Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters by Natalie Standiford Page A

Wallace. He wore a sun hat that day, even though it was October, to protect the pink and white skin on his head.
    “Hello, girls! Have a nice tea with your grandma?” he asked.
    Sassy gave Wallace a hug. We all liked him. He didn’t seem to have any idea he was married to a saber-toothed tiger, and that was what was endearing about him.
     
    That night as I lay in bed in my Tower Room, I thought about the Cotillon. I pictured myself in a white dress like a bride, dancing with Daddy-o, then with St. John, and then with Brooks. But every time Brooks spun me around he turned into Robbie.
    You sat in a place of honor at the head table, scowling at the dance floor and telling Robbie the infiltrator to get out of Brooks Overbeck’s way. The music changed from a waltz to the melancholy aria from La Sonnambula as the room grew bigger and bigger and spun around me until I fell asleep.

NINE
    BY THE END OF OCTOBER I ASSUMED THAT ROBBIE WOULD SIT next to me in Speed Reading class. My reading speeds were inching up but not as much as they should have been. I kept getting distracted by the words. I’d see one I liked and would stop to admire it. Robbie was the star of the class. He had the highest numbers every week.
    “Why are you even bothering with this stupid class?” I asked him. “You’re already a speed reader.”
    “I wasn’t before I started,” he said. “And besides, I like my classmates.”
    After class he told me that Katya was in a group show at the Cader Gallery and he was going to the opening party Friday night. “Want to come?”
    “Yes,” I said, and then I started thinking about what I’d said yes to and added, “Wait—I take it back.” Katya had been nice to me that night at Maurice’s, but a lot of Robbie’s other friends were bound to be there too. Including maybe snide Marissa, creepy Josh, and the jealous Charles Theater girl. What if I felt weird there?
    “Too late,” Robbie said. “You said yes. You can’t take it back.” Then he looked at me more carefully. “Why do you want to take it back?”
    “I’m afraid your friends will be mean to me in such a subtle and sophisticated way I’ll barely know they’re doing it,” I confessed.
    “I’ll protect you,” he said.
    “Then I’ll go.”
     
    Jane wanted the Mercedes that night so she dropped me off downtown, and I met Robbie just outside the gallery. It was packed. People spilled out onto the street, laughing and smoking cigarettes. The first person Robbie saw when we walked in was Doyle.
    “Hey—we’re all going over to Carmen’s for dinner after this,” Doyle said. “You guys in?”
    Robbie glanced at me. “Sure,” I said. “Dinner is good.”
    We wandered around looking at the art. Katya’s piece was a video monitor mounted inside an elaborately painted gold frame. The video showed a girl dressed up like the Mona Lisa , sitting still as if posing for a painter.
    “Do you like it?” Robbie asked me.
    “Yes, I do.”
    “It’s so late eighties,” Doyle whispered to us. “But I won’t tell Katya that.”
    We found Katya in the middle of a crowd of her friends and congratulated her. I felt shy. Waiters passed around bottles ofbeer and plastic cups of wine. The room got hot and crowded and stuffy. Robbie said something to me but I couldn’t hear him over the noise, so he shouted whatever it was and I still couldn’t hear him.
    “LET’S STEP OUTSIDE FOR SOME AIR,” he yelled.
    I nodded and we threaded our way through the people. Just as we got to the door, who should come in but Ginger and Daddy-o. They looked out of place yet somehow perfect, Daddy-o in a bow tie and one of his old tweed suits, and Ginger draped in mink and crimson lipstick. It hadn’t occurred to me that they’d be at Katya’s opening, but it should have. Sometimes I forget that the medieval artifacts Daddy-o works with and pieces like Katya’s video are part of the same world.
    “Well, well, look who’s here!” Daddy-o said in his