About My Sisters Read Online Free PDF Page B

only reason you’re at all interested in this is because Tony likes it,” Déja says.
    â€œAll men my age like it,” Lavander says and this sets off around-robin cacophony of voices: yes, they do; no, they don’t; it looks good; it looks weird; beauty should come from within; and does Katie wax hairy backs? In the middle of all of this, Déja says, “The only reason Tony likes that look is because he watches so much porn.”
    â€œPorn?” snaps Lavander. “Who said porn?”
    Déja raises her hand and laughs.
    â€œHow do you know he watches porn?” Lavander says.
    â€œYou tol—um, I mean, uh, somebody told me,” Déja finishes lamely, but can’t stop herself from giggling.
    â€œThis guy just keeps getting better and better,” Maya mutters under her breath.
    â€œWho watches porn?” my father says.
    â€œYou watch porn?” Danny asks him, completely confused.
    â€œIt’s okay, Dan, I’d just stay out of this one if I were you,” I tell him.
    â€œYeah, I think I’m going to have some more salad,” Danny says.
    Lavander turns from my father to my brother. “You’re a man,” she says, “what do you think?”
    My brother waits half a beat before throwing propriety to the winds and making an obscene gesture with his tongue. It’s clearly all he can think to do and it’s so ridiculous, so childish, and yet so deeply amusing that every one of his sisters starts laughing uncontrollably. We can’t stop; Lavander with her high-pitched shriek, Maya slapping the table and gasping, Déja with her deep chuckle, and me, silently convulsed. We laugh until each one of us has tears streaming down our cheeks and then we laugh some more. It is the first time I can remember that my brother has made all four of us laugh at the same time and he is clearly both astonished and very pleased with his efforts.
    â€œWe used to fight when we all got together for dinner,” Bo says. “Now we’re talking about porn. What’s happened to us?”
    The laughfest diffuses the tension at the table and soon all the food is gone as well. We break up; Maya to the kitchen to do the dishes (I feel only the slightest twinge of guilt that she has cooked and cleaned—after all, this dinner was her idea), Déja, Danny, and Bo to Blaze’s room, and the rest of us to the living room. This post–dinner hour can also be a little dicey, a time when the angry exits occur if they’re going to happen at all.
    â€œI have an announcement,” Lavander says, settling into the couch. “There is going to be an addition to the family.”
    We stare at her blankly, knowing that she’s not talking about a baby, a news item that could not possibly be announced with such nonchalance.
    â€œI’m getting a dog,” she says.
    â€œDon’t be ridiculous,” my father says immediately.
    â€œSure, a dog, that’s all you need,” my mother adds.
    â€œI know what you’re all going to say,” Lavander cuts in, “because I know how this family is about these kinds of things. But I’m telling you all right now that I’m meeting with a breeder on Tuesday and I’m going to buy a dog. A Jack Russell, I think.”
    My parents are not pet people. In Lavander’s lifetime, we’ve never had so much as a parakeet in the house. What she can’t possibly remember is that, a year before she was born, we had two cats, Marlon and Greta (after Brando and Garbo), and a hamster (Hampstead, after the Heath in London, which is where we were living at the time). Marlon was a wild fat tabby and black Greta liked to perch on the bathtub and scratch anyone who tried to show her any affection. Maya and I both played with the cats, although neither one of them was particularly cuddly, but I adored that hamster. I thought his little face was the cutest, most darling thing in the