Read The Guy Not Taken for Free Online Page A

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    My mother had never provided me with a plausible explanation as to why Nicki and I were born a scant eleven monthsapart. “I loved being pregnant,” she told me when I was fourteen and we were jogging side by side in the swimming pool.
    “Ma, nobody likes being pregnant that much.”
    “Well, I did.” She pumped her arms up and down over her head. Her breasts, restrained by her thick-strapped, practical tank suit, heaved in the water, churning up miniature whirlpools. I tried not to look, knowing that mine were doing the exact same thing. “I loved being pregnant, I loved being a mother.” She smiled dreamily. “After you were born I couldn’t wait to have more kids.”
    I kept my mouth shut without observing that there were almost four years between Nicki and Jon. Whatever mother lust she’d had, however she’d enjoyed her pregnancies and her newborns, it seemed that Nicki’s childhood had cured her but good.
    My sister and I shared a bedroom until I left for college, which should have at least given us a shot at friendship. In fact, we were nothing alike. I was quiet, bookish, and so shy I once rode the school bus all the way to the terminal because I couldn’t work up the courage to tell the driver he’d missed my stop. Most of my friends were imaginary. I’d been that way since I was a baby. “You slept through the night at two weeks,” my mother told me. “Instead of giving you midnight feedings, we’d wake you up every two hours to make sure you were still alive. You weren’t really into interaction,” she concluded. “You just liked your mobile a lot.”
    Nicki, in contrast, clawed the mobile off the ceiling before her six-month birthday, and flung herself out of her crib before she turned one. She was into interaction: the more violent, energetic, and potentially painful, the better. Family myth had it that her first word was not “Mommy” or “Daddy” but “gimme.” Our vinyl-covered photo albums show a delicately built girl with long lashes and dimples, usually in motion. The strained,weary expression of whichever parent or relative was in the picture with her told the story better.
    •   •   •
    Nicki and I found our seats in the back of the plane. I fastened my seat belt low and tight around my hips and pulled Madame Bovary out of my backpack. Nicki slapped it out of my hands. “Vacation!” she said, handing me a copy of People. “I can’t wait to see Jon.”
    “And terrorize him,” I muttered, bending to retrieve my book. The passengers in the row ahead of us took their seats: a mother with a flushed, cranky toddler in her arms. The child had a phenomenally wet, deep cough, and within minutes of takeoff Nicki dubbed him the Exorcist Baby. Every time he coughed, she shuddered, then giggled. The mother looked at us with a tired smile. “I bet you’re waiting for something to come flying out of his mouth,” she said.
    “No,” Nicki whispered to me, “I’m actually waiting for his head to spin around.”
    I shoved my book into her hands. “Here,” I said. “Improve yourself.”
    Nicki tucked the book in the seatback pocket and adjusted her snug shirt, then the straps of her overalls. “I don’t need improving,” she said. I sighed and pulled Heart of Darkness out of my backpack. Five pages later, Nicki was slumped on my shoulder, her mouth open, her eyelids a dark fringe against her cheek. When the flight attendant zipped down the aisle, I asked her for a blanket, and when it came, I pulled it around my sister’s shoulders and clicked off the light over her head.
    •   •   •
    Nicki woke up with a start as soon as we’d started our descent, rubbed her eyes briskly, and opened the window shade to peer down at the cars inching along the highway. “Check itout,” she said. “You can see how bad they drive from all the way up here. Also, the stewardess did not offer me the beverage of my choice.”
    “I think we’re supposed to call them