They had retreated to a stuffy side room for the wake with thick spongy carpets and too-cold air-conditioning. They’d served tea and coffee and dry finger sandwiches, none of which would have excited Nicky. She would have wanted one of those cakes you cut open to release rainbow sprinkles, or trays of pastel-colored Magnolia cupcakes, or a white chocolate fountain, something decadent and silly to lighten the mood. The mourners milled around, chatting in somber tones, as Lucky and her sisters huddled in the corner like the three witches of Eastwick. Soon, the clinking of a glass cut through the din and their father shakily got to his feet. There was no alcohol served, so he was holding sparkling water, but they knew he would have had something before to get him through the morning. Blond and blue-eyed, he had always been a handsome man in the style of Frank Sinatra, but Lucky saw his age that day. His cheeks were red and veined and his eyes, once so pellucid, had a cloudy quality. He cleared his throat and looked down at his hand, which was shaking, and placed his glass on the side table next to him.
I wanted to say a few words about Nicky, our angel, our darling girl, he began, looking around the room. Now her mother’s not going to like that I tell you this, but when she was born, I wanted to call her Holly. I got the idea because, a few months before Nicky was born, I read Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
He paused for a laugh that never came.
Most of you probably only know the film with Audrey Hepburn, which is a chick flick, really, it’s not serious stuff.
Can we make it stop? whispered Lucky to Avery.
Not unless you know where to find the fire alarm, she whispered back.
But it’s actually based on a book by Truman Capote, their father continued. Well, not even a full book. What’s it called when it’s longer than a short story but shorter than a regular book?
A novella, Dad! called Avery, clearly exasperated, and a few people did laugh.
Their father raised a shaky hand and pointed at Avery.
See, that’s my eldest for you. Photographic memory. Mind like a steel trap. Don’t cross her, she’ll never forget it. Never forgets, never forgives…He gave Avery a hard look and Lucky’s heart sank. Was he really going to criticize her in front of all these people? At Nicky’s funeral? But, thankfully, he released Avery from his stare and turned back to the assembled guests. Now, where was I? Oh yeah, the nov-ell-a, thank you, Avery. He pronounced the word with a skeptical flourish, as though suggesting she might have made it up. Capote’s story is much darker than the film, much more sinister. She’s essentially a prostitute in the book, though she doesn’t call herself one. A high-class escort if you will.
Lucky could feel herself bending forward as if she could flip herself inside out and somehow disappear.
But she’s charming, you know, charismatic. Holly Golightly. Great name. So, I said to my wife, let’s call her Holly! Here, he affected a high-pitched caricature of their mother’s English accent. After a prostitute, my darling? I should think not! Again, he paused for a laugh that did not come. So, well, we kept looking for a name, and luckily Nicky was almost two weeks late, so we got some extra time. The week before she was born, I read Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald, what I consider to be his greatest book. And there’s a character in that story, Nicole Diver her name is, who starts the novel in a psych ward. She’s very beautiful, but she’s mad, you see, a real mental patient.
He somehow retains this shit, Avery muttered. But none of our birthdays.
Now, I know what you’re thinking, their father continued, smiling to himself at his own joke. First a prostitute, now a madwoman? This guy really must not want another daughter!
Beside Lucky, Bonnie let out a little groan, the first noise she’d made since their father started speaking.
But by the end of the story, Nicole is a different woman. Unlike Fitzgerald’s own wife, Zelda, who died in a fire while locked in a mental institution, Nicole does get better. And by the end of the novel, she’s happy, you see, and she’s free. He looked around the room, making sure each person was listening. And I wanted that for all my daughters, that whatever life threw at them—because one thing I knew was that life would throw things at them—they would survive, and they’d find a way to be happy and free.
The silence deepened in the room, that curious quality of quiet when you can feel the attention from every person present deepen.
Of course, now I think I made a mistake, he said. Maybe if I had named her Holly, things might have been different. Maybe she wouldn’t have— He stopped himself. Lucky thought for a moment he was choking, but he was gasping back tears. Their mother stood up and rushed to his side, but he waved her away. Sit down, he barked, and their mother, chastened, returned to her seat. Go lightly, that’s what I wish for her now. Nicky’s life was made hard, too hard, and I pray that now, wherever she is, that she may go lightly. He swung around and caught Lucky, Bonnie, and Avery in his cloudy blue gaze. And for my remaining daughters, as you live on after this loss, that is what I wish for you. He grabbed shakily for his glass again. So, if you will join me in raising a glass, to our beloved daughter, our precious girl, Nicole Blue. He lifted the drink above his head, tears streaming unchecked down his face. Wherever you are, Nicky, go lightly. Go lightly.
Nicky, go lightly, chanted the mourners. It sounded like a song, Lucky thought, but really it was a prayer. Nicky, go lightly.
—
Lucky was almost to the other side of the bridge. Go lightly, go lightly, go lightly. She repeated the words to herself with each footfall. The city spread before her with no destination in sight. She couldn’t go back uptown in this state, but she had nowhere to go. She stood on Delancey and watched the city rush around her, its oblivious and unbridled business, which stopped for no one. Without even consciously admitting to herself she was doing it, she pulled out her phone and googled AA meetings nearby. She scanned the list, stepping aside for a bike delivery guy hurtling obliviously down the sidewalk, quietly amazed by the sheer volume of meetings happening in the city at any given hour. There was one in the East Village on Twelfth Street that was starting soon. She looked up how long it would take to walk there—twenty minutes it said, but it would be less with Lucky’s long legs—and began heading north.
As she walked, her heart ran. She would just try one, she told herself, not for Avery or Bonnie or her parents or even Nicky, but for herself. She needed to know who she really was. She reached the East Village and passed the address several times before doubling back to find a beat-up metal door covered with stickers and peeling paint. It was just below street level, down a short flight of brick steps. Lucky descended and attempted to push it open, but the door would not budge. She pulled. Nothing. She shook the metal handle and heaved her shoulder against it. Locked. Lucky walked back up the steps, then turned quickly back in case the door magically opened now she had stopped trying. It remained as impenetrable as before. She couldn’t believe it, after she had psyched herself up to come and everything.
“Well, fuck you too,” she mumbled.
A perky-looking woman in neon running gear raced past, did a double take, and slowed to jog on the spot.
“Workshop’s flooded!” she called to Lucky. “Try around the corner on Saint Marks.” She checked her Apple watch. “There should be a meeting starting on the hour.”
“Thanks,” Lucky called after her as the woman set off again at a brisk clip.
Lucky watched her disappear around the corner in perplexed wonder. How many ordinary-looking New Yorkers were secretly sober? She checked the list on her phone and saw the woman was right, there was another meeting just a few blocks away starting in twenty minutes. She walked toward Saint Marks, then, deciding she couldn’t face being early and making small talk, sat on a shady stoop nearby, wishing for a cigarette. Across the street, a couple packed up their convertible car for a weekend trip, kissing briskly as they closed the trunk. On the sun-dappled stoop next to her, a white-haired man combed his golden retriever, releasing tufts of hair like dandelion seeds into the breeze. He caught her eye and smiled. Despite everything, she was happy to be back in New York, the hometown she had not planned on returning to, which somehow always welcomed her back.
Nicky’s funeral had been Lucky’s last day in the city. After the wake finished, their parents had retreated immediately back upstate, unable to bring themselves to enter the apartment again. Without saying it aloud, the sisters felt the same. Avery had quietly paid for the three of them and Chiti to stay in a hotel nearby, a situation they all knew couldn’t last. The night of the funeral, the three of them met in the hotel’s bland restaurant as Chiti slept upstairs. Usually, when all the sisters were together, it was a battle to get a word in, but that night the three of them sat in glum silence. The menu had many variations of hummus on it, which was, incidentally, also the color scheme for the decor, as well as the complexion of the server hovering over them.
I’ll just have a mint tea, said Avery, snapping her menu shut.
Me too, said Bonnie. And…the hummus starter.
Which one? asked the server. We have several.
Bonnie gave him a panicked look. Her right eye was still swollen shut and an angry purple color. Ever since finding Nicky and losing the fight, she had barely managed to speak a full sentence aloud.
I-I don’t know, she stammered.
She’ll have the first one and a side of bread, declared Avery, and Bonnie gave her a grateful look.
I’ll just get a vodka soda, said Lucky. Avery glanced at her and raised her eyebrows. Don’t, Lucky added.
I didn’t say anything, said Avery.
Your eyebrows did.
Avery waved this off.
Oh, you know they have a mind of their own, she said lightly, and the tension was momentarily dispelled.
But, as it dragged on, the meal became unbearable. They didn’t work as the three of them; they were meant to be four, and being together without Nicky only made it worse. Bonnie was the first to crack, admitting that she had decided to take a break from training to go to L.A. Lucky claimed she had to get back to Paris the very next day for an (imaginary) job she simply couldn’t turn down. And Avery, of course, had a life in London with Chiti to return to.
