‘To get rid of David. I didn’t want him to get annoyed and kill me. He’s been too annoyed with me lately. It’s scary.’ Rosa doesn’t sound scared.
Sally’s hands are over her face. I should feel for her. I will later, but not now. She lost David, but he’s a monster. I’ve lost Sojourner, who’s the most amazing person I’ve ever met.
‘I want to stay here. We could at least stay until the lease runs out, couldn’t we?’
‘So we go home,’ I say. ‘Then what?’
Sally gulps, stemming the flood of tears. ‘One of my sisters will take me in. I’ll start over.’ She pauses, as if remembering she has two children. ‘We’ll start over.’
‘I’m not like him,’ I say again, but I can see she doesn’t believe me. She thinks we’re both like David. She thinks she fell in love with a monster and gave birth to monsters.
I need a shower. I need sleep. I need a different brain. If only a shower and sleep could change my brain morphology.
Sally says something about making breakfast, but there’s nothing in the fridge, and only a half-empty box of muesli. ‘I meant to shop,’ she says, trailing off. ‘I should do that.’
Instead, she goes into the study and closes the door.
I should eat. I wonder when I’ll feel hungry again.
Rosa pours half of the remaining muesli into a bowl and eats it dry.
‘Sally’s not herself,’ she says.
I wonder if Sally’s ever been herself. David and Sally always shared so many opinions, ideas. Most of the time they sounded the same. It hasn’t occurred to me how very alike they were. No, how very alike they seemed. The only difference was his temper.
Sally thought she’d changed David, but he changed her. All these years of being his wife, David was shaping her into the perfect disguise for him. What must she be feeling now?
I don’t know my own mother. I will never know who she was before David. Then I realise I will never know me before Rosa.
Rosa pulls out her phone. ‘Seimone says her parents are going to pay for our flight home. But that’s it. They don’t want to have anything to do with us again. Seimone’s distraught. Her heart’s going to break without me.’
‘I doubt that, Rosa. She’ll be like Apinya. She’ll wake up and realise what you did to her.’
‘Apinya’s still my friend. We talk all the time.’
‘Show me. Call Apinya right now and show me what good friends you are.’
‘She’s asleep right now.’
‘Where’s your tablet? Show me the list of calls so I can see how often you talk to your dear, dear friend Apinya.’
Rosa shrugs, not caring that I’ve caught her in a lie. ‘Seimone is my best friend in the universe. We’re much closer than I ever was to Apinya. She’ll never forget me.’
That I believe. I’m going to miss Leilani. I should go to her.
I wish I could go to Sojourner. I close my eyes.
‘I’ll be back here living with Seimone soon. You’ll see.’
She’s delusional. ‘Gene and Lisimaya wish you were dead.’
‘It will be much better with David gone,’ Rosa says. ‘It will be just you and me.’
‘What about Sally?’
‘Sally doesn’t count. Only you and I do.’
‘I can’t think of anything worse. Unless it’s David returning. I hope I never see him again. Where do you think he went?’
Rosa shrugs. ‘Far away.’
‘It’s a pity he didn’t take you with him,’ I say. ‘You being his favourite and all.’
‘I’m not a killer like David. David was the ticking bomb, not me. But now he’s gone.’
‘Because you got rid of him.’ As I say it, I realise that Rosa also got rid of Sojourner. She was never going to push her down the stairs, just away from me. I will never forgive her.
‘I told you I’m clever. We’re the same, you and me,’ she says. I can hear the crunch of muesli between her teeth. ‘We have the same brains.’
‘If that were true I’d be clever too, wouldn’t I? But you always say I’m not.’ If I was clever I’d have run away from this family, from Rosa, years ago. I’d have known what David is.
‘Compared to me, you’re not, but you’re more clever than most people. Because we have the same brain.’
‘No, Rosa, we don’t.’
‘I thought you didn’t lie, Che. We’ve both seen those scans.’
‘I am not my brain. The doctor said my scan doesn’t mean I’m like you.’
‘The doctor said,’ Rosa mimics.
‘There’s environment, DNA. We’re not merely the shape of our brain.’
Rosa giggles. ‘That’s the same too. We live together. We have the same parents.’
‘No. No, it’s not. I’m seven years older than you. That changes everything. For the first twelve years of my life we lived in the same house in Sydney. I had stability. Most of your life has been on the move. Five different countries, a million different cities and homes and schools and tutors. It’s been chaos. On top of that I looked after you. I was your third parent. I cared about you, Rosa. Looking after you – it changed me. You had David push you in the worst directions. I didn’t. You—’
‘I saved you,’ Rosa says. I’ve never seen her look so smug. ‘If looking after me is why you’re not like me, then I’m why you’re not a psychopath. If I’d never been born, you’d be me, Che. David would have taught you how to be a good little psycho. You’re a nice guy because of me. Why aren’t you thanking me?’
This time Rosa doesn’t smile, she laughs.
Packing my stuff doesn’t take long. There’s no shipping crate this time. We’re back to packing only what we can carry. I have one suitcase and one backpack.
What I want to take doesn’t quite fit so I sacrifice books and my tattiest trackpants and T-shirts for my boxing gear. I’m sorry to be leaving the Ali poster. I look at his scarred knuckles, then at my own. They’re bruised from my last sparring session. I wish there was a way to give the poster to Sojourner, but she told me not to contact her.
All I want to do is contact her.
I try to focus on going home. Georgie, Nazeem, Jason. They know I’m on my way. Jason is his oblivious self. —Cool. You can come to my next fight.
Georgie and Nazeem are all questions. I say I’ll tell them when we get there.
But I’m not sure I can. I’m not sure I want to tell anyone about the dark spot in my brain. No police reports will follow us. The death of Leilani McBrunight’s little sister was reported as an accident, and not widely. Leilani’s only a big deal for a subset of the fashion world.
Folding up the soft shirts Leilani bought me, I feel the prickle of tears. Sojourner’s not the only one I’m going to miss.
—Any instructions for packing the fancy clothes you bought me?
Instead of texting a reply, Leilani calls me.
‘Do you have any tissue paper?’
‘You’ve cut your hair!’ Her hair is now shorter than mine – a buzz cut that’s left her looking like a prisoner. ‘Is that a number two?’
Leilani nods. ‘It was too much, so—’ She flicks her fingers. ‘Gone. You could use a haircut yourself.’
It’s true. My hair is falling forward into my eyes. I push it back. ‘Hasn’t been time.’ Or money. Or the will. My hair isn’t important.
‘Tissue paper?’
‘Nope.’
‘You have old T-shirts. Use them. Clean ones, though! Lay them flat in between the shirts. Make sure the tags of your T-shirts aren’t in contact with the shirts. They’ll be plastic.’ She shudders. ‘They can do nasty things to good fabric. Best to cut ’em off. Fold the shirts as little as possible. You want to avoid creasing. As soon as you land, hang them up on moulded hangers. Not wire ones!’
I salute her.
Leilani bows.
‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘For the tips, for the clothes – for teaching me to appreciate them.’
‘You’re welco
me,’ she says as if she’s in customer service. But I can see she means it.
‘And teaching me this city.’
‘No problem.’
‘Also the searing wit.’
‘Always.’
She looks away briefly.
‘I’ll miss you,’ I say.
Leilani smiles.
‘Especially your laugh.’
‘Oh, shut up! I’ll send you a laugh ringtone if you’re not careful.’
‘Please! It’s all I’ve ever wanted.’
‘But you’ll see me again, Che. You’re going to get away from Rosa, right?’ She moves closer to her screen so she’s all eyes. ‘Promise me?’
I nod. ‘I promise.’
‘When you’re free I’ll visit you wherever you are.’ It’s a promise.
‘I’d like that.’
She makes a face to take the edge off. ‘I want to meet your friend Georgie.’
‘She wants to meet you too,’ I say. I try to think of something light to say; instead, I take a breath. ‘If you see Sojourner, tell her I love her.’
Leilani shakes her head. ‘Not now. Maybe later. Jaime says it cost Sid to break up with you.’
My throat tightens. It’s been less than a day, and I’ve been on the verge of texting Sojourner almost every minute.
‘I miss her so much,’ I whisper.
Leilani looks away. I shouldn’t have said that. Losing Sojourner is nothing compared to Leilani losing Maya.
‘I miss Maya too,’ I tell her.
‘Is it ever going to stop hurting?’ There’s no attempt to hide her pain. Her face is pinched with it.
‘It has to,’ I say. But I’m not sure I believe it.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
‘There aren’t enough buttons.’
Rosa sits between Sally in the window seat and me on the aisle. We’re not in business class. Rosa is unhappy.
Back in cattle class I can smell the baked-in sweat of the thousands of people who’ve sat here before us. But the air is the same: recirculated, tasting like recycled plastic and devoid of any moisture. My tongue already sticks to the roof of my mouth.
‘It’s not like they can’t afford to send us first class. They’re being mean. Did you at least ask them for business class?’ Rosa asks Sally.
Our mother doesn’t answer. Her cheek is pressed to the window, her eyes are on the clouds. She’s said little since she and Rosa and I had our first honest conversation. It’s not like talking takes away the ache of a broken heart and a ruptured soul. Talking to Rosa only increases it.
I wish I could tell Sally that my heart is broken too. But I don’t think she believes I have a heart.
I think about my list. I got everything I wanted: a girlfriend, sparring, and now we’re going home to Sydney. I got everything except number one on my list: Keep Rosa under control. I will never have that. I should tell Rosa about my list. It would be a perfect way to explain dramatic irony to her.
‘Sally,’ Rosa says. ‘When we’re in Sydney, can I have a dog? I didn’t kill my pretend dog.’
Sally doesn’t respond.
‘I bet if you asked the McBrunights they would have bought us business-class seats. The cost of that would be like nothing to them. They could buy us a whole plane if they wanted to. They should buy us a plane. I saved Seimone from the electric chair and they haven’t even thanked me.’
‘New York doesn’t have the death penalty,’ I tell her. ‘If they did, they wouldn’t use the electric chair, and they certainly wouldn’t execute a little rich girl. Besides, the police were never going to press charges.’
‘I still saved her. That’s why she gave me this.’ Rosa pulls a necklace from under her shirt; a ruby heart dangles from a gold chain. ‘Seimone gave me Maya’s. She says we’re twins now.’
The nausea hits me in a wave. I put my hand over my mouth and haul myself out of my seat and down the aisle and into the toilet. Vomit burns up my oesophagus and through my mouth and into the bowl. I taste acid, lettuce, bread and cheese. Then the wave hits again and again. I vomit until there’s nothing left to come up but bile.
When I turn to wash my hands and face, the now-red whites of my eyes stare at me from the mirror. Subconjunctival haemorrhage. It looks awful, but broken blood vessels are nothing. They’re the opposite of Rosa, who is so much worse than she looks.
I fill a tiny paper cup with water, rinsing and spitting, shocked again every time I see my eyes.
When I sit down Rosa is drinking a Coke. Something Sally would never allow. She looks at my eyes and laughs. ‘You’ve got devil eyes.’
‘When did you steal that necklace?’ Maya was wearing it when she died.
‘I didn’t have to steal it. I just had to ask. Seimone loves me best.’
She swings her legs back and forth, stopping short of kicking the seat in front of her. That’s not an interesting kind of trouble to make. It’s too easy. She’ll think of something else.
I know with certainty she’s going to make more trouble. Rosa’s scared Sojourner away, destroyed Sally, gotten rid of David, and broken me. I’m sure the rush of that makes her want to do it again, do it worse.
I can’t help thinking about something Rosa said to me when she was four:
‘I can make you cry if I want.’
I laughed. ‘I’ve got a pretty high pain threshold, kid. But go ahead, punch me.’
‘Not ouch pain, silly.’
‘What kind of pain, then?’
Rosa pointed at my heart.
She was right. She’s always been right.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Tayari Jones gave me the initial idea for writing a young adult take on The Bad Seed, that wonderful 1954 book by William March, when she wrote about it on Twitter. She inspired me to reread the book, and to find out how much the research on psychopaths has changed since then. A lot, it turns out.
I was also inspired by watching my fantabulous niece, Lyra Larbalestier Bern, learn to laugh, walk, talk, and become a little empathetic loving person. Watching Lyra helped me imagine all the ways in which Rosa is nothing like her.
Nadine Champion, my boxing trainer, is one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. She’s taught me everything I know about the fine art of pugilism and had a huge influence on this book. If it wasn’t for her I would never have sparred and learnt so much about myself I didn’t know.
Jill Grinberg has been my agent for more than ten years now. I am thankful for that fact every day. Thank you. Thanks also to the wonderful team at Jill Grinberg Literary Management: Katelyn Detweiler, Cheryl Pientka and Denise St. Pierre.
Many thanks to everyone at Allen and Unwin, especially Jodie Webster, Hilary Reynolds and Clare Keighery, and at Soho Press, especially Daniel Ehrenhaft and Meredith Barnes. I’m so glad to have such wonderful homes in my two countries of Australia and the USA.
Thank you to Lili Wilkinson and Anna Grace Hopkins for sending me down the path of reading about empathy.
Thank you to my first readers: Jack Heath, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Daniel José Older, Meg Reid, Tim Sinclair, Scott Westerfeld and Sean Williams. My sincere apologies for how shit that draft was. It’s much better now. I promise.
Extra special thanks to Scott Westerfeld, Jill Grinberg, Meg Reid and Alaya Dawn Johnson, who for their sins, read multiple drafts. (They’re listed in order of how many drafts they read.)
Jill Grinberg and Denise St. Pierre provided exceptional emergency notes. I owe you both.
Thanks to Coe Booth, Jessie Devine, Sarah Dollard, Emily Jenkins, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Bronwyn King, Gemma Kyle, Jan Larbalestier, Jason Reynolds and Lili Wilkinson for your comments on later drafts. Invaluable. Especially those continuity catches, Lili and Sarah! So glad they didn’t make it through. Coe, Emily and Alaya saved this book by pointing to even more places to cut. Sometimes it’s hard to see the trees because of the damn forest. Jessie Devine provided extremely useful notes on my writing of Elon. Any mis-gendering that remains is my fault.
The McBrunights’ family name is a mash-up of the names of several Minnesota Lynx players who were on the 2013 WNBA championship winning team. Their win was an amazing team effort, so there was a lot of speculation about who would be named MVP. Richard Cohen, a well-known basketball blogger, tweeted that it should go to the whole team and mashed their names together. I told him I was going to put those names in my next book, and I did. Janine (Mc) Carville, Rebecca (Brun)son, Monica Wr(ight) = McBrunight. Maya is named for Maya Moore and Seimone for Seimone Augustus. It’s pronounced Simone. Lisimaya is a combination of Maya and Lindsay Whalen. (Okay, Lisi for Lindsay is a stretch but it sounds better.) Leilani is named for one of my favourite basketball players, Leilani Mitchell. No, she wasn’t on that team. I just love her.
As always I’m grateful to my loving and very functional family of Jan Larbalestier, John Bern, Niki Bern, Lyra Larbalestier Bern and Scott Westerfeld.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Justine Larbalestier is the author of Razorhurst, which won the Aurealis Award for Best Horror Novel and was shortlisted for the New South Wales and Victorian Premiers’ Literary Awards, the Queensland Literary Awards and the Gold Inky awards, and Liar, which won the YA Western Australian Premier’s Award, the YA Sisters in Crime Davitt Award and was shortlisted for the CBCA Older Readers Award, among many other honours. She also edited the collection Zombies vs Unicorns with Holly Black.
Justine lives in Sydney where she gardens, boxes and watches too much cricket, and sometimes in New York City where she wanders about public parks hoping they’ll let her do some gardening – and misses cricket a lot.
Website and blog: justinelarbalestier.com
Twitter: @justinelavaworm
‘I will tell you my story and I will tell it straight.
No lies, no omissions. That’s my promise.
This time I truly mean it.’
Micah Wilkins is a liar. A very good liar. But when her boyfriend, Zach, dies under brutal circumstances, the shock might be enough to set her straight. Or maybe not.
Especially when lying comes as naturally to her as breathing. Was Micah dating Zach? Did they even kiss? Did she see him the night he died? And is she really hiding a family secret? Where does the actual truth lie?
My Sister Rosa Page 34
