Becoming the Talbot Sisters Read online

  Budapest, Hungary

  In the gold glow of late October, Budapest looked tired but grand. Charlie watched the city blur past the window of her taxi from the airport, the urban sprawl gradually changing from square, uniform Communist block apartments, ugly and identical in their utilitarian brutalist architectural style, to stately rows of five-story-tall buildings in an Austro-Hungarian design. The old buildings were still beautiful, their soft paint colors and lavish embellishments lending a slightly shabby but elegant air to the city. Charlie leaned her head against the window and smiled with contentment. It was good to be back.

  The city was divided into twenty-three districts that spiraled clockwise in widening circles from the historic center. The mighty Danube River separated the two sections of the city, the older, hilly Buda from the flat, more modern Pest. Near the center of Pest lay the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Districts, and the taxi headed there, dodging its way through the congested traffic.

  There was something noble about Budapest, Charlie reflected, watching the city blocks pass by slowly. It had maintained its dignity through two world wars, multiple bombings, and countless occupations. Each time, the stalwart Hungarians rose up to regroup and rebuild. It was a refined, cosmopolitan European capital with a thriving arts scene and a vibrant café culture, often compared to Paris in the 1930s.

  The taxi headed down the wide korut, the main artery of the city that arced away from the Danube River like a bow from its string. It turned onto Andrássy út, the tree-lined grand boulevard modeled on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, where chic cafés and designer stores like Armani and Burberry surrounded the imposing neo-Renaissance Hungarian Opera House. Another turn onto a side street and they pulled up to a renovated historic five-story building overlooking the leafy-green Liszt Ferenc Tér, a square dedicated to the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt. As the taxi stopped, Charlie noted that this late in the season the cafés on the square were starting to roll up their awnings and put away their outdoor tables. After the frigid winter months, they would reappear with the new buds in spring.

  Although Charlie’s building was technically in the Sixth District, the square it was on butted up to the edge of the seventh, the old Jewish ghetto of Budapest. After World War II the Seventh District had fallen into disrepair, but in recent years it had undergone a revitalization as hipster bookstores and trendy wine bars cozied up to kosher restaurants and the second-largest synagogue in the world.

  Charlie liked the Seventh District with its rough-around-the-edges artistic vibe. She felt more at home there than she did walking along the chic splendor of Andrássy út. There was always something interesting happening in the Seventh, though the district still carried an air of sadness beneath the pulsing beat of the young hipster and tourist crowd . . . the whispered echoes of its former inhabitants who had been shipped off to Auschwitz before the end of World War II, most never to return. The district, like so much of Budapest, carried the weight of its history heavy on its back. It was moving proudly into a bright future, but remnants of tragedy and struggle were everywhere, if you knew where to look.

  Charlie paid the driver and lugged the huge brand-new designer roller that Waverly had insisted on sending with her and her own small carry-on suitcase through the building’s grand entrance hall and past the wide, sweeping stone staircase to the ancient elevator in its black iron cage. The elevator lurched hesitantly to the second floor, and Charlie fumbled with her keys, finally letting herself into her apartment and bolting the tall double wooden doors behind her with a sigh of relief. She was home.

  She kicked off her shoes and donned her house slippers without thinking. In central and eastern Europe, wearing shoes indoors was simply not done. She hadn’t understood it when she had first moved to Budapest until she began to pay attention to the amount of dog urine, cigarette butts, and sticky substances on the sidewalks. Then slippers had seemed like an eminently sensible idea.

  She turned up the heat and prowled through the chilly apartment, taking stock. It was a simple, spacious one bedroom/one bath with a kitchen, living room, and an additional half-size room where she kept her computer and a futon for the guests she never had. The ceilings were high, at least twelve feet, and the floors were wood parquet. It was a typical Hungarian apartment in the city center; the entire space exuded an air of melancholy graciousness from a bygone era. Tall windows looked out onto the square, where a few of the cafés and coffeehouses still had out tables for al fresco dining. In the heat of late summer, she would fall asleep with the windows open to the sounds of clinking wine glasses and cutlery and sometimes, late at night, a Hungarian song or two after guests had imbibed too much egri bikaver, Hungary’s famous “bull’s blood” wine.

  In the tiny kitchen Charlie opened the cupboards filled with standard-issue white IKEA plates, bowls, and cups, and then the diminutive refrigerator, knowing she would find nothing more than a moldy rind of soft cheese and a few wrinkled apples. She was not hungry exactly, but she felt off-kilter, as though she had been thrown across the ocean into a different time and place so quickly her soul had not had time to catch up with her body. She threw the apples and the moldy cheese away. All that was left were a squeeze tube of mayonnaise and a half-full bottle of eros pista. She stared at the spicy Hungarian pepper paste, suddenly feeling queasy. She put her hand over her mouth, surprised, and then bolted to the bathroom to dry-heave into the toilet.

  “Well, that’s unexpected,” she murmured, hunched over the gleaming white porcelain. After a few moments the nausea passed, and she sat up. She wondered what else she could expect. In one way, she was not concerned about the pregnancy. Her body had been created for it. It was a natural process carried out by millions of women. After all, there were seven billion people on the planet and all of them had been in utero at some point. But, Charlie realized, sitting on the cold tile floor, she was woefully unprepared for that natural process to happen to her. It was one thing to see glowing pregnant women on the metro or at the piac, her district’s local fresh fruit and vegetable market. It was quite another to be growing a human being inside of her own body. She wondered what exactly was going on in there, what biological sequence of events was at work without her knowledge or consent. She gently laid her hands on her still-flat abdomen. It seemed surreal that there was a little life growing there. She knew it in her head, had seen the pink lines on the two additional pregnancy tests Waverly had insisted she take. The doctor had confirmed it. But that didn’t make it any more real.

  “Hello,” she said softly, wondering at what age babies could begin to hear in the womb. Amid a dizzying array of pregnancy-related paraphernalia, Waverly had sent a pair of expensive headphones and a compilation of Mozart CDs to help the baby’s brain develop optimally. Charlie had no intention of sitting around with headphones on her stomach, but she realized how little she knew about prenatal development. Maybe the small library of books Waverly had sent was going to be more helpful than she’d thought.

  Charlie hoisted herself off the floor and wiped her face with a damp towel. The woman in the mirror looked haggard, with blue circles under her eyes and dark blond hair gone flat at the back. Charlie frowned at her reflection but didn’t bother to freshen up. In her bedroom she dug through the roller until she felt the hard edge of a book and pulled it out. A Woman’s Complete Guide to Pregnancy. Perfect. She flipped to the index at the back, searching for “morning sickness,” and read the listed section of symptoms, possible causes, and tips for coping with it.

  Remember to keep something in your stomach at all times. Eat small meals to help stabilize your blood sugar. Hmm. She frowned, thinking of the empty shelves of her fridge. First thing to do was buy some groceries. The Klauzal Tér Market Hall was still open. She could walk there in just a few minutes. Her favorite fruit and vegetable vendor, Atilla, always slipped in an extra tangerine or apple free of charge after he weighed her kilos of produce.

  An hour later Charlie arrived back home from the market and tucked he
rself into bed with a carton of Greek yogurt, a bowl of tiny yellow pears, and all the books Waverly had sent. She stared at the table of contents in one for a long moment, not quite sure where to start. Finally, she turned to the section on early pregnancy symptoms.

  Fatigue, nausea, increased sense of smell, dizziness or faintness . . . She stared at the list in astonishment. It wasn’t new information; she’d skimmed an online article on early pregnancy a few weeks before, but it was one thing to read a list in a clinical, purely informational way and quite another to then experience those symptoms word for word. After an hour of reading, Charlie could barely keep her eyes open. She yawned so hard her jaw popped.

  Fatigue: the number one early pregnancy symptom, she read. No kidding. She felt like her arms and legs were made of lead. She dragged herself to the bathroom and brushed her teeth while trying to hold down her gag reflex. Increased gag reflex: early pregnancy symptom number six. With a muffled groan she fell into bed, the lights still on and the bowl of pears half eaten beside her. This is a whole new world, she thought as she slipped into a dreamless sleep.

  When Charlie woke, bright-eyed and feeling refreshed at three in the morning, she abandoned any attempt at sleep and embraced the peculiar energy that accompanied jet lag. It was a sensation she knew well. Some of her most productive times had been in the early hours of the morning a day or so after an international trip.

  Grabbing a bowl of muesli, she decided to unpack. She dispatched her carry-on in a matter of minutes, tipping most of it into the dirty clothes bin in the bathroom. Then she returned to the living room to face the enormous roller stuffed with items Waverly had deemed necessary. Charlie would have chosen to leave most of it behind, but the sisters had struck a compromise of sorts.

  Initially Waverly had pushed for Charlie to remain with Andrew and her until after the birth. “Just until after the baby comes,” she argued as she passed Charlie a white chocolate and cranberry scone and a cup of tea. They were having afternoon tea in the formal living room on Sunday, the day after Charlie learned she was pregnant. “You could take a leave of absence. No one’s going to die from not learning how to properly use a condom for a few months. Sugar?”

  Charlie had stared at Waverly, her hackles rising. While technically true, Waverly’s point was infuriating in its dismissiveness toward her life and work.

  “Waverly, offering to have this baby for you doesn’t mean I intend to put my entire life on hold for nine months. I have a job in Budapest. I’m going back.” Charlie set down her teacup and the warm scone, ready to square off against her sister and fight for her independence.

  Andrew had cleared his throat. “My dear,” he said mildly, stirring milk and sugar into his tea. “Charlie is giving us an enormous gift by carrying this baby, and we should do whatever we can to make this time comfortable for her. If she wants to return to Budapest, I believe we should help her in any way possible.”

  Outnumbered, Waverly huffed her disapproval but relented. Over a second cup of tea and another scone, they agreed that Charlie would stay in Budapest until a month before the birth and then return to Connecticut.

  After giving in to Charlie’s wish to return home, Waverly had thrown herself into equipping her sister for the next nine months. When she was not filming the last of the next season’s episodes for Simply Perfect, she’d been preparing and purchasing for the baby, requisitioning her assistant, Sophie, to devote herself fully to baby research.

  In the end the result had been an enormous, expensive suitcase filled with a mind-boggling amount of paraphernalia, including prenatal vitamins, various herbal teas that were deemed safe for pregnancy, several sets of designer maternity wear, a hefty library of books for pregnant women, some giant elasticized belly-support bands, and a long list of websites and telephone numbers of prenatal experts compiled by Sophie.

  Charlie planned to ignore most of the items, although the designer maternity stretch jeans from Paige Premium looked appealing. She pulled them out of the suitcase and held them up. She wasn’t showing yet, not even a hint of softening in her flat tummy. It would be awhile before she needed them. She quickly unpacked the rest, storing all the baby-related items in her guest room/office.

  From the depths of the suitcase, Charlie pulled out a plastic Kroger bag containing a few things she had selected from Aunt Mae’s home, mementos that reminded her of Aunt Mae and of her childhood. There was Aunt Mae’s red patent leather purse, the one she only used on Sundays. Charlie opened it and found a Methodist church bulletin and a half-eaten roll of wintergreen Lifesavers. She popped a Lifesaver into her mouth and shut the purse, feeling thirteen again. Charlie had loved to see Aunt Mae carry it. She thought it was jaunty, a rare statement piece for a woman who worked too hard to worry much about fashion.

  Next was a set of porcelain salt and pepper shakers in the shape of mushrooms—one bright yellow and one red. They’d graced Aunt Mae’s kitchen table every day since Charlie could remember. She set them on her own simple wood table and resumed unpacking.

  With a fond smile she pulled out her Pound Puppy Ralph, one ear tattered where she’d rubbed the soft fabric every night for years to fall asleep. Farther down in the bag she found the Glo Worm toy she’d used as a night-light and a blue Smurf Pez dispenser.

  She held the Pez dispenser for a moment, struck by a memory. She’d won it at a carnival with her dad on her eighth birthday. Their parents had divvied up the girls on their birthday that year. Waverly and their mother had attended a fancy-dress high tea at a posh downtown hotel. Charlie had begged to go to the carnival instead, and her father had taken her, just the two of them. They’d stayed out well past her bedtime, Charlie giddy under the brightly colored lights, the loud carousel music making her ears ring. She’d fallen into bed after ten p.m., sticky with cotton candy, feeling slightly sick from a caramel apple and a corn dog but euphoric from the evening spent with her father. He’d let her play all the carnival games, and in a lucky turn at ring toss she’d even won a live goldfish in a plastic baggie of water. It died a week later, and she’d been left with only the Pez dispenser. Her dad had won that for her at the balloon and dart toss. He’d been a surgeon with steady hands. She pointed to the one she wanted and he dutifully popped the balloon. He had seemed at that moment like the strongest man in the world.

  Charlie carefully set the Pez dispenser at eye level on the bookshelf in her living room, right in front of Tolstoy and Kafka. Next she shuffled through a couple of Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan CDs she’d found in the dresser she and Waverly had shared. They were still her favorites. She slid one into her laptop and was immediately transported to southern Ohio in 1996 with the first strains of “Hungry Heart.” She let the music play as she finished unpacking.

  Digging down into the bottom of the bag, she pulled out the last item, a beautifully illustrated children’s book with a big gold seal on the front declaring it to be a Caldecott Medal winner. St. George and the Dragon. It had been her favorite as a child. She’d been entranced by the tale of the courageous Red Cross Knight, who slew a dragon, and the good and beautiful Princess Una, whose kingdom was terrorized by the dreadful beast. Charlie had not known as a child that the tale was based on Edmund Spenser’s epic poem The Faerie Queene. She had just liked the story—the brave knight, the beautiful princess, the wise hermit, and the terrible dragon bent on destruction and ultimately vanquished by the knight’s courage.

  In the background Bruce Springsteen was singing about going down to the river, about the harsh reality of life, about disillusionment and the passage of time. Charlie hummed along absently as she flipped through the book, skimming passages of the story and admiring the beautiful illustrations. It was like seeing an old friend again. She smiled as she looked at the pages, feeling equal parts fondness and resignation.

  Once she had wanted to be like St. George, to go into the world a courageous knight, to slay dragons and rescue those in need. She had pretended that she was a knight, fashioning a cardbo
ard sword and shield and slaying an imaginary dragon in the back garden every afternoon for months. It had been youthful idealism, fueled by fairy stories and naiveté. She felt a pang of nostalgia as she looked through the book. Where had that girl gone, the one who had believed she too could go boldly into the world and slay dragons? Time had shown her otherwise, time and harsh experience. She was no knight. She was just a woman, tired and a little jaded, cut down to size by the harsh realities of life. With a small frown of regret she slipped the book onto her bookshelf, wedging it between an Edith Wharton novel and her collection of Hemingway. Best to leave it there where it belonged, in the realm of fiction.

  CHAPTER 8

  The next morning before work, again feeling slightly nauseated, Charlie took the bus to Első Pesti Rétesház, the First Strudel House of Pest, intent on a slice of sour cherry strudel. Considered by some to have the best strudel in the city, the restaurant boasted a variety of fresh strudel and an excellent breakfast offer—coffee, orange juice, and two pieces of strudel for a modest price. It was situated near the magnificent Catholic basilica, Szent István Bazilika, where for two hundred Hungarian forint—less than a dollar—you could view the shrunken, gold-dipped hand of Hungary’s most venerated king, his digits now housed in a small lit-up case in a side room.

  “Jo regelt.” Kinga, the young waitress on duty, called out good morning in Hungarian as Charlie walked in the door. Her eyes lit up when she saw Charlie. “Charlie, I haven’t seen you in a long time.”

  “Hey, Kinga.” Charlie returned the greeting, slipping off her vintage cropped leather jacket. “I was in the States. Just got back.”

  Usually she dropped by the strudel house about once a week, often on a weekend, to enjoy a slice or two of raspberry, cheese, or sour cherry strudel. Over time she’d gotten to know the waitstaff. Kinga was her favorite, a petite hipster with a thick, dark auburn ponytail, chunky yellow glasses, and a pair of black Converse she wore with everything.