Janine, too, lived on the East Side, in an apartment on East Seventy-fifth paid for by their father. In the muddled hope of finding solace, or at least a hiding place where no one else could see her fall apart, Whitney carried her suitcase for blocks and, moist and bedraggled, pressed the buzzer outside the entrance.
No answer. Maybe Janine was asleep, Whitney thought—her sister’s hours seemed increasingly erratic. She pushed the button once more, then again, her vision of asylum slowly ebbing. As she stood there, utterly lost, her sister’s voice echoed through the speaker, sounding narcotized yet anxious.
“Who is it?”
“Me. Whitney.”
A moment’s silence followed. “What are you doing here?”
“Please,” Whitney pleaded, “can I come up?”
“Now?” her sister asked. But the uncertainty in her voice suggested that Whitney’s tone of entreaty had punctured her resistance. “Did Mom send you?”
“No,” Whitney insisted desperately. “Why would she?”
Again Janine was silent. Then the buzzer sounded, allowing Whitney to enter.
Taking the elevator, she longed for the innocence with which she had entered another building, a scant two hours before, marking the fault line that separated her past, now a dream state, from the black hole of her future. What could she say, she wondered, having discovered that their family was an illusion? A mirage like Janine herself, Whitney thought, unsure of how to approach a woman whose charmed existence was yet another myth. When she knocked on the door, knowing only that she wanted to sit somewhere cooler and darker, seconds dragged by before her sister peered through the crack in the door, its chain strained tight.
Her face was drained of blood, and there were dark smudges beneath her eyes. She looked years older than she had at the celebration of Whitney’s engagement, like a female Dorian Gray ensnared by the ravages of time. Though Janine’s eyes were dull, she seemed to register Whitney’s expression. She looked down, as though ashamed at her exposure, then unlatched the door, backing to the side.
What she saw in the small, shadowed space jarred Whitney even more. On the coffee table was a near-empty bottle of vodka, a carton of orange juice, and a large glass with a residue of pulp at the bottom. Turning toward the couch, Janine stumbled, knocking a plastic bottle off the table and spilling pills across the carpet. Righting herself, she sat there, her expression miserable and trapped.
For a moment, Whitney could not speak. She smelled, then saw, a pool of vomit on the carpet. Picking up the bottle, she read the word Valium. All she could think to do was head to the bathroom for a glass of water and a washcloth to cool her sister’s clammy, pallid face.
Entering the bedroom, she paused again. Her sister’s bed was disheveled, a bloody towel strewn across its tangled sheets. Whitney forced herself to continue to the bathroom, filling a glass and dampening a washcloth, overcome by her own confusion and inadequacy. When she returned to the living room, Janine’s gaze held a shame that made it seem more lucid.
Whitney sat beside her, holding out the glass of water. “Drink this,” she instructed.
Shakily, Janine complied. Asking her to lie back, Whitney placed the damp cloth to her sister’s face. In a strained voice, she asked, “How many pills did you take?”
Janine closed her eyes. “I don’t remember. They level me out, so I’m not so anxious . . .”
“When did you take the last ones?”
As though compelled by Whitney’s urgency, Janine mustered the will to respond. “A few hours ago, I guess—I was sleeping for awhile.” Though her eyes remained shut, Whitney saw tears on her lashes. “I hoped I wouldn’t wake up, that everything would just go dark.”
Whitney steeled herself. “I have to call emergency . . .”
“No,” Janine protested. “I don’t want them to know. Please, just stay with me.”
Irresolute, Whitney felt her sister’s pulse, light but steady enough. “I saw that towel in the bedroom, like you’re having a really awful period. Tell me what’s happening—please.”
Though she did not speak, Janine’s eyes welled again. With a new foreboding, Whitney pressed, “What was it, Janine?”
Janine’s throat worked. “I had an abortion. This morning.”
Whitney felt shock, then fear. “We should get you to a hospital. With all that blood, there could be something wrong inside.”
“I think I’ll be okay,” Janine said wanly.” A doctor did it—David arranged for everything.” Her voice faltered. “I threw our baby away, like it was trash. Because he wanted me to.”
Whitney struggled to drain her speech of judgment. “Tell me about David.”
“He’s a photographer. I met him on a job.”
“Why isn’t he with you now?”
Janine curled sideways. “He’s married.”
Absorbing this, Whitney saw the pattern of Janine’s behavior. “When did you find out?” she asked.
“I always knew.” Janine paused, inhaling. “When he asked me to dinner, he was so completely charming I said yes. Later, I said yes to the rest of it.”
“Why, Janine?”
“You should have seen the way he looked at me.” Janine hesitated again, her remembered excitement descending into hollowness. “He told me I was different—that I made his world brighter, his enjoyment of everything more complete. That he’d never heard the longing in Sinatra’s voice until he listened with me.”
Janine spoke in a child’s voice, made more heartbreaking by how deluded she sounded. Whitney felt a fresh, pulsing anger at both her mother and father. “I guess he promised to leave his wife.”
Janine nodded. “Then I got pregnant,” she added huskily. “David got so upset. He said if I loved him, I’d get rid of it. So I did. Now he’s gone, and so is our baby.”
Whitney grasped her hand. After a time, she asked, “When did you lose your job?”
Her sister showed no surprise, as though Whitney had cracked open the door to her life, and become omniscient. “When David couldn’t see me, I got lonely and depressed. So I started taking the pills he gave me. After awhile, I was missing work. So David gave me money, and Dad . . .”
“Did he know?”
“Of course not.” Janine’s voice filled with a weary, dispirited irony. “Mom helped, too. I told her I needed new clothes, and she sent a check from her own account. Her note said I deserved to feel as beautiful as I am.”
Reflexively, Whitney responded, “You are beautiful, Janine. I always wanted to look like you.”
Hearing herself, Whitney realized that this was all she had to offer. “Beautiful,” Janine repeated in an ashen voice. “I’m like an empty glass they filled with all these brightly colored stones, and imagined the stones were diamonds. But the stones are worthless, and the glass is, too.”
Suddenly, Whitney felt the burden of a psychic devastation too complete for her to shoulder. Her parents alone had the resources and authority to repair what they had created. “We’re going to the Vineyard, all right? Our parents have to know what happened.”
“No,” Janine exclaimed with renewed vehemence. “They can’t.”
“Why?” Whitney asked fiercely. “So you and they can go on inventing a daughter who doesn’t exist? If they don’t help you now, they’ll destroy you.” She paused, softening her voice. “I love you, Janine. I don’t want you dead, or wishing you were. I won’t let them take you with them . . .”
“What do you mean? The two of them are so happy . . .”
“Are they?” Whitney cut in, and stopped herself. “Then they’re strong enough to deal with this. It’s not your job to prop up our mother anymore. You can’t fill the holes in her heart by letting her play dress-up with you as the doll.”
Facing Whitney, Janine opened her eyes. Dully, she said, “What holes?”
“Oh, she has them. And I think you’ve always known it. In your own way, you’re been trying to take care of her for years. I won’t let that happen anymore.”
To Whitney’s surprise, her sister did not protest. Finding a telephone in the kitchen, Whitney called the airlines, then booked a taxi.
In the hour before they left, Whitney packed Janine’s clothes, then washed the sheets clean. It bothered her that this seemed like something Anne would do.
When she reappeared in the living room, Janine regarded her with a new curiosity. Without preface, she asked tiredly, “What’s going on with you and Mom and Dad?”
Startled at her sister’s question, Whitney resolved to protect her from the truth. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Is it something about Peter?” Janine persisted. “Or another guy?”
Tensing, Whitney sat beside her. “Who told you that?”
“No one, exactly.” Janine bit her lip. “It was something I overheard . . .”
“Where?”
“At Dad’s office, when I went to ask him for money.”
She stopped abruptly. “Tell me,” Whitney persisted. “I need to know.”
Slowly, Janine nodded. “His door was ajar, so I just stepped in. Dad was on the phone. But he was facing the window, so he didn’t see me. I just stood there, not wanting to interrupt. Then he said something like, ‘Thank you, Commissioner. The army needs able young men, and I need this particular young man out of my daughter’s life.’ When he turned and saw me, he had this funny look, like he’d been caught at something.”
Staring at the carpet, Whitney felt short of breath. Then she remembered the last piece in the mosaic of events—her father speaking with a local politician, the man who wanted to keep a Jewish family from buying a home in West Chop. “As we discussed on the phone,” the man had said, “you and I can help each other.”
By whatever sleight of hand, Whitney knew, Charles had thwarted the sale to ensure that Ben was drafted. He had put his finger on the scales of Ben’s life, in order to direct the course of Whitney’s, and in the process, eliminate a discordant element from his own—a young man who, whatever his lack of resources, had challenged Charles’s dominance without realizing what the older man could do. Her father would sooner cause Ben’s death than be bothered with him.
“You bastard,” she said in a low voice.
Janine stared at her. “What is it, Whitney? Is there someone else?”
Choking on her own guilt, Whitney felt a loathing so profound that Janine, watching her face, asked nothing more. Nor could Whitney speak. She despised herself, but not as much as she hated Charles Dane.