Later, after our parents went back to their hotel, I drove Claire to Chez Jay. We sat in the last booth at the back. “Sometimes Mel Gibson comes here,” I told her. “Sits right there.”
I wanted Claire to be impressed—by the solicitous girls smiling from the bar, the locals who knew me, my position here as reliable barman, my fresh degree. I was an autonomous, self-sufficient adult. I am a man, Claire. Here is my diploma, here is where I work. But she looked around that place as if she’d been tricked into being there.
She shrugged and studied me the way she always did—with tender indulgence—and raised her glass. “To the graduate,” she said, mocking my mother.
“Why can’t you leave her be?” I said.
She shook her head and looked past me to the bar. “I’ll leave her be when she stops making fools of us.”
“She doesn’t make a fool of me.”
“Did you see what she was wearing? The way she drank?”
“A few glasses of champagne, Claire.”
“Enough to show you her bra.”
I changed the subject.
“Sean Penn, too,” I said. “He’s a nice guy. Tips well.”
Claire ignored me. “So now what, Joey?”
In a few weeks I’d drive up the coast, camp with some friends in Big Sur, go back to Seattle, find a job somewhere. I had no other ambition, no further plan. Save for those three mean days, I’d always been happy. Was never restless the way Claire was. I’d never wanted other things the way she did.
“And then what?”
“Roam free.” I laughed.
“You’re a moron.”
“Maybe I’ll come visit you.”
“You should,” she said. And then, leaning in, “Hey Joe, I met someone. We might get married.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He’s very, very rich.”
“So what?”
“You should see our life.”
“How old is he?”
“Thirty-eight.”
“And I’m the moron?”
“Don’t tell Mom and Dad.”
“Why not?”
“Just don’t, okay?”
“Thirty-eight, Claire?”
“Who cares? Come visit. You’ll see.”
“Maybe I will,” I said. “And maybe I’ll put a bullet in his head.”
She smiled and looked so far away and so much older than I would ever be.
Driving back I wanted to tell her about the tar. I wanted to ask if it was in her, or even if she knew what it was, but I couldn’t muster the courage.
She hated being delivered to her expensive hotel in my truck, so I made sure to pull in slow, rev the engine, tap the horn.
It was the only power any of us ever had over my sister: our ability to humiliate her. The valets, irritated by the honking, waved me forward, but I stopped in the middle of the drive, made us a spectacle, got out and walked around to her side.
“You’re such an asshole,” she said. “My sweet bartending graduate.”
I wrapped my arms around her and said, “I’ll see you in London, you little snob.”
But I never saw Claire again.