Linda Gelhert was only into her third hour in Susan Johnson’s house when her older sister decided she would never survive the ten days Linda was planning to stay. It wasn’t that Linda was under foot or bothersome, she wasn’t, quite the contrary, she was precisely her vocation, the ever neat, ever organized, ever quiet, ever dull librarian she had always been. The two sisters had nothing in common, now or ever, but for common parents — and Susan had never been entirely convinced of that. Linda was intellectually, physically and emotionally Susan’s opposite. But the biggest difference between the two was physical. Where Susan was tall, curvaceous and blond, Linda was shorter, very thin and dark, so short, thin and dark that Susan often thought of her sister as a shadow, a say nothing, do nothing, always following shadow. More than anything, Linda Gilhert was irritating, not for being who she was, but because she was nothing, empty, uninteresting and her constant sighs of faux anguish were just the worst of a continuum of irritating behaviour. Beyond these superficial observations it was hard to be more specific, and there was no reason to want to be. Linda Gelhert was a person to be endured and forgotten and Susan knew it when she agreed to let her sister stay with her, for ten days!
Cara was a godsend. Whenever she could, she took her Aunt Linda to the mall, the book stores, for walks and she even took her for a paddle round the pond in the park. But it wasn’t enough. Susan still felt harried and harassed by her younger sister, the shadow, who seemed a spectral figure never far from her side.
Then the subject came up. It was at dinner on the fourth night and it was Cara, natch, who asked the question, “Aunt Linda, why haven’t you ever married?”
The question seemed to surprise Linda so much that it appeared that she had never given the matter a moment’s thought. “Well, I don’t know,” she said, unsure of herself, “perhaps because I’ve never met the right person.”
Despite her mother’s scowl, Cara persisted, “Do you date much?”
“No, almost never,” she said quickly, matter of factly, then she seemed to grow deeper in thought, “in fact, I can’t remember the last date I had. Must have been years ago.” If it bothered her, it sure didn’t show.
“Hard on the sex life,” Cara couldn’t resist the comment. She didn’t look at her mother, but she could feel her angry glower.
“Cara, please.”
“No, it’s all right, Sue, she’s right, it is hard on the sex life,” she seemed almost happy with the observation and she was because it provided the chance to bring up something that was on her mind, something not yet addressed, so she added, “which brings me to something I wanted to ask you about.” Linda took a long drink from her full wine glass, then motioned to Cara for more. “It reminds me of what some guy used to say on one of those comedy programs, ‘you look marvelous!’ Remember it?” Linda took another drink, “Well, Susan, ‘you look marvelous.’ You have changed so much since the last time I saw you, new hair do, new clothes, you’re slimmer, sexier — it can only mean you have a man.”
Susan was about to say something when Cara cut in. “Tell her, mum, tell her about the man you’ve gone out with. He’s a sexologist, Aunt Linda. He took mum in hand, no pun intended, and made her into a new person.” Cara was only teasing, of course, anxious to keep the conversation on an interesting subject, not the ‘what-is-Helen-doing’ type of question that had dominated dinner conversations up to now. Later she wondered why she started the lie, but she would never know, it just came out. “With her new knowledge, she’s helped others, too.”
“Well, I don’t know if you …” But Susan was cut off again.
“Hey, Aunt Linda, I just had an idea, maybe mum could help you! Mum’s good. If you want help, like in getting dates, I’ll bet she can give it to you.”
“Cara, I don’t think I can help anyone …”
Cara waved at her mother as if dismissing not only her comment, but also her presence, “Oh, sure you can. You were helped by that sexologist and I know you have helped others, so the very least you could do is to help your own sister,” then Cara paused for deliberate affect, “That is, if she wants help.”
Susan fell silent, giving the smiling Cara as angry a look as she knew how.
And that was it, until the next evening, an evening after Cara and her Aunt Linda had spent most of the day together.
“Tell her, Aunt Linda.”
Linda was on her second glass of wine but still looked unsure of herself. She turned to Susan, “I want your help.”
Susan’s eyes narrow as she looked at her daughter who seemed to be enjoying herself far too much. “What kind of help?” Susan asked the question cautiously, directed the words more at Cara then at her sister.
But Linda answered, “Sex help. Cara’s right, it’s about time I tried to figure out what the whole sex thing is about. So far, I’ve been a miserable failure. It’s a complete mystery to me, always has been, right from when I was a child.” Then she looked intently at her sister, “If you can help me, Sues, well, God knows I need it.”
Cara’s smile was as wide as Susan had ever seen, “She can help you, Aunt Linda, I know she can.” There was a deliberate child-like innocence to her words, and she smiled at their affect.
“Cara, please.” She could see Cara’s hand in all of this, she could see it, but she couldn’t see how she could stop it.
Cara pressed her advantage, she quickly affected a petulance, knowing her mother had a hard time dealing with it, “Well, you can, you can help Aunt Linda, you can help her like you helped Mrs. Cotteral.”
“Who?” Susan had no idea who her daughter was talking about.
“Mrs. Cotteral, remember?” Then Cara turned to her Aunt and said, “Let me tell you about what mum did for Mrs. Cotteral, it was amazing.” Then, as Susan tried to stop her daughter, then finally fled the room in frustration, Cara recounted precisely how her mother had helped Mrs. Cotteral over-come her debilitating sexual inhibitions — just a few days before.
Aunt Linda was enthralled.
It was the next morning, they were in the hallway after Cara had just left for collage when Linda brought up the subject again. “I’m interested, Susan, I really am interested in what you can do for me. When it comes to sex, I’m a loser, no it’s worse than that, I’m not even in the game, not even in the stands and I didn’t think you were either, I didn’t think any of us were. I thought we all were sexually dead. Am I wrong?”
Susan could see the genuine pain on her sister’s face and took pity on her, “I have learned a little, nothing ah … academic, but maybe it can help, it certainly helped me.”
“Then let’s start. What do I do?”
Susan could see no way out. She knew her sister needed help, that couldn’t be more obvious, she knew her entire family needed help, and if she could help her sister then she had to try, so she asked, “How badly do you want to change?”
“Bad, Sues, bad.” She left no doubt.
