Hello Beautiful

Sylvie told Julia she kissed boys to practice for her great love, and that was true. But she also did it because it was fun. She’d waited through her entire childhood, scanning classrooms for her person, her version of Gilbert Blythe from Anne of Green Gables. Sylvie hadn’t found him yet, but she enjoyed the thrill that accompanied a boy taking her in his arms. Sylvie was naturally shy and bookish; she’d blushed when Ernie looked into her eyes. “I’m getting better at kissing,” she told Julia when they returned to the subject at night in their beds. “It’s clearly a learned skill.”

Julia had shaken her head. “People are talking about what you’re doing with those boys. If Mama hears about it…” There was no need to finish this sentence, because they both knew Rose would be furious. And if Sylvie tried to explain that she was practicing for the love of her life, Rose would be bewildered and probably lock Sylvie in her room. Rose had never uttered the word love in front of the girls; they simply knew she loved them because of the furious attention she pinned on them. They also knew, in the same unspoken way, that Rose loved Charlie. It was because she loved him that Rose had been so disappointed by her marriage and why it was essential that her girls grow up strong and educated, able to stand on their own two feet, unbowed by something as tricky and undependable as love.

Julia used to dismiss the idea of love too, but now she was in love with William Waters. Sylvie found it fascinating to watch the person she knew better than anyone succumb to romance. Julia walked through her days smiling, unbothered by things that normally ruffled her: the sight of Charlie pouring a second or third drink; Cecelia sliding into her chair, late for dinner; Emeline playing outside with younger neighborhood kids, when Julia considered her too old to do so. Love had made Julia happier and lighter, but she saw it as part of a well-constructed life, not a reason for living, like Sylvie did.

Julia believed in several direct steps: Education led to a good marriage, which led to a reasonable number of children, to financial security and then real estate. Julia found Sylvie’s behavior in the library distressing because there was a murky abandon implied in allowing boys, plural, to cover Sylvie’s face with kisses, to slide a hand over her sweater and cup her breast, even though Head Librarian Elaine — she insisted everyone address her this way — was only two rows away. “Just date one of them at a time, like a normal person,” Julia pleaded with Sylvie. She wanted her sister to behave in a way that made sense.

“I have no interest in dating,” Sylvie said. “Dating is about getting dressed up and pretending you’re a pretty girl who thinks about nothing but marriage and babies. I don’t think about those things, and it makes me sad to pretend to be something I’m not. Oh—” She propped herself up on her elbow so she could see her sister in the dim light. “I thought of a metaphor today while I was shelving. Imagine that I’m a house, and when I find my great love, I’ll become the entire world. Our love will show me so much more than I’m able to see on my own.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Julia said, but she smiled while she said it, because she was tender inside her own love story and because she wanted Sylvie to be happy, even if Julia thought her dream was nonsensical.

Sylvie wasn’t entirely impractical. She would earn a degree in English literature, which would allow her to understand some of the mystery and beauty and symmetry in the novels she loved and qualify her for a job in teaching or publishing. She would give her mother whatever money she could spare, to make Rose’s life easier. She and her mother didn’t get along well; they picked small fights with each other all day long. Sylvie didn’t like how Rose left used drinking glasses and dishes all over the house; the twins did this too, but Sylvie excused them because they were the babies of the family. Rose would complain that Sylvie didn’t care about her garden, which was true. Sylvie was the only daughter who insisted that all her chores take place inside the house; she went out back only to hang laundry on the multitiered clothesline. When Rose came upon Sylvie reading a book, she made a face and then gave a noisy sigh. This mystified Sylvie — how could her mother disapprove of her reading, when she had been the one to demand that all four girls go to college? Sylvie had observed that her mother and Julia often shared a peaceful silence at the kitchen table. But when Sylvie and her mother were together, the air crackled as if filled with static electricity.