The Pretty One: A Novel About Sisters by Lucinda Rosenfeld Page A

omega-three-rich Nova and bagel?” asked Mike, a platter in each hand.
    “I do, thanks,” said Olympia, suddenly ravenous.
    After Mike served Olympia, he moved on to his father-in-law. “And how about you, Bob? I think this everything bagel has your name on it.”
    “Suppose it can’t hurt,” he answered.
    “And anything to drink with that, sir? Coffee? Water? Defrosted orange juice that looks a little too yellow for my taste?”
    “You know, I was just reading that, in certain ancient cultures, the consumption of one’s own urine was considered medicinal,” said Bob. “I believe the term is ‘urophagia.’ Apparently, it’s quite harmless, assuming it’s taken in small amounts and not highly concentrated or laden with bacteria.”
    “Bob, please,” said Carol, making a face.
    “Way to be gross, Grandpa,” said Aiden, who, in this case, spoke for the rest of the now snickering Hellinger clan.
    “You’re very welcome,” said Bob, smiling brightly.
    “I think you mean ‘ Urine welcome,’ ” said Olympia, who, while in her sisters’ company and for unclear reasons, often found her sense of humor reverting to that of her two-year-old self.
    Perri and Gus appeared to have contracted a similar condition. The two of them suddenly burst into laughter so raucous that it nearly propelled them off their chairs. Olympia joined in. The three sisters twisted and gyrated, clutched their stomachsand shrieked. Why couldn’t it always be like this? Olympia wondered and lamented. Why couldn’t they all decide to be little kids again, free of ambition, envy, and anxiety? Or was she rewriting history? Had there never been such a time, not even when they were three, five, and seven and building sand castles on the Delaware coast? No doubt Perri had criticized Olympia for failing to achieve the correct water-to-sand ratio, then gone ahead and constructed a sand-based Versailles. Then the waves had washed the whole thing away. And Gus had found a way to take it personally and burst into tears of indignation—and Olympia had just stood there, wondering what she was supposed to do next.
    Lola was so exhausted by the day’s events that on the train ride back to Brooklyn she fell asleep. Olympia was able to transfer her from lap to stroller to bed without her waking up. With Lola out of the way, Olympia took the opportunity to lavish attention on Clive and feed him a peanut treat. Sometimes she wondered why, in search of a furry low-maintenance pet, she’d gotten a rabbit, not a cat, since rabbits were far harder to house and had shorter life spans too. But having a cat had seemed clichéd, even desperate, in a way that a single woman with a bunny wasn’t. Also, she’d recently learned from a magazine that cats were actually vicious predators who endangered the world’s rare bird populations. So now she could feel righteous, too, about keeping a pet that essentially did nothing all day long but lie on the bathroom floor, twitching its nose, nibbling on carrots, shitting pellets, and looking cute.
    After cracking open a bottle of Pinot Noir, Olympia lit a cigarette (she tried not to smoke, but sometimes she didn’t try hard enough) and called up the Huffington Post. As she inhaledand imbibed, she read a blog post about how the country’s milk supply was being tainted by the use of the bovine growth hormone rBGH. Outraged, she left a lengthy “comment” on the website of the Monsanto Corporation (creator of rBGH and alleged payer-off of the FDA), accusing the powers that be of purposefully giving kids cancer. When had she become such a strident environmentalist? she wondered. Also, when had she become such a hothead? Also, if she cared about the planet, did she have to stop smoking? Did it matter that her cigarettes were made of organic tobacco and additive free? And what if she smoked only two per week? Also, was it criminal that she didn’t always recycle tinfoil and plastic take-out containers—and still loved