Ugly Sister
2022; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 130; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/sew.2022.0035
ISSN1934-421X
Autores ResumoUgly Sister Anna Caritj (bio) Alison’s niece, Aya, was going through a puppy phase. She whimpered for food. She barked for attention. She painted her face white every morning, thickly, inexplicably. She’d even been asking to nurse, though she was already four. Alison had been warned, so she pretended not to be surprised when she spotted her howling niece in the terminal of the Esquel airport. She embraced her sister, Valerie. After nearly fifty hours of takeoffs and touchdowns and layovers, it almost felt good to see her. “Look at us.” Val squeezed Alison’s shoulders. “All grown up.” It was supposed to be summer in this hemisphere, but outside there was still snow on the mountains, and the red van that Val had driven all over South America was crusted in salt. Aya pawed the neck of her mother’s shirt as she buckled her in. “I swear I weaned her,” Val said, plucking the little hands from her breasts. “I wanted my body back. I wanted my boobs back.” [End Page 465] Alison grinned against the girl’s high whine. “I guess Aya wants them back too.” “Remember the bras I was wearing the last time I saw you?” Valerie continued. “Each cup was practically a bonnet.” “Uh-huh,” Alison said. “Huge.” The last time they’d been together, Valerie had shown Alison her bra, peeling off her T-shirt and hefting the contraption with both palms. It’d struck Alison as adolescent. Aggressive. Val drove with two fingers on the steering wheel. The road was sometimes paved, sometimes gravel. There were plains in all directions, and the jagged mountains on the horizon never got any closer. Sometimes they passed charred hillsides or abrupt formations of wind-carved clay, but what lay ahead was always the same. Val’s house, she explained, was still another hour away. She’d lived with her husband and daughter in Chubut Province, Argentina, for years now, but this was the first time Alison had visited. After years of delay and dissimulation (on Alison’s part), Val had bought Alison a ticket without even consulting her. Alison was up for partner at her firm in Palo Alto. She was busy. And yet, here she was. The house was on the outskirts of a flat town that looked as if the sky were pressing it down. It gave on to a sweeping view of the plains and mountains, but the house itself seemed to crouch, showing only thick brown walls and a glinting glass facade. “Here we are,” Val singsonged. Outside now, the wind hit Alison. Aya dashed off on all fours, impervious to the cold. Inside, the house smelled of sweetgrass and Play-Doh. “It’s an earthship,” Val explained, pointing out a wall of south-facing windows. “The windows and walls regulate the ambient temperature. Meaning it always feels nice in here.” [End Page 466] Alison pretended interest, following her sister into the kitchen. The house was nice — palatial compared to Alison’s Spartan South Bay apartment. Exposed beams ribbed the ceiling between walls of thick adobe. The floor was burnished concrete. A radiant slab, Val called it, as she boiled water for tea — a picture of civility. Valerie’s husband, Jake, had built the place. Together, they’d started a backcountry fishing company just before Aya’s birth. In the years since, he and Valerie had developed branches in Montana, Kamchatka, and the Bahamas, with plans to expand into Brazil and Iceland. But of all places, Alison thought, they’d chosen to settle here, in the middle of the desert. It seemed an odd place to fish. She had yet to see any water. But Val seemed to know what she was doing. Despite her enlightened exterior — despite the yoga teacher certification and the forays into Reiki and massage therapy — Alison knew her sister could be practical. She was a natural manager, and years of vagabonding had given her an intuitive grasp of the tourism industry. She knew what people wanted. In particular, she knew what men wanted. Valerie filled a thermos with hot water, preparing a strange, dusty tea. She plated a golden-brown cake, recently baked...
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