“Oh, riiiight.” Jake tilts his head and rolls his eyes. “I remember that chick from back in the day.”
Two girls walk past outside. I miss their faces but catch their hair—teased curls next to straight, dark-brown locks.
Jake nods his head. “Makes sense.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, craning my neck to see the girls better. But they’re gone.
I turn back to Jake. He rubs his eyes, and for the first time in years, it occurs to me that he’s tired. I’ve never noticed the sinking yellow skin beneath his eyes, or the fine lines on his forehead. “Don’t tell me you don’t see it,” he says, blinking quickly. “I know you’re a girl and everything—”
“I am?” I say, my eyes fake-wide.
“Maybe,” he says, smirking, “but not like her.”
“Gee, thanks.” I force a tight smile and turn away from him. The little girl spinning in circles next to us stops and stares up at me. She’s got blond curls and Bambi-wide blue eyes. Even at four, she’s gorgeous.
“That’s a compliment,” Jake says from behind me. “Jesus.” I feel his hand on my shoulder and follow its motion around until we’re facing again. I look down so he can’t see my eyes. He shakes his head and shifts his weight before reaching for his phone again. His eyes fly left to right across the screen as he speaks. “If you were anything like Jolene, you’d be getting a sit-down with me. You don’t want to be that girl, Mats. Trust me.”
Leave it to Jake to tell me who I want to be. As if he knows anything about me.
For a second I wish he did. In this small space that smells of rising bread, I have this searing need to be his little sister again, to tell him everything in exchange for his protection from monsters and scary things. Then I remember his glance at Jolene’s legs this morning. We’re not little kids anymore. He’s just another guy talking about girls.
“Jake!” the skinny kid yells. Jake leans over the counter and grabs our bag. The little girl starts spinning again. We head home.
After dessert we exchange cards and presents and kisses. Then Jake and I clean up the crumpled wrapping paper and ripped envelopes and head to the den while Mom and Dad clear the dishes.
Jake turns on an old sitcom and sinks into the couch. I sit in a separate chair. We stare at the screen and listen to the studio audience laugh. When the commercial comes, I expect him to go for his phone, but instead he stretches his arms to the ceiling and rests his head in his hands.
“Is Jolene coming over?” he asks.
“Not to see you,” I say, even though I’ve been wondering the same thing. I texted her a few hours ago, and I still haven’t heard from her.
“Not interested,” Jake says, picking up the remote. “Just trying to figure out when to leave.” He looks at his watch.
“Well, don’t stay for me,” I say to the screen. The sitcom is on again. I recognize it now. Jake used to watch it after he put me to bed, back when I needed a babysitter.
“Why else would I?” he asks with a lazy shrug.
I don’t answer. It never occurred to me that he’d come home for anyone other than our parents, the people he entertains with stories the entire evening.
“You may be slashing my favorite shirts, but you’re still my little sister,” he says. “And anyway, word on the street is you’ve got a boyfriend.”
“Did,” I say, reaching for the memory of Hudson, even though it’s hazy now, the whole relationship ghosted—woven into something else by Jolene’s words.
“Sorry,” he says, pressing his lips together in sympathy. “Sucks.”
“Yup,” I tell him. Not because it does, but because that’s what I’m supposed to say. The truth is, when I think of Hudson I feel numb. I check my phone again. Where is Jolene? We haven’t spent a night apart since break started.
“Well, stop taking it out on Mom.” Jake palms the remote again.
“She told you?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I do talk to her, Mattie. Something it sounds like you aren’t doing these days.”
“I talk to her.”
“Not much.”
“Well, no one talks as much as you do.”
Usually he’d answer this with a joke. But not tonight.
Jake’s eyebrows rise. “What was that?”
“Nothing,” I say. “It’s not like it’s a secret, with all those stories you tell, how well you think of yourself.” The sound of studio laughter fills the silence after I speak. I keep my eyes glued to the TV. Jake grabs the remote and hits the power button. The screen goes dark. The room is quiet.
“You think I’m conceited?” he asks.
I cross my arms. “Aren’t you?”
He keeps his light-brown eyes on me. Even though they’re a different color, they remind me of our mother’s. “Okay, so maybe I am,” he admits, planting his hands on his knees. “Do you want to know why?”
“There’s a reason?” I ask. I can’t wait to hear this. I lean back in my seat. “Yeah, sure, go ahead.”
Jakes rests his forehead on his fingers and digs his thumbs into his temples. “Listen, you think anyone gives a shit about me at the firm? I’m one of a hundred people, all doing the same shitty doc reviews all day. You think anyone there cares? Let me answer that for you—they don’t. They think I’m disposable.” Jake slumps into the couch. He looks thinner than he used to. Nothing like the dazzling big brother he was at dinner. “So who’s to say I’m not disposable, huh? Who, if not me? If I don’t think I’m better than that, why should they? So, yeah, I talk myself up sometimes, and maybe I sound like I’m high on myself. But, seriously, somebody’s got to be.”
“I didn’t know,” I say, and it occurs to me that for the first time in our brother-sister history, I have something Jake doesn’t: somebody who thinks I’m better than that. Somebody who’s always on my side. I have Jolene.
I check my phone again.
“No, you didn’t.”
“Well, I’m sorry.” I wait for Jake to say it’s okay, but instead he picks up the remote again and turns on the TV. The show ends. The credits roll. Another episode begins. I watch Jake’s shoulders sink into the tan couch pillow—the same ones we used for walls in our pillow forts when we were younger. Jake would build them, and I’d get in when he was finished. Even then he was the practical one, planning in advance so I could play.
“Look, I’m sorry,” he says. “I’ve just been working a lot. It’s not as cool as being a senior in high school, you know. Party while you can.”
“I will,” I promise.
Jake searches the guide for something to watch. He yawns, blinks; raises his eyebrows high, as if he can force himself awake. “Nice,” he says. The TV flips back to full screen. “Caddyshack is on. Now this,” he tells me, “is a solid flick.” We watch the first fifteen minutes together before he says he has to get back to the city.
CHAPTER 34
“NOW PRESS THEM together like this,” Jolene says. She slides her wide lips together, then pulls them apart with a pop. I try to do the same thing.
Jolene shakes her head. “I’ll do it for you.” She takes my face in her hands and tilts it up. As she leans over me, her dark hair falls forward and skims my shoulders, shutting out the light, her room, the chair I’m sitting in—everything but her face. She licks her thumb and smoothes it across my lips, then dabs her index finger at the dip in the middle. When she stands up to see how it looks, her hair goes with her, letting the light back in, along with her quilted white bedspread, her hand-painted dresser drawers, her open jewelry box, and her sand-colored wood floor, which is papered with open magazines—possible looks for Bella’s party. I glance up at her from beneath my heavy black lashes and lift the corners of my lips the tiniest fraction of an inch, like one of the models on the glossy pages, as Jolene examines her makeup on my face. She smiles. “Perfect,” she says. “You’re ready.”
“Then let’s leave.” I get up. I didn’t want to go to Bella’s at first, but talki
ng to Jake made me realize this is it: senior year, New Year’s Eve. I won’t ever get to do it again.
Jolene flips over her wrist and checks her watch. She wears the face on the inside because the band is black and thick, like a cuff bracelet. “It’s still a little early,” she says, even though the party started an hour ago, “and I’ve got to pee. After that we’ll leave.” Jolene grabs her studded black clutch off the bed. I watch her disappear down the hall in my sweater. It fits her perfectly.
I grab one of my boots from the floor and tug it on. When I reach under Jolene’s bed for the other one, my hand hits something hard. At first I think it’s the heel of my boot, but then I see it—the jewel-encrusted box. It looks so ordinary, sitting there on the floor, without Jolene’s closed, cupped hands retrieving and replacing its secrets. I hesitate for a second before picking it up and peering inside. I don’t know what I expected to find: gold coins, strange creatures, the Zippo, maybe. But what’s actually there is this: an old check, a small metal pellet, and an impossibly thin, brown thing shaped like a wing. I touch it, and it crumbles in my fingers, leaving a dusty film.
I hear Jolene’s voice down the hall over the rush of the faucet. I cover the box, kick it beneath the bed, and get to work on my second boot. By the time Jolene’s back, I’m ready to leave.
Cars line both sides of the street, but Jolene doesn’t crane her neck searching for a spot. She drives straight to the brick house next to Bella’s and pulls into a wide-open space, the only one on the block.
“That was lucky,” I say, slipping my purse strap over my head.
“Luck has nothing to do with it.” Jolene looks sideways at herself in the rearview mirror before turning her hazel eyes on me. They glow with shimmery gold powder. “Look at me,” she says.
I do.
“You’re beautiful,” Jolene says, like it’s the truth. And that’s the part that sends a warm wave through me. Not the word, but the way she says it.
“You too,” I say.
“Then we’re ready.” She cuts the lights. “Shall we?”
When we turn down Bella’s driveway, there’s no hesitation, no conversation. There’s no Kris, asking me whether or not I want to do this. There’s only Jolene’s arm in mine, the click of our heels on the cement, the smell of dead leaves and something sweet. Small white lights are strung through the trees that line the winding drive, not on the tips of the branches, but farther back, in a second layer of darkness, floating like winter fireflies.
The last time I walked to Bella’s house, I pretended to be brave, but I was really afraid. Of Hudson. Of Jolene. Of everything I hadn’t done. But tonight, with its glittering trees and crisp energy, feels right. Like a continuation of me and Jolene from the past couple of weeks: our breath mingled in sleep; our fingers twined when we walk down the street, through the mall, past the school; our hair blown and tangled like our words—the silk threads of a story we spin around us like a chrysalis.
I’m not mapping the house. I’m not naming the streets. I’m not anxious.
I’m protected.
Halfway down the drive, as the music seeps through the trees, Jolene straightens her arm, finds my hand, and squeezes it hard. Then Bella’s house rises above us—the same combination of blocks it’s always been, with its thick walls and right angles burning white into the black night. Except tonight the sky is clear and the stars are out. So many of them I can’t count. By the time I look down again, I feel dizzy, and we’re at the foot of the stone stairs. Christmas creatures cover the large, sloping lawn. They’re made of structured wire and sparkling lights.
We sparkle too as we make our way up the steps. I can tell by the way the small group of smokers standing near the front door looks at us. We walk right by them, through the soft, white puffs of our own breaths and into the house.
Jolene leads me through the living room to the kitchen. There’s no turning my body to accommodate people this time. The crowd parts for us, and a minute later we’re staring at the keg. But Jolene doesn’t bother with it. She drops my hand and heads straight for the guys from the soccer team. They’re circling the island in the center of the kitchen, shoving their glasses into a crowd on the counter, and pouring sloppy shots of brown liquor. The alcohol splashes all over the granite until Cal grabs the bottle out of some kid’s hand and fills all the glasses to the brims without spilling.
He says something I can’t hear, because the bass is thumping behind me, but whatever it is makes half the boys laugh and the other half drink. It also makes him turn to Jolene. He raises his eyebrows. She shrugs with one shoulder. He shakes his head, tips the bottle of thick, brown liquid again, and hands Jolene a full glass. She looks at me as she tosses back her head and downs the shot. The long stretch of her neck brings back a flash: her shirt off her shoulder, her lips a mess, her body limp on the lawn chair.
“You want some?” asks a hoarse voice. The boy standing next to me holds up a joint. I recognize him from when I used to meet Hudson at the bike racks. He’d cross the street with his friends smacking packs of cigarettes, which they’d smoke near the armory. Tonight he’s wearing a gray-and-white-striped collared shirt with ballooning black jeans and neon-green sneakers.
I look for Jolene. She’s gulping down another dose of the brown liquor, laughing. I lift the joint from the boy’s pinched fingers, bring it to my lips, and breathe in. The smoke burns my throat. I hand it back to him. “It’s cool,” he says, nodding to the new beat blaring behind us. “Finish it.” I take a few more hits and start nodding myself. The electronic notes come faster and faster. “You want to dance?” he asks, snaking his body side to side toward the strobe lights off the living room.
I haven’t smoked in a while, but I can already feel it. The little lift. The sudden ease. The edges sharpening, coming into focus. I want to dance, but—
“She’s with me,” Jolene croons from behind me. She presses her chest against my back, throws the roach in a floater, wraps her arms around my waist, and guides me toward the island. Her breath heats my neck. Her glossy lips slick my ear. “We’re playing a game.”
I lean into her and laugh. Because of course we are. Aren’t we always?
But Jolene isn’t talking about us. She’s talking about the shot that has appeared in my hand and the granite counter beneath it, which hits right under my ribs, where Jolene’s arms just held me. She’s talking about the half dozen people who complete the circle around the island and the interested eyes that have all landed on me.
I know stuff like this used to make me nervous. I know it the way you know the name of a song you can’t remember: sure that it’s there inside you somewhere, even as it hovers just out of reach, buried deep. But right now I’m lit up. And yeah, it might be the weed, but who cares when there’s this energy inside me? The weird thing is, I recognize the feeling. I’ve had it before. Back then I called it restlessness. But I had it all wrong. It’s anticipation. Something is about to happen—in the middle of this kitchen, between the keg and the near-empty bottles of liquor, surrounded by the stink of stale smoke, skunked beer, old deodorant, and fresh sweat.
“You know the rules, right, Mats?” Cal asks as he reaches across the table to top off the Hurley twins. I recognize them from school and Hudson’s pictures. They play soccer, but they’re built for football. Their plaid button-downs buckle at the biceps. Their baseball hats curve steep at the brims. Their sideburns drip wet with sweat, and the tips of their ears are tinged red. They remind me of garden gnomes, which makes my mouth open, which lets the energy bubble out.
I’m laughing.
Cal furrows his brow and tips his head toward me. At first I can’t figure out why he’s looking at me like that; then I remember—he asked me a question.
I bite back a grin and nod at him—Yeah, I know them—because I’m still thinking of the gnomes and feeling the energy, and if I open my mouth, it’s going to come out again.
He brushes a lock of black hair out of his eyes, and his face br
eaks into a smile.
“Of course you do. But I’m going to offer a refresher anyway, since these jokers have been cheating for the past half hour.” Cal ignores the halfhearted protests from the circle, caps the bottle, holds it by the neck, and slides it back and forth as he speaks, like a stick shift. “We go around the circle. Everybody talks. ‘I never whatever.’ If you’ve done the whatever, drink. If you haven’t, don’t. Or do it now. I ain’t gonna stop you.”
Hoots from the Hurleys. Eye rolls from the girls. A curved smirk from Jolene, who stands directly across the counter, surveying me. She glides the tip of her finger around the rim of her glass, then runs it across her lips. I lick my own—a reflex—and taste whiskey, even though I haven’t had a sip.
The game begins.
“I never broke into Memorial pool,” says Kristin Whelan—second-string goalie, first-string girlfriend. She bats her lashes at the bigger Hurley.
Everyone drinks. When they’re finished, they push their glasses to the center of the island. Cal leans in to refill them.
“I never forgot my bathing suit,” says the junior girl in the ivory, racer-back tank.
More shots. More refills.
“I never stole yours,” Cal says.
“That was you?” She punches him in the arm.
I grip and regrip my glass, waiting for my turn to drink. But I’ve never broken into a pool, or skinny-dipped, or cut school to go to Great Adventure. It’s starting to seem like I’ve never done anything. Like I’m not even here but standing on the other side of the kitchen again, watching.
Cal’s mouth moves. Jolene laughs. They drink.
People pack into the kitchen in search of the keg and the cups and the half-empty handles of liquor.
My tongue sticks to the inside of my cheek and the roof of my mouth. So I swallow a few times, trying to work up some spit, make my lips wet, like everyone else’s. I skim my fingers along the top of the syrupy liquid.
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