The Year My Sister Got Lucky

by Aimee Friedman

  Heather blinks, clearly startled by my out-of-nowhere snarkiness. She might be Alpha Girl in Fir Lake, but I’d love to see Ms. Thing try to survive a day in New York City.

  “Katie!” Michaela scolds me. “Sorry,” she laughs, turning back to Heather and the others. “She’s having a rough first day,” she explains in a low voice as if I’m not present.

  “Hang in there, Katie!” Lucy chirps, and just like that I know she’s a cheerleader.

  “You girls should come sit with us,” Faith adds, pointing toward a table that’s positioned right by the wall of windows. Two other girls — both equally pretty, and both admiring their reflections in their pink compacts — are sitting there, so right away I can tell it’s the Popular Table. In the city, the social lines and circles weren’t as plain and obvious. There was more crossover, more blurriness. In my private elementary school, if you were supersmart or talented or had famous parents, you could rise above dorkiness sometimes. I liked it that way.

  Here, I bet nobody would care that our dad is a writer.

  Michaela twists around to face me, and for a second I think she does want us to join them. I try to tell her with my eyes that this is a bad idea. I don’t want to make fake-cheerful conversation with twin cheerleaders and bitchy Heather. I want to keep talking to my sister. Is that too much to ask?

  Fortunately, Michaela has always been good at reading my eyes. Turning back to the girls, she shakes her head and says, “Definitely another time.”

  Uh, yeah. When pigs flap their wings.

  “So we’ll see you at the yearbook meeting later?” Heather asks Michaela.

  “Sure,” Michaela says, swinging one flip-flopped foot casually. “Three o’clock in front of Room 201?”

  Three o’clock? School ends at 2:45. Michaela and I are supposed to walk home together … right? Before I can speak up or before Heather can respond, Lucy lets out a gasp and grips Faith’s arm. “There he is,” Lucy hisses, and I see that she’s trembling. “In line. Look.” She pauses, then squeals, “Wait, don’t look now!”

  But we’re all already looking. And when I see who Lucy is talking about, a flush comes over me. Standing in line to get his macaroni and cheese is a tall, trim boy with curly golden hair and an easy grin. It’s Underwear Boy. I’d forgotten that I might see him in school.

  “Oh, come on, Lucy, don’t tell me you still have a crush on Anders Swensen,” Heather murmurs. The five of us all try our best not to watch as Anders swaggers past us and over to a table full of tall, broad-shouldered boys who cheer when he approaches.

  “Of course I do,” Lucy replies, rolling her eyes, and Faith adds, “But we’re not stupid enough to actually want to date him.”

  “Why not?” Michaela asks, laughing softly and looking away from Anders.

  “Because everybody knows that Anders Swensen is yet to be tamed by a girl,” Heather answers immediately. “He’ll cheat on anyone he hooks up with. It’s, like, a rule.”

  “Sounds like a nice guy,” Michaela responds wryly, drinking from her Pom, and the three girls explode into appreciative giggles, as if Michaela has uttered the funniest phrase ever.

  No wonder Michaela said she was having a good day. She has new friends.

  After Heather, Lucy, and Faith have floated off to the Popular Table, I suddenly find I’m not hungry anymore. I rewrap my sandwich in tinfoil. “So … a three o’clock meeting?” I ask Michaela.

  “I was trying to tell you before,” Michaela responds, not quite meeting my eyes. “I heard about yearbook in homeroom, and it sounded promising. Heather’s editor in chief, so —”

  “What about dance?” I burst out. Since when has Michaela cared about things like yearbooks? “How are you going to have time for after-school stuff once we start classes with Mabel Thorpe next week?”

  Michaela picks at the edges of her bread. “Katie, I’m sorry I can’t walk home with you today,” she says softly, getting — as always — to the heart of what’s bugging me.

  “It’s fine,” I say, waving my hand — and promptly knock over my bottle of Pom. Crimson juice runs down the table and drips off the edge, landing on my black skirt.

  “Oh, Katie,” Michaela big-sister-sighs, grabbing her napkins and blotting at the spill. I start laughing again — because I guess that’s what I do now when I want to cry. And Michaela looks up from the spill and starts laughing, too, and, we sit there with the bloodred napkins between us and let our shoulders shake. And I forget all about the three girls who stopped by our table, and everything between me and my sister feels absolutely back to normal.

  Still, I’m in a gloomy mood as I walk back to The Monstrosity alone.

  My feet scatter leaves as my mind turns over my afternoon. Biology and French were neither hellish nor fun. But in Horticulture, a class held in the greenhouse on the roof of the school, the teacher put us into pairs so we could tend to our assigned plants. I was partnered up with Heidi Rebecca. “I’m running for president of the Garden Club,” she informed me as we prodded pots of soil, like she’d been picked to perform in The Nutcracker.

  Halfway up the dirt road, I pull my cell out of my tote and check for new texts. Nothing.

  As soon as I pushed out the glass doors of Fir Lake High, I texted Trini to ask her about The Nutcracker auditions. Then, for good measure, I texted Hanae, Renée, and Sofia (who isn’t even auditioning, but she always gets the gossip first). But no one’s responded.

  My sister, my friends — everyone’s abandoned me.

  I’m practically picking out the balloons for my pity party when I reach Honeycomb Drive. The Monstrosity looks dark and empty, and I realize Mom must have gone to her office on campus, and Dad is probably off tramping through the woods. Whatever. I’ll let myself in, go up to the attic, and lie there alone. That’ll be uplifting.

  I’m rooting around in my bag for my set of keys when I see a little red car turn into Emmaline’s driveway. The engine shuts off, and Emmaline herself climbs out. It’s the first time I’ve seen her since that day with the deer. She is wearing flowy pants, beaded sandals, and a tank top, and under her arm is a rolled-up green mat. I stand still for a second, knowing she can’t see me as she locks her car and starts for her porch. Watching her feels a little bit like watching Michaela’s class — I’m hidden, but I see all. I’m safe. Then, Emmaline scares the daylights out of me when she whirls around, smiles, and says, “Would you like to come in, Katie?”

  “I —”

  I weigh my options. Going home — not home, but The Monstrosity — seems about as appealing as a foot amputation. It’s too chilly and mosquito-y outside to try hunting for my dad. I don’t have Heather and Lucy and Faith knocking down my door asking me to hang out, so …

  “Okay,” I answer, my voice tentative.

  “Okay,” Emmaline replies, and opens her door.

  I tell myself that the chances of Emmaline inviting me in so she can feed me to her dog are slim to none. Still, the drummed-into-my-brain don’t-go-with-strangers lesson of my childhood is ringing in my ears. My heart is beating faster than it should be as I cross Emmaline’s threshold.

  “What’s your poison?” Emmaline asks, putting down her rolled-up mat.

  I stiffen. “Poison?” I echo.

  I hear Emmaline’s warm laugh. “I mean what do you like to drink? Does tea sound good?”

  “Sure,” I reply uncertainly. Emmaline’s house is smaller than The Monstrosity, but it’s stuffed full of beautiful, strange things. Like, for instance, the — no joke — giant gold Buddha in the living room. Multicolored, beaded drapes hang over the windows, and ornate vases overflowing with fresh flowers sit on the tables. The air smells sweet and strong, like incense, and there’s a rock fountain burbling in the entrance hall. I’m in a daze. For one thing, I’m in Emmaline’s house — the source of all the mystery. But I can’t even focus on investigating, because there’s so much to take in.

  “You can rub his belly,” Emmaline calls from the open kitchen, and I r
ealize I’ve been standing mesmerized in front of the Buddha statue. “For luck,” she adds.

  Lord — or Buddha, or whoever — knows I can use a dose of luck today, so I extend my hand and rub the cool belly. A tingle shoots up my arm. I feel like I’m in another time, on another continent. Fir Lake couldn’t be farther away.

  “I travel a lot,” Emmaline explains, coming into the living room. She is holding two pale blue mugs that have no handles, and the scent of jasmine tea floats out toward me. My stomach rumbles; I never did finish my lunch earlier today. “Mostly through Asia,” she adds, putting the cups on a small glass table that is painted with flowers. “And I like to pick up little treasures, so that whenever I’m at home, I feel like the whole world is still with me.” She motions for me to sit in one of the chairs at the table, then hurries back into the kitchen.

  I sit, but keep looking around. The house is quiet, so I gather that Emmaline does live alone. But there’s nothing lonely about her home, especially when she turns on the fringed lamps at the entrance to the living room. The light is rosy and soothing. Emmaline sets a plate of cookies down on the table and slides into the seat across from me, her big blue-gray eyes watching me carefully. “Eat, drink, while it’s warm,” she urges.

  My throat is so full of questions — Why do you travel to Asia? What do you do every day? — that I’m afraid I won’t be able to swallow anything. But soon I’m sipping the hot, fragrant tea with surprising ease and scarfing down the soft chocolate cookies.

  “You’re a dancer, right? You and your sister both?” Emmaline speaks up after I’ve eaten for a few minutes, and I choke a little bit on my tea. I wish she would stop trying to freak me out. “It’s the way you hold yourselves and walk,” Emmaline explains after I’ve managed to nod and stop coughing. To demonstrate, she stretches out her neck, but I doubt I look that graceful. “Also, when I first met your mom over the summer, she told me that her daughters dance ballet.” Emmaline grins. “I’m a yoga instructor,” she adds, picking up her tea. “I teach classes in the attic of the town library. Yoga’s a form of dance, don’t you think?”

  Oh. Yoga is super-popular back in the city; Sofia’s mom does it religiously, and there are studios on every corner in the East Village, but I don’t know much about it. Though Emmaline’s teaching yoga explains her green mat, and all the Buddha stuff. “Um, maybe,” I murmur, looking into my tea cup. “You can take yoga classes in Fir Lake?”

  Emmaline nods proudly. “That’s why I moved here — to start my own studio. I was living in Japan for a while, and then Thailand, and then San Francisco.” I try to grasp the idea of having so many homes, and my head spins. “Then I just needed some peace and some nature, so I read an article about Fir Lake — and up and moved here.”

  “Why would anyone want to move here?” I ask Emmaline truthfully, thinking of how painful it was to tear away from the city. “There’s nothing to do!”

  “There’s yoga,” Emmaline points out, a smile playing on her lips.

  “I should tell my sister about that,” I say. “She’d be good at yoga, I bet. She’s good at everything.” Is it my voice that’s bitter, or the tea, now that I’m down to the dregs? I can’t tell.

  Emmaline tilts her head to one side. “You know, Katie, I’m an only child. Well, not a child — I’m twenty-six. But I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have a sibling — especially a sister. Someone to tell my secrets to.”

  Thinking of Michaela and the three girls at lunch today, I reply carefully. “My sister and I are best friends. Sometimes.”

  “Sometimes?” Emmaline echoes, and laughs fully this time. “Well, that still sounds pretty good to me.” It’s when she says this and her eyes darken, that I think the word lonely, like I did my first night in Fir Lake. Again, I get the sense that Emmaline is one of those tragically beautiful heroines I like to read about, and I wonder about her love life.

  Suddenly, I remember Sullivan helping me to my feet, and Anders in the cafeteria, and I blush. I want to ask Emmaline questions about boys, about love — for some reason, I sense she’d know about that stuff — but that seems more like something you’d ask a friend. So, after thanking Emmaline for the tea and cookies, I pick up my tote bag and walk to the front door. Emmaline waves to me from her porch as I cross over to The Monstrosity.

  “Don’t worry, Katie,” she calls through the coming twilight. “Your luck will change.”

  When I get inside The Monstrosity, though, I see Emmaline is wrong, because a message from Trini is waiting on my cell phone:

  I’m in! I’m a snowflake! TEFW!

  Too Excited For Words.

  Woo-freaking-hoo.

  I want to be happy for my friend. I do. But at the same time I want to kick something.

  Much later that night, when Michaela comes to get me from the attic so we can stargaze, she doesn’t say anything about the yearbook meeting or the fact that she stayed in town afterward to have pizza with Heather and Lucy. (When Michaela called to say she wouldn’t be home for dinner, Mom said, “No problem!” into the phone; if I tried the same thing, Mom would lock me in a dungeon). And I don’t ask my sister any questions.

  When we’re outside and sitting on a blanket and looking at the sky, I do tell Michaela about The Nutcracker text, and how mad and sad and pleased for Trini it made me. And Michaela, her eyes following the stars, tells me it was normal for me to feel that way, and now we’ll have a real reason to go into the city to see The Nutcracker in December. Which is the perfect thing to say.

  Finally, wrapping my sweater tight around myself, I ask Michaela about her evening — it’s still nuts to me that she didn’t spend it at home.

  “Did you go cow-tipping?” I ask, only half teasing. I’ve read about cow-tipping; bored-out-of-their-minds country kids literally push over sleeping cows late at night.

  “No!” Michaela laughs. “The yearbook meeting was cool, and then we went to Pammy’s. There were a lot of other kids from school there.”

  “Cool,” I say, using her word. I have the feeling that my sister and I are performing a dance, but I’m a few important steps behind. It’s like I’m missing my cue to twirl onto the stage, or stumbling into a fall. My knee hurts at the thought.

  “How about you?” Michaela asks, leaning back on her elbows and sucking in a deep breath of air. “Did you do anything after school?”

  I think of my surreal afternoon tea with Emmaline, and I don’t mean to keep it secret from Michaela, but I decide not to mention it just now. So I shrug and say, “Homework,” which is the first time I’ve ever really lied to my sister. Immediately, guilt washes over me, and it feels as powerful and immense as all those stars.

  Here’s something I’ve learned during my eleven years as a student: You can taste Fridays. They taste like recklessness and freedom and the coming weekend. There’s relief in the air, but also a tingle of who-knows-what’s-to-come. Back in the city, Fridays tasted like smoky hot dogs slathered with mustard from Sunday street fairs, and fresh Jamba Juices after extended Saturday ballet classes, and stale sticks of chewing gum on long subway rides, when the train was running on its slower weekend schedule.

  In Fir Lake, my first Friday as a freshman tastes like the buttered popcorn Heather, Lucy, and Faith bring over to Michaela and me at lunchtime, with Heather asking, “Do you guys want to come to the movies with us later?” (Michaela politely declines, probably because I kick her shin beneath the table), like the cloying cotton-candy perfume Heidi Rebecca sprays on her wrists during Horticulture, telling me she has a date with a “cutie from the tennis team” tonight, and like the mint chocolate chip ice-cream cones Michaela and I treat ourselves to on our walk home from school (Michaela’s idea even though we both know ice cream isn’t the best snack for dancers).

  “We made it,” I sigh, my mouth full, as Michaela and I pass by Hemming’s Goods. Mrs. Hemming spots us through the window and waves enthusiastically. The store is filled to bursting with people stocking up on beer
and paper plates and sunscreen. “Saturday’s gonna be a real September scorcher so spend it outside!” Mr. Rhodes told us in homeroom. I thought of the deer in our garden and the hornet’s nest outside my window. I’m not too fond of outside.

  “You seriously thought we might not survive our first week?” Michaela asks with a smile in her voice, adjusting the straps on her new blue bookbag. She purchased it yesterday at The Climber’s Peak, on an after-school saunter through town with Heather. Michaela invited me along — “They have some adorable parkas there, Katie!” she insisted — but I went home and did French homework instead. As a result, I’m now officially the only girl at Fir Lake High School who carries a Capezio tote bag.

  “After that horrible Monday, I did wonder,” I tell my sister as we head up the starting-to-be-familiar dirt road.

  Truth be told, it was after Monday that the week picked up a little. Michaela and I walked home together every afternoon except for yesterday, and our small, two-person table was still our lunchtime refuge (even if Heather and the twins did swing by every so often). We ate dinner with our parents and did our homework in our bedrooms like good girls until Mom and Dad went to bed. Then we snuck downstairs and outside, huddling in our sweaters and counting the stars.

  Thanks to Michaela, I also stopped being late to homeroom, because she suggested that we lay out our clothes the night before. With Mr. Rhodes off my case, I’d sit at my desk, wishing I’d gotten more sleep, while Sullivan and Rebecca talked over my head. Mr. Rhodes made announcements about after-school activities, like student government, the Camping Club (yikes), and cheerleading, and kids signed up for stuff like crazy — Heidi Rebecca went in for cheerleading, and Flannel Autumn dove straight for the Camping Club sheet — but I held off. I know that once I start ballet classes again, I’ll be swamped after school.

  Actually, Mabel Thorpe’s classes commence this coming Monday and, at the thought, I feel a flutter of excitement in my belly.