Rules for Stealing Stars

by Corey Ann Haydu

  “I’ve got it,” I say, so that Mom’s not the one buying. “Allowance.” Dad crinkles his eyes in confusion. He’s probably not sure whether to tell me how nice that is, or to insist that we use Mom’s money so we don’t forget for a minute that she exists.

  Eleanor and Astrid zip up their fleeces and remind Marla and me to get ours, and I guess we’re all walking over there together now. Eleanor and Astrid have not smiled.

  We should not stop at the mailbox on the way to the bagel store, because I really, really want to actually get a bagel and eat it in peace, to the sounds of Dad’s lame folk music and rapid-newspaper-page-turning. I want Marla’s mood to stay strangely gleeful for a few hours, and to watch television with my sisters, and maybe even to run down to the lake for a swim and a game of Marco Polo, which Mom tells us is a terrible, dangerous game but which we can’t help loving for its loud yelling and splashing and stealthy swimming. Maybe, if we can convince Dad, there will be some hamburgers burned on the public grill at the beach that we haven’t used all summer.

  I want it to look and feel like summer.

  But. We stop at the mailbox.

  A package and letter have come for Astrid.

  There’s a postcard for me that says Mom is proud of me.

  There is nothing for Marla.

  Astrid reads her letter out loud and overenunciates the part where Mom asks how Marla is doing. Marla sits on the lawn in protest and doesn’t look at how huge and ridiculous Astrid smiles. Look! See! Mom loves you! her smile says.

  “I’m going to my room,” Marla says.

  “We agreed to go get bagels, so let’s do that,” Eleanor says. “I think it would mean a lot to Silly. And we all had a long night taking care of you. So let’s do what the family wants now.” She crosses her arms. I raise my eyebrows at Astrid, who raises hers back at me.

  “I’m okay,” I say, because the last thing I want is Marla stomping her way to the bagel place and all the way back and giving me that hard stare she gave me earlier.

  “Marla’s fine. Everything’s fine. We’re getting bagels. We’re going to eat them in the kitchen together. You can spend the rest of the day in your room, if you want. Now, what else did Mom give you, Astrid?” Eleanor says.

  Astrid takes out the little gifts Mom included in her package: a turquoise stone on a small silver chain and a tiny dream catcher with pretty white feathers hanging off it.

  “Give them to me,” Marla says. There aren’t many things I really love about my sister, but I love that she asked outright instead of pretending it is okay to not have received any presents or letters from Mom yet.

  “Okay,” Astrid says, because Astrid doesn’t need anything. Astrid sort of lives in a world where necklaces and dream catchers and sick moms don’t really exist anyway.

  “You want to talk about it?” Eleanor says. She doesn’t sound sympathetic, only matter-of-fact. That’s how Eleanor is now.

  “We can get the bagels, okay? Happy?” Marla pockets the little gifts and doesn’t say thank you. It’s getting too hot for our fleeces. The morning is turning into not-morning, and the sun is summer-strong and we are right in its path.

  “You want to talk about Mom not sending you stuff?” Eleanor clarifies, but not very nicely.

  Astrid starts walking toward the store. She doesn’t have it in her to be part of our fights. Or she really wants bagels.

  “I’d be mad, so I don’t blame you. No one blames you,” Eleanor says. “But you can’t throw a tantrum every time you’re sad about Mom. We’re all dealing with that.”

  Marla turns around, kicking up some grass. “I’ll be inside,” she says. The door slams behind her, and Eleanor and I are alone.

  Eleanor sits in the grass, taking the place where Marla was.

  “Astrid can do it herself,” Eleanor says. It surprises me, how quickly the air whooshes out of her, how fast she goes from totally-on-top-of-it adult to defeated little girl. Littler than me. She pulls her knees in to her chest and rests her forehead there. “Wait with me, okay?”

  I sit down next to Eleanor. There’s a zero percent chance Astrid is going to remember what kind of bagels I like, but there is a one hundred percent chance that she’ll come up with something wacky—peanut butter on garlic, cinnamon raisin and salt paired together with cream cheese in between. It’s always an adventure with Astrid.

  “Does Mom hate Marla?” I say. I always thought Marla was Mom’s favorite, but with her bruised wrist and the envelopes without her name on them, I’m starting to think I got it all wrong.

  “I think Marla reminds Mom of herself,” Eleanor says.

  “Is Marla like Mom?” It’s the question I can’t stop asking in my head, so I might as well ask it out loud now.

  Eleanor pulls up a chunk of grass. It’s the kind of thing I usually do, not her. “I don’t know.”

  “Have you heard the name Laurel before?” I say. I’m wondering if it’s slipped out of Mom’s mouth the way so many other things have in bad moments.

  Eleanor looks at me almost cross-eyed.

  “Sure, we all have. It’s on the bench by the lake,” she says.

  “What bench?” There’s the dock and the light playing on the ripples of water and the sticky sand and the not-as-sticky sand, and the minnows that I try not to think about, and the underused grills and the lifeguard stand down a ways, but close enough to watch us.

  “The bench,” Eleanor says, too irritated to have to explain it to me. “You know. Brown. Wood. Little metal plaque thing that says ‘In Memory of Laurel’ on it. It’s, like, in the grass before the sand. Under the birch tree.”

  I know the birch tree. I like to rip long pieces of papery white bark from it, even though Astrid says that is bad for the environment.

  I guess I can picture a bench, too, but I always sit in the grass or in the sand or on the dock where my legs can dangle into the water. I would never sit on a bench at the beach.

  “Mom sits on it a lot,” Eleanor says, as though with enough words I’ll eventually remember.

  “I think Laurel was Mom’s sister,” I say. I’m tired of all the knots and tangled information I have in my head. I want someone to comb it out for me.

  “The dead one?” Eleanor says, like there may be more sisters and more secrets, which I guess wouldn’t be that surprising anymore.

  “I think she’s stuck,” I say. “Marla and I think that, maybe. That she’s in the closet.”

  I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t have my secret star in my jewelry box. I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t have a little drop of magic just in case Eleanor says we can never go in the closets again.

  Eleanor takes a few very deep breaths.

  “You know I found Mom in your closet when we first came here,” she says at last. I can’t tell if she thinks I’m stupid or crazy or right. “She wouldn’t come out. She slept in there. It was that night we let you sleep in our room. We didn’t want you to see.”

  “I would have been okay,” I say.

  “It would make sense, sort of,” Eleanor says. “Dad says the best stories are the ones when everything clicks into place, right when it’s at its most confusing.”

  “Laurel,” I say.

  “Laurel,” she says.

  One second later, Astrid’s in sight.

  “I did all berries!” she says, practically skipping toward us with a huge brown bag of bagels. “I combined every kind of fruit cream cheese with every kind of fruit bagel. Blueberry cream cheese on strawberry bagel. Grape jam on raspberry bagel. It’s impressive.” Astrid’s smile makes me smile. It’s so big and wide-eyed and out of proportion.

  “Sounds like a feast,” I say. I want to match Astrid’s energy.

  “It is!” Astrid says. “We’re gonna make today good, okay? We’re gonna be okay. All of us.” She hands me a bagel. I don’t know what it is exactly, but her bright eyes and warm face make me take a huge bite. It’s a combination of jam and cream cheese, an explosion of tastes that drips down my
chin and onto the grass.

  Eleanor giggles. So does Astrid.

  I miss Marla even though she’s only a few feet away, in the house. I wish she were here for this.

  “We’ll take it from here,” Eleanor whispers, right when I thought we were in it together. She rubs my knee, and I can’t believe I’m still stupid Silly to her. It makes me miss Marla even more. “Astrid and I will figure out this whole Mom and Laurel and closets thing.”

  “Why?” I say. I want her to know I want to be part of it all. That I am part of it all.

  “You already messed up everything with Marla, honey,” Eleanor says. It’s the meanest thing she’s ever said to me, and she says it so, so nicely.

  Twenty-Six

  “There’s something I haven’t told you,” Marla says, choosing a strawberry bagel with raspberry jam.

  I’ve brought a few bagel options up to Marla’s room, since she didn’t join us for our messy feast in the kitchen. We sit on the floor while she eats. Eleanor left to see her secret boyfriend as soon as she was done eating. Astrid vanished into her room.

  “We have to be in this together,” Marla says. It makes my heart jump. Marla and me. On a team together. It feels unsteady.

  “Eleanor and Astrid don’t think of you as an equal. I mean, you know that, right? That’s not going to change. They’re twins. You’re never going to be one of them.” Marla steps closer to me. I try to picture Marla and me having the kind of bond I’ve always thought I had with Astrid. My face burns. So do my insides. I hear the screen door downstairs slam, and I know Astrid is going on one of her long walks to who-knows-where. And Marla’s right. I’m going to be eleven forever and they’re going to be fourteen for who knows how long, and I’ll never really be an equal.

  “You’re not going to stop going in the closet, huh?” I say, nicely so Marla knows that I’ve heard her and agree about Astrid and Eleanor. She puts her hand on my leg, and it’s so cold the iciness travels through my pajamas and makes me shiver.

  “They can’t tell us what to do,” she says. I try to nod. I hope my eyes aren’t as black as hers. I hope my limbs aren’t as cold. I hope I don’t have the strange smile that looks more like a frown than anything else. I want to check on my little hidden star, just to remind me of the things in the world that are light and warm and silent and lovely. I need some magic. I need some closet. I need a swim in a silver lake that glitters and a walk through a forest of sunflowers that are taller than pine trees.

  “I can trust you now, right? You get it?” Marla’s big dark eyes look at me. Even the lashes look darker, longer, thicker, more like spiders and less like feathers.

  Star, star, star, I say in my head to stop the pain gathering there, behind my eyes, near my ears, the middle of my neck.

  “I don’t like it,” I say, trying to find the right words. “I don’t like Astrid’s closet. Or the secrets. Or that Eleanor is out with her secret boyfriend. Or that Astrid isn’t up here with us. Or that you didn’t eat your bagel downstairs.” I can see sun peeking through clouds outside the window. Normally I would think it is beautiful, but right now I can only think of how Astrid’s terrible closet might reimagine it. It might turn black or grow so large it takes over the sky, or swallow me whole.

  “You know what Eleanor says about you? She says you’re too young to be in the closets. She says we should glue yours shut,” Marla says. She crosses her arms over her chest. I know Marla well enough to guess that she’s bluffing, but it somehow hurts anyway. “It shouldn’t surprise you, them saying that. This is how it’s always been.”

  “You miss Mom even though that never changes either,” I spit back. It’s the kind of thing I would only ever say when I’m not thinking things through, when my filter is off because there was a lot of sugar in the fruity bagels and I haven’t slept enough.

  “What if we could get Mom back and get Astrid and Eleanor to think of you as not a kid? What if both things were possible?” Marla says. I don’t think she believes the second is possible at all, but there’s a desperation in her voice, and she cements it after her next deep breath. “I need you,” she finishes. “Okay? I need you.”

  My throat tightens, and I consider crying but think better of it, because Marla won’t think I’m strong and capable and mature if I start crying. Then she’ll quickly not need me anymore anyway.

  “Okay,” I say. The tightness in my throat turns to almost suffocation. The last time Marla trusted me, she took me into Astrid’s terrible closet. Maybe Marla trusting and needing me isn’t the best idea ever. Marla moves closer to me. Lengthens her legs next to mine. She’s got on ridiculous Christmas socks that make no sense in July, and she wiggles her toes in them nervously.

  “Okay. So. My closet,” she says, and stops. It is not a full sentence, so I keep my eyebrows raised and my head tilted in her direction and try to not say WHAT? WHAT? over and over again to make her finish.

  “The bad closet,” I prompt. It’s hard to forget about melting walls and too-sharp leaves.

  “No. I’m not talking about Astrid’s closet now. I’m talking about mine. My closet works too,” she says. “I have a special closet too.”

  I can’t help rolling my eyes.

  Marla is someone who lies. Or, not quite lies. Marla believes the things she says even when they are not true. What is the word for that?

  I don’t know, but when she says she has a magic closet, just like the rest of us, I know it can’t be true. Watching someone lie makes me tired, and I’m already so tired from Astrid’s closet and missing Mom and hating that I miss Mom, and all the lies and secrets that have been piling up all summer.

  “I’m going to take a nap,” I say. I will probably not take a nap. I will probably visit my star, then go into my closet. I want to bring a single feather in there and watch it fly as slowly as a lazy river moves. I want to see something ordinary become beautiful, and forget that sometimes ordinary things become evil.

  Marla grabs my hand. “It’s not like your closet. Or Eleanor’s. Or Astrid’s. It’s a whole other thing,” she says. She won’t let go of my hand. I try to wiggle my fingers a little, to let her know her tight grip is hurting me, but she only squeezes harder. I wonder if you can pass out from excessive hand holding. Maybe?

  “Marla.”

  “Silly. I mean, Priscilla.” She loosens her grip on my hand and takes a deep inhale. “I need you to come inside with me.” She lets go of my hand entirely. Clears her throat. Her eyes are going back to their normal color, and her cheeks are returning to a pale pink. There’s that ridiculous prettiness again.

  “Will I like it?” I say. We are both whispering, our voices going quieter and breathier with every sentence, so that by the time I say this, it is barely audible.

  “It’s the best thing I’ve ever seen,” Marla says. “And it’s going to fix everything.”

  I shiver. I am icy cold on the inside and boiling hot on the outside, and I know I’m going to go into Marla’s closet, but I might need to throw up first.

  Marla and I stand outside her closet door like it will open for us, without our touching it, which of course isn’t true. I can hear Marla’s breathing, loud and fast, until I realize it is my own breathing I’m hearing.

  I open the door myself. I’m scared because Marla scares me lately, but the closet doesn’t, because I know Marla’s lying. I believe Astrid, and Astrid says this closet’s normal. We step inside, and Marla shuts the door behind us. And we wait for a long, long time.

  “Your closet is only a closet,” I say. I try not to sound mean or judgmental, but the truth is that we are sitting among hanging dresses that are tickling the top of my head and dust bunnies that are surely sticking to my pajama pants, and I don’t feel like pretending things are different.

  Marla pulls more of Mom’s bracelets out of her pockets and puts them on the ground. They sit there, a shimmering pile of promises and words that have lost all their meaning.

  “Wait,” Marla says. And before she pu
ts the final T sound on the word, the closet shifts. It feels like a ride at Disney World, where Dad took us once when Mom was Away and we were so sad we didn’t want to celebrate Christmas or eat pancakes or anything. The closet spins and shakes, and if I had to stand up, I would fall right back down from the dizziness. Instead I stay still and close my eyes.

  When the spinning stops, the rocking begins.

  I don’t open my eyes. I want to, but I can’t. Marla notices and grabs my hand, pulls me to my feet, and moves my body into a new position. Standing up, bent at the waist, one hand reaching down, down, down. Then I feel it. Water. So warm it could be from a bathtub, but fizzy too. Tiny bubbles shudder and pop against my fingers, spit into the palm of my hand.

  Little bubbles pop and fizz in my heart, too.

  We are gliding forward, water rushing through my fingers. Marla lets go of my hand, but I keep it trailing along the surface of the water. It’s one of those wonderful feelings that fingers get to experience, like reaching into a box of beads at the bead shop in town and letting the tiny plastic circles first swallow and then fall through your fingers.

  “Champagne river,” Marla says. And I open my eyes at last.

  “What is this?”

  “It’s a memory closet,” Marla says. She has happy tears in her eyes, but all I can feel is scared.

  There are trees with golden trunks and the river is golden and fizzing. The boat we are somehow in is golden. Marla’s eyes are golden.

  This isn’t a memory, I want to say. This is a story. But Marla doesn’t seem open for comments right now. Plus, it’s hard to have a conversation when you’re in a champagne river surrounded by golden trees.

  The leaves on the trees are silver and look light enough to drop into our boat at any moment, light enough to be blown away by the breeze.

  “It’s—,” I start. But I want to see the rest of it first. The ballroom. The princes. The worn-through shoes. The floor-sweeping dresses. “It’s sort of like the beginning of the fairy tale. It’s ‘The Twelve Dancing Princesses,’” I say, but Marla already knows.