Four Blondes

He didn’t catch the sarcasm. “Yeah, I think it is. Hey,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a gorgeous little sister?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your sister. Patty. You could have fixed me up with her and saved me all this trouble.”

“I think she already has a boyfriend,” Janey said. She moved away. Patty! Everywhere she went, it was Patty and her boyfriend, Digger. Janey hadn’t even thought about Patty for years. But Patty had suddenly materialized. She’d actually been living in New York for five years, but Janey never paid any attention to her and saw her only on holidays at home, and even then it was like they lived in separate cities.

But this year was different.

Janey had never thought that Patty, who was the darling of the family but who had ended up not being a beauty (she was prone to being twenty pounds overweight), would amount to anything, but mysteriously she had. Patty, five years younger than Janey, had moved to New York right after college and started working for VH1 as some kind of assistant. Which, Janey figured, was where she would stay.

But suddenly Patty blossomed. She was now some hot-shit TV producer (New York magazine had put her in a story about up-and-coming young talents), she lost weight, and she had a serious boyfriend—a pallid, sickly looking guy named Digger who everyone was convinced was the next Mick Jagger.

And now Patty and Digger were everywhere—or at least at all of the places Janey seemed to go. She’d walk into a club, and some PR girl would say, “Oh, Janey, your sister is here!” and then lead her up a narrow staircase and lift a velvet rope, and there would be her sister with Digger, lounging in a banquette, smoking cigarettes, and as likely as not wearing sunglasses and the latest East Village fashion; like pants made out of silver foil. “Your sister is waaaaay cool,” the PR girl would whisper.

“Hey,” Patty would say, stubbing out her cigarette.

“Hello,” Janey said. The hello always came out with a slightly hostile edge. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Patty, it was simply that she and Patty never had anything to say to each other. They’d sort of sit there, looking away from each other, and then Janey would blurt out, “Um, how’s Mom?”

“Mom’s a pain in my fucking ass,” Patty would say eagerly, relieved to have something to talk about. “She still calls me once a week and asks me when I’m getting married.”

“She’s given up on me,” Janey would say. The truth was her mother rarely called. She didn’t care about her enough to even bug her about marriage.

And now here was her little sister, Patty, the toast of the town. For the first time in her life, Janey felt old. After all, Patty really was twenty-seven. Her skin was better, but it wasn’t just her outside that was younger: Patty had a freshness about her. Her world was new, and she was enthusiastic about everything. “Guess what?” she said to Janey one night, nearly knocking over her drink in excitement. “I’m going to be in a fashion spread in Vogue! And someone’s asked me—me—to star in this movie they’re making about downtown New York. Isn’t that great?”

Janey didn’t have the heart to tell her it was unlikely that any of it would happen, but she found herself involuntarily pursing her lips in disapproval like an old lady. But if it really was all pie in the sky, then why did Janey feel like she and Patty were on two different planets? And everyone was on Patty’s planet, and not hers?

For months, Janey tried to avoid mentioning Patty’s name, as if she didn’t talk about her maybe she would go away. But she didn’t. Janey spilled it all out to Harold.

“I can’t figure out how it . . . happened,” Janey said, in a tone of voice that was much lighter than what she really felt. “I don’t want to be mean, Harold,” she said, intending to be just that, “but no one paid any attention to Patty after she was sixteen. It was like she was just another adolescent lump.”

“Maybe she didn’t want to compete with you,” Harold said. They were at the gala dinner for the opening of the ballet. The theme was Midwinter Night’s Dream and the floor was awash in sparkle and fake snow.

“She couldn’t compete with me,” Janey said. She reached out and lightly touched the centerpiece, a miniature pine tree spray-painted white and studded with pink roses. “And besides,” she said. “Why would she want to?”

“I think you’re suffering from a case of good old garden-variety jealousy,” Harold said. “You feel like she’s doing something with her life and you’re not. If you would just do something . . .”

“But I have, Harold,” Janey said. “I’ve done a lot . . .”

“Real estate,” Harold said. “Become a realtor. That’s the ticket.”

Janey rolled her eyes. In the last six months, she and Harold had become great friends, which was wonderful because he took her to black-tie dinners, gave her money to pay her rent, and didn’t ask for anything in return. Unfortunately, after Janey told him about Zack and Redmon and Bill, he became determined to help Janey find a new career. This might have been tolerable, but his ideas about what Janey should do for a living were so painfully mundane that she could hardly bear to discuss it.

Two weeks ago, he’d been convinced she should become a paralegal (”You’ve got a good mind, Janey, you should use it”), and the week before that, a tutor for underprivileged kids (”It’ll take your mind off your own problems.” “Yes, but then I couldn’t afford to eat”). This week, it was real estate.

“Can we please discuss Patty?” Janey asked. “I feel like she’s secretly trying to be me.”

“Patty isn’t your problem,” Harold said. “You need to find something rewarding to do. Patty will take care of herself.”

“I’m sure she will,” Janey said softly. “But I couldn’t be a real estate agent either.” She sipped her champagne and looked around the room. They were seated at one of the best tables. A real estate agent! She knew girls who had done that. It was pathetic. It

was one thing to be Janey Wilcox, the model, and quite another to be Janey Wilcox, the real estate agent.

“Why not? It’s the perfect profession for you,” Harold said, picking up his fork. “Who wouldn’t buy a house from you? You could do it in the Hamptons. You know every house out there worth knowing anyway.”

“I’ve certainly stayed in them . . .”

“All you’d have to do is apply yourself a bit and—well, I’d pay for the course. My treat.”