The Weird Sisters Read Free Page B

destined to be sisters at birth, and apparently we were destined to be sisters now, when we thought we had put all that behind us.
    While Bean and Cordy were dragging their baggage (literal and metaphorical) across the country, Rose was already safely ensconced in our childhood home. Unlike Bean and Cordy, Rose had never been away for very long. For years she had been in the habit of having dinner with our parents once or twice a week, coming home on Sundays. Someone, after all, had to keep an eye on them. They were getting older, Rose told Bean on the phone, with exactly the right amount of sighing to convey that she felt she was doing Bean and Cordy’s duty as well as her own. And usually her visits to our house for Sunday dinner felt like duty, equal parts frustration and triumph as she reminded our father that he had to mow the lawn before the neighbors complained, as she bustled around the living room putting bookmarks in books left open, their spines straining under the weight, as she reminded our mother that she actually had to open the mail, not just bring it inside. It was a good thing, Rose invariably told herself when she left (with not a little satisfaction on her face) that she was here. Who knows what kind of disarray they’d fall into without her?
    But moving home? At the advanced age of thirty-three? Like, for permanent, as Cordy might say?
    She should have been living in the city with her fiancé, Jonathan, having recently signed her first contract as a tenured professor, waving her engagement ring around wildly whenever she came back to Barnwell just to show that she was, in fact, not just the smart one, that Bean was not the only one who could land a man, and our father was not the only professorial genius in the family. This is how it should have been. This is how it was:

    ACT I
    Setting: Airport interior, and Jonathan’s apartment, just after winter break
    Characters : Jonathan, Rose, travelers
    Rose had changed positions a dozen times as the passengers on Jonathan’s flight came streaming through the airport gates. She was looking for the right position for him to catch her in; the right balance of careless inattention and casual beauty, neither of which would betray how much she had missed him.
    But when he finally did emerge, cresting over the gentle grade of the ramp that led from the gate, when she could see his rumpled hair bobbing above the heads of the other passengers, the graceful way his tall, reedy shoulders were bent forward as though he were walking into an insistent wind, she forgot her artifice and stood, dropping her book by her side and smoothing her clothes and her hair until he was in front of her and she was in his arms, his mouth warm against her own.
    “I missed you,” she said, running her hand down his cheek, marveling at the fact of his presence. Light stubble brushed against her palm as he moved his chin against her touch, catlike. “Don’t ever go away again.”
    He laughed, tipping his head back slightly, and then dropped a kiss on her forehead, shifting his bag over his shoulder to keep it from slipping. “I’ve come back,” he said.
    “Yes, and you are never allowed to leave again,” Rose said. She’d think back on that later and wonder if his expression had changed, but at the time she didn’t notice a thing. She picked up her book and slipped her hand into his as they headed to pick up his luggage.
    “Was it that awful? Your sisters didn’t come home when they got your father’s letter?” He turned to face her so he was standing backward on the escalator, his hands spread over the rails.
    “No, they didn’t come home, and thank heavens, because that would have been even worse. It’s just been me and Mom and Dad.”
    “Lonely?” He turned back and stepped off the escalator, holding his hand out to help her step off. Swoon-worthy, as Cordy would have said.
    “Ugh. I don’t want to talk about it. How was your trip?”
    Jonathan had been gone for two