Dolls Behaving Badly Read Free Page A

surprises, no deep shades or textures. He is a corporate lawyer for British Petroleum,
     and Laurel is one of the top-selling agents at Southwest Alaska Real Estate. She and Junior are among the Alaska jet set.
     They play racquetball on the weekends, tennis in the summers, take exotic vacations twice a year, and keep their cars so clean
     you could put on your makeup in the reflection of the chrome.
    Laurel and Junior weren’t always Alaskans. They used to live in Chicago, a glorious six-hour plane flight away. Then one afternoon
     about five years ago, someone knocked at the door as I was untangling Barry’s fishing line. Jay-Jay, who was almost three
     at the time, raced to answer.
    “Mom! Auntie Laurel’s at the door.”
    “Laurel?”
    “She has funny shoes.” Jay-Jay stared at his socks. “Like animal claws.”
    I hurried out to the kitchen and found my sister leaning against the dishwasher, the toe of her expensive boot jutting across
     my path.
    “Carla,” she cried.
    “I didn’t know you were on vacation,” I said.
    “Vacation?” She giggled. “We’re moving here.” Her voice was high and screechy. “We’re looking at houses up on the Hillside.
     It’s supposed to be the best neighborhood for people like us.” She nodded at my shabby kitchen as if to say, as opposed to people like you .
    A few months later, they were tucked tidily away in an expensive house by the Chugach foothills, Laurel maneuvering her BMW
     along potholed roads and bitching about the general lack of basic traffic law obedience. I initially envisioned the two of
     us drinking tea and sharing pieces of our lives, like sisters in Hallmark Cards commercials, but that never happened. Laurel
     remained as unapproachable as ever, though she did soften toward Jay-Jay. Oh, the way my sister changes when Jay-Jay is around!
     Her face lightens, and the lines around her mouth even out. Laurel and Junior don’t have children. Laurel says she can’t,
     but I think she has willed her body not to reproduce, frightened as she is of the idea of pregnancy. And labor! Blood and
     sweat, screams and flailing legs: Laurel would die before she would allow herself to be seen like that.
    I could go on, but writing about someone who is so goddamned perfect is like drinking too much. At first you feel brave and
     superior, but as soon as the alcohol hits your blood, you flatten out and realize that underneath it all, you just want to
     sit on a barstool and sob.
    Monday, Sept. 26
    Every Sunday the Oprah Giant posts a blog to give us poor diary-​writing slobs hope. This week’s was about loss. “You can’t see the center of the pond when the water is muddied with regret,” she
     wrote. “Make a list of all the things you lost—socks and pets and that teacup from Aunt Mabel. Draw little hearts beside them.
     Treasure them! Love them! They’re not lost, they’re still hiding inside your heart.”
    I snorted as I read this. List the things I’ve lost—please! What exactly was her point?
    But then I remembered the winter after the divorce, when the snow and darkness settled in and I felt so alone that I called
     Laurel in the middle of the night. It was all too much, I sobbed. I couldn’t take it.
    “I’ll come over Saturday and take Jay-Jay,” she offered.
    “Thanks,” I sniffed. But it wasn’t a babysitter I needed as much as hope. I wanted someone to offer me a slice of hope, the
     way Gramma used to offer me a slice of lemon meringue pie, the middle shiny with promise.
    “I’ll never love anyone again,” I cried dramatically.
    There was a long pause. “Love isn’t what you expect,” Laurel finally said. “It doesn’t necessarily make you happy.”
    I ignored the implication that my sister’s marriage wasn’t working. I was too selfish, too mired in my own pain to acknowledge
     anyone else’s.
    “I’ll never meet anyone like Barry,” I continued. Now that he was gone, I forgave him his faults and remembered only the