Like Helena wishing her “bad skin” would clear up. That made me sad, because despite one tiny little blemish on her jawline, Helena’s skin glowed. Its golden tone almost matched her wide-set eyes and the caramel waves that zigzagged to her hourglass waist. She reminded me of a sunbeam brought to life…yet her Whispers echoed her critical mother’s more every day.
Then there was Parker next to me, staring off into the distance, pining after this senior guy she had a crush on, Ben Williams.
I was still pondering why that one bothered me when I heard a door slam upstairs and then angry boots clomping down the hall.
3
“You guys—let’s go!” I shot from my chair, but in my panic forgot I was wearing the stupid platforms and bashed my kneecap under the table. Tears stung my eyes. By the time my friends glanced up from their shaking plates, Icka was blocking the kitchen doorway.
Parker and the rest sat frozen, staring. People always did that, even after they’d seen my sister a bunch of times.
Hope it’s just a phase. That’s what our relatives always Whispered when they saw her. Or I wish she didn’t hide how pretty she is. And then there were the If Onlys. If only she didn’t wear shredded, baggy workmen’s clothes from Goodwill. Didn’t store metal in her lip, nose, and eyebrow. Didn’t smoke like a barbecue—a vegan barbecue. Didn’t boycott shampoo. (She claimed she was “part of the no poo movement,” as if sporting neglected dreads somehow qualified as a movement.) If only she didn’t coat her eyelids, raccoon-style, with black liquid liner. Didn’t let her pale skin run to pasty—no, beyond pasty. Next door to translucent. But Icka did do all those things, and slouching there in the doorway, she was very far from pretty. She looked like the ghost of grunge.
Beside me Helena sat nervously biting her straw, praying my sister wouldn’t single her out for humiliation.
I bit my lip—my knee was still screaming—and waited for Icka to fire the first shot.
Instead, she stumbled forward, yawning, and slipped past us all without a glance, as if she really were a ghost. At her heels trailed Scarlett, dragging herself across the floor with even less enthusiasm. (The dog had an excuse; she had a bad leg.)
My friends and I managed a four-way glance of panic, but Icka just turned away from us, stretched her arm, and retrieved a sustainable, reusable glass jar of granola from her personal kitchen shelf. “Caaaarbs,” she croaked in an early-morning smoker’s voice. Then she paused to yawn again. I narrowed my eyes. What the hell was going on here?
Since when was Icka too sleepy to be a bitch on my birthday?
There were exactly two possibilities:
A) She was trying to drive me nutso with suspense, or,
B) She was lulling me into a false sense of security so she could spring some evil plan at my party tonight.
Knowing my sister, B seemed a lot more likely.
With infinite slowness, Icka unscrewed the jar’s lid and popped a handful of cranberry granola into her mouth—right there at the counter, without the aid of bowl, spoon, or soy milk. I saw Parker’s nose wrinkle at the matted blond dreads hanging down the back of Icka’s work shirt and felt embarrassed we were related. A tiny part of me couldn’t help feeling sorry for Icka too. If Parker ever looked at me with such withering disgust, I’d positively shrink. Bent on her skinny forearms, my sister did look smaller—like her actual height, five five, instead of a seven-foot-tall avenging goddess.
And that’s when it occurred to me that as long as she was busy chewing, my friends and I had a chance to escape.
“Come on.” I jumped up, wobbling on my platforms. “Let’s go!”
Parker nodded and dove for her purple Eddie Bauer bag. Bree stood too, and Helena rushed to follow, slamming in her chair. So far Icka hadn’t turned to look at us, kept crunching her granola. My heart flip-flopped. Was it possible she was more interested in whole grains than in ruining my life?
She must have Heard that spark of hope, because she spun around. A funny little half smile like an Old West gunslinger. The drowsiness was an act. She was wired. She was just waiting for me to build up hope so she could smash it. These little mind games were what she lived for.
Her leering eyes met mine. “Joy-Joy! You finally look like what you really are. A freak.”
Reflexively, I shrugged, though my hands were shaking. Icka knew how much I hated it when she said things like that, making little veiled references to our shared secret in front of my friends. Luckily, Parker already had my gray Timbuk2 bag by the strap and was coming over to help me put it on over my costume. I saw Helena scrambling into her jacket in the doorway, ready to skitter from the room.
Why oh why was Bree still standing by the table?
Then I Heard it:
I wish someone would tell loser girl to shove it.
Oh. My god.
Bree had crossed her arms, was glaring at Icka. “Why would you say that,” she demanded, “to your own sister on her birthday?”
Helena and Parker widened their eyes at her, but Bree had gone to a different middle school. She had only met the rest of us a month ago. She didn’t fully understand what Icka was capable of.
“If you want to be a bitch to me, fine,” she went on. “I can give back as good as I get, whatever. But, oh my god, this is Joy! Girl couldn’t be mean if she tried. My little puppy has more mean in him. You should be ashamed, seriously…what the hell is wrong with you?” I couldn’t get over the outrage in her voice. Outrage for me. Part of me wished I could cover Bree’s mouth—or maybe just grab her and run out of the house with her, like people carried cats out of blazing buildings. But at the same time, gratitude was bubbling up inside me. Bree, who I’d only known for a month, was standing up to Icka, standing up for me. “So don’t go calling Joy a freak,” she finished, “when we all know you’re the only freak here.” I felt like bursting into applause.
“She’s right.” Parker gave me a sheepish look. I wish I’d been the one to speak up.
I gave her a small smile to let her know all was well between us. Anyone who knew Icka would know better than to engage her.
Icka stared at Bree, taking in her highlighted hair, her curve-hugging pink V-neck sweater and black pencil skirt. “No offense,” she said, “but who are you supposed to be?”
Bree squared her broad shoulders as if ready for a fight, then she squinted, confused. “Um, what?”
“Icka, you know Bree.” I didn’t know where Icka was headed with this either, but I didn’t like the sound of it. “She’s been to our house like ten times—”
“Whatever—I don’t need a full report.” Icka still had Bree pinned with her gaze. “I’m just saying, don’t get too comfortable. You obviously won’t be in this clique long.” She said all this seemingly without malice, gently even, like a doctor announcing that a healthy-looking patient had brain cancer. Then, at our collective stunned silence, she broke up snickering. “What, people? Hello, am I the only one who can see this little experiment in diversity can’t last? I mean, look at her…now look at the rest of you. Do-gooder alpha prep”—she pointed to Parker—“mousy beta prep”—Helena—“and freak posing as prep”—guess who. “Just where do you think you’ll fit in, Miss InStyle Is My Bible?”
Bree was blinking over and over, wishing Icka would shut up. Helena flinched and stared at the wall. Parker’s frown traveled from Icka to Bree, as if she were considering my sister’s words despite their source.
And the terrible thing was…well, I didn’t want to be thinking this, but Bree really was a little different from the rest of us. She was from Southern California. She’d gone out for cheerleading “to meet people,” which sounded like something you’d say at a beauty pageant, but that was just how Bree talked. She wore emerald green contact lenses despite having perfect vision and sported a polished, almost varnished, pink mouth even in P.E. class…I shook my head. Bree was our friend. Icka was just baiting us, as usual, with stupid mind games, adding a drop of truth to her lies to help them s
lide down smoother.
“I am so sorry about her.” I folded my yellow-gloved arms. “I mean, we’re all different in our own ways,” I added, trying not to think of my own huge, secret difference. “It hasn’t stopped us from being friends, right?”
“Exactly,” Bree said, falling on the word like she’d been waiting to say it to the first person who spoke in her defense.
Icka moved straight to her next attack. “Kinda shocked to see you here, Helena. I thought your family was all about the doing nothing on birthdays.”
Helena stiffened, then glared at me. I knew what she was thinking, that I’d blabbed to Icka the story of how her mom and stepdad spaced on her birthday last year. No doubt she was picturing the two of us snickering about it together, thinking that underneath the “teasing” we were, secretly, close—BFF sisters—and that I wasn’t the nice, kind person they all thought I was. I dug my nails into my palms so hard I winced, but what could I say? There was never any point with Icka. I’d repair the damage later, like always.
“Nobody talk to her.” I almost didn’t recognize the commanding voice as my own. “Just head for the door.”
We speed-walked into the foyer, Icka chasing behind. “Wait, I forgot to tell you something!” None of us was stupid enough to turn. “A message for the Joyster,” she yelled anyway. “Your boyfriend called last night.” Ha! I’d never even had a boyfriend, so her ruse was pathetic. I opened the door and stepped aside so my friends could go through. Helena propelled herself down the porch steps. I wondered if she’d dare come back for tonight’s party.
“Did you not hear me? I said Ben called.”
I saw Parker flinch, and Bree hesitated in the doorway. My stomach dropped.
“Ben Williams, remember? Your True Love, TM?”
Parker’s dark, intense eyes were fixed on my sister’s blue ones. I hope this is just what I think it is, another lie.
“She’s such a liar! Icka, be quiet.” I turned to Parker. “I would never—”
“Joy, I know, believe me.” Parker pointed a French-manicured finger at Icka’s chest. “You. Are lower than pond scum.” Her voice shook with anger. “Like I’m really supposed to believe Joy would steal Ben from me?”
“That’s crazy,” I echoed. And it was: I wasn’t some kind of frenemy who’d steal my best friend’s crush. Besides, though Parker was too kind to point it out, Ben with his sexy olive eyes and basketball-star coolness was far out of my league…he belonged with someone amazing, like Parker.
Icka snorted and shrugged. “Well, don’t take my word for it, check it out yourself.” She fished a scrap of paper from her hip pocket. “This guy called, okay? It was around nine. Joy and Mommy Dearest were off at QFC,” she added, “buying flour and sugar and rich creamery butter with which to kill our guests. There.” She held out the scrap so we could all see the phone number scrawled on it.
Parker turned to me in confusion. “That’s Ben’s number.”
I felt a funny chill run through me.
Suddenly everyone outside was staring at me, not at Icka. In the silence, I felt myself blushing—blood filling my cheeks so I could feel my pulse everywhere. Was it possible that Ben had really called? I reminded myself that while Icka was a good liar, she was even better at using the truth as a weapon. Stretching it, torturing it on the rack…till it fit her purposes. Despite the cold October air blowing in, my face felt hot as July. I was grateful for the clownish makeup.
Not that it mattered but…if Ben had called, what would he call about? We had no classes together. The only time I talked to him was when he stopped by our group’s quad bench at lunch, to flirt with Parker. Could it be he’d decided Parker was too…perfect, or something? Decided he liked me instead? Not that it mattered.
“He must have called to get directions to the party,” I said lamely.
“I already gave him directions,” Parker snapped. “When I invited him.”
“Well, one guy out of three point three billion.” Icka winked at me. “You’ll meet more at Stanford.”
“Shut up, Icka!” I turned to Parker. “I’m so sorry about her. Maybe Ben lost the invite. Or something.” I was desperate to reassure her. To smooth the wrinkle out of her brow, put a smile on those set-in-stone lips. But I couldn’t think of anything reassuring to say—the situation looked pretty damn suspicious! Icka had planned it that way, and she was much smarter than me. Besides, if Ben had really called, then there was nothing I could say to make Parker feel okay about it. Helena was staring as if seeing me for the first time. Bree’s eyes had narrowed to poison darts of suspicion.
“Whatever, it doesn’t even matter.” Parker flashed me the frosty, businesslike smile she saved for customers at her mom’s nail salon.
I blinked back tears. This birthday had started so well…how did Icka manage to knock it all flat in minutes? It was hardly the first time she’d been nasty to my friends or spoiled our fun, yet somehow today she’d upped the stakes. She must have been plotting this for weeks, I realized, all alone up in her room, hating me for having friends when she had nothing. So she attacked my friendships. Nudging our group toward chaos. Hinting that I was disloyal. Hacking at the bonds that held us together, that held me together. Was her goal to make me as miserable and lonely as she was?
Icka pinched a glob of granola off her dirty shirt and popped it in her mouth. Crunch, crunch, crunch. She pulverized it, drawing out each grinding chew as if her teeth were crushing rocks.
“We should go before the first bell rings,” Parker said, not looking at me. “I don’t want to be late for math.”
4
I hobbled down the sidewalk after my friends, a white rage growing inside me with each step.
I wasn’t just angry at Icka—I was angry at myself. I could have prevented what had happened at breakfast, if only I’d bothered to think ahead.
It’s not like this was the first time she’d tried to sabotage my friendships. She’d never been okay with my having friends, period.
In second grade, I brought home my first BFF: plump, freckled, awkward Heather Mackey. Jessica had so far failed to bring home from school anything but perfect papers, bruises from having ice plant lobbed at her at recess, and the mocking nickname Icka, which stuck like superglue. She treated poor Heather like a fire that needed to be stomped out. She stomped on Heather’s feelings, then her glasses (“accidentally”). Heather Mackey never came over again.
When I won “Sweetest Smile” in the fifth-grade year-book poll, she taunted me all summer, grinning like a baboon every time she saw me. “That’s what your smile looks like,” she informed me. “What’s wrong with you? You might as well get a tattoo that says, ‘Desperate to be liked.’” By then she herself had already given up on being liked. Two schools had expelled her that year for punching other students out of the blue—really, she confided, it was because they were “Whispering something jerky.”
But the worst was a couple years ago, when Mom talked Aunt Jane into coming over for Christmas dinner, and she told us some of the old family legends passed down through her mother’s mother.
I liked the one about Great-great-aunt Sadie, a spunky Old West gal. She’d used her Hearing to best every poker shark in the saloon, then gave all the money to charity.
Icka’s favorite was the story of Hope and Faith, Puritanera twins who’d supposedly opened up a psychic link one day when Faith was spinning wool and miraculously Heard her sister’s voice from miles away. Hope was drowning in the river, but Faith, Listening to her sister’s Whispers and even picking up mental pictures through Hope’s eyes, was able to find her and save her. According to the legend, Hope lived on to become our great-times-nine grandmother. (Or maybe it was Faith. Changed every time we heard the story.)
“That Jane.” The stories made Mom shake her head and smile. “I can’t believe she remembers all those old family fairy tales.”
But Icka didn’t see it as just a fairy tale. She couldn’t get enough of the story. It stuck i
n her head: sisters bonded for life. This was right around the time I was starting to make more friends. People like Parker and Helena. Icka began the extremely annoying and creepy habit of calling me daily on my cell phone to ask, “Can you Hear me right now?”
“I hear your voice on the phone, if that’s what you mean…,” I’d say, getting suspicious and worried.
“Oh, that’s all?” You could just hear the disappointment in her voice. “Too bad. Because right now I’m lying across the railroad tracks.” Or sitting in a grocery cart at the top of a steep hill. Or wandering through the park alone at night.
This went on until the first time I ever slept over at Parker’s house. I was nervous. Parker was the most popular girl in my grade, and she liked me. We had a great time, though, and had finally drifted off to sleep around two A.M…. when my phone rang, waking Parker’s older sister and her hard-working immigrant mother, talk about embarrassing. It was Icka, of course, wanting to know if I could Hear her. She’d snuck out, walked to the mall in the dark, and climbed to the second floor of a construction site. I told her to go back home immediately, said I was calling Mom and Dad. Suddenly she yelled and the phone went dead, and I screamed. (It turned out an eraser-sized hunk of plaster fell from the ceiling and hit her on the head.)
“I am so sorry about all this,” I said to the Lin family an hour later as the four of us sat around the kitchen table in our nightgowns, after 911 had dispatched police and an ambulance to her location and returned her, safe but concussed, to my parents. “I’m just really sorry…”
“Hey, don’t apologize.” Parker had put her hand on my shoulder. “It’s not your fault what your psycho sister does.”
She wasn’t saying that now.
No one spoke, in fact, as we trudged down Rainbow Street past stucco ramblers with green and shiny lawns, driveway after driveway curving back far from the sidewalk. No one even smiled. The sandal straps chafed my ankles and I felt guilty for holding up the group with my slowness. When Icka ran past us, every single one of my friends began wishing and praying I’d hurry up, and they kept at it until we reached the quad.
Whisper Page 3
