The Situation: A Radical Journey Thru Sisterhood

forgotten.

Chapter 1, Ojai CA, September 2014

THE SITUATION

B-O-U-N-C-E… I spell that word as a ritual when I first open my eyes in the morning. I stare at the ceiling as I mouth the word. The black ceiling fan slowly rotates, and I say each letter in rhythm with the rotations of the fan blades. If I can spell the word bounce, I don’t have brain cancer yet. This morning it is gloomy outside. The coastal marine layer has traveled twelve miles inland to my front yard. The ceiling fan chills my bedroom, and as I spell, I hunker down deeper into my feather bed.

I am forty-four, almost the same age as my older sister when she is unable to spell bounce while helping her seven-year-old son with his homework. Something is wrong, I think. Carolyn knows everything, the least of which is a simple second grade spelling word. I watch her. Her blonde hair is pulled back into a bun – a look we both often wear on school days when we are rushed bringing the kids to school and activities. Her big blue eyes look more tired than usual, and she’s squinting to see her son Matson’s notebook. She impatiently shifts her body from side to side when I walk over to help Matson. Carolyn’s phone alerts her she has a text message. She answers using voice recognition. I have never seen her use this feature. She sees me watching her voice text and leaves the room.

I look out the kitchen bay window at the calm blue pool surface, remembering that two months earlier Carolyn was showing signs of not being herself. In Paris, I remember her struggling to remember French. She had always spoken fluent French. To think of it, her culinary efforts had, of late, also been small disasters. Two weeks earlier she deferred to me, asking me to cook, on our family trip to Lake Tahoe. This week I have made dinner for all of us on three occasions. This is never the case. She isn’t a fan of my cooking. When I ask her husband, Chris, about her odd behavior, I am told she is under stress---too much stress---that is leaving her frazzled and with little capacity for much more…

An hour after agreeing to go to the school to pick up my ten-year-old daughter, Fliss, because I am delayed at a client’s home, Carolyn forgets. Fliss calls me, crying, and I leave my meeting to retrieve her. Fliss is Carolyn’s mini me. Pulling up to the school and seeing Fliss reminds me of how Carolyn looked at ten. When I get home, Fliss joins Matson at the kitchen island and starts homework. She’s planning a bio-dome, and Matson is excited to see the small animal figures she has gathered to live inside. I find Carolyn. She is in my two-story guest house where she and Chris and Matson are staying while they remodel the home they just purchased across the street. She looks at me and she has a different look to her…a look I will get to know all too well. I also suddenly notice her underpants are over her pants.

It is a hundred and nine degrees in Ojai. Carolyn tells me she has endured a headache for three days. Her pain is so severe, she announces she will not join the family this evening to watch Diamonds are Forever. It was our plan to introduce the Bond movies to the kids. I remember thinking, Carolyn loves action movies. This must be a really bad headache.

I’m really worried about you, I say.

I’m fine. I’m supposed to go to New York tomorrow and sell a very important piece of art…a Phillip Guston. This could be my biggest deal this year. I’m just stressed out, she says. Carolyn often travels to close an art sale. The majority of her clients are high-end fine art collectors and busy career-driven people who have reached the highest levels of success. They don’t have time or fortitude to shop in art galleries. Carolyn caters to her clients, having developed resources over the past twenty-eight years to find rare, desired, blue chip or upcoming investment art. Her clients buy art solely from Carolyn. She is trusted as much as their money managers and lawyers and, in some cases, even more.

I don’t think you are fine. I say. Your underwear is outside of your pants, and you couldn’t spell a simple word earlier when you were helping Matson.

I just need to relax, she says, looking down at her Cosabella lace underwear while tugging on the outer leg elastic. I bend over and yank on each side, eventually moving the lace down her legs while she lifts her feet, freeing herself.

You’ve had a lot with the house and work, but you’re not acting like yourself, Carolyn. You’ve had a headache for three days. I mean, how much Tylenol have you taken? Has it even helped?

Fuck you! she snaps. Stop making me feel like there’s something wrong with me! Fucking stop it!

I want you to go to see a doctor right now. Something is wrong! I say, with younger sister trepidation.

No! I won’t! she shouts. Chris walks into the room. He is an optimistic kind of guy. He even walks this way. Chris is over six feet tall and has blonde hair and blue eyes like Carolyn. They look like they could be siblings or, at the very least, cousins.

What’s going on, babe?

My sister’s making me feel like I have fucking cancer! she yells. She looks like a mad dog. Her blonde bun has fallen out and the elastic band that was holding it barely hangs from a wisp of hair along the nape of her neck. Her eyes glare at me. I back up a step, almost tripping out of my three-inch wedge sandals. Carolyn is always intense and direct, but her sudden exaggerated temper and rough language are alarming.

Chris, I only said her headache is going on and on, and when I walked in, she had her underwear over her pants! I say in desperation.

Chris looks over at the underwear I have set on the end table next to a super-sized bottle of Tylenol.

Babe, why don’t we call Rick and see what he says. I don’t think he’s at the hospital today, and he will let us know what he thinks about your headache. Chris picks up his cell phone to call our doctor friend who works in the ER…

I fucking hate you right now, she says to me. Her words hit me like a knife, and I begin to break down.

I’m sorry, I sob. I’m just really scared. I feel like if I have to punch you to get you in the car to get checked out I will! I’m that fucking worried! Please, Carolyn! Chris steps between us and places his large hands on her shoulders.

Rick says you could be having an embolism or a stroke. It could be a number of things. Safest thing is to check it out. He says not to go all the way to Ventura. They can see what’s up here in Ojai.

Fine! Carolyn says. Fucking fine!

Chapter 2, Los Angeles, 1996

MEN WON’T PROTECT YOU

Carolyn has always sworn she would NEVER get married. She reiterates this often and sends funny things in the mail to me about relationships. My favorite still is a wooden postcard that says in red capital letters - MEN WON’T PROTECT YOU. It sits on my bedroom dresser for years. It makes me laugh and reminds me of her unexpected and sharp sense of humor. I now keep it in my jewelry box. In February of 1996, Carolyn’s life takes an unexpected turn while visiting me in Los Angeles. Living in Minneapolis, she opened a fine art gallery with Kim Montgomery called Montgomery-Glasoe. Minneapolis is thriving due to the concentrated art scene that has begun in the city’s Warehouse District. Carolyn believes that Minnesota artists need to be recognized outside of Minnesota before collectors will pay serious attention to their careers. She visits me in Los Angeles often to be introduced to collectors and to show them the artist work she represents. This trip, an artist she represents, Todd Norsten, has given her a piece of his work to bring to his former college roommate, Chris Bailey. When Carolyn arrives at my apartment, she calls Chris on the phone, arranging a time to hand off the gift from Todd. Carolyn is dressed in her finest art dealer clothes – black Gucci pumps that have thin silver heels that sparkle and capture every ray of reflected light with each step. She wears a glistening sterling Miu Miu pencil skirt and a tight-fitting white blouse that compliments her perfect shapely figure. Carolyn tells me, If you want to sell expensive art to the highest echelon, you want to look as successful as they do. Her wardrobe is off the charts. It is one of life’s perks to be her little sister and be the direct recipient of her discarded clothing from time to time.

It is raining. Carolyn is unfamiliar with Los Angeles, so I offer to drive her to meet Chris. Our meeting place is the Broadway Deli in Santa Monica. Chris invites us to dinner when we arrive. Carolyn quickly accepts. She is beaming. Chris tells us how he met Todd, how he traveled around India after graduation, and how he got his current job at Sony Image Works. He is working on Tom Hanks’ film project called Earth. Carolyn looks impressed and asks Chris many questions about his current project. Carolyn is a master conversationalist. People love to talk about themselves, she tells me. After dinner, we stand outside, waiting for our cars under a red awning. We question if the rain will let up. Chris and Carolyn continue talking. I puff away on my Camel Light cigarette.

Our car arrives first from the valet, and we say goodbye and thank you to Chris. I notice he places his large hand on her lower back as he helps her into the passenger seat of my car. We pull away from the curb, and I notice in my rearview mirror that he is watching us.

God, he is so cute!

Chris? I ask.

Yes, Chris Bailey, whom we just met.

I don’t see it, I answer.

He looks like Andy Anderson. Don’t you think? Andy was a boy at our prep school who was older than Carolyn, but someone she had had a crush on for years. Both are blonde-haired, tall, and have kind blue eyes.

I guess. Yes, he does look like Andy.

When we get home, there is already a message on the machine from Chris, asking if Carolyn wants to go to the Los Angeles County Museum with him the next day. She calls him back immediately with a definite yes. I don’t see Carolyn much during the next week of her stay. She is consumed with her new boyfriend. When it’s right, it’s right, she says. Chris and Carolyn are engaged three months later and married five months from the day they met. When she said she would never get married, she hadn’t met Chris. Her engagement moves her permanently to the west coast and finally close to me.

Chapter 3, Ojai, September 2014

THE TRUE YOU

At the emergency room, Carolyn is unable to answer what year it is or who is president. The doctors take an x-ray that shows a tumor appearing on the left side of her brain. At this point I think they will take it out. Everything will return to normal. This is a road bump. Life has not changed…

Carolyn’s condition worsens. She is given more tests in the nearby larger city, Ventura. It is clear a brain bleed might begin if the doctors don’t immediately operate to remove the tumor. She is admitted to Ventura Community Hospital and surgery is planned. I am aware of the silence at our house. No