by Sara Zarr
“So did I. Put them back on.”
I went to the bedroom to get mine. When I came out, Dixie stood by the door forcing her flip-flops over her tights.
“You’re going to fall down the stairs and die,” I said as she shuffle-walked to me.
She shrugged.
I knelt to tie my laces. “Where’s Mom?”
“Out.”
“I know. Out where?”
“Work, I guess?”
I straightened up and we faced each other.
“Do you think Napoleon would give me a sandwich?”
She laughed. “Well, you might have to flash your boobs.”
“Is that what you do?”
“No! I’m joking, Gem, obviously. Do you really—” She shook her head. “You never get my jokes.”
It didn’t matter. I knew exactly why Dixie got sandwiches and why I wouldn’t.
Dixie is pretty. No one in our family is beautiful the way movie stars are beautiful, but she’s the type of girl who gets second, third, fourth looks—as many looks as people can get away with before she stares them down. She’s soft in the sense of being curvy, and hard in the sense of not taking any shit. She’s cute—her hair, her clothes, the faces she makes when she’s surprised or mad or thinks something is funny. And intimidating. She exudes a sexuality, but in a way where it’s like it’s for her, not for anyone else. It started in junior high, and by the time she got to high school, people couldn’t spend five minutes with Dixie before they wanted to give her things, feed her, touch her, get her to smile, be her friend, be her boyfriend. She got sandwiches, she got her cell phone bill paid, she got attention when she wanted and deflected it when she didn’t.
Whereas I still hadn’t figured out how to make and keep a friend.
I stared, she stared back. For her it was a game. She thought I was trying to get her to look away first. But really it was me trying to see who I was through Dixie’s eyes, me wondering if she evaluated me and my face and clothes and body, the ways I made it through the world, like I evaluated hers.
Did she look for herself in me, the way I looked for myself in her?
Finally she broke, and laughed. “You’re such a weirdo, Gem,” she said. “You probably scared that freshman with your creepy eyes.”
I didn’t want her to see I couldn’t take a joke, so I bugged my eyes at her to make them even creepier.
“Ew,” she said with an exaggerated shudder. “Let’s go downstairs before the rats come out.”
2.
I WOKE up in the night, like I usually did for one reason or another—street noise or neighbor noise, a bad dream, Mom coming home from work or a night with “the girls,” who, most of the time, probably weren’t.
Dixie’s bed was empty. She snuck out sometimes, but tonight I heard her voice with Mom’s, coming from the living room. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, them being up late together. Sometimes I could ignore them and go back to sleep. Sometimes I’d lie there with my eyes open, wishing that for once they’d check to see if I was awake. Maybe I wanted to be up talking, too.
I got out of bed and crept into the dark hall, watching from a spot where I could see the corner of the living room. They were on the couch, facing each other. Mom’s hair hung loose down her back. She’d gotten black tips on the blond.
They were eating potato chips. Dixie had one in her hand and was gesturing with it while she talked to Mom in an excited whisper. I thought I heard my name. I often had the feeling they were talking about me, especially since Dixie started high school. Before, I had my own life there without Dixie’s to compare it to. Not having friends felt normal for me until I imagined it through her eyes, and I could see Mr. Bergstrom as often as I needed without anyone much noticing or caring. Now, Dixie could observe my life, judge it, and report it to Mom.
Gem is a loner.
Gem is always in the counseling office.
Gem takes money from freshmen boys so she can eat cafeteria ravioli.
These were the conversations they had in my head. I leaned farther back into the dark, listening harder.
“So I didn’t change into my gym clothes. Not after he was like, ‘Oh, when am I gonna see you in your shorts again?’ Dick. I told Ms. Moser but she still marked it as a cut. That’s why they called you.”
“Gym,” she’d said. Not “Gem.” I scratched an itch on my arm and Dixie looked toward the hall. Mom turned around. All her silver necklaces and pendants and leather cords were draped over the scoop of her black tank top. The edge of her mermaid tattoo showed at her collarbone.
Like Dixie’s, Mom’s beauty wasn’t model- or actress-beautiful. But still powerful. And when she and Dixie were right next to each other like that, their power doubled. In the face of it, I felt myself shrink.
“Oh, hey,” Mom said. “You’re up.”
The smile she had for me didn’t look like the one she had for Dixie. For me, she had to force it. Mr. Bergstrom once asked if this might be my imagination. If he could see it for himself, he’d know what I meant.
Mom, apologetic, held up the chip bag. “We just finished. It was only like half a bag anyway.”
“Where were you?” I hadn’t meant to ask, at least not before saying something else first, something that didn’t sound so much like an accusation.
Dixie widened her eyes at me, annoyed. She hated when I started in on Mom. She wanted to pretend like Mom was another one of her friends, another girl with boyfriend drama and body issues and money problems who didn’t need to hear shit from anyone about how she should be living her life.
Well, I didn’t want to be monitoring Mom, either. But someone had to.
I stepped into the room and Mom touched the black tips of her hair. She’d started drinking again in the last six months or so, using some. It started with her birthday in September and never stopped. A little wine. A little pot. It’s nothing. I came closer in, to see her eyes, and tried to tell if this time it was a little wine or a little pot or both.
“I went and paid the electric bill, for one thing,” she said, and looked away.
At one in the morning?
“I had to go and get a money order first,” she said to Dixie. “Then the guy couldn’t find our account. I gave him the number, my name, our address. . . . It was like it disappeared from the system. He had to set it up all over again, and he was a real pain in the ass about it, too.” She turned to me again. “Then, like I told you or think I told you, Judy’s in town. Tonight was the only night we could get together.”
Dixie sat up on her knees. “They went to the Velvet,” she said to me, as if I’d be excited.
Mom flashed her a look.
“Sorry,” Dixie said, eyes down.
I guess I wasn’t supposed to know. Like they were the sisters, me the mom.
“Only for a few hours.” Mom bent over to dig around in her purse, which sagged open on the floor enough for me to see cigarettes, crumpled-up pieces of paper and dollar bills, her torn canvas wallet. “It’s not the same as it used to be, that’s for sure. Did you take my lip balm, Dixie?”
“No.”
“Then why do I have to buy a new one every goddamn week?” She turned her purse upside-down and shook it, then spread the contents out on the carpet, sliding to the floor to hunch over mascara and pens and napkins and a couple of pieces of unopened mail.
Dixie leaned down and darted her hand into the pile for one of the envelopes. “That’s for me,” she said. Mom grabbed for it, but Dixie held it away and was already studying the handwriting. “It’s from Dad?”
“No. I mean, I don’t know. There’s no return address.” Mom sat back on her heels and held out her hand. The dark green polish on her fingernails was chipped to almost nothing. “Dix. Honey.”
“It is from him. The postmark is Austin.” Dixie pressed it to her chest. “It’s addressed to me, Mom.”
I held my breath and watched.
“Oh,” Mom said with a shrug, letting her hand fal
l.
“Just to you?” I asked.
Dixie had backed into the corner of the couch, legs drawn up, one hand to her mouth. She had on the same polish as Mom, but hers was freshly painted.
Mom started shoving her stuff back into her purse. “Well, open it,” she said. She was agitated now, more like she got after a little pot than after a little wine. Dixie knew, like I did, that Mom could turn on you fast when she was like this.
“Not right now.”
“Why not? You’re so fucking eager to steal it out of my purse. What do you think is in there? A check? A plane ticket? Dream on. ‘Dream on, dream on,’” she sang, the refrain from an old rock song, her voice high and crazy. Definitely pot, plus maybe something stronger. I flashed on an image of her, in her bed, me trying to get her to wake up, trying to know what I should do.
Dixie’s eyes met mine in search of something. Help? Sympathy? She wouldn’t get either from me; she was the one who had a letter from Dad.
“Here, Gem, I got you something.” Mom stumbled to her feet and handed me a matchbook from the Velvet. “Don’t set anything on fire.”
A matchbook. She hadn’t gotten it for me. It was like how, when I was little, she used to pull random crap from her purse if we were out and I got bored and whiny. Look what I got you, Gem! A pen, a stick of gum, a business card. I thanked her for the matchbook anyway and scratched my nail along the edges of it.
She ran her hand through her hair and shrugged. “Ain’t no thing.” She tried a more genuine smile and grabbed my hand. “What’s new, kiddo? Things okay at school? Still passing your classes and everything?”
This was her new game. If Dixie wasn’t happy with every single thing Mom did, Mom pretended she didn’t exist. Before I started to notice the moments between them that caused it, I even liked the attention. But stoned, getting-back-at-Dixie attention didn’t feel much better than being completely ignored. And it had the side effect of making Dixie mad at me, like it was my fault.
I extracted my hand from Mom’s while Dixie got up and brushed past us on her way to our room. “Whatever,” she muttered.
“We need food,” I told Mom.
“Do we? I feel like I just went to the store.”
“Can you please just fill out that form for school? The lunch form thing?”
She rolled her eyes, massaged the back of her neck with one hand, and scooped up her purse with the other. “Gem. I am so tired. Just fill it out and I’ll sign it.” With Dixie gone and no one to perform for, she’d stopped pretending to care about my day or my grades or the fact that I’d hardly eaten.
“I did. But they need copies of your paychecks, or the Basic Food statements.” I’d told her all this before.
Mom walked toward the kitchenette; I followed. She tossed her purse onto the small table we rarely ate at. “I don’t like them having all that information about me. Anyway, isn’t school food disgusting and fattening and everything? I’ll get you food at the store.”
“When?”
She turned around slowly. Under the kitchen light I could see her eyes were bloodshot; mascara had flaked and settled into her tiny wrinkles. Her tank top hung off one shoulder, showing a purple bra strap. Her power had dimmed. “When I get some sleep, Gem. When I get a shower and a cup of coffee. That’s when. It’s two in the morning. God.”
I clenched my teeth. My choice was to push harder and piss her off, or back down and wind up with nothing. I had to eat. “Can I have some money?” I asked. “Like . . . three of those dollar bills?”
“What dollar bills would those be?”
“I saw them in your purse.”
“Oh, you mean my dollar bills? The ones I earned at my job?”
Her job. Bartending twenty hours a week. Catching other shifts here and there.
She reached for her purse. “When are you getting a job again, one might ask.”
“I’m trying.” I’d filled out applications everywhere within a walk or a reasonable bus ride. I had no references, though, not after getting fired from the souvenir shop for always being late, which was usually the bus’s fault.
“‘Do. Or do not. There is no try.’” Yoda voice. “Okay, look, I’m going to loan you these dollar bills.” She pressed a wad of money into my hand. “And I want them back in this exact condition. I will check every wrinkle.”
I looked at the money.
“Gem, I’m kidding,” she said, jostling my arm. “You’re so serious. It’s excruciating.” With a glance toward the hall, she whispered, “Don’t you wonder what’s in that letter? I mean, don’t you just wonder what flavor, what exact flavor, of bullshit he’s selling now? I haven’t heard from him in . . . Well, thank god. Not as if I want to.” She fixed her eyes on me. I closed my hand around the money and lowered my arm. “What about you? Have you heard from him?”
I shook my head.
“No,” she said, reaching to brush my hair out of my eyes. “I guess you wouldn’t.”
3.
DIXIE SLEPT through our alarms. Only the top of her head showed from under the blankets. She always slept like that. For years it was my job to get her up, get her dressed, make sure she ate breakfast, get her to school. When she was little little, she didn’t complain, but as she got into second, third, fourth grade, we started to argue about it. She would want to wear her favorite outfit five days a week and I’d tell her she couldn’t, because people would notice and tease her. She’d want candy for breakfast, she’d want to play instead of finishing schoolwork, she’d want to run ahead of me and cross the street without waiting for a green light. Around sixth grade, she decided she could do everything herself.
“You’re not my mom,” she’d tell me.
I had a picture in my drawer, me pushing a stroller around some city street when Dixie was a toddler and I was in maybe kindergarten, maybe first grade. Dixie’s sitting there, chubby legs and curly hair. And me, pushing the stroller and wearing a grown-up’s purse over my shoulder.
One morning last year I told her she had on too much makeup for junior high and she said it again—“You’re not my mom”—and I took the picture out of my drawer and said, “Who’s this, then? Who’s pushing you around in a stroller?”
She laughed. “Someone took that picture, Gem. Probably Mom was right there, or her friend what’s-her-name, Roxanne. They probably stuck a purse on you and told you to push me around because they thought it was cute.”
She was probably right, but truthfully I’d never thought about who took the picture. It just existed, and me and Dix were the only ones in it. It was the image of the two of us that stuck in my head as the reality; I’d never wondered who was outside the frame.
Now, I put both hands on the lump of her and rocked it until she thrashed her arms and legs at me.
“You’re going to miss the bus,” I said.
“I’m not taking the bus.” Her voice was muffled.
“What does Dad’s letter say?”
“Nothing.”
I poked her shoulder.
She threw the covers off. “Get out of my face!”
“Just tell me what it says.”
“I’ll tell you later,” she said, and pulled the covers back up. “Leave me alone.”
Mom had given me seven dollars. I doubted she’d realized she’d shoved that much at me. I also had that spare quarter from yesterday, plus the four quarters Luca had given me, which I guess technically belonged to Denny, but all together it was the most money I’d had at once since running out of what I’d saved.
I left the apartment without checking on Mom to make sure she was okay from whatever she was on last night. Don’t look and you won’t see, I reminded myself. And if I didn’t see, then I didn’t know, and then I wouldn’t have to worry.
On the way to school I stopped by the doughnut shop that I smelled every day, and I got in line. “Apple crumb, and a glazed old-fashioned. And a milk,” I said. “And a chocolate coconut,” I added before the cashier rang me up.
> I sat at the counter facing the street and ate all three, taking my time about it, pretending I was the kind of person who always had unlimited doughnut money and did this every day.
All morning, I looked for Dixie between classes in all the places she might be. Before third period I saw her best friend, Lia, head bent over her phone, standing outside their bio class in the black knit hat and green cowboy boots she always wore.
“Lia!”
My voice came out louder than I’d meant it to. More than one person turned to see what I was yelling about. Lia looked up, but her expression didn’t change and I figured she must not recognize me. “It’s Gem. Dixie’s sister?”
Lia laughed. “Yeah,” she said, “I know.”
Then why didn’t you say hi, you little snot? “Have you seen her?”
Lia’s answer was to hold up her phone and show me a text she’d just gotten from Dixie.
tell mr w i’ll be there in 5 mins ish
I’d be late for my next class two floors up if I waited around. “Tell her to look for me at lunch.”
“When are you getting a phone?” Like passing on a message to Dixie was this huge pain in her ass.
“When I have a job again, I guess.” I’d gotten a prepay phone when I had my job so they could call me about shift changes. Then my mom needed to borrow it for a couple of days when she couldn’t pay the bill on her own phone, and after that I kept getting calls from some guy named Paul, using up my minutes looking for her. I got tired of him yelling at me and threw the phone away.
“You’ll tell Dixie about lunch?” I reminded Lia.
“Yes, okay.”
Through government class I sat in the back like always and made one hundred pen dots on a piece of notebook paper while Mr. Coates lectured on the executive branch. Ten rows down and ten across. I imagined being small, tiny enough to fit inside the field of dots, hidden.
So Dad had written to Dixie and not me. So what. The letter was probably full of lies anyway. It still ate at me; then the fact that I cared ate at me more. My father wasn’t anybody I should upset myself over. He’d never upset himself over me.
