The Pretty One: A Novel About Sisters Read Online Free PDF

phone every day fell on deaf ears.) Finally, Gus came into view—in jeans and a filthy oversized anorak with fake fur detailing. Her skunk-dyed pixie-cut hair was in dire need of awash, or maybe just a brush. Olympia found her younger sister’s personal style to be nearly as baffling as her older one’s was. (Why look homeless if you weren’t?) That said, Olympia knew better than to tease her younger sister, whose ability to laugh at herself was basically nonexistent. “What’s up?” she said.
    “Hey,” grumbled Gus. She took off her jacket and tossed it over the back of a leather club chair, revealing a completely shredded lining. But when she turned back to Olympia, an incandescent smile had overtaken her face. “We have a winner,” she announced.
    “And it’s Aaron Krickstein!” The words seemed to come out of Olympia’s mouth of their own accord.
    “Or is it Shlomo Glickstein?”
    For Olympia, the exchange—an ancient greeting ritual whose origins lay in the 1980 U.S. Open, in Forest Hills—encapsulated everything that had once been conspiratorial, even magical, about her relationship with Gus. Seeking further connection, she reached out to embrace her. As was usual in recent years, however, her younger sister recoiled at the gesture. “Ow, you’re hurting me,” she said, slithering out of Olympia’s arms even before they’d made it around her squirrel-like back.
    “Oh—sorry,” said Olympia.
    “It’s fine,” said Gus. “You just fractured my rib cage, that’s all.”
    “I got you a birthday present,” said Olympia, producing a small box wrapped in tissue.
    “Oh, thanks, that was nice of you,” said Gus, who’d turned thirty-six the day after Christmas. She removed the box from Olympia’s hands, then set it down in the corner next to Perri and Mike’s giant potted bird-of-paradise, in no apparent hurry to find out what was inside.
    “Aren’t you going to open it?” asked Olympia, feeling hurt, even though, truth be told, it was a “regift”—skull earrings given to Olympia for her own birthday, a few months before.
    “I will, I will!” said Gus. “Just give me a minute.”
    “ Someone’s feeling crabby today,” said Olympia, suddenly crabby herself. She’d accepted the fact that her younger sister hadn’t given her a real Christmas or birthday present in ten years. (Once a decade, Gus, for whom “consumerism” was apparently a dirty word, would be moved to wrap up some cookbook on her shelf regardless of the peanut butter stains on the cover and knowing full well that Olympia only boiled pasta and microwaved.) But Olympia still expected her younger sister to show a modicum of enthusiasm and appreciation when accepting a gift for herself.
    “I’m not crabby,” Gus replied. “I’m just freezing.” She crossed her arms and rubbed her shoulders.
    “Come sit near the fire,” said Carol, patting the empty seat next to her.
    “Ohmygod, can everyone please stop fussing over me?!”
    “You were the one who said you were cold,” Olympia dared to point out, as much in defense of reason as in defense of their mother who, for once, seemed wholly undeserving of Gus’s impertinence.
    “Did anyone ask you?” Gus shot back.
    Olympia said nothing more. But the question stung. Once, Gus had asked her stuff. If not all the time, then sometimes. Olympia could still recall explaining to her thirteen-year-old sister that the cardboard applicator had to be removed after you inserted a tampon (hence, the shooting pains when Gus had tried to walk). In recent years, however, Gus had treated Olympia less like a sage than a village idiot.
    “Girls, enough,” said Carol.
    “Why don’t I just turn up the heat,” said Perri, ever the peacemaker as she walked over to the thermostat on the wall.
    “Thanks,” muttered Gus. Then she banged her palm against her forehead, and said, “Oh, shiiit! I completely forgot to buy orange juice. I’m really sorry. I could run