emotional abuse she had endured for years. They hadn’t abused her with fists, but with words.

“I’ll think about it,” she said softly, and put it out of her head as soon as she could. The thought of going to a therapist was really upsetting to her. And it didn’t surprise either of them that without thinking, she helped herself to a bowl of ice cream after dinner, although neither of them was eating dessert. Neither of them insisted about the shrink, and Harlan didn’t bring it up again.

And before the summer, Victoria lined up a summer job for June and July so she didn’t have to go home. She took a job for very little pay tutoring underprivileged kids at a shelter where they lived while waiting to go into foster care. It sounded depressing to Harlan when she told him, but she was excited about it. She was starting there the day after Madison closed for the summer.

Gracie had a summer job that year too. It was her first one, at sixteen, and she’d be working at the desk of the swim and tennis club they belonged to. She was thrilled about it, and their parents sounded pleased. They thought Victoria’s job sounded unpleasant, and her mother told her to wash her hands a lot or she might catch a disease from the kids she tutored. She thanked her for the advice and was annoyed that the job she was doing didn’t impress them, nor did her work as a teacher, but Gracie working at the desk in a tennis club was cause for celebration and endless praise. It didn’t make her angry at Gracie, only at them.

Before she started work, Gracie was coming to visit Victoria in New York.

This time Gracie came alone without their parents, and they had even more fun than they had had in March. She kept herself busy in the daytime, going to galleries and museums and going shopping, and Victoria took her out to movies and restaurants at night. They even went to a Broadway play.

And as usual Victoria was planning to go home in August. It was the longest time she spent with them now every year. But this time she only intended to stay for two weeks, which was more than long enough for her. And once there, as usual, her father criticized her frequently about her job, and her mother nagged her constantly about her weight, which had gone up again after a brief dip in the spring. Before she left New York, Victoria had gone on a cabbage diet, which helped her lose weight. The diet was miserable, but it worked, and then a short time afterward she gained all the weight back again. It was a battle she just couldn’t seem to win. It was discouraging.

When she got back to New York, she was disheartened by the things her parents had said, and the weight she had put back on, and she thought about Harlan’s suggestion that she see a shrink. And in a dark mood one day right before school started, she called a name he had given her. It was a woman he had met, and he said that a friend of his had gone to her and liked her a lot. Before Victoria could change her mind, she called her and made an appointment for the following week. And she agonized about it as soon as she did. It seemed like a crazy thing to do, and she thought about canceling, but didn’t have the courage to do that either. She felt stuck. And she ate half a cheesecake alone in the kitchen the night before she went. What if the woman discovered that she was crazy, or that her parents were right about her and she was a total failure as a human being? What kept her from canceling the appointment was the hope that they were wrong.

When Victoria went to the appointment with the psychiatrist, she was literally shaking, and had felt sick to her stomach all day. She couldn’t remember why she had made the appointment and wished she hadn’t, and her mouth was so dry when she sat down that she felt like her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth.

Dr. Watson looked sensible and pleasant. She was in her early forties, and she was wearing a well-cut navy blue suit. She had a good haircut, wore makeup, and looked more stylish than Victoria had expected, and she had a warm smile that started in her eyes. She asked Victoria a few details about where she had grown up, where she had gone to school, and college, how many siblings she had, and if her parents were still married or divorced. They were all easy questions to answer, especially the one about Gracie. Victoria lit up like a light-bulb when she answered the question about having a sibling, and then described her and how beautiful she was. She told the doctor then about how different she herself looked from all of them and had thought she was adopted as a child, and her sister had thought so too.

“What made you think something like that?” the doctor asked casually, sitting across from Victoria as they sat in comfortable chairs. There was no couch in her office, only a box of Kleenex, which seemed ominous to Victoria and made her wonder if people cried often when they were there.

“I was always so different from them,” Victoria explained. “I don’t look like them in any way. They all have dark hair. I’m fair. My parents and sister have dark brown eyes. Mine are blue. I am a big person. All three of them are thin. Not only do I put on weight easily, I overeat when I’m upset. I’ve always had a problem with … with my weight. Even our noses aren’t the same, but I look like my great-grandmother.” And then she blurted out something she didn’t expect to say. “I’ve felt like an outsider with them all my life. My father named me after Queen Victoria because he said I looked like her. I always thought she was beautiful because she was a queen. And then I saw a photograph of her when I was six, and realized what my father meant. He meant I was fat and ugly just like her.”

“What did you do then, once you knew that?” the doctor asked quietly with a sympathetic expression.

“I cried. It almost broke my heart. I always believed he thought I was beautiful until then. And from then on I knew the truth. He used to laugh about it, and when my sister was born when I was seven, he said I had been their tester cake, to check the recipe, throw the tester cake away, and they got it right the second time. Gracie was always the perfect child, and she looks just like them. I didn’t. I was the tester cake they wanted to throw away. She was the prize.”

“How did that make you feel?” The cool quiet gaze stayed focused on Victoria’s face. Victoria didn’t even know that there were tears rolling down her cheeks.

“It felt terrible, about me, but I loved my baby sister so much I didn’t care. But I’ve always known what they thought of me. I’m never good enough, no matter what I do. And maybe they’re right. I mean, look at me, I’m fat. And every time I lose weight, I gain it right back again. My mother gets upset every time she looks at me and tells me I should be on a diet or going to the gym. My father hands me the mashed potatoes and then makes fun of me when I eat them.” What she was saying would have horrified anyone, but nothing showed on the psychiatrist’s face. She just listened sympathetically with an occasional murmuring sound.

“Why do you think they say those things to you? Do you think it’s about them or about you? Doesn’t it say more about them as people? Would you say things like that to your child?”

“Never. Maybe they just wanted me to be better than I am. The only thing they think is beautiful about me are my legs. My father says I have killer legs.”

“What about inside? What about the kind of person you are? You sound like a good person to me.”

“I think I am … I hope I am … I try very hard to do the right things. Except about eating. But I mean to other people. I’ve always taken good care of my sister.” Victoria sounded sad as she said it.

“I believe that, and that you do the right things,” Dr. Watson said, looking warm for the first time. “How about your parents? Do you think they do the right things, for you for instance?”

“Not really … sometimes … they paid for my education. And we’ve never been deprived. My father just says things that hurt me. He hates how I look, and he thinks my job isn’t good enough.”

“And what does your mother do then?”

“She’s always on his side. I think he was always more important to her than my sister and I were. He’s everything in my mother’s life. And my sister was an accident. I didn’t know what that meant till I was about fifteen. I heard them say it before she was born, and I thought she was going to arrive all banged up. And of course she didn’t. She was the most gorgeous baby I’ve ever seen. She’s been in commercials and ad campaigns a few times.”

The portrait of her family that Victoria painted was totally clear, not only to the psychiatrist, but to herself as she listened to what she said. It was the portrait of a textbook narcissist and his enabling wife, who had been unthinkably cruel to their oldest child, rejecting and ridiculing her all her life, for not being an appropriate accessory to them. And her younger sister had fit the bill for them perfectly. The only surprise was that Victoria had never hated her little sister, but loved her as much as she did. It was proof of her loving nature and generous heart. She took pleasure in how beautiful Grace was. And she had accepted the horrible things her parents had said about her as gospel. She had been shackled by their cruelty all her life. Victoria was embarrassed by some of the things she had said, but they were all true, and had the ring of truth to the psychiatrist as well. She didn’t doubt them for a minute.

And then she glanced at a clock just beyond Victoria’s shoulder and asked her if she would like to come back the following week. And before she could stop herself, Victoria nodded and then said that she would have to come in the afternoon after school since she was a teacher, which the psychiatrist said was fine. She gave her an appointment and handed her a card with the time written on it, and smiled.

“I think we did some good work today, Victoria. I hope you think so too.”

“We did?” She looked surprised. She had been entirely open and honest with her. And she felt suddenly disloyal to her parents for the things she had said. But she hadn’t lied. They had said all those things to her over the years. Maybe they hadn’t meant them to be as cruel as they sounded. And what if they did? What did that mean, about her and about them? It was a mystery to her now, which would have to wait another week to be solved, until she met with the shrink again. But she didn’t feel crazy when she left, as she had feared. She felt saner than she ever had, and painfully lucid about her parents.

Dr. Watson escorted her out, and when Victoria stepped out into the sunlight, she felt dazed for a minute and blinded by the light. The doctor closed the door softly behind her, and Victoria slowly walked away. She had a feeling that she had opened a door that afternoon and let the light into the dark corners of her heart. And whatever happened now, she knew she couldn’t close that door again. And thinking about it, she cried with relief as she walked all the way home.

Chapter 13

For Victoria’s second year at the Madison School, she got a very respectable raise. It wasn’t an amount that impressed her father, but it gave her a little more leeway in how she lived. And now she only taught seniors, which was her favorite group anyway. Juniors were much more intense and stressed out, and sophomores were immature and harder to direct. They were still babies in many ways, testing their limits and often rude. Seniors were in the home stretch, and had begun to acquire a certain poise and sense of humor about life. And they were enjoying their last year at home as kids. It made them much more fun to be with. Nostalgia began to set in during their last months in high school. Victoria enjoyed being part of it and sharing their final year with them. They were almost cooked.

Carla Bernini came back to school after her year-long maternity leave and was impressed by all that Victoria had accomplished with her students, and had a deep respect for her, however young. And they became good friends. She brought her baby to school once in a while to visit, and Victoria thought he was really cute. He was a bouncing happy baby, who reminded her of Grace at the same age.

And she was continuing to see Dr. Watson at her office once a week. She thought it was making subtle changes in how she looked at life, saw herself, and viewed her lifelong experiences with her parents. They had been toxic and hurtful to her all her life. She was beginning to face that now. And she had taken some positive steps since she had started therapy. She was dieting again and had joined a gym. Sometimes the sessions of remembering the things her parents had done and said left her so raw that all she could do was come home and drown herself in comfort foods. Ice cream was always her drug of choice, and sometimes her best friend. But the next day she would eat very little and spend extra time at the gym to atone for her sins. Dr. Watson had recommended a nutritionist who’d given Victoria good advice about planning her meals. Victoria had also tried a hypnotist, which she hadn’t liked and which had no effect.

Most of all she enjoyed her job and the kids she taught. She was learning a lot, about teaching, and about life. And she had more confidence in herself since starting to see the shrink, even if she hadn’t conquered her eating issues yet. She hoped she would one day, even if she knew she would never look like Gracie or her mother. Since working with the shrink, she was happier with herself.

She was in a good place when school started, and a new chemistry teacher came on board to replace one who had retired. He seemed like a good guy, and had pleasant looks. He wasn’t movie star handsome, but he had a gentle, kind manner, and was friendly to teachers and kids. Everybody liked him, and he had made a real effort to get to know them all. He sat down next to Victoria in the teachers’ lounge one day. She was eating a salad from a nearby deli, and trying to correct the last of some papers she wanted to return to the students that day. She still had some spare time before her next class, when he unwrapped a sub sandwich at the table, sitting next to her. She couldn’t help noticing that it smelled delicious, and she felt like a rabbit eating her salad. She had sprinkled the lettuce leaves with lemon, instead of the generous portion of ranch dressing she would have preferred. She was trying to be good, and had an appointment with her shrink the next day.

“Hi, I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Jack Bailey,” he introduced himself between bites of the sandwich. He had salt and pepper hair, although he was in his early thirties, and a beard, all of which gave him a mature appearance to the kids. He was easy to take seriously, and Victoria smiled at him and introduced herself as she munched her lettuce.

“I know who you are,” he said, smiling at her. “Every senior in this school loves you. You’re a tough act to follow when they come to me after your class. They have so much more fun with you. I don’t know how you come up with some of your ideas. You’re a star here.” It was a nice thing to say, and she was pleased.

“They’re not always so crazy about me,” she assured him. “Especially when I give them surprise quizzes.”

“I could never decide if I wanted to be a physicist or a poet when I was growing up. I think you made the better choice.”

“I’m not a poet either,” she said simply, “just a teacher. How are you enjoying the school?”

“I love it. I taught in a small rural school in Oklahoma last year. The kids are a lot more sophisticated here.” And she knew he was too. She had heard that he had graduated from MIT. “I’m having a lot of fun discovering New York. I’m originally from Texas. I lived in Boston for a couple of years after I graduated, then migrated to Oklahoma. I love being in this city,” he said warmly, as he finished his sandwich.

“Me too. I’m from L.A. I’ve been here for a year. There’s still a lot I want to do and see.”

“Maybe we should do that together,” he said with a hopeful look, and for a moment she felt a flutter. She wasn’t sure if he was serious about the suggestion, or just being friendly. She would have loved to go out with someone like him. She’d had a few dates in the past few months, including someone she’d gone to high school with in L.A., and all of them were duds. Her dating life was still almost nonexistent, and Jack was the only really eligible man at school. All of the single female teachers had been talking about him since he arrived, and referred to him as a “hunk.” Victoria was well aware of that as they were speaking.

“That would be fun,” she said casually in case he hadn’t really meant it.

“Do you like theater?” he asked as they both stood up. He was considerably taller than she was, well over six feet.

“Very much. I can’t really afford it,” she said honestly, “but I go once in a while, just to treat myself.”

“There’s an off-off-Broadway play I’ve been meaning to see. It’s a little dark, but I hear it’s great. I’ve met the playwright. Maybe we could go this weekend, if you’re free.” She didn’t want to tell him that she was free for the rest of her life, particularly for him. She was flattered by his interest.

“That sounds great,” she said, smiling warmly, sure that he wouldn’t follow up on the invitation. She was used to men being friendly to her, and never calling her after that. And she had very few opportunities to meet single men. She lived and worked among women, kids, and gay and married men. An eligible bachelor was a rarity in her world. Her shrink had been encouraging her to get out and meet more people, not just men. Her world was limited to and defined by school.

“I’ll send you an e-mail,” he promised as they both left the teachers’ lounge and went back to work. They were teaching classes at the same time. He waved and disappeared in the opposite direction, to where the science labs were, and she drifted past Helen’s classroom on the way to her own. She was talking to Carla Bernini, and both women looked up and smiled as she walked by. She stopped in the doorway for a minute.

“Hi, you guys.” She loved the camaraderie they all shared. Both women were older than she was, but working at a school was frequently like being part of a family, with a lot of older siblings who were her fellow teachers, and younger ones who were the students. They were all in this together.

“Rumor has it that you had lunch with the hunk in the lounge,” Carla said with a broad grin, and Victoria smiled, looking sheepish.

“Are you kidding? We sat at the same table. Leave the poor guy alone. Half the school is after him. He was just being polite. Do you two have radar, or are you bugging the teachers’ lounge?” All three women laughed. They knew only too well that all schools were gossip mills, where teachers talked about each other as well as the students, and what was happening in their lives, and everyone knew everything that went on.

“He’s cute,” Carla volunteered, and Helen agreed, as Victoria rolled her eyes.

“Believe me, he’s not after me. I’m sure he has better fish to fry.” And it was common knowledge that the hot new French teacher was after him. What chance would she have?

“He’d be lucky to have you,” Carla said warmly. She had become very fond of their youngest colleague, and she had a lot of respect for Victoria as a teacher, even though she still had a lot to learn. But she had done very well in her first year.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Victoria said again, and walked on to her classroom. It was amazing to her how fast news traveled in a high school. Faster than the speed of sound. She wondered if he would actually send her an e-mail. She doubted it, but he’d been nice to talk to over lunch. She didn’t expect anything to come of it, and said as much to her shrink the next day.

“Why not?” her doctor asked her. “Why do you think he won’t follow through on what he said?”

“Because it was no big deal, just casual conversation over lunch. He probably didn’t mean it.”

“What if he did? What would that say to you?”

“I guess that he likes me, or maybe he’s just lonely.”

“So you think you’re only worthy as a stopgap for lonely guys? What if he actually likes you?”

“I think he was just being polite,” Victoria said firmly. She’d been disappointed before by men who she thought were interested in her and never called her.

“What makes you think that?” her psychiatrist said with quiet interest. “Do you think you deserve a nice man to go out with?” There was a long silence while Victoria pondered the question.

“I don’t know. I’m overweight. I’m not as pretty as my sister. I hate my nose. And my mother says men don’t like smart women.” The psychiatrist smiled at her answer, and Victoria laughed nervously at her own response.

“Well, we can agree that you’re smart. That’s a good beginning. And I don’t agree with your mother. Smart men like smart women. The superficial ones may not, and may be threatened by them. But you wouldn’t want one of those men. Your nose looks fine to me. And weight is not a character flaw, it’s something you can change. A man who really likes you and cares about you won’t care about your weight one way or another. You’re a very attractive woman, Victoria, and any man would be lucky to have you.” It was nice to hear, but Victoria didn’t entirely believe her. The evidence in the other side of the scale had been too heavy for too long—the insults of her father, the constant dismissal of her parents, her own sense of failure. “Let’s see if he calls you. But even if he doesn’t, all that means is that he has other interests. It doesn’t mean that no man will ever want you.” She was twenty-three years old, and so far no male she’d ever known had fallen seriously in love with her. She had been passed over and ignored for years, except by friends. She felt like a shapeless, sexless, totally undesirable object. And it was going to take hard work and dedication to turn that around. It was why she was here. To change the image her parents had given her of herself. And she said she was willing to do whatever it took, even if the process was painful for her. Living with her own sense of defeat was worse. It had been her parents’ legacy to her, to make her feel unlovable, because they didn’t love her. It had started the day she was born. She had twenty-three years of their negative messages about her to cancel out now, one by one. And finally she was ready to face it.

Victoria felt a little discouraged after the session. It was hard digging through her past at times, pulling all those ugly memories out into the open and looking long and hard at them. She was still feeling down about it when she got home. She hated remembering those things, and all the times her father had hurt her feelings and her mother had turned a deaf ear and blind eye and never come to her defense. Her own mother. The only one who ever had was Gracie.

And what did that say about her? That her own mother didn’t love her? Nor her father. And the only one who could was a child, who didn’t know any better. It told her that no intelligent adult could love her, not even her parents. And she had to learn to remind herself now that it was a flaw in their psychological makeup, not her own.

She turned on her computer when she got home and checked her e-mail. She had one from Gracie, telling her what was happening at school, and about a drama with a new boy she had a crush on. At sixteen she had more boys circling her at one time than Victoria had had in a lifetime, even if they were just kids. The voice on her computer said she had mail as she finished reading Gracie’s message with a grin. And then she switched over to see who it was. She didn’t recognize the e-mail address at first, and as she read it again, it clicked for her immediately: Jack Bailey. The new chemistry teacher at lunch in the student lounge. She opened his e-mail quickly, trying not to feel anxious. It could have been something about school or one of the students they shared, and she sat staring at the e-mail after she read it.Hi. Nice seeing you at lunch yesterday, and having time to chat. I managed to get two tickets to the play I mentioned to you. Any chance you’d like to join me on Saturday? Dinner before or after? Potluck at nearby diner, provided by starving chem teacher. Let me know if you’re free and it’s of interest. See you around school.Jack.

Victoria sat staring at it endlessly, wondering what it meant. Friendship? A date? Someone who had no friends in New York and was just lonely? Did he like her? She felt like Gracie with her high school romances as she tried to read between the lines. It made her nervous, and maybe it was just what it appeared to be. Dinner and a play on a Saturday night, offered by a nice guy. They could figure out the rest later, if they wanted to go out again. She couldn’t wait to tell Harlan about it when he got home.

“That’s what they call dating, Victoria. A guy asks you out. He offers to feed you, possibly entertainment, in this case a play. And if you both have fun, you do it again. What did you answer?” He asked with interest, but he was happy for her. She looked excited.

“Nothing. I wasn’t sure what to say. How do you know it’s a date?”

“Time of day. Offer of food. Entertainment provided. Saturday night. Your sexes, your ages, career in common. You’re both single. I’d say it’s a pretty safe bet that this is a date.” He was laughing at her, and she looked nervous.

“Maybe he just wants to be friends.”

“Maybe. But plenty of romances start as friendships. Since you both work at a fancy school, I don’t think he’s an ax murderer. He doesn’t appear to have any serious addictions, or substance abuse issues. He probably hasn’t been recently arrested. I think you’d probably be safe for dinner and a play. If not, you can always carry Mace.” She grinned at the suggestion.

“Besides, this isn’t just his show, you know. You might decide you don’t like him.” He wanted her to know that she had decision-making power here too.

“Why would I do that? He’s smart, he’s nice looking. He went to MIT. He’s got a lot more going for him than I do. He could go out with anyone he wanted.”

“Yes, and so could you. And besides, he asked you. Let’s keep the playing field level here. You have just as much free choice here as he does. No one died and made him king.” It was good advice, and she knew it, and it was a reality check for her. She felt so inadequate and unlovable most of the time, she knew now, that she forgot that she had a voice in this too. The decision was not only just his. “And don’t forget the lamb chop factor,” Harlan said with a serious air, as he made them both a cup of tea.

“What’s that?” Victoria asked with a puzzled expression.

“You meet a guy who is so gorgeous it knocks you flat on your ass, and you can hardly breathe when you see him. He’s brilliant, charming, and funny, as well as the best-looking guy you’ve ever seen. Maybe he even drives a Ferrari. Then you see him eat a lamb chop, like he was born in a stable and eats like a pig in a trough, and you never want to see him again.” Victoria burst out laughing at what he said.

“Can’t you teach him table manners?” she asked innocently.

Harlan shook his head with a determined look. “Never. It’s too embarrassing. And so is introducing a guy like that to your friends, while he sits at the table, slobbering over his lamb chop, slurping his soup, and licking his fingers. Forget the guys who eat like Tom Jones. You can check him out at the diner,” he said seriously, while Victoria grinned.

“Okay. I’ll order lamb chops and offer him one.”

“Trust me. It’s the ultimate test. You can live with almost anything else.” They were both laughing by then, and he was teasing her, but there was a small degree of truth to what he said. It was hard to predict in the beginning what would totally melt your heart about someone, or turn you off forever. Guys who tipped badly or left no tip at all, were rude to waiters, or crude, had always been a turn-off for her. She had never considered lamb chops before. “So what are you going to do now?” Harlan asked her. “I suggest you accept his invitation. I can’t remember the last time you had a date, and you probably can’t either.”

“Yes, I can,” she said defensively. “I went on a date in L.A. this summer. He was someone I was in eighth grade with, and I ran into him at our swim club.”

“So? You didn’t mention him before.”

“He was incredibly boring. He sells real estate for his mother, and he spent the whole dinner talking about his low back pain, his migraines, and his hereditary bunions. It was a pretty boring evening.”

“Jesus, you wonder how a guy like that ever gets laid. He must not get a lot of second dates.” They were both laughing at her description. “I hope you didn’t sleep with him.”

“No,” she said primly, “he had a headache. And so did I by dessert. I ate dinner and left. He called a couple of times after that, and I lied and told him I’d gone back to New York. Fortunately, I didn’t run into him again.”

“In light of that experience, I think you ought to go out with the chemistry teacher. If he’s not signing up for bunion surgery and doesn’t get a migraine at dinner, you’ll be way ahead of the game.”

“I think you’re right,” she said, and went to answer Jack Bailey’s e-mail. She told him she accepted with pleasure and it sounded like fun. She offered to pay her share, since they were both poverty-stricken teachers. He e-mailed that it wasn’t necessary, as long as she didn’t mind dinner at the diner, and told her he’d pick her up on Saturday. It was done. All she had to do now, she realized as she went to tell Harlan, was figure out what to wear.

“A very, very, very short skirt,” he answered without hesitation. “With legs like yours, you should only wear miniskirts. I wish I had those legs,” he teased her, but what he said was true. She had long, beautiful, graceful legs that drew all attention away from her thicker middle. And he thought she had a pretty face, in a wholesome, blond, all-American way. She was a very decent-looking woman, and an extremely nice one, with a bright, lively, sharp mind and a good sense of humor. What more could a man want? He hoped the date worked out for her. Particularly since he had been happy for the last eight months with John Kelly, thanks to her. They were a perfect combination, and it had become a serious affair. They were starting to talk about moving in together. And they loved taking Victoria out to dinner with them. Harlan had become her best friend in New York, and her only real confidant other than her sister. And he gave excellent advice.

When Jack arrived promptly at seven o’clock on Saturday night, the apartment was empty. All the others were out for the evening, and he walked around the apartment, admiring how pleasant it was, and how spacious.

“Wow, I live in a shoebox compared to you,” he said enviously.

“It’s rent-controlled. I was lucky, and I live here with three other people. I found it as soon as I moved to New York.”

“You really lucked out.”

She offered him a glass of wine, and a few minutes later they left for dinner. They took the subway to the diner in the Village, and he said the play was starting at nine o’clock, so they had just enough time for dinner.

She had taken Harlan’s advice, and he had checked her over before he went out to meet John. She was wearing a short black skirt, a white T-shirt, and a denim jacket, with high-heeled sandals that showed off her legs. And she looked very pretty. She wore a little makeup and her long blond hair down. Harlan had said it was the perfect outfit for a first date. Sexy, young, simple, and it didn’t look like she was trying too hard. He had said solemnly definitely no cleavage on a first date, although she had plenty of it. He told her to save it for later, and she hadn’t been planning to show it off anyway. She was happy in the loose T-shirt. And she and Jack chatted constantly on the way downtown. He was fun to be with and had a good sense of humor. He made her laugh at the description of the schools he’d worked in. And it was obvious that he genuinely liked kids. It was equally so that he liked her.

She contemplated the menu with a frown when they got to the diner. She always had a weakness for meat loaf and mashed potatoes, which reminded her of her grandmother’s cooking, which had been the best thing about her, but she didn’t want to overdo it and eat too much. The fried chicken sounded good too. She finally decided on sliced turkey breast and ordered string beans. And the food was good. She almost burst out laughing when Jack ordered lamb chops and a baked potato. He ate them with a knife and fork. No sign of Tom Jones. She could tell Harlan that he had passed the test. And she hoped that she had too. They shared a piece of homemade apple pie à la mode for dessert. When they finished their meal, he said, “I like a woman who has a healthy appetite,” and told her that the last girl he had gone out with was anorexic, and it had driven him crazy. She never ate, and was apparently severely neurotic in other ways. He didn’t see anything wrong with Victoria enjoying her food.

They both liked the play, and talked about it all the way back to her place on the subway. It was depressing, but beautifully acted and well written. She’d had a really great evening with him, and she thanked him as they stood outside her building in the warm night air. She didn’t invite him to come upstairs at the end of the evening, it was too soon. But it definitely felt like a date to her. Jack looked happy too and said he’d like to go out with her again. She thanked him, and he hugged her, and there was a spring in her step and a smile on her face when she walked into the empty apartment. For a minute she was sorry she hadn’t invited him upstairs for a drink, but decided it was better this way. And much to her surprise, he called her the next day.

He said there was an art show downtown that he was going to and wanted to know if she’d like to join him. She did, they met downtown, and had dinner together again. By the time she got back to school on Monday morning, they had had two dates, and she couldn’t wait to tell her shrink. It felt like a real victory to her, a huge compliment, and they seemed to be compatible in many ways. They ran into each other in the teachers’ lounge at lunchtime, and she appreciated that he was discreet and didn’t refer to seeing her on the weekend. She didn’t want the whole school knowing that they’d gone out with each other outside school, especially for a proper “date.” He was casual and friendly, but nothing more, and then he called her that night to invite her out on Friday for dinner and a movie. She was really excited when she told her roommates about it over dinner in the kitchen.

“It sounds like we have a live one here,” Harlan said, grinning at her. “And he passed the lamb chop test. Shit, Victoria, you’re in business.” She laughed and felt silly, and almost helped herself to a second piece of garlic bread to celebrate. John was a terrific cook, but she stopped herself. She really wanted to lose some weight, and she had good reason to do it now. She had a date!

Their movie date on Friday was as much fun as the other two had been. And they met again on Sunday, for a walk in the park, and he held hands with her as they strolled along. They bought ice cream from a man with a hand truck rolling through the park, but she forced herself to throw it away before she finished. She had lost two pounds that week, and had been doing sit-ups every night in front of the TV. Even her shrink was excited about her budding romance, although Victoria hadn’t slept with him yet. He hadn’t tried, and she didn’t want to do that too soon. She wanted to be sure how she felt about him before she did, and that they had something real between them. She didn’t just want sex. She wanted a relationship, and Jack was beginning to seem like the perfect candidate for it, after four dates. They went back to her apartment on Sunday afternoon, and he met Bunny and Harlan, and was very nice to both of them. And they both liked him.

October was the most exciting, hopeful month she’d had in years as she and Jack continued to see each other every weekend, and on the third weekend they went out, he kissed her. They talked about it, and both agreed that they wanted to wait a little while before they took the relationship to another level. They both wanted to be cautious and mature and get to know each other better before they took a major leap. It made her feel safe and comfortable with him, and not pushed beyond her limits. He was respectful of her, and every time they saw each other, they got closer and had a wonderful time. Victoria’s shrink fully approved.

Victoria had told him a little about her parents, though not a great deal. She hadn’t told him about the tester cake remark, or being named after Queen Victoria, but she did say that they had never praised her, and were critical of her choice of career.

“We have that in common,” Jack said to her. “My mother always wanted me to be a doctor, because her father was. My father still wants me to be a lawyer like him. I love being a teacher, and they warn me constantly that I’ll never make a decent living or be able to support a wife and kids. But other people do it, and this is what I want to do. When I went to MIT, my father thought I should at least be an engineer.”

“My father says the same thing, minus being able to support a wife and kids. I guess no one congratulates anyone for becoming a teacher. It seems like an important job to me. We have a pretty major influence on kids.”

“I know. People get paid five million bucks for hitting a baseball out of the park. But educating young people isn’t worth a damn thing to anyone, except to us. It’s a little sick.” They both agreed. They agreed on almost everything. And in early November things were heating up between them. They had been dating for just over a month, seeing each other once or twice a weekend, and Victoria could sense that they were going to sleep with each other soon. They were working up to it. She felt totally at ease with him, and was falling in love. He was a terrific guy, straightforward, honest, intelligent, warm, funny. He was everything she had ever dreamed of in a man, and as Gracie would have said, she thought he was cute. She had told her younger sister all about him, and she was thrilled, although Victoria had said nothing to her parents, and had warned Gracie not to either. She didn’t want to deal with their negative comments, or their predictions of doom. It was still inconceivable to them that any man would fall in love with her. But she could tell that Jack thought she was pretty, and the warmth they shared in their relationship made Victoria bloom like a garden in spring. She looked relaxed, more sure of herself, and constantly happy. Dr. Watson was concerned—she didn’t want her self-esteem to come from a man, rather than be generated from within. But Jack was certainly helping how she felt about herself. And she had dropped ten pounds, by watching her portions and what she ate. She remembered the nutritionist’s warning not to skip meals, and to eat healthy food. This time there were no crash diets, no herbal teas, no purges. She was just happy, and everything else fell into place accordingly. They were both talking about their plans to go home for Thanksgiving, and were considering coming back to New York during the weekend, so they could spend part of the holiday together.

She was thinking about it one evening, when she walked into the kitchen and saw John and Harlan deep in thought and earnest conversation. They both looked unhappy, and she quickly found an excuse to leave the kitchen. She didn’t want to intrude. They seemed as though they had a problem. And Harlan stopped her just before she went back to her room with a cup of tea.

“Got a minute?” he asked her as she hesitated. She could see that John was upset. She wondered if they were having an argument and hoped it wasn’t serious. Their relationship had been so good until then, for almost a year now. She would hate it if they broke up, and she knew Harlan would be distraught.

“Sure,” Victoria said in answer to his question, with no idea how she could help them, but willing to try. Harlan waved at a chair at the kitchen table, as John let out a sigh. “Looks like you guys are having a problem,” she said sympathetically, as her heart went out to both of them.

“Yeah, kind of,” John admitted. “It’s kind of a moral dilemma.”

“Between the two of you?” She looked surprised. She couldn’t imagine either of them cheating on the other. And she was certain that Harlan was faithful, and assumed that John was too. They were just that kind of people, with good values, morality, and a lot of integrity, and besides, they loved each other.

“No, it’s about a friend,” Harlan answered. “I hate meddling in other people’s business. I always wondered what I would do if I found out something that would hurt someone I love, but thought that they should know. It’s a situation I’ve never wanted to be in.”

“And you are now?” Victoria asked innocently, and they both nodded at the same time. John sighed again, and this time he spoke up. He knew it was too hard for Harlan to do it, and he was the one who had the information first hand. They’d been talking about it for two weeks, and had hoped it would work itself out. But it hadn’t. It had gotten worse. And neither of them wanted to see Victoria heading for a wall. They loved her too much as their friend, and almost like a sister.

“I don’t know all of the details. But it’s about Jack. Your Jack. Life is really weird at times, but I’ve been talking to a teacher I work with at my school. I’ve never liked her, and she’s kind of a bitch. She’s very full of herself, and she’s always working some guy. She’s been talking a lot lately about some teacher she’s having an affair with. He works at another school. She sees him every weekend, but apparently only one night, and she’s pissed about it. They see each other one night and one afternoon, and she thinks he’s cheating on her, although he says he isn’t. Other than that, she thinks he’s a great guy, and she says he’s crazy about her. They’re planning to spend Thanksgiving together instead of going to their families, and he told her he would go see them on Saturday after Thanksgiving for the weekend. And then, I don’t know, but it rang a bell for me. I asked her what this guy’s last name is, and where he teaches. I never bothered to ask her before, because I really don’t give a damn. She says his name is Jack Bailey, and he teaches chem at Madison.” John turned sad eyes toward Victoria, and she looked like she was going to faint or burst into tears. “It sounds like your guy is riding two horses, or trying to. I wanted to say something before you got in any deeper. It sounds like he’s splitting every weekend, and now Thanksgiving, between the two of you, which is a shit thing to do, if he hasn’t told you that’s what he’s doing and you haven’t agreed to it. And honestly, this girl is really a bitch. She’s just not a decent person. I don’t know what he’s doing with her, when he has you.” It made both John and Harlan feel sick, for her, and now she looked it too. She started to cry as they sat at the kitchen table, and Harlan handed her a tissue. They felt terrible telling her but thought that she should know what she was dealing with, and whom.

“What am I going to do?” she asked them through her tears.

“I think you have to talk to him about it,” John said simply. “You have a right to know what he’s doing. He’s seeing a lot of you. And apparently of her too, every weekend. And she says she’s been sleeping with him for two months.” He didn’t add salt to the wound by telling Victoria that the other woman claimed he was great in bed. She didn’t need to hear that too, particularly since she hadn’t slept with him yet herself, but they all knew that she would soon. She had kind of guessed that it would happen naturally over Thanksgiving, and with all her roommates away, she’d been planning to invite him to stay at the apartment, when they got back from their holiday with their families. Although she knew now that he’d been planning to spend it with the other woman, and lying to her about where he was spending the weekend. He was lucky it was a big city and he hadn’t run into either of them when he was with the other. But it was a small world anyway, and by sheer coincidence he was seeing a woman who worked with one of her best friends. The possibility of that happening was slim, but it had happened. Providence had intervened.

“What do I say to him? Do you think it’s true?” She was hoping it wasn’t, but John was honest with her again, however painful.

“Yes, I do. She’s a slut, but there’s no reason for her to lie or make this up. I think he’s the one who’s not being honest. And it’s a rotten thing to do to you, even if you’re not sleeping with him yet. You’ve been dating him for almost as long as she has. It sounds like he’s playing you both.” Victoria felt sick as she listened, and sat frozen in her seat. She felt cold suddenly, and the boys saw her shiver.

“Do you think he’ll tell me the truth now?” she asked miserably.

“Probably. He’s been pretty much caught red-handed. It would be interesting to hear what he does say, and how he explains it. This will be a tough one to justify or clean up.”

“I never asked him if he was seeing someone else,” Victoria said honestly. “I didn’t think I had to. I assumed he wasn’t.”

“It’s a good question to ask,” Harlan added sadly. “Some people don’t ’fess up unless you ask. But by this point, seeing each other every weekend and building a relationship, he should have told you whether you asked or not.” She nodded and thanked John for the information, although she hated hearing it, and he looked miserable for having told her. But they all knew it was right. She had to know. She sat with them in the kitchen for a long time, mulling it over, rehashing what they knew, and was confused, hurt, and angry about it. She managed to avoid Jack at school all the next day. She didn’t feel ready to confront him. And that night he called her.

“Where were you today? I looked for you all over and couldn’t find you,” he said, sounding as affectionate as ever. It was Thursday, and they were supposed to have dinner together the next day. She tried to keep her voice normal, but it was hard. She didn’t want to confront him about what she’d heard until they were face to face. This was not a conversation she wanted to have with him over the phone. She had felt sick about it all day, and hadn’t slept the night before. It was hard to believe that someone she cared about so much and had been so open with, and trusted so much, had been so dishonest with her. It had been a heart-wrenching revelation. All her fears came back to her that she wasn’t good enough to be loved. She hoped he had some reasonable explanation for it. But she couldn’t imagine one. She was willing to listen to what he had to say, and wanted to hear it, but the evidence John had presented to her was pretty damning.

She told Jack she had been busy all that day, meeting with students and their parents about the college process, and she invited him to come to the apartment for a drink before dinner the following night. He said it sounded like a great idea, and he was as warm as ever. She had never pressed him about spending both nights of the weekend together, and never wanted to be pushy, but she decided to try it now and see what he would say in response.

“Maybe we can do something Saturday night too. There are some really great new movies out,” she said innocently.

“Maybe we can do that Sunday afternoon,” he said with a tone of regret. “I have to correct exams all day Saturday and Saturday night. I’m way behind on it now.” There was her answer. She could have Friday night and Sunday afternoon, but not Saturday or Saturday night. And with a sinking heart and a knot in her stomach the size of her head, she knew that what John had told her was true. She hadn’t doubted it, but hoped he was wrong somehow. Apparently, he wasn’t.

She was distracted and nervous at school all day Friday and saw Jack in the teachers’ lounge briefly at lunchtime. She nearly ran out the door, and told him she was late for a student meeting. And he arrived at her apartment right on time on Friday night. He looked as appealing and as relaxed as ever. There was a quality about him that made him look honest and sincere. He exuded integrity in a way that suggested that he was a person you could trust. And she had, wholeheartedly. Apparently, he was not what he appeared. It was a bitter pill for her to swallow. They were alone in the apartment. Everyone was out on Friday night. And Harlan and John knew what she’d be doing. She had told them. They were at John’s place to give her space but had told her they were available if she needed them.

She had no idea how to start the conversation as she poured him a glass of wine with trembling hands. She had worn slacks and an old sweater. Suddenly she didn’t feel beautiful, as she often did when she was with him. She felt ugly, and unloved, and betrayed now. It was a terrible feeling. She hadn’t bothered to wash her hair or wear makeup. The notion of competing with the other woman was foreign to her. Her spirit and her confidence in herself had folded like a house of cards. He was proving her father right, she wasn’t worthy of being loved. Someone else was.

Jack was looking at her carefully as he held his glass of wine. He could see that she was upset, and had no idea what it was about.

“Something wrong?” he asked innocently.

Her hand was shaking as she set down her glass, and her stomach did a roll. “Maybe,” she said softly and raised her eyes to his. “You tell me. I never mentioned it before. Harlan’s boyfriend John works at the Aguillera School in the Bronx. Apparently a friend of yours does too. I guess you know who she is better than I do. She says she’s been having an affair with you for two months, and she sees you every weekend. I guess that makes me pretty stupid, and you dishonest, or something like that. So what’s the deal, Jack? What’s the story?” She looked him dead in the eye, and he stared at her for a minute, set down his glass, and walked across the room to look out the window, and then he turned toward her again, and she could see that he was furious. He had been caught.

“You have no right to snoop around about me,” he started on the offensive, but it got him nowhere. She didn’t buy it.

“I didn’t. It fell into my lap, and I guess I’m lucky John told me. She’s been bragging about you. It’s a small world, Jack, even in a city the size of New York. How long were you planning to do double duty, and why didn’t you tell me about it?”

“You never asked me. I never lied to you,” he said angrily. “I never told you we were exclusive. If you wanted to know that, you should have asked me.”

“You don’t think you should have volunteered that by now? We’ve been seeing each other every weekend for almost two months. Apparently the same amount of time you’ve been involved with her. What does she think is going on?”

“I never told her I was exclusive with her either,” he said, looking angry. “And it’s none of your business anyway. I haven’t slept with you, Victoria. I don’t owe you anything, except pleasant company when we go out, and a nice evening.”

“Is that how it works? Those aren’t the rules I play by. If I’d been seeing someone else, sexually or not, I would have told you. I would have felt I owed you that, just so you don’t get confused or hurt. I had a right to know, Jack. Just as a human being and someone you supposedly cared about, I deserved that. This wasn’t just about dinner. We were trying it out as a relationship. And I guess you’re doing the same with her. And who else is there? Do you have slots open during the week too? It sounds like you’ve been a pretty busy guy, and not an honest one. It was a shitty thing to do, Jack, and you know it.” There were tears in her eyes when she said it.

“Yeah, whatever,” he said, nasty with her for the first time, and he looked cold now. He didn’t like being called on the carpet, or being accountable for his behavior. He wanted to do whatever he wanted, no matter who got hurt, as long as it wasn’t him. He wasn’t the man she’d thought him, not by a long shot. Lamb chops hadn’t been a problem, but his integrity was. He had none. The fact that she never asked was no excuse for him leading her on. “I don’t owe you any explanations,” he said, standing and looking down at her unkindly. “This is dating, that’s all it is, and if you don’t like the heat, get out of the kitchen. Or in this case, I will. Thanks for the wine,” he said, strode to the door, and slammed it behind him. That was it. Two months with a guy she liked and had believed in, and he had cheated on her, lied, and had no regret whatsoever. He didn’t give a damn about her. That much was evident. Victoria sat in her chair shaking after he left, but proud of herself for having confronted him. It had been ugly and painful, and she told herself that she was better off finding it out now, but she felt like someone had died when she walked back into her bedroom, lay down on the bed, and sobbed into her pillows. She hated what he had done, but worse yet, she felt terrible about herself. All she could think as she remembered the look in his eyes before he left was that if she had been worthy, he would have loved her. And he didn’t.

Chapter 14

Victoria still felt shattered over the disappointment with Jack Bailey when she left for L.A. for Thanksgiving. It was good to see Gracie, and share the holiday with her family, but she was feeling terrible about herself. Gracie could see it, and was sad for her. She could tell how upset she was by what she was eating. All her parents noticed was that she had gained weight, and Victoria went back to New York on Saturday. She couldn’t take it any longer.

She called Dr. Watson on Monday morning after Thanksgiving and went in to see her. They had been talking about Jack for the past several weeks. No matter how Victoria turned it around, she still felt somehow to blame, and that if she were truly lovable and worthy of being loved, Jack would have behaved differently.

“It’s not about who you are,” her psychiatrist said kindly, again, “it’s about who he is. His lack of integrity, his dishonesty. This wasn’t your failure, it was his.” Victoria knew it intellectually, but she couldn’t get it emotionally. For her, it always went back to whether she was lovable or not. And if her parents hadn’t loved her, who would? And the same principles applied to them. Their failure to love her as she was spoke volumes about who they were, but it still made her feel terrible about herself. And she tried to fill the void with gallons of ice cream when she went home to L.A. over Christmas. She was still depressed and couldn’t seem to turn it around. Her parents knew nothing about the relationship with Jack.

She had never shared it with them, and she knew that if she had, they would only have found a way to blame her when it failed. Of course he couldn’t love her if she was too fat, and the other woman in his life was probably thin. And in some part of her psyche, Victoria believed that too. She had never had the courage to ask John what the other woman looked like. She believed her parents’ subliminal and overt messages. Men only loved girls who looked like Gracie. And no man wanted an intelligent woman. She didn’t look like Gracie, and she was a bright girl. So who would want her? She was still seriously depressed when she went back to New York on New Year’s Eve. She spent midnight on the plane and when the captain announced Happy New Year at midnight, Victoria pulled a blanket over her head and cried.

It had been agony seeing Jack at school between Thanksgiving and Christmas. She never ate lunch in the teachers’ lounge anymore. She stayed in her classroom, or went for walks outside, along the East River. It was a serious reminder of why it wasn’t smart to get romantically involved with someone at work. Picking up the pieces later was a mess. And there were whispers among teachers and students that they had been dating and she had gotten dumped. It was humiliating beyond belief. Victoria did all she could to disappear, although it was Jack who should have been ashamed. And she heard just before Christmas that he was dating the French teacher who had been chasing him since the first day of school. She felt sorry for her, since she assumed he was still seeing the woman at John’s school, and not being any more honest with the French teacher than he had been with her. Or maybe the French teacher was smarter and knew the right questions to ask, like “Are we exclusive?” Or maybe he would have lied. In any case, it wasn’t Victoria’s problem anymore. Jack Bailey was no longer in her life. It was a dream that had almost happened, and had fallen apart before it did. More than anything, for Victoria, it was a loss of hope. Helen and Carla tried to comfort her as gently as they could, but she avoided them too. She didn’t want to discuss it with anyone, in school or out. She didn’t talk to John and Harlan about it either now. It was done. But they could see how badly it had impacted her.

She was grateful for the distraction when she went on a college tour with Gracie in January, over a long weekend. They went to visit three schools in the East, but Gracie was determined to stay on the West Coast. She was a California girl, but they both enjoyed the trip anyway. It was a wonderful chance to be together. And Gracie didn’t say anything when Victoria ate a huge steak and baked potato with sour cream, followed by a hot fudge sundae for dessert when they went out to dinner. She knew how sad she was over Jack. And Victoria was well aware herself that even her baggiest pants had gotten tight since Thanksgiving. She knew she had to do something about it, but she wasn’t ready to yet. She wasn’t ready to give up what her shrink called “the bottle under the bed,” which in her case was fattening foods. In the long run, the result of eating them only made her feel worse, like an alcoholic, but they offered comfort for a minute.

One of the highlights of Gracie’s visit to her sister was spending a day with Victoria at school. She sat in on her classes, and she had fun talking to the other students. And it gave her students further insight into Victoria to meet her younger sister. Gracie was a big hit in the classroom, spoke up easily, and was the instant focus of all the boys, who wanted her e-mail, and to know if she was on Facebook, which she was. She handed her e-mail address out like candy, and they grabbed it. Victoria was relieved that Gracie left before she turned her classes upside down. She was more beautiful than ever at nearly eighteen, which suddenly made Victoria feel old as well as huge. It depressed her to think that she would be turning twenty-five in a few months. A quarter of a century. And what did she have to show for it? All she could focus on was that she had no man in her life and was still battling her weight. She had a job and a sister she loved and nothing else. She had no boyfriend, and had never had a serious one, and her social life consisted of Harlan and John. It didn’t seem like enough at her age. And Dr. Watson broadsided her the next time they met, when Victoria told her about the college tour she’d taken with Gracie and how much fun it was for her.

“I want to raise a question for you to think about,” her psychiatrist said quietly. Victoria had come to rely on her in the past year and a half and value what she said. “Do you think it’s possible that you keep the weight on so you don’t have to compete with your beautiful younger sister? You take yourself out of the running, by hiding behind your own body. Maybe you’re afraid that if you lost the weight, you still couldn’t compete, or don’t want to.”

Victoria brushed off what she said and summarily dismissed it. “I don’t have to compete, nor should I, with a seventeen-year-old girl. She’s a kid. I’m an adult.”

“You’re both women, in a family where your parents pitted you against each other, and told you that you weren’t good enough, and she was, from the day she was born. That’s a heavy weight for both of you, and more so for you. So you withdrew from the competition.” It was an interesting point that Victoria didn’t want to hear.

“I was big before she was born,” Victoria insisted.

“Big compared to your sister. Don’t confuse the issue. But being overweight is different.” The psychiatrist was suggesting that it was a protective covering she wore, a camouflage suit that kept people from seeing her as a woman, even though she was a pretty girl. But not as beautiful as Gracie. So she checked out of the competition and disappeared into a body that made her invisible to most young men, except ultimately the right one. But her psychiatrist hoped that she would take the weight off before that, only because it made her unhappy.

“Are you saying I don’t love my sister?” Victoria asked, looking angry for a moment.

“No,” her doctor said quietly, “I’m saying you don’t love yourself.” Victoria fell silent for a long moment, as tears ran freely down her cheeks. She had learned long since what the tissue box was for and why people used it as often as they did.

In the spring of Victoria’s second year at Madison, they offered her a permanent job in the English department. And she was relieved to hear that Jack Bailey’s contract wasn’t being renewed. The rumor was that he’d been told “it wasn’t a good fit.” But his heated affair with the French teacher had turned ugly, and they’d been seen fighting in the halls, and the passionate Parisian had hit him right in school. And after that, Jack had gotten involved with one of the students’ mothers, which was a well-known taboo in the school. Victoria was relieved that he was leaving. It was painful every time she ran into him in the halls, and a reminder to her that somehow she had been inadequate and not enough for him to love her, and he had been dishonest and a jerk.

She was thrilled to have the job for good and not have to worry about it every year. Now she had a home at Madison and could settle in with a sense of security about her work. Helen and Carla had been thrilled when she told them and took her out for lunch. And she celebrated the news that night with Harlan and John. Bill had moved out by then, to live with Julie, and John had taken over his old room and was using it as an office, and they were sharing Harlan’s room. John was a good addition to the group and Bunny liked him too. She was spending more and more time in Boston, and Victoria had a feeling she’d be moving soon too, and possibly getting married. As single people, it was a fluid community, but she, John, and Harlan weren’t going anywhere. She didn’t even bother to call her parents about the job, although she told Gracie, who was two months away from graduation and was ecstatic over being accepted at USC. And she was planning to live in the dorms. Their parents would have an empty nest at last. They weren’t happy about it, but she was adamant, and their parents always gave in to her. It struck Victoria that they were more upset about Gracie moving to the dorms than about her own move three thousand miles away. Whatever happened, Gracie was always the apple of her father’s eye and his baby, and Victoria was their tester cake. They hadn’t thrown her away, but they might as well. Their lack of affection and approval for her had done just as much damage. And for Victoria, it was the reality of her relationship with them.

Chapter 15

Gracie’s graduation was a gala celebration. Whereas Victoria’s graduation, even from college, had been dealt with quietly, their parents allowed Gracie to invite a hundred kids to a barbecue in the backyard, with her father at the grill, making chicken, steaks, burgers, and hot dogs. And there was catering staff in T-shirts and jeans. The kids had a ball. Victoria flew out for the party and the graduation the next day. Gracie looked adorable in her cap and gown. And their father actually cried when she got her diploma. Victoria couldn’t remember his ever doing that for her, probably because he hadn’t. And their mother was undone. It was an extremely emotional event. And the two sisters embraced afterward and cried too.

“I can’t stand it!” Victoria laughed through her tears as she hugged her. “My baby has grown up! How dare you go to college! I hate this!”

She wished too that Gracie had tried harder to get into a school in New York, instead of staying in L.A. She would have loved to have her closer, so she had family in New York. But she would also have liked to see her little sister get away from their parents’ stifling influence. They hovered over her, and her father was a powerful force in her life, and tried to form her every opinion. Victoria had never been able to tolerate it, but Gracie bought into a lot of it, their lifestyle, their opinions, their politics, their philosophies about life. There was much she agreed with and even admired about them. But Gracie had had a very different set of parents than Victoria did. Gracie had parents who worshipped and adored her, and supported her every move and decision. That was heady stuff. And she had no reason to rebel against them, or even separate from them. She did everything their father thought she should. He was her idol. And Victoria had had parents who ignored her, ridiculed her, and never approved of a single move she made. Victoria had had good reason to move far away. And Gracie had just as many compelling reasons to stay close to home. It was incredible to realize how different their experiences and lives had been with the same parents. It was like night and day, positive and negative. Sometimes Victoria had to remind herself of how much easier Grace’s life had been, and how much kinder they had been to her, to explain to herself why Gracie didn’t want to separate from them. It had been a big decision for Gracie to live in the dorm rather than stay at home. That felt like a major move to her, although it seemed like a tiny one to her older sister and not big enough. Victoria still believed that they were toxic people, and her father a narcissist, and she would have liked to see her sister get more breathing space from their parents, but she didn’t want it. In fact, Gracie would have fought to stay close to them.

Victoria’s graduation gift to her was a big one. She was careful with her money, and saved whatever she could. She wasn’t extravagant despite living in New York. And she offered to take Gracie to Europe as a graduation present. They had gone with their parents when they were much younger, but their parents hadn’t been interested in traveling in years. So Victoria was taking Grace to Paris, London, and Venice in June, and Rome if they had time. Grace was so excited she couldn’t stand it, and so was Victoria. They were planning to be gone for three weeks, with four or five days in each city. With Victoria’s new job at Madison, she had gotten a raise that allowed her not to work this summer. After going to Europe with Gracie in June, she was planning a trip to Maine with Harlan and John in August.

Gracie had a million plans of her own before she started college in late August. Victoria realized, as Gracie did, that now things were going to change for all of them. She had grown up, Victoria lived far away. Their parents had a chance to be more independent and do things on their own. They would all get together for holidays, but in between they all had their own lives to lead. Except for Victoria, who had a job, but not a life. She was still trying to carve one out for herself. At twenty-five, she still felt as though she had a long way to go. She wondered sometimes if she’d ever get there, and had started referring to herself jokingly as Gracie’s spinster sister. It felt at times as though that was going to be her lot in life.

Gracie, on the other hand, had a dozen boys chasing after her at all times, some of whom she liked, some of whom she didn’t, and one or two of whom she was always crazy about and couldn’t decide between the two. Finding boys had never been her problem. And Victoria was proving her parents right at every turn. She wasn’t pretty enough to find a man, according to her father, and much too fat to attract one. And according to her mother, she was too intelligent to keep one. Either way, she had no one.

They left for Paris the day after school closed for Victoria in New York. Gracie flew to New York with two suitcases filled with summer clothes, and the girls left for the airport early the next morning. Victoria had one suitcase, and she checked their luggage in at the airport, while Gracie talked to her friends on her cell phone. Victoria felt a little like a tour guide on a high school trip, but she was really looking forward to traveling with her sister. They boarded the plane in high spirits, and Gracie was still texting frantically when the flight attendant told her to turn off her phone. Victoria was holding on to their passports. Sometimes she felt more like Gracie’s mother than her sister.

They talked, ate, slept, and watched two movies on the six-hour flight to Paris. It was over before they knew it, as they landed at Charles de Gaulle airport at ten o’clock at night. It was four in the afternoon for them, and they had slept on the plane, so neither of them was tired, and they were excited to look around as they drove into the city in a cab. Victoria was using a chunk of her savings to pay for the trip, and their father had sent her a nice check to help her, which she was grateful for.

At Victoria’s request in broken French, the cabdriver drove them through the Place Vendôme, past the Hotel Ritz, into the excitement and beauty of the Place de la Concorde, with all the lights on the fountains, and then they drove up the Champs-Élysées toward the Arc de Triomphe. They turned onto the broad avenue just as the Eiffel Tower exploded in sparkling lights, which it did for ten minutes on the hour. They were both on sensory overload from the beauty of it all, as Gracie looked around in awe. And there was an enormous French flag fluttering in the breeze below the Arc.

“Omigod,” Gracie said, looking at her sister, “I’m never going home.” Victoria smiled, and they held hands as the driver spun them through the free-form traffic around the Arc de Triomphe, and they headed back down the Champs-Élysées again, toward the Seine, saw the view of the Invalides, which housed Napoleon’s tomb, and sped across the Pont Alexandre III, onto the Left Bank. They were staying at a tiny hotel Victoria had heard about, on the rue Jacob. They were planning to travel as inexpensively as possible, stay in small hotels, eat in bistros, and go to galleries and museums. They were on a tight budget for a trip both girls knew they would remember all their lives. It was an incredible gift from Victoria to her sister.

They had onion soup that night at a tiny bistro around the corner from their hotel. After dinner they walked around the Left Bank, and then came back to their hotel and went upstairs and talked until they fell asleep. Gracie had been getting text messages from her friends at home from the moment she turned her phone on at the airport, and they continued long into the night.

The two girls had croissants and café au lait in the lobby of the hotel the next morning, and then they set out on foot to go to the Rodin Museum on the rue de Varenne, and from there to the Boulevard Saint-Germain, bustling with activity, where they had coffee at the venerable old artists’ restaurant, Aux Deux Magots. And after that they went to the Louvre and spent the afternoon there seeing famous treasures.

Gracie wanted to see the Picasso Museum, which they did the next day. They had dinner in the Place des Vosges, which was one of the oldest sections of the city, in the Marais. And after that they rode on a Bateau Mouche, all lit up on the Seine.

They saw an exhibit at the Grand Palais, walked in the Bois de Boulogne, visited the lobby of the Hotel Ritz, and walked down the rue de la Paix. They both felt as though they had walked all over Paris in the five days they were there. They had seen everything they wanted to by the time they left for London, and they were just as energetic there. They went to the Tate Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum in the first two days. They saw the crown jewels in the Tower of London, the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, visited the stables and went to Westminster Abbey, and walked down the grandeur of New Bond Street, looking into all the expensive shops they couldn’t afford. Victoria had treated herself to an expensive handbag at Printemps in Paris, and Gracie went wild with T-shirts and funny jeans in the King’s Road in London, but they had both been very well behaved, and spent their money wisely. At night they had dinner in small restaurants, and they stopped at sandwich shops in the daytime. They managed to do and see everything, and their parents checked on their progress daily, mostly, Victoria knew, because Gracie was with her, and they said they missed her.

They had been gone for almost two weeks when they flew from London to Venice, and their pace slowed dramatically once they were there. Their arrival at the Grand Canal was breathtaking, and Victoria paid for a gondola ride to their hotel, while Gracie lay happily in the boat and looked like a princess. The moment they arrived in Italy, every man in the street was looking at her, and when they walked around Venice, several times Victoria noticed men following them and staring at her younger sister.

They walked through the Piazza San Marco, and bought gelato, went into the church itself, and wandered endlessly for hours along the narrow winding streets, in and out of churches, and when they finally stopped for lunch, Victoria ordered an enormous bowl of pasta and ate it all. Gracie had picked at hers and said it was delicious. She was too excited to eat much, and it was hot. They hadn’t stopped moving for a minute. And they both agreed afterward that Venice was their favorite city. They did more walking, eating, and relaxing there, moving at a slower pace, and they spent hours at outdoor cafés just watching people. Gracie insisted on buying a tiny cameo brooch for their mother, which wouldn’t even have occurred to Victoria, but she had to admit that it was very pretty, and a very sweet gesture. They bought a tie for their father at Prada, and silly souvenirs for themselves. There was a gold bracelet that Victoria fell in love with in a shop near the Piazza San Marco, but she decided she couldn’t afford it, and Gracie bought a music box shaped like a gondola that played an Italian song neither of them knew.

Their days and nights in Venice were absolutely perfect. They visited the Doge’s Palace, and every major church in their guidebook. They took a gondola ride under the Bridge of Sighs, and hugged as they glided underneath it, which supposedly meant they would be together forever, although the promise was only meant for lovers. But Gracie insisted it applied to them too. And for their one elegant evening, they went to Harry’s Bar, where they ate another enormous meal. The food in Venice was fantastic, and Victoria ate risotto or pasta with delicious sauces at every meal and tiramisu for dessert. This wasn’t about comfort food, it was about exquisite Italian cuisine, but its effect on her body was the same.

They both hated to leave and fly to Rome for the last leg of the trip. They did more walking, shopping, and visiting churches and monuments there. They visited the Sistine Chapel, took a tour of the Catacombs, and wandered around the Colosseum. And they were both exhausted but happy by the end of the trip. It had been as unforgettable as Victoria had hoped, and a moment in their lives and a memory that she knew both of them would cherish forever. They had just tossed a coin in the Fountain of Trevi and found their way to an outdoor café on the Via Veneto, when their father called them. He couldn’t wait for them to come home, and Gracie sounded excited to see him too. They were planning to fly from Rome to New York. Gracie was going to spend two days with her sister in New York, and then fly back to L.A. on her own. Victoria had promised to come out to help her settle into the dorm in August, but she had no plans to spend time in L.A. this year. Her life was in New York now, and she knew that Gracie would be busy with her friends before they all went their separate ways for college. It was a relief for Victoria not to spend two or three weeks living with her parents. She wanted time to relax in New York.

On the flight from Rome to New York, they talked about everything they’d done and seen. And Victoria was relieved that there hadn’t been a single bad moment on the trip. Gracie had been a pleasure to be with. And although their views of their parents were very different, Victoria was careful not to dwell on it. They talked about other things. And Gracie had thanked her profusely for the incredible trip. They were halfway to New York when Gracie handed her a small package wrapped in Italian gift paper, with a little green ribbon. She looked mysterious and excited when she gave it to her big sister, and thanked her again for the fabulous trip. She said it was the best graduation present in the world.

Victoria opened the package carefully, and felt something heavy inside it. It was in a soft black velvet pouch, and when she opened it, she saw the beautiful gold bracelet she had fallen in love with in Venice, and had decided not to buy herself.

“Oh my God! Gracie, that’s crazy!” The generosity of the gift took her breath away, and Gracie put it on Victoria’s wrist.

“I bought it with my allowance and the money Dad gave me for the trip,” her sister told her proudly.

“I’m never taking it off,” Victoria said as she leaned over and kissed her.

“I’ve never had such a great time in my life,” Gracie said happily, “and I probably never will again. I’m sad that it’s over.”

“Me too,” Victoria admitted to her. “Maybe we can do it again sometime, when you graduate from college.” She smiled wistfully. That seemed like a lifetime away right now, but Victoria knew how fast the years would fly by from now on. It seemed like only yesterday when she had graduated from high school, and now she was twenty-five and her college graduation was three years behind her. And she knew it would happen just as fast for her younger sister.

They talked for a long time on the flight, and then finally drifted off to sleep. They both woke up as they were landing in New York. It was sad to think that the trip was over. The time together had been magical, and they looked at each other and smiled nostalgically as they landed. They were both thinking that they wished they could start the trip all over again.

It took them an hour to get their bags and get through customs, and another hour to get into the city in a cab. By the time they pulled up in front of Victoria’s building, Rome, Venice, London, and Paris felt like they were a lifetime away.

“I want to go back!” Gracie said mournfully as Victoria let them both into the apartment. It was a weekend, and everyone was away, and they had the place to themselves.

“So do I,” Victoria said as she read a note from Harlan, welcoming her home. He had left some groceries in the fridge so she could cook Gracie breakfast. And Victoria put their bags in her bedroom. It felt strange coming home.

They went to bed early that night, after calling their parents to say that they had arrived safely. Gracie was always good about that, and didn’t want them to worry. She had never gone through a rebellious phase and sometimes Victoria wished she had. It might have been healthier than being so close to their parents. She hoped that now Gracie would find some independence in college, but she had a feeling they’d be wanting her to come home all the time. It made Victoria glad that she had gone to Northwestern, but they had never been as attached to her. And Gracie was their baby.

The next morning Victoria made French toast for breakfast, then they took the subway to SoHo, and walked around among the street vendors, shoppers, and tourists. The streets were jammed, and they had lunch at a little sidewalk café. But it was nothing like Europe, and they both agreed that they wished they were back in Venice. It had been the high point of their trip. And Victoria was proudly wearing the beautiful gold bracelet Gracie had given her.

They spent Sunday at a concert in Central Park, and had dinner after Gracie packed again. Victoria had already put all her things away. And the two girls sat talking at the kitchen table late into the night. The others weren’t due back till Monday, and the following weekend was the Fourth of July weekend. Gracie had a million plans in L.A., and Victoria had none in New York. Harlan and John were going to Fire Island, and Bunny to Cape Cod.

Victoria took her sister to the airport the next morning, and both girls cried. It was the end of a beautiful trip, a wonderful shared time, and Victoria felt as though someone had torn her heart out after Gracie left, and she took the shuttle back into the city. Gracie texted Victoria before the flight took off. “Best vacation of my whole life, and you’re the best sister. I love you forever. G.” There were tears in Victoria’s eyes when she read the message, and when she got back to her apartment, she called Dr. Watson. She was glad to hear that the doctor had an opening that afternoon.

Victoria was happy to see her, and told her about the trip. She commented on how easy Gracie had been, how much fun they had had, she showed her the bracelet on her arm, and laughed when she told her about the men who had followed Gracie around in Italy.

“And what about you?” the doctor asked her quietly. “Who followed you around?”

“Are you kidding? Given the choice between me and Gracie, who do you think they’d follow?”

“You’re a good-looking woman too,” Dr. Watson confirmed. She could hear how much Victoria had done for her younger sister, and hoped that she had gotten enough emotional sustenance for herself in return.

“Gracie is gorgeous. But I worry about how close she is to my parents,” Victoria admitted to her doctor. “I don’t think it’s healthy. They’re nicer to her than they ever were to me, but they stifle her, they treat her like a possession. My father fills her head with all his ideas. She needs her own.”

“She’s young. She’ll get there,” the shrink said philosophically. “Or maybe she won’t. She may be more like them than you think. That may be comfortable for her.”

“I hope not,” Victoria said, and the psychiatrist agreed, but also knew that it didn’t always work out that way. And not everyone was as brave as Victoria, breaking free and moving to New York.

“And what about you? Where are you heading these days, Victoria? What are your goals?”

She laughed at the question. She often laughed when she really wanted to cry. It was less scary that way. “Get skinny and have a life. Meet a man who loves me, and whom I love too.” She had gained weight on the trip, and wanted to lose it over the rest of the summer.

“What are you doing to make that happen?” the psychiatrist asked quietly about the man Victoria hoped to meet.

“Nothing right now. I just got back this weekend. It’s not that easy to meet people. Everyone I know is married, in a relationship, or gay.”

“Maybe you need to branch out a little bit, and try some new things. Where are you these days about your weight?” She was usually either on a diet or in deep despair.

“I ate a lot of pasta in Italy and croissants in Paris. I guess I have to pay the piper now.” She had bought a book about the latest popular diet before she left on the trip and hadn’t read it yet. “It’s always a fight.” Something was stopping her from losing the weight she wanted to. And yet she was always sure that on the other side of the weight rainbow stood the man of her dreams.

“You know, you might find someone one of these days who loves you just the way you are. You don’t have to go on a crash diet to find someone. Keeping trim is good for your health. But your love life doesn’t have to depend on it.”

“No one is going to love me if I’m fat,” she said glumly. It was the message her father had given her for years, almost in the form of a curse.

“That’s not true,” the psychiatrist said calmly. “Someone who loves you will love you fat, thin, or any shape.” Victoria didn’t answer, and it was obvious she didn’t believe what Dr. Watson had said. She knew better. There were no men pounding down her door, stopping her on the street to beg for her phone number, or asking her for dates. “You can always go back to the nutritionist. That worked for you pretty well.” And they had discussed Weight Watchers many times, but she never got there. She said she was too busy.

“Yeah, I guess I’ll call her in a few weeks.” She wanted to settle in first. But she wanted to lose some weight before she went back to school. She was in her bigger clothes again after the trip. She talked about her trip again then, and the hour was over. As she walked outside, she had the feeling again that she was stuck. Her life was going nowhere. And she bought herself an ice cream cone on the way home, and told herself what difference did it make anyway. She would start dieting seriously tomorrow.

Harlan and John were home when she got in, and so was Bunny. They were happy to see her, and they had dinner together that night when Bunny got back from the gym. John had made a big bowl of pasta and lobster salad, both of which were irresistible. Harlan could see that she had gained weight, but he didn’t say anything. They were just happy to be together again, and Bunny told her she was engaged and showed them her ring. She was getting married the following spring. It didn’t come as a surprise to any of them, and Victoria was happy for her.

Gracie had texted her earlier to let her know that she had gotten home, and she called Victoria that night before she went to bed. She said their parents had taken her out to dinner, and she was going to Malibu with friends the next day. She had a busy summer ahead. And Victoria went to sleep dreaming of Venice, sitting in the gondola next to Gracie under the Bridge of Sighs. And then she dreamed of the risotto milanese they’d eaten at Harry’s Bar.

The rest of the summer went by too quickly. Victoria spent the Fourth of July weekend at a bed and breakfast in the Hamptons with Helen and a group of single female teachers from Madison. She went to Maine with Harlan and John in August. There were some blisteringly hot days in New York where she did nothing but lie around. It was too hot to go jogging, so she went to the gym once in a while. It was a token effort, but she wasn’t in the mood. She was sad after Gracie left following their trip. They’d had such a good time together. Victoria really missed her, and was lonely without her. She went to one Overeaters Anonymous meeting, and never went back.

And as she had promised, she flew out to California for the weekend to help Gracie settle into her dorm room at USC. It was a day of chaos, bittersweet memories, and tears of hello and goodbye. Victoria helped her unpack, while their father set up her stereo and computer, and their mother neatly folded underwear into a drawer.

Gracie had two roommates in a tiny room, and it was a major feat getting everyone’s things put away in lockers, a single closet, and three chests of drawers, with three desks and three computers crowding the room. And all three sets of parents and Victoria were trying to help their girls. By late afternoon, they had done everything they could, and Gracie walked outside with them. She looked as though she was about to panic, and her father looked like he was about to cry. And Victoria had a heavy heart. Gracie really was grown up now, and they had to open the door to the cage and let her fly. Her parents were far more reluctant to do that, and it wasn’t easy for Victoria either.

They were standing outside the door of the dorm, talking, when a tall, good-looking boy with a tennis racket in his hand sauntered by. He stopped the moment he saw Gracie, as though he had been struck by lightning and couldn’t move another step. Victoria smiled at the look on his face. She had seen boys react to her sister that way before.

“Freshman?” he asked her. He could tell from the hall where he was standing, and she nodded. She had the same look in her eyes that he did, and Victoria almost laughed. It would be just too simple if Gracie found the man of the moment the day she moved into the dorm. How easy was that?

“Junior? Senior?” she inquired with a hopeful look, and he grinned.

“Business school,” he answered with a broad smile, which meant he was at least four years older than she was, and probably more like five or six. “Hi,” he said then, glancing at all of them. “I’m Harry Wilkes.” They had all heard of Wilkes Hall and wondered if he was of the family that had donated it. He shook hands with her parents and Victoria and then smiled dazzlingly at Gracie and asked if she’d like to play tennis at six o’clock. She beamed and said she would. He promised to come back for her then and then jogged off.

“Well, that was easy,” Victoria commented as he left. “Tennis anyone? You really don’t know how lucky you are.”

“Yes, I do,” she said with a dreamy look. “He’s really cute.” And then as though she had been taken over by an alien being from outer space, she spoke to Victoria in an undertone: “I’m going to marry him one day.”

“Why don’t you check him out at tennis first?” Victoria had seen all the boys who had come and gone in her high school days. This was only the beginning of four years of college. She just hoped Gracie didn’t follow in their mother’s footsteps and spend all four years looking for a husband, instead of having fun. There was no reason to even think of marriage at her age.

“No. Seriously. I am. I just felt it when he said hello to me,” Gracie said with a serious look that made Victoria want to throw water on her to wake her up.

“Hello. This is college. Four years of fun, things to learn, and great guys. Let’s not get married the first day.”

“Leave it to your sister to find the richest kid on campus,” their father said proudly, assuming he was the Wilkes of Wilkes Hall. “He looked pretty taken with her.”

“So was half of Italy in June. Let’s not lose our heads here,” Victoria said, trying to be the voice of reason, but no one was listening to her. His name had done it for her father. His looks had done it for Gracie. And the word marriage did it for their mother. Poor Harry Wilkes was a goner, Victoria thought to herself, if the three of them got hold of him. “Listen, you,” she said to her little sister, “try not to get engaged before I come back for Thanksgiving.” She gave her a big hug then, and the two sisters held each other, wishing they could stop time and freeze this moment forever. “I love you,” Victoria whispered into her dark curly hair. Gracie looked like a child in her sister’s arms, and Gracie looked up at her with tears on her lashes.

“I love you too. I really meant what I said before. I just got this weird feeling about him.”

“Oh shut up,” Victoria said, laughing, and gave her a sisterly shove. “Have fun at tennis. Call and tell me how it was.” Victoria wasn’t leaving for New York till the morning. There was nothing to stay for once Gracie left the house, nothing to keep Victoria there. There hadn’t been in years.

The three of them walked back to the enormous parking lot and found her father’s car. Victoria got into the backseat, and they rode in silence all the way home, each of them lost in thought, thinking how fast it had all gone. One minute Gracie was a baby, a toddler careening around the room at full speed, Victoria was taking her to first grade and kissing her goodbye, then suddenly she was a teenager, and now this. And they all knew with sadness and certainty that the next four years would wing past them just as fast.

Chapter 16

Their collective fear that Gracie’s college years would rush by too quickly proved to be true. It happened in the blink of an eye, and the next thing they all knew, she was graduating from USC. She was in a cap and gown, and her parents and older sister saw her hat fly high in the air again. It was over. Four years of college. She had a bachelor’s degree in English and communications, and hadn’t figured out how to use it yet. She wanted to work for a magazine or a newspaper, but hadn’t started interviewing yet. She was taking the summer off and planned to look for a job in September. And she had their father’s blessing. She was going to Europe with friends in July, to Spain and Italy, and her boyfriend was going with them, and then the two of them were meeting up with his parents in the South of France. Her prediction on her first day at USC had almost materialized. They weren’t married, but Harry Wilkes had been her boyfriend for all four years of college, and Gracie’s father heartily approved. They were indeed the family that had donated the hall of the same name. Harry had graduated from business school the year before, and he was working for his father in an investment banking firm. He was solid as a rock, her father liked to say, and a very good catch. He was with them along with half a dozen of her friends when they went to lunch after graduation, and Victoria noticed them talking conspiratorially at the other end of the table, and then he kissed her and she smiled.

Victoria liked Harry, although she thought him a little too controlling, and she wished her younger sister had been more adventurous while she was in college. She had been with Harry constantly. She had left the dorms in junior year to live in an apartment with him off campus, and they were still living together now. Victoria thought she was too young to be so settled so early and limited to one boy. And he reminded her a little of her father, which made her nervous too. Harry had opinions about everything, and Gracie endorsed all of them, with no differences of her own. Victoria didn’t want her turning into their mother one day. A shadow of her husband, put on earth to enhance him and make him feel good about himself. What about her?

But there was no denying that Gracie was happy with Harry. And Victoria had been shocked when her parents made no objection to the two of them living together. She was sure they wouldn’t have done the same for her. And when she had mentioned it to her father, he told her not to be so uptight and old-fashioned, but part of that was because Harry’s family had so much money. Victoria was sure that they wouldn’t have been as easygoing if Harry Wilkes were poor. She had said as much to Helen, and Harlan and John, whenever she talked to them about it. She worried about Gracie a lot. She was always fearful that Gracie had been brainwashed by their parents into pursuing all the wrong ideals.

The luncheon celebration had started late after graduation and went on until four in the afternoon. They finally left the table, and Gracie went to return her rented cap and gown. She handed Victoria her diploma for safekeeping, and said Harry was going to drive her home. They were going out with friends that night. Harry was driving the Ferrari his parents had given him when he graduated from business school. Victoria saw them kiss as soon as they walked away, and it seemed only yesterday that he had been standing holding a tennis racket outside her dorm the day she moved in as a freshman.

“I must be getting old,” Victoria said to her father as they got in his car and drove away. She was turning twenty-nine. “She was five years old about five minutes ago. How did we get here?”

“Damned if I know. I feel the same way about you.” He even managed to look sentimental as he said it, which surprised Victoria.

During Gracie’s four years in college, Victoria had gone out with a few men she’d met here and there, an attorney, a teacher, a stockbroker, a journalist. But none of them had mattered to her, and the relationships had only lasted a few weeks or months. She was the head of the English department at Madison now, and still living in the same apartment. She shared it with only Harlan and John. They each used a second bedroom as a study. Bunny had gotten married three years before and had two children. She had just moved to Washington, D.C., with her husband and babies. He had a State Department job, which they all suspected was really CIA, and she was a stay-at-home mom. Harlan was still working at the Costume Institute, and John was teaching at the same school in the Bronx. And she had stopped seeing Dr. Watson two years before. There was nothing more to say to her. They had covered the same territory many times, and they agreed. There were no mysteries left to discover. Her parents had given her a raw deal and poured all their love into her sister, and had never had any for her, even before Gracie was born. In plain talk, she’d been screwed, but she loved her sister dearly anyway. And she had very little feeling for her parents, neither anger nor affection. They were selfish, self-centered people who should never have had children at all, or not her anyway. Gracie suited them. She didn’t. And Victoria was doing fine in spite of it. Victoria felt that Dr. Watson had helped her a great deal. She still had the same parents, and a problem with her weight, but she was dealing with both more successfully than before.

She still hadn’t found the man of her dreams and maybe she never would, but she loved her job, she was still teaching seniors, and her weight still fluctuated up and down. Her eating habits depended on the weather, her job, the state of her love life or lack of it, or her mood. At the moment she was heavier than she liked. She hadn’t had a date in about a year, but she always insisted that her weight had nothing to do with her love life and the two weren’t related. Harlan was always vocal about disagreeing with her, and pointed out that she gained weight, and ate more, when she was lonely and miserable. They had put a treadmill in the living room, and a rowing machine, both of which she had contributed to, and she never used them. Harlan and John always did.

Victoria was going back to New York the morning after Gracie’s graduation, and she had dinner with her parents at home that night. It was a sacrifice she made at least once in every trip. Her father was talking about retiring early in a few years. Her mother was still a fanatical bridge player. And Victoria had less and less to say to them every year. Her father’s jokes about her weight weren’t amusing, and now he had added to them comments about the fact that she wasn’t married, didn’t have a boyfriend, and wasn’t likely to have kids. He tied it all to her weight. She didn’t argue about it with him anymore, or try to defend herself or explain. She just let the comments and wisecracks go by without answering them. They never changed. And he still thought her job was a total waste of time.

At dinner, he talked about getting Gracie a job as a copywriter at his ad agency, after she came home from Europe. Victoria was helping her mother load the dishwasher after dinner when Gracie came home unexpectedly. Since she was living with Harry, she didn’t drop by very often, and they were all surprised to see her, and pleased. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes were sparkling as she stood in the kitchen and looked at them. And Victoria had a sudden flutter in her stomach as Gracie blurted out the words she feared.

“I’m engaged!” There was a deadly silence in the room for a fraction of a second, and then her father let out a whoop and spun her around in his arms as he had when she was a child.

“Bravo! Well done! Where’s Harry? I want to congratulate him too!”

“He dropped me off. He went to tell his parents,” she said happily, as Victoria went back to the dishes without a word. And their mother was clucking and flapping and hugged her daughter. And with that, Gracie stuck out her small hand, and they could see a large round diamond ring on her finger. It was really happening. It was true.

“This is just like your father and me,” her mother said excitedly. “We got engaged the night we graduated. And married at Christmas.” They all knew. “When’s the wedding?” she asked, as though she wanted to start planning it right away. They didn’t question for a minute what she was doing, or if she was too young, for obvious reasons relating to Harry. They thought it was a great idea, and a major coup for their daughter to marry a Wilkes. It was all about their egos, not what might be best for Gracie. Victoria finally turned around then, and looked at her younger sister with worried eyes.

“Don’t you think you’re too young?” she asked honestly. Gracie was just twenty-two, and Harry was twenty-seven, which was still young in Victoria’s opinion.

“We’ve been dating for four years,” Gracie said as though that made it all right, but it didn’t to her sister. It made it worse. She never gave herself a chance to grow on her own, develop her own opinions, or meet other boys in college, or even date them.

“Some of my high school kids have dated people for four years. They’re not old enough to get married either. I’m worried about you,” she said honestly. “You’re twenty-two years old. You need a real job, a career, some independence, and your own life before you settle down and get married. What’s the rush?” For a minute she was terrified that she might be pregnant, but she didn’t think she was. Gracie had announced that she was going to marry him the first day they met. And now it had happened. He was her dream come true. This was what Gracie wanted, and she looked angry at Victoria for the questions she was asking and the obvious lack of enthusiasm she showed.

“Can’t you be happy for me?” she asked petulantly. “Does everything have to be the way you think it should be? I’m happy. I love Harry. I don’t care about a career. I don’t have a vocation like you. I just want to be Harry’s wife!” It didn’t seem like enough to Victoria, but maybe Gracie was right. And who was she to decide?

“I’m sorry,” she said sadly. They hadn’t had an argument in years. And the last one had been about their parents, when Gracie had hotly defended them to her sister, and Victoria told her how wrong she was. She had finally backed down, because her sister was too young to understand, and was one of them anyway. And this time she felt the same way. Victoria was the one who was different again, who wasn’t happy for her and dared to say it, who didn’t fit in. “I just want you to be happy, and have the best life you can. And I think you’re very young.”

“It looks like she’s going to have a good life to me,” her father said, pointing at the ring. Seeing him do that made Victoria feel sick. And she knew she wasn’t jealous. But having a daughter who was married to a rich man was going to be a perfect complement to her father’s narcissism. With the ring on her finger, Gracie had become a trophy, proof of his success as a father, that he had raised a daughter who could marry a rich man. Victoria hated what it meant. And Gracie didn’t see it. She was too wrapped up in her own life, and too afraid to go out in the real world, get a job, meet new people, make something of herself. So she was marrying Harry instead. And just as Victoria thought it, Harry walked into the kitchen, beaming, and Gracie jumped into his arms. It was easy to see how happy she was, and no one wanted to deny that to her. Their father clapped Harry on the back, and their mother went to get a bottle of champagne, which Jim opened immediately, and poured a glass for each of them, as Victoria looked at them and smiled nostalgically. The milestones were moving faster now. Graduation from high school, college, and now she was engaged. It was a lot to digest all at once. And putting her objections aside, Victoria walked across the room and hugged Harry, for her sister’s sake, as Gracie looked at her, relieved. She didn’t want anyone interfering with what she was doing, trying to stop her, or challenging her. This was her dream.

“So when’s the big day? Have you set the date?” her father asked, after they toasted the couple and each took a sip of champagne. Harry and Gracie were beaming at each other again, and Harry answered for her, which was one of the things Victoria didn’t like about him. Gracie had a voice too, and she wanted her to use it. She hoped the wedding wouldn’t be too soon.

“June,” Harry said, smiling at his tiny bride. “We have a lot to organize before then. Gracie is going to be busy planning the wedding.” He glanced from his future mother-in-law to his future sister-in-law, as though he expected them to drop everything and get to work on the wedding too. “We’re figuring on four or five hundred people,” he said blithely, without consulting the bride’s parents to ask if that was okay. He hadn’t asked for her hand either. He had proposed, but he also had known that Jim Dawson would approve. Grace’s mother looked like she was going to faint when she heard the number of guests at the wedding. But Jim looked pleased as he opened another bottle of champagne and poured another round.

“You ladies can figure all of that out,” he said, smiling first at Harry and then at his wife and daughters. “All I have to do is pay the bills.” Victoria stood watching her father, thinking that he was a sellout, but this was the kind of match he wanted for his daughter, without questioning if she was too young or if it might be a mistake. And Victoria knew that if she said anything to them, she would then be accused of being the overweight older daughter who didn’t have a boyfriend and couldn’t find a husband, who was jealous of her beautiful younger sister and wanted to stand in her way.

They finished the second bottle of champagne, and everyone hugged the young couple again. Harry said his parents wanted to have dinner with them sometime soon. And Victoria got a chance to hug her sister again.

“I love you. I’m sorry if I upset you.”

“It’s okay,” Gracie whispered. “I just want you to be happy for me.” Victoria nodded. She didn’t know what to say. And then the newly engaged couple went on their way. They were meeting friends and going to a party, and Gracie wanted to show off her ring. Victoria heard her BlackBerry come to life after they left, and checked it. It was from her sister. “I love you. Be happy for me.” Victoria answered just as quickly with the only response she could give her. Her response said, “I love you too.”

“Well, you’ve got a year to plan the wedding,” Jim said to Christine as soon as Grace and Harry left. “That’ll keep you busy. You may even have to take some time off from bridge.” As he said it, Victoria got another text. It was from Gracie again.

“Maid of honor?” it said, and Victoria smiled. They were going to rope her into this one way or another, but she wouldn’t have dreamed of denying her sister, or herself, that honor, if she was going through with this.

“Yes. Thank you. Of course!” she answered Gracie by text. So she was the maid of honor, and her baby sister was getting married. It had been quite a day!

Chapter 17

As soon as Victoria flew back to New York, two days after Gracie’s graduation, she called Dr. Watson. Her psychiatrist was still in the same place, with the same number, and called Victoria back on her cell phone that night. And she asked how she had been. She said she was fine and was anxious to see her, so Dr. Watson managed to squeeze her in the next day. She noticed when Victoria walked in that she looked slightly more grown up but essentially the same. She hadn’t changed. Victoria was wearing black jeans, a white T-shirt, and sandals. It was a hot New York summer day. And her weight was about the same as it had been the last time they met. No better and no worse.

“Is everything all right?” the psychiatrist asked her, sounding concerned. “You sounded like it was urgent.”

“I think it is. I think I’m having some kind of wake-up call or identity crisis or something.” She had been upset since graduation day. It was hard enough watching Gracie graduate, without having her get engaged on the same day. “My little sister got engaged a few days ago. She’s twenty-two years old. She got engaged on her graduation day from college, just like my parents. They think it’s fine since the man she’s marrying, or wants to, has tons of money. I think they’re all crazy. She’s twenty-two years old. She won’t have a job, he doesn’t want her to. She wanted to work in journalism, now she doesn’t care. And she’s going to end up just like my mother, being a backdrop for him, and seconding all his opinions, of which her fiancé has many, just like my father. She’s going to lose herself married to this guy, and the thought of it is making me crazy for her. And all she wants to do is get married. I think she’s too young. Or maybe I’m just jealous because I have no life. All I have is a job I love. That’s it. And if I say anything about thinking she shouldn’t get married, to her or my parents, they’ll think it’s sour grapes.” The story poured out of her like marbles rolling down a hill.

“Is it sour grapes?” the shrink asked her bluntly.

“I don’t know.” Victoria was always honest with her.

“What do you want, Victoria?” the doctor pressed her. She knew it was time to do that now. Victoria was ready. “Not for her. For yourself.”

“I don’t know,” she said again, but the doctor knew better.

“Yes, you do. Stop worrying about your sister. Think of yourself. Why are you back here? What do you want?” Tears filled Victoria’s eyes as she listened to the question. She did know. She was just afraid to say it, or admit it to herself.

“I want a life,” she said softly. “I want a man in my life. I want what my sister wants. The difference is I’m old enough to have it, and I never will.” Her voice suddenly grew stronger, and she felt braver. “I want a life, a man, and I want to lose twenty-five pounds by next June, or at least twenty.” It was clear.

“What’s happening in June?” The doctor looked puzzled.

“Her wedding. I’m the maid of honor. I don’t want everyone to feel sorry for me because I’m a loser. Her fat spinster older sister. That’s not who I want to be at her wedding.”

“Okay. That’s fair. We’ve got a year to work on it. That sounds reasonable to me,” the psychiatrist said, smiling at her. “There are three projects here. ‘A life,’ you said, and you have to define what that means to you. A man. And your weight. We’ve got work to do.”

“Okay,” Victoria said with a quaver in her voice. It was an emotional moment for her. She had had an epiphany. She was tired of not having what she wanted, and not even admitting it to herself because she thought she didn’t deserve it, because her parents had told her so. “I’m ready.”

“I think you are,” the doctor said, looking pleased, as she glanced at the clock behind Victoria’s shoulder. “See you next week?” Victoria nodded, suddenly aware of all that she had to do. This was bigger than a wedding. She had to go on a serious weight-loss program, and do whatever she had to do to keep it off this time. She had to make an effort to get out in the world and meet men, and dress for the part. And open her life to other opportunities, people, places, things, everything she had been longing for but never had had the courage to do. This was scarier than when she’d moved to New York, and harder to organize than any wedding. But she knew she had to do it. When Gracie got married, Victoria would be thirty. By then she wanted her dream too, not just Gracie’s.

She walked back from the doctor’s office feeling empowered. She walked into the apartment, went straight to the kitchen, and started cleaning out the fridge. She started with the freezer and threw all the frozen pizzas and eight pints of ice cream into the garbage. As she was doing it, Harlan and John walked in. John was working at the museum with him that summer, during summer break from school.

“Oh shit, this looks serious,” Harlan said, looking at her in amazement. The chocolate candy she’d brought home from a school party went next, and a cheesecake she had left in the fridge half eaten. “Is there a message here, or are you just doing spring cleaning?”

“I’m losing twenty-five pounds by June, and keeping them off this time.”

“Is there some reason for this resolution?” he asked cautiously, as John reached into the fridge and took out two beers. He opened them and handed one to Harlan and took a swig of his own. It tasted good. But beer wasn’t her thing. She preferred wine, which was fattening too. “A new guy maybe?” Harlan asked her, looking hopeful.

“That too. I just haven’t met him yet.” She turned to face them as she closed the freezer door. “Gracie’s getting married in June. I’m not going to be the maid of honor at that wedding, twenty-five pounds overweight and living like an old maid. I went back to my shrink.”

“This sounds like Sherman’s march on Georgia,” Harlan said, looking pleased for her. This was exactly what she needed and had for years. He’d been losing hope for her recently. Her eating habits were as bad as ever, and her weight never changed. “You go, girl! Let us know if there’s anything we can do.”

“No more ice cream. No pizza. I’ll do the treadmill. I’ll go to the gym. Maybe Weight Watchers. A nutritionist. A hypnotist. Whatever it takes, I’ll do it.”

“Who’s Gracie marrying, by the way? Isn’t she a little young? She just graduated last week.”

“She’s way too young, and it’s totally stupid. My father loves him because he’s rich. It’s the same guy she’s been dating for four years.”

“That’s too bad. But you never know. Maybe it’ll work.”

“I hope so for her. She’s going to give up her whole identity to marry him. But it’s what she wants, or thinks she does.”

“It’s a long way till June. A lot could happen by then.”

“That’s true,” she said with a fierce light in her eye that he hadn’t seen in years, maybe ever. She was on a holy mission. “I’m counting on it. I have one year to get my life and body into shape.”

“You can do it,” Harlan said with conviction.

“I know I can,” she said, and finally believed it, wondering what had taken her so long. For twenty-nine years she had believed her parents, that she was ugly, fat, and doomed to failure because she was unlovable. And she suddenly realized that just because they said it, or thought so, didn’t mean that it was true. She was bound and determined now to shed the shackles they had put on her. All she wanted now was to be free.

She signed up at Weight Watchers the next day, and came home with instructions and a scale for food. And she enrolled at a new gym the day after. They had beautiful machines, a weight room, a dance studio, a sauna, and a pool. Victoria went there every day. She jogged around the reservoir every morning. She followed her diet diligently, and went in to be weighed once a week. She talked to Gracie nearly every day about the wedding, and her mother more than she wanted to. It was all they thought about now. Victoria called it Wedding Fever. She had lost nine pounds by the first day of school, and she felt good. She was in shape. She still had a long way to go. She had reached a plateau, but she was determined not to get discouraged. She’d been there before. Many times. But this time she was not going to let go, and she was seeing her shrink regularly. They were talking about her parents, her hopes for her sister, and they were finally talking about what she wanted for herself. She had never done that before.

Her students felt the difference in her too. She was stronger and more sure of herself. Helen and Carla told her they were proud of her.

Victoria was annoyed that her sister wasn’t working and hadn’t since graduation. She wasn’t even looking for a job now that she was engaged, which Victoria didn’t think was good for her, or her self-esteem. She said she had no time, but Victoria knew there was more to life than just planning a wedding, and being married to a wealthy man. Her shrink told her it wasn’t her problem, and to concentrate on herself, so she was. But her concern for her sister troubled her too.

She only lost two pounds in September. But she had lost eleven in all, so she was halfway to her goal, and looking fit, when Gracie announced in October that she was coming for the weekend to look at wedding gowns, and pick bridesmaids’ dresses, and she wanted Victoria’s help. Victoria wasn’t sure she was ready to do that, but Gracie was the baby sister she loved and could never deny anything to, so she agreed, despite a stack of papers she had to correct that weekend. Her shrink asked why she hadn’t asked Gracie to come some other time. The wedding wasn’t until June.

“I couldn’t do that,” Victoria said honestly.

“Why not?”

“I’m not good at saying no to her. I never do.”

“Why don’t you want her to come this weekend?” They were into total honesty.

“I have work to do,” Victoria said easily as the doctor looked at her and called her on it.

“Is that really the reason?”

“No. I haven’t lost enough weight, and I’m scared she’ll pick a bridesmaid dress I look awful in. All her friends are the same size she is. They’re all a size two or four. They’ve never heard of a size fourteen.”

“You are you. You won’t be a size fourteen by next June,” the doctor reassured her. Victoria hadn’t wavered in her resolve.

“What if I am?” she said with a look of panic. Her dream was to be a size eight. But even a ten would have been thrilling if she could maintain that weight.

“Why do you think you won’t succeed?”

“Because I’m afraid my father’s right, and I’m a loser. Gracie just proved him right again. She’s going to be married at twenty-two to the perfect guy. I’ll be thirty by the time she gets married. I’m still not married. I don’t even have a boyfriend, or a date. And I’m just a schoolteacher.”

“And a good one,” the doctor reminded her. “You’re the head of the English department at the best private high school in New York. That’s not small potatoes.” Victoria smiled at what she said. “Besides, you’re the maid of honor. You can wear a variation or even something entirely different, if she picks something that won’t look good on you. She’s giving you a chance to choose.”

“No,” Victoria corrected her. She knew her baby sister. She might be willing to let Harry run the show, but she had her own ideas about some things. “She’s giving me a chance to watch her choose.”

“Then this is an opportunity to do things differently with her,” the therapist suggested.

“I’ll try.” But Victoria didn’t sound convinced.

Gracie arrived on Friday morning while Victoria was still at school, and she rushed back to the apartment to meet her as soon as she could. She had left the key under the mat outside the apartment, and Gracie was inside, waiting for her, walking at a brisk pace on the treadmill.

“This thing is pretty good,” she said as she grinned at her sister. She looked like an elf or a child on the big machine.

“It should be,” Victoria answered. “It cost us a fortune.”

“You should try it sometime,” Gracie said as she hopped off.

“I have been,” Victoria said, proud of the weight she’d lost so far, and disappointed that Gracie didn’t notice. Her head was totally into the wedding, as she hugged her older sister. She wanted to go downtown right away and start shopping. She had a list of stores she wanted to get to. Victoria had been at school all day and felt like a mess. She’d had to get there early for a department meeting. But she got ready in five minutes, and they left to go downtown. It was hard not to be distracted by the giant rock on her finger. “Aren’t you afraid you might get hit on the head wearing that thing?” She still worried about her. She would always be her baby sister, no different than the day she’d walked her into first grade.

“No one thinks it’s real,” Gracie said nonchalantly as they got out of the cab at Bergdorf’s.

They went upstairs to the wedding department and started looking at gowns. They had a dozen of them hanging on racks and spread out around them as Gracie looked around and shook her head. None of them looked right to her, although Victoria thought they were gorgeous. Gracie shifted gears then and asked to see bridesmaids’ dresses. She had a list of designers and colors that she wanted to check out. And they brought everything they had to her. It was going to be a formal evening wedding. Harry was going to wear white tie, and the groomsmen black tie. And so far she was thinking of peach, pale blue, or champagne for the bridesmaids, all of them colors that Victoria could wear. She was so fair and had such pale skin that there were some colors she just couldn’t get away with, like red, for instance, but Gracie assured her that she would never put her bridesmaids in red. She looked like a little general marshaling her troops as the saleswomen brought her things. Gracie was in full control, and planning what appeared to be a major national event, like a rock concert or a world’s fair or a presidential campaign. This was her finest hour, and she was going to be the star of the show. Victoria couldn’t help wondering how her mother was dealing with it. It was a little overwhelming at close range, and their father was sparing no expense. He wanted the Wilkeses to be impressed, and his favorite daughter to be proud. In the heat of her intense concentration on what she was doing, Gracie still hadn’t noticed the weight Victoria had lost, which hurt her feelings, but she didn’t want to be childish about it, and she paid attention to the gowns that Gracie was picking out. She had three maybes in mind when they left. And there were going to be ten bridesmaids. It occurred to Victoria, when Gracie told her, that if she had been getting married, she didn’t even have ten friends. She would have had Gracie as her only attendant, and that was it. But Gracie had always been a golden child. And now she was the star, and loving every minute of it. She was becoming more like their parents than Victoria wanted to admit. She came from a family of stars, and Victoria felt like a meteor that had fallen to earth in a heap of ash.

They went to Barneys after that, and finally wound up at Saks. And for the following day Gracie had made an appointment with Vera Wang herself. She also wanted to see Oscar de la Renta, but hadn’t had time to set it up. Victoria was beginning to realize just how big an event it was. And the Wilkeses were giving a black-tie rehearsal dinner that was going to be bigger and more elaborate than most weddings. So it was going to be a double header in terms of the dresses that they’d need. Gracie said that their mother had already decided to wear beige to the wedding, and emerald green to the rehearsal dinner the night before. She was all set. She had gone to Neiman Marcus, and the personal shopper had found the perfect dresses for her for both events. So Gracie could concentrate on herself.

She didn’t like the bridal gowns at Saks either, and made it clear that she was looking for something extraordinary for her wedding. Gracie, the baby sister, had come into her own. Suddenly nothing was special enough for her. Victoria was a little shocked at how determined she was. And Gracie wasn’t excited about the bridesmaids’ dresses she saw either, and then she gave a gasp when she saw a gown.

“Oh my God,” she said with a look of amazement, as though she’d found the holy grail. “That’s it! I’d never have thought of that color!” It was without question a spectacular gown, although Victoria couldn’t picture it at a wedding, particularly multiplied by ten. Brown was the color of the season going into the fall. It was softer than black, the saleswoman explained to them, and very “warm.” The dress that had caught Gracie’s attention was a heavy satin strapless gown, with tiny tucks close to the body to just below the hipline, and then it widened into a bell-shaped evening gown to the floor. The workmanship on it was exquisite, and it was a deep chocolate brown. The only trouble with it, from Victoria’s perspective, was that only a tiny, wraithlike flat-chested woman could wear it. The place where it stopped hugging the body and flared at the hips would make Victoria’s bottom look like the broad side of a barn. It was a dress that only a girl with Gracie’s proportions could wear well, and most of her friends looked like her. The sample she was looking at would have been too big for her and was a size four. Victoria didn’t want to imagine what it would look like on her even if she lost weight.

“Everyone’s going to love it,” Gracie exclaimed with a delirious expression. “They can wear it afterward to any black-tie event.” The dress was expensive, but it wasn’t a problem for most of her bridesmaids, and her father had promised to cover the difference if she found a dress that some of her bridesmaids couldn’t afford. The price wasn’t the issue for Victoria, since her father was paying for it. The problem was that the dress would look hideous on her. Her breasts and hips were just too large for the style. And to add to her misery as she looked at it, it was the color of bittersweet chocolate, which Victoria just couldn’t wear with her fair skin, blue eyes, and pale blond hair.

“I can’t wear that dress,” she said reasonably to her sister. “I’ll look like a mountain of chocolate mousse, with either spelling. Even if I lost fifty pounds. Or maybe a hundred. My chest is too big. And I can’t wear that color.” Her sister looked at her with imploring eyes.

“It’s exactly what I wanted. I just didn’t know it. It’s a gorgeous gown.”

“Yes, it is,” Victoria readily agreed with her, “but for someone your size. If you wear that, and I wear the wedding gown, it’ll be perfect. That dress will be frightening on me. I’m sure it doesn’t even come in my size.”

“You can order it in any size,” the saleswoman said helpfully. It was an expensive dress, and would have made a handsome sale.

“Can we get ten of them by June?” Gracie asked with a look of panic, totally ignoring her sister’s pleas for mercy.

“I’m sure we can. We can probably have them for you by December, if you get me all the sizes.” Gracie looked relieved and Victoria near tears.

“Gracie, you can’t do that to me. I’ll look horrible in that dress.”

“No, you won’t. You said you want to lose weight anyway.”

“I still couldn’t wear it. I wear a double-D bra. You have to be built like you to wear that dress.” Gracie looked up at her with tears in her eyes, with the same look that had melted her older sister’s heart since she was five.

“I’m only getting married once,” she said imploringly. “I want everything to be perfect for Harry. I want this to be my dream wedding. Everyone has pink and blue and pastel colors. No one ever even thinks of brown for the bridesmaids. It’ll be the most elegant wedding L.A. has ever seen.”

“With a maid of honor who looks like an elephant.”

“You’ll lose weight by then, I know it. You always do when you try.”

“That’s not the point. I’d have to have surgery to pull this one off.” And the tiny tucks of fabric all the way down the long-waisted bodice would only make it worse. Gracie was already planning to have the bridesmaids carry brown orchids to go with the dress. Nothing was going to dissuade her from it, and she placed the order while Victoria stood by wanting to cry. Her sister had just ensured that she would look like a monster at the wedding, while all her tiny anorexic friends would look stylish in the brown strapless gowns. There was no question that the dress was beautiful, but not on Victoria. She gave up trying to dissuade her, and sat silently while Gracie gave the saleswoman the sizes for most of the gowns. They were almost all size fours, except for three size twos. She was going to confirm the rest of the sizes when she got home. She had a look of elation on her face when they left the store. She was almost dancing she was so excited, and Victoria sat in silence in the cab all the way uptown. They stopped at the deli on the way back to the apartment, and without thinking, Victoria put three pints of Häagen-Dazs on the counter. Gracie didn’t even notice. She was used to Victoria buying ice cream. She had no idea that Victoria hadn’t had any in four months. This was like a recovering alcoholic sidling up to the bar and ordering a vodka on the rocks.

They went back to the apartment, and Gracie called their mother while Victoria unpacked the groceries, just as Harlan walked in. He took one look at the ice cream, pointed at it as though it were on fire, and stared at Victoria in horror and disbelief.

“What’s that?”

“She ordered strapless brown gowns for the bridesmaids that I can’t wear.”

“Then tell her you can’t wear it, and to order you something else,” he said, taking the ice cream from Victoria’s hand and dropping it in the trash. “Maybe the dress isn’t as bad as you think.”

“It’s gorgeous. Just not on me. I can’t even wear that color, let alone the shape.”

“Tell her,” he said firmly, sounding like her shrink.

“I did. She won’t listen to me. This is her dream wedding. She’s only planning to do it once, and it has to be perfect. For everyone but me.”

“She’s a nice kid. Explain it to her.”

“She’s a bride, on a mission. We must have looked at a hundred gowns today. This is going to be the event of the century.”

“It won’t help anything to blow the diet now,” he said, trying to encourage her. It had upset him to see her with the ice cream in her hand. She had been so good until then. And he didn’t want her to blow it now over a stupid gown.

Gracie was on the phone by then with all her friends, telling them about the fabulous dress she’d ordered for all of them, and Victoria had a sense of hopelessness as she sat down in the kitchen. She felt like an invisible person again. Gracie wasn’t hearing her. It was all about Gracie right now. It was hard to live with, and she was depressed about the dress. She didn’t know what to do about it. It was clear that Gracie wasn’t going to listen to her, no matter what.

They had dinner with John and Harlan in the kitchen that night, and Gracie told them all the details of the wedding. By the end of the meal, Victoria wanted to throw up.

“Maybe I’m just jealous,” she said to Harlan in a whisper after Gracie left the room to call Harry before she went to bed.

“I don’t think you are. It’s a little much. She’s like a kid out of control. Your father is creating a monster, letting her do whatever she wants with the wedding.”

“He thinks it makes him look important,” Victoria said, still looking depressed. It was the first time in her life that she hadn’t enjoyed Gracie’s company. So far, the weekend was a catastrophe.

And the next day wasn’t much better. Victoria went with her for her appointment with Vera Wang. They looked at a dozen wedding dress possibilities, and finally the designer offered to send her sketches based on what Gracie had said. She was thrilled.

It was afternoon by then, and they went to Serendipity for lunch. Gracie ordered a salad, and Victoria ordered the cheese ravioli, and a frozen mochaccino topped with whipped cream, and ate it all. Gracie saw nothing unusual in what her sister had ordered, because she was used to Victoria eating things like that. And blowing her diet depressed Victoria even more. By the time they got back to the apartment, she was exhausted, depressed, and felt as if she were about to explode. She hadn’t eaten anything like that in months, and Harlan could see the guilt on her face.

“What did you do today?”

“I met Vera Wang,” she said vaguely.

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it. What did you eat for lunch?”

“You don’t want to know. I shot my diet all to hell,” she said, looking guilty.

“It’s not worth it, Victoria,” he reminded her. “You’ve worked too hard for this for the past four months. Don’t fuck it up.”

“The wedding is making me nervous. I’m suicidal over the dress I have to wear. And my sister is turning into someone I don’t know. She shouldn’t even be marrying the guy, or anyone, at her age. And he’s going to run her life just like my father does. She’s marrying our father,” she said miserably.

“Let her, if that’s what she wants. She’s old enough to make her own choice, even if it’s a mistake. You can’t screw up your life on top of it. That’s not going to change anything, except make you miserable. Just forget about the wedding. Wear whatever you have to, get drunk at the wedding, and come home.” She laughed at what he said.

“Maybe you have a point. And besides, it’s eight months away. Even if the dress is wrong for me I could still lose a lot of weight by then and look good.”

“Not if you blow your diet.”

“I won’t. I’ll be good tonight. We’re staying home. And she’s going back to L.A. tomorrow. I’ll be back on the wagon as soon as she leaves.”

“No. Now,” he reminded her, and went to his own room. Victoria got on the treadmill then, to atone for her sins. And Gracie ordered a pizza from the restaurant whose card was on the fridge. It arrived half an hour later, and was more than Victoria could resist. Gracie ate one piece. And her older sister finished the rest. She wanted to eat the box so Harlan wouldn’t see it, but he did. He looked at her as though she had killed someone. And she had. Herself. She was consumed with guilt.

And they went out for lunch the next day before Gracie left. To thank her for her help, Gracie took her to the Carlyle for brunch, and Victoria had eggs Benedict, and when Gracie ordered hot chocolate and little cookies, she couldn’t resist them.

Gracie thanked her profusely when she left for the airport, and they hugged each other tight. She said she had had a terrific time, and would keep her posted on the designs from Vera Wang and everything else. Victoria stood on the sidewalk waving to her as the cab pulled away, and as soon as it was out of sight, Victoria burst into tears. From her perspective, the weekend had been an utter and complete disaster, and she felt like a total failure at everything. And on top of it, she was going to look awful at the wedding. She went upstairs, let herself into the apartment, and went to bed, wishing she were dead.

Chapter 18

It was a relief for Victoria to go back to school on Monday. At least it was a world she understood, and where she had some control. She felt as though her sister Gracie was totally out of control with the wedding, and just being around her was depressing these days. And the effect on Victoria had been disastrous. She had gone totally berserk with everything she ate. She had an appointment with Dr. Watson that afternoon after school, and she told her about all of it and how depressed she was.

“I was like a crazy person,” she confessed, “eating everything in sight. I haven’t eaten like that in years. Or months anyway. I weighed myself this morning, and I put on three pounds.”

“You’ll lose it again,” Dr. Watson reassured her. “Why do you think it happened?” She looked interested and not panicked.

“I felt invisible again, like nothing I said mattered. She’s turning into one of them.”

“Maybe she always was.”

“No, she wasn’t. But the guy she’s marrying is just like my father. I feel outnumbered now. And the dress she wants me to wear to the wedding will look awful on me.”

“Why didn’t you speak up?”

“I tried. She wouldn’t listen. She ordered it anyway. She’s being a terrible brat at the moment.”