The Sisters

Thomasina and Calla were as different from Psyche as hard is from soft. Psyche had grown up wondering what beauty was and if she had a responsibility to it. Thomasina and Calla had grown up thinking that their one task in life was the maintenance of their beauty. That's a lot of work. I know, not because I am beautiful but because I subscribe to five women's fashion magazines, all of which document that being beautiful takes a lot of time and a lot of work throughout the day, all day, and every day. Well, imagine how hard it was to stay beautiful back in Thomasina's and Calla's day, when there were no magazines to tell them what to put on where, and what not to put on there, and why.

Each morning after Psyche's sisters had sunshine brushed into their hair, they had to decide which gowns to wear that day, because they couldn't wear in the afternoon what they had worn in the morning, and—Juno forbid —they certainly couldn't wear in the evening what they had worn in the afternoon or in the morning. Then they had to decide what shoes and jewelry to wear with each gown, and having decided all that, they would change their minds and start all over. Eventually they would settle on what gown to wear and what accessories went with what. Then it was time to put on makeup. That is far too complicated a subject for my male brain. As far as I am concerned, the color red is red. But when my daughter was fourteen, she knew there was plum red, sunrise red, sunset red, autumn red, winter red, spring red, and that was just nail polish. There were a whole bunch of other reds for the lips, and still more reds for the cheeks. It took months of experimentation and practice before a woman understood which red looked best at what time of day and in what season of the year and with what garments. Any man who thinks men are smarter than women needs to have his manhood examined.

Which brings me to the men who married Thomasina and Calla. The story did not give them anything to say, which is why the story did not give them names. But I don't like people wandering around in a story without names, so I'm going to call them Dumb and Dumber.

The only reason they wanted to marry Thomasina and Calla was because they were good to look at. So is chocolate cake, but nobody has ever married one (though there are women I know who if given a choice between a lifetime supply of good chocolate and their husbands would not think twice about telling their husbands to start packing). Dumb and Dumber couldn't think of anything else but how admired they would be for having such beautiful wives. If Dumb and Dumber had come and talked to me, I would have set them straight. A long time ago, between marriages number one and number two—or maybe it was during marriage number four. Well, whenever it was—I had a girlfriend who was glamourlicious. Every man who saw us together envied me. (I don't think women envied her for being with me, but that's neither here nor there.) For about a month, I enjoyed thinking about all the men who wished they were me. But after that, I was hoping one of them would come and take my place. My girlfriend was not interested in talking about anything except how beautiful she looked in this dress and that dress, and did this dress complement her eye color, and did that dress make her look fat? Being married to a glamourlicious woman was tiring. If Dumb and Dumber had talked to me, I would have also told them that one of the biggest problems in a marriage is what you expect of the other and what the other expects of you. The closer each person's expectations come to meeting and shaking hands with each other, the better the marriage is going to be. Unfortunately, Thomasina and Calla and Dumb and Dumber had expectations of each other as different as rocks and water.

Thomasina and Calla expected they would be living in palaces at least as large as the one in which they had grown up, have servants who would do whatever they asked, and that they would devote each day to making themselves beautiful. But when Thomasina and Calla arrived at their respective homes, they knew immediately that they and their husbands were living in different marriages.

Dumb and Dumber lived in large houses, but they were not palaces with paintings of the gods and goddesses on the walls, and gardens in which the shrubbery had been cultivated to look like unicorns and griffins. (And please don't interrupt the story and ask me what a griffin is. To tell the truth, I don't know; but it would not change the story one bit if I did know, so what does it matter?) Thomasina and Calla might have been able to adjust to the fact that their husbands did not live in palaces, but there was another and much bigger problem.

Dumb and Dumber each had only two servants, a man who served them and an old woman who did a poor job of cooking and cleaning. This meant that Thomasina and Calla would have to tend to the mending, washing, and ironing of their many clothes, to mix and prepare their many rouges, powders, and perfumes, as well as to heat and pour the water they required for their many baths each day, And, Juno forbid, they would have to brush their own hair. Well, when they understood the situation, they fainted dead away.

The two sisters lived miles apart, but each knew immediately what had to be done and they did it without hesitating. They sent word to their father of their predicament. The king sent back eight servant girls, four for each daughter. And he also sent word that their younger sister had been taken by a monster. They could not have cared less about what happened to Psyche, but they also knew this: when opportunity knocks, you better open the door. They now had a good excuse to get away from their husbands and go home to be treated like they deserved. So, pretending anguish and concern for their baby sister, Thomasina and Calla took their servants and returned to the palace.

They had expected their return to be met with joy by their parents. But the king and queen were dressed in sackcloth, and mourning what they imagined Psyche's fate to have been. They scarcely noticed that their two older daughters had returned.

High on the list of things that Thomasina and Calla disliked was being ignored. Very quickly they realized there was only one way to get their parents' attention. They did not want to do it, but if they were going to be the center of attention, they had no choice.

"We will go to the mountain where Psyche was to meet the monster, and see if we can learn her fate," Calla announced to the king and queen.

"I've already lost one daughter," the king said. "I don't want to lose the two I have left."

"Don't worry, Father. We will be all right," Thomasina assured him. "Hopefully, when we return, we will have news of Psyche, perhaps good news." Calla looked at Thomasina in amazement at the ease with which Thomasina lied. If Calla had not known better, she would have believed that Thomasina actually cared about Psyche.

The king's mood brightened at the possibility that Psyche might yet live. And off the sisters went, disgusted with their father for his (mistaken as far as they were concerned) love for Psyche, but delighted to be away from their husbands, whom they hoped never to see again.

Chapter end