Sisters

Candy was on shoots every day once she got back from Europe. The intervention over her eating disorder had helped a little. She had never been bulimic, she just didn't eat, and was anorexic. But she was doing better, and was on weekly weigh-ins that Sabrina monitored diligently, and called the doctor to check on. They weren't allowed to tell Sabrina what Candy's weight was, but they could say if she had come in to be weighed. And when she skipped it, Tammy and Sabrina raised hell with her. They were keeping a close eye on the problem, and she looked as though she had gained a few pounds, although she was still grossly underweight, which was the nature of her business. She got paid a fortune to look that way. It was a tough battle to win, but at least they weren't losing ground. Her shrink had referred to it as “fashion anorexia” to Sabrina, when they talked about it. She didn't have deep-seated psychological problems about her childhood or womanhood. She just loved the way she looked when she was rail thin, and so did millions of women who read fashion magazines, and the people who put them together. It was cultural, visual, and financial, not psychiatric, which the shrink said was an important factor. But her sisters worried about her health. They had no desire to lose another member of the family, even if she died looking gorgeous, was rich, and was on the cover of Vogue. As Tammy said bluntly, “Fuck that.”

After two months Annie seemed to be doing well at the Parker School, and she and Baxter were fast friends. They got together on weekends sometimes, and talked about art, their opinions, the things they thought were important about it, the work they had seen and loved. She talked to him for hours about the Uffizi in Florence, and instead of being angry now, she said she was grateful to have seen it before she went blind. She never talked about Charlie, he had been a huge disappointment, and she felt betrayed by him still. But not nearly as much as she would have if she had known the truth. Her sisters never said a word about it. And Baxter met a man he liked at a Halloween party he went to in the city. He had gone as a blind person, which Annie told him was disgusting. But the man he was dating seemed nice. He had lunch with Annie and Baxter at the school once, and Annie said he sounded like a good person. It cut into their time together somewhat, but she didn't mind. He was twenty-nine years old, a young fashion designer at a major house, and had gone to Parsons School of Design. He didn't seem to care that Baxter was blind, which was encouraging for him and Annie, and bolstered their spirits. There was life after blindness. Annie still doubted it for herself, but said she didn't care, which no one believed. But she was learning useful things at school.

Sabrina had assigned her to feed the dogs. Mrs. Shibata was incapable of it. She always fed them things that made them sick. She had fed Beulah cat food once, and she'd been at the vet for a week, which cost them a fortune. And she still sneaked seaweed into their diet from time to time. Annie was home more than the others, and came home earlier from school than they did from work, so Sabrina assigned her the task. And Annie was outraged.

“I can't. Anyway, you know I hate dogs!”

“I don't care. Ours need to eat, and no one else has the time. You have nothing else to do after school, except your shrink twice a week. And Mrs. Shibata is going to make them really sick, which costs a fortune at the vet. And you don't hate our dogs. Besides, they love you, so feed them.” Annie had fumed and refused to do it for the first week. It had turned into a major battle with her oldest sister. But finally Annie learned how to use the electric can opener, measure the kibble and put it in the right bowls, which were of different sizes. She grudgingly put their food out when she got home, even with strips of cold cuts for Juanita, who was a picky eater and turned up her nose at the commercial dog food they bought. She made rice for them once when they were sick, after Mrs. Shibata gave them seaweed again, with one of her Japanese pickles as a special treat, which stank up the house. Tammy called them the thousand-year-old pickles. They smelled like they'd been rotten for years, and nearly killed the dogs.

“It is not my job to feed your dogs,” Annie had said huffily. “I don't have one, so why do I have to do it?”

“Because I said so,” Sabrina said finally, and Tammy told her she thought she was being a little tough.

“That's the whole point,” Sabrina confessed. “We can't treat her like an invalid. I think she should do other chores too.” Sabrina sent her to the mailbox with letters to mail as often as possible, and asked her to pick things up at the dry cleaner's down the street, because she was home before it closed, and the others weren't.