Separate Sisters

by Nancy Springer

  It stopped. Township police car, one officer. He put on the flashing red-and-blue lights, got out, and walked over to me. “You lost, son?” He had a flat round face like a plate with a nose, and he knew I wasn’t lost. He figured I was hooking out of school, and he sounded kind and sarcastic at the same time.

  “No,” I said. “I’m fine.”

  He changed his opinion of my gender without blinking. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school, Miss?”

  “I’m sick. I’m going to visit my mother.”

  “What’s your name, Miss?”

  I told him. He made me get in the back of the car, behind the metal grille, while he called me in. Then he U-turned the car and headed back toward town with me. I sat there looking at the doors with no handles on the inside and all the dashboard stuff I didn’t understand, while he ignored me.

  He took me to school, parked his cruiser, and let me out—just in time. My chest was feeling tight from being in a place I couldn’t get out of.

  He escorted me in. No handcuffs or anything, he didn’t even touch me, but my chest kept feeling tighter. School was another place I couldn’t seem to get out of. And every classroom we passed, people were looking at me.

  He took me to Mr. Billet, who came out into the hallway to meet us. “Well, hello, Donni,” Mr. Billet said.

  “I’m sick,” I said.

  “Sorry to hear that, Donni. You get sick a lot, and nobody ever seems to phone it in. Do you always go out walking when you’re sick?”

  But I was sick. My chest hurt and I felt hot and cold and sweaty, and my stomach was flipping and I felt dizzy and there was a roaring, pounding, thumping noise inside my head, and I felt like I was going to faint. But instead of fainting I leaned over and puked right on Mr. Billet’s black wing-tipped shoes.

  Dear Amelia,

  Do you like being named after Amelia Earhart? Would you like a different name? I know it’s traumatic to be stuck with the wrong name. My full name is Celene Patricia Ross. “Celene” refers to an ancient deity of the moon. Donni’s name is Celadon Pamela Ross, but she will just about kill to keep it secret, she hates it so much. “Celadon” is a kind of delicate, pale gray-green Chinese porcelain, and I can’t think of anything that is much less like Donni. As for me, I am certainly not a goddess, nor have I ever mooned anyone. Neither Mom nor Dad will take responsibility for inflicting those names on us, but it’s obvious that at one point they thought they were being poetic and clever, giving us similar names, like we were twins. But we’re not twins. We’re not the least bit alike.

  Actually, when we were younger we were alike, and we didn’t mind our names. But after my eleventh birthday, suddenly I couldn’t stand being called Celene, and I started making everyone call me Trisha. Then, monkey see monkey do, Donni decided she didn’t want to be called Celadon anymore, so she became Donni. Instead of being alike, our names became very different.

  Then Donni wouldn’t wear the clothes Mom bought her anymore. She wanted boots from Sunny Surplus and a poncho from the Grateful Dead store. Mom wouldn’t buy them, said she’d be wanting a barbed-wire tattoo next, so Donni hiked to the Goodwill and bought her own clothing, I suppose one can call it clothing, for a few dollars. I think she did it to punish Mom, but when Mom did not cave in and get her what she wanted, she pretended to like her pre-owned rags. Donni can be incredibly stubborn.

  She got escorted into school by a police officer today. I don’t even want to talk about it. I don’t know why she acts the way she does.

  I do know she’s angry at Mom for the divorce. She’s wrong; Mom was not to blame. But Donni always blames Mom for everything, like Mom is the wicked witch of the world when really she’s not; she’s just intense. She cares about getting things done correctly.

  The big problem for me is: because I won’t blame Mom, Donni is angry at me, too. She hung up on me this morning.

  Amelia … do you want a different name? Emmy? Listen, Emmy, can you help me? Somehow I don’t think so. You can help me with trigonometric functions, but I don’t think you can help me with Donni.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Mr. Grubb had passed out maps of the British Isles and we were supposed to be filling them in, but I was fooling around, turning Great Britain into a profile of Mr. Grubb. It worked surprisingly well. Cornwall was his big craggy chin and the Bristol Channel was his open mouth and Wales was his flapping upper lip and his warty nose, and I put a fierce eye where I should have labeled “Cheshire,” and Scotland was his toupee flying off in the wind blowing across the Trish Sea. It was a caricature, but it was him. It was a lot of fun. Once the kids around me caught on to what I was doing they couldn’t stop looking and snickering, and then other kids wanted to know what was funny, and as I was turning Ireland into the wind god blowing Mr. Grubb’s toupee off, he came to see what the noise was about.

  So next thing I was sitting in the office waiting to be talked at by Mr. Billet again.

  I didn’t know why I kept doing this. It wasn’t like I enjoyed it. There was chilly sweat running down my ribs under my shirt. I kind of wished Trisha would come by, but she didn’t. And then I didn’t know why I wished that and it made me mad at myself and my head went fuzzy, like there was radio static inside it.

  “Donni.” Mr. Billet sounded ticked off.

  He didn’t bother with the fake-friendly stuff. As soon as I sat down in his office he said, “What happened this time?”

  “I didn’t do anything.” It was the first time I’d lied. What was making me lie? My thumping heart?

  He didn’t believe me. “You can’t go on like this, young lady.”

  “I didn’t do anything!”

  He slapped his hand down on the desk and made me jump. “Don’t give me that. Listen to me. You cannot continue with your inappropriate behavior, Celadon.”

  He used my real name to tell me he was serious. But all it did was make my heart turn to a hot, hard, swollen rock earthquaking in my chest. Blood jumped in my temples. The insides of my arms twitched.

  Mr. Billet said, “We are going to figure out right now what is making you act this way. It’s up to you. You tell me, Celadon.”

  Was he crazy? I couldn’t talk. I felt worse than I did the day the cop brought me to school. My chest hurt even worse, I was wet all over with sweat, my head felt like a loud amusement park ride spinning and I was shaking, shivering all over like I was cold even though I was hot, I felt like my insides were nothing but a sloshing mess, I needed to faint and I couldn’t, I needed to scream or cry or something and I couldn’t.

  “I understand your parents are recently divorced. Tell me about the divorce, Celadon.”

  The sloshing mess exploded. Blew up like a homemade bomb out of a chemistry set. Lifted me off my chair. I opened my mouth and instead of puking on Mr. Billet this time I—words came out, sick words that burned my throat. Loud sick words. I can’t tell you what I said to him. It was bad. My face was hot and cold and wet and I was shaking and the words kept spilling out of my mouth.

  He flushed and reared up from his chair. “You’re suspended, young lady!”

  Now I was crying.

  “Sit down. I’ll have my secretary call your father to come get you.”

  “No!” I shouted. I didn’t want my father to have to leave work, drive an hour to get to the school, when I could just walk home like I did every day. I could have explained that, but I could not seem to stop yelling and crying. “No, you’re not calling anybody, you—!” I called him a name I can’t repeat. I swore at him, and then I ran out. Out of his office and out of the school.

  It started to rain. Good. Fine.

  The rain mixed with the rain on my face as I walked home to the empty apartment. I didn’t hurry. I felt like getting all wet. Maybe Mr. Billet would send the platter-faced cop after me. Fine. Let him.

  I felt shaky awful. I had said sick things I didn’t know were in me. I had gone out of control. I had yelled like a psycho.

  Yet as the rain cooled me o
ff and I calmed down, I started to feel good.

  In a secret way, good. I felt almost happy, because Mr. Billet would call Dad and Dad would have to call Mom.

  Dear Emmy,

  Donni got suspended from school today. A boy I barely know stopped me in the hall and told me my sister was suspended. Then, just to increase the unpleasantness, he told me some of the things she said that got her suspended. Apparently the entire first floor of the school heard her.

  Naturally, this evening Mom went over to Dad’s place to discuss Donni with him, leaving me here, alone, to do my homework like the perfect daughter I am. Which I did. I sat here trying to write about Jane Austen with Donni’s choice of swear words running through my head.

  Then, when Mom came back, she marched straight up here and sat on my bed with that straight-lipped look she gets when she has decided on a course of action. She talked very softly, the way she does when there are difficulties. She said Donni is showing signs of instability. She said reaction to the divorce has Donni doing badly in school, which only increases Donni’s stress, sending her into a downward spiral and putting her in danger of setting a pattern of failure for herself. She said Donni is in serious trouble, not just in school but in her life, and we have to help her.

  I want to scream, yet I know she’s right, Emmy. I must stop feeling sorry for myself. Maybe Donni is acting like such a jerk because she’s feeling even worse than I am.

  Anyway, Mom’s plan is as follows: She, Mom, will check with all of Donni’s teachers to see what work she can make up and what extra-credit work she can be assigned. And then, guess who is going to help Donni do all this homework? That’s right, Emmy. Nice girl Trisha will save the day. Every evening, either Donni will come here or I will go to Dad’s apartment to tutor her. I suppose when she comes here Mom might help her some. But Mom has mostly forgotten algebra, and the geography of Africa has changed, and so on. Dad could help Donni with math and science, but he doesn’t. Why? He just doesn’t, that’s all. Exerting himself is not Dad’s style.

  So Operation Save Donni is up to me. More work for intelligent, sensible, dependable, responsible big-sister Trisha.

  Actually, I almost feel like I want to.

  Anyway, at least it will be a way of getting together with Donni more.

  It went about the way I’d thought it would except for the really silly, mushy daydream stuff. Nobody cried. At first Mom interrogated me while Dad just sat there. But when I told them it was Mr. Billet talking about the divorce that made me lose it, Dad got an achy look on his face and reached over and touched my hair. Not a pat on the head. He just touched the side of my hair with two fingertips like to tell me he loves me. Dad is wonderful. I don’t get to see much of him during the week when he’s gone from seven in the morning till six at night, but on weekends we have the best times. Friday nights I go somewhere with my friends because Daddy’s tired, but Saturdays are for Daddy. In the morning we go to the grocery and we always get the same stuff, lots of macaroni and cheese and spaghetti because that’s what I cook on weekdays. And he gets some boneless chicken breasts because on weekends he cooks. We go to Burger King for lunch. We go to junk shops or garage sales and look at stuff. Then when we get home, Daddy makes rice in the microwave and cuts the boneless chicken breasts into strips and cuts up vegetables and stir-fries everything in peanut oil with a little fresh garlic. It’s so good. Then we go to a movie. Daddy always says, “Want to take in a movie?” and I say, “Sure,” so we go to the Cinemax. Then Daddy says, “Which one?” and I say, “Whichever,” so we walk into one. We always choose without talking about it. We stand around and one of us kind of walks and that’s it. It’s great that we don’t argue. We don’t have to talk, talk, talk about stuff. And it’s great being in the movie with Daddy like he’s my date, even though he would never put his arm around me or anything like that.

  But anyway, he touched the side of my head.

  So Mom started talking and talking about what to do. Mom considers herself a solver. She talked up this plan about how I was going to do better in school and make up a lot of work. I tried to explain to her that they don’t let you make up work when you’re suspended, that’s part of the so-called punishment, but she said that was no reason I couldn’t keep up with my reading, they couldn’t make me unread stuff once I’d read it, and maybe the teachers would let me make up work I’d kind of skipped before, and so on. Dad sat with just a hint of a smile the way he does when Mom gets going on one of her plans, like he knows it’s not going to work, but he’s not going to say anything. Which doesn’t matter, because I can take care of myself. When Mom pushes me too far I just talk as loud and fast as she does. I didn’t start to do that until she got on the subject of my clothes. She said I ought to start wearing nicer things to give me a proper mind-set for school and education. I said I don’t care, I like my clothes, I like the faded colors and the way I look in them, and I don’t see what clothing has to do with my intelligence, of which it is not my fault if I don’t have as much as certain perfect people. She said she wasn’t talking intelligence, of which I had plenty if I would just use it, she was talking attitude. I said my attitude would be okay if people like Mr. Billet would just let me alone. She said I had to learn to get along with the Mr. Billets of the world, there are a lot of them out there, called “bosses.” At that point Dad almost kind of sort of laughed, and Mom gave him a dirty look before she kept going.

  Anyway, Mom set up a plan for Trisha to help me with my schoolwork. Dad rolled his eyes. He and I both knew how that would go. Mom asked me to promise to cooperate with Trisha, and I said sure like it was a joke. I didn’t mean it.

  But then when Mom asked me to promise I wouldn’t blow up at Mr. Billet again, I said yes. And I meant it. I didn’t like to remember the way it had felt when I yelled at him. Like turning inside out. Like an alien was living in me. My chest started to hurt just from thinking about it. I didn’t want it to happen again.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  So right after supper somebody knocked at the door. I got up and opened it, and there stood Trisha on the fire escape with a book bag full of work for me and more books in her arms.

  “Trish,” Dad said, and I was letting her in, but he got up and came over and took some of the stuff from her and touched her on the cheek with his fingertips.

  All of a sudden I was so mad I could have spit. Trish was such a goody-nose, everybody liked her better than me, and, anyway, I couldn’t stand the way she dressed, like a mini-Mom, black slacks and a gray turtleneck and a black bow—I wanted to rip that bow out of her hair. I wanted to throw paint on her to give her some color besides black and gray.

  So we sat down at the table and Dad went back to his chair and Trisha tried to show me what I was supposed to do, but since she was acting like a schoolteacher I acted just the way I do in school. I fooled around and drew doodles on every piece of paper she put in front of me and didn’t listen. Dad sat in the next room reading his magazine, and Trisha kept her voice sweet and patient, like she was such a superior being. Why wouldn’t she yell? If she yelled, Dad might have to come see what I was doing.

  He got up, but he didn’t come near us. He went into the bathroom.

  “I know what you’re trying to do,” Trisha said in a whisper as soon as he closed the door.

  My hand and my pencil stopped like they’d run into something and I looked at her. This wasn’t her prissy teacher-voice.

  “Huh?”

  “I figured it out,” she whispered. “I know what you’re trying to do.”

  “I’m not trying to do anything.”

  “Yes, you are. You’re trying to get Mom and Dad back together.”

  That was so stupid. “You’re nuts.”

  “No, I’m not. Every time you get in trouble they have to talk. That’s what you’re trying to do. Maybe you don’t know it, but you are.”

  “You’re out of your tree!”

  Dad flushed the john and came out of the bathroom, so she did
n’t say any more, but she reached across the table and tapped her finger on the piece of paper I was doodling on. I looked down and there was a picture of Mom and Dad standing close together, talking.

  I could have screamed. I balled up the paper and threw it at her.

  Dad saw that. “Donni,” he said, “what’s the problem?”

  “Nothing.”

  He came in. “How’s she doing, Trish?”

  Trisha said, “She’s doing fine.”

  I didn’t know that Trisha the Perfect ever lied. I stared at her, and she looked back at me with dusky green eyes that begged me to understand something, but I didn’t know what.

  Dear Emmy,

  Who was it that said life is nasty, brutish, and short? Was it Hobbes?

  Tutoring Donni is nasty, brutish, and takes forever. It’s a disaster. So much for being a rescuing hero.

  I’ve never felt worse. I’ve never felt so shut out. I go to Dad’s apartment and the door is locked. And then I have to wait while someone comes to let me in. Donni’s at home with Dad, but I’m a visitor.

  Then Donni won’t listen when I explain things, or even look at me. She’s such a twit. Why won’t she use her brain?

  As for Dad, he tries to make me feel welcome, but he doesn’t know how, and I can’t tell him, because he doesn’t like to talk. I can’t, for instance, ask him to unlock the door before I get there, because he would look hurt and turn away. He and Donni probably get along fine, because she never wants to talk about her feelings, but I would not, repeat, not want to live with Dad. Donni is insane to think that Mom is to blame; can’t she see it was Dad’s fault? Mom tried and tried to get through to him, but he stonewalled her. He locked her out.

  Ouch, Emmy, I sound as immature as Donni, don’t I?

  They are not going to get back together, either. I wish Donni would realize that.

  Donni is so obstinate that she’ll never admit to it, but I know why she’s always in trouble: She’s trying to get them back together. I know I’m right. It came to me in a moment of insight similar to understanding relativity.