Our Town – February 11, 2016

The Soupster allows a friend to vent about her colorful, frustrating sibling.

Annabella and Adeline – the dueling sisters. If there had been a women’s fencing team while they studied at Our Town high school, the two girls could have comprised the main elements of a perpetual motion machine. Now, even with the whole of the Pacific Ocean as a buffer zone, they’d regularly raise sparks on Skype.

In her mid-thirties, Annabella moved to Sydney, Australia and worked for an Asia Pacific entertainment consortium. She was the one with the personality. Adeline – two years younger – stayed put in Our Town and anchored herself with a house, a husband, a kid, a bookkeeping business and several city advisory committee appointments. She prided herself on her calm, smooth-running household.

Despite these differences, Annabella and Adeline were so closely joined that neither could imagine a world without the giant irritant of the other person. They needed each other like salt needs pepper. And to keep the spicy interchanges going, the sisters spent about an hour a week talking to each other over the video link.

For nearly a year, Adeline’s youngest, Katie, had taken to sitting on her mother’s lap during the Skype sessions. For a time, the two women tried to include the child in their conversations or to censor what they said to spare tender young ears. But the girl was so content to sit quietly at the computer monitor and listen that her mother and aunt soon forgot that she was there.

When Adeline asked young Kate what she thought of her Auntie Annabella, the child said “she’s funny and little.” Annabella felt encouraged every time she heard her niece’s tinkly giggle.

But what made Katie giggle made her mother cross. Over Skype, once a week, Adeline was able to stomach her sister’s larger-than-life personality without much complaint. The die was cast, though, when Annabella announced she was coming home to Our Town for a visit and arrived the following Wednesday.

Little Katie was not prepared for her Aunt Annabella in real life mode. The two sisters locked horns immediately and constantly.

They gave each other awful looks, making Katie put her hands over her eyes. When voices were raised, she put her hands over her ears. Katie said nothing, put her hands over her mouth and ultimately called to mind the statue of the three monkeys on her daddy’s desk.

After one tussle, an exasperated Adeline needed to go for a walk alone to cool off and asked Annabella to watch Katie. Adeline planned to call the Soupster and vent.

“Don’t worry about your mother,” Annabella told Katie after Adeline had left. “She’s been like this since she was your age.” She handed Katie a doll. “Do you like my coming to visit?” she asked.

“I like the little you,” said Katie, taking the doll. “Better than the big you.”

“The little me?” asked Annabella.

“The little you,” said Katie, her exasperation making her appear slightly like her mother. She ran over to the desk and pointed to the computer – “the little you.” She pointed at her aunt – “the big you,” she said, and pointed again to the computer – “the little you.”

“I like the little you way better,” she concluded.