The Big Sister - Part One

by Lexie Ray

  “You really don’t have to do this,” I said, following Jennet and Luke into the cool air conditioning of the snack shop she’d been hawking outside. My brother tugged on my hand impatiently.

  “No, but I want to,” Jennet chirped, her tone friendly but allowing for no more arguments. We were going to have those ice creams, by God.

  Luke slurped his down as if I’d been starving him, and maybe I had. He’d been getting plenty of sustenance, of course, but I hadn’t budgeted money for throwaway calories like ice cream. But maybe ice cream counted for something more, some kind of essential vitamins for the soul that scientists hadn’t pinpointed yet. Yes, that was it, I decided, as I licked at my cone, making sure the rivulets of sweet vanilla couldn’t find their way to my fingers. Ice cream was good for the soul. I’d have to remember that the next time I drew out a budget for our remaining pennies.

  We all three of us jammed into a booth — even Jennet with her enormous corncob costume — and I think I was as surprised as Luke when instant sleep found him and he jammed his face into Jennet’s side.

  “I’ve never seen him do that with anyone before,” I said, my mouth agape as he snored softly, a crusty chocolate moustache darkening his upper lip. Of course, we’d never been close enough to anyone to allow for such a situation, but my gut knew that Jennet was different.

  “Something about being Corn Queen makes me super trustworthy,” she said, smiling fondly at my brother. “I think it has to do with me looking so ridiculous. Nothing else can compare — even things you’re afraid will catch up with you.”

  Succumbing to the same spell Jennet had cast over Luke, I told her everything, right there in that snack shop. Every gory detail. Our stories poured out of my mouth as if I’d been drowning and Jennet had hauled me to shore and was pumping the water from my lungs. I wouldn’t have been able to stop talking if I’d tried.

  “We’re looking for a place to live,” I summed up, even though I was pretty sure that was what I’d started with. “But I don’t have any hope of making rent without getting a job. I have a couple leads on some jobs, but I don’t know what to do about looking after Luke. He’ll be in school, of course, once we get the place. But who’ll pick him up? Who’ll help him with his homework if I’m at work?”

  “Well, the solution’s right in front of you,” Jennet said, nodding sagely. “You two are going to come home with me.”

  I blinked at the costumed woman sitting across the table from me, stunned. How had she arrived at that solution? We didn’t even know each other’s names. My brother and I were just two strangers who’d broken down into tears on the sidewalk at Jennet’s place of work. Why in the world would she want to help us more than she already had?

  “That’s very kind of you,” I began, but Jennet cut me off with a slash of her hand.

  “Save your platitudes,” she said, “and save your breath. You’re dead on your feet. I saw it the moment I saw you two drifting my way. Don’t you believe that things happen for a reason?”

  Did I? So many bad things had happened in my life — losing my parents, losing my brother, and the cost of regaining him — that I hesitated to think that things happened for a reason. What reason could there possibly be for the bad things?

  “I don’t know what I believe,” I confessed. “We’ve been through so much.”

  “And now you’re here,” Jennet said, nodding to herself. “I’m not saying that everything that’s happened has led you to me, but here you are. You need help. You’ve said so, though not in those exact words. And it just so happens that I can give you help.”

  “You’ve given us ice cream, and you’ve let me bend your ear,” I said. “Really, I think that’s what we needed. Just a chance to rest and recharge. You don’t have to do anything else.”

  “Yes, but I want to.” Jennet’s cheerfulness was relentless, and bit by bit, she was using it to break me down. “What’s more than that, I can. I own my own apartment. It’s a three-bedroom joint not far from here. This isn’t the swankiest section of Miami, but you could do worse. I act as a landlady and take on roommates as tenants for extra cash. Being Corn Queen is pretty fabulous, but it doesn’t pay great. I had to evict a roommate a couple months back and never got around to replacing him, and my current roommate is getting ready to move out of town. See what’s happening here? The universe is aligning. It put me in your path.”

  I laughed shortly. “It sounds too good to be true.”

  Jennet smiled. “When things sound really good, I never try to question them,” she said. “Seriously. Let me help you. I like you. I like your brother. I’m sorry about everything you’ve been through. If you’ll excuse my French —” at this point, she covered the ear that Luke wasn’t pressing up against her costume “— it fucking sucks, but now let me give you a chance to make it all better.”

  I swallowed hard and held out my hand. “I’m Faith.”

  “Jennet,” she said, shaking my hand in a firm grip. She’d painted her fingernails each a different color of the rainbow, much like a little girl who had just discovered her mother’s stash of bright polish. Maybe that was why Luke had taken a shine to her so quickly. Jennet was friendly and seemed straightforward — much the way a very earnest child came across. Her guileless nature inspired total honesty in me at a time when I didn’t trust a single person.

  “You’ve already met Luke, there,” I said, pointing at my brother.

  “I sure have,” Jennet said, ruffling his hair fondly. “You’ve spent your last night in that crappy hotel. Tonight, you’re coming home with me.”

  And it really had been as simple as that. Jennet’s apartment was furnished with the odds and ends that tenants brought upon moving in and left behind when moving out, not wanting to heave the hefty pieces back down all those flights of stairs. Luke and I shared a room until Jennet’s current roommate moved out. Then, we each had a space of our own, something neither of us was used to. More often than not, I’d wake up with Luke snoozing in my own bed, hogging the covers and pillows.

  But time healed all — or sent all on its path to healing, anyway — and soon Luke was smiling, drawn a bit out of his taciturn shell, and I was learning the ropes at the club, coming home with shiny burns on my hands and legs from the pole.

  ***

  “You know what? Let’s do something fun tomorrow.” I smiled and hugged myself with my arms. I still had to count the wad of money Marcus had given me, but I was pretty sure there was enough there to have a special celebration.

  “What do you have in mind?” Jennet asked. “I think there might be some kind of program at the library. Might be too young for Luke, though.”

  “No, I mean something really fun,” I said. “I want to splurge on all of us.”

  “But what about tuition?” Jennet had been sweating Luke’s private school almost as much as I had. We knew how important it was to get him the individualized attention — and how acutely public school had failed him.

  I couldn’t hide my grin. “Tuition is taken care of?”

  “What?” Jennet scratched her head, making the rat’s nest of snarls there even worse in her puzzlement. “I thought we were still a ways off.”

  “Not anymore, we’re not,” I said. “Tonight was …” Tonight was a lot of things. But for the first time, I nodded to myself and made my decision about the entire affair. “Tonight was amazing.”

  “You don’t have to work or anything?” Jennet asked. “I know you’ve been putting in a lot of hours.”

  “Well, it’s finally paid off,” I said, taking the fat wad of bills from my purse and watching Jennet’s mouth form into a perfect “o.”

  “That’s a lot of cash,” she said. “Sorry for stating the obvious.”

  “We don’t ask too many questions when really good things happen, remember?” I reminded her, waving the bills around. “And it’s not worth it if we don’t get to celebrate the good things every once in a while.”

  “I think it’s supposed t
o cool down a little tomorrow,” Jennet said. “What if we did a picnic at the zoo?”

  I brightened. The zoo was supposed to be incredible, but I hadn’t had a chance to take Luke yet. I hadn’t had the time — or the money. All that was about to change, thanks to Marcus. I wondered if there was some way I could send him a thank you note or something, through Parker. He’d really have no way of knowing just how far his generosity would go.

  “I think it’s a date,” I said. “You know what? Luke loves Nick. Let’s invite him, too.”

  Nick, our next-door neighbor, was shaping up to be something of almost a father figure for my little brother. Luke would never confirm it, of course, nor did I suspect he knew himself. But Nick was a good guy — never far from his guitar — and I’d often find the two of them together, our neighbor strumming and humming and jotting words down in a notebook and Luke just jamming right alongside him, sketching away. They made a good pairing, both of them lost in their respective creative spaces but still aware enough to enjoy the other’s company.

  “You know, someday our plus ones for these fun days are going to be our boyfriends,” Jennet said dreamily.

  “Hey, I’m pretty sure Nick’s single right now,” I said, holding my hands up. “You’d better get in on that before he meets the next future ex-girlfriend at one of his shows.”

  “No, thanks,” she said, shaking her head and laughing. “Nick’s a great guy and all, but I’m just waiting for —”

  “— Prince Charming,” I finished for her. “I know. I’ve heard it so many times.”

  “Roomie, the Corn Queen requires fellow royalty to whisk her off her feet,” she said, arching her eyebrows loftily. “It will be pure romance. He’ll have a white horse, and a castle to match.”

  “You know, I think I overheard Nick talking about his castle the other day with Luke,” I joked. “You should ask him about it.”

  “Ha, ha,” Jennet said drily, bopping me with one of the pillows from the couch. “I’ll invite Nick, of course, but seriously. We need to start dating, girl. We’re not going to find love just sitting around here on our butts.”

  “Love?” I repeated, laughing. “Who has time to fall in love?”

  Chapter 5

  Jennet was right — or at least she’d been paying attention to the weather forecast. The humidity broke overnight, and we were able to haul ourselves, our lunches, and, in Nick’s case, his guitar, down to the zoo. Nick had a beat-up station wagon that he drove to gigs, mainly because of the storage space in the back. That same storage space came in extra handy on the rare occasions that all of us wanted to go somewhere together.

  “You ready for the zoo, buddy?” Nick called over his shoulder at Luke, who was belted in beside me.

  “Yeah,” my brother answered faintly, almost as if he wasn’t sure. Had he ever even been taken to a zoo before with his previous family? I’d never thought to ask him.

  “The zoo’s great,” Jennet gushed from the front passenger seat. She’d gotten out the tangles that had plagued her hair last night and braided it neatly. Her appearance always drew attention, no matter if she was wearing her Corn Queen costume or not. Jennet was just that kind of person.

  I wasn’t looking for attention, however, and was rocking a beat-up pair of jeans and ratty old T-shirt. My job required me to dress up on a regular basis, so it was nice to get the chance to dress down every so often.

  “Think of all the new material you’ll have for your sketches,” I told Luke quietly, smiling. “I want at least one sketch for every animal we see.”

  That earned me a rare grin from my brother. A drawing challenge. He sure liked that.

  I wasn’t sure where he got bit by the artistic bug. But with very few exceptions, he preferred his pencils, pens, and paper over people. I understood, in a way. People were always pushy and invasive, wondering why a boy Luke’s age wasn’t more gregarious or into sports or other group activities. Sketches were something completely under Luke’s control.

  “Is the zoo going to be open that late?” Nick joked, looking into the rearview mirror at us. “They have hundreds and hundreds of animals. Think you can sketch them all? Think of the fish in the aquarium, the reptiles, all the birds …”

  “I can do it,” Luke said, setting his chin, and I smiled. His fingers were already practically twitching with anticipation of all of the sketches to come.

  I wished we could’ve gotten an earlier start, but early just wasn’t part of my repertoire anymore. Dancing at the club usually kept me awake later than I wanted, but escorting was a whole different ballgame. That’s why I was so grateful for Jennet. Her job afforded her the chance to make sure Luke got to school all right, got to bed at a decent hour, and woke up early enough for breakfast and everything he needed to do to get ready for the day. I usually tried to wake myself up to tell him good morning and help with that process, but I wouldn’t trust myself behind the wheel to get him to school in one piece. Jennet always used my car for that task.

  “Here we are,” Nick announced, wheeling into a massive parking lot stuffed with cars.

  “It’s packed,” Jennet groaned. “Oh, look, grab that spot.”

  We eased into a lucky slot — it seemed that other cars had been circling the area like vultures looking for a place to land — and we all got out.

  Luke anxiously danced from one foot to the other as we started our trek across the parking lot to the main entrance, and Jennet took pity on him.

  “Race you to the gate!” she squealed, and took off in a dead sprint, Luke hot on her heels.

  “Watch out for cars!” I hollered uselessly from behind as they bolted, and laughed and shook my head, glancing at Nick. “Hey, I saw that!”

  He looked at me, his bright blue eyes wide with innocence. “Saw what?”

  “You were totally checking out Jennet’s butt just now,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest in mock admonition. “What is she going to say when I tell her later?”

  “You might think that’s what you saw,” Nick scoffed. “Let me assure you that you are mistaken.”

  “You know where I work, right?” I asked, laughing. “I’m practically trained to notice when guys pay special attention to certain girls so I can tell them to go and encourage the attention. You can’t hide anything from me.”

  Nick rubbed his perpetually scruffy face and flipped his long curls out of his eyes. He really had the whole struggling artist thing going on — too busy to even manage a haircut or a shave.

  “You know how Jennet is,” he said as we started across the parking lot at a much more leisurely pace, him with his guitar and me with the picnic basket.

  “Crazy?” I offered, raising my eyebrows.

  He shrugged. “Idealistic. Even if she did think that there was something there, she’d never go for it.”

  “Waiting for her Prince Charming,” I said faintly, reflecting on our conversation last night.

  “Exactly.”

  I smiled to try to lift the pall of despair that had seemed to settle around Nick — I hadn’t realized just how deeply he felt about my roommate — and changed the subject to something I knew he’d enjoy more than exploring all the various reasons Jennet would never entertain the thought of dating him.

  “Played any good shows lately?” I asked, and that was all it took for him to smile again.

  Nick had already lived in the building — right across the hall, in fact — by the time Luke and I found our way there. I’d even thought he and Jennet were embroiled in a thing, what with how often he was over at her apartment or vice versa. Both front doors were usually thrown open, and Nick’s guitar strumming drifted over on the air to perfume our ears with melodies.

  He would talk freely about his music, doing the occasional solo show while flitting around from band to band, trying to find a good fit. But when it came to his personal life, or his past, he was less forthcoming.

  “Not really much to tell,” he’d say, concentrating on his fingers over the s
trings of the guitar. “Had to escape the monotony in order to embrace the music.”

  I knew what dodging questions sounded like. At my job, it was a signal to change the topic or lose out on some tips. But in real life, Nick was a close enough friend to all of us that the idea of him having something to conceal rubbed me the wrong way.

  “Oh, he’s just trying to build on his mysterious musician persona,” Jennet would scoff when I would ask her about it. “Let him have whatever secrets he thinks make him sexier. He’s probably just from the Midwest and doesn’t want anyone to know about it.”

  I guess, in the end, I couldn’t exactly fault anyone for having secrets. I had plenty of my own to worry about.