The September Sisters

by Jillian Cantor

  I took a sip, and I was surprised by how bitter and awful it tasted. But I kept drinking it, and I nodded at the guy who gave it to me, as if to say thanks, I drink this stuff all the time. No biggie. But he wasn’t paying attention to me anymore. He’d already stopped noticing me, forgotten I was there.

  I drank the whole cup, and then, almost immediately, I had to pee. My father was busy talking to the anchorwoman, so I asked the guy who’d given me the coffee where the bathroom was. He pointed down the hall and held his finger to his lips. They were about to go live.

  After I peed, I stood in the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. I always thought that Becky was prettier than me. My hair is a mousy brown and has a frizzy sort of curl to it that never quite straightens, even when my mother used her straightening iron. But it doesn’t curl right either, so it’s just this useless, frizzy mop. My skin is darker than Becky’s, and I don’t have any freckles; my eyes are a dull sort of brown. I smiled at myself in the mirror and pinched my cheeks, trying to give them some color. I ran my fingers through my hair to try to straighten it, but it was no use.

  I left the bathroom, and my father was standing right there. He grabbed me so fiercely that it frightened me. “Jesus, Ab. Don’t wander off like that.”

  I shook him off. “I had to pee.” I knew what he thought, that I had disappeared too. I felt oddly satisfied that I’d frightened him in that way, that for a minute he’d been worried about me.

  It was the first day I’d been out of the house in a while, and I didn’t want it to end, so I was glad that my father said we were stopping at the police station on the way home. The police had become something of a permanent fixture around our neighborhood, but I had never been with my father to the station before.

  “Don’t wander off,” my father said before we even got out of the car.

  The inside of the station wasn’t what I expected, nothing like it is on TV. It was more like an office, a series of cubicles with a receptionist and a small waiting area in the front. Some of the people walking around had police uniforms on, but some didn’t. I was disappointed; I had imagined something exciting—a waiting room full of trash-talking hookers and drunks. But it was nothing like that. It was similar to my father’s office, boring, only I let myself believe that there must be something exciting going on in some hidden interrogation room in the back.

  Harry came out to the front area to meet us. He shook my father’s hand, but as usual he ignored me. It always bothered me the way Harry looked over me to my father. He never asked me how I was doing or if I was looking forward to going back to school, like most of the other adults who’d been hanging around our house. Though I can’t stand when adults baby me like Mrs. Ramirez, I hate it more when they ignore me.

  My father told me to have a seat in one of the waiting chairs, and he and Harry moved toward the row of cubicles to talk. I tried not to listen to what they were saying. Every time I overheard something Harry said to my father, it scared me.

  It’s not that I was clueless. Mrs. Ramirez kept me up on the gossip, and my father told me some of what went on. I already knew that there was a suspect. A few of our neighbors, including Mrs. Ramirez, had seen an unfamiliar blue van parked on the street the day before Becky disappeared. Somebody had seen a suspicious-looking man just sitting in there. We didn’t know what he looked like or who he was, but I had my own image of him, my own theory.

  This man was tall with blond hair, strikingly handsome. He just lost his wife and child in a terrible fire, and when he saw Becky walking down the street, he asked her to be his new daughter. He promised her all the toys that money could buy, a nice house in California. And now Becky was somewhere wonderful, having the time of her life.

  The “evidence” the police had taken from Becky’s room had turned up nothing, except a few drops of blood and my parents’ fingerprints. It could be nothing, Harry had told my father of the blood. It could’ve been from an old cut. This was the last thing I’d overheard Harry tell my father, which was why I was trying not to listen this time.

  But Harry talked loudly, expressively, and I couldn’t help hearing him tell my father that it was “imperative for him to talk to Elaine.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” my father said.

  “Jim, if you don’t get her to come down here to talk to us on her own, we’re going to have to bring her in.”

  My father nodded. I could tell by the way his forehead looked tight, stretched, that he was angry.

  I knew as well as my father did that there was no way my mother was getting out of bed to talk to Harry. I wondered what he meant by “bring her in”; when they said that on TV, they usually arrested someone.

  In the car I asked my father why the police wanted to talk to my mother.

  “Harry wants to ask her some questions, that’s all.”

  My father turned up the radio, his usual cue that he doesn’t want to talk anymore. That was how I knew immediately that he was lying to me. I reached over and turned it back down. “She wouldn’t hurt Becky,” I said.

  “Of course she wouldn’t. That’s crazy.”

  But I could tell by the way my father said it, without even glancing at me, that my mother was a suspect.

  Chapter 4

  IN THE WEEK AFTER my father went on television to announce the reward, nearly 150 people called with “tips” about Becky’s disappearance. Harry promised my father that each tip was being thoroughly examined by the police, but when each one of them led to nothing, my father shook his head in disgust and said, “Jesus, what some people won’t do for money.”

  This week was also the week before school was about to start, and I hadn’t talked to my mother again or heard another word about shopping. I’d had a growth spurt over the summer, and my body shape was so different that most of my clothes didn’t fit anymore. Suddenly I had breasts, and I didn’t even own a bra. In the beginning of the summer, before Becky had disappeared, my mother had mused about the two of us shopping for bras together “soon.”

  But it was my father, not my mother, who, to my dismay, finally noticed that I needed to go shopping. “I set it up with Mrs. Ramirez,” he told me one evening that week. “She can take you to get all the girl things you need.”

  I felt my face turn red, and I hugged my arms around my chest. “I don’t need to go with her,” I said. The thought of bra shopping with smarmy Mrs. Ramirez made me want to die. “You can just drop me off. I can go by myself. “

  My father shook his head.

  “For Christ’s sake, I’m almost thirteen.”

  He grabbed my shoulder. “Watch your mouth, Ab.” We stared at each other fiercely, our eyes locked like two wild animals trying to decide if they should fight to the death. “While you’re there, get some notebooks, pencils, whatever it is you need for school.”

  “Mom wanted to take me. She told me.”

  “Your mother’s not feeling well.”

  “She’s never feeling well. She has two daughters, you know. I’m still here.” It was something I regretted saying out loud as soon as I said it, something so painfully obvious.

  “That’s enough.” He let go suddenly. “Just be good for Mrs. Ramirez.” He went upstairs and left me sitting at the kitchen table all alone, the remnants of our half-eaten McDonald’s on the table.

  “Jesus Christ, I’m not a baby,” I whispered under my breath after he left. “Shit, shit, shit.” It felt good to curse, to say something so harsh out loud. If Becky had been there, she would’ve been laughing. Ha-ha, you have to get a bra with Mrs. Ramee-rez. “Go to hell,” I whispered. “All of you can go to hell.”

  The next morning Mrs. Ramirez showed up promptly at nine. “We go girl shopping,” she said when I got into the car. “Ah-bee-hail, you big woman now.”

  I nodded and looked out the window. I hoped that I wouldn’t see any of my friends at the mall. I hadn’t seen anyone since before Becky disappeared, and I’d talked to Jocelyn only twice. Both times we didn’
t mention Becky. We talked about what was going on on General Hospital, what we wanted to be wearing on the first day of school, and Jocelyn’s birthday. I suspected that Jocelyn’s mother, who was very prim and uptight, had warned her not to mention Becky. The fact that we didn’t talk about her, though, made the conversations awkward. Becky was everywhere.

  About two weeks after Becky disappeared, Jocelyn had a sleepover party for her thirteenth birthday, an event that I normally would’ve helped Jocelyn and her mother plan, to which I would’ve arrived early and left late, but to which this year my father said, “Absolutely not.” Even though I’d told him how unfair he was being, he wouldn’t budge. “You’re sleeping in this house,” he said, “where I can keep an eye on you.” I reminded him that Becky had been sleeping in this house when she disappeared; that got me the rest of the night in my room and not being allowed even to go to the party, much less to sleep over. I hadn’t talked to Jocelyn since the party, but deep down I sensed things were now different between us.

  Mrs. Ramirez parked at Macy’s, a store my mother hates. Usually we parked at Penney’s and shopped there first, but I felt so weird shopping with Mrs. Ramirez that I didn’t want to say anything. I think I’d been in Macy’s only once or twice. My mother says it’s overpriced and that the salesgirls are uppity. Mrs. Ramirez seemed to know the store well because she led me immediately to the lingerie section. “We need to get you measure,” she said, and she started looking around for someone who worked there.

  Jocelyn had told me about this earlier in the summer, about the woman who wrapped the tape measure around your chest and told you what size you were. I thought it was creepy, and I didn’t want anyone touching my chest, especially not in front of Mrs. Ramirez. “It’s okay,” I said. “I know my size.”

  She looked at me with disbelief and shook her head. “Uh-uh. We get you measure.”

  “No, really. They measured me earlier in the summer when I came with my mom.”

  She shook her head and pointed to my chest. “Then where you bra?”

  I felt my face turning red as Mrs. Ramirez stared at my chest. But before I could protest anymore, the salesgirl was there, and Mrs. Ramirez pointed at my chest some more and said, “This her first bra!” excitedly. I wanted to die. I wished that I had been the one to disappear, who was somewhere else, anywhere but here.

  “Thirty-two B,” the salesgirl announced after thoroughly grabbing and pinching me.

  “Oh, good size.” Mrs. Ramirez patted my shoulder. “Not too big, not too small!”

  “Whatever.” I shrugged. I knew if my mother had been there, she would’ve been quiet, subdued. She wouldn’t have embarrassed me; she wouldn’t have commented about the size. She would have just handed me a bra over the dressing room door and smiled.

  “I get the D,” Mrs. Ramirez said. “Too much sometimes.”

  I couldn’t look at her. I didn’t want to hear her talk about her big, jiggly breasts. I don’t know what size bra my mother wears, but I don’t think it’s a D.

  I picked up the first 32B bra that I saw on the rack and told Mrs. Ramirez that was the one I wanted.

  “You try on,” she said.

  I shook my head. “No, this is fine.”

  “No, you have to try on.”

  “I’m not trying it on.” My teeth were clenched, and I was almost yelling. I knew I was practically having a tantrum, but I didn’t care. I didn’t want to get undressed in front of her, didn’t want her to poke and prod and comment about my body.

  “Okay.” She shrugged. “You decision.”

  We paid for the bra, and Mrs. Ramirez asked me what else I needed for school.

  “Nothing,” I lied. “I already got everything else.” I decided that I would rather start school with no clothes and supplies than be subjected to a whole day of Mrs. Ramirez in the mall and the possibility of seeing one of my friends in another store.

  “Okey-doke,” she said. “Have it your way, Ah-bee-hail.”

  When I got home, my mother was sitting out on the patio smoking and talking to Harry Baker and my father. It was the first time I’d seen her out of bed in so long that at first I was excited. But then I began to wonder, What was she doing up and why was she talking to Harry Baker? I wondered if they had found Becky.

  I let myself out on the patio quietly, but my father turned and saw me right away. He gestured for me to go back in the house; I pretended not to understand what he was trying to tell me. I wanted to know what was going on.

  “Abby.” My mother stopped what she was saying to Harry, put her cigarette down, and motioned for me to come sit with her. Suddenly feeling shy, lost, I went.

  “Abigail.” Harry nodded in my direction but didn’t meet my glare. I felt like my mother’s shield, her only protector, so I kept on glaring at him for a minute or so.

  I hugged my mother; she was so bony, much thinner than usual. She’d lost weight spending so much time in bed. I was so happy to hug her, to have her there, that I almost deluded myself into believing that things would be okay again, that life could go back to normal. “Maybe we can go shopping later,” I said to her.

  “We’ll see.” She let go of me to pick up her cigarette, and as she took a long, slow drag, she stared off to nowhere.

  “Ab, Mrs. Ramirez took you shopping already.” My father sounded impatient, annoyed.

  I didn’t want to tell him that I hadn’t gotten everything I needed, and I didn’t have anything else to say, so all I said was: “I know.”

  I heard a steady tapping noise, and I realized the sound was Harry, tapping his ballpoint pen on one of chairs over and over again. “Ab, go watch TV or something,” my father said. “We’ll be in in a few minutes.”

  My mother smashed out her cigarette in the ashtray and coughed. “No.” She held up her hand. “We’re done here.” She stood up. “I don’t have anything else to tell you, Harry.”

  Harry stood up too. “Elaine,” he said. But I noticed he seemed to be looking past my mother, as if he were fixated by the trellis of yellow roses that adorn the side of our fence. I wondered if he was trying to see into Mrs. Ramirez’s yard, if she too was being questioned by the police.

  My mother touched my cheek. “Be good, sweetie.” Then she walked into the house.

  Harry Baker and my father exchanged glances, so I knew something was going on. “What about the man in the blue van? “I asked Harry. “Have you found him yet?”

  “Go inside, Ab. I’ll be in in a minute,” my father said. I felt the need to defend my mother, to tell Harry that she’d been sad long before Becky disappeared. But before I had a chance to say anything, my father added, “Go. Go ahead. What are you waiting for?”

  He came inside a few minutes later, without Harry Baker.

  “Where’s Harry?” I asked.

  “He left.” He paused. “Did you get everything you needed at the mall?”

  “Yes,” I lied. I knew he would be angry if I told him the truth, and worse, he wouldn’t understand.

  “Good.” He started to walk away, toward the stairs—toward my mother, I figured.

  I was dying to ask him what was really going on, why he had wanted me out the house this morning, what exactly had gotten my mother out of bed. “Dad, wait.”

  “What is it, Ab?” He sounded exasperated, wound tight and just about ready to explode.

  “Why did Mr. Baker want to talk to Mom?”

  “Try not to make too much noise down here,” he said. “Your mother is trying to sleep.” Then he went upstairs and left me sitting there all alone.

  Eventually I got sick of watching TV and went upstairs to my room to try on my new bra. It was nearly nighttime, and outside, it was cooling off, but in my room it was still stifling.

  In winter months my room is my sanctuary. It’s painted yellow and has ugly green shag carpeting that has been there since before my parents moved in, but I covered the walls with pictures of actors I like and hung pink and purple crepe paper flowers from the ce
iling. My mother was always promising we would redecorate the room, but somehow we never got around to it. Becky’s room had been the nursery, and it’s painted a pale lilac with a border of little bunny rabbits. Becky complained that she was too old for such a babyish room, but I think she secretly didn’t mind. It was just that if I was having my room redone, she wanted hers done too. I was always proud of the fact that my room was bigger than Becky’s by two whole square feet, but I envied her purple walls and sleek hardwood floors.

  I shut the door, turned the fan on high, and then took off all my clothes and stood in front of the mirror. I was surprised by the look of my body, by the new shape of it. I had actual breasts, and I turned sideways to see how I looked in profile. If Becky were there, she would’ve been laughing at me, but I think deep down she would have been jealous. We both always envied grown-ups—our mother especially—for their sheer grown-up-ness. My breasts would give me a big edge over Becky in that category.

  I took the bra out of the bag and held it up to my chest. It was a plain bra, not like the ones I’d seen in my mother’s room, which were sheer and lacy. This one was white and simple cotton. It had a tiny flowery bow in the center, in between the two cups. I wrapped it around my rib cage, then hooked it and spun it, the way I’d seen my mother do once after we’d gone to the beach and she was getting dressed in the public changing rooms. Then I pulled the straps up and turned to look at myself in the mirror head-on. The bra was a little small, constricting; it squeezed my rib cage funny and made it a little hard to breathe. I shifted it to try to adjust it, but one of my breasts hung out a little at the top. Mrs. Ramirez was right. I should’ve tried it on.

  The next morning I woke up early. My parents were still asleep, and I decided to bring the paper in from the front porch. I had to disarm the security system to do it, but my father must’ve been sound asleep, because for the first time the little beeping noise of the alarm turning off didn’t send him running down the stairs. I wondered if he’d taken one of my mother’ s sleeping pills.