Analee, in Real Life

by Janelle Milanes

  “Why is Avery in a bathing suit?” I ask them point-blank.

  “Harlow and I are meeting with the caterer today,” Dad says. “You have to take your sister to the beach with you.”

  I hate it when Dad calls Avery my sister. I know we’re supposed to be some beautiful blended family, but Avery and I are not related. We don’t share any of the same genes or personality traits. We’re glorified roommates at most.

  “Can’t you guys take her with you to the caterer?” I ask. My voice creeps into a whine. “Or, I don’t know, drop her off at a friend’s house? She has like a million of them.”

  Dad and Harlow glance at each other.

  “No,” he says. “You have to take her.”

  “But—”

  “I packed some lunches for you guys!” Harlow cuts in. She gets up and thrusts a tote bag into my hands. “Chickpea salad sandwiches and trail mix. As a thank-you for taking care of Avery.”

  I stand there, the tote bag dangling from my fingers. Why do I feel like I’ve been bamboozled? This is obviously a poorly thought-out plan on Dad’s part to prevent Seb and me from going the whole day unchaperoned.

  Before I can protest, I hear Seb’s car pull into our driveway. He honks, two short taps on the horn.

  “He’s not coming to the door?” Dad asks. “Pero es un mal educado?”

  “It’s fine,” I say. “I told him I’d meet him outside.”

  Then Avery trots in wearing her ridiculous shoes. She can barely walk in them. “He’s here!”

  Harlow instructs me to reapply Avery’s sunscreen when we get there and to make sure she doesn’t go out too far in the water. Dad tells me, in Spanish, that I’m in charge of Avery and I need to keep my eyes on her at all times. Like I asked to do this job today. At least Harlow has the courtesy to thank me. Dad’s treating me like I’m Avery’s on-call nanny.

  “Have fun, girls,” he says to us as we leave the kitchen. “Do some sisterly bonding!”

  I don’t respond. I gather the bags together, weighing myself down with towels and sunblock and chickpea sandwiches like a pack mule, while Avery walks beside me empty-handed.

  “Bye, Mom. Bye, Dad!” Avery blows them each a kiss over her shoulder. Within a week of moving into our house, she took to calling my father “Dad.” Each time I hear the word popping out of her little cherry-colored mouth, it makes my skin crawl. She uses it excessively. “Morning, Dad.” “Pass the okra, Dad.”

  I know I’m being petty. I should be more generous, more . . . big sister-y. Avery’s father, some guy Harlow met back in college, abandoned Harlow when she was pregnant, so it’s nice that Avery can now plant her flag on a new father figure. But still, I feel a pervasive sense of ownership toward my dad.

  When Avery and I step outside, Seb is sitting in the front seat of his car with one arm stretched carelessly over the steering wheel. I stomp ahead of Avery and yank open the door to the passenger seat.

  “We have to take Avery with us,” I tell him.

  Seb pulls off his sunglasses, looks at me. “Who?”

  “Harlow’s daughter.”

  And then Avery pokes her head under my arm to talk to Seb. “Hi! Are you Analee’s boyfriend?”

  I push her out of the way. “You ride in the back. And don’t ask questions.”

  “Ow!” She rubs her arm where I touched her. “That really hurt!”

  “Please. I barely touched you.” I toss my bags into the back and plop into the passenger seat. Avery frowns when I shut the door on her.

  “Sorry in advance,” I say to Seb.

  Before he can answer, Avery opens the car door and slides into the backseat. She massages her arm with one hand and glares at me.

  “It was the other arm,” I remind her. She’s full of shit, just as I suspected.

  Seb cranes his head to look at Avery. “Hi, little girl.”

  “I’m not little,” she informs him. “I’m eight.”

  “My mistake.” He raises an eyebrow at me, and I close my eyes and shake my head to let him know that I have no part in this.

  “Buckle up, little girl,” he says to Avery. I stifle a smile as she now aims her glare at him. Finally. A sane person who doesn’t treat Avery like a spoiled little princess. For the first time in a while, I feel like someone is on my side.

  The last time I went to the beach was right before Mom was diagnosed. I don’t remember this fact until I sink my feet into the sand and hear the seagulls flying overhead and smell the salty ocean. Combined, all of these sensations jolt the memory from the recesses of my brain.

  I call this phenomenon Painful Sensory Memory Bomb.

  I remember it all. Mom whipping out a comically oversize hat, complete with a chin strap, and wearing it like it was a completely normal thing to do.

  Dad and I looked at each other and completely lost it.

  “What?” she asked, and her confused expression combined with the ridiculous hat only made us laugh harder.

  She rolled her eyes at us and pulled out her book. I can’t remember what she was reading that day. Probably something by Stephen King. Mom was obsessed with him, always calling him her book boyfriend.

  “Where,” I asked, in between gasps for air, “did you get that?”

  “Get what?” Mom asked as though a person could be unaware of a spaceship parked on top of her head.

  “Did you see her carrying it?” Dad asked me. He squeezed his eyes, still damp from laughter.

  “No,” I said. “It just . . . magically appeared. Like a gift from God.”

  Mom reached up to touch the hat’s wide straw brim. “Wait. Are you talking about my sun hat?”

  “Sun hat!” Dad repeated, and for some reason it became the funniest thing either of us had ever heard.

  Mom got all huffy and said, “No se porque te ríes, Ms. Green Panty Hose.”

  She was grasping at straws, referencing the kiwi-colored tights that I got in eighth grade. They made me look like Elphaba from Wicked.

  “And you?” Mom turned to Dad. “One word: muttonchops.”

  Her attempts to deflect the insults were unsuccessful—we didn’t shut up about her sun hat for the rest of the day. But that’s how our family displayed affection: unrelenting mockery. Now I have a new family and we gingerly walk on eggshells around one another.

  I don’t know what Dad did with Mom’s sun hat. If we still have it, I don’t want to see. It has forever lost the potential to be funny. There are so many things that suck about death, but one of the worst is how it contaminates whatever it touches. Everything that was once funny about a person becomes sad. And I’m not sure it will ever be funny again. It just sucks that something that made Dad and me laugh so hard that day will now only cause us pain.

  Then I think, What happens when Dad dies? I’ll be the only person in the entire world who knows the significance of the sun hat, the sole keeper of its memory.

  “Here.” Seb plants a beach umbrella into the sand and twists. I shut my memory down, return to the present. It’s jarringly bright out here, barely a cloud to shield us from the brutal sun. Avery runs ahead of us without hesitation, kicking off her platform shoes. Then she splashes around the water’s edge. I lay out the beach towels while Seb strips off his T-shirt with zero inhibitions.

  And . . . wow. Seb has muscles. Not the big, hulky steroid-type muscles but the ones that look like chiseled marble. I look away, hoping he didn’t notice my wandering eyes. I lie back against my towel, pulling out my copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I’m currently rereading the series for the eighth time.

  “Where’s your bathing suit?” A shadow falls across my page. I look up to find Seb staring down at me.

  “Under this.” I pull on my shirt strap.

  “And you’re keeping your clothes on because . . .”

  “I don’t know. There’s a chill.”

  “It’s ninety-two degrees.”

  “Thanks, Al Roker.”

  “Do you want to go into the water?�
��

  “I told you,” I say. “I don’t do that. Salty, sticky, et cetera?”

  “Suit yourself.” He turns and walks away.

  “Keep an eye on Avery,” I call after him.

  He waves a hand in my direction, then throws himself face-first into the crashing waves, splashing Avery in the process. She shrieks and jumps back.

  Not wanting to get drenched in salt water is a perfectly valid desire when spending a day at the beach. It’s not like I came to have a good time. I mean, Seb and I might take a few pictures indicating that yes, we are having a good time. But it doesn’t have to be the truth.

  Being here, around Seb’s toned body and Avery’s tiny one, doesn’t leave me wanting to expose my less-than-ideal girth. It’s not like I hate everything I’m working with. My calves have a nice shape, my boobs are full, my waist is fairly defined. People won’t notice the good things, though. They’ll pick up on everything that’s wrong with me instead. Avery will be blunt as usual, saying something horribly offensive that she doesn’t realize is horribly offensive. Seb will overhear, and he’ll probably agree even though he won’t comment. Not to mention all of Seb’s followers who will tear me apart if they see a full-body shot of me in a swimsuit.

  No. Better to leave the clothes on.

  “Analee!” Seb’s voice carries over the tide. I look, and he’s grinning, waving his arms wildly. I can’t help but laugh. He looks like a little boy. Avery’s next to him, finally immersed in the water. She dunks her head in every time a wave hits, then comes up laughing and coughing up seawater. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen Avery look her age more than she does now. I’ve always just thought of her as a mini Harlow without the zen.

  “Come in!” Seb hollers before getting a mouthful of water.

  I shake my head at him and return to Harry Potter. Harry has snuck into the prefect’s bathroom, and he’s trying to figure out the golden egg before the second task of the Triwizard Tournament. I don’t care. I can’t focus. I hear Seb and Avery laughing and splashing around. A couple of feet away two sisters are digging a hole with plastic shovels. I lay the open book over my face and close my eyes. All the noise fades into the background, and I start to relax.

  Until it starts to rain.

  I jolt, let the book fall beside me, then blink. How is it raining? I’m under an umbrella, and the sun is still blazing.

  Then I look up to see Seb, standing over me, dripping water right onto my face.

  “Quit it,” I say, using my arm to shield myself.

  “I can see you sweating. Come on. Get into the water with us.”

  “I’m not sweating. I was perfectly dry until you came over.”

  Except I am sweating. Profusely.

  “You’re saying I made you wet?” Seb asks. He snickers.

  “Oh my God. Please go away.”

  “Sorry. I couldn’t let that one slide.”

  “You could have. . . . You should have.”

  “Seb!” Avery screams from the water. “Look at this one!”

  “We’re chasing waves,” he tells me.

  “Thrilling.”

  “More thrilling than sitting here, fully clothed, reading a boring book.”

  “It’s not boring,” I inform him. “It’s Harry Potter.”

  “Ah,” he says. “You’re one of those.”

  “One of those . . . ?”

  “Those weird Harry Potter nerds.”

  “Weird Harry—excu-excuse me?” I sputter. I grab a fistful of sand and throw it at him, but he ducks right in time to crouch beside me laughing. I, on the other hand, am not laughing. This is so not a laughing matter.

  “First of all,” I say, “it’s weird not to like Harry Potter. Harry Potter is a central part of mainstream culture at this point.”

  “I’ve never read it.” He has the audacity to state this fact proudly.

  “I feel sorry for you. You should be deeply ashamed of your ignorance.”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know. Stories about magic and wizards and stuff don’t interest me.”

  “Oh really? What about stories about love and friendship? And heroism? And honor in the face of impossible circumstances?”

  “Eh,” he says, and I feel an all-consuming rage boiling within me. Seb looks at my face and starts to laugh. “It is so easy to piss you off.”

  I sit up. “This is a serious problem. You have to read Harry Potter. I can’t fake date someone who hasn’t.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Seb. I have a copy I can loan you.”

  “Hmm.” He takes one of my curls and twirls it between his wet fingers. “And if I read it, what are you going to do for me?”

  I slap his hand away. “Ew. Are you bribing me for sexual favors?”

  “Analee.” He looks annoyed. “I’m not an asshole. And I definitely don’t need to bribe women into having sex with me. God.”

  “Fine. So what do I have to do?”

  “Ah, ah, ah.” He wags a finger at me. “You’re going to have to trust me on this one. I’ll read the first book of Harry Potter if you do something for me in return.”

  “And I can’t know what it is?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then no way. That’s not fair.”

  “Have it your way.” He cups a handful of sand and lets it run through his fingers. “I don’t have to read the book.”

  The thing is, it’s such a travesty to go through life without having read Harry Potter. How can you ever be truly fulfilled as a person?

  I let out a puff of air, thinking on this.

  “You can trust me, you know,” Seb says. He gives me a sideways glance, and I turn my head to meet his gaze. God. When did his face go from something I wanted to hit to something I wanted to stare at for hours on end?

  I look into his eyes, soft and dark and searching. The funny thing is, I might be starting to trust him. A little.

  “All right,” I say. “I’ll do it.”

  “Shake on it?”

  I offer him my hand, and he grips it in a firm shake.

  “Don’t make me regret this,” I add. His only response is to lean forward and yank the book right out of my hands. It’s typical Seb. So entitled.

  “Hey!” I protest, sitting up.

  “Come into the water with me. Just five minutes.”

  “No.”

  “Come on, Analee.”

  “No.”

  “You’re hopeless.” He tosses the book back at me. “I’m going to hang out with the fun sister.”

  So much for Seb being on my side.

  “She’s not my sister!” I call as he hurries back into the water. Of course he kicks up sand all over my towel as he leaves. I try to tune out the sound of his and Avery’s laughter. Let them have their stupid fun. I have a book to get back to.

  I press my hand against my forehead and peer out at them. I envy the way they can fully let go, laugh without worrying about how it affects anyone around them. And I am totally freaking sweating my ass off. I want to sink into the ocean and suck up its water like a sponge.

  I force myself to stare at my book. I didn’t bring sunglasses, so I have to squint while I’m reading. Another reason I hate the beach. It’s too bright. I like being indoors, where I can control the temperature and lighting.

  “Analee!” Avery flops onto the towel beside me, her skin wet and cold. Apparently it’s her turn to bother me.

  “What.” I stare at my book even though the words have lost all meaning. I’m too uncomfortable to focus.

  “Seb wants me to convince you to come in.”

  “Go tell him you were unsuccessful.”

  “He said it’s my mission. I’m Secret Agent Pink, and he’s Secret Agent Striker.”

  “And you just revealed your secret identity to me, so I’d call this mission a fail.”

  “Ugh.” Avery squeezes out her hair. “You’re always like this.”

  “What are you talking about? Like what?”

  “You�
��re always so . . . like . . . mean.”

  “I am not mean. Not always, at least.”

  “You never smile.”

  “I smile . . .” I say this entirely unconvincingly. While frowning.

  “You’re always on the computer, sitting in the dark.”

  “Not today,” I reply. “Today I’m at the beach.”

  “Yeah, and you’re not even wearing your bathing suit.”

  I go silent. I think of how silly Mom looked in her sun hat and what I must look like, fully dressed in the epic Florida heat. As annoying as she is, maybe Avery has a point. Maybe I need to escape from the shadows once in a while.

  I mentally calculate how long it’ll take me to shed my clothes and hide myself in the water. I think I could make it in fifteen seconds. Too little time for anyone to really see me.

  “Fine,” I say, rising. I leave a big sweaty imprint on my towel. “I’ll go in.”

  “Really?” Avery’s eyes widen in disbelief.

  “Yes.”

  “Yay!” She claps her hands and shoots Seb a thumbs-up. He raises a fist in triumph. I’m surprised either of them care whether I join them or not. But it feels kind of good that they do. Like I matter, even a little bit.

  I quickly unzip my jeans and slip them off, then pull my shirt over my head and toss it to the ground.

  “Whoa,” Avery says, staring at me. My heart sinks. I know she’ll say something about the way my thighs jiggled or how the bathing suit clings to my belly.

  “You have big boobs,” she says instead, which is still such an Avery observation, but I can’t get too upset about it. She could have said a number of worse things.

  “You need to get a filter,” I tell her.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means keep your mouth shut once in a while.”

  “Whatever. Race you to the water!”

  We take off, and I hear Avery screech behind me. The two of us make it to the water at roughly the same time. I collapse into it, closing my eyes and letting myself fall under. When I come up, Seb is treading water beside me.

  “Yesssss, Analee!” he says, raising his hand to high-five me. I reluctantly oblige.

  “I did it,” Avery says proudly. “I got her to come in.”

  “Nice work, Agent Pink.” Seb offers her a high five too, and she slaps his hand with glee.