by Holly Cupala
Twenty-nine
Montage opening night was sure to be a packed house for Essence Hannah, breakout actress. Mom couldn’t stop telling everyone about her Guys and Dolls part or the Cornish application, or how they would be blown away by her performance. I would be backstage looking out over the crowd, trying for one more year not to think about the night Xanda died.
While everyone else headed to the Winter Ball, I waited on the couch in the First Washington lobby for my mother to pick me up. She would be rehearsing lines in her head for last-minute changes. I was rehearsing lines as well—the conversation I’d had earlier with Kamran replayed in my mind over and over.
I was late to English class that morning with stomach cramps. Just before I reached the door, Kamran came out with a pass. We nearly crashed into each other.
“Miranda,” he said, “it’s you.” Like we hadn’t crossed paths nearly every day since last summer. Like he hadn’t been avoiding me all along.
“We should talk,” I said. “Before…well, before…” I touched my belly. Even at almost twenty-six weeks, it looked ready to burst. I couldn’t imagine what I would look like at forty.
The key paddle dangled in his hand, jingling. His hair was longer than last summer, grown out over the collar of his jacket. “I’m not sure what there is to talk about.”
Our English teacher’s voice droned faintly through the door. I just stood there with his eyes drilling into me. “Well, even if you don’t care about me, I thought you would be a little more interested in the baby.”
He laughed, the same sound I had heard a thousand times, only never this harsh.
“I don’t know what’s funny about that,” I said.
The laugh ended abruptly. “It’s funny because I’m not so sure that it’s mine.”
What?
“I’m not so sure I’m the only possible candidate here. Because I’ve been finding out there’s a lot more to last year than I thought. Delaney—”
“Delaney?” I cried out, then lowered my voice. “What has Delaney been telling you?”
Kamran ran his hands through his hair, a gesture I remembered like it was my own. “I always knew there were things you wouldn’t tell me, but I was trying to give you space—I thought it was about your sister. But all the time I was studying and working, you were going out—parties, camping trips…always keeping things from me. What else am I supposed to think?”
“If you would just give me a chance…” I would tell you there has never been anyone but you.
“I did give you a chance. I thought you were different, Miranda. I’ve gotta go.”
I came to work with my mind reeling. I could talk to Nik. Could I talk to Shelley? For a week now, I’d been baiting her with things like, “I saw Femme Nikita last night. Awesome movie.”
“Mmm-hmmm.”
Or, “Hey, Shelley…what do you think of the name Nicole? Nik, for short?” She only frowned. I didn’t dare mention reading baby websites or ask if she’d had more than one miscarriage. If I was wrong, I would only be reminding her yet again.
Finally, she asked, “Is there something you want to talk to me about, Rand?”
After that, I stuck to filing and shredding and generally trying to stay out of her way.
Looking at the clock a million times didn’t make my mom appear any quicker, so I headed to the break room for hot water and lemon. My belly didn’t make it easy to push out of the soft cushions and into an upright position without flashing the lobby. As I turned to reach down for my sketchbook and satchel, I heard a voice behind me. Or rather, more like a low whistle of appreciation.
For me?
“Nice legs,” said the voice: male, sultry, with a hint of an accent. Familiar, in a distant kind of way. I wasn’t agile enough anymore to flee, but then I wasn’t sure I wanted to. In any case, I couldn’t stand there showing my backside forever. Who knew what hottie or creep could be standing there.
I did turn. More like arched, curiosity getting the better of me.
I knew him.
Andre.
In the split second we locked eyes, I saw how his face was older, more worn, but still the same boy Dad brought into our house so long ago. Almost six years, and I remembered every detail.
He squinted. “Don’t I know you?”
“Excuse me,” I pled, but he caught my arm. The smell of him floated past me, the same smell I remembered. Musky and sour and spicy, the smell that permeated Xanda’s hair and now almost brought me to tears.
Before Dylan’s Halloween party, the last time I saw Andre was my twelfth Christmas Eve. I fell asleep the night before to the merry tones of Xanda and Mom screaming about abandoning the family for “that boy.” It was exciting—Xanda defying our parents to be with him. Mom made her promise to come home for Christmas Eve dinner, and we would all go to the closing night of the montage together.
That was the year Xanda refused to act in the play, when Mom cast me in my first and last lead role.
Xanda showed up for Christmas Eve dinner with Andre in tow, looking too cool to be uncomfortable. She wore a skirt so short I saw her panties when she spun to throw her arms around him.
It wasn’t long before the shouting started. “Take that skirt off this instant and go put on something decent,” ordered my mother. I couldn’t wait to wear something so indecent myself. While my dad rolled his eyes at Andre, I was busy memorizing every detail of Xanda’s revolt.
“This instant?” she countered.
“This instant,” echoed Dad.
“Fine.” And with one dramatic rip, the skirt was in Xanda’s hand. The panties underneath exposed her two round cheeks. Andre smirked—I had the feeling he had seen this display before.
And that was when everything shattered. First, the skirt went into the fire and hissed with melting finality. Next, Mom grabbed the afghan off the couch and lunged for Xanda, who dodged and hid behind Andre. “Get out of my way,” growled Mom. But Andre wouldn’t budge. Xanda grinned from behind him. So Mom did something that shocked everyone—quick as lightning, she clutched Xanda by the hair and dragged her, whimpering, toward the door. Dad opened it on cue, and Mom pitched Xanda into the icy, holy night.
Then she turned to Andre. “Get out.” He didn’t argue, but as he left, he muttered something about my mother burning in eternal agony.
Once it was all over, Mom hugged me, crying, kissing my hair. “Never do that, Mandy,” she whispered. “Never.”
When I went up to my room to change clothes, I heard Xanda climb through the bathroom window and rifle through her things, the bars on her own window a mere inconvenience. A few minutes later, everything was silent.
But I saw them, below on the street. Andre looked up. Even from that distance, his eyes pierced me. I knew I might never see them again as I listened to the roar of his Impala fade into the valley.
In the end, my body didn’t give me away. It was my eyes. He met my gaze, and he knew.
“I do know you. You’re Xanda’s little sister.” He appraised my bump. “Well, you used to be little, anyway.”
My arms instinctively wrapped around my belly. I could barely breathe under his scrutiny.
“Mandy! Mandy, that’s right. Like Xanda but with Mmmm.”
“Rand. I go by Rand now.” For so long I had dreamed of this moment—flirting with the boy who loved my sister, who would have run away with her if not for her death. But never in my dreams did it go like this, under the fluorescent lights of the bank lobby, where my mom could storm in any second.
“Rand. Well, someone was randy with you, huh?”
“It’s my—” My what? My ex-boyfriend’s, the guy who was supposed to be like him except things didn’t quite go as planned? “Never mind,” I finished lamely.
“Didn’t work out?”
“No. It didn’t work out.” It was the first time I admitted it out loud.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card. Andre Velasquez, Odd Jobs. Under his name, a P.O
. box and a cell number. I cradled it in my hand when an all-too-familiar version of my name sliced our conversation in half.
“Mandy?”
Mother. Here. To pick me up. And I could tell by the look on her face that she recognized him, too.
I stuffed the card in my pocket, the adrenaline I needed to escape Andre’s orbit suddenly appearing in embarrassing abundance. I threw my coat around my shoulders and scurried toward my mom, who stood in the open doorway.
Shelley’s eyes followed me. One more reason for her to think I’m a train wreck.
My mom said nothing, only aimed and fired a laser beam to unlock the car. I ducked in like she’d just read me my rights.
The car doors shut with a suffocating thunk.
Thirty
Mom drove with her eyes straight ahead, boring into the road. But I knew better.
It was dark already, almost the darkest night of the year. Our windshield wipers squeaked every half second, whipping back and forth as we drove to the church.
She said nothing. I tried to imagine what was going on in her head after what she’d seen. Me, talking to the boy who killed my sister.
Maybe I was wrong—maybe she hadn’t recognized him. And if she had, maybe I could convince her I hadn’t. Five years ago, I was just a kid. Twelve years old.
I guarded his card in my pocket like a precious pass to the future. A wild image flashed through my mind of driving to L.A.—a boy, a girl, and a green Impala. If he couldn’t go there with her, maybe he would go with me. And when we got there, maybe he would tell me what really happened to my sister.
Meanwhile, next to me, the mountain of my mother simmered. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”
I opened my mouth to respond, but the next onslaught filled my throat like sand.
“Have you been seeing him?”
A strange fluttering was happening in my lower back, tightening, as if by her voice, my mom was pulling on the connecting wires of my body.
“Because if you are, that’s sick. He is sick. He’s a grown man, and you are a little girl. Is that what you’ve been doing behind our backs?”
No, no I wasn’t. I didn’t.
“Are you even working at that bank?” My mom’s voice had begun to rise. “What were you doing, talking to him? First you get pregnant, then you’re sneaking out, then you’re hanging out with your dad’s crew, now you’re seeing—were you planning to run away?”
“No—”
“Then what were you planning?” The shriek had reached metal-melting properties, the strings around me tightening, tightening.
“I wasn’t planning anything.”
“What was he doing there? Don’t you remember what he
How you
Why were you
Why he
He
You…you…you…you…
Xanda…you…Xanda…you…”
The shriek wrapped around me in a high, desperate hum, settling into my body as a ball of blinding pain, pain, pain, purple and swirling hotly in my pelvis like mercury in my veins, creeping toward my heart, threatening to stop if she didn’t stop screaming at me or if this pain didn’t stop, screaming voice and screaming pain shouting stop stop stop stop.
“Stop.” My voice slid underneath the din like blood seeping under a door. A fire engine screamed past with sirens blaring, but I could barely make it out from under the shrieking curtain of pain. My vision tunneled into blackness with Xanda’s image at the other side, reaching out for my hands as I drifted, heavy with my small burden, reaching out to let Xanda take it off of my hands, silently offering me a way out. Or was she offering something else?
“…and if you think I’m going to let you make the same mistakes, then…”
“STOP!”
The car and her screaming whirled to a stop, and I could dimly make out a red light at the top of my field of vision. The rain came down in dark, drizzling sheets.
“What, Rand?” And more silence, as loud as her shrieking had been.
You’re killing her. I didn’t realize I had whispered it until my mother responded with, “Killing who?” But I was already out in the street, painted by raindrops, water streaming down my hair and face as I slipped between the cars, across the road between a strip of businesses where she wouldn’t be able to follow me in her luxurious, lumbering boat of a car.
I slipped in and out of darkness and water and pain, until the strings she had been tightening with her voice let loose and my body returned to normal, and by that time I was past the park and a secondhand record store and a café and a few brick apartment buildings, and the rain soaked my coat and the outside of my satchel. I didn’t stop until I reached a covered corner near the bus stop, crowded with workers and students going home for the night and a homeless guy muttering and extending an empty hand.
My sketchbook and cell phone were still dry inside the satchel. My top five numbers were Home, Kamran, Delaney, Chloe, and Essence. I couldn’t call any of those.
I had Nik’s number stored from the BabyCenter days, though I’d never called her and couldn’t imagine doing it now. What would I say? “Uh, hello, Nik, who might really be Shelley—this is XandasAngel, who is really Rand, who is really a pregnant teen and not a married art student. I just had a fight with my mom because of that guy you saw me with in the bank. Do you think you could come pick me up?”
That would go over like a miscarriage.
My belly lurched again, driving its tendrils of pain up and around the muscles holding Lexi, squeezing us both into a hard knot. Wrapping my arms around myself, I felt the paper in my pocket crinkle. Andre’s card. Andre Velasquez, Odd Jobs. I wondered if picking up his stranded ex-girlfriend’s sister from a street corner fell into that category.
He picked up on the first ring. “’Ello?”
I almost hung up.
“Who’s this?” I could barely hear him past the rain and the homeless guy’s shouting.
“It’s me, Rand. Miranda. Xanda’s little sister. Um, we were just at the bank, remember?”
“How could I forget?” Twelve-year-old me quivered, like the safety pins of Xanda’s dress.
“I was wondering…do you think maybe you could pick me up?”
I couldn’t figure out whether the silence on the other end was stunned or satisfied until a low hum swelled into a long mm-hmmm. “Yeah. Be right there.” No questions asked. It might have been thrilling under other circumstances.
“Are you at home?”
“No. Actually, I’m at…” Where was I? The neon sign above my head blinked. “Cassandra’s Salon Supply.” I gave him the cross streets.
I didn’t really know this neighborhood, which boded well for eluding my mom. We were definitely in the wrong part of town for her comfort level, but exactly in the right part of town for Andre’s. By the time he drove up to the curb in his green Impala, the pain had subsided enough for me to waddle out there, forlorn and pathetic. I slid in, at once knocked out by the strong odor of cigarettes, grease, and beer. Morning sickness had been gone for months, but the scent of a forgotten hamburger in the backseat and a full ashtray were enough to push me to the edge.
Rain continued to come down, dampening whatever holiday spirit lit up this part of town—HAPPY HOLIDAYS blinked alternately with the time, 6:47 P.M.—and the temperature—46ºF—on the light board across the street.
Opening night was in a little over an hour. I had that much time to get Andre to take me to the church and to play my part—the part of that kind of girl.
“You wanna go somewhere?” Andre looked at me expectantly, a crooked smile on his face.
“Yeah, I wanna go somewhere. Take me to where Xanda died.” The smile dissolved into shock.
He stepped on the gas.
Thirty-one
The Impala had cleaned up nicely since the crash that killed my sister. If the inside smelled like ashes and dead meat, the outside looked brand-new. The windows were lighter than I remembered, when I peered
out my bedroom window to see Andre’s and Xanda’s shapes moving in the shadows like dark fish in a murky pond.
All I could think about was the fact that I was sitting in Xanda’s seat, soaking her into my body the way a flower soaks up sun and air. The echo of her life impressed itself into my very bones. The baby could feel it, too, I thought. It had to be why she kept pressing to come out.
The front seat was one big uni-seat—no console or stick shift or even a cup holder. Just seat, all the way across, with nothing to stop Andre from grabbing me and sliding me over to him if he wanted to, like he must have done with Xanda a thousand times. The pain came in another, shocking wave, as though it were channeling Xanda’s spirit telling me Stay away, stay away.
And we could have turned around. I still had my cell phone. But for all I knew, he had taken Xanda all the way to Hollywood and she was waiting for me. Maybe he was taking me there now. I wanted to ask him, but his mouth looked like a prison door. Locked. Why hadn’t he gone to prison, if what my parents said was true?
Andre started to light up a cigarette in the car, then gave my belly a bitter look and rolled his window down to toss it out.
“I said I wanted you to take me to where Xanda died,” I said, hoping he could only hear the resolve in my voice and not the panic in its undercurrent. He picked up speed. Had he been drinking? I didn’t want to get close enough now to find out, but I could smell something. Something that wasn’t quite right. I wondered if Xanda had smelled the same thing before she plunged to her death.
Somewhere I remembered hearing that smell was the only sense connected directly to memory. The combination of wind and smoke and sweet sourness transported mine to the middle of the night long ago, to my bedroom window peeking out onto the street, close enough to the front porch to hear voices as they crept toward the house, kissing, rustling, sharing a cigarette. I peered from the darkness to see her hair dusted with moonlight, blue reflection on slick, black hair, slick, smacking lips, giggling and wafting in the sweet, sour smell that whispered secrets and freedom and sacred plans.