My Sister Rosa

by Justine Larbalestier

  ‘Then I’d have to find someone else to help me. I bet Sid would. She likes me. But she doesn’t have to. She’s not my sister. You have to help me and explain the rules. Because they don’t make any sense.’

  ‘I’ll keep helping you, Rosa, if you stop messing with me.’

  ‘How do I know when I’m messing with you?’

  ‘You can start by not wishing anyone was dead.’

  ‘That’s not fair. I wish Leilani was dead too. I get to wish whatever I want. Everyone wishes someone was dead.’

  I wish Rosa were dead.

  ‘Stop trying to cosy up to Sojourner—’

  ‘She’s teaching me about Jesus. It’s all about love and empathy. You should want me to learn that stuff.’

  ‘No more Bible study.’ I don’t want her whispering poison in Sojourner’s ears.

  ‘I tell her you and she should be together.’

  ‘I don’t care. Stay away from Elon and Veronica.’

  Her bottom lip sticks out. ‘But we were going to dance! For money!’

  I shake my head.

  ‘My friends are off limits.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Stop trying to turn the parentals against me.’

  ‘You’re no fun.’

  ‘That’s right, I’m not. No one’s here to be fun for you.’

  Rosa doesn’t respond, but I know that’s exactly what she thinks everyone is here for.

  ‘If I promise not to mess with your friends or the parentals, will you promise to stay with me?’

  I stare at her. ‘Stay with you?’

  ‘I need you to keep answering my questions and help me be normal. I’d be lost without you.’

  ‘You already said that.’

  ‘Will you stay with me until you finish university?’

  ‘No, that’s too long.’

  ‘Until I finish high school? It won’t take me eight years,’ Rosa says confidently. ‘I need you to help me through school. There are two girls whispering about me at dance school. I don’t know how to make that stop.’

  ‘I promise I’ll keep helping you. I’ll always answer your questions.’

  Rosa puts out her hand and we shake. I feel queasy.

  ‘You promise not to mess with my friends, not to turn Sally and David against me?’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘You won’t hurt anyone?’

  ‘I can’t promise that. I don’t know what will hurt people. They have feelings, I don’t. I promise I won’t physically hurt anyone. On purpose.’

  I nod. ‘And killing?’

  ‘I already promised I wouldn’t and I promised I wouldn’t encourage anyone else to kill. I haven’t broken either of those promises.’

  ‘Promise again.’

  ‘Fine. I won’t kill anyone. Not unless I’m sure I can get away with it.’

  She grins as if to say, See? I do have a sense of humour.

  ‘That’s not a promise.’

  Rosa shrugs. ‘I was joking. I already promised I won’t kill Maya. I won’t kill Sid or Leilani or the parentals or anyone you care about.’

  ‘Or anyone I don’t care about.’

  ‘Fine. Besides, I’m so little. How could I kill anyone?’ Rosa rolls her eyes at my stupidity and slides off my bed. ‘Goodnight, Che.’

  She kisses my cheek and slips out the door. I try to make sense of our conversation. I can’t. I feel like I’ve barely survived a beating.

  What has she promised me?

  Not to mess with my friends. Too vague. She’ll claim not to think she was messing with anyone. She’ll claim she didn’t realise whoever she messed with was a friend of mine.

  Not to turn Sally and David against me. Also vague. How was I to know, she’ll say, they’d react like that?

  She’s also promised not to physically hurt anyone. On purpose. She’ll claim she didn’t mean to. What about her not-killing promise? Not unless I’m sure I can get away with it.

  I won’t be able to sleep.

  I pull out my phone. It’s all messages. From Leilani asking me to another showing as if she hadn’t accused me of only liking Sojourner because she’s black. Jason updating me on his parent wars. Georgie wanting to know if I escaped the drunk girl, and Nazeem telling me he misses me because I’m the only one who’ll appreciate how he got one up on Georgie and he has to tell me about it. I’m about to text Georgie to see if she can talk – I have to talk about what happened – when one comes through from Sojourner.

  —Dancing with you was fun.

  I stare at it. Touch the screen as if that’s somehow touching her.

  —Yeah. Me too. I liked it too.

  I hold my breath. I type something I’m afraid to send, then before I can stop myself I press send.

  —I’m glad you kissed me.

  I stare at my phone, willing her to respond, my hands sweating. What if she doesn’t respond?

  A text comes through from Naz, another from Georgie. I don’t look at them.

  Why isn’t Sojourner responding? Is it too much? Should I not have mentioned the kiss? Are we supposed to pretend it didn’t happen? She’s the one who said dancing with me was fun. Surely that means something. I didn’t say I wanted us to kiss again. I didn’t say I can’t stop thinking about her. That I’ll go to church every Sunday to be with her. That all I want right now is for us to kiss again. Her mouth against my mouth, our fingers touching. Our…

  —Yes. Goodnight, Che.

  Yes, she’s glad too? Or, yes, she’s glad I’m glad she kissed me? Or, yes, I know you’re glad I kissed you, which could mean anything, including that she’s laughing at me.

  I don’t think she’s laughing at me.

  I turn my phone off, put it onto charge, crawl into bed, close my eyes and sleep, dreaming about Sojourner.

  When I wake Sojourner is my first thought. I turn my phone on to check the messages are real. They are.

  Downstairs, Rosa is eating breakfast. David is leaning on the island drinking coffee. Rosa’s tablet is between them and they’re discussing something intensely. Some computery, mathsy thing I won’t understand.

  Rosa looks up and waves at me, her dimples popping, as if last night she didn’t say I won’t kill unless I’m sure I can get away with it.

  ‘No more maths tutor,’ Rosa says. ‘I told you.’ She slides from her stool to give me a hug. ‘Skint,’ she whispers.

  David frowns. ‘You’re both on holidays now. In September you’ll start at a local school.’

  Rosa gives me an I told you so look. ‘If we’re here in September.’

  David shoots her a look.

  ‘Which school are you sending me to, David?’ Rosa asks. ‘Seimone said most of the schools here are hard to get into. You have to apply ages ahead of time.’

  David says nothing.

  ‘I’m going to coach Seimone today. Her chess is much better already.’

  ‘Isn’t she in school?’ I ask.

  Rosa shakes her head. ‘It’s a private school. They’re already on holiday.’

  ‘That’s why,’ David tells me, ‘we called off your tutoring. Neither of you’ve had a holiday in a while and we thought Rosa and the twins would enjoy being on holidays together.’

  ‘And Che would enjoy spending all day and night punching people,’ Rosa adds, dimpling.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  On the way to the gym I text Georgie that I need to talk to her. It’s the wee hours over there, but she’s often up late.

  Sojourner and Jaime are in school. Not that I would talk to either of them about Rosa. I don’t want to scare Sojourner away and I don’t know Jaime.

  All I can think about on the treadmill is Rosa. My brain spirals. Rosa has kept her promises. She’s proud of keeping her promises. Why does it feel like when she says she won’t hurt people I care about that she’s saying the opposite?

  I stretch, then force myself into defensive sets. They’re a staccato mess. I text Georgie again. It’s hours till she wakes up
.

  I ring Leilani. Her message is typical Leilani: Don’t leave a message. Or do. But don’t expect a response. Voicemail? Seriously? What is your problem?

  I hang up and text her —Can we talk? It’s important.

  I stand up, shaking myself out. I can get a grip. I can work out properly.

  My phone rings. Leilani.

  ‘What’s so important?’

  ‘Rosa.’

  ‘The twins still aren’t talking.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Meet me in Tompkins Square. Near the chess. I can be there in fifteen minutes.’

  ‘See you,’ I say as the phone goes dead in my ear.

  I wonder why Leilani picked the chess tables. Does she know about Rosa’s adventure there?

  When I get there Leilani’s sitting on a bench, tapping away at her tablet.

  ‘Hey,’ she says, sliding the tablet into her bag. ‘Sorry about the thing with Ronnie. She can be a shit. Didn’t mean to hit you too.’

  I sit down next to her. An apology? I’ll take it. ‘It’s okay.’

  ‘Your new girlfriend dump you? You look like shit.’

  ‘She’s not my girlfriend.’

  ‘Oh.’ Leilani pushes her hair back from her eyes. ‘She rejected you. Bummer, dude. But you’re not really in her league, are you?’

  ‘They have leagues for everyone here? No one told me.’

  ‘Yup. Everyone’s enrolled at birth and you get tested every six months to see if you’ve gotten any hotter. There’s a huge amount of movement between leagues as puberty hits, then they’re pretty static until people hit the unfortunate forties, then it’s the slow slide into the bottom league more commonly known as death.’

  She’s not looking at me.

  ‘Good to know. Very glad to have been spared that system in Australia.’

  ‘Australia has it too,’ Leilani says. ‘They have the older, ruder system of not telling you about it.’

  ‘Harsh.’

  ‘Well, it’s a big, crocodile-and-poisonous-spider-and-snake-infested horror show, isn’t it? Why make anything easy?’

  I think about giving her my Australian-snakes-aren’t-actually-that-poisonous spiel. ‘True,’ I say instead.

  ‘So?’ she says, hands resting on her bag.

  ‘So.’

  ‘You had something you wanted to tell me?’

  ‘I was hoping for somewhere a little bit more private.’

  ‘Can’t go back to my place. Too…’ She doesn’t elaborate. ‘Let’s walk. We could walk along the river. I don’t feel like sitting around.’

  There’s something a bit off about Leilani. Her voice is higher than usual. Her hands aren’t still. She keeps messing with her hair.

  She’s walking before I’ve finished saying, ‘Sure.’ Only my longer legs save me from having to break into a run.

  ‘Talk,’ she barks as we take the Sixth Street bridge over the FDR Highway to the stretch of land beside the river. Two joggers overtake us. One pulls a dog in her wake.

  ‘What’s up?’ I ask, instead of telling her about Rosa.

  Her pace increases until she’s on the verge of running.

  ‘What makes you think— Fucking Ronnie.’ She comes to a stop. I stutter-step as I turn to her. ‘Fuck,’ she says. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ She hits her thighs with her fists. ‘I don’t want to be in it. Fuck!’

  She walks again, then shifts into a run. I keep pace with her. She runs faster. So do I. I can’t help thinking about my run with Sojourner, though Leilani isn’t running anywhere near as fast as Sojourner. We come to a stop at the tip of the island where you can catch the ferry to the Statue of Liberty. I haven’t seen any of the New York sights. I haven’t even gone to the top of the Empire State Building.

  Leilani flops down on a bench. I sit next to her. ‘At least pant a little. Asshole.’

  I pant like a dog. She punches my shoulder half-heartedly.

  ‘I should be fitter. I used to run all the time. Veronica cheated on me.’

  ‘I’m sorry. That sucks. How’d you find out?’

  ‘She drunkenly told me about it last night when I rescued her sodden ass from Coffee Noir. I should’ve left her there. I mean, Jesus, Che. She’s a dolt. You know who she slept with? The director of an Off-Broadway thing. She didn’t even get the part! Veronica’s all, It’s no big thing. So I acted like it was no big thing. But I feel like…’ – she taps her heart – ‘it is a big thing. I thought we were a big thing.’

  ‘Even though she’s a dolt?’

  ‘We all have our faults. Okay, fine, being a dolt is a big fault. I’ll dump her. It’s just that I thought we were maybe an always thing. Like the olds. High-school sweethearts. It’s stupid, isn’t it?’

  I shake my head. I’ve gone through moments of hoping for the same thing. The parentals are in love. What would it be like to be with the same person for decades, loving them more each day?

  ‘They may be shitty parents, but they’re great for each other. Still in love. I’d like that. Though I will not be a shitty parent.’

  I haven’t noticed the McBrunights being shitty parents.

  ‘They’re terrible, Che. They barely remember they have children. If we have problems they throw money at them, but they barely spend any time with us. They never have. We were raised by Grandma. When she died it was bad. The twins were broken. I had to put them back together. Now I’m the one raising them. When they can’t sleep? It’s my bed they crawl into. I’m the one who adjudicates their fights. I’m the one loving them ’cause the olds certainly don’t do it.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s not—’

  ‘What if you can only have one kind of love? If you’re completely in love with your partner, then you can’t be a good parent. But if you’re a good parent, maybe it means you can’t be in love? Because you put your kids first, not your partner. Your olds are sloppy in love, too, aren’t they? Do they actually love you? Because I know ours don’t love us.’

  She’s asking me one of my biggest fears. I don’t want to answer because, no, I don’t think they love me, not the way they love each other.

  ‘Fuck. This is not me. I do not tell strangers my woes. Not ever.’

  I’m surprised that I’m hurt. We’ve only known each other a few weeks, but it feels longer. It feels like we trust each other. ‘I’m not a total stranger. More of a partial stranger.’

  Leilani lets out a snort of her awful laugh and covers her mouth.

  ‘I don’t laugh in front of partial strangers either. Why do I trust you, Che?’

  ‘Is it my honest, farm-boy, wheat-fed, acne-ridden face?’

  ‘Shut up. I never said anything about your acne! You’re going to hold everything I say against me?’

  ‘I thought it was funny. I’ve never even been on a farm.’

  ‘God. I have. Horrible places.’

  ‘I trust you, too, Leilani. I consider you a friend.’

  ‘You are a farm boy. All relaxed and friendship-having. Of course you think we’re friends. Shit,’ she says. ‘You called me. Rosa. You wanted to talk about your creepy little sister.’

  ‘Psychopathic little sister,’ I say.

  ‘That’s a bit extreme.’ There’s a smile in Leilani’s voice. ‘She doesn’t look like the serial killer type. You know, being a kid and all.’

  ‘Psychopath doesn’t mean serial killer. Most psychopaths don’t kill.’

  Leilani’s staring at me. ‘You’re serious?’ She sits forward, her hands gripping the bag on her lap as I tell her all about Rosa.

  ‘Seimone worships Rosa.’

  ‘She likes being worshipped.’ I’ve never had this conversation with anyone who believed me. When I first told Georgie she laughed. She thought I was joking. Even now Georgie thinks it’s a joke. Leilani understands.

  ‘Seimone can’t see it.’

  I nod. ‘But you do. Maya does. Most people don’t. All they see is the charm.’

  ‘Like your dad.’
>
  ‘Right. But with no heart. I swear she copied David’s smile. Charm’s on the list.’

  ‘List?’

  I tell Leilani about the psychopath checklist.

  ‘She’s not scared of anything?’

  ‘Nope. Except being locked up. She doesn’t want people to realise what she is. But she likes to talk about what she does, how she thinks. That’s why she likes me. She can tell me anything.’

  ‘Fun for you,’ Leilani says, patting my shoulder. I guess that’s her version of a hug. ‘A psychopath. Couldn’t she be more of a sociopath? They don’t kill, do they?’

  ‘It’s a different name for the same thing. The DSM calls what Rosa has antisocial personality disorder.’

  ‘DSM?’

  ‘The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.’

  ‘Woah. On the bright side, she’s only ten.’

  I laugh. ‘You wouldn’t believe how often the parentals say that. Jeffrey Dahmer was impaling dogs’ heads on stakes before he was ten. Children do all sorts of terrible things.’

  ‘No details! Thanks! Do you think she’ll kill someone?’ Leilani lowers her voice. ‘Seimone wishes we were dead, me and Maya. She’s said it more than once. She never used to talk like that.’

  ‘Rosa’s always wishing people were dead.’ I shake my head slowly. ‘It’s only in movies that all psychopaths are killers. In real life they mostly manipulate and lie and treat people like shit.’

  ‘Well, that’s alright then.’ Leilani pulls her knees up and rests her head on them. ‘When I said she was creepy I was thinking she was a spoiled brat. I figured she was a regular narcissist. Except my therapist says we unqualified people should not be making diagnoses.’

  ‘Your therapist is right. But Rosa isn’t normal.’

  ‘I wish I could get Seimone to see what a little shit Rosa is. Can I tell her what you told me? Also Suzette?’

  ‘Sure,’ I say. ‘I should have told you sooner. But I haven’t had much luck with that.’

  ‘People don’t believe you,’ she says. It’s not a question.

  ‘Nope. Except for my friend Georgie. But she doesn’t realise how bad it is.’

  ‘Rosa’s gorgeous. That can’t help. You need to tell someone who can do something, Che. A shrink, a therapist, a social worker. Someone else in your family. You have aunts, right?’