‘It would be tidier, but we had to let the butler go.’ Elon lowers his voice to whisper theatrically, ‘He was raiding the liquor cabinet.’
Leilani taps away at her phone. I don’t know for sure, but I have a feeling the McBrunights have a butler. Possibly more than one.
When Veronica comes back up Elon produces a joint, lights it, takes a drag, and hands it to Veronica, who drags on it and passes it to Leilani, who takes a toke so long I think the whole joint is going to disappear.
Leilani hands it to me before I’ve opened my mouth to explain that I don’t do drugs. Then I think about what they’ll say. How tedious the teasing will be.
Leilani already thinks I’m a – what was the word she used? – dweeb, that’s right. I’m used to that. Most of my peers think I’m weird: sometimes homeschooled, use too many big words, blah blah blah. I don’t care what they think, but not taking the joint will start the how-weird-is-he convo too soon. I don’t want to listen to them going on about my being straight-edged for the next few hours. Or days. Or, God, for as long as I live here.
I pretend to take a toke, then pass it to Elon. None of them notice.
How does stoned feel? I don’t even know what tipsy or drunk feels like. I’m always good. I try not to make trouble, because I’m acutely aware of what hell Rosa can, and probably will, bring down upon our heads some day.
Why can’t I just this once do something I shouldn’t?
Because I’m too scared of being out of it at the exact moment Rosa decides to – I don’t know – push Sojourner down a flight of stairs.
I won’t see Rosa until tomorrow. She’s with Seimone and Maya and they have adult supervision. If I’m going to try, now’s the time.
When Leilani hands me the joint again, I inhale and hold my breath. I don’t cough, though it makes my throat tickle. I hand it to Elon. My eyes sting.
We do two more rounds until the joint’s too small to hold. The smoke tastes sweet, almost like basil. I breathe in as little as I can. I don’t want to overdo it. I wonder when I’ll feel something. Soon, surely. But the others seem normal. In the bathroom mirror my eyes are pink.
‘I would be the best Peter Pan ever,’ Elon says.
‘Elon!’ Veronica says. ‘Let it go!’
‘Don’t worry, Ronnie. We know you don’t see colour.’
‘That’s not what I said,’ Veronica mutters.
‘Your sister,’ Leilani says, when I sit down on the couch, ‘doesn’t like me.’
‘Of course she doesn’t. You don’t think she’s adorable. She’s used to charming everyone.’
‘She’s not adorable. She weirds me out.’
My heart beats faster. Leilani noticed. I also feel sick. I can’t escape Rosa. She’s not here and yet she is. Is Leilani bringing her up a bad omen? I almost have an urge to call the McBrunight home and see if the twins are all right.
‘Her eyes are a bit too big. She’s almost too perfect. Those blonde curls. It’s almost like she’s in the uncanny valley.’
She just means Rosa looks like a doll. I hope my disappointment doesn’t show.
‘The what now? Uncaring alley? Down in the alley,’ Elon sings, ‘we having fuuuun.’
‘Shhhh! Un-can-ny valley,’ Leilani repeats more slowly. ‘It comes from robotics. When something looks almost, but not quite, human it makes our skin crawl. But up until that point we think it’s cute. Like putting eyes on a rice cooker. Or teddy bears, or basically everything we find cute. Until it gets that little bit too close, then it’s—’
‘Polar Express!’ Elon shouts.
‘Oh. My. God!’ Veronica screams. ‘The olds made me and Saskia watch that when we were little. Nightmares. For months. Years! I am still traumatised. What were they thinking? What was anyone involved with that nightmare monstrosity thinking?’
‘What’s Polar Express?’
‘He’s homeschooled,’ Leilani faux whispers.
‘Sometimes I’m homeschooled – I’m not from the Middle Ages.’
‘Aren’t homeschoolers basically Amish?’ Veronica wants to know.
‘Do I look Amish?’ I have only the vaguest notion of what Amish is.
‘Not without a beard,’ Leilani says, then puts her hand over her mouth to keep her insane laugh from slipping out.
‘Also they have much worse clothes,’ Veronica says, glancing at Leilani, clearly wondering what’s so funny.
‘I told you. I made him buy that shirt.’ Leilani’s hand being over her mouth makes her sound marginally less smug. ‘Also the jeans and shoes. He was a sad little gym rat before I fixed him.’
‘I’m not homeschooled or Amish. I have computers. A phone. A tablet.’ I would like to shout that I’ve had sex and drugs but I haven’t, well, not until a few seconds ago, or minutes, or whatever amount of time has passed, and only the drugs part. ‘I’m an atheist who believes in social justice and equality for everyone whatever their colour or gender or sexuality or anything else. I just haven’t heard of Polar Express! What is it?!’
They’re laughing. For a moment I want to yell at them, but then I can feel their laughter enter my pores, and tickle me from the inside, until I’m laughing too. We laugh so hard we gasp.
‘Movie,’ Veronica says at last, wiping tears away. ‘Really horrible animated movie.’
‘So what,’ I ask when the laughter finally floats away, ‘does the uncanny valley have to do with Rosa?’
I regret it at once. I was having fun.
‘Ah,’ Leilani says. ‘Yes. Well, she lives in the uncanny valley. It’s like she’s learning to be human, but isn’t there yet. Her skin doesn’t look like it has pores and those creepy, creepy eyes. Then there’s the way she smiles and laughs, always a fraction of a second behind everyone else. I gotta be honest, Che, she gives me the fucking creeps.’
‘Wow,’ Veronica says. ‘I have to meet this kid.’
‘Yeah, me too.’
‘If I pressed a button on her back,’ Leilani says, ‘she’d dance.’
I laugh. ‘She does. She dances! She started learning tap after seeing a Shirley Temple movie. People kept telling her she looks like her.’ Then I remember Leilani knows that. Seimone and Rosa are at the same dance school.
‘Shirley Temple has to be the creepiest white child ever.’ Leilani shudders.
‘Who’s Shirley Temple?’ Veronica whispers.
‘Stage actors, man. They know nothing. How,’ Elon asks, ‘did you get a job in a movie house, Ronnie? Have you ever even seen a movie?’
Veronica rolls her eyes. ‘We theatre people are too good for your plebeian arts.’
‘Says the girl who was on Law and Order.’
‘I was a kid! Besides, every actor in the history of the universe has been on that show!’
‘Not anymore,’ Elon says. ‘Moment of silence for the passing of NYC’s great employer of under-utilised actors.’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, Elon, it was cancelled years ago.’
‘Maya doesn’t like Rosa either,’ I say. ‘But Seimone does. Have they always had different friends?’
‘No. Rosa’s the first friend they haven’t shared. Maya doesn’t like being in the same room as Rosa. She told Seimone there’s something wrong with Rosa, that she should stay away from her. Seimone said she wished Maya was dead. When I called her on it she said she wished I was dead too.’
Elon makes scary noises and giggles.
It’s not funny.
‘That’s heavy,’ Veronica says. ‘How old is Rosa?’
‘Ten,’ I say. I’m staring at Leilani. She’s staring back. For a long, long, long moment, it might have been hours, we are locked in that stare and I’m on the verge of telling her everything, all my fears about Rosa.
Leilani seems to understand the way Georgie does. It would be such a relief to tell her.
‘I have to have a lobster roll,’ Leilani declares. ‘Who is with me?’
The moment is gone.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I slide off my chair and towards my bed, shoes off, jacket off, under sheets, eyes closed.
Morning.
My eyes are glued shut with sleep. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. For a moment I think I’m on a plane again.
I guzzle water. My tongue unsticks, but now I have an awful aftertaste from everything I drank and smoked and ate last night. I drag myself to the bathroom. I floss, I brush. I go through half the mouthwash, rinsing and spitting. I wash my face, towel it dry, put acne cream on, drink more water.
I pull out my phone. Too many messages.
I make my way downstairs, wincing at the creaking of the stairs. I hadn’t noticed they creaked.
‘You got in late last night,’ David says.
He’s sitting at the kitchen island drinking coffee.
‘Where’re Sally and Rosa?’ I ask, pulling myself onto a stool opposite him.
‘Breakfasting with the twins and Lisimaya and Gene and their au pair. Can’t remember her name.’
‘Did you know au pair means equal to?’ my mouth says before my brain registers the thought. Not very equal if David can’t remember her name.
‘Huh,’ David says. ‘They’ll be back after breakfast. You look like you died.’
‘Leilani’s a terrible influence.’ The coffee tastes awful. I hope that’s because my mouth is coated with mouthwash.
‘So I see.’
‘Is this an intervention?’
David laughs. ‘After your first night of typical teenager behaviour?’
‘I wanted to see how drugs and alcohol would affect me. You know, the way teenagers have done since time immemorial.’
‘Teenagers are a recent invention,’ David says, smiling because that’s something Sally likes to say. ‘What did you think of drugs and alcohol?’
‘Last night or now?’
‘Last night.’
‘Last night it was fun and weird and I had strange conversations and I ate more food than I think I’ve ever eaten.’
‘That I find hard to believe.’
‘Bad-for-me food. Now I feel awful. Inhaling smoke into your lungs is foul. I can’t think straight and I want to go back to bed.’
‘You didn’t get much sleep.’
‘Felt like anti-sleep. I’m going to the gym to see how badly buggered my reflexes are.’
‘A lot, probably. You’re such a finely tuned machine I’m sure some of your pistons frayed.’
‘You sound pleased.’ I have to concentrate hard to keep up with what David’s saying and spit out a reply.
David breaks out his full-wattage smile, dimples and all. ‘I’m enjoying seeing you behave like the teenager I was and that Sally was. Your lack of experimentation makes us nervous.’
David’s eyes seem bigger. Also they seem to be moving independently of his face, which can’t be right.
‘Sorry for not wanting to smoke and drink poison. I blame you for not letting me stay in any school long enough to have to resort to drugs to cope.’
‘You’re welcome. We’re proud to have produced two kids whose minds are unfettered by the noxious bullshit that would have been pumped into them if you’d spent all your time at a regular school.’
It sounds like he’s reciting the words. For a moment I wonder if David actually thinks that, or if he’s repeating Sally. I must still be stoned. The room is slightly tilted. I am still out of it. I hate it.
‘I don’t want you to get into drugs or alcohol. They lead too many people to bad places. But I don’t trust extremism. Teetotallers make me as nervous as alcoholics.’
‘That’s silly. Not drinking isn’t extreme. It’s not doing something everyone else does. As of last night, or rather this morning, I now know why I avoided alcohol and drugs and why I’ll continue to avoid them.’ I sip my coffee. It makes me feel worse. ‘That’s like saying atheism is extreme.’
David is too close to me. Except that he probably isn’t. I’m not sure.
‘Atheism,’ I continue. What am I saying? ‘Atheism it’s, well, it’s not, really. I mean there’s nothing to it except not believing in God.’
I grope for my point. ‘The only thing you learn about someone if they’re an atheist is that they don’t believe in God. It’s only extreme if atheists are trying to stop everyone else from believing whatever it is they want to believe. If they’re doing that they’ve missed the point of not believing in God.’ Not drinking, that’s what we were talking about. ‘I don’t know anyone who doesn’t drink or do drugs who’s trying to stop anyone else from doing the same.’
‘Remind me to teach you about Prohibition sometime.’ David holds up his hands in mock surrender before I can say anything. ‘You’re pretty articulate for a teenager who’s hungover. I blame your excellent parenting for that.’
‘Self-praise is no praise.’
‘So what are you going to do today?’
‘I told you, gym. I guess I’ll catch up too. Read those history books you’re never going to ask me about. Are there eggs?’
David nods. ‘Bacon too. Want me to make us a fry-up?’
‘Sure. Though you know it’s weird parenting to reward me for a night of drugs and alcohol, right?’
‘We’ve always been weird parents.’
The smell of the eggs frying sends me running to the bathroom.
I retreat to my room. I should do the problems Geoff has set me but, well, my head. I open one of the Studs Terkel books, but I can’t concentrate. I turn to my journal instead. Through the nausea there’s a persistent drum of Rosa.
Leilani noticed Rosa’s weirdness.
I read my notes on Rosa, trying to think how they would look from a stranger’s point of view. What would Leilani think?
I should have tried to talk to David. He was in such a mellow mood, making me breakfast, being proud I smoked a joint. But I’m not ready for a repeat of the conversation with Sally.
I read through my account of Rosa making Apinya kill her guinea pig.
There, right in the middle: Set it on fire, watch it burn.
I don’t remember writing that.
Could I have written it last night? I don’t remember getting home. I know I opened up my journal and wrote something. I don’t remember what.
The most recent notes are a disjointed rambling journal entry about my evening with Leilani and her friends. Nothing weird in there, except I’m more obsessed with knowing whether Elon is a girl or a boy than I realised. Elon could be neither. There are people who are neither.
I’m as obsessed with Sojourner as I thought I was. I delete those parts. I crap on about how much I love sparring even though I’m shit at it. I imagine what it’d be like to truly land a punch. Apparently I think it will be like coming. Ewww. I don’t think that. I’m definitely not drinking or getting stoned again. It turned me into an idiot.
I turn back to the Apinya entry.
Set it on fire, watch it burn.
That’s not the kind of thing I’d write. Did Rosa?
Rosa giggles.
I turn. She’s in the doorway.
‘Sally and David say I can have a dog if I take care of this fake dog without killing it for two months.’ She holds out her tablet to show the dog app.
‘Congrats.’
She couldn’t have accessed the journal, could she? I’m vigilant about changing passwords. The files are buried deep. I quit out of the journal, put the computer to sleep, switch my phone to record.
‘I want you to give Seimone’s necklace back. Her grandmother gave it to her.’
‘I gave it back already. It was a loan. See?’ Rosa pulls her collar open to show that there’s no necklace.
I pull out my phone.
‘What are you doing, Che?’
<
br /> ‘Texting Leilani to make sure Seimone got her necklace back.’
Rosa pouts. ‘Well, she did. Seimone and I danced last night. Though she does ballet, not tap. We taught each other some steps.’ She pirouettes to demonstrate.
‘What was Maya doing?’
Rosa shrugs. ‘How should I know? I asked Seimone lots of questions. She answered them all. I showed an interest. I know all sorts of things about her now.’
‘That’s great,’ I say, though I’m not sure it is. ‘But you two didn’t play with Maya?’
‘Of course not. She doesn’t like me and she’s mean.’
I believe the first bit, not the second.
My phone pings. It’s Leilani. —She was wearing it this morning. Why?
Rosa smirks though she can’t see the phone. ‘I’m going to get a dog, Che. When I get it I won’t hurt it. You’ll see. I keep my promises.’
‘I’m glad.’
Rosa hugs me, tablet in her hand. I think about asking her if she’d hug me while holding a puppy. But she’s warm and clings to me like she did as a littlie. That soft, fresh baby smell is long gone, and she’s done and said many awful things, but I want to believe that hug.
I love Rosa. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop.
‘Hugging is nice,’ Rosa says and it’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her she’s laying it on too thick.
Set it on fire, watch it burn.
Is that what she’s trying to do to me?
PART THREE
I want a girlfriend
CHAPTER TWENTY
Four weeks after landing in New York City I type out, then delete, my list again.
1. Keep Rosa under control.
Rosa, Rosa, Rosa, Rosa.
The good news is she hasn’t done anything worse than sneak out of the apartment, be rude to cops, and steal: that feather from the woman at church and the Korean doll and necklace she claims Seimone gave her. Oh, and lie, an endless string of lies. All of which is Rosa status quo. But no more dead guinea pigs. No dead anything. No new weird entries in my journal.
My Sister Rosa Page 15