In the dinky St. Thomas airport, not all that long ago, but when her children were still young enough to be excited by family vacations, it hit Dawn like a conk on the head: Although she remembered, as she always did, to get Nicole a gift, as sometimes happened, she clear forgot to get one for Bunny.
“Fuck Bunny,” her husband said.
“Fuck Bunny, fuck Bunny,” the kids chanted, rocking in their seats as if Fuck Bunny had an irrepressible beat to it.
The gift Dawn bought for Nicole, selected in deference to Nicole’s worship of Planet Earth, was a bracelet made of sea glass. Chances were good that neither Dawn nor Nicole knew that sea glass is the by-product of littering. For Nicole’s wife, Dawn bought a pair of sea glass earrings, and a sand dollar for their kid who was gravely disappointed to discover it was not a cookie, which was totally understandable because only twice in what, at that time, had been all of four years of life, had their kid ever had a cookie, both times at birthday parties not his own. At his birthday party, the kids got pita chips and hummus, which elicited, from Bunny, a surge of pity for the little boy. Nicole is a devoted mother, but she is similarly devoted to the folly that all things derived from the soil and the sea are healthy, exuberant with nutrients. Provided it was organically farmed, Nicole would drink a hemlock smoothie.
Bunny once let it drop that the lesbian couple who live next door to her also have a little boy, and that little boy is allowed to eat cookies. “I once saw the kid eating ice cream,” Bunny said, and Nicole shook her head. “Not all lesbians are good mothers.”
“You’re missing the point,” Bunny had said. “What I’m trying to say is that it’s unlikely their kid will develop an eating disorder.”
Bunny might’ve been lacking in sensitivity in the way she put it, but she did have evidence, clinical studies, to support the point she was trying to get across.
“Let it go,” Albie had advised. “Science can’t convert a true believer.”
And Nicole is a true believer, as well as, according to Bunny, a true hypocrite, one who doesn’t have time or money to spare for the Environmental Defense Fund or Greenpeace, to actively engage with the same issues that she will rail on about, because, according to Nicole, she is busy raising a child and climbing the ladder to Personal Enlightenment, which, as she describes it, sounds no different from a Scientologist reaching OT Level VIII. Nicole’s claim is that her own spiritual growth, and that of her son and her Wiccan princess wife, will result in a better world for everyone.
“Right,” Bunny had said. “You’ll be in Nirvana and the rest of us will be munching on Soylent Green.”
“Soylent Green?” Nicole didn’t know about Soylent Green, and Bunny told her, “Kale. It’s a kind of kale.”
Because Dawn is a mother of two children, she’s done with her contributions to society. Moreover, she has a lesbian sister whom she loves and whose approval she seeks, and isn’t that proof enough that she is a good person?
The St. Thomas airport gift shop was bountiful with an array of trinkets that no one could possibly want: St. Thomas–embossed shot glasses, pencil boxes, souvenir spoons and thimbles. Dawn did think the Christmas tree ornaments—swordfish and dolphins wearing Santa hats—were kind of cute, but Bunny could get very snide when it comes to things that are cute. Dawn shelled out $14.98 for a two-dollar coffee mug, and fuck Bunny if she doesn’t like it.
On those odd occasions when one or the other of her sisters would come to the city, Bunny would disrupt her day, an irritation unto itself, to meet Nicole at the Tea Retreat or to have coffee with Dawn at whichever Starbucks was most handy to where Dawn had parked her car. To sit down long enough to have a meal with either of her sisters would be to push the boundaries of tolerance, on both sides of the table. At the Starbucks on Sixth Avenue at Seventeenth Street, when Dawn was nearly done with her skim-milk latte and Bunny was swirling the dregs of her black coffee in the paper cup, the conversation running on fumes, both sisters eagerly anticipating their goodbyes, Dawn fished a cube-shaped box from her tote bag. “We got you a little something when we were in St. Thomas.”
“When were you in St. Thomas?”
“Right after Christmas. I told you we were going. Don’t you remember?”
“Apparently not.” Bunny opened the white box. “A coffee mug,” she said.
Other gifts from Dawn and her bedpan salesman husband included a set of wine glasses with a note To Dawn and Michael, Happy Anniversary, Love, Melissa and Stephan tucked inside the box. There were mezcal-flavored lollipops from Mexico. Last Christmas they gave Albie two books: Secrets from the Egyptian Tombs, and Dangerous Dan: Memoirs of a Snake Trainer. Bunny also got two books: Fifty Strategies for Creating Characters and So, You Want to Write a Novel?
“She meant well.” Albie made excuses for her sister. “It’s not malicious.”
But what did Albie know? He was an only child and he was loved.
Bunny took the St. Thomas coffee mug from the box and said, “How thoughtful of you.”
Dawn’s smile was brittle, as if you could snap it in half, like a dry twig or a chicken bone. “I remembered that you drink coffee,” she said.
“Yes,” Bunny said. “We’re in Starbucks. I do drink coffee.” She turned the mug over in her hands, holding it out for her sister to see the sticker on the bottom. “Look at that. You bought it in St. Thomas, but it’s made in China.”
Dawn wasn’t looking at the coffee mug; she was looking straight on at Bunny when she said, “And you wonder why we don’t like you.”
“Actually,” Bunny said, “I don’t wonder. Not at all.”
Dawn grabbed her coat off the back of her chair, leaving Bunny alone at the table where, tearing off bits of her Starbucks paper cup, she stayed long enough for the sting to subside, and the need for Albie’s comfort to pass. On those occasions when the last thing Bunny wants to hear is the truth, Albie does not equivocate. Bunny knew perfectly well what he’d say. He’d say, “Come on, Bunny. You asked for it.”
No shit. Obviously she asked for it. That much she could admit. What she did not want to hear from Albie was why, why did she ask for it?
At home, the St. Thomas mug went in the cabinet with all the other coffee mugs, and until now, it had been forgotten. And you wonder why we don’t like you.