The Good Sister

by Jamie Kain

  We look like filthy little hippies, our hair messy and our feet bare. Sarah is in the middle, the glowing wraith among us, her silvery-blond hair hanging only to her chin thanks to a recent round of chemo, her face oddly serene. Asha is on the left, tugging on Sarah’s hand, looking as if she wants to escape the camera’s lens. And I am on the right, the tallest even though I’m a year younger than Sarah, and definitely the prettiest of the three, my arm around Sarah’s shoulders, a big, fake smile plastered on my face, looking as if I am trying to convince the world of my happiness.

  Now, looking back, I can see the hint of everything to come after in my eyes. The lies, the guilt, the horrible end to our sisterhood of three.

  And now the secrets that keep me up at night, staring at the ceiling.

  Whoever said the camera never lies, well, maybe they were right. But you have to know what you’re looking for, right there under your nose, to see the truth hidden in the details.

  Four

  Asha

  If I had known getting drunk and jumping into the Tylers’ hot tub naked would make Tristan Tyler notice I was alive, I would have done it a long time ago. Better late than never though, right?

  But, no, wait, that’s not how this part of the story starts. There was the funeral, which I do not remember because my brain-under-the-influence has mostly blacked out that part of the day. And then there was some debate about whether I should be forced to go home and sleep off my buzz or should attend the funeral after-party.

  I remember Rachel glaring at me, maybe even threatening me, but this is nothing new and could have happened weeks ago or not at all. And I have a few fragmented memories of some horrible slide show, and some tearful speech given by my father, and that’s all. I’m not even sure in which order these memories belong, or if they were but a dream within a dream, as my favorite poet, Edgar Allan Poe, once wrote.

  Sin and I each did four shots of Jack Daniel’s before hopping on our bikes and riding to the temple. This, I report with complete earnestness, was not a good idea. Between the two of us, I think we were nearly hit by four different cars, and for sure it wasn’t the cars’ fault.

  Lena ended up furious enough to ban us from the after-party—I remember that part—leaving Sin and I drunk with no place to go. So we went back to his house, a little steadier on our bikes now that we’d had some time to sit and sober up in the temple.

  Sin fell asleep on his bed, and I found myself bored and still a little wasted. It seemed wrong to ruin a perfectly good buzz alone in Sin’s bleak little room, so I wandered outside, noticed that the hot tub was open, stripped off my clothes, and got into the bubbling, hot water.

  Which brings us back to right now.

  It is late afternoon, and a ridiculously warm, breezy day. Global warming at work, I guess. I lie with my head back, staring up at the light dancing on the leaves of the huge oak tree that stretches its branches partway over the deck where the hot tub sits.

  I hear the back door of the house open, and I assume Sin has woken up and is coming out to find me, so I don’t look toward the sound. We were alone in the house last I checked. My head tilted back and my arms outstretched to my sides on the edges of the tub, I am aware that my bare chest hovers at the waterline for whoever cares to look, but Sin has seen me naked enough times when we’re changing clothes that it doesn’t matter anymore.

  And besides, he’s decided again as of last month that he isn’t into girls anyway.

  But when I hear a low voice say, “Hey, nice day, huh?” I know it isn’t Sin’s.

  It’s Tristan’s.

  I rarely hear him speak, so the sound startles me out of my leaf gazing, and I sit up fast, then slide deeper into the water to conceal as much as I can of my nakedness.

  When I look at him, he’s got a lazy half smile on his lips that seems kind of … flirtatious, I guess is the right word.

  Flirtatious. My brain does a double take.

  I allow a moment for the idea to sink in.

  No way is Tristan flirting with me.

  Something about his smile gives him a kind of devilish appearance. Normally his face is angelically handsome, and this vision of him now thrills me.

  I am still drunk enough to say out loud, “It feels good in here. You should come in.”

  “I was just about to.”

  My whole body melts into the water, or at least it feels that way. Tristan is about to get in the hot tub with me, and we’ve just had our longest conversation ever. These facts are almost too stunning to be believed.

  I watch him pull off his red T-shirt, my gaze landing on his abs and chest. Oh, God. He’s beautiful, no doubt. A little too thin to be calendar-boy material, he’s nonetheless better looking than anyone else I’ve ever seen this close to naked.

  I am starting to panic. What if I say something that makes me sound like a complete dork? What if I don’t? What if I say nothing at all?

  Then I remember my favorite question for times such as this—what would Sin do?

  Since Tristan is his brother, the question might not make perfect sense, but if he was about to be naked in a hot tub with the star of his fantasies, he’d definitely find a way to be cool or, even better, startlingly weird, about it. Perhaps he’d act like he didn’t care. He might even ignore the other person. He’d let the person do all the work. Or else he’d make uncomfortable comments about their anatomy.

  I’m not at all sure I have the guts to try either approach.

  But then Tristan starts taking off his pants, and I am transported to this whole other mental place where my mind is truly blank and my mouth feels as if the dentist has just stuck one of those suction-hose things in it and sucked me dry.

  I try my best to look everywhere but at his crotch, even though that’s the place I most want to look. I’ve seen plenty of guys naked—my dad, guys swimming at the nude beach—but none of them were guys I wanted to see, not like this. I’m pretty sure, by the time his pants are down around his ankles, that he wasn’t—or isn’t—wearing any underwear, and I find this idea intriguing.

  Then he sits down across from me in the tub, and I am able to meet his gaze again.

  “Hey, I, uh, heard about your sister. I’m sorry. It must be hard.”

  I’ve been subject to this kind of comment about a thousand times in the past week since Sarah’s death. But something about Tristan saying them now makes me tear up. He has pulled me out of my hormonal reverie for his body and reminded me that I’m supposed to be in mourning.

  I mean, I am in mourning. It’s just that the process doesn’t necessarily look like it’s supposed to. My body and mind are refusing to cooperate.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I still can’t believe it.”

  “You wanna smoke?” He produces a joint and a little red lighter from his jeans lying nearby on the deck.

  “No thanks,” I surprise myself by saying.

  The truth is, I’m feeling a little sick now from the whiskey and perhaps the horrifying funeral thing that I’ve blocked out, and I don’t want to be any more fuzzy headed for my first real encounter with the guy of my dreams.

  He lights up and takes a long, deep hit, then sits there holding his breath until he’s red in the face.

  In the queasy haze of my impending hangover, it’s hard to remember what exactly I find so irresistible about Tristan. Aside from his being gorgeous, I mean. Okay, so maybe it’s mostly that he’s gorgeous. But he’s also a good guitarist, and he plays in a popular local reggae band even though he’s only seventeen and all the other band members are in their twenties.

  But it occurs to me now that I finally have him captive, I don’t have a clue what to say to him. I don’t have a plan. I’m still the same awkward, mute dork as always—not the cool, witty girl of my fantasies who actually gets with Tristan.

  Tristan exhales a long, slow cloud of smoke, coughs a little, and smiles at me.

  “So you and my little brother—you guys don’t, like, get it on, do you?”


  I am mortified. It never occurred to me that he might think this. Equally mortifying is the idea of Sin’s finding out that I’m in love with his brother. I’ve never told Sin, though I guess I’ve sort of always assumed he could tell. Yet if he comes out here now and sees us, I’m not sure what he’ll think.

  “No, we’re just friends. Best friends.”

  “You don’t dig dudes in dresses?”

  Mildly amused by his alliteration, I smile. “It depends on the dude, I guess.”

  He takes another hit as he lets his gaze fall to my chest, which I’ve forgotten is nearly exposed now that I’ve allowed myself to sit up a bit. I force myself not to slide down in the water again, and to my extreme surprise, I get the distinct feeling he’s liking what he sees.

  Oh, God.

  This is quite possibly the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me, and I’m terrified by all the possibilities of what might happen next.

  I feel his foot brush against my leg under the water.

  “Sorry,” he says, exhaling smoke again, but he doesn’t move his foot away.

  Instead, he eases it up my calf to my thigh, eyeing me to see how I’ll react.

  Oh, God.

  Oh. My. God.

  Oh my freaking God.

  This is so not happening.

  But it is.

  I straighten my leg and let my own foot drift toward him, bumping against what I think is his hip, and that’s pretty much all the permission he needs to slide across the hot tub to sit next to me.

  Here, time and space start doing weird things, speeding up and slowing down at the same time, like in a movie when the good guy is about to shoot the bad guy, or vice versa.

  I’m crazily aware of his thigh against mine, the hairs poking me in a way that’s not unpleasant. And I stare for what seems like a long time at his biceps, where there’s a group of three moles gathered as if having a meeting. But it was probably just a second or two, I realize, when I look up at him.

  Then I notice his mouth, which I’ve never all the way noticed before. I have not ever been close enough to study the lines in his pink lips, or the way his lower lip is exactly the same size as his upper.

  I look into his eyes finally and am surprised by the flecks of gold there, among the brown of his irises. I’d always thought his eyes were black, but no. What does he see? Does he see me, or am I just here, convenient, a nice diversion in the hot tub?

  I don’t want that to be true.

  His gaze locked on mine, he leans forward, closes his eyes, and kisses me.

  Warmth like a drink of whiskey flows through me, and time does a funny thing again, speeding up now, making what I want to last become infinitely too short already, too close to ending even if it doesn’t.

  I taste marijuana and feel his tongue flick against my lips. At the same time, his hand is sliding up my thigh, navigating the same territory Ben Thomas attempted to chart last year.

  I am thrilled and terrified, too much so to relax for a second of what is happening.

  “What the hell?” I hear, and I break the kiss as I glance up to see Sin standing over us, looking as furious as I have ever seen him.

  He is glaring at me, only me, as if he doesn’t even see his brother sitting there. I want to point out to him that I didn’t start it.

  I understand instantly that I have betrayed him somehow, but it makes no sense. None at all. Maybe he’s just angry that I went into the hot tub with my new tattoo, I think stupidly, right before he storms away.

  Five

  Sarah

  Murder.

  It’s not something most people have to contemplate in any real way. It’s a vague Ten Commandments kind of idea.

  Thou shalt not, we are told, so we don’t.

  But what if we do? Then what? Can life as we know it even go on?

  Consider these three sisters: Sarah, Rachel, Asha.

  We three girls.

  Only two now.

  No mathematician am I,

  So I ask:

  Take away one life,

  Then take away the one that took it away.

  Does that add up?

  Does the universe come into balance then?

  Can we call it multiplication of negatives,

  A negative times a negative equals a positive

  Each and every time?

  Six

  Asha

  As best friends go, I am apparently the lowest of the low. I am the filthy residue clinging to the bottom of a bad friend’s shoes.

  But I’m still not sure about the why or what or how of it.

  In the moments following Sin’s storming away angry from the hot tub, I am still far too keenly interested in Tristan, naked and draped around me, to fully process the whole disaster.

  I watch Sin retreat back into the house, and then I look at Tristan for confirmation that he is still there. That we have just kissed, with his hand charting new territory and all that.

  He is staring at my mouth, intent on picking up where we left off. “Don’t know what his problem is,” he murmurs, then goes in for another kiss.

  At first, I am into it. Relieved, even. My body is nearly as liquid as the bubbling water in which we sit. I feel as if I might at any moment ooze into Tristan, as if another kiss might turn into his drinking me up.

  My brain, on a hazy delay, finally responds. “I … I’d better go make sure he’s okay.”

  The words squeak out of me halfheartedly. I don’t want to go, don’t want to end this fantasy come true, don’t want to stand up naked, get dressed in front of Tristan, put all that distance between us to face my pissed-off, crazy best friend.

  “Don’t go,” Tristan whispers, his breath tickling my cheek and almost convincing me.

  But could I face Sin later if I don’t go after him now?

  No.

  Here my brain snaps all the way back to reality.

  I reluctantly edge away from Tristan, and he looks at me through a glassy gaze that seems at ease with the situation. I feel bare in all the places we were touching that we now aren’t.

  “I thought you said you two aren’t getting it on,” he says, sounding confused rather than annoyed.

  “We’re not. I don’t know why he’s so mad.”

  “He wants you all to himself.”

  “No way. Not Sin. He doesn’t even like girls.”

  Tristan smirks at this. “Is that his story this month?”

  I shrug. It’s true, Sin’s sexual interests seem to lean whichever way the wind is blowing, but I tend to take his proclamations at face value. He’s always seemed to know better than anyone else exactly what he wants.

  Now, I stand up and step out of the hot tub, trying to be cool about Tristan’s having a prime view of every naked inch of me. This is pure torture. I have peered at myself undressed in the mirror, wondering how my body will look to the opposite sex. And here I stand, in front of the object of my desire, wishing I were one of those girls who works out constantly.

  But I’m not. I’m one of those girls who eats empty carbs and refined sugar and all the other stuff I’m not supposed to eat. And aside from riding my bike and my weekend hikes with Sin, I don’t get tons of exercise. I don’t do two hours of power yoga every day the way some girls at our school do—some of whom Tristan has surely seen naked.

  My body is all wet—I haven’t thought to bring a towel, and neither has he—so I’m stuck trying to tug on my clothes over wet skin. Panties and shirt, no problem, but my jeans prove more difficult and involve much bouncing around and tugging. I get the distinct feeling Tristan is enjoying the show, though maybe not in the way I’d like him to.

  My ankle is burning now where the fresh tattoo is reacting to being immersed in hot water, then cold air. That’s got to be why Sin is so pissed at me—the tattoo. He’s scrupulous about aftercare. He doesn’t want his work out there in the world looking shitty.

  I know deep down I’m fooling myself.

  I don’t want to
go inside and face him. Something tells me it’s not going to be pretty. But I head for the back door, stepping around fallen leaves because I don’t want them to poke my overly tender bare feet. I’ve left my sandals inside Sin’s bedroom—another reason I have to face him.

  At the door, the wolf-cat Buddha is waiting to be let out. But when I open it, he turns and runs under the table. Whatever, dumb cat. I trudge through the kitchen and down the hallway to the closed door with the sickly sweet poster of kittens in a basket. Sin, always big on irony.

  I knock on the forehead of a blue-eyed white Persian, and I call out, “Sin?”

  I expect this to be a long, painful process, but he jerks the door open immediately and there we are, face-to-face. Before I can say a word, he throws my sandals down the hallway, slams the door, and I hear the lock click.

  “Sin?” I say stupidly. “Can we talk?”

  Suddenly my whiskey buzz has worn all the way off, and I am feeling a little queasy again. But I know I won’t throw up. I never do unless I drink cheap tequila.

  “Get the fuck out of my house!” he yells through the door.

  I blink at the kitten poster, stunned. This definitely isn’t about my not following the tattoo-care rules. Don’t I get a little leeway for having a dead sister? For today’s being the day of her freaking funeral? For having to face the horrible question of how she died?

  Isn’t this my best friend who just sat with me through the most grueling hour of my life, saying good-bye to the only member of my family that I love without hating too?

  She can’t be gone. She can’t be gone. She can’t be gone.

  And if she is, and if Sin hates me now, I am alone in the world. Totally fucking alone.

  I feel tears prickling at my eyes, blurring my view of the kittens and their little paws perched on the edge of the basket. Immensely sorry for myself now, I turn and leave.

  I can’t go home, so I ride my bike to the park in the center of town, find the sleeping bag I keep stashed in a tree for hanging out at the park, lie down under the shade of a redwood, and stay there for the rest of the day staring up at the branches, as if waiting for them to reach down and lift me into the sky, away from all of this.