Woodbury, Minnesota
Then I Met My Sister © 2011 by Christine Hurley Deriso.
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To Anne and Cecilia, who have always smoothed my path. I love my sisters so.
One
“Your mom.”
Gibs nods toward the audience and I follow his gaze.
Mom is sitting next to Leah Rollins’ mother in the middle of the packed auditorium. They chat discreetly, leaning toward each other and holding Chapel Heights High School Honors Day programs over their mouths. Mom clings to the fantasy that Leah Rollins and I are still best friends (Leah cut me loose in ninth grade), and is no doubt telling Leah’s mother that we girls just have to get together soon.
As she inspects our eleventh-grade class, seated on the stage for this portion of the program, Mom’s eye catches mine. She waves, her cupped hand held close to her chest as her manicured fingertips flutter.
Gibs has met Mom only a couple of times, but she’s easy to spot in a crowd: trim figure, tailored suit, sleek blond hair, bright blue eyes, fake bronzed tan. At age fifty-seven, she’s older than most of my classmates’ parents, but her high-maintenance grooming habits have served her well. The only thing that makes her look old is her expression. Her eyes are anxious, her smile tight.
“Why is she here?” Gibs whispers, then catches himself. “I mean …”
But there’s no way to recover, so he repeats the question. “Why is she here?”
“Because she’s a lunatic.”
The principal’s voice drones on, and pretty soon, he’s calling Gibs’ name for the zillionth time.
“Highest grade point average in history—Gibson Brown.”
Gibs tosses me an apologetic glance and heads toward the center of the stage to accept his certificate, his brown ponytail bobbing with every lanky step. Then he heads back to his seat, loosens his tie, and adds the certificate to the pile accumulating under his seat.
“Highest grade point average in history, Gibs?” I whisper, pushing a lock of long blond hair behind my ear. “You mean no one in history has ever made a higher grade point average than you? Pretty impressive.”
He tosses me a smirk. “The subject, Summer,” he tells me. “History the subject.”
The principal is droning on again. “Highest grade point average in honors English—Gibson Brown.”
The audience chuckles when Gibs has to head right back to the center of the stage. “Perhaps Gibson and I should trade places,” the principal wisecracks. More laughter.
Gibs finally gets to catch his breath when the principal moves on to Best Effort Awards. It seems logical that Gibs’ top marks attest to excellent effort, but no, Best Effort Awards go to the losers who squeak by with C’s and make their teachers happy by keeping their mouths shut in class.
I squeak by with C’s but don’t keep my mouth shut in class, so no Best Effort Awards for me.
Which brings us back to Gibs’ question: why is my mother here?
It was the source of a heated argument at breakfast:
“So the Honors Day ceremony starts at nine, right, Summer?”
I eyed my mother suspiciously while she washed dishes at the sink.
“Why do you ask?”
“Because I’m going, of course!”
The fork clanged as it dropped from my fingers onto my plate. “And why might that be?”
“Oh, Summer. Pipe down and finish your breakfast.”
“Hate to disappoint you, Mom, but I’m coming up dry.”
Mom avoided eye contact, just kept scrubbing china until it whistled as she told me she’d be there to support all the students, including me, for effort if nothing else.
So my shutout in the Best Effort categories must hit her particularly hard.
I should feel guilty. God knows Mom deserves a Best Effort Award for all the nagging, cajoling, bribing, and pleading she does to try to nudge me into honor student status.
Gibs thinks my underachievement is passive-aggressive, and I’m cool with that theory since it’s more flattering than the truth, which is that I’m lazy.
Plus awful at math. I’m energetically bad at math. I try, if for no other reason than to avoid my mom’s pinched looks as I struggle through homework, to solve the damn problems. I just can’t, which makes Gibs’ passive-aggressive theory even more appealing.
The ceremony finally concludes with the principal’s observation about how great we all are, award or no award, but greatness notwithstanding, we award-deficient types should aspire to collect our own little stack of papers at next year’s ceremony. Motivational speeches always have the opposite effect on me.
Priscilla Pratt strikes up a hearty version of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy for a piano recessional, and Mom vigorously seeks out eye contact with me, pointing emphatically to Priscilla.
She’s mouthing words I can’t make out but nevertheless understand perfectly. Priscilla and I used to carpool to piano lessons. But alas, I was a piano lesson dropout, and here’s Priscilla, entertaining the throngs with her hard-earned virtuosity. She practiced her scales. Mom is mouthing something along those lines.
I nod. Yes, Mom. Priscilla’s a keeper.
But does she have to bang the keys so hard? It’s jangling, what with those tinny, vibrating chords bouncing off the auditorium walls like shrapnel.
“Good thing Beethoven was deaf, or he’d be rolling over in his grave,” I mutter to Gibs as we take baby steps in the recessional line off the stage.
“The major religions would argue that God restores all the senses after death,” Gibs says over his shoulder.
“Then Beethoven is suffering right now, which is very unheaven-like.”
“SSSHHH!”
Mrs. Treat’s shushes are always louder than whatever conversation she’s shushing,
making all eyes fall on her. She gratuitously nudges our elbows onward, as if we’d be roaming aimlessly without her cool plump arm guiding us off the stage. When she scowls (and she’s scowling now at me), she looks like Mao Tse-tung. Mom will manage to seek her out during the reception and gush about what a great job she’s done putting together this wonderful assembly.
We filter into the auditorium lobby (joylessly, I might add, Priscilla’s and Beethoven’s best efforts notwithstanding), where I see Mom’s head bobbing about in search of me. She’s standing next to Leah Rollins’ mother, who starts flapping her Honors Day program in the air when she spots me. I groan as the two moms weave their way through the crowd in my direction.
“Summer … !” Leah’s mom says. It sounds like the first word of a sentence, but what else is she going to say, what with Leah and me being history and my dismal showing in Honors Day. So that’s all she says.
“Hi, Mrs. Rollins.”
“Wasn’t Leah wonderful ?” Mom coos, as if we just saw her on Broadway.
Mrs. Rollins waves away the compliment, then says, “She didn’t get nearly as many awards as I’d hoped.” Then she spots Gibs, who is hovering nervously by my side. “Who stands a chance when this fellow is in the class?”
Truly, Gibs totally blew the curve when he transferred to Chapel Heights earlier in the year. His nudging Leah Rollins from the top of the class ranking must piss off Mrs. Rollins mightily.
“Yes, young man, you certainly were impressive,” Mom says to Gibs. The only thing distracting her from his ponytail is his fist full of awards.
“Thanks,” he says shyly.
“Summer, aren’t you going to introduce us to your friend?” Mom asks.
“It’s Gibs,” I say. “Gibson Brown. You’ve met.”
“Oh? When?”
“A couple of times,” I say testily. “The PTA breakfast five days ago, for one.”
That was in the ponytail-distracting days, before Mom knew he was brilliant.
“You know, Susanne,” Mrs. Rollins prods. “His family moved here from Cleveland in the middle of the school year. His father is a Very Prestigious Surgeon.”
Ponytail or no ponytail, Gibs’ cachet has just shot through the friggin’ roof.
“Mmmmm,” Mom says, raising a single and perfectly groomed eyebrow.
“Well, Gibson, keep up the good work,” Mrs. Rollins says, by which she means go to hell.
“Barbara, we just have to get our girls together soon,” Mom tells her.
“Oh, speaking of Leah,” Mrs. Rollins replies, teetering on her tiptoes as she peers deeper into the crowd, “there she is with all her friends.” She sucks in her breath after the last word, but it’s too late, so she flashes me a guilty look. I smile gamely.
“Better run,” she says, blushing, then heads in Leah’s direction. Mom’s gaze follows her wistfully, then turns back to Gibs and me.
“Well,” she says. “I’m very proud of you both.”
I guess she’s claimed Gibs now as her own.
Thank God she has something to be happy about.
Two
“Whatcha doin’?”
Catch the cadence: Whatcha doin’. It’s Mom trying to sound casual. I guess she figures it’s less off-putting than Why in God’s name are you frittering your life away on that computer?
What I’m doin’ is what I always do when Mom walks in when I’m on the computer: X-ing out the screen. I usually don’t have any particularly compelling reason to do this; it’s just a habit. The fact that it drives Mom crazy is a bonus. She insists that we keep the computer in “a central location” (our den), so I have no privacy when I’m IM-ing or playing solitaire or doing other computer-related things that constitute frittering my life away. Dad went to bat for me once, a few years ago, saying I should have my own laptop or we should at least put the computer in a more private place, but Mom stopped him cold by saying, “Hello? Child molesters?!?” Which, let’s face it, tends to have a chilling effect on any conversation.
“Hmmm?” Mom persists when I don’t answer her whatcha doin’ question, which I naively assumed was rhetorical. She bends down to gaze at a blank computer screen.
“Nothing.” I mindlessly tap a key, waiting for her to walk away so I can finish my conversation with Gibs.
She clucks her tongue, which usually means she’s about to walk out, only to jerk her head back in my direction after a few steps to let me know I’m putting nothing past her, she’s always watching, she’s ever vigilant about the centrally located computer, she’s on to those child molesters, she’s a good parent. But instead, she sits down in the recliner by the computer. The chair faces the television set, not the computer, but she swivels to face the back of my head and the blank computer screen.
I tilt my head slightly in her direction, giving her a sideways glance.
“Ya need something, Mom?”
“I need your attention,” she snaps. The whole watcha doin’ folksiness is apparently history.
I roll my eyes while I have the chance, then turn around to face her.
“Yep,” I volunteer tersely.
“Your friend, Gibson, certainly distinguished himself in the Honors Day ceremony,” Mom says.
I nod. “Yeah. He’s great. Actually, he’s coming over after dinner to help me study for my history final. Hope that’s okay.”
Mom’s face brightens. “Well, of course. That’s a wonderful idea. Summer, that’s the kind of thing you should be doing more of. Maybe if you’d started that earlier in the school year … I mean, here it is, the middle of May, with the school year almost over, and …”
“But better late than never, right?” A tight smile is glued to my face.
“Summer, I won’t lie,” Mom says archly. “I know school has never been your strong suit, but it was a little difficult sitting through another Honors Day ceremony with such … disappointing results.”
My smile fades. “I told you not to come. You knew I wasn’t winning anything.”
Anger flashes in Mom’s steel-blue eyes. “You’ll be a senior next year,” she says in a frosty tone. “Everything you’re doing now is paving the way for your future. You should be making A’s, and logging volunteer hours, and doing extra-credit projects in school, and …” She sighs aggrievedly. “You know, by the time Shannon was your age, she …”
My withering stare stops her cold. Mom’s not the only one who can pull off frosty.
“Oh, stop being so sensitive,” Mom snaps. “It’s not like I’m comparing the two of you, I’m just …”
I give her a minute to squirm. She’s got nothing.
“I’m just pointing out,” she soldiers on, “that your sister was … she was very …”
She can’t come up with the next word, which is apt. The superlative says it all. Shannon was Very. I am Not.
“I don’t know what you want me to do, Mom,” I say. “Like you said, the school year is almost over.”
Mom folds her arms and nods briskly. “I want you to turn over a new leaf,” she replies. “I want you to ask your teachers for some extra-credit assignments this summer. I want you to buckle down next year and be the straight-A student we both know you can be. I want you to do some volunteer work. I want you to think about your future, Summer.”
Which is ironic, because as far as I can tell, all Shannon ever did was think about her future. And she ended up not having one.
Whatever look I’m giving Mom is frustrating the hell out of her. She leaps out of her seat with a burst of adrenaline. “And if you don’t,” she says, pointing a manicured finger at me like a dagger, “don’t think you’re going to sit around here all summer doing nothing. If you can’t find anything constructive to do, I’ll find something for you.”
She strides out of the room, leaving a Shalimar-scented whoosh in her wake. I sit there for a second, chilled by the breeze she leaves behind, then turn back to the computer.
I see real potential in sitting around here all summer doi
ng nothing.
Three
“You have a sister?”
Gibs and I have been friends since he moved to town a few months ago; he noticed me reading Nietzsche during lunch one day at school and wondered why somebody who read Nietzsche for fun wasn’t in his honors classes. He’s pretty shy, but we bonded over stolen smirks during a particularly painful poetry reading at a school assembly (don’t get me started on Priscilla Pratt’s breathless insights regarding sunsets or Leah Rollins’ groundbreaking take on the Importance of Honesty), and Gibs started inviting me to his house occasionally for guitar sessions or indie videos.
But this is his first trip to my house; Mom’s tendency to make my friends feel like they’re under FBI surveillance minimizes my invites. But she’s at work now, and I really need help with my history final, so here’s Gibs.
It occurs to me that it must strike him as pretty odd that I’ve never mentioned my sister. We’ve just walked past the Shannon Wall of Fame, on into the den where Shannon’s life-sized watercolor portrait smiles down on us from the most prominent wall in the room
“Had,” I say in response to his question. “I had a sister. She’s dead.”
“Oh,” Gibs says. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I never knew her. She died before I was born. Actually, she’s the reason I was born.”
Gibs narrows his eyes, waiting to hear more, but that’s really all I have to say about that. I let my backpack slide off my arms onto the carpet, unzip it, and pry out my history book. I plop on the floral overstuffed couch and start flipping pages.
“I’m really rusty on the Prussians,” I say, after settling on a page.
“What do you mean, she’s the reason you were born?” Gibs persists.
I shrug. “My parents were bummed when she died, so they had me. I’m their sloppy second.”
Gibs pushes a stray lock of hair behind his ear and sits on the other end of the couch. “Their what?”
“Their sloppy second. Shannon was perfect, their lives were perfect, everything was perfect-perfect-perfect, then she died. And my mom thought if she got pregnant again, she’d have another perfect baby. But she had me.”
Then I Met My Sister Page 1