My Sisters And Me

by Lisa Dickenson

  They didn’t really make her heart flutter any more. Maybe a tiny bit. Maybe just that one from 5ive.

  Emmy took her clothes off and left them on the floor, standing for a moment in just her underwear, imagining what teenage her would have thought of her grown-up body. She would have pretended she didn’t care about the lumps and the thread veins, the breasts that had never grown any bigger. She would have pretended she didn’t care because she also pretended that she didn’t care that she’d never had a boyfriend, and she pretended she didn’t care that she was called a saddo and a science nerd, and that people made fun of her for living out in the woods, and made up horrible rumours about her mental health, and didn’t want to be her friend, and the fact that she once said in an English class at thirteen, without realising she was supposed to have grown out of them, that her current read was a Point Horror.

  The Emmy of now really didn’t care whether boys paid attention to her. The Emmy of now could see very clearly that her science-nerd ways had landed her a corker of a job, and she was independent, she liked her body (as much as anyone does), she liked her book choices, she still liked Point Horror, dammit, and she liked who she was. She didn’t like the Emmy of her past. Past Emmy was a reminder of how she’d felt embarrassed to be herself and how she’d been close to throwing it away just to try and fit in.

  Emmy pulled herself from her thoughts and dragged on a T-shirt, a musty Mickey Mouse one she found squashed into the top of her chest of drawers, and climbed into bed.

  For a while she lay still, looking at the room, trying to remember what it must have felt like to be a teenager in these walls. Lonely? Confused? Desperate to change? A tear, followed by a few more, rolled down her face all of a sudden. Why didn’t she feel any fondness for the place she grew up? How was that fair? Emmy didn’t feel at home in her own home, and the realisation crushed her. How could she spend over two months back in this town, when it never wanted her here in the first place?

  She hadn’t meant to imply any blame on Rae’s part while she was in the car. Rae and her wild-child ways were only part of what caused a general hostility towards her family. She knew there had been gossip about her parents too, even before any of them came along. And where rumours lie, people avoid. Emmy had a problem making friends, because nobody was allowed to come and play at her house. Until she found Jared, and then the story changed to how she thought she was too good for the other girls at school so hung out with a boy. She couldn’t have won.

  Emmy flipped off the light switch on her bedside lamp and the room went black, momentarily, before her eyes adjusted to a ceiling full of stars – hundreds of them, glowing in the dark and carefully positioned to recreate as many of the constellations as possible. Emmy laughed out loud, despite the wetness on her cheeks. She’d forgotten this ceiling. How was she ever going to go to sleep with all of this beaming down at her?

  But her eyes closed soon enough, and as Emmy rolled on to her side, a small light, no bigger than one of the stars on her ceiling, opened up inside her, and Past Emmy was there, willing her back, and smiling with happiness as *NSYNC sang her a beautiful lullaby.

  Even if she wasn’t ready to believe it yet, Emmy was home.

  Chapter 5

  Emmy woke up to a large and intimidating crack. Noise-wise. She sprang up in bed and bumped her head on the bookshelf above her. A cluster of Baby-Sitters Club books tumbled down on to her.

  Crack. Crack. Rippppppp.

  Pushing Mary Anne Saves the Day to the side, Emmy silenced the sound of her breath, her hearing focused on the downstairs of the big house. It was still night, or at least barely morning.

  CRACK.

  Nope. She hadn’t come all the way back here, after all this time, just for someone to assault their house and smash the doors down. She felt that feeling she got sometimes, that she’d always been prone to get, of deep-seated anger trying to bubble to the surface. Do not treat my family like this.

  Stepping from her bed was like entering an ice bar in a bad dream, where you’ve forgotten to wear make-up and you’re not dressed properly and you don’t really know why you’ve come here. The house was freezing, and before she could face any attackers, Emmy shoved on three jumpers and four pairs of socks.

  Marching from her room she flung open Noelle’s door, only to find her sister sound asleep, oblivious to everything. She lay on her bed like she was Sleeping Beauty herself, if Sleeping Beauty’s hair was a tangled mess and her mouth a little dribblier.

  Rae’s door was wide open, the bed empty.

  Thundering down the stairs and rounding the corner to the kitchen, Emmy came face-to-face with an axe that almost wedged itself into her face. ‘What the heck?!’

  ‘Good morning!’ grinned Rae, retracting the heavy axe and propping it by her side. She was dressed in her pyjamas and a pair of child’s pink swimming goggles. ‘Did I wake you?’

  Emmy looked from her sister to the wooden kitchen door, which stood, injured, as if Jack Nicolson had gone past on a rampage. Oak panels were dislocated and splintered in the centre, though the frame itself was intact. ‘What on earth are you doing?’

  ‘This place was freezing when I woke up. So I’m getting wood for the fire.’

  ‘We live in the woods,’ cried Emmy, throwing her arms wide. ‘Why would you murder the kitchen door?’

  Rae picked up the axe again, grinning. ‘Because it’s rotten with woodworm, so we’re going to have to replace it anyway. This way, I’m solving two issues with one… axe. And it’s super-fun.’ She raised the axe over her head and crack! brought it back down through the door, sending another shard of oak flying across the room. ‘You want a go?’

  Emmy shook her head; it felt far too early for chopping wood and noise and stuff. She blew into her hands.

  ‘It’s great cardio, it’ll warm you up in no time. Good for stress relief too…’ Rae waved the axe in the air like a proper psycho.

  Emmy hesitated, memories of her tears from last night swimming in her head. She’d heard about ‘rage rooms’ where people go to smash things up and let off steam – it was apparently very therapeutic. Maybe it could help her start the day in less of a funk than she ended it yesterday? She grabbed the axe and swung it sideways like she was trying out for the New York Yankees. She laughed, endorphins flying.

  ‘Whoa, mamma!’ Rae stepped backwards as the rusty old doorknob shot across the room and wedged itself under the dishwasher. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’

  As Rae brewed a cafetière of dark-roast coffee, she watched Emmy take another few smacks at the door. ‘So are you feeling more… present today?’

  Emmy stopped and peeled off one of her layers. She faced Rae, panting. ‘Was I a big grumpy cow yesterday? Was it obvious?’

  ‘You were just very quiet.’

  ‘Well —’ Smack. ‘New day, new beginnings and all. In other words, we’ve got a lot to do and we’ll be here for a number of weeks, so I guess I’d better just get used to it.’

  ‘I like being home,’ Noelle said, stepping into the room with barely more than a glance at what was the door. She picked her way over some wood shards, yawning. ‘I think. Don’t you?’

  ‘I’m just uneasy about it,’ replied Emmy.

  ‘Uneasy about what?’

  ‘Well, we’ve been back loads of times, but for a whirlwind day or two, and we’ve barely left the house. Now we’re back for two —’ she dug the axe back into the door ‘— flippin’ – months. What if we run into people again?’

  Rae poured the coffees and then stirred creamer into them. ‘That I’m nervous about. The people of Maplewood hated me, as Emmy kindly pointed out in the car last night!’

  ‘They hated all of us,’ said Emmy. ‘We were the weirdos who lived in the woods.’

  ‘The big bad Lake sisters,’ Rae cackled. ‘Causing havoc, doing strange things, kissing their sons and daughters, and, well, they had a point I guess.’

  Noelle poked her nose inside a cupboard. ‘Well, we’re no
t the weirdos we once were, and I’m sure the people in the town have grown up just like we have. Although, I really don’t think we were ever that bad… We need food.’

  ‘We weren’t bad, that’s what was so frustrating. We were just different. Rae was a bit naughty —’

  ‘I prefer “fun-loving”.’

  ‘Rae was the naughty one, Noelle came out as gay and I was the biggest geek in the school. Plus, we were hippies, and everyone thought our parents were doggers.’

  Rae howled. ‘I’d forgotten that! Or at least I’d suppressed it. Honestly, one act of passion in the back of the car, accidentally parked near the fun-run route, and suddenly you’re a local sex pest. But they had to make Noelle somehow!’

  Noelle gasped. ‘That wasn’t how I was made, was it?’

  ‘She’s joking, you were made like the rest of us, as a result of some kind of moon and mother-earth worshipping session in the back garden.’

  ‘Oh good.’ Noelle looked back in the cupboard again. ‘Seriously, we need food. We’re going to have to go into the town, like it or not, you two.’

  Rae stopped her coffee cup midway to her mouth. ‘Today?’

  Emmy put the axe down. ‘Today, today? Like, go into the town itself? To the shops?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Noelle. ‘I for one would like to see the old haunts again. It’s been too long. Don’t be such scaredy-cats.’

  Rae put down her cup. ‘Nobody calls me a scaredy-cat, baby-face. You’re right, this could be fun.’

  ‘Can’t we just drive out to Tesco?’

  ‘No, Emmy.’ Rae pushed her sister out the kitchen ‘door’ and up the staircase. ‘We’re going to go into town, have a wonderful time, and everyone is going to say how fine and upstanding we appear now, and then we’re going to shit on their front lawns.’

  Rae padded about her bedroom, which in the space of twelve hours had become as chaotic as it was a decade and a half ago. Her clobber to see her through the stay was everywhere, mixed in with items that had lived, unused, in the room since her teenage years. Rae hadn’t slept well, the bed had felt cold without her bear of a husband next to her, and so she’d spent a couple of hours last night unpacking and pulling things from drawers and cupboards, chuckling to herself. The hair-crimper was definitely going to be put to use again at some point. There wasn’t enough hair-crimping in the opera world.

  She looked at the disarray on the floor and decided upon skinny jeans, ankle boots and an oversized hoodie. She pulled her hair into a ponytail and looked in the mirror. And then she used the stubby end of an old black kohl eyeliner she’d found in a drawer and drew heavy smudges around her lids. She was bound to get some kind of eye infection from the long-expired item, but it was worth it to see a shadow of her former self grinning back at her. There’s my girl.

  Rae emerged from the bedroom to her sisters already waiting for her.

  Emmy stared at her. ‘Rae.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You can’t wear that hoodie into town.’

  ‘Why not, Mother Teresa, like your Skechers are the height of sophistication?’

  ‘Because of what it says.’ Emmy waved an arm at the huge gold lettering emblazoned on the front.

  ‘“Lady Garden”? Excuse me, this is a charity jumper to support gynaecological cancer. Or to show you don’t support it. You know what I mean. Anyway, it’s not like it says “vagina”. I think it’s quite pretty, and it’s comfortable and it’s my favourite jumper. I wear it all the time back home.’

  ‘I don’t think Maplewood is ready for you and your lady garden.’

  ‘Maplewood is lucky to have me and my lady garden. The beauty of being a grown-up is wearing what you want and not being judged. At least, not caring when people judge you. You should try it – maybe in comfier clothing that pole would have room to just slip on out your a-hole.’

  ‘Noelle, help me out here, can’t we at least try and ingratiate ourselves back into the town?’

  ‘You know what, Emmy? Because you said that…’ Rae stomped back into her bedroom and returned moments later, sitting on the floor and pulling on some shoes ‘… I’m going to wear these.’

  ‘The Dr. Martens!’ cried Noelle, skipping happily around the landing.

  Rae stood up, wincing internally at the feel of her feet squeezed into the old leather, the soles patchy and worn, the toes decorated with Tipp-Ex pen doodles of ying and yang. ‘Perfect,’ she said.

  ‘Really?’ Emmy raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re going out in a “lady garden” hoodie and fifteen-year-old Dr. Martens?’

  ‘Yes, I am. And they’re nearly twenty years old, actually; I got them when I was fourteen and wore them almost every day after that. And I looked just like Gwen Stefani.’

  ‘We’re really doing this?’ asked Emmy, shaking her head.

  ‘We are really doing this, little sister.’

  Emmy, who had always felt like she was at least ten years older than her mad siblings, hated being reminded she was the middle child. She felt a bubble of rebellion expand inside her, and she marched into her bedroom. She opened a few drawers and found what she was after, exiting her bedroom triumphantly. ‘I’ll wear these then. Aren’t they becoming?’

  Rae paled. ‘As if you can even still see out of those things, it must be like looking through ice cubes.’

  Emmy adjusted the massive frames, vast in diameter and with iceberg-thick glass. They made her contact lenses ache, she couldn’t actually wear these anywhere. ‘I can see just fine.’

  Rae raised an eyebrow and snaked an arm back into her room, grabbing something from her dressing table, her eyes never leaving Emmy’s. Never leaving the fish tank that enclosed her eyes, at least.

  In Rae’s grip was a thin aerosol can, a layer of dust coating the cap, which Rae removed and lobbed back into her bedroom. She shook the can.

  Noelle shrieked and legged it for the safety of her room, while Emmy stood fast, prepared for battle. ‘You wouldn’t dare.’

  ‘Watch me. No… smell me.’ Rae opened fire and in long, deliberate strokes doused herself in Charlie Red. The sickly scent stuck to the inside of Emmy’s nostrils and she retreated, flashbacks of Rae as a teen coming in thick and fast.

  In her room, Emmy stripped off her woolly jumpers and dragged a box of old clothing from the back of her wardrobe. She pulled out what had once been an item of clothing so dear to her. Her favourite crop top – ribbed, turtle-necked and black with pink lettering that spelled ‘Girl Power’. Not that she’d ever worn it in public; she’d have been far too self-conscious, but sometimes she’d worn it in her room and pretended she was tough like Ginger Spice. Emmy dragged it over her chest, the sleeves gripping her arms like blood pressure monitors while her humble pot belly protruded beneath. She patted it as she walked out of the room.

  Rae rolled her eyes. ‘I am burning that T-shirt.’

  ‘It’s my favourite T-shirt, actually.’

  ‘It’s still your favourite T-shirt? Can you even breathe?’

  ‘No, thanks to your perfume.’

  ‘Charlie Red is a classic, as are Dr. Martens.’

  At that moment Noelle danced out of her room, twirling in a full-length tie-dyed dress covered in tiny plastic mirrors, rainbow fringing and hessian straps. ‘Guys, look what I found, I loved this dress! I’m going to wear this.’

  Emmy and Rae looked at each other, and as Emmy pulled off the crop top Rae kicked off the boots. ‘Thanks for ruining the fun, Noelle,’ said Rae.

  ‘That dress is never coming outside ever again,’ added Emmy, with a smile. ‘What a hippy.’

  Holding scraps of coloured paper against the wall as makeshift paint charts, Emmy and Noelle waited in the kitchen for Rae, who’d had to shower off the overwhelming scent of Charlie Red. When she appeared, her wet hair was pulled back and the Dr. Martens had been swapped for plimsolls. The Lady Garden sweatshirt was still there, and now smelling of ancient body spray, but Rae shut up her sister with a ‘It’s a charity hoodie.’
r />   As they stepped out of the house, they saw in the light of day just how much work was needed to the outside. They remembered the house as having peeling paint and cobwebs that clung to the woodwork, but it was looking worse than ever.

  ‘This looks like it belongs to a witch,’ said Noelle. ‘You know, more than it used to.’

  ‘I guess Mum’s away so much she just doesn’t get around to taking care of it,’ Emmy said, running her hands over a faded rocking chair. ‘We have a lot of work ahead of us.’

  Rae moved in between them and down the steps, heading for the driveway. ‘First, we eat. Come on.’

  The ground was mulchy beneath them, wet with dew and the first of the autumn’s fallen leaves. It was overcast, the air grey and cool, but not cold yet as such. It was a thirty-minute walk to the centre of the town, and the sisters strolled with their eyes wide open, peeping at houses and into passing car windows, for signs of familiarity.

  ‘That was Jared’s house!’ Emmy pointed at a bungalow halfway around a cul-de-sac just as the scenery got more residential.

  ‘I loved Jared, he was such an adorable little dork, just like you Emmy,’ said Rae, fondly. ‘Do you know what he’s doing now?’

  ‘I don’t know, actually… I never really go on Facebook. I wonder if his parents still live there.’

  Rae peered at her from the corner of her eye, and acted super-casual. ‘Jared was good for you. He always made you feel safe. Maybe you should pop in and say hi to them, just in case, ask how their son is?’

  Emmy would fly to the moon if she could, but to walk up that pathway this soon after getting back? That seemed too giant a step. At this point, she didn’t want to remember the good things any more than the bad, she just wanted to Move On.