by Darcie Chan
The makeup was only one of the ways Rose was changing. In eighth grade and even during her freshman year, Rose had been a straight-A student. Last semester, though, Rose hadn’t had a single A on her report card. She’d become more and more preoccupied with her appearance and her social life, and Emily rarely saw her do homework. Even worse, Rose had developed a blasé attitude toward school.
“Oh, Em, it’s just a stupid book report,” her sister had said when she’d asked whether she’d finished the assignment for her English class. “Mrs. Wilson is a pushover. She’ll let me turn it in late.” Rose had turned to her and pointed to her bangs, which she had curled and teased into a puffy ball. “How does this look? Hurry, ’cause I need to spray it before it moves.”
“Fine,” Emily had responded. Talking to her sister about school was useless when Rose’s main concern these days was spending time with her friends.
Emily couldn’t imagine herself ever sneaking out like her sister just had, even if she’d been offered the opportunity. She was quiet and shy, and she had none of the easy popularity Rose possessed. “Boring” was how Rose teasingly referred to her, but it wasn’t anything she could change about herself even if she wanted to.
The question now was whether to tell on Rose. Part of her was worried that something would happen to her sister while she was out joyriding and doing whatever else. But another part of her looked forward to hearing about Rose’s middle-of-the-night adventures and experiencing the excitement vicariously. This was her big sister, after all. As far back as she could remember, Rose had always been there, watching out for her, and Emily loved her fiercely. As different as they were, and as comfortable as she was in her own skin, she still looked up to Rose and basked in any sort of praise from her bold, funny, adventurous sibling.
Emily uncovered her head and looked toward the open window. Of course she would remain loyal to her sister. She wouldn’t alert their mother, but would stay in their room and wait for Rose to return.
CHAPTER 21
AN HOUR AFTER SHE AND ALEX HAD FINISHED SUPPER, Rose was still seated at the kitchen table, nursing a bottle of white wine and staring at the empty Stouffer’s packages that had contained their meals. Although Alex had dutifully cleared his place after he’d finished eating, she hadn’t gotten around to doing the same. When her phone rang, she glanced at the number and rolled her eyes before answering it.
“Rose?” Sheldon spoke before she had a chance to say anything. “Rose, what in the hell is wrong with you? How many times have I told you to be careful about what you post on my wall? You know I’m keeping my profile totally public while I’m looking for work.”
“Hi, honey, so nice to hear your voice, too,” she said in an overtly genteel tone before continuing in her normal voice. “I called you earlier, several times, actually, and you didn’t answer. Sometimes I think Facebook is the only way to get in touch with you.”
“I was out running errands. Actually buying a new toner cartridge, if you must know, and my phone battery went dead. And then I come back and find your little post for God and everyone to see.”
Rose tried to remember exactly what she’d written on Sheldon’s Facebook page earlier in the afternoon, but it was a bit of a blur. All she could remember was crying over her laptop and typing the words “bald,” “unemployed,” and “George Costanza.”
“It wasn’t a big deal, Sheldon. I was just pissed because you didn’t pick up.”
“It was a big deal, Rose. A potential employer might’ve seen what you wrote and decided against considering me for an opening. Why would you do something like that? Were you ‘drunk Facebooking’ again?”
Rose remained silent. She didn’t have a rational answer for him. In fact, although she truly didn’t remember what she’d typed, she now felt ashamed to have done anything that might jeopardize Sheldon’s finding a job.
“Rose, are you there? Rose?”
“Yes.” Overwhelmed by emotions, Rose felt her face crumple.
“Rose, how much are you drinking?”
That question, and especially Sheldon’s tone in asking it, sparked enough anger to stanch her despair and allow her to regain her composure. She had every intention of cutting back, as she had resolved to do the previous evening. Tonight, though, she’d really needed something to take the edge off.
“I’m not drinking,” she said. She swigged the last of the wine in her glass. “But I am miserable. Isolated, stuck up here in a matchbox of a house with no air-conditioning. Did I mention that the house is full of junk, and I can’t stand being around my sister? Neither of us has any idea what my mother meant for us to find, and there’s so much crap to go through that we may never figure it out. I just want to come home.”
“Well, I’m not exactly a happy camper, either. I had a consulting job fall through today, and your little stunt didn’t improve my prospects at finding more. You can’t come home yet, and if you want a home to come back to, you’d better suck it up and do what you need to do to get your inheritance. And, stay off my Facebook page. That’s all I have to say to you, but I want to talk with Alex. I’m starting to think that maybe he should spend the summer here with me after all. When you’re drinking, you’re in no shape to take care of him.”
“I’m not drinking,” she snapped. “And Alex is fine. You can hear for yourself.” Rose pulled the phone away from her face and yelled for Alex to come downstairs. “Here,” she said, thrusting the phone at him when he appeared in the kitchen. “It’s your father.”
Alex smiled as he took the phone from her. “Hi, Dad,” he said. Rose couldn’t hear exactly what Sheldon was saying, but listening to Alex’s replies made it possible to follow the conversation.
“Yeah, I’m okay. She’s fine, too,” Alex was saying. “No, not too much … She just doesn’t like it here, that’s all. We went out this morning, to breakfast and to go shopping … I’ve been reading books, mostly. I was going to ask Mom if I could go see Aunt Ivy and get a few new ones when I’ve finished the ones I have … uh-huh, I love you, too, Dad. Bye.” He pressed the END button and returned the phone to her.
“Thanks,” she said, leaning back in her chair. She was thinking that she would be far more comfortable in her usual spot on the sofa when she realized that Alex was still standing in the kitchen watching her.
“Mom, are you okay?”
Rose looked at her son. She smiled, fully intending to offer him all manner of reassurances, but she couldn’t seem to articulate anything. Alex’s eyes were large and round behind his glasses. He stood, waiting for her to say something. Her lower lip began to tremble, and she turned her face away so that he would not see the tears that had appeared.
“Mom, please don’t cry.” Alex came closer and patted her arm, as if he were trying to comfort her but didn’t know quite what to do.
“Come here,” she said, turning in her chair and revealing her tear-streaked face. When she opened her arms, he embraced her eagerly, putting his arms around her neck and his head on her shoulder in the same way he had when he was a toddler.
She pressed her cheek against his head, breathing in the familiar sweet and slightly sweaty smell of his hair. “Everything is going to be fine,” she managed to say. “I’m just frustrated right now, with your dad, with everything. Except you.”
Alex didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Then, he pulled away so that he could look into her face. “Mom, I’ve been working really hard on the list of books. I’m almost done with it. I know you said you didn’t want me to be around Aunt Emily, but I really want to help figure out Grandma’s clues. Since I read fast, I could skim the books for you. I’ve already read a lot of them, and if you told me which ones you’ve read, I could talk to her about them so you won’t have to. Please, can I do it? I don’t want you to be sad anymore.”
Rose smiled through her tears. Alex was so earnest and innocent. He had no idea what had happened to drive her and Emily apart all those years ago, no idea how difficult it was to li
ve with the knowledge of what she had done, and now, to be forced to live next door to the most obvious reminder of it. Most days, she was able to keep it bottled up, pushed to a dark corner of her mind, away from the regular flow of thought required to navigate each day. Recently, though, it was increasingly difficult to ignore the dark episode that she had long tried to forget.
“I know, baby,” Rose said. “I’m so glad you’re with me.” She took both his hands. “I wish I could turn over this whole project to you, but I’m afraid that your aunt and I are the only ones who knew your grandma well enough to figure out the clues. But, why don’t you finish up our list of books and let me see it? I’ll give you the list I made of the rest of the stuff in the house, too, and you can take everything over for Aunt Emily to see. I already have a copy of her list, so we could each look over everything separately. That way, your aunt and I wouldn’t have to meet again unless one of us has an idea about the clues.”
Alex smiled. “Okay. I’ll have the book list done by tomorrow morning, promise.” He glanced at her wineglass and tugged at her hand. “Why don’t you go upstairs and take a bubble bath? It might make you feel better. I can clean up the rest of the kitchen.”
Rose sighed and slowly got to her feet. “Maybe I will,” she said. She leaned down and kissed Alex’s hair. “I know I don’t say it often enough, but I love you, Alex. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
ALEX WAITED UNTIL HE HEARD HIS MOTHER’S FOOTSTEPS REACH the top of the stairs before he dared move. Don’t cry, only girls cry, he told himself as he stood in the kitchen. Despite his best effort, a few tears squeezed out the corners of his eyes, and he wiped them away angrily, not even bothering to remove his glasses.
With his vision watery and distorted, it was easier to just close his eyes for a moment. It helped ease his worry, too. In his mind, he could go anywhere, to any happy place he wished. He decided to revisit his last birthday, when his mother had awakened him in the morning with a huge smile on her face.
“Happy birthday, baby!” she’d said, hugging him. “You’re nine! I can’t believe it, can you? I love you so much! Hurry and get dressed. Clara’s got your breakfast ready, and I’ve got something special planned for today. A surprise!”
Even though it had been a school day in early May, she’d taken him on his very first visit to Coney Island. It was extra-special, just the two of them spending all day in a kid’s paradise. Better yet, his mother had been so happy and carefree. She hadn’t made any snide comments about the filthy sidewalks. She hadn’t said a word about his father or complained about how the sun gave her a headache. She bought cotton candy and funnel cakes and laughed when he pointed out that mustard from her hot dog had fallen in a yellow glob on the front of her shirt.
He’d ridden everything in the kiddie park. Next, on the bumper cars, he’d held on for dear life, alternately giggling and screaming, as his mother steered around the ring. They careened into walls and bashed other cars. After their third ride, with their sides aching and their heads spinning, they’d linked arms and walked to the Wonder Wheel.
They had definitely saved the best for last. In the soaring outer car of the famous Ferris wheel, a hundred and fifty feet up, he’d been able to see for miles—the waves rolling in across the vast ocean, the city stretched out on the other three sides, the sun starting to sink down behind the skyscrapers in the distance. The fresh, salty air skimmed their faces and whipped through their hair. He felt buoyant, almost overcome by the exhilaration of it.
“It feels like we’re birds. Like we’re flying!” he’d said to his mother.
“It does,” she’d agreed, her voice calm and wistful. “Like we’re flying away.” He wondered after the fact why his mother hadn’t grimaced at his comment, since she disliked birds. But, she’d only touched his cheek, smiled a little, and gazed out at the view.
The memory of salt water and sunshine faded, replaced by the lingering odor of microwave dinners. Through the ceiling, Alex listened to the squeaks of his mother’s steps heading toward the bathroom and then heard the muffled roar of water rushing into the bathtub. Only then did he seize the half-empty bottle of wine that still sat on the table and pour it down the kitchen sink.
CARRYING A PLASTIC GROCERY SACK, EMILY STEPPED OUT ONTO her front porch. The moon had risen, and the street was quiet. She looked over at Rose’s house and was pleased to see that even the upstairs lights were out. Quietly, she went to her car to retrieve the last shopping bag she’d brought home from work. That bag was heavier than the one she had brought from her house because it contained birdseed.
Using one of her car keys, she punctured the plastic birdseed bag and then slipped her fingers into the hole, pulling the plastic apart to widen the opening. A couple of times, she scooped up a handful and then let the tiny round grains run through her fingers. At first, it was a pleasant sensation, one that brought back childhood memories of reaching into the bag her mother had always kept to refill the feeder in their yard. One memory led to another, though, and soon she was a fourth-grader again, waiting for the bus on a dreary, rainy morning just a few feet from where she currently stood.
It had been her turn to bring in something for show-and-tell. Aunt Ivy had helped her make a bird feeder out of Popsicle sticks, and her mother had allowed her to take some of their birdseed to school with it, in case her teacher allowed her to fill and place it outside the window of her classroom.
As she had stood holding the feeder and birdseed carefully in a shoe box, an older boy she didn’t recognize approached her.
“What’s in the box?” he’d demanded to know.
Emily hadn’t answered him immediately. She’d been so shy back then. Instead, she’d taken a step backward, moving further under the large umbrella Rose held over both of them.
“I said, what’s in the box?”
“A bird feeder, for show-and-tell,” she’d whispered.
“Well, if it’s for showing, let’s see it, then,” the boy had said, grabbing the box roughly from her. He’d opened the shoe box and removed the bird feeder.
“Please, give it back,” Emily had said. She’d glanced across the street, at her own house, but her mother had already left for work. The Bookstop next door wasn’t open yet, and its front windows were still dark. She also noticed how, by that point, the other children clustered at the bus stop were staring at what was going on.
Apparently seeking to make the most of his audience, the new boy had smirked and dropped her bird feeder onto the sidewalk.
“Oops,” the boy had said.
Emily remembered her face getting hot as she’d stared at chunks of glued Popsicle sticks on the wet concrete.
“That was my sister’s project for school,” Rose had yelled, stepping in front of her. “She didn’t do anything to you. Why would you be so mean?”
“Aw, it was just an accident,” the boy had said. “But, since it’s broken, I guess she won’t be needing this anymore.” The bully had opened the small container of birdseed in the box. With another smirk, he’d lunged at them, hurling the contents forward. Rose’s attempt to shield them with the umbrella came a second too late. Emily could still feel the tiny seeds spraying against her face, lodging in her curly red hair.
She remembered the look on Rose’s face then. With her eyes squinted and her nostrils flaring, Rose had brushed the birdseed from her long, blonde ponytail. “You’d better apologize,” she’d said to him through gritted teeth.
“Or what?” he’d laughed, looking down at Rose. “You’re just a girl. You know, though, I wouldn’t mind having a nice umbrella like that.”
Rose had stared at him for a moment before she closed the umbrella and held it out to him. “All right,” she said. “Here.”
Apparently thinking he’d scored another win, the boy had stepped forward for the umbrella. When he was within range, before he or anyone else realized what she was doing, Rose lowered the pointed end to the ground and then snapped it upward. The firm c
enter pole struck squarely between the bully’s legs, and he cursed and dropped to his knees. Emily remembered staring at Rose, at once horrified, awestruck, and proud, as the boy groaned with his hands clasped over his crotch.
“You owe my sister an apology,” Rose had said, smacking him on the backside with the umbrella. “And yes, I am a girl. Don’t you forget it.”
Still standing on her front porch, Emily could see Rose’s freshly washed BMW gleaming in the moonlight. Part of her, the shy fourth-grader cowering before the bully from her youth, argued against doing what she had planned. It went against her character. It just wasn’t nice. And yet … her gaze traveled back to her own car, where the tiny spare tire was still mounted on the front right wheel. So much had changed. She didn’t know or understand the Rose of today, the once-protective sister who couldn’t face reality and who had ruined her future.
Emily glanced around again and then carried the birdseed and the smaller grocery sack a few steps up the sidewalk to Rose’s car. Carefully, because she didn’t know whether the BMW had a touch-sensitive alarm, she lifted a handful of birdseed and sprinkled it across the black trunk. She worked her way around the car, dribbling the birdseed on the hood, the roof, and anyplace else that was flat enough to keep it from rolling onto the ground. When she was satisfied with her application, she took the lighter grocery sack and dumped the contents, which were courtesy of Gus, on the ground right outside the driver’s side door.
If her dog-and-bird-hating sister wanted to play the vandalism game, she was more than happy to give Rose an au naturel taste of her own medicine.
CHAPTER 22
1995
“C’MON, EM, PLEASE? MOM’S GOT A LATE MEETING, AND she’s being stubborn. She won’t let me take the car unless you go, too. Now that I’ve got my license, I’ll look like a total loser if Mom drops me off.”