My Sister Rosa

by Justine Larbalestier

  ‘Practically,’ Leilani says.

  ‘It was his birthday,’ Maya says. ‘Rosa told Seimone she gave him a brain.’

  Leilani stares.

  ‘A plastic model of a brain.’

  ‘Can we say they’re a birthday present?’ Leilani asks.

  ‘Happy birthday, Che,’ Maya says.

  Leilani smiles at me as if she’s genuinely delighted to be giving me a birthday present.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say. Part of me is happy. I’ll find out what Sojourner thinks of me in them.

  But I also feel, well, manipulated.

  It’s the feeling I get when Rosa pulls one of her tricks and gets away with it. I know this isn’t the same but I can’t quite trust it.

  Leilani drags me into a few more shops, but I refuse to let her buy me anything else.

  ‘You sure I can’t carry that bag?’ I ask Maya.

  She shakes her head. ‘Tennis players carry their own gear. Serena Williams carries her own gear.’

  ‘Serena Williams is bigger than you.’ The bag is almost as big as Maya.

  ‘She wasn’t always.’

  ‘Don’t bother arguing,’ Leilani says. ‘She won’t budge. Even if carrying that thing is permanently damaging her back.’

  I buy a pair of black leather shoes that Leilani says can be formal and informal. They’re on sale, so they’re only two hundred dollars. I almost pass out paying for them. I’m not going to enjoy explaining them to the parentals. Maya buys electric blue sequinned sneakers and wears them out of the shop. They sparkle as she walks.

  Everywhere we go, people know Leilani.

  ‘What are you, the shopping queen of New York City? How does everyone know you?’

  Maya laughs. ‘Tennis time,’ she tells Leilani. ‘Can we take the High Line?’

  ‘Sure.’ Leilani leads us across the old-looking street of smooth bricks and up a wide flight of stairs. ‘You been here yet?’

  ‘Nope.’ I have no idea what they’re talking about.

  ‘It’s a sky park,’ Maya says.

  ‘A narrow sky park full of annoying tourists who stop and goggle at everything. But it does mean no cars for four blocks.’

  At the top of the stairs there’s a wide pathway lined with trees and clogged with people.

  ‘It used to be an abandoned railway,’ Leilani explains, moving in front of me and making a path through the crowd.

  The trees look young. I wonder how long this park has existed. Everything looks pretty new. We’re passing the fourth or fifth floors of apartment buildings and offices and hotels. I step sideways to allow a couple who won’t let go of each other past.

  The next section widens out to allow for a row of seats full of people sitting, enjoying the sun, and not paying much attention to the steady stream of tourists walking past, gawking at everything. I’ve heard six different languages float past.

  The path narrows again as we walk through an archway of trees growing over our heads. It’s gorgeous, even if the people walk far too slow and stop far too often to take photos for Leilani’s liking.

  ‘You should have seen it before the mobs descended,’ Leilani says.

  ‘It was almost bare,’ Maya says. ‘Tiny trees, and the little plants on the ground hadn’t spread out. It’s better now.’

  ‘Except for the people.’

  ‘I like people. My tennis school is down there.’ Maya points west to where there’s a glimpse of the Hudson River.

  After we’ve dropped Maya off we head back to the East Village.

  ‘You should grow a beard,’ Leilani says.

  ‘I’m seventeen. I can’t grow a beard.’

  ‘Half the boys at my school have beards.’

  I look at Leilani dubiously.

  ‘They do. Not full-on Williamsburg-I-cure-my-own-meats-and-brew-my-own-beer beards – except for Mikal, but he’s a six-foot-five freak – but facial hair? There’s a lot of it. See?’

  She points at a man with a long, black bushranger beard, who’s about to walk past us. He smiles at her, but Leilani’s already pointing out the next bearded man.

  ‘I know what a beard is, Leilani. You’re telling me I should kowtow to the latest fashion in men’s grooming?’

  ‘Kowtow? If it’s a good fashion, sure. You’d look less farmer-boy with a beard.’

  I sincerely doubt that.

  ‘I’m blond.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘How often do you think I shave?’

  ‘I have no idea.’ Leilani’s imperial eyebrows go up. ‘Boys’ shaving habits are not something I give much thought to. Every day?’

  I snort.

  Leilani touches my cheek, carefully avoiding pimples. ‘But it’s smooth. When’s the last time you shaved?’

  ‘A week ago? I haven’t shaved since we landed. So ten days? Two weeks?’

  ‘God. You’re, like, practically hairless.’ She grabs my arm, peers at it, then points at her own. ‘You have no arm hairs! I have more arm hairs than you, and I’m not exactly hirsute. Okay, forget about growing a beard. It would take you a thousand years.’

  ‘Even then it would be a soft cluster of bum fluff.’

  ‘Bum fluff!’ A sound like the cackling of a hen that’s been attacked by an axe explodes out of her. It takes me a moment to realise she’s laughing, not dying. With that ear-curdling sound and her cheeks turning red, for the first time Leilani doesn’t look remotely cool. ‘Bum fluff! What does that even mean? Do you Aussies grow cotton balls on your butts or something?’

  She laughs harder, adding snorts to her squawking. People are staring.

  I have no idea what’s so funny, but her laugh? Leilani’s laugh is the most outlandish thing I’ve ever heard. I’m laughing too.

  ‘Your laugh,’ I gasp. ‘Your laugh!’

  ‘I know,’ she says in between snort-squawking. She’s bent over. ‘Must stop.’ She wipes tears from her eyes.

  ‘It’s spectacular.’

  She snorts again.

  ‘You have the worst laugh in the world.’

  She nods while snorting.

  ‘Here was me thinking you were cool.’ My laughter slows into a grin.

  ‘I am,’ she manages to say, breathing slower. ‘No one cooler. I only share my, um, unique laugh with a privileged few.’

  She uses her no doubt ridiculously expensive sleeve to wipe away the last of the tears. ‘That’s it. I’m taking you to meet Ronnie. You’ve heard me laugh. I have no secrets left.’

  ‘Ronnie?’

  ‘Yes. Ronnie – Veronica – my girlfriend. Come on. Her shift ends in about forty minutes. We’re going to this new ramen place with her best friend. We’ve enough time to drop off these bags at my place, for you to change, and get there. Are you hungry?’

  I’m always hungry but the thought of missing a class makes me twitchy. Even when I know Sojourner won’t be there. But I can make a later class and sparring isn’t till seven. It’s not a sin, I tell myself, to have the occasional slower day.

  ‘Sure,’ I say. ‘Let’s see your girl.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ‘Her name’s Veronica Diaz. We were high-school sweethearts,’ Leilani stresses the last word to mock it but also to dare me to laugh.

  ‘Were?’

  ‘She graduated already and now she’s working at the Sunshine on Houston,’ she says. I wonder how long it will take for the How-sten pronunciation to stick in my head. I also wonder what the Sunshine is.

  ‘She acts too. She’s been in student films and a couple of ads and one episode of Law and Order when she was little. She’s done close to a million auditions. She had a part in an Off-Broadway production but the funding fell through.’

  I try to look impressed, though I’m not sure if I’m meant to be or not.

  ‘It’s not enough to make her rent. So she works at the Sunshine and at a shitty cafe on St Mark’s. Coffee Noir. Stupid name.’

  Leilani’s tone sounds almost annoyed. I wonder if she offered to give
Veronica money. Leilani has all the money but her girlfriend struggles to pay her rent. None of my friends are massively richer or poorer than me. Well, except Leilani.

  I know how I feel having Leilani buy me those clothes without asking. If they’ve fought about this, I’m on Veronica’s side. Then I remember that right now the McBrunights are paying my rent. It didn’t worry me before. How do Sally and David feel about it?

  ‘Is it love?’ I ask as we cross the street.

  ‘It’s certainly lust,’ Leilani says. ‘Lots and lots of lust. Wait till you see her.’

  Sunshine is a cinema. There are signs up for an Iranian film festival.

  Even through scratched plexiglass Veronica is good-looking: curly blonde hair and green eyes. She is the big eyes, small nose, full lips picture of beauty. She saves herself from genericness with asymmetrically cropped hair and multiple piercings. She excites no lust in me, but Leilani is grinning as soon as she spots her and speeds up to lean over the counter and kiss her.

  ‘Missed you,’ I hear her murmur as she pulls away. ‘This is Che.’

  ‘Hi, Che. Heard a lot about you.’

  None of it good, I’m pretty sure.

  She holds out her hand. We shake.

  We don’t have to wait long for her replacement to show up, then I’m following them down a dark laneway to a restaurant that expands out of nowhere. The entrance is small and narrow, yet the restaurant is huge. Behind a long counter chefs toil over giant pots of boiling water and noodles fly through the air. The staff chant a greeting in Japanese. Veronica and Leilani bow and return the greeting. We’re given the last table.

  ‘Elon’s always late,’ Veronica says. ‘We should start.’

  ‘I heard that,’ says a black guy, who’s a bit shorter than me with a goatee and shoulder-length, too-shiny hair. He looks like Prince Valiant.

  ‘God, Elon, take that stuff off. You look ridiculous.’

  Elon slides the wig from his head and the beard from his face, and stuffs them into his pocket, where they look like feral creatures ready to leap out and attack us. Without the fake hair he looks like a girl.

  ‘Much better,’ Veronica says, reaching up to stroke his smooth, but red-from-the-false-beard, chin. Maybe Elon is a she?

  ‘I look divine,’ Elon says in a voice that’s too deep for a girl, sliding into a seat. Maybe he is a boy? My own cheeks aren’t much rougher than his. Hers?

  Elon’s hair is flattened. He pats at it and frowns. ‘I’ll order then go fix this mess. I’m starving. But I must look dreadful without my princely accoutrements.’

  ‘This is Che,’ Veronica says.

  ‘Oh, this is the dweeby son of your parents’ best friends. Did I get that right, Lei-Lei? Wasn’t that the word you decided on after scouring Ye Olde Slang Dot Com?’

  ‘Elon!’ Veronica says. Leilani doesn’t even roll her eyes at him.

  ‘That would be me,’ I say and hold out my hand.

  ‘Oh,’ Elon says. ‘A hand-shaker. That is dweebish.’ He or she proceeds to air kiss me. ‘You don’t exude rich. Do rich Australians not like to show off their wealth?’

  ‘I’m not rich.’

  ‘He’s not rich,’ Leilani says at the same time. ‘Not all my parents’ friends are rich, you know.’

  ‘Is that how you developed your taste for slumming?’ Elon turns to me and lowers his voice. ‘Veronica and me were scholarship kids and we share a rent-control sublet. Tell no one.’ He stands up. ‘Tonkotsu for me. With an egg.’

  I watch Elon walk towards the toilets. Slim hips, but a small waist. He walks with a sway. Doesn’t help me figure out if he’s a boy or a girl and I’m pretty sure I better not ask.

  ‘You’re not Elon’s type,’ Leilani says.

  I blush. ‘I wasn’t checking—’

  They laugh at me.

  ‘Elon’s not my type either,’ I say, trying for arch but landing on sullen.

  ‘Oooh,’ Veronica says, ‘so what is your type?’

  My phone chimes. I look down. —Fucked her yet? A text from Jason. I groan.

  Leilani leans over my shoulder. I click the phone off.

  ‘Fucked whom?’ she inquires delicately as the waiter arrives to take our orders. He raises his eyebrows but says nothing. ‘So?’ Leilani prompts when the waiter leaves. ‘Who’s the fuckee?’

  ‘No one. He’s joking. Crap joke, obviously. He’s not really a dick.’ Which isn’t true. Jason can be a total dick and he probably isn’t joking. I wish I hadn’t told him about liking Sojourner. At least my brain was on enough to not tell him her name.

  Veronica nudges Leilani. ‘What did the text say? Tell me.’

  ‘What text?’ Elon asks, sitting down.

  ‘Nothing,’ I say at the same time as Leilani says, ‘Fucked her yet?’

  ‘That’s what the text said,’ she clarifies. ‘I wasn’t asking a question.’

  ‘He was kidding,’ I say. ‘It wasn’t about anyone.’

  ‘Was it about Leilani?’ Elon asks. ‘I think you’ve got a shot with her.’ Elon leans forward and says in a theatrical whisper, ‘Just between you and me I think she’s ready for a change. She and Veronica have been together since the dawn of time.’

  Veronica punches him.

  ‘Ow!’

  Our noodles arrive.

  ‘Soothe your pain with tonkotsu.’

  The noodles are amazing.

  ‘Good, huh?’ Elon asks, broth dripping down her/his chin. ‘Oh, Lei, did I tell you I didn’t get the part?’

  Veronica rolls her eyes. ‘You don’t know that’s why, Elon.’

  Elon makes a snorting sound. ‘Ah, yes, I do. Apparently I don’t have the right look for Peter Pan.’

  ‘They’re calling being black a look? How progressive of them.’ Leilani blows a raspberry. ‘You’d be perfect.’

  ‘Do we have to talk about this?’ Veronica asks.

  My phone buzzes. I risk a look. It’s Rosa.

  —Miss you! We had such fun at the museum.

  We wander around what my phone tells me is the Lower East Side while Leilani, Veronica and Elon gossip about people they know and debate clothes, shops and restaurants and some new hotel as if they were as old as the parentals. Elon keeps asking Leilani about her website.

  ‘You have a website?’ I ask. It seems kind of old-fashioned to me.

  The three of them laugh. ‘Yes, Leilani McBrunight has a website,’ Elon says. ‘It’s called Neophyte?’ He’s staring at me as if I should know what that means.

  ‘Never mind,’ Leilani says. ‘Che’s not much into fashion.’

  ‘Really?’ Veronica says. ‘That shirt is divine.’

  ‘I made him buy it.’

  My phone buzzes. Sally telling me that Rosa is having a sleepover with Seimone and Maya at the McBrunights’ and that she and David are having dinner there. I doubt Maya’s a willing party.

  ‘I should head,’ I say.

  ‘You got somewhere to be?’

  ‘Gym,’ I say.

  ‘It’s not even dark yet,’ Elon protests. ‘I haven’t ferreted out your secrets.’

  ‘What makes you think I have secrets?’

  ‘Yes,’ Leilani says. ‘Stick around. You can skip gym, surely? You’re new to New York. We can teach you the secret passwords.’

  ‘Where the dragons’ lairs are,’ Veronica says.

  ‘How to slay them,’ Elon adds.

  I’m curious about Leilani and her friends. They’re nothing like my mob at home. Nazeem and Jason and Georgie do not talk clothes the way these guys do. Or pretty much anything they’re talking about.

  I kind of want to know how Leilani and Co amuse themselves, and the parentals will be thrilled I was hanging out with her. That might balance out how not-thrilled they’re going to be when I tell them about sparring.

  ‘Fine,’ I say. ‘You can teach me your ways.’

  Elon mock hugs me and makes I-am-giddy-with-joy noises. ‘Let the lessons begin!’

  I text Sa
lly to let her know I’m with Leilani and her friends. —Have fun, she texts back.

  ‘Step one,’ Leilani says. ‘We visit Ronnie and Elon’s.’

  ‘Wasn’t step one eating ramen?’ I ask.

  ‘No, step one was retrieving me from the job of total boredom,’ Veronica says.

  ‘Just open the door, Ronnie.’

  Veronica opens a graffiti-splattered door and leads us up four flights of stairs.

  ‘I love walkups,’ Leilani says.

  ‘It’s humble but it’s home,’ Elon says, grinning. ‘We’re getting an elevator installed in our apartment any day now.’

  The stairs are filthy. I can smell dust and years of crud walked into the fraying carpet. My shoes stick a little with each step. The walls are all scuff marks. On each floor at least one apartment has a pile of garbage leaning next to the door. The first floor has only one bag and it doesn’t smell too terrible. The second floor is much worse.

  ‘They think elves will take the garbage down for them,’ Elon says as we reach the fourth floor and their apartment. Outside the door are two bags of garbage. ‘Veronica! It was your turn.’

  Veronica has the grace to mutter an apology, but then follows Elon into the apartment.

  ‘Veronica!’ Elon yells. ‘Take the garbage down.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’

  ‘Now!’

  Veronica sheepishly goes out, dragging the garbage behind her.

  ‘Ronnie is the worst,’ Elon says, dropping onto one of the couches. ‘It’s like filth is invisible to her. If Veronica wasn’t such a great cook I’d be looking for a new roomie like this.’ Elon snaps his or her fingers.

  ‘And if she hadn’t been your best friend since you were both five,’ Leilani says.

  ‘Six. Yeah, there is that. She’s such a slob, though. I don’t mind untidy, but filth? She doesn’t even clean the toilet after—’

  Leilani holds up her hand. ‘We don’t want to know!’

  ‘Sit down already,’ Elon commands.

  Leilani sits on the couch opposite as I sink down next to Elon. The couch has a lot of give, my arse is almost touching the ground, my knees are near my eyes.

  ‘Welcome to our palace.’

  I laugh. ‘Very palatial.’

  It’s about as far as you can get from Leilani’s. The room is crowded with two couches, table and chairs, shelves groaning with books and DVDs, and speakers, screen, computers, routers and wires. The kitchen is against the wall. One tall, narrow window next to it leads out onto a fire escape.