Nobody Knows Me At All
It is early morning when Cara's new Motorola cellphone vibrates against her leg. She smiles at her classmate sitting across the table from her, saying Excuse me do you mind? and picks up the call, flipping the phone open, holding it up to her ear. It gives her a special pleasure to do this, it feels very crisp and businesslike, and in the same manner she says Hello, yes? into the phone.
She is immediately unsettled by the voice that says Hello Cara do you know who this is, into her ear. It sounds vaguely familiar, the female voice that is slightly husky and drawling, and she has the feeling the person on the other end will be hurt if she says no I don't know who you are, I'm sorry, am I supposed to? But she only says Well, maybe. Normally hesitation does the trick in these cases.
The person on the other end laughs and says Cara , I'm your sister, you know, Anastasia.
Cara says Oh, into the phone. And then again. The classmate looks up from her mug with the Starbucks logo printed on it, and takes her last sip of the overpriced hot chocolate. A problem? she mouths, concerned. Do you want to go? It's okay, we can always meet up tomorrow, she says.
Cara nods at her classmate, and they abandon their mugs and leave. There is silence on the phone. Cara is not sure if Anastasia has hung up on her, and says, Uh yes hello are you still there? Hesitation seems to be the mood du jour for the day, and she is startled by Anastasia laughing again and saying Yes I'm here, do you want me to call you back?
No no now's a perfectly good time as any, I was just with a friend, Cara says. She is thrown by her older sister, as always. She is not sure whether Anastasia is laughing at her or not, and she waves goodbye to her friend at the traffic junction. She goes one way, her friend goes the other. Cara feels very scared, suddenly. She does not know what she is scared of, it can't be her sister can it? but despite this fear she says Yes so what is it? Has something happened with the family? not sure what she is expecting, but it is not this, this laugh and a, No, nothing, nothing's happened, I just wanted to see you that's all.
Anastasia has never called her for this. Most of the times Anastasia calls, it will be at their mother's bidding, to give awkward contrived sisterly advice on getting a job and advancing in your chosen career and even sometimes relationships with the opposite sex. Their mother is the only thing that connects them, other than fragile connections across satellites, and the knowledge that they actually don't live very far from each other, Singapore being a not-so-large place. Their fathers are vastly different, and Cara has only met her sister's father once or twice when she had been very young. She doesn't know whether she should be jealous, that her sister had the experience of having two fathers. It always seems like she has more, but minimalism is something Cara always ends up falling back on. They have never thought of each other as stepsisters. It seemed very mean; it still does.
It is a surprise, this No nothing's happened. Again there is an awkward silence, that is, on Cara's end. She doesn't know if it is felt by her sister as well, so when she hears Anastasia say, Um look, do you, maybe, should we meet up or something, have lunch and a chat? Are you free? Are you hungry? the undertones of hesitation in her sister's voice comfort her, and she thinks, I am not alone in this hesitation. What she says instead is Yes of course we should, I'm free and I just had a bit of hot chocolate at Starbucks but I'm still hungry, I haven't eaten all day, where are you, where do you want to go?
It is unspoken, but she thinks, Where do we go from here?
Sometimes the questions do not have answers. Cara feels that this is one of those without answers, and it is certainly, unchangeably so.
Lunch is an awkward affair. Anastasia suggests The Marmalade Pantry over the phone, which is a fancy restaurant in a fancy mall that is out of the way, so that Cara has to admit that she does not know where it is. Her sister laughs, and says It's alright just meet me in front of Hilton in ten minutes, we can walk in to Palais Renaissance from there. Cara clears her throat, embarrassed, and says Yes see you there, and she is the one who hangs up, too embarrassed to do her usual thing of waiting on the line, unsure if the other person will hang up or not.
The Marmalade Pantry turns out to be one of those places set in the centre of everything, with an entire four floors' worth of emptiness stretching out above the dining area, and a skylight far above as the ceiling. This is too much space, so that every little sound is amplified and Cara feels unsafe, removed from the windowless walls that so often grace shopping malls. When she accidentally knocks the stainless steel fork into the wine glass full of water, the loud tinkling sound makes her wince, and the other diners look round. Her sister merely glances away, with a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
Cara breathes in and breathes out, calmly, smiling in the manner of an apology, directed to nobody in particular. She wonders how such delicate-looking items can produce such vulgar, harsh sounds, and she realises she does not know. She also realises that she doesn't know how to pronounce some of the fancy items on the fancy menu, and so when the waiter comes to take their orders she picks the first thing she does know how to pronounce, and orders it. It turns out to be pasta. Her sister orders a falafel wrap and two milkshakes.
Cara feels inadequate in her sister's presence, her t-shirt and faded Levi's not measuring up to her sister's starched cotton blouse tucked into a high-waisted skirt. They try and talk, catching up, making an effort at sisterly banter, but there is only one thing that comes close to feeling natural. It is when Anastasia stands up, excusing herself to go to the toilet, and she walks there and walks back and sits down, all very graceful, the echoing sound of her heels on the floor not awkward or out of place at all. When she is at the table again Cara stirs her milkshake with the straw and says idly Do you know the waiter serving us was looking at your legs and generally just you actually, and Anastasia turns around very fast and looks at the waiter, smiles at him, then turns back and leans closer, saying Well you know he's not that bad, rather cute actually, don't you think?
Cara laughs, surprised, realising that her sister is perhaps not so different after all. She says Well yes but you're the one he's looking at. And she is even more surprised when Anastasia lifts an eyebrow and says Well yourself, the guy at the next table has been checking you out too, bet you didn't even notice.
She is not sure if she is more surprised at her sister noticing this, or at the fact that someone is choosing to stare at her and not Anastasia. It is almost as if Anastasia knows what she is thinking, and as they are finishing their food, Anastasia tilts her head, stabbing the last of the falafel wrap with her fork, and says almost confidentially Sometimes I almost think you don't know you're actually rather pretty.
Cara says You are almost as intensely embarrassing as Mom is, and twirls the remaining pasta onto her fork. She composes what she wants to say in her head first so she does not sound stupid, and then she says Being attractive and being pretty are two different things and sometimes people are neither and sometimes people are one but it takes someone special to be both. Her sister looks at her and opens her mouth, but then she hesitates, and closes her mouth again. They look at each other for a while, and Cara thinks that they both know they are the second kind of people. She does not know if her sister wanted to agree or disagree or simply say something to dispel the silence that inevitably follows remarks like those.
Until the bill is settled and they have left the restaurant, Cara is careful not to say anything that is more than a few syllables, and does not look at her sister. It is rare, but she almost feels as if her sister did not know what to do or say, either, at that moment.
They take the bus and walk, back to her sister's apartment, to have a drink, or so it is said. On the bus, they sit next to each other, and Cara thinks of the times when she thought about sharing earphones with her sister, listening to the same music, singing along softly to the same songs, but this is only a thought. When she takes out a book to read her sister does not even look at the jacket to see the title, and they sit in silence for the trip. It feels wrong, this silence, it feels similar to the kind you feel when you are sitting next to someone you are uncomfortable and unfamiliar with.
Cara wonders if she is familiar with her sister. She does not think she is. She wonders if her sister feels that they are familiar with each other, and she does not know. When they get off the bus Cara looks at the pavement when they are walking together, and sees a pair of scuffed Chuck Taylors with half-untied laces striding alongside her sister's high heels, and she feels like they are leagues apart. She avoids stepping on the cracks in the concrete, and looks at the floor when she walks. Anastasia does not care, and she holds her head high and stares over everyone's heads, including her own sister's.
Her sister's apartment is bare, with only a low long table, some pillows, a futon made up to be a bed, and a kitchenette. There is a thick carpet covering most of the floor area, and Cara sits at the table, digging her fingers into the carpet, scrunching the synthetic fur between her fingers. Her sister brings in two tall glasses of apple juice, condensation already forming on the outsides, and Cara uses the tip of her index finger to draw a smiley face on the glass. Her sister does not notice, busy in setting up her laptop on the table and connecting the external battery to a power point in the wall.
They make feeble attempts at conversation, with the subjects being similar to those their mother is always concerned about. Cara thinks, Are we limited to these things, don't we want to know more about each other's lives? And she does not realise that Anastasia is trying to get her attention, until she hears a Hey what's wrong are you alright you look pretty stoned, should I send you home?
Cara says Oh it's nothing, I was just thinking… and her sister says Thinking about what? and so she takes a deep breath and a gamble and says Oh just you know, why we don't ever talk about when you were young and when I was young, and well, we really don't know much about each other, do we?
Anastasia seems taken aback. She runs a hand through her hair, and her fingers skitter across the laptop keys, and then she says Well no I suppose not, why, did you want to know?
Cara replies, I suppose so, don't you?
The sisters look at each other, seeing who will look away first, or perhaps trying to discern what the other is thinking. Then Anastasia breathes in, deeply, and lets the breath out, deciding what to say to her younger sister, who seems to have so many questions that seem not to have the proper concrete answers.
Once, Anastasia says, turning away as if there is something to hide, Once I was so angry at you for doing naughty things you weren't supposed to do. And I couldn't scold you, and you kept laughing at me and covering my mouth with your hands, telling me to shh because Mummy told me not to scold you. And I got so angry, do you know what I did, do you know what I did to you?
Cara looks at her sister's side profile, and looks at her sister's bitten fingernails, and thinks, do I want to know? She wonders if this is what she wanted her sister to say. Whether she was looking for a sudden descent into familiarity, or whether she was looking for confessions.
What she says is No I don't know, why don't you tell me? and waits for her sister's response.
Her sister says, I bit your fingers. Then there is a silence, in which hangs these matter-of-fact words, dropped into empty air like extremely dangerous weapons. Cara looks at her sister and blinks, conscious of the motion of her own eyelids, down, up. Down, up. They feel very heavy.
Her sister blurts the words out into the silence as if they are a confession. As if she needs to justify what she has done. She says, My voice was muffled by your hands, I was so angry, I bit out through my teeth that I would bite your fingers if you didn't stop covering my mouth. You thought it was a game and you laughed and I bit your fingers, but not very hard, and you took them away suddenly but you didn't cry. You looked at your fingers and at the slight indentations my teeth had left on your flesh, and you only said Oww in this small voice, and you looked at me with your eyes wide, like I had done something so horribly wrong, and you didn't know why I had done it.
When this rush of words is over, Cara sees her sister's shoulders slump, as if she is tired. She sighs, audibly. The silence drapes over the two sisters like a blanket, unhindered by the gentle whirr of the air-con. Cara lifts her hand, and touches her sister's arm, barely, the tips of her fingers skimming her sister's skin. The distance from here to there suddenly seems longer than reality would allow.
Cara's sister raises her eyes, and they look straight at each other for what seems like a long while. Cara sees the tears that fall down her sister's cheeks and onto the laptop keyboard, and she knows that her sister is crying, silently, keeping her emotions under a tight, punishing control. Cara knows her sister is crying, but she does not do anything, because she does not know what to do, in the face of her sister's naked yet controlled display of emotion. She does not know whether the tears are for grief or shame or guilt. She does not know what to do, and in that moment, it feels like she really does not know her sister at all.
I know how you feel, no secrets to reveal,
Nobody knows me at all
Very late at night, and in the morning light,
Nobody knows me at all
Nobody knows me, nobody knows me, nobody knows me at all.
(Nobody Knows Me At All-The Weepies)
author's notes: this will probably be part of a set. i'm working on an idea. next piece done in this style and in this universe will probably be called something like "Prom Queen, 1956."
comments on this are greatly appreciated, as i think this piece turned out much less spectacular and arresting than i originally intended it to be.