I leave the room, but I have no idea where I’m going. That’s the problem with yelling at your best friend. You’re sort of left with nothing to do afterward.
I wander the halls and end up in the ACT room. I start taking materials out of the tool cabinet. I miss building things. I especially want to build something now that I’ve seen something blow up. But Jordan’s the builder. I can’t measure right or use a drill. I’m just the idea girl.
There’s all this copper wire and a bunch of magnets in the drawer from the Faraday experiment Jordan and I did last year. I take out the copper wire and start thinking.
“We’re not allowed to do anything with an electrical current this year, remember?” Jordan says behind me.
I turn around and face him. “Because of your mom.” I grimace at him. “I only electrocuted you a little bit, and it was your project to begin with.”
“Yeah, I know,” he says. “She just likes to blame other people for stuff I do wrong.” He comes all the way into the room and starts taking materials out of the cabinet with me.
“So what were you thinking of making?” he asks.
I shrug. I’m trying to picture it. I want to build something that is the exact opposite of the space shuttle blowing up.
“I don’t know,” I say. “Something with light.”
Jordan nods. “Prisms?” he guesses.
Now I know he’s on board no matter what I say. Mostly, I think he just needs something to look forward to again. Maybe that’s why I’m doing it, because I know Jordan, and I know that he needs something to build.
“I heard about this experiment where you can make a flashlight out of paper and graphite,” I say.
Jordan smiles. “Does it use electricity?”
“Probably.” I smile back. “Your mom doesn’t have to know about it, you know.”
“Describe it,” he says. He goes to the chalkboard to start writing down what I say.
We only come up with ideas for how we’re going to build it, and we don’t actually start working on the flashlight just yet because we need to do more research, but I don’t care that we don’t start today. It’s enough that we have a project to work on together.
When the final bell rings, Jordan and I walk to the bus lines together.
“Sorry about your destiny,” I say. “You’ll find another one, though.”
He looks at the floor as we walk and doesn’t say anything for a while. “How do you know that?” he asks.
“Because you’re good at everything,” I say, rolling my eyes in just the right way to make him laugh. “It’ll probably take me until I’m eighty, because there’s pretty much nothing I’m good at.”
Jordan frowns at me, like what I said made him angry. “You’re good at making people feel better.”
“That’s not a destiny, Jordan. It’s not important.”
He stops walking and I have to stop with him. “It is to me,” he says.
We don’t say anything while we walk the rest of the way to our buses, because we don’t need to.
When I get home, my mom tells us she “found” a bag of presents from Christmas she forgot to give us.
My mom does this every year. She hides one bag of presents so she can surprise us all when winter is dragging on and no one has anything to look forward to because spring is still ages away. And it works, actually. It makes a crap (five Hail Marys) day like today with the shuttle disaster actually bearable. See, my mom does really try, and in a way I always wonder how great a mom she would have been if she’d been able to do it her way. Maybe she still wouldn’t have been perfect, but it’s things like the bags full of “forgotten” gifts that make me think she could have been good at it if there had only been two or three of us. We’d have had more money, too.
I said that to Nora once, and she said, “Yeah, but that would mean you and I wouldn’t be here.”
I’ve mentioned this before, because it’s something I think about a lot, but not in a sad way. I don’t get why it’s so terrible to think things would have been better if you’d never been born, but I know enough not to say that in front of anyone but Nora, because they’d think I was depressed or something. I just don’t think it’s so awful to imagine not being born. It’s way better than imagining hell, and they make me do that all the time at church.
Mom hands Nora and me our gifts with a big smile when we walk in the door from school.
I got a pair of work gloves. “You know, for your projects at school,” my mom says.
“Thanks,” I say, slightly confused. “They’re … perfect, actually.”
Sometimes my mom really does get me, and it’s times like this that I wonder when she’s looked at me enough to notice these things about me. Maybe she’s got another pair of eyes.
I’m so happy with my work gloves (which actually fit) that I’m smiling when I look over at Nora. She’s opened her gift and is looking at it with a frown. It’s a dress for a Cabbage Patch doll.
“What’s this for?” she asks Mom.
“It’s for the Cabbage Patch doll I got you for Christmas,” Mom says.
“You gave Fay the doll,” Nora says, handing the dress back to Mom. Mom won’t take it.
“No. I got you the Cabbage Patch doll,” Mom insists. “Didn’t you notice how she has your eyes and hair color? I waited in line for three hours to get you that doll. Don’t tell me you’ve lost her, Eleanor.”
Now, here’s the thing about my mom. I’ve mentioned that she’s forgetful, but that doesn’t really explain it. She’s the most absentminded person ever. She’s left me behind at the grocery store, she’s forgotten to pick me up after doctors’ appointments for, like, hours, and she’s even forgotten my name and stared at me, snapping her fingers for five solid minutes, while she tried to remember who the heck I am. She’s the most forgetful person ever. And she never forgets anything.
Okay, now I know it seems impossible for her to be both, but trust me, she is. Things slip my mom’s mind all the time, but she remembers everything exactly the way it happened. I think I get my memory from her, now that I think of it, because I’m the same way. But that’s not important right now. What’s important is that Nora is turning red. Her hand is clamped around the dress, and it looks like she’s about to throw a fit.
She turns away from Mom and runs up the steps. I run along behind her because I’m worried about her. Nora throws open the door to Bridget and Fay’s room and catches them trying to hide the Cabbage Patch doll.
“You took my name off all my presents and put your own names on them, didn’t you?” Nora asks.
Fay lies a lot. She cheats all the time. If you catch her in a lie, she weasels out of it. But not even Fay can lie her way out of the doll she’s trying to hide. She looks embarrassed for a second, and then she throws the doll at Nora so hard it bounces off her and falls on the floor.
“You can have it,” Fay says. “It’s just a stupid doll.”
Nora bends down and picks up the Cabbage Patch doll. She leaves the room without saying another word. I follow her.
Nora’s on her bed, changing her doll into the new dress Mom bought. Her doll has a scuff mark on her face, and her yarn hair is all ratty. Fay wasn’t nice to this doll at all.
“I bet you can get that scuff mark out,” I say.
Nora’s crying silently. She smooths the dress and won’t even look at me. Sometimes I wish Nora would just let me be her sister, but she won’t.
Chapter Ten
I’ve been going on my sisters’ dates with them since I was six.
Mom’s rule is: if you want to go on a date with a Bianchi girl, Annie goes, too. So if a boy wants to take one of my sisters to a movie, it has to be one I’m old enough to see, and I’m supposed to sit between the two of them the whole time. If a boy wants to take one of my sisters driving, I’m riding in the backseat. And my bedtime is ten o’clock, so that’s when the date’s over.
I’ve been on a lot of dates, but I still have no idea how s
ome of my sisters end up liking the boys they like. My sister Aurora, especially.
Aurora gets asked out every weekend, and there have been some really great boys who’ve even bought me popcorn and candy, which is, like, super nice. There have been boys who’ve told Aurora she was beautiful and asked her to wear their letterman jackets, but they’ve never gotten more than two dates.
The really polite boys who try to talk to her about ballet and her career never even get a second date. They dress nice, drive fancy cars, and have money. I can tell Aurora is nervous around them. The guys Aurora always ends up going out on more dates with are duds.
Take Stan, for instance.
Stan, Aurora, and I have gone on four dates now, and I have no idea why my sister keeps going out with this guy. He’s got a crap (five Hail Marys) car. He never buys any popcorn. He starts the night out really charming and funny, but by the end of the date, he always ends up yelling at Aurora for something and they start fighting, and not just arguing back and forth in a funny way, like Evangeline always does with her boyfriend, Patrick. I mean, Stan and Aurora fight. Usually about something that didn’t even happen. Like the time Stan said that Aurora was flirting with the guy who took her movie ticket. Aurora didn’t even say hi to him, though, so I have no idea what Stan was talking about.
Stan is the worst. And we’re going out with him again tonight. When he picks up Aurora and me, he gives me this look, like he can’t believe I’m here.
“I thought you were going to ditch her,” Stan says.
Aurora shakes her head. “You know the rules,” she says.
“But your sister Evie and Patrick can go out alone,” he says.
Yeah, because my parents like Patrick and you’re a jerk, I think, but I keep my mouth shut. I know when to keep quiet on my sisters’ dates.
“Patrick and Evie have been dating since she was thirteen,” Aurora says. She puts a hand on my shoulder and stops me before we get in the car. “If you don’t like it, Annie and I can go back inside.”
Please say you don’t like it, Stan.
“It’s fine,” he says, even though I can tell it isn’t.
“Get in the car, Littlebit,” she tells me. Ugh. I really don’t want to, but I do what she says.
We get in his ugly, smelly car and go to the mall. The only movie playing right now that I can go to is Legend with Tom Cruise, because it’s got unicorns and fairies in it.
I love it. There’s glitter on everything and a really pretty girl in a white dress, and summer turns into winter because she touches a unicorn and gets it killed. I almost started crying at that part, but I was too scared because of the goblins, but the girl goes to save the unicorns and she has to face the devil. He turns her white dress black and comes out of a mirror with his hooves and horns. He’s got this cape on and it blows all around him and he’s so cool and I think I love the devil now. (Ten thousand rosaries, probably.)
I’m so wrapped up in the movie that I barely even notice Stan feeling up my sister.
After the movie, Stan keeps talking about how stupid it was, and I wonder how he even knows what happened, seeing as how he spent half the time trying to get his hand up Aurora’s skirt. With me in between them. Like I said, Stan is the worst.
“That was the dumbest movie I’ve ever seen,” Stan says.
“I liked it,” I say. “The unicorns were so pretty.”
Stan smirks at me and tries to pull Aurora away and take her around behind the Cineplex. “She’ll be all right on her own for a minute,” he says to my sister.
“We can’t just leave her,” Aurora says.
“Come on,” Stan says. He grabs her wrist real hard and starts to drag her. I follow them away from the lights out front and through the bushes and around the corner, because I don’t like how scared Aurora looks.
“Go back to the front of the movie theater, Annie,” my sister says. “I’ll come and get you soon.”
“Let’s just go home, Aurora. Please?” I beg.
“Shut up, Annie,” Stan yells at me.
“Don’t talk to my baby sister like that,” Aurora says back, and Stan slaps her. She shoves him and he slaps her again, so hard she falls down.
I’m frozen. I know I should help my sister up, but I feel like I’m stuck and, if I stay really still, this won’t be happening. Stan paces around in a circle.
“See what you made me do?” he says. “Why didn’t you just come around back with me?” he yells at my sister, and it looks like he’s going to hit her again. Then it’s like I switch on again, even if it is too late.
“No!” I shout. “Get away from her.”
“Shh, kid, shut your mouth,” Stan growls at me.
I back away from him. “Don’t hit my sister!” I scream. People are starting to look around the corner.
“Get Annie to shut her mouth,” Stan says, real quiet, to my sister.
Aurora stands up and grabs me. “It’s okay, Annie,” she says, but it’s not okay. The left side of her face is all red, and blood is smeared on her bottom lip. She turns to Stan. “Take us home,” she says.
“Get yourself home, whore,” he says. And then Stan’s gone.
It’s a long walk back home. I mean, miles. I count license plates, and the weird thing is that they’re all divisible by three and fit perfectly into three separate sets and everything should be okay, but it isn’t.
I hear Aurora crying. She’s the only one of us who makes any sound when she cries, but since everything Aurora does is pretty, she sounds like a dove when she does it. We have to stop and sit so I can rest. Aurora doesn’t need to rest. She may look fragile, but she’s as strong as an ox from so many years of ballet. Aurora could probably run to Boston and back without getting tired.
We’re sitting on a rock right on the edge of the forest. We’ll cut through and get home maybe half an hour sooner once I rest my legs a little. It’s way past my bedtime. Aurora’s done crying now but she’s even more sad, somehow.
“Why don’t you go out with the guys who are nice to you?” I ask her. “They buy popcorn and tell you you’re pretty.”
She sighs like I don’t know what I’m talking about. “You think they’re better?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say, but she shakes her head.
“No, Annie. Those boys are even worse. They don’t call me a whore just because they’re angry, but they think it all the time.”
“But you’re not,” I say.
She smiles at me. “It doesn’t matter what I am. It matters what they think I am, because that’s how they treat me.”
“But the nice guys wouldn’t hit you,” I say, like it’s obvious. I try to think of the nicest boys she’s dated. “Shane Thomson. He’d never hit you.”
“Maybe not, Littlebit,” she says. She smooths my frizzy hair. Her hair still looks like black ice. “But I don’t want Shane.”
“Why not?” I ask, like she’s a crazy person. “He’s so nice. And remember how he made you laugh so hard Diet Coke came out your nose?”
She looks down at her hands. “Shane’s nice. He’s from a good family. He’d never understand—”
I wait for her to finish, but then I realize she isn’t going to. “Never understand what?” I ask.
She shrugs and won’t look at me. “He’s not right for me.” She looks ashamed. “Actually, I’m not right for him. We’re going to graduate in one month, and then he’s off to Harvard. He’s a legacy.” I have no idea what that means, but I think it’s important. Aurora points at the bruise darkening her face. “Do you think I’d fit in with all those rich kids at Harvard?”
“No,” I say. “Because you’re probably way prettier and more talented than all of them put together.”
Aurora laughs. “Oh, Annie.” She looks up at the stars, smiling. “I hope you never change.”
We cut through the forest, past that beautiful house that’s all wood and glass, and we get home after midnight. We have to sneak in, but that’s not so hard in my house.
You see, with nine people to account for, Mom and Dad miss half of us in the shuffle. In fact, sometimes they lose track of us even when we’re standing right in front of them, like that time Mom ran over Fay’s foot with the car on accident. At least, I’m pretty sure it was an accident. Anyways, I can go days without ever even seeing my parents, let alone them getting worried I haven’t gone to bed. We walk right in the front door because it’s never locked. There’s nothing to steal, anyways.
“Don’t say anything to JP,” Aurora whispers.
“What about your face?” I whisper back. “You’re purple.”
Aurora touches her cheek. “I’ll say Peach dropped me doing a lift.”
Peach is Aurora’s dance partner. His name is really Pedro, but everyone calls him Peach because he’s that sweet. He’s even sweeter than Shane, but my sister says she can’t date him either because he doesn’t date girls, even though he spends all his time with the most beautiful girls in the world. Kind of like JP, actually. JP’s got tons of girlfriends, but he doesn’t have a girlfriend and I don’t think he ever has. Huh. I just noticed that. But that’s not important right now.
“Everyone knows you weren’t dancing tonight,” I whisper back frantically. “You can’t blame Peach.”
We hear someone coming down the stairs and stop talking.
“Do you have any idea what time it is?” Nora says from the bottom of the steps. She folds her arms across her skinny chest and gives Aurora a scolding look. “You can’t keep Annie up this late. She’ll get sick.”
“Be quiet, Nora,” Aurora hisses. She rushes forward to drag Nora and me away from the bottom of the steps so our parents don’t hear.
My mom can hear an ant fart, especially at night, when her super-hearing is extra looking for any kind of funny business. If you even get up to pee in the middle of the night and put a foot down too hard, you can bet two seconds later Mom’s gonna blind you with her flashlight while you’re sitting on the toilet. There’s nothing worse than having the pee scared back inside you by Mom shining a light in your eyes while you’ve got your underpants down. She’s probably startled five or six years off the end of my life as it is, and I’m the quietest when I get up to pee. Considering it’s three of us all talking at the bottom of the stairs, I can’t believe Mom isn’t down here already, actually.
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