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

birthed another booger lover!”
    But the high proved temporary. Suddenly Olympia felt heat on her forearm, then something foul-smelling. “Hey,” she said. “Are you pooping on me?”
    “I poo-poo,” Noah gurgled proudly.
    The smell was overwhelming and did nothing for Olympia’s hangover. “Sorry, kiddo, the party’s over,” she said, just as quickly doubting her own desire for a second child. “You’re going back to Mommy.” Olympia was about to hand Noah toPerri when she realized she’d be giving her sister yet another reason to lament her Perfect Life. “Or, even better, let’s find Daddy,” she said, changing course. She walked over to where Mike stood, talking to his mother-in-law.
    “In answer to your question, school is excellent, thank you,” Carol was telling him. “We’ve just finished Thucydides’s History of the Peloponnesian War. ”
    “Is that so?” said Mike, eyes glassy.
    “And next semester we’ll be reading excerpts from Sophocles’s Three Plays —as well as Adler’s Aristotle for Everybody. ”
    “Cute title,” said Mike.
    “Speaking of cute,” Olympia cut in. “I’ve got a present for you.” She transferred the child into Mike’s arms. “Someone needs changing.”
    “Dude, have you been adversely affecting the olfactory environment of this house?” asked Mike, seeming both relieved to have an excuse to escape Carol and also genuinely smitten with his younger son.
    “I poo-poo,” Noah said again, clearly pleased with himself.
    “I thought so,” said Mike, turning back to his mother-in-law. “Excuse me, Carol. Noah and I have some business to take care of.”
    With that, the two vacated the room.
    Father and son reappeared five minutes later—to Perri’s pressing question: “Did you remember powder?”
    “Yes, Mommy,” Mike said in a dronelike voice that made Olympia shudder. If marriage was calling the person you had sex with the same name you called your parents, she was glad to have bypassed the institution.
    Mike put Noah down on the floor to play and poured himself another Bloody Mary. Two slugs in, he turned to the wider group and asked, “So, who’s made a New Year’s resolution?” He took another sip. “Myself, I’m thinking of mastering the fine art of cha-cha-cha, having recently perfected the samba.” In a shocking display of Latin dance acumen, he took a step forward, then backward, while swiveling his hips. Then he grinned broadly, one side of his mouth lifted higher than the other.
    “Wow,” said Olympia, mystified. “Have you been taking lessons?”
    “I have indeed,” said Mike. “I’m actually considering a name change to Miguel.”
    Just then, Gus doubled over and began to sob, her shoulders rising and falling like old-fashioned typewriter keys in the middle of a memo.
    Perri rushed to Gus’s aid before Olympia or her mother had a chance to do so. Or maybe Olympia hadn’t actually wanted the chance. Maybe it was easier letting Perri be the family’s anointed caretaker—especially when it came to taking care of Gus. Olympia found her younger sister’s emotional swings to be exhausting. She also found them unfair, insofar as it often seemed as if Gus had co-opted the family’s entire supply of tears, leaving none for anyone else ever to shed. Gus had co-opted the family’s storehouse of anger, too. At least, that was how it had always felt. Indeed, the dominant image of Olympia’s childhood was of herself tiptoeing through the living room in the aftermath of one of Gus’s explosions, as if in danger of stepping on a land mine.
    A nubbly brown arm (Perri’s) draped itself around a holey striped shoulder (Gus’s). “Sweeeetie,” Perri crooned in a saccharine voice. “What’s the matter?”
    “Debbie left me,” wailed Gus.
    “Sweeeeeetie!! I’m so sorry,” said Perri, tucking an overgrown bang around her youngest sister’s multiply pierced ear. “Are you sure you didn’t just have a bad fight?”
    “There was