February 9
9:47 A.M.
"It smells in here, Mom," Jill said, her nose wrinkling at the rancid odor.
Kara coughed. "That it does, Jill. That it does."
Smells like something died in here.
Which wasn't a very comforting thought, seeing as this was Kelly's apartment. Kelly had given her the key years ago, telling Kara to feel free to come visit and stay any time she was in the city.
Kara left the door open. "Wait here," she said.
She left Jill standing in the hallway by their overnight bags while she made a quick round of the rooms. Empty. Good. No one here who shouldn't be here. The odor was strongest in the kitchen. Kara opened the door under the sink and found the cause: rotten leftover Chinese take-out in the garbage sack. She tied the bag closed and brought it out to the hall. She'd throw it away later.
"All clear," she told Jill.
"What was it?"
"Week-old egg foo yung and fried rice, I think."
"Ugh!"
"You said it."
Kara helped Jill off with her coat and shrugged out of her own. She felt uneasy here, like some sort of grave-robber, or a vulture picking at the bones of the dead. But something had to be rotten here besides egg foo yung. Something had gone wrong in her sister's life. Kara wanted to know what.
She stood in the center of the main room and did a slow turn, taking in everything around her.
So ordinary.
Kara found that very ordinariness reassuring, but it didn't answer the questions that had brought her here.
The furniture was a motley assortment of new and good quality used. There were a couple of original watercolors of flower-filled fields on the walls along with a few framed posters from the Metropolitan Museum's Van Gogh in Aries show. A selection of photos of Jill and Mom and Kara herself stood on one of the end tables. The big thick The Art of Walt Disney sat right where it belonged—on the coffee table. Beside it was a stack of nursing journals.
This was the Kelly she knew. Not a swinger, not even a terribly exciting person, but a rock solid, steady, reliable professional who loved nursing and loved the throb and rattle of New York. Sweet and attractive. Although they were identical twins, Kara had always thought of Kelly as the better looking one. She'd had her love affairs, and she'd told Kara all about them when they got together. Once or twice she thought she'd found Mr. Right, but one had turned out to be not-so-Right, and the other, Tom, the most recent, had been keeping a little secret from her: his wife and child on Long Island.
But Kelly seemed to bounce back from those traumas like she bounced back from everything. Kara had often wished she could be as flexible, as resilient as Kelly. Which was probably why Kelly had been able to stay on in New York and Kara hadn't: Kelly could accept the city on its terms, Kara could only accept it on her own.
Which was why Kara lived in Pennsylvania and Kelly lived in New York.
And maybe why Kelly had died in New York.
So why am I in New York now? Kara asked herself.
To find a reason, some sort of hook that would help her understand what had happened. Damn it, she was going to find out why and how Kelly had changed or go half crazy trying. And she was going to tear this place apart in the process.
"When are we going to Aunt Ellen's?" Jill asked.
"Soon, honey. I've just got to look around here for a while, okay?"
Kara found something on the tv for the child to watch, then she headed for the bedroom. She'd start there.
▼
Nothing.
Kara had to admit her twin sister was boring. Not that that was bad. In this case, it was good. But puzzling.
How could a woman who liked New Amsterdam Beer, read Agatha Christie, Ed Gorman and John D. MacDonald, dressed in flannel nightgowns, and was voted Nurse of the Year at St. Vincent's twice in the last five years come to be a legend in the Oak Bar? Her major vice seemed to be Creamette pasta.
Drugs? In the night stand drawer was a prescription bottle from a Dr. Gates labeled: "Halcion 0.25 mg. One tablet at bedtime as needed for sleep." Twenty or so blue ovals rested in the bottom of the amber plastic container. It looked as if Kelly had suffered from insomnia. That might be important, but probably not. The medicine cabinet in the bathroom yielded even less. Midol was the most potent pill there, followed by Tylenol.
As she looked over the collection of lotions and creams and powders and scents lined up in the cabinet, arrayed around the sink, and clustered atop the tank lid of the toilet, Kara shook her head in wonder and dismay.
Look at this!
From Giorgio there was Red Extraordinary Perfumed Body Moisturizer; from Lancome there was Progres, Savon Fraichette, Savon Creme Exfoliante, and Effacil; Sebastian contributed Hi Contrast Gel, Sheen, and Cello-Shampoo; but Chanel had hit the jackpot: Lotion No. 1, Creme No. 1, Fluide No. 1, Creme Exfoliante, Lift Serum Correction Complex, Lotion Vivifiante, Demaquillant Fluide, Huile Pour Le Bain, Poudre Apres Bain De Luxe, Creme Pour Le Corps No. 5, and of course, the indispensable Mask Lumiere. Something called Summer's Eve Feminine Wash—"the intimate cleanser"—sat on the edge of the tub. The drawers were filled with different shades of eyeliner, eye shadow, lipstick, and make-up.
Kara never ceased to be amazed at the gullibility of her sex. It seemed to know no bounds. Even the monstrously cynical and endlessly voracious cosmetics industry, despite decades of unrelenting effort, had yet to find its limits. This collection was proof.
She had long lived with a smoldering anger toward the cosmetics industry for its alluring hype and empty promises of eternal youth and beauty. She had even sold a few articles on the subject—all to feminist magazines, of course. Magazines with no cosmetics advertisers to lose. She had wondered as she was writing them why she bothered. She was, after all, preaching to the converted. But the articles weren't totally useless: they kept her name in print, kept a little cash flowing through her checking account, and gave her credibility as a writer when she'd approached the book publishers. And her articles had been somewhat unique in that her venom hadn't been directed solely at the cosmetics industry. She'd also taken the modern woman to task for allowing herself to be so continually duped.
She was chagrined to see the extent to which her twin had bought into the Big Lie. And bought was the word! This junk must have cost a small fortune!
Kara guessed it was a barometer of how well skilled nurses were being paid these days.
So. There was evidence that Kelly had been moisturizing herself into Nirvana, but nowhere could Kara find a trace of illegal drugs or their paraphernalia—no joints, no unlabeled capsules, no powder-smeared mirrors, no coke spoons, no rolled-up bills, not even a razor blade.
She had ransacked the bedroom, pulled the living room furniture apart, gone through all the cereal boxes and flour canisters in the kitchen.
Nothing.
The closets were racked with Kelly's nurse's uniforms and an array of trendy outfits, some mildly sexy, but nothing blatantly provocative.
She found a couple of well-used but unlabeled videotapes under the tv. She bit her lip, wondered what was on them. Porn? Maybe even Kelly doing… things?
Kara glanced at Jill. She was watching The Price is Right. "Jill?" she said. "Can I use the TV for a couple of minutes?"
"Sure. This is boring. Besides, it exploits women."
Kara had begun raising Jill's consciousness at an early age. Occasionally she wondered if she'd started Jill too young, or perhaps done too good a job. Sometimes Jill was too aware.
"The Price is Right?" Kara said, glancing at the screen where an overweight matron was jumping up and down and clapping her hands. "Do you really think so?"