Farewell, Dorothy Parker Read Online Free PDF Page B

perfect storm of sibling rivalry. By the time she turned five, Violet was running verbal rings around seven-year-old Ivy. Naturally, this infuriated the older sibling, who found every possible excuse to cut her little sister down. Still, Violet worshipped Ivy with an almost fanatical devotion.
    Back then, she was too young to understand the reason for Ivy’s animosity. In fact, Violet was so awed by her sister’s talents that it never occurred to her that Ivy could be jealous. She just assumed everyone recognized that Ivy was the true genius. After all, making clever remarks was easy. But the ability to draw realistic horses and build intricate Lego structures and know right away where the jigsaw puzzle pieces went seemed like a miracle. Violet thought Ivy was a star.
    And so the little sister continued to perform her verbal parlor tricks for the adults while dogging her sister for attention.
    Until the day she went too far.
    The girls were sitting at the kitchen table, doing homework. Ivy was struggling with her spelling, and their mother was trying to help her. Words like “dense” and “fence” were giving her trouble.
    “Spell fence,” their mother said.
    “F-E-N-S-E?” asked Ivy.
    “F-E-N-
C
-E,” their mother corrected. “Now try to use it in a sentence with one of your other words.”
    “She’s too
dense
to spell
fence,
” Violet said, grinning. She expected her mother to roar with laughter, but she just looked at her crossly.
    The next thing Violet knew, she was on the floor. Ivy had tipped over her chair and was standing over her, seething.
    “Why’d you do that?” Violet said, rubbing the spot where the back of her head had hit the hard tile.
    “I hate you!” Ivy said.
    For a moment, Violet couldn’t speak. She just lay there, her eyes filling with tears as she stared into her sister’s angry face.
    “I was just kidding,” she said, but it was too late. Ivy had stormed out of the room. When Violet pounded on her bedroom door to try to apologize, she wouldn’t answer. And the next morning at breakfast, Ivy acted as if Violet were invisible.
    “I’m sorry!” Violet said. “Please talk to me.
Please!
”
    But Ivy was stone-faced, staring at the back of her cereal box as if it were the only thing that mattered. She acted the same way that afternoon and evening. The next day was more of the same. And the next and the next. Ivy had completely stopped talking to her sister, and Violet was in agony. She cried. She pleaded. She apologized. Night after night she lay prostrate outside her sister’s door, wailing and begging. But Ivy was resolute.
    Their parents tried to intervene, but nothing they said or did would get Ivy to talk to her sister, or get Violet to stop her hysterics. She was no longer performing for her parents or even talking to her friends in school. Her existence had become pure misery, as nothing mattered but getting Ivy to speak to her again.
    It was torture, pure torture. And little Violet knew that she had only herself to blame. The misery of self-loathing took root in her tender psyche and began to flourish. She was a horrible girl who had said a horrible thing, and now she was suffering horrible consequences.
    One night, about three months later, as Violet lay in bed, her mother stroked her forehead and told her that if she left Ivy alone, she would come around.
    “She will?” Violet said.
    “I promise.”
    And so that’s what she did. For the next two days, Violet didn’t say a word to Ivy, and barely spoke at all to her parents.
    Then, on the following day, a miracle happened. Violet was rummaging through the kitchen drawers, trying to find the Scotch tape she needed to complete a school project, when she heard a single word: “Here.”
    She looked up and saw her sister holding out her hand, the roll of Scotch tape resting on her palm like a peace offering.
    And that was it. Within days, their relationship was back to normal, except for one thing—Violet promised