Dear Irene

Two sounds broke the brief second’s total silence which followed this announcement. One was Frank’s coffee cup clattering onto its saucer, and the other was a rushing noise I heard in my ears. I began to realize that the latter was the sound of my blood boiling.

“Of all the unmitigated gall!” I shouted. “Barbara, who asked you to make any arrangements? Who asked you to talk to Father Hennessey? Who in the hell do you think you are, talking to him about Frank converting when I’ve never even said to you that we would be married in the Church?”

“Not get married in the Church!” she shouted back. She looked between us as if I had just said we planned to go live naked in the woods.

“The point is, my dear sister, that you are once again butting your nose in where it doesn’t belong!”

“I’m your older sister. I have an obligation to take our mother’s place in situations like these! If Mother were alive—”

“Don’t start! If Mother were alive, she’d respect my wishes. But she’s dead, Barbara. She’s been dead for over twenty years. And you won’t ever take her place in any situation!”

“You are being mean and selfish!”

“I’m being selfish. Look at you!”

Our shouting match came to a sudden halt when Frank stood up and looked between us. He shook his head, then walked out of the room. Not much later, I heard him going out the front door.

“Now look what you’ve done,” Barbara said, but I had already decided to honor Frank’s unspoken request — to grow up — so I didn’t rise to the bait. She went on for about another thirty seconds, but conversations with Barbara, like earthquakes and dental appointments, always seem to last longer than they actually do. When she finally wound down, I even managed to hold back the 486 really spectacular comebacks I had been considering, and simply said, “I need to find Frank. You need to go home. We need to talk about this later.”

“What do I tell Father Hennessey?” she whined.

“That there has been a misunderstanding and that I’ll call him if I need him.”To administer Last Rites to my sister, I added silently. Okay, so I was only pretending to have grown up.

“And Bettina Anderson wants to do the flowers! She’s going to be so upset with you.”

“Who the hell is Bettina Anderson?”

“You don’t remember her? You went to high school with her.”

“I’m not just trying to irritate you, Barbara. I swear I didn’t go to high school with anyone named Bettina.”

“Betty Zanowyk.”

“Betty Zanowyk? Lizzy Zanowyk’s sister, maybe? I went to school with Lizzy Zanowyk. What does that have to do with this Bettina person?”

“Bettina Anderson is Elizabeth Zanowyk. Or should that be the other way around? You know her, Irene. She called herself Betty Zanowyk after high school. Lizzy, Betty, and Bettina are all names that come from Elizabeth. She’s been Bettina Anderson for about five years now.”

My head was aching again. “Let me guess. She’s not a Zanowyk because she got married to someone named Anderson?”

“No, she got tired of being a ‘Z.’ She says she was subjected to alphabetic discrimination all her life.”

“Barbara… please, go home.”

“I don’t know if you should marry Frank. It’s not healthy to deal with anger by going off and pouting,” she said.

“Barbara.” I said it very softly, with my teeth closed. She knows that when I say her name like that, she has gone too far. This has been instilled in her since childhood, when she learned about it the hard way. I use it sparingly.

“He isn’t used to us yet, I suppose,” she mumbled.

“What does that mean?”

“We bicker. We fight. But we stick up for each other, too. Don’t you remember? Dad used to say it was because we’re Irish.”

“I don’t know if it’s being Irish,” I said. “But it’s true that Frank’s quiet, for the most part. I can get him to shout, but most people can’t.”

She smiled knowingly. “That’s how you know he loves you. I read about this in a magazine at the place where I get my nails done. If he’s willing to shout when he’s around you, it means he trusts you enough to get angry with you.”

“Well then, Jesus Christ, Barbara, I must trust you to the depths of my soul. Go home. Let me get dressed and go after him.”

She stood up, then asked, “How do you know he didn’t just drive off?”

“His Volvo’s at Banyon’s, he’s too tall for the Karmann Ghia, and I didn’t hear him call for a cab. There’s a beautiful beach about a block away. Where do you suppose he went?”

I FOUND HIM leaning against the railing at the top of the cliff, near the steps that lead from our street down to the beach.

“Sure you want to go through with this wedding, Harriman? Barbara as a sister-in-law? Think it over.”

“She’s not as bad as all that.”

I didn’t reply. Why start another argument?