The Harper Effect

by Taryn Bashford

  After a silence that’s too long, she adds, ‘I think so.’

  My jigging foot stills. ‘Who? Someone at school?’

  ‘He denies it. But –’ Aria flops back on the sofa, arms crossed over her face. She giggles. ‘We slept together.’

  The floor rushes at me and the world tilts sideways. ‘What? You’ve – had sex?’

  With Jacob?

  She nods. I leap to my feet. If I’d felt like the outsider before –

  ‘When? I can’t believe you didn’t tell me, Aria – something that big in your life. How could you?’ How could Jacob?

  Her face scrunches. ‘I clearly wasn’t going to get your approval.’ She springs off the sofa toward the windows.

  Jagged thoughts pin me to the spot. My heart thumps and churns, wanting out of my ribcage. Does every sister feel this way? Or is it because I’ve known Jacob forever, loved him even – he’s not just some random boyfriend of Aria’s.

  ‘And it’s not like you’re ever here to talk about this stuff,’ she adds.

  I chuck a cushion to the floor. ‘I’m sick of this. It’s not my fault I have to travel. I get lonely too, you know. At least you have family, Jacob, school friends. You get to go to the movies or eat junk or hang out on the beach. I have tennis racquets to cuddle and a moody coach who runs my life.’

  ‘You have Dad all to yourself.’

  ‘You have Jacob all to yourself.’

  ‘Had Jacob.’ Her mouth twists as she runs from the room and takes the stairs in twos, slamming her bedroom door.

  A blast of opera music makes the walls vibrate. I pound my head into a cushion, but my cheek hurts. The music gets louder when a door bangs into a wall.

  ‘What’s your problem, anyway?’ screams Aria, over the banister. ‘Just because you’re lonely in those hotel rooms doesn’t mean you get to be jealous of my boyfriend.’ She slams the door again.

  Ex-boyfriend.

  But I won’t let her have the last word and I pound up the stairs, thrusting at her door and smacking my head into it; she’s locked it. I march into my bedroom where tennis posters cover every wall, through the bathroom which links our rooms, and into Aria’s room. It smells like her – a mash-up of flowers, violin rosin and cake batter. Even though bras lie scattered on the floor among high-heeled shoes, lash curlers and mismatched bikinis, dolls also balance in neat rows along both chests of drawers, the curtains are the same frilly ones she’s had since we turned seven, and framed pictures of ballerinas line the walls. She refused the makeover Mum offered for our twelfth birthdays.

  Aria’s perched on the double bed, a pale pink blanket hanging half-on, half-off the mattress. Her violin is cocked beneath her chin, bow at the ready to accompany the opera music. But she’s not playing, just frozen in that pose, her face contorting.

  A spark of sympathy makes me claw back the words I was about to expel. Instead, I shout over the music: ‘You two had this big secret. Why didn’t you tell me?’

  She slinks off the bed, leans her violin against the drawers, turns the music down. ‘Jacob didn’t tell you either, so go be mad at him.’

  ‘But we’re sisters.’

  Still facing the wall, she hugs herself. ‘I wanted to. But it was never the right time. Or there wasn’t enough time.’

  I recall how years ago we would jump into bed and whisper until the middle of the night, or sneak downstairs for midnight feasts, climbing the Mother Tree in our pyjamas. Those moments stopped because I was exhausted by hours of training and schooling and travelling. Everything’s changed. It’s my fault. I broke us.

  She swivels. We look so alike that my own blotchy features stare back at me. ‘Besides, I’d bet my violin you don’t tell me what’s going on in your head these days, either.’

  A door slams downstairs. ‘Aria? Harper?’

  Aria’s face gusts shut. ‘Is that Jacob?’ she shout-whispers.

  ‘I invited him for pizza. I thought we – I don’t know what I was thinking. I’ll tell him to go.’

  ‘No. I’ve got to get over him. I’ve been trying. I know everyone misses him. Even Mum.’

  ‘He did eat practically every meal here.’ I picture Jacob sitting shirtless at the breakfast table; how I struggle to ignore the way his shorts hang low on his hips. ‘We can always squish pizza in his face if you can’t hack it,’ I say, tentative. Food fights are a common occurrence in our kitchen. Even Mum starts them. I’ll never forget the green bean that hit Dad right on the nose because he kept checking his iPad during dinner.

  Aria turns to switch off the music.

  There’s a rap on the door. But when I open it to find Jacob on the other side I’m overwhelmed by the image of him and Aria kissing – doing it. I gulp against a pinched-up feeling inside and swing away from the newly showered, lemon smell of him, from his tousled wet hair, from his Aria-kissed lips and those eyes that seem to search for something in my face.

  ‘Ready for pizza?’ Aria asks, taking her earrings out and keeping her eyes in the mirror.

  Jacob leans against the doorframe, arms crossed, lazy grin settling in place. ‘Does Mr Greedy need pudding?’

  We traipse into the kitchen and Aria orders pizza for three – Mum and Dad are out. Venus and Adagio paw and yelp at the door. Jacob lets them in and falls to his knees to play. He mashes Venus’s head, pushing his lips into a fish mouth and making kissing noises. He’s a shaggy Old English sheepdog himself – even his hands and feet are too big for his body.

  I fetch bottles of Gatorade and turn on the sports channel. There’s no tennis, so swimming will have to do. Aria decides now’s the time to make another batch of biscuits. While Jacob hovers, sticking his fingers in her mixture, I pretend I’m into the swimming results until the pizza arrives and Jacob turns off the TV. He slips the remote into his pocket.

  ‘You’re being antisocial,’ he proclaims, then balances on the back legs of the kitchen chair, telling jokes and stories about school and flicking peanuts at us. He glows again, as if there’s a sun inside him.

  He doesn’t appear to notice we’re not back to normal; we’re not the easy going Ragamuffins. Aria and I steal glimpses at each other, smiles fixed in place. We shower Jacob with attention, but remain reserved with each other. Everything is still unresolved and I don’t know what to do about it.

  When there are two pizza slices left, Jacob clutches his stomach. ‘The tunnel to my belly is closed.’

  Seeing a way to release the tension, I raise my eyebrows at Aria. We spring to our feet, stuffing pizza into Jacob’s chops. Clumps slip down his T-shirt and onto the floor, while his arms flail to fight us off.

  ‘Girls, girls, guys, what on earth?’ says Dad. He and Mum have returned from somewhere posh – Dad’s in a suit and Mum’s brown hair is a sleek bob except for one unruly curl that always flicks up at the side. In high heels she’s taller than Dad. Their smiles light up the room. Before Dad’s toothpaste manufacturing company took off, before we were born, they were the photo on the front cover of the company brochure.

  ‘Your daughters’ table manners are a credit to you,’ Jacob says, wiping a greasy chin with his knuckles.

  ‘Fun’s over,’ says Mum, her jade eyes glistening. She kicks off her heels, revealing soles still dirty from being in bare feet all day. She hates shoes and has been known to go to the shops without them. ‘Aria, you have a 6 am start tomorrow. Off to bed with you.’ She tweaks Aria’s Hiawatha plaits when Aria gets up to give them a cuddle. Jacob demands his goodnight hug from Aria, like the old days, friendly and brief, as if they had never slept together. Over his shoulder, Aria scrunches her eyes shut and her smile trembles.

  Mum watches Aria head upstairs and throws a handful of peanuts into her mouth. ‘Good to see you three together again.’

  Dad puts the dogs out for the night. ‘You kids can get this cleaned up.’ Slicked-back silvery h
air flops across his brow. ‘Come on, Mrs H. I’m exhausted.’ He takes Mum’s elbow just as she’s slipping into a chair beside Jacob.

  ‘Don’t be long,’ Mum says, pivoting to follow Dad and tossing a peanut at my forehead. ‘You’ve got training tomorrow, Harper, 9 am sharp.’

  As they leave, Jacob’s gaze collides with mine.

  I shrug-grin and stoop to collect pieces of pepperoni and onion while he washes himself off at the sink. Through the French doors, the sky blanches with sheet lightning, silhouetting the woods. Jacob chucks a sopping cloth at me, cursing when I catch it. I wave it triumphantly in the air. ‘I play ball games for a career, loser boy.’

  On all fours, Jacob sweeps up dregs with a dustpan and brush and I move next to him, swabbing the floor. Under the table he cocks an eyebrow at me. Something’s altered since he and Aria broke up and it’s getting dangerous.

  When we finish, Jacob leans against the bench, arms folded over his navy T-shirt. With his hair falling across one side of his face, he surveys the kitchen, then me. ‘Thanks for talking to Aria,’ he says, soft.

  My gut clasps. I prop myself against the fridge and release my ponytail. When a growl of thunder sounds, I yank my gaze away from his biceps to the window. ‘She’s so over you.’ I don’t know why I say it.

  He launches across the kitchen and tickles me. ‘It would take a lot longer than a month to get over me, let me assure you.’

  ‘Yeah, sure. ’Night, Jacob.’

  But it’s my turn for a goodnight hug, as we’ve done many times. His arms wrap around my body – except this time he kisses me on the forehead. Goosebumps rush across my scalp. When he removes his lips I glance at them and my knees flinch. I could lift my chin to kiss him, and by the way his eyes crackle, I know he wants me to.

  I admit to myself that his eyes have lingered on me a little too long lately, sometimes roaring with unspoken words. I had dismissed it as wishful thinking.

  But Aria still loves him. And our sister pledge.

  Jacob clinches me to him, buries my head under his chin. Our breathing remains quick, our chests pressing a rhythm into each other. His palms slide up my back to my shoulders, always stiff from tennis. He kneads them. Thunder unspools around the house.

  I let myself stay there, confused, but feeling as if I’m in a safe, calm harbour, and press my arms around him. I tell myself it’s normal. We’re just good friends. But I know I’m kidding myself, because my heart sighs every time I see him.

  Three years of keeping it dammed up. Perhaps this is the real reason Aria and I drifted apart – I couldn’t bear that she had him for herself.

  I cling tighter, knowing I haven’t fixed anything today.

  ‘Harps,’ Jacob says against my temple. A sensation of heat starts at the top of my skull and gushes into my belly like a hot waterfall. He lowers his chin. Our noses are side by side, mouths a finger-width apart. He licks his lips, says, ‘Harper.’

  I’m coming apart in his arms, but if he says another word our lives might shatter and there’d be no way of putting them back together.

  He hangs on to my elbows when I pull away. I tug back harder, glimpse his fractured expression, and go over to the sink. ‘That was huge.’ The words scrape my throat. ‘We’re back to being the Raggers again.’

  I twist on a tap, rinse a cup, blinking furiously. Through the window the rain transforms into a screen of spitting needles just as fork lightning stabs the canopy of the Purple Woods.

  Jacob doesn’t answer and I don’t know he’s gone until the lock clicks behind him.

  Ten days later I don’t even reach round one at the US Open, bombing in the qualifying rounds. I’m as useless as an unstrung racquet, with no coach and a dad who’s not sure I belong on a tennis court. The pressure to perform has skyrocketed and I buckle under the weight of it.

  Then there’s Jacob, sitting in the middle of my heart. I can’t cage the effect he has on me anymore; the secret grows more real every day and stands between me and Aria.

  Dad and I fly home from Flushing Meadows early. The words we don’t speak shout inside my head so that the moment we get home I switch on the TV to silence them.

  Suddenly Colt’s in our lounge room – his face fills the 65-inch flat-screen TV and he’s serving against the number 15 seed in the first round of the men’s singles. My stomach drops. I didn’t see him at the Open – he must’ve avoided me. When I call to Dad, he doesn’t seem surprised to see Colt. Instead, he settles into an armchair and praises Colt’s serve, his power, footwork and groundstrokes, and I become increasingly defensive.

  ‘Not that good,’ I say. ‘He’s ranked 240. I googled him.’ But I know as well as Dad, as well as anyone who witnessed our mixed doubles game, that he’s a better player than me. And he’s in round one of the US Open, not viewing it on TV.

  ‘His ranking doesn’t reflect his ability,’ responds Dad, echoing Milo’s words. ‘He had to take time out at the start of the year and he hasn’t hit the circuit consistently since.’

  Milo said Colt has been through a lot. Dad says he’s seventeen yet he comes across as though he was born an adult. I wonder what happened at the start of the year.

  Colt blasts through three sets, showing every sign he’s a match for his opponent. The camera jumps to Milo in the break, aviators in place. But in the fourth set Colt flakes. Limbs heavy, reactions slower, he loses the match. The camera pans to him, perched on the chair next to the umpire, where he’s drumming the circular edge of the tennis racquet into his palm.

  ‘More stamina, a lot more match play, and he’ll reach the top.’ Dad mutes the TV. ‘I want to discuss something with you.’

  My stomach pangs with fright. Decision time. I hug a cushion.

  Dad drums his fingers on the armrests. ‘Milo and I – we’ve been corresponding.’

  ‘Yeah?’ I had assumed Milo’s silence meant he didn’t want to coach me.

  ‘He needed to clear up the schedule first – get Colt through the US Open. But he does want to team up with you –’

  Relief winging through me, I swoop to hug Dad, then laugh over his shoulder. ‘I’ll prove Kominsky wrong.’ I settle on the arm of Dad’s chair. ‘Not good for Colt if Milo’s back in Australia,’ I say, feet rapping excitedly in his lap. ‘Did Colt sign up with Sebastian Norman?’

  Dad removes his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose before focusing on me. ‘Norman never turned up in Cincinnati. But Colt’s going to be in Sydney. He’s a Sydney boy originally. His family have lived in Florida for the last eleven years, but he came back to Sydney six months ago and Milo picked him up.’

  I pull back. ‘What are you saying?’

  Eyes down, Dad bunches his shirt to clean the smudges from his lenses. ‘Milo wants to coach you both – as mixed doubles partners. And if you want to, as a singles player.’

  ‘Dad!’ I jump off the chair and loom over him. ‘Colt fractured my cheek and then went home without –’

  I almost say apologising, but then remember that I threw his apology back at him.

  ‘Milo said Colt had to deal with a family problem,’ says Dad. ‘I don’t know the full story.’

  I recall Colt’s intensity, how grown-up he appears, his game face. He scares me a little. ‘I don’t think we’re suited.’ But then again he’s also got the air of a born winner – as if he knows he’s going to win – and somehow he woke the competitive streak that used to drive me.

  Dad clears his throat and pops on his glasses. ‘Forget Colt for a minute. Milo was a great player nine years ago – top 15, and ranked number one in Germany. Since then he’s coached men and women from all over Australia, plus helped Acker turn professional – consider how she’s developed.’

  I think about how Aria and Jacob are going to have to attend the Con together. Just as they’d be mad to give up on their dreams because it might be a bit awkward, I ca
n’t give up on tennis because of Colt. Without tennis, I’d be that river that fails to flow uphill. But maybe with someone like Milo –

  ‘And he’s interested in you,’ continues Dad. ‘He says he thinks you have what it takes to reach the top.’

  My body fills with hope so buoyant and glossy and big I could float over Sydney Harbour. ‘He said I have what it takes?’

  I’ve heard those words from family and friends, but never from a respected international tennis coach. Kominsky thought I was mentally soft and stopped believing in me a long time ago.

  This is my last chance to hurl fireballs across the court.

  It’s the only reason I say yes.

  Two days later Colt chooses the time and location of our training sessions: the dashboard clock reads 5.16 am. And even though we have a court at home, Dad drives me to the training courts nearer Colt’s home. It’s hard not to believe I’m the second-rate player.

  I’m wearing a tennis dress – the only type of dress I wear. As Dad talks, his eyes sparking again, I fidget with the hem of the miniskirt and sip my coffee too quickly, burning my tongue.

  Milo’s dressed in the same white cotton shirt he wore in Cincinnati, one button too many left undone, except he’s paired it with tennis shorts instead of jeans. He’s already on the court, knocking up with Colt. I stop to re-tie my laces, letting Dad go ahead. Milo slaps Colt on the back and says something I don’t hear. Colt gives a close-lipped smile and tracks me over Dad’s shoulder. It only takes one look from those dark eyes to unleash the butterflies in my stomach. I have to admit I’m a little excited. I pull up tall and join them. I refuse to be scared of either of them.

  Colt’s navy T-shirt, almost grey from over-washing, boasts a v-shaped sweat stain down the chest already. The skin of his hip is visible through two small holes. Must be his lucky shirt.

  ‘Hi, Coach – um, Milo,’ I say, juggling my coffee flask to accept a firm handshake. He beams, warm and calm. I swing to Colt, awkward.

  ‘Cheek’s better,’ Colt says. He switches his focus from the cheek in question to my eyes. ‘I needed to leave Cincinnati at short notice, but Milo kept me posted.’