Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
NOW: JUNE
“Daisy,” Sam says, blinking at the two of them. “Iris. Uh. Was I expecting you?”
“We decided it was time to drop by and sort things out,” Daisy says in sunny tones. “We understand that Lucy was upset, but enough is enough, don’t you think?”
At the same moment, raising one eyebrow, Iris demands, “Sorry—do we need to make an appointment? Does Lucy have to make an appointment when she wants to come by? Because it seems like she’s here a lot.”
Sam doesn’t feel good about it—it isn’t brotherly of him—but he’s always hated it when they do this, the simultaneous-speaking, twin-telepathy thing.
They’re not twins, first of all, Luce’s claims of being an emancipated sibling aside.
And, secondly, because their personalities are essentially diametrically opposed to one another, the tonal shift is brutal, and it always gives him a headache trying to figure out which of them to answer first.
He decides to tackle Iris’s questions now, since she actually asked him something.
“No, you don’t need to set an appointment, and neither does Luce.
You’re all welcome here whenever, you know that.
I just didn’t realize you’d be coming by today.
If I’d known, I might have—” Sam manages to choke back, “Steeled myself emotionally for the fight you’re about to have in the middle of my business, and maybe also looked into soundproofing the walk-in so you don’t put everyone off their food,” but only by the skin of his teeth.
He finishes, instead, with, “Prepped you… some lunch?”
“We ate,” Iris says, flat.
“It’s four in the afternoon,” Daisy adds brightly. “So lunch would be a little weird, no?”
“Sure,” Sam says, pinching the bridge of his nose.
He can feel the headache building already, especially when they cast him identical impatient looks.
God, he’s too old to be in the middle of this—they’re all too old for him to be in the middle of this—and he feels abruptly ancient and wizened, as though he’ll crumble to dust in the next heavy breeze. “I’ll… just go get Luce, then?”
“Thanks!” Daisy sings out, as Iris mutters, “Whatever.”
Sam goes to the back, telling himself as he does that he is not fleeing from the specter of his younger sisters.
Luce isn’t in the kitchen or Sam’s office, but he finds her out back sitting with Joey, looking at something on their phone and laughing.
He hates to do it to her when she looks so happy, but:
“I regret to inform you that our sisters are here,” Sam says, and winces when all the blood visibly drains from Luce’s face. “Or, uh, my sisters, I guess, since you’ve decided you don’t want to—”
“What right do they have to come here?” Luce demands. Her voice is shaking. “Kick them out! Tell them they’re not welcome!”
Joey, Sam notes, is glaring at him now, even though they’re usually chill and mild-mannered. It’s all Sam can do not to glare back; it’s not like it’s his fault the two of them showed up.
Still: “It’s. You know. A business? Open to the public? And also… the family business? So, not that I agree with what they’ve done, at all, you know that, but. I don’t know that kicking them out would be—”
“Oh, what good are you,” Luce snarls, and jumps up, stalking into the restaurant without another word. The door slams behind her.
Sam takes a moment to breathe deeply, remind himself that she didn’t mean that. He knows she didn’t mean it. She’s just hurt and upset and scared and young, this is a lot for her, he can’t possibly expect her to—
Joey interrupts his train of thought, their voice sharper than he’s ever heard it. “Seriously, Sam? You couldn’t just tell those little cu—”
“Whatever you’re about to say about my baby sisters,” Sam snaps, his tone harsher than he means it to be, “don’t, all right?
I understand that you’re only interested in one of them, and I think, honestly, that I’ve been pretty chill these last few months!
As you romanced her before my eyes! But if you finish that sentence, Joey, I swear to God I will come down on you like a ton of bricks for all the ‘fifteens’ that are really twenty-fives because you’re out here with your tongue down my sister’s throat—”
“Jesus,” Joey mutters, cutting him off and standing abruptly. “I wish Jake hadn’t written that stupid review. I liked you a lot better with him around.” And then they, too, stalk into the restaurant, leaving Sam, once again, to try to remind himself to take it easy, to see their side.
It’s difficult, just now. Perhaps that’s because of the inherent stress of the moment.
As Sam hears, from outside, voices rising from within Silverman’s, he thinks grimly of the Restaurant Rancidity Index, and wonders if he’ll need to track that chef from the video down and let him know they’ve broken his scale.
It’s difficult to give Joey the benefit of the doubt here because what they said cut deep, struck right at the heart of his own churning, swirling thoughts.
He, too, wishes Jake had not written that stupid review, and not just because it hurt the business, and hurt Sam, and ended things between them before they could even really start up.
If Jake hadn’t written that review, he would still be here, in the deli, right now, and Jake is the sort of person who would know how to handle this situation with the triplets.
Jake would raise his eyebrows and say something cool and collected that would draw the fighting to a halt.
Jake would assess everyone’s positions and come up with a compromise.
Jake would, if nothing else, have it in him to crack a series of jokes, or start humming a cheerful tune while somehow managing to sound sarcastic, or otherwise bleed the tension out of the room.
He wouldn’t be the way Sam always is in situations like this: hopelessly trying to balance everyone’s feelings like a towering stack of dirty dishes, and inevitably sending them all crashing to the floor. He’d be competent. Confident. Helpful.
Abruptly, Sam misses him so much it feels genuinely life-threatening. He’s not sure if he hates himself or Jake more for that, just that it stings and smarts even after he’s pushed past the initial shock of agony and gone back into the deli himself.
The raised voices he could barely hear from outside are, unsurprisingly, quite a bit louder from within.
They are, also unsurprisingly, having more or less exactly the same argument Luce described to him the other day: Daisy and Iris can’t understand what Luce’s problem is, why she won’t just move in with them, and Luce, having stewed with rage for days, is nearly incoherent.
She keeps shouting things like, “Personal autonomy!” and “Didn’t even ask!
” without any of the surrounding context, as though the other parts of her sentences have flounced off in a huff.
Occasionally someone—Sam is almost certain it’s Joey—is throwing in a supportive “Yeah!” or “That’s right!
” after she speaks, though is generally immediately drowned out by the other two.
Taking a deep breath and trying not to think about Jake or how much easier this would be with him to hand, Sam steps into the dining room. He’s not surprised to see it’s hemorrhaging customers; he wouldn’t want to continue eating somewhere where this was happening, either.
The three of them are positioned as though preparing for battle.
Luce is on the employees-only side of the deli counter, running a furious hand through her short, dark, and currently partially purple hair over and over again.
Across from her, Daisy and Iris’s faces are twisted into matching expressions of icy fury.
The two of them have their lighter hair pulled back today, smoothed down and twisted into the sleek knotted buns they’ve both favored since high school, and which Luce, whose hair has their father’s curlier texture, has never been able to pull off.
Sam wonders if they did it on purpose, to make Luce feel the differences between them more acutely, and then feels uncharitable for even considering it.
They’re all standing the same way: arms crossed, shoulders thrown back, feet planted slightly apart, and holding so much tension in their respective necks that Sam thinks he could probably play them like guitar strings.
It’s a familiar position: Mara, Sam remembers in a dizzying wave, had always stood like that when she was furious.
He can practically conjure the image now, even though it’s been years since he’s seen his mother angry.
The last time, barring the accident, was during the Great Yom Kippur Schism, while she and Deb were sniping back and forth at one another about seemingly every grudge they’d ever carried.
Sam’s often wondered if it might have been easier for the two of them, him and his mother, if either one of them was more like Deb, and preferred just fighting things out to avoiding them.
He’s fairly certain that’s why it’s been so long since he’s seen Mara get mad.
He’s had the sense for some time now that she feels too guilty about what happened after the accident to get angry with him, or even in front of him, not that she’s ever managed to admit as much.
Some days he feels good about that, vindicated in his lingering sadness and hurt.
Some days it depresses him so much he can hardly stand to think about it.
Today, watching her posture sketched over his sisters’ shoulders, it makes him want to cry.
“Girls,” he starts, instead of telling them this. It’s how he would have approached an argument between them when they were children, and it’s a mistake; they all turn to glare at him. Wearily, he thinks at least it’s stopped them glaring at each other.