“I haven’t really thought about that.”
“Sounds like you haven’t done a lot of thinking at all,” Nicky says.
Is this why she came out here? To have her sister be the bitch she always was? To confirm something she always knew about family life? That no matter how well intentioned parents are, their kids can grow up to be complete assholes to each other for no real reason other than that they’re not the same? Often, in the years that she’s raised her sons, she’s thought, I’m going to raise them to love each other. And you know, it can happen. It just didn’t happen with her and Nicky.
“Actually I’ve done a lot of thinking,” Sonia says, aware that she’s lying, and that she’s really done more TV-watching and driving and learned how to push thoughts out of her head which turns out to be an amazingly wonderful, even practical, skill, “Just not about the practical things. It’s been nice, not thinking practically. You should try it sometime. Free your mind, you know. When you were in college, you had a little hippie phase. Smoked some weed. Did some free thinking. It might do you some good.”
“Well, I’m not in college anymore. I’m a grownup. You should try that sometime, acting like a grownup.”
“Oh, I tried that. I thought it sucked. I gave it up years ago for Lent.”
“Lent, huh? I thought you abandoned the church in high school? Are you going to church?”
“Yeah, yeah, I go to church. I go to church all the time.” Sonia deadpans. “I go to church all the time, almost everyday. I love church. In fact, that’s one the many things I’ve been thinking about, church. That and other things. I like thinking.”
“Is this about your art again?”
Sonia sighs. “I don’t know.”
“You’ve been thinking about church and you don’t know what else? Just ‘things’?”
“I’m in transition.”
“Haha, isn’t that a term in labor, when you’re about to push?” Nicky is now amused, Sonia sees. First she was baffled and judgmental, now she’s just amused.
“You’re right. I find that quite fitting.”
“Well listen, Sonia, while you sit here thinking about church and things that you don’t know what they are or whatever, I’m going for a run.” Nicky stands up and starts stretching her calves.
“Didn’t you shit yourself once doing that,” Sonia asks.
“I shit myself when I ran an ultramarathon once,” Nicky says defensively. “I’m just going on a ten-miler.”
“Just a ten-miler.”
“Yes, just a ten-miler.”
“How long is an ultramarathon?”
“It was 36 miles.”
“My God, well at least you only shat yourself as opposed to, I don’t know, dying or something.”
“You’re welcome to stay for dinner. I have spare room upstairs if you want to nap.”
“Thanks, Nicky. I’ll think about it,” Sonia says. “That’s very nice of you. I may head back to the hotel. That way I can avoid watching a squirrel get shot.”
“You know, I’m super proud of what a good little hunter Nathan is.”
“I’m sure you are, it just seems sort of unnecessary to kill a rodent for fun.”
“Oh, it’s fun for him but we also eat everything we kill,” Nicky says.
“You eat squirrel?”
“Sure. They’re like chicken, only with less meat, more bones.”
“I find that hard to believe. Can I use your bathroom?” Suddenly, Sonia has to pee in that pregnant way, right now or she’ll pee herself.
Sonia puts a hand in her crotch and jogs to the bathroom and manages to not wet herself. Aaah. As she sits there peeing, she sees one of her mother’s etchings. And she thinks, what’s so bad about being an amateur artist, if it makes you happy? And it probably did make her mother happy. And the etching — of a woman with a child — is actually quite lovely, thinks Sonia. Sonia doesn’t have any of her mother’s etchings. Not one. She bets that Nicky has many. After she wipes herself and flushes, she takes down the framed etching and turns it around, trying to dismantle the frame. She leans the etching on the sink and digs away at the back and manages to free the etching.
“Are you OK in there?” asks Nicky, and Sonia’s face goes hot.
“I’m fine,” she says and adds a cough to hide the noise she’s making.
“What’s that noise? What are you doing?”
“Nothing!” Sonia coughs loudly. “I just have a cough.”
Panicking now, Sonia puts the etching up her shirt, where it curves around her belly. She puts her hand on her belly and exits the bathroom, closing the door quickly behind her, and there is Nicky with her hands on her hips.
“What’s in your shirt?” She’s angry. She reaches for Sonia.
“Nothing! Nothing really,” Sonia lunges away from her sister and Nicky tries again to grab for her. “Well, I’ll just be going now, it was great seeing you,” Sonia says as she jogs for the front door.
Nicky opens the bathroom door and sees the frame on the floor, says “Hey, you can’t take that,” and she starts after Sonia. “Mom made that just for me, after Nathan was born! Get back here, Sonia!”
Sonia is almost at the car now but Nicky’s closing in on her fast. She gets the front door open and Nicky starts grabbing at her and Sonia throws some girly smacks at her.
“Jesus, Sonia, you’re hitting me.”
Sonia gets in and slams the door shut and presses the lock. Through the closed window, she screams, “Bye!” And backs down the drive. She’s pretty sure she didn’t tell Nicky which hotel she was staying at. And anyway, she just won’t open her door. As she drives off, she reaches in and pulls out the etching, somewhat rumpled. She lays it on the passenger seat next to her, stealing glances at it. It is lovely, really lovely.
LATER, AT THE ST. Julien, Sonia sits at the bar in the elegant, grand lobby. A pianist plays classical music. Conversations take place at the carefully placed tables in the center of the room. She orders a steak and decides to not order wine. If she feared at first in Indiana that such a request could lead to her arrest, here she has no idea what to think. The bartender looks like a normal person — dark hair cut short, a good strong build, the classic white shirt and black pants of the waitstaff, but who knows, maybe he rubs urine on himself and eats squirrels. Sonia knows nothing. The steak is brought and she begins devouring it in a not so classy way.
“You look like you’re enjoying that steak,” a man says, sitting two seats away from her, a neat scotch in front of him. He’s sort of red-faced, maybe ten years older than her.
Sonia pats her stomach, “Gotta feed the baby.”
“Is it your first?”
“My third,” Sonia says.
“What brings you to Boulder?” he asks. She likes the way he looks at her. Maybe he has a fetish for very pregnant women. They’re out there, Sonia thinks. It takes all kinds.
“My sister lives here.” Sonia says, with a little bit too much steak in her mouth. She swallows before continuing, “Are you from here?”
“I’m from Denver. I’m here on business.” He swallows his drink and the bartender refills it without him asking. “Real estate. I come here regularly.”
“Well maybe you can explain to me why everyone seems so sporty and healthy and yet they’re also like hippies, racist hippies, who don’t want to pay taxes and …” Sonia turns to him, “Do you eat rodents?”
He laughs, “You sound like you’re from New York.”
“I am from New York,” Sonia says. She shoves the last juicy bit of steak in her mouth and pushes her plate away. “That was a good guess.”
“It wasn’t so difficult, actually,” he says. “Lots of New Yorkers come here.” Sonia looks him in the eye, into his big brown puppy-dog eyes that seem a little glazed. He’s drunk, but good at it. A pro.