The Space Between Sisters

by Mary McNear

  And, just like that, she was back there again. She was sixteen years old, a junior in high school, and it was the first day of spring. No, not the actual first day of spring, that had come weeks before. But the first day that felt truly spring-like in its mildness and its sunniness, and, to celebrate, Poppy had worn a sundress and a pair of flip-flops to school that morning. It was possible that this had been just a tiny bit premature on her part. It wasn’t that warm outside, and she was shivering a little as she walked home from school that afternoon. Fortunately for Poppy, though, she was in a state of such pleasant preoccupation that she was barely conscious of being cold. She had a decision to make, an important decision, maybe the most important decision of her life to date. Certainly, its implications would reach far beyond the present, she reflected, as she shifted her backpack from one shoulder to the other. After all, there could only be one first kiss in her lifetime, and only one person to share that first kiss with. In all likelihood, she thought, turning onto the street she lived on, she would never forget that person, or that kiss. She might even tell her own daughter about it one day.

  And herein lay the problem. Whom should that first kiss be with? Poppy had whittled the list of candidates down to two. The first, Matty Lumner, a senior and co-captain of the basketball team, was the obvious choice. But was it too obvious, she wondered, too . . . unimaginative? Which brought her to Taylor Montgomery. Like Poppy, he was only a junior, not a highly coveted senior. And unlike Matty, he was not an athlete; in fact, he was sort of the opposite of an athlete, he played the saxophone in the school orchestra. Still, he had soulful brown eyes, and an attractive slouch, and the fact that he played a woodwind instrument seemed to suggest that he was probably pretty good with his lips.

  Poppy sighed, dreamily, as she reached the door to her apartment building. She tugged it open, and walked through its somewhat cramped lobby, not bothering to glance at the bank of mailboxes on her left. Her family almost never got any personal mail, except for the occasional birthday card or holiday card from her grandparents. Mostly, what they got were bills, the threatening kind of bills that had words like final notice printed on their envelopes. But Poppy wasn’t thinking about this today as she boarded the slightly creaky elevator and pressed the button for her floor. She was thinking about the kiss. Or what she and Win jokingly referred to, in their late night conversations, as “operation first kiss.”

  When the elevator stopped, and the door slid open, though, reality intruded again. Poppy got off reluctantly. She was sorry now that marching band practice had been canceled today. She hated coming home to an empty apartment. She’d be alone, of course. Her parents were never there, not if they could possibly help it. And Win was only home after six, when the myriad extracurricular activities she participated in had all ended. She let her backpack slide off her shoulder now, and dragged it down the hall after her, thereby allowing it to slow down, if only incrementally, her arrival at the too quiet apartment.

  “Hey,” she heard someone say.

  She jumped. She hadn’t even noticed that one of her neighbors was standing in his apartment doorway.

  “Hi,” she said, offering a neutral smile. Poppy’s family didn’t really know any of the people on their floor. They’d lived in so many different apartments over the years that they no longer bothered to introduce themselves to anyone. Instead, Poppy and Win gave their own names to the few neighbors who caught their interest, or inspired their dislike. “The mean lady,” for instance, lived at the end of their hallway, “the tired couple with the crying baby” lived across the hall, and “the woman with the facial piercings” lived directly to the right of the elevator. This man, the one who’d just said hello, they referred to simply as “the photographer.” They’d never spoken to him before, but they’d seen him carrying his equipment in and out of the building, and they’d seen, too, the girls that occasionally came and went from his apartment.

  “I’m Rich, by the way,” he said, holding out his hand for her to shake. And when he saw her hesitate, he laughed. “It’s all right,” he said. “I don’t bite.”

  She came closer and shook his hand. “I’m Poppy,” she said, studying him, shyly. It was hard to tell how old he was, but he was pretty old, she decided. Thirty-five, at least, and maybe even forty. He was tall and rangy, with dark hair worn longer than the boys at her high school wore it, and with a little patch of a beard worn under his mouth that only later would Poppy learn was referred to as a “soul patch.” Add to that his outfit—a vintage rock concert tee, tight jeans, and pair of leather boots—and Poppy supposed he looked pretty cool. Or at least he seemed to think he did.

  “Ah, Poppy,” he said of her name. “Just like poppies in the springtime. You must be enjoying this beautiful weather then?” he asked, giving her sundress a frankly appraising look that made her feel instantly self-conscious.

  She blushed, and fidgeted with the dress’s neckline. “It’s okay,” she said, noncommittally, hoisting her backpack back up onto her shoulder again and twisting it around so she could unzip the front compartment and get her keys out.

  “It’s okay?” he said, imitating her nonchalant tone. “Are you kidding? This weather is gorgeous. I did a bikini shoot outside today. It’s probably the first day I could have done it this spring without the models getting frostbite. Even so, we had to have bathrobes and hot chocolate waiting for them when it was over.”

  “You did?” she said, interested in spite of herself. “That sounds like fun.” She meant the part about the bathrobes and the hot chocolate. She didn’t know whether posing for a photographer would be fun or not.

  “I don’t know if the models would have called it fun,” he said. “It’s a lot of hard work. But it pays. Each of those girls made five hundred dollars today.”

  Poppy’s eyes widened. “They made that just . . . standing around?” she asked, fascinated.

  “Well, in fairness to them, they weren’t just standing around. There’s a lot more to modeling than that. But you know that, don’t you? You must have already tested the waters a little.”

  She stared, blankly, at him.

  “You know. Done a little modeling?”

  She shook her head.

  “None at all?”

  “No.”

  “How is that even possible? A beautiful girl like you? You must have been approached by agents, though.”

  She hesitated, and then gave her head a tiny shake. This was a lie, though. Twice—once at the Mall of America and once at the Minnesota State Fair—people who’d said they were agents had approached her and given her their cards. But both times, her mom had said no. She was too young to model, she’d told her, and besides, she was too busy to spend her time driving Poppy around to any appointments, anyway.

  “Unbelievable,” Rich was saying now. “You must know how beautiful you are, though, right? I mean, people must tell you that all the time.”

  Again, Poppy shook her head. This was another lie. People did tell her that all the time. Her feelings about the way she looked, though, were complicated. She knew, objectively, that she was pretty. But she also knew that it shouldn’t be the most important thing about her. Her grandparents, whom Poppy adored, often reminded her of this. Pretty girls are a dime a dozen, her grandfather would say. It’s what’s in here that counts, he’d add, using two fingers to thump on his chest, over the place where his heart was. And Poppy knew he was right. She knew because the one person she admired more than anyone else in the world, her younger sister, Win, was so much more than just pretty. She was smart and responsible and kind, all the things Poppy worked hard to be, even if they didn’t come as naturally to her as they did to Win.

  “Well, you are prettier, by far, than any of the models whose pictures I took today,” Rich said, leaning on his doorframe. “You should give it a try. I mean, if nothing else, it would be a great way to pick up some easy money.”

  Easy money, Poppy thought. That sounded appealing. In her family, there was no
thing easy about money. Her parents never had any—whether because they didn’t like working very much, or they just weren’t very good at it, Poppy couldn’t be sure—and Win only had a little, and only because she babysat on weekend nights. More often than not, Poppy was left scrambling to pay for her majorette uniforms and her band fees.

  “Of course, you’d have to get some head shots done,” Rich said, casually. “You need those to call on agents with. They’re expensive, though.”

  “Are they?” Poppy said, feeling disappointed. They were out of the question, then. She smiled a polite smile that she hoped indicated their conversation was over, and she started moving down the hallway to her apartment.

  “Hey, sorry about Mr. McKinley,” he called after her. She stopped. Mr. McKinley was the building’s manager. He didn’t like her parents, and they didn’t like him.

  “What about Mr. McKinley?” she asked, turning around.

  He shrugged. “He was up here the other day, talking to your parents. Well, not talking to. More like yelling at. I could hear him through this,” he said, indicating his front door. “I guess there was some problem with the rent,” he added, and Poppy’s face burned. There was always some problem with the rent. It was why they moved so much.

  She nodded, and started to move down the hall again. But he came after her. “Hey, don’t feel bad about it,” he said, when she stopped and turned to him. “I’m friendly with Mr. McKinley. He listens to me. Maybe I could put a good word in for your parents. I mean, if they haven’t got the money, they haven’t got the money, right?”

  Poppy didn’t answer him. It was possible, though, that her parents did have the money and just didn’t feel like spending it on rent. It was also possible they didn’t have the money, and were broke, or what her dad liked to call flat broke. Sometimes, when they were this, her grandparents sent them money. But they couldn’t always afford to help. They lived on her grandfather’s military pension, and that wasn’t always enough to pay their bills and their son’s bills, too. And now, they had rented out their cabin on Butternut Lake so they could afford to live in a retirement community in Florida, where their grandfather said the weather was kinder to old people. (How their grandparents—calm, dependable, steadfast people—had produced Poppy and Win’s father was a subject of endless fascination to the sisters.)

  “Look, I didn’t mean to embarrass you,” Rich said. “We all have problems, right?”

  Poppy nodded, not sure what else he wanted her to say.

  “And you’re lucky, in a way, that your problems are financial. Those problems are the easiest to fix. At least for a pretty girl like you.”

  Poppy looked at him, not understanding.

  “I’m going to take your pictures,” he explained now. “Your head shots. And I’m going to waive my fee, which, by the way, is very high. And then you can take my pictures—our pictures—to a modeling agency and start landing some jobs. After that, you should be able to start earning some spending money. And who knows? You might even earn enough to be able to pay the rent one day. What do you say?”

  “Maybe,” Poppy said, though she didn’t like the idea of taking anything for free.

  “Maybe?” he teased her. “I think that sounds like a pretty good offer, don’t you?”

  “I’ll have to ask my mom.”

  “Your mom?” he said, and there was something slightly mocking in his tone. “Is she in charge, then?” he asked. Poppy shrugged, a tiny shrug, because the truth was that in her family, no one was in charge. Unless it was Win, practical Win, who, at fifteen, seemed to have more common sense than both of her parents put together.

  “Well, is your mom home now?” Rich asked.

  Poppy shook her head.

  “Do you know how to reach her?”

  She gave another shake of her head.

  Rich looked at his watch. “Because I have exactly one hour to do this in.”

  “Now? You’re going to take my pictures now?”

  “Why not?”

  “I thought you meant . . . you know, you could do it later.”

  “But I have time now. And I don’t know when I’ll have time again. My schedule’s pretty full.”

  Poppy wavered.

  “Come on. I’ll leave the front door open, if that’ll make you feel better,” he said, with an amused roll of his eyes, as if they both knew she was being silly. And maybe she was, Poppy thought then. He was her neighbor, wasn’t he? He lived on her floor. He wasn’t going to do anything to her. Except take her pictures. For free. She was still nervous as she followed him into his apartment, though, and she made sure that he left the door open, just as he’d said he would.

  Once inside, Poppy was surprised to see that his living room was almost empty, except for a narrow blue velvet couch—he called it a settee—and his photography equipment. This was his studio, he explained to Poppy. This was where he worked most of the time, unless he was on location, the way he’d been today. He showed her his camera, and his lights, and explained what the umbrella was for, and he even turned on a big fan and had her stand in front of it so that it blew her hair and her dress around. He was trying to make this fun, she saw, but she was too nervous to have fun. Finally, he said they should do some test shots, and he had her sit on the couch. He spent a long time then, fiddling with lenses, and lights, but when he finally started to take pictures of her, he seemed disappointed. He said she looked too tense, and that she needed to relax.

  “Would you, uh, like something to drink?” he asked, setting his camera down. “I could offer you a glass of wine, or a cocktail. That might help you unwind a little.” But Poppy didn’t drink, even at high school parties, and she knew this wasn’t the place to start.

  “I’m sixteen,” she said to him, by way of refusal.

  “So?”

  “So . . . I’m underage.”

  “All that means is that you can’t buy alcohol. But I’ve already bought it for you. Come on. It’ll be fun. I’ll make you something. A mojito. Do you know what that is? It’s made with rum and limes. All the girls are drinking them at the clubs now.”

  “No, thank you,” Poppy said, stiffly.

  He looked impatient. “You’re kind of uptight for a sixteen-year-old, aren’t you?”

  She frowned.

  “I mean, do you always follow the rules?” he amended, quickly, and this time, when he spoke to her, he smiled, as if he weren’t really annoyed at her but only just kind of amused by her.

  “Usually,” she said, looking down at her hands on her lap. “I think maybe I should leave now,” she said.

  But he persuaded her to stay. He told her that he’d bring her a glass of ice water, and then he’d put on some music to help her get into the right mood. She waited, on the edge of the couch, while he went into the kitchen. It was only later that she realized he hadn’t just gotten her a glass of water. He’d also closed the front door to his apartment.

  When he came back, he put on music. The music wasn’t the kind that Poppy liked, though, and it was turned up too loud. And Rich kept asking her to do things like lie down on the couch, or pull down the straps on her sundress so that her shoulders looked bare. But Poppy was too uncomfortable to do any of these things.

  Finally, he got exasperated. “Look,” he said, coming over to her. “I’ve done everything I can to make this work, but you’re not even trying.”

  Poppy didn’t disagree. She wanted to try, she just didn’t know how to. This whole modeling thing, she decided, was harder than it looked. “I have to go now,” she said, suddenly anxious. “My sister’s going to be home soon.”

  “You’re not wasting all the time I just put into this,” he said. He was furious, she saw, and it scared her. She stood up to leave then, but he blocked her way. Only then did she realize how much taller he was than her. “You’re not going,” he said, pushing her back down onto the couch, and there was something in his expression now that scared her even more. She hadn’t seen this thing in him before
, whatever it was. He’d been trying to hide it, she understood now. It was angry, though, and mean. And it made him strong. Incredibly strong. She would never have believed such a skinny guy could be so strong.

  She was only in his apartment for another five minutes. Maybe less. But it felt like an eternity. Before he let her leave, he warned her that if she told anyone, anyone at all, he’d make sure Mr. McKinley kicked her family out of the building.

  Later that night, when Poppy came into her and Win’s bedroom, wrapped in a bath towel and still dripping wet from the shower, Win looked up from the book she was reading on her bed. “Are you all right?” she asked, studying Poppy.

  “I’m fine,” Poppy said. But her voice sounded strange, even to her. She tightened the towel around her and walked over to her dresser, but, once she got there, she felt at a loss. She opened a drawer, randomly, and started to go through it.

  “Pops, you’re being weird,” Win said, from her bed.

  “No, I’m not,” Poppy said. She listened, again, to her own voice. It sounded completely detached from her. As if it were coming from the bottom of a well.

  “Well, that’s the third shower you’ve taken tonight,” Win pointed out. “I mean, how dirty can one person be?”

  Poppy didn’t answer. She was afraid if she did, the panic would flood into her body again. The same panic she’d felt when she’d first gotten back to the apartment and gotten into the shower. Then, it was all she could do to hold her violently shaking body still beneath the too hot water.

  She pulled a nightgown out of one of the drawers, and held it up. It was white cotton, with lace edging, and a pattern of pink roses on it. She stared at it, as if she’d never seen it before. And, in a way, she hadn’t. Not in the way she was seeing it now. It looked like it belonged to a child, she decided, and staring at it, she felt a wave of something—of fatigue, or sadness, or maybe just plain oldness—come over her. The oldness part was strange, of course. She wasn’t old. But she felt old now, too old to wear a nightgown that looked like this. She crumpled it up, violently, and stuffed it into a nearby wastebasket. That got Win to close her book, and to get up off her bed, too.