Sincerely

by Courtney Sheinmel

  “It still smells like oranges!” Haley said.

  “I can’t get the smell out like this, Haley. Why don’t you let me throw it into the washing machine?”

  “I wanted to wear my costume the whole day!” Haley whined. She sat limply on Dad’s lap while Mom peeled the leotard off of her. If you ask me, they both babied her. Mom took Haley’s costume down the hall to the washing machine. “Sophie, can you bring me the towels in the laundry basket? I may as well do some of the laundry now.” I didn’t think it was fair that I had to do work just because Haley had spilled juice all over herself. The day wasn’t starting out very well.

  Mom made me help fold the towels when she was through with the laundry. Haley came into the living room in her underwear to get her leotard, and she rolled around on the floor in the warm towels. “That’s gross,” I told her.

  “I’m clean,” Haley said.

  “You just spilled juice all over yourself. Now you’re going to make everything smell like orange juice,” I said.

  “I don’t smell like orange juice,” Haley insisted. She spread her arms across the towels and rubbed her palms against the towels. “I wish they stayed this warm all the time,” she said. “It feels like a blanket.”

  “All right, Haley,” Mom said. “Get up now. Take your leotard.” Haley obliged. She rolled over and pulled her leotard out from under a towel. Mom rubbed her back as she crawled away from us toward the bedroom, oinking.

  “She gets away with everything,” I complained. Mom ignored me.

  Haley’s friend Jennifer came over a few hours later. Even though Jennifer is Haley’s friend, I think she likes hanging out with me best. She doesn’t have an older sister, and she likes to pretend that I’m her sister. Jennifer never argues with me or acts annoying. She just likes to sit next to me when we watch television and lets me braid her hair without screaming that I’m hurting her. I wish Haley liked me as much as Jennifer did. My parents always say Haley worships me, but I know they just want to make me feel better.

  Haley was back in her piglet costume. I had my costume on too. Even though we were really too old to dress up for Halloween, Jessie and I had decided to do it for one last year. We were going as Tweedledee and Tweedledum. We’d read the Alice in Wonderland books for our summer reading. Well, actually, I don’t think Jessie really read them, but I did. When we started to think about Halloween back in September, we decided to get matching costumes. Tweedledee and Tweedledum were my idea. I went on the Internet to find a picture of them, and Jessie and I figured out what we needed to buy to look like the picture. We bought fat suits from a costume store, and then we went to Bloomingdale’s to get red pants that fit over the fat suits, short blue blazers, white shirts, and red suspenders. Mom also bought us miniature red baseball hats. I wanted a beanie cap, but we couldn’t find them.

  I pulled my hair back into a tight ponytail and twisted it into a bun. Then I put my baseball hat on and used bobby pins to secure it to my head. I looked in the mirror and I knew I looked pretty silly, but it would look better when there were two of us. Dad said it was a very well-executed literary idea.

  Jennifer had brought a face painting kit with her, and I took her and Haley into the bathroom to do their makeup. Haley sat on the toilet and I knelt in front of her. It was hard to stay steady in my fat costume. I should have waited to get dressed up until after I had finished doing their makeup. Haley bounced up and down excitedly. “Hurry up, Sophie,” she said.

  “Do you want me to do this or not?” I asked Haley.

  “I want you to,” she said.

  “Okay, then, be patient for a minute.” I pulled the towels down from the back of the door and piled them up in front of where Haley was sitting. Then I knelt back down and rolled back onto them. Haley and Jennifer laughed when I landed on my bottom with a thud. Finally I was ready to get to work. I put pale pink paint all over Haley’s face, and blended some red in with the pink on her cheeks to make them rosier. There wasn’t much more I could do to make her look like a pig. Pigs don’t even have whiskers, so I didn’t draw them in. Haley twisted around and studied herself in the mirror. “I still look the same,” she said. I told her she needed to put on her nose and ears. She went out of the room to get them, and I sat Jennifer on the toilet to do her makeup. Jennifer was dressed up as a clown. Her costume was white with colored polka dots all over it, and she even had big red clown shoes on and a rainbow wig.

  “Do you want to be a happy clown or a sad clown?” I asked.

  “You decide,” Jennifer said.

  “Okay, I’ll make you a happy clown,” I said.

  I put white paint on her face first. Then I drew purple triangles around her eyes. I made her cheeks bright red, and then I outlined her lips with the same red paint. I made the edges of the mouth turn way up like a big grin and I colored it all in. Jennifer looked in the mirror admiringly. I have to admit I did a good job. When I was finished with Jennifer, I drew bright red circles on my cheeks too. Jessie could do the same when she came over, if she wanted.

  The doorbell rang and Haley ran to answer it. She wanted to give the candy out to the trick-or-treaters while she was still home. Mom had a basket of mini-bags of M&M’s by the door. I had wanted to get the regular-size bags, but Mom had said that would be too expensive. Every Halloween, Jessie and I keep track of which apartments give out the big candy bars, and we try to hit those apartments more than once.

  I followed behind Haley in case it was Jessie at the door, but it was just the kids who live down the hall dressed up in Star Wars costumes.

  “Cool sword,” Haley said.

  “It’s a light saber,” one of the boys corrected.

  “Oh, yeah,” Haley said. She gave them each a bag of M&M’s and closed the door. “Hey, Mom,” she said. “Can I have some M&M’s now?”

  “You’re going to get so much candy tonight,” Mom said.

  “I’ll just split a bag with Jennifer,” Haley said.

  “Just one bag,” Mom told her.

  Haley said she wanted all the M&M’s that were primary colors. She had just learned about primary colors in school. Jennifer got the orange, brown, and green ones.

  “If I eat a yellow M&M and a blue M&M at the same time, do they make a green M&M inside my mouth?” Haley asked.

  “You are so dumb,” I said.

  “No, I’m not. Yellow and blue make green!”

  “Not in your mouth. It’s candy. It will dissolve before it mixes colors.”

  Haley popped a yellow and a blue M&M into her mouth and started chewing. “I’m going to look in the mirror,” she said, ignoring me.

  I was getting restless, waiting for Jessie. She was always late, and it was usually Liz’s fault. My costume was getting too hot. I wasn’t used to feeling so big and bulky. I sat down on the couch next to Dad, but I couldn’t get comfortable. “I hate always having to wait for Jessie,” I told him.

  “Why don’t you just start going to the apartments on our floor,” he said. “Jessie will probably be here before you’re even finished.”

  “I don’t want to go without Jessie,” I said. “It won’t look right to be Tweedledee without Tweedledum.”

  Haley skipped through the living room with Jennifer at her heels. “Careful there,” Dad said.

  “I can’t help it,” Haley said. “I’m so excited. I wish we could go now!” She hopped back and forth from one side of the room to the other. “When will Jessie be here?” Haley asked.

  “Soon,” Dad said.

  Finally the intercom buzzed. Mom picked it up and called to me. “Jessie’s on her way upstairs,” she said. I went out into the hall and waited for her by the elevator. I could hear the sound of the elevator beeping at each floor, getting louder and louder as it got closer to our floor. When the doors opened and someone stepped out, I heard Jessie’s voice saying my name, but for a split second I didn’t even recognize her. She was wearing the witch’s costume she’d worn last Halloween. The hat was bent awkward
ly at the top, probably from being stored at the bottom of her closet for a year. Instead of the fat suit, she had on tights and a skirt. Her face was heavy with makeup.

  I looked her up and down and gasped. “What happened to your costume?”

  “My mom made me return it,” Jessie said.

  “That’s so mean! Why did she do that?”

  “She said I was spending too much money on clothing and if I wanted to keep the black skirt for the dance then I had to return the costume.”

  “So you returned it,” I said.

  “No offense, Soph,” Jessie said, “but what am I really going to do with a Tweedledum costume? I mean, after tonight, it’s completely useless.”

  “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me before now,” I said.

  “It’s not that big of a deal,” she said, sounding annoyed. I couldn’t believe what was happening. Jessie had known me practically her whole life, and she had had barely ten conversations with Madden Preston, so why was he so much more important to her than I was? How come she cared about how she looked to him instead of caring about hurting me? The worst part was that she didn’t even seem to think she had done anything wrong.

  I turned back into the apartment. I knew I was going to cry, but I didn’t want Haley and Jennifer to see me. Haley especially would want to hear all the details about what was wrong, and I didn’t want to talk about it to anyone. I walked straight into my room and slammed the door shut, even though I knew that would make my parents angry.

  Sure enough, Mom came into my room. “What is going on?” she said.

  I was lying facedown on the bed and my red cheeks had rubbed off on my pillowcase.

  “I can’t go as Tweedledee if Jessie isn’t Tweedledum!” I said.

  “If you keep talking into the pillow, I can’t hear you.”

  I lifted my head up and looked at her. “I can’t be Tweedledee if Jessie isn’t Tweedledum,” I said again. “I’ll look stupid!”

  “Sophie, it’s Halloween,” Mom said. “Everyone looks stupid.” She sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed my back. “Come on, they’re all waiting for you.”

  “I’m not going,” I said, and I put my face back down into the pillow.

  “Oh, Sophie,” Mom said. “Now you’re being silly.”

  I heard footsteps, and I looked up to see if it was Jessie coming in to apologize, but it was just Dad. “She doesn’t want to go,” Mom told him.

  Dad said I was keeping everyone waiting and making Jessie feel bad. It figured that they were concerned with everyone’s feelings but mine. Jessie was the one who had started the whole problem.

  “I just want to be alone,” I told them.

  They didn’t argue with me; they just walked out of the room. I heard Dad telling the other girls to start without me and to check back in once they had gone to all the apartments on the fourteenth floor, which is the floor we live on.

  I sat up on my bed and wiped my eyes. My fingers looked pink from the remains of the face paint. Jessie and I used to be alike in almost every way, but now she needed to hang out with Amy, Melissa, and Lindsay, and she needed to look good for Madden Preston. I didn’t think there was much room left in her life for me. I took off my costume, put on jeans and a sweater, and walked into the living room. I was too old to dress up anyway.

  “What are you dressed as now?” Dad said.

  “A parent taking her kids around on Halloween,” I said.

  “So you’re going to go,” Mom said. “I think that’s good.”

  “I want the candy,” I told her.

  I waited until Jessie, Haley, and Jennifer came back to the apartment after they had finished all the apartments on our floor, and then I went with them through the rest of the building. Haley said I shouldn’t get to have any candy because I wasn’t in a real costume. Jennifer said she would share her candy with me.

  We went up and down the halls of the other floors and I watched Jessie carefully. She didn’t seem too happy to be with us. I wondered if maybe she felt bad about the costumes or if she was just bored.

  Our building isn’t very tall. In fact, for an apartment building in New York City, it’s pretty short. The fifteenth floor is the top floor, and really there are only fourteen floors. That’s because our building doesn’t have a thirteenth floor. Some buildings in New York skip the thirteenth floor because thirteen is an unlucky number. We actually live on the thirteenth floor. The sign by the elevator says FLOOR 14, but we’re right above twelve. Anyway, we were done trick-or-treating pretty quickly. We rode back up in the elevator to our apartment. Jennifer and Haley made deals about splitting up their candy. Anything with nuts in it was for Jennifer, anything with caramel was for Haley, and anything with both they decided to share.

  The elevator doors opened and I stepped out to go home. “Hold on a second,” Jessie said. “Why don’t we hit the building next door before we go home?”

  The building next door is twice the size of our building. It’s also very fancy. The doormen wear white gloves and the lobby is all marble and gold. There are even a couple of famous people living there. I had been there a bunch of times when I was little. This girl Abigail who I went to preschool with used to live there, and our mothers took turns picking us up from school. I always felt like I was walking into a museum when I went into that building. Abigail would run into the building and never feel bad about having mud on her shoes or making too much noise, but I was always scared of getting in trouble, so I walked slowly behind her and held my mother’s hand.

  I wasn’t sure we could just go there without being invited by someone who lived there. “I’ll go tell Mom and Dad,” Haley said. But I knew my parents would say no. Jessie looked at me. It felt like a test. I wanted to make sure I did the right thing.

  “No, Haley,” I said. “It’s okay. Let’s just go.” I stepped back into the elevator and Jessie pressed the button for the lobby.

  Five

  IT WAS FREEZING outside and we didn’t have our coats, so we ran down the block to the other building. I was nervous because I thought the doorman would ask us where we were going, but we were in our costumes, so maybe he didn’t realize we were strangers. He just opened up the door and let us in, and the four of us walked toward the elevator banks in the back, pretending that we belonged there. While we waited for the elevator, Jessie suggested that we start at the top floor and work our way down.

  “I bet they won’t let us up to the penthouse,” I said.

  “Do you think someone famous lives there?” Jessie asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “We can just start with the floor right under that,” Jessie said.

  The elevator doors opened, and the elevator operator stepped forward. He wore the same uniform and white gloves as the doorman. His name was embroidered across his chest. HUGH, it said. We don’t have an elevator operator in our building, just a regular doorman who stays by the front door of the lobby and opens the door for you if you are carrying something heavy. When we use the elevator in our building, we get to press the button for our floor by ourselves. But Hugh was waiting to push the button for us. “Where to, young ladies?” he asked.

  “The next-to-the-top floor,” Jessie said.

  “The next-to-the-top floor it is,” Hugh said. We stepped inside and the doors closed. There was a small bench at the back of the elevator and Haley and Jennifer both sat down on it. “So, what do we have here?” Hugh said. “A witch, a pig, and a clown. And what are you supposed to be?” He leaned toward me.

  “I’m just supervising,” I said.

  Hugh laughed. “You girls know someone on the twenty-seventh floor?”

  “We’re friends of the Johnsons,” Jessie said.

  Hugh nodded and laughed again. The doors opened. Hugh held up his arm and motioned for us to go out. “You girls be careful,” he said. “Crazy things can happen on Halloween.”

  When the elevator doors had closed, I turned to Jessie. “Who are the Johnsons?”

/>   “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “I just figured it’s a pretty common name. There has got to be a Mr. and Mrs. Johnson somewhere in this building.”

  Even though the building was really tall, there were only four apartments on the floor. A couple of other kids were trick-or-treating down the hall. I thought maybe we should follow them and try to blend in as part of their group. I was going to tell Jessie that, but she had stepped forward and already pressed the doorbell of the apartment closest to the elevator. “Come on, you guys,” she called to us impatiently.

  Behind the door someone said, “Who is it?”

  “Trick or treat!” Haley and Jennifer called. They weren’t scared of anything.

  A woman opened the door. “Oh, hello, girls,” she said, like she’d been expecting us. She gave us each a small bag of Hershey’s Kisses.

  “It’s Mrs. Johnson,” I whispered to Jessie, and she smiled. Jessie looked so familiar all of a sudden that I almost forgot that she’d returned her Tweedledum costume. She seemed just like the old Jessie.

  It took us only a couple minutes to go to the four apartments. “How come there aren’t more apartments?” Haley asked.

  “Because the people who live here are very rich,” Jessie told her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Their apartments are very big,” I explained.

  Jennifer went to press the button for the elevator, but I didn’t want to get in it again. What if Hugh starting asking us more questions? I could tell Jessie was thinking the same thing because she suggested we take the stairs.

  “We’re too high,” Haley complained. “I don’t want to walk down all those stairs.”

  “We’ll just walk down one floor at a time,” Jessie said.

  We walked down the hall to the stairwell. The door was solid and heavy. It didn’t even have a window. I held it open for the other girls. They walked in and I let go of the door. It slammed shut behind me and I heard an ominous click. I knew what that meant—the door was locking into place. Jessie, Haley, and Jennifer were already running down the stairs to the twenty-sixth floor, but I decided to check the door first. My heart was starting to beat faster and I tried to turn the knob to reopen the door. The knob wouldn’t move. “Jessie,” I said, but she didn’t hear me. “Jessie!” I called louder.