Sister Golden Hair: A Novel Read Free

the machine at the end of the open corridor. The ice machine sat next to the candy machine, each bar of chocolate lit up like a tiny god.
    In the evening the rain cleared and we drove over to Bent Tree, passing Long John Silver’s, Hardee’s, and a 24-hour do-it-yourself car wash. There was a drive-in movie theater playing a film called Dallas Girls and a string of brick ranch houses with Christmas lights up around the porches and a sign by the road that read MASSAGE .
    Eventually the strip malls got farther apart, interspersed with black glass professional buildings and churches on both sides of the highway. Just before we turned off, there was a brick church with white columns, a steeple, and a sign that read SIN KNOCKS A HOLE IN YOUR BUCKET OF JOY . The parking lot was empty and glittering under the overhead light.
    Off the highway I counted thirteen NIXON FOR PRESIDENT signs stuck in front yards. My father hated Nixon, but I felt sorry for the president because he always looked so dazed and miserable. Warm air came through the window, damp from the rain and tinged with the scent of dirt and grape juice.
    I didn’t understand why we couldn’t rent a different duplex in one of the other developments—Lux Manor, Sans Souci, Evergreen Estates—spread likebread mold over the side of the mountains. My dad was acting like he did when he was a pastor, like everyone else’s life was more important than our own. He drove slumped back in the seat, his hand dangling over the wheel, the motel envelope holding the rental listings from the local paper on the dashboard. He intended to slip the envelope under the woman’s door and gently encourage her to think about moving out.
    When he told us his plan, my mother had been folding clothes she’d just brought back from the Laundromat, a pair of my little brother’s corduroys on her lap. She looked up at him.
    “That’s your plan?” she asked.
    In the last few days she’d rolled her eyes whenever my father talked about how much he liked his brand-new job at the VA hospital, or said something about the beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Most of the car ride she’d been silent, her head pressed dramatically against the window frame, but as the car climbed the mountain and my father said we were close, she started to talk. Her features became unfocused, and when she opened her mouth I knew she was going to say something about rich people.
    “Did you know in Hyannis Port the Kennedys keep a pony for the children to ride?”
    “I wish we had a pony,” Phillip said.
    Between places, while we were in transit, she always went back to the Kennedys. Once settled in atown she picked a nearby rich family. In Philadelphia it had been the Westerfields. She knew the girls went to Emma Willard for boarding school and that they summered in Lions Head, Maine. She knew that their house had six bedrooms and that each bathroom was fitted with delft tile.
    I was sick of the Westerfields as well as the Kennedys. I had to hear about Caroline, how she had christened the USS John F. Kennedy with her mother, Jackie, how she once received a puppy from Khrushchev and was moving schools from Sacred Heart to Brearley. My mother went on reviewing. John-John had spent the summer on a dude ranch. The Onassis yacht had a hot tub and a steam room. Then, as my dad tapped the brakes and took a left turn onto a road lined with freshly planted pine trees, she turned to new information she’d gotten out of the Roanoke World-News . She’d learned that the Vanhoffs were Roanoke’s first family. Mr. Vanhoff was president of Shenandoah Life Insurance Company. His great-grandfather had been governor. The paper said Mr. Vanhoff had hosted the fund-raising golf tournament at the Roanoke Country Club while Mrs. Vanhoff had taken her children to the family’s vacation compound on a private lake in Michigan. There they raised rabbits and took French lessons. While my mother spoke, I bent my fingers up and back so