The Year My Sister Got Lucky

by Aimee Friedman

  And now we’re here.

  “Here we are,” Mom murmurs, abruptly swerving the car toward the exit ramp. Someone honks at her, and she honks back. I’m buckled in, but I clutch the seat for good measure. Family of Four Dies in Car Crash on Way to New Home, I think. Fledgling Ballerinas Cut Down in their Prime. “Right, Michaela?” Mom asks, even though we’re barreling off the highway.

  “I think so,” Michaela answers, checking the map, and it’s the weirdest thing — she sounds almost … excited.

  I study my sister, and it could be my imagination, but her eyes are a little bigger and sparklier than usual. I want to poke her arm and ask her if she’s lost her marbles — I like that expression — but then I realize that there’s nothing really wrong with getting excited about arriving at a new place. I suppose it’s pretty normal, in fact. I close my eyes and rummage through my emotions, searching for excitement, but all I can find is dread and terror and a general sense of pissiness.

  I hate that our parents have decided our fate, I hate that I’m trapped in a truck the size of our old bathroom and I hate that I won’t be able to audition for The Nutcracker, or ride the subway uptown to meet Trini for hot dogs at Gray’s Papaya. Fuming, I open my eyes to see an endless stretch of green. Horses — or maybe cows — stand in the tall grass, grazing as their tails swish lazily in the damp afternoon air. My heart jumps. Seriously? I’ve been to the Bronx Zoo tons of times, but I’ve never seen animals roaming around out in the open like that. It’s freaky.

  But up ahead is something even freakier: a square green sign with white lettering. We’ve seen so many different signs on this trip: ridiculous town names that cracked me and Michaela up (Poughkeepsie, anyone?); white outlines of leaping deer (I kept imagining one coming out of the woods and diving onto the hood of our car); and a cheery THE LORD LOVES YOU banner when we got lost in a small town in the Catskills. This sign, though, sends a wave of nausea rolling over me. It could be that I’m carsick after all.

  Or it’s just that I now understand that there’s no turning back.

  YOU ARE NOW ENTERING FIR LAKE, NEW YORK, the sign reads. POPULATION 2,100

  And beneath that, in smaller letters:

  HAVE A FIR-TASTIC DAY!

  Help. Me.

  Michaela reaches over to take my hand. I know that she knows what I’m feeling, and I’m glad, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to bust out of the SUV and sprint back to civilization. I squeeze Michaela’s hand, hard, and she says, “Ouch.”

  “Literally two thousand people?” I ask, my voice weak, as we drive into the open arms of Fir Lake. A big gust of wind shoots through the car, blowing my curls up into my face.

  “Two thousand, one hundred and four, as of right now,” Michaela says, grinning at me, but I can’t return her smile. Two thousand people. LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts, where, in a perfect world, I’d be starting my freshman year in two weeks, has more students than that. My mind hurts trying to imagine a place that small. At the same time, I’m wondering as I stare out my window where those mysterious two thousand people are.

  Only a smattering of other cars mosey along beside us, and off the road are rolling green pastures that I guess must be farmland. I spot a handful of lonely houses that look saggy and empty, their front porches crumbling. We drive by a tiny bakery called Bread and Roses, and a couple of farmstands with crooked, hand-painted signs reading, FRESHEST CORN THIS SIDE OF LAKE CHAMPLAIN! AND MILLIE’S MAPLE SYRUP SHACK.

  “Mmm, corn,” Dad sighs from the passenger seat. “And look, girls!” he calls as we pass another farm-stand with a striped awning. “They make their own cheese! We’ll have to buy some for dinner tonight. How awesome is that?”

  Dad has, as far as I can remember, never used the word awesome. What’s happening to him? It’s like the fresh mountain air that’s seeping in through the window — which, by the way, is now making my arms break out in gooseflesh — has gone to his brain.

  Here’s the thing about my dad: Before Michaela and I were born, before Mom even met him (they met at a performance of The Nutcracker, actually, when Mom sat behind him and kept asking him to move his big head), he was a super-successful writer. His first novel, Moon Over Manhattan, came out when he was twenty-five, sold a bazillion copies, and was made into a movie (which Michaela and I aren’t allowed to see, because supposedly there are breasts in it).

  Sometimes, Michaela and I would go into St. Mark’s Books, scan the shelves for Jeffrey Wilder, find Moon Over Manhattan, and stare at the black-and-white photograph on the back: our dad, young and thin, with his hair waving back off his forehead and his hands in the pockets of his corduroys. He did publish lots more books after that first one, but none of them were as famous, and in the last few years — ever since I turned eleven, really — he hasn’t written anything at all. He’s sort of moped around a lot and gotten into arguments with his agent on the phone. Mom says he’s “stuck” and tells Michaela and me that we shouldn’t ever bring up Dad’s stuck-ness to our friends, or to him. I guess Mom is now convinced that Fir Lake will magically do wonders for his inspiration.

  I’m dubious.

  “That is awesome,” Michaela says, her ponytail bouncing as she nods at Dad. I can’t tell if she’s just being a good daughter or if she really means it. I let go of her hand, suspicious.

  “Jeffrey,” Mom snaps at Dad. “We need to be looking out for Honeycomb Drive.” She puts one cork-wedge espadrille on the brake, slowing down behind a car with a bumper sticker that reads, MY FAMILY IS 100% ORGANIC. IS YOURS?

  Horror hits me. “Honeycomb Drive?” I ask Michaela. I remember the rat on the subway, and think: Bad Omen Number Two. I can only imagine Trini, Jennifer, and Sofia’s reactions when we tell them our new address. “What, are you guys living in a beehive?”… “Don’t get stung!”… “Wait, but, what’s the cross avenue?”

  “It’s better than Bushberry Way,” Michaela says, pointing to a street sign. We’re out of farm territory now, passing tree-lined sidewalks and snug houses with dogs curled up on front porches. The afternoon is fading and long pink shadows stretch along the ground.

  “Or Frog Croak Road,” Dad chimes in, gesturing out his open window.

  Mom groans, clearly fed up with all of us. A red light — the first we’ve seen in ages — is swinging up ahead, so Mom comes to a quick stop that makes us lean forward in our seats. We’re alongside the car with the organic bumper sticker, so Mom honks her horn — too loudly, it seems, because the driver of the car frowns at her.

  When he lowers the passenger side window, I see that a girl about my age is in the seat beside him. She has shiny, stick-straight auburn hair that I’m instantly jealous of, but she can keep the jumble of freckles all over her cheeks and nose. She’s wearing a loose-fitting, button-down plaid shirt that looks like it’s straight out of Country Miss catalog. And she’s gaping at me and Michaela, as if we’re a science experiment — lab rats on display. I bristle. My subway-riding instincts kick in, and I want to roll down my window and ask Flannel what she’s staring at. Michaela elbows me in the side.

  “Excuse me, can you tell us where thirteen Honeycomb Drive is?” Mom shouts to the driver, and I can tell that he’s taken aback by her accent and her loudness. I cringe.

  Two minutes in Fir Lake, and the Wilders are already doing it all wrong.

  “You’re new in town, right?” the man asks, showing the slight gap between his teeth when he smiles. His graying hair has red in it, and I understand that the girl must be his daughter. “The new Russian professor?”

  My breath stops. They know who we are. I feel like we’re in a horror movie, and all the townsfolk are crowding around our car like zombies, moaning: We’ve been waiting for you….

  “Yes, Irina Wilder,” Mom replies crisply. “And this is my husband, Jeffrey.” She doesn’t seem the least bit disturbed, and even Dad waves at the man in the car.

  Flannel continues to stare, unblinking, at me and Michaela, and I wonder if
it’s just that she’s never before seen two girls who don’t look as if they’re on their way to a barn raising.

  “Bob Hawthorne.” The man gives a salute as the light changes. “Just make a left up there by that weeping willow. Welcome to the neighborhood!” And then he and Flannel are gone.

  “So it’s true what they say,” Dad muses as Mom makes a left at what must be the weeping willow — a tree whose long green leaves sweep the ground. If I was planted in this town, I’d weep, too. “People are nicer outside the city.” Dad, like me and Michaela, was born and raised in Manhattan.

  I open my mouth to say, no, they’re just nosier — but then I see it, coming up on the left. 13 Honeycomb Drive. Our new house.

  And I’m speechless.

  After dinner one night back in the city, Mom and Dad showed Michaela pictures of the house online, but I turned away from the computer, saying that I wanted it to be a surprise. That was a lie; I just couldn’t stomach thinking about any home other than our apartment on 5TH Street. Now, I’m kind of wishing I’d had some preparation.

  Because this puppy is scary.

  It’s dark gray and spindly, with a black roof that’s pointed like a witch’s hat and big windows that yawn like mouths. There’s a front porch, a red mailbox, and a small patch of grass in front. Ivy creeps up around the windows, like it’s eating the house alive. Talk about omens — I knew there was a reason 13 is an unlucky number.

  “We paid money for this?” I ask, and Mom gives me a look in the rearview mirror.

  “We got a good deal,” Dad informs me cheerily. “It’s a bit of a fixer-upper.” I can tell, from the intense, juicy way he bites into that word, that he’s been waiting all his life to use it.

  “It’s not that bad,” Michaela tells me as Mom brings the car to a jerky stop. But there’s a flash of worry in her eyes.

  “All I know,” I reply. “Is that if I were a serial killer, this is where I’d camp out.”

  Two moving trucks are parked in the driveway, and the muscle-bound guys from that morning are unloading what looks like our couch, all wrapped up and mummified. It’s then that I notice that our house (which in my mind, I’m already calling “The Monstrosity”) isn’t the only one on Honeycomb Drive. It’s in between two others, neither of which is as ugly or terrifying. The one to the right of The Monstrosity is actually sort of cute, painted yellow with blue shutters. Why couldn’t Mom and Dad have bought that one?

  As our parents get out of the car and trot over to the movers, Michaela unbuckles her seat belt and eases herself gracefully outside. I have no choice but to follow. I put one gold platform sandal down on the mushy grass, stick my head out of the car, and am instantly attacked by a swarm of mosquitos.

  The tiny demons buzz and dip, forming a cloud around my head. I can’t help my scream as I start flapping my hands, trying to get them off me. The more I swat, the more of them seem to materialize, getting in my nose and mouth.

  “Katie.” Michaela hurries over and tugs me away from the deadly swarm. “They’re just in the air because it’s evening — ignore them.”

  “Easy for you to say,” I sputter, shaking out my hair and grateful to be alive. “They don’t want to consume your flesh and blood.” Suddenly, The Monstrosity is looking pretty welcoming.

  The door to the house is open, with movers coming in and out, and the other movers stand in the driveway, talking to Mom and Dad. As Michaela and I approach the porch, I feel cold, prickly drops of rain on my bare arms. The sky is darker and more ominous than it was before, and I shiver, quickening my steps. Michaela starts to climb the rickety porch steps, stepping hesitantly in her flip-flops. Before I can do the same, I spot a movement outside the house next to ours — the yellow one.

  I glance over and see that a young woman, who is maybe in her twenties, has stepped onto the porch and is standing with her palms up, as if to catch the rain. She is so beautiful she almost seems fake, like a creature from a fairy tale; her soft white-blonde hair falls in loose curls down her back and her skin is a rosy pink. She’s wearing a green jungle-print sundress, and she’s barefoot. I’m so curious about our neighbor that I stop for a minute and stare.

  She turns her head, studies the trucks, and then lands her gaze on me. Unlike Flannel, she doesn’t go all bug-eyed — she simply smiles in an inviting way.

  Are we supposed to be friends with this blonde woman? I don’t know. In New York, people live on top of one another, crammed together in cramped buildings. But we barely knew our neighbors, not even the friendly-seeming couple next door who blasted hip-hop until midnight every night (Michaela said at least we didn’t hear them having sex, which was something that would have surely scarred me for life).

  I decide I need to learn more about our new neighbor before I can return her smile. So I bolt up the creaky porch steps, and run into The Monstrosity. As soon as I’m in the foyer, a solid sheet of rain comes down behind me, making a steady sound like a mother shushing her baby. Michaela, sitting on one of the million boxes heaped in the foyer, grins at me.

  “It’s kind of crazy, huh?” she asks.

  The Monstrosity smells dank and musty — the way I imagine cobwebs would smell. The kitchen — a lone bulb burning in its ceiling — is as huge as the farmlands we saw from the car. In the city, a kitchen large enough to fit a table in is an unheard-of luxury. Beyond the kitchen is the living room with an empty fireplace. Our peeling armchairs, comfy and homey back in the city, now seem dwarfed by the vast space. An oak staircase, with two angel heads as knobs on the banister, spirals up toward the second landing. I hear some movers clomping around upstairs.

  “Crazy,” I echo.

  This is our house.

  Mom and Dad burst through the front door, startling me. They’re both drenched from the rain, but they’re laughing. “That’s some storm!” Dad says in the same way he said “fixer-upper.”

  Mom claps her hands, efficient as always. “The movers are bringing the last of our stuff,” she tells me and Michaela. “Don’t you girls want to go upstairs and see your bedrooms?”

  Bedrooms?

  Plural?

  I glance at Michaela, who is standing up from her box. “Oh, yeah,” she says, looking embarrassed. “I forgot to tell you, Katie. We’re each getting our own room.”

  I’m so stunned by this news that I forget to be mad that Michaela forgot. A warmth that feels like delight shoots through me. My own room? It’s something I never thought I’d have, so I never imagined it. My own room, where, when I can’t sleep, I can switch on all the lights and read until dawn? Where I can practice jetés and pirouettes alone, without Michaela correcting my every step? Where, after a shower, I can take off my towel and see what I look like naked in the mirror — just to see? Where I can lock the door and daydream for hours?

  I never considered any of these possibilities.

  “Two rooms, Katya,” Mom says, and for the very first time that day, I smile. Maybe The Monstrosity won’t be so awful after all.

  Okay, so having your own room?

  Sucks.

  Especially when it’s late at night, there’s a thunderstorm rattling the windows of your frightening new house, and your life as you know it feels like it’s over.

  Just for example.

  I bunch into a ball as the thunder crackles outside. I’m in my old bed, on my old sheets, but the blanket over me is too thin for this room, which is freezing. The rain sounds like gunfire, and tree branches knock against the windowpane. From outside my door, there comes a loud groan followed by a creak.

  Earlier, after the movers left and Mom and Dad unpacked some lamps and bedding and batteries, we ate dinner sitting on chairs in the living room. Since it was raining, Dad gave up his dream of fresh farmer’s cheese, and we had to make do with canned tuna and salted crackers. While we were eating our glamorous meal, Mom told us some facts about houses, since she’d grown up in one in Russia. Apparently, at night, houses “settle,” which means they make strange moaning no
ises. Michaela said she’d read about that somewhere, but I’ve never heard of it and think it makes zero sense.

  A pissed-off ghost is much more likely.

  There’s a violent crack of thunder and I jump, then hug my arms around my middle, feeling like a two-year-old. I miss the lullaby of city traffic. And there, if I was ever antsy or spooked in the middle of the night, all I had to do was lift my head and see Michaela. I feel such a deep ache for our old room that tears spring to my eyes. Out of habit, I squint through the pitch-blackness, expecting to see another bed against the opposite wall. A flash of lightning shows me that I’m surrounded by a closet, my desk, and a few boxes. That’s all. The off-white walls are bare and have long, narrow cracks.

  Reality check. Michaela is down the hall in a bedroom with a slanted ceiling that overlooks the back garden (my windows face out onto the yellow house with the blue shutters). I fight the urge to race down the hall, and slide into bed with my sister. Michaela was so exhausted after dinner that she could barely keep her eyes open, so she’d be furious if I woke her. She’s probably thrilled to have me out of her hair. No one to nag her awake at night, no babyish ballet slippers to take closet space away from her toe shoes….

  I sigh and turn over onto my back. Though I was looking forward to flipping on my light and reading in the middle of the night, I can’t. My old bedside lamp, when Dad pulled it out of its box, was split clean in two. There’s no ceiling fixture in my new room, so I had to use Mom’s weak flashlight to climb into bed. And the minute I shut the flashlight off, I learned something important.

  There is no light in the country.

  None.

  Cars don’t drive by, and there are no streetlamps or tall buildings with other people awake inside. It’s like night falls and electricity ceases to exist.