Just Remember to Breathe (Thompson Sisters)

in?”
    “Seven p.m. And then I gotta catch a cab across the city… it’ll be eight or nine before I get to her place, probably.”
    “You know where you’re going?” he asked.
    “Yeah, I’ve been there.”
    “Dylan. That was two years ago.”
    I shrugged, even though he couldn’t see it. “Some things you never forget, Sherman.”
    “Jesus, you are such a girl, Paris. Whipped.”
    “I am,” I said.
    “Seriously, man. Good luck. Maybe Carrie can help lay some groundwork. I know she’s hoping for you, too.”
    “Thanks, man.”
    “What are friends for? Go get your flight.”
    We hung up, and I looked up impatiently at the information board. Twenty minutes before my flight would begin boarding.
    I’d been to her parents’ house before, of course. The summer after senior year of high school. That time, I’d taken Greyhound, a three-and-a-half-day bus trip all the way across the continent. It was a strange, strange, trip. Seven days on a bus, to spend only four days with her.
    The thing was, even after taking that trip across the country to see her? Even then, I’d still not gone the final distance. I’d not said what I really wanted to say, which was, “Why don’t we go to the same college? Why don’t we think about maybe getting married some day?”
    Of course we were too young. And I was too scared. And I never imagined the twists and turns that my life would take.
    When the flight started boarding, I was nearly first in line.

    A nice young man (Alex)

    This was going to be the dinner from hell , I thought.
    I was sitting on the couch, reading the New York Times on my phone. I should have known better. The headline in the metro section told it all: Columbia University Student arrested for rape. The picture beneath the headline showed Randy Brewer, in a mug shot. His eyes were wide, startled almost, in the photo. Somehow the combination of the circumstances of the photo, his unshaved face and unkempt hair, and the wide eyes made him look crazy.
    Julia and her husband Crank (yes, that’s really his name) were running late, eliciting a spate of critical comments from both of my parents while we waited.
    Carrie and I sat together in the living room while she was busy texting Ray Sherman. Carrie wore a stark and attractive pair of black pants and a rose-red blouse with ruffles. I wore a sleeveless white dress with a light sweater embroidered with roses, and Jessica sat with us, also reading messages on her phone, wearing a nice print dress. We made the very picture of a happy family, all absorbed in our separate electronic devices.
    Sarah, on the other hand, was wearing torn black jeans, a ripped T-shirt sporting the album cover Beyond Redemption by what I think was a death metal band, The Forsaken . Or maybe it was the other way around? Not my normal choice of music, so I wasn’t sure. The picture on the shirt was guaranteed to spark a reaction from my parents: what appeared to be a screaming, bloody skull. She glared at anyone who came close.
    My father hadn’t come out of his office yet, but my mother had passed back and forth between the kitchen and the office several times, each time stopping to tell Sarah to change her clothes before dinner. The response was sullen silence, and no action.
    I’d have been happy to go into the kitchen to help out: my mom looked stressed, and I knew she was crazy busy putting together a dinner for eight. But if one of us were to go into her private reserve, she would completely blow her lid. That’s my mom: a complete martyr, angry at the lack of help, but refusing it when offered.
    The doorbell rang, and the tension snapped. I put away my phone, feeling reprieved.
    “I’ll get it!” shouted both Jessica and Sarah.
    They glared at each other for just a second, then Jessica sat down again, crossing her arms across her chest in a mirror of the look Sarah had worn only moments before. Sarah thumped loudly down the stairs in her combat boots.
    Two minutes later, she trailed my sister Julia and her husband Crank back up the stairs.
    Before you think that Julia was adopted, or kidnapped by aliens as a child, I should tell you that she graduated as Valedictorian of her class at Harvard. Up until the age of twenty-two, she followed the same script the rest of us: the script written by my father and directed by my mother, the script that we rarely deviated from. Carrie was following it by going for her PhD. I was following it by majoring in pre-law at Columbia.