The Almost Archer Sisters by Lisa Gabriele

hands.
    “Don’t tell Peachy you found it, okay? I’m not done with it yet.”
    “Sure, Beth. But it’s not real smart reading, is it?”
    She fanned out the pages of the paperback with her thumb, the slight breeze blowing back her bangs.
    “Lou? Know what I wish for sometimes?” she asked, rocking on her hips. He seemed a little heartened. This was the kind of conversation he had always craved, had so wanted to have with her. He once told me he missed those times when we’d absently finger our wet hair while he dried our legs after a bath, the both of us nattering at him about girly things like ponies, the Fonz, unicorns.
    “No, what? Tell me, Beth.” Lou pulled up a stool.
    “Well … I wish—I wish I had a
gorgeous
older brother,” she squealed, holding the sickening book aloft and running back into the kitchen. “I’m kidding, Lou. It’s just a joke!”
    “I wish you had an older brother, too,” Lou yelled.
    He stomped after her into the kitchen, unfurling a finger inches from her shocked face.
    “This must stop. What have I done to deserve this, Beth Ann? How have I made this environment conducive to such frank talk? Jesus Christ, I work long hours. I just want some peace in this house. And I want to see you learn to be kind, for godsakes. Why are you like this?”
    “Lou, calm down,” Beth said, plucking a cigarette from an open pack in the freezer. “We both already read that book.”
    “Smoke that goddamn thing outside. I don’t want me and Peachy to die before our time just ’cause you’re so damn stupid!”
    “Fine. Let’s go, Peachy. Lou’s clearly got his period.”
    She sauntered out of the house, and I looked to Lou for that almost imperceptible nod that said
Go after her
. When she was like this, I did often join her. Not because I took her side. But rather because I was afraid that she’d feel abandoned or unloved, even when her banishment was self-inflicted.
    We walked silently into town, over the tracks, past the high school, past the tavern and into the Starlite Variety. We strode down the toys and notions aisle to get to the cold drinks.
    “Oh my God this place is depressing,” Beth whispered, holdingup a toy soldier whose stern little face was pressed up against a loud plastic bag. “Imagine buying this for your kid? Mom
was
insane.” She tossed the doll onto the bottom shelf, then shoved a bag of Nibs down the front of her jeans. We paid for our pops and left, the glass door tinkling shut behind us. We ate and drank on the swing set until we sensed Lou’s storm was over, the same trip I’d make a year later—a stop at the Starlite before a vigil in the park—when a different drama played out on the Archer Compound.

chapter four
    S AM AND J AKE loved their aunt the way children do when they can sense someone’s not terribly big on them. After Beth dropped her bag on the floor, and exactly twelve hours before she fucked my husband in our pantry, the boys had begun their aggressive preening. I loved how they’d trot out toys and tricks and books, hoping maybe one of those lucky props would do the job of puncturing Beth’s mysterious ambivalence toward them. It was heartbreakingly great of them. And though it troubled Beau, I couldn’t get enough of those parades. Made me root for them.
    “Come here, boys, and let your gorgeous auntie grabble her hairy little monkeys!” Sam and Jake scrambled into her stomach, accidentally banging head-on into the fake boobs.
    “Ow, boys, mind the machinery!”
    Beth had recently replaced the old set of tits Lou accidentally bought her when she graduated. She had told him the moneywould go toward a Vespa to boot around Manhattan. But instead she parlayed the scooter into a stellar set of tits, which had sent Lou into a depressive funk for months.
    “Where’d you pick up this idea that boobs are going to make you happy? How’d you come to think butchering your body’s the thing to do after all these years in this household? You