Pieces of My Sister's Life (15 page)

15

W
INTERS ON THE ISLAND,
the wind never stops. It’s a wet wind, a biting wind that eats through clothes and sheets your eyeballs with ice. “The graying gusts,” Daddy used to call them because of the crystals the wind feathered through his beard and eyebrows, or maybe because everything in winter—the sky, the grass, the ocean, even the people—looked like they’d been washed too many times in chlorine bleach.

I sat on the shore, watching that gray water, the flurries that danced like dust motes shaken from the dirty clouds. Eve was out again. She’d been out past midnight three times that week and usually came back barely able to walk straight, her eyes glinting with something scary and adult. Seeing how things typically were with Eve, I knew she’d soon get tired of Brad Carrera or he of her, and life would go back to normal again. But I also knew this all must have something to do with me and Justin, so I felt guilty, and angry about the guilt, and guilty about the anger, one on top of the other.

I wrapped my scarf higher on my nose, remembering another beach; was it Delaware? It was one of the few memories I had of my mother, on a lounge chair, feet trailing in the water, her hair a dark cascade down her tanned back.

Eve and I were collecting shells and smooth stones into a paper sack. We ran barefoot along the shore dodging cold September waves, while Daddy lay slumped on his towel, his arm thrown over his eyes. When the sun started to set we ran back to show off a closed clam that was maybe, although realistically probably not, still alive. Daddy was snoring now, in grunts that jiggled his belly. Eve elbowed me and whispered, “I got an idea.”

Quietly, stifling our giggles, we’d arranged our stones in a circle around him. Eve grinned at me and crept to set a crab shell in a cap on Daddy’s head, then scampered back to me with a whoop of glee. We held each other, doubled over, cheeks aching with the laughter, filled with the lightness of summer, of laughter and of each other. In that one moment I was certain we’d always be like this, the four of us. I felt like we would never get older, like things would never change.

“Momma, look!” I’d called, my voice a screech of hilarity as I ran to her and wrapped my arms around her neck.

My mother took a long time turning, and when she finally did she only squared her jaw. She brushed my arms away. “He’s drunk,” she said.

Now I watched as the clouds faded to gray emptiness. A seagull strutted after a small black crab, the kind that’s more legs than anything else. He poked at it, jabbed it with his beak, dropping and lifting and spitting out shell, so much work for a tiny bit of meat. When he lifted his head there was blood on his beak. I threw a rock and watched the bird flutter back over the shoreline. I stuck out my tongue at him, then picked up my bike and started home.

As I walked along the harbor I saw lights on in Samuel Peckham’s Tavern. There were voices, raucous laughter, the whining cry of a saxophone, and I suddenly realized why. It was Groundhog Day. Daddy had come to the tavern every year for the Groundhog Day census, a virtually meaningless activity done more for the sense of tradition than to get any kind of serviceable count of population. When you’re stone drunk you more or less forget any numbers after fifty.

Brad would be there, I knew that. Which meant Eve would be, too. I stood by the door, blowing on my hands for warmth, watching men with their beers making phone calls and keeping tally. They’d call out names from memory and phone the inns where off-islanders came in the dead of winter only to be counted and then leave, like being one out of the eight hundred gave them some claim.

It was dim inside, the smoke so thick the room looked out of focus. And yes, Eve was there, drifting around the bar. As I watched she sat with Brad and then, getting no attention, she stole his beer and drifted to stand by someone else.

“Whadda you guys think?” Congressman Maclean said as Eve swung onto a stool beside him. “We count the twins as two or one?”

She smiled and slipped an arm over his shoulder. “This from the politician who comes for summers, for census and Election Day. I’d say they don’t count you at all.”

“Guess you’re definitely a person unto yourself,” the congressman said, grinning.

Across the room Brad grabbed Missy, the waitress, around the waist. “A true original,” he called.

Eve glanced at him, her face pink. “Enough for two men,” she said, then took a swig of beer. She looked like she fit in perfectly here, flirting with these men Daddy’s age. In the dusky light she looked like someone I didn’t know at all. Someone I’d be in awe of, afraid of, someone I’d watch secretly, trying to learn what it was that drew everyone to her like she exuded some mysterious scent.

“Maybe you’ve had enough to drink,” the congressman said. “You twenty-one yet?”

“Close enough.”

The congressman laughed. “I’ll buy that. Anyway, I should have the power to suspend state laws at least for one night.”

Bill Greer, a man with badly chapped lips and skin the color and texture of Daddy’s fake-leather wallet, smirked and slid another beer across the table. “She’s got a body that’s at least twenty-one. Drink on, sweetheart, and if you need a ride home you let me know.”

Eve wrinkled her nose at him. “If it keeps you shelling out for drinks, then you dream on.”

I rested my head against the door frame, the vibration from the loud jazz music shimmering through my skull. And standing alone there in the dark, I finally understood that Eve had abandoned my world and was on her way to another. Not caring if it meant she was leaving me behind.

It was early the next morning, still dark. I sat on Eve’s bed huddled against the chill. Eve stared back, but she didn’t see me, I could tell that, her eyes as cold and blind as glass marbles. I shook her shoulder. “Hey, wake up.”

She rolled to the wall, pulled the covers up to her chin. I’d seen her like this a few times now and it was scary as hell, her deadness, this sense like she’d sunk underneath herself, flattened like a shadow or a paper doll. I brushed back her hair, the pieces that fell in her face. “School,” I whispered.

She didn’t respond. So after a minute I rose and found some clothes I thought she might wear, a black sweater, a skirt, thick wool stockings. I opened her dresser, frowning as I sifted through underwear I’d never seen before: thong panties, garters, a camisole and an underwire bra with holes cut where her nipples would be. And buried under the hooker lingerie was a bag filled with clanking bottles. Liquor bottles.

I tried to focus on where the hell she might’ve gotten the money for all of it, so I wouldn’t have to think about Eve in porn clothes. But then the question got kind of scary in itself, so I shoved the silky things aside, reached to the back of the drawer and chose a pair of white cotton panties. I laid everything on the bed in order as if she was a little kid. “School,” I said again.

She twisted towards me then and grasped, in one abrupt movement, for my arm. Her eyes pulled at me, hard with anger or fear. “I did it,” she said.

She’d been out past two the night before, I’d watched her stumble in. Had something happened? My skin felt numb, like a celluloid Halloween mask. “Did what?”

“He’s amazing, don’t you think? And he loves me, I really think he does.”

I pushed her bangs away from her eyes. “What’s going on with you?”

“He does.” She let go of my arm and stared down at her hand like it belonged to someone else. She smiled at it, then closed it in a fist. “He does,” she said again.

“I told Brad it has to be somewhere warm,” Eve said. “This snow’s getting on my nerves. And no more hick towns either. Maybe Key West or New Orleans, somewhere there’s always something happening, you just step out your front door and join the party.”

I didn’t speak, just mirrored my step to hers, crunching against the gray snow banked at the side of the road. She seemed to have recovered from that morning and I didn’t want to ruin it. We were on our way to the Caines’ shop, a stopover on Eve’s way to the police station so she could “fix herself up.” Apparently Brad was doing desk duty that afternoon. Last week Eve had told me how they’d made out on his desk, and I’d squealed because I knew she wanted me to.

“So he says whatever, long as it’s with you. How romantic is that? It’d be sappy if somebody else said it, but with Brad it was romantic.”

We used to talk about our future before Daddy died. We said we might travel, live a few years off-island just for variety, but then we’d come back and be neighbors. I should’ve realized that had changed.

“I told him he could make lots more money in the city, plus I said it’d be a hell of a lot more exciting being someplace where there’s more for him to do than slapping kids’ fingers for shoplifting. He’s really wasting his talents, Ker, he could do anything if he just made himself get off his ass.” Eve’s hair had grown too long over the past few weeks, scraggly, always falling in her eyes. But she never bothered to pull it back or mentioned wanting to get it cut again.

“I was thinking politics,” she said, “like mayor or governor. Hell, maybe president. Look at Ryan Maclean, Kerry, what’s so great about him that he got into Congress? What makes him any better?” She shrugged. “I was at Samuel Peckham’s last night and I was sitting with him. I think it’s good for Brad to see he’s not indispensable. So I’m sitting with the congressman, talking to him all friendly like. And get this, when I get up to leave he gives me this smile and pats my butt.”

“Congressman Maclean patted your butt?” Somehow this depressed me.

“So here I am married to the president, and I could be a performance artist maybe, or lead tours through the Smithsonian, something trendy. And then Brad comes home and tells me about his day and picks out what dress I should wear to somebody’s coronation ball.”

I stopped at the entrance to the shop and stood there looking up at the faded paint. “I’d rather stay here,” I said.

“Then you’ll be stuck groveling to the Caines for shit-ass jobs.”

“Least it’s a little more realistic than thinking you’ll be invited to a coronation.” I strode past her into the oil scent of the shop. Justin was working on a moped, tightening something with a wrench so huge it probably could’ve screwed the roof off a house. Eve nudged me and spoke in a loud whisper. “Lookit those muscles.”

Justin’s face flushed as he turned to us. “Didn’t know you guys were coming in today.”

“I’m actually here to drop off Kerry and make myself presentable.” Eve reached into her purse and pulled out her compact and lipstick, opened the mirror and smoothed deep crimson onto her lips.

I bent to Justin for a kiss, but he scurried backwards on his knees. “You better not,” he said. “I’m filthy.”

“Like I care.” I pressed against him, buried my face in his hair. It was kind of cool holding him like this, like he was smaller than me, something I could protect.

“Much better,” Eve said.

We both turned.

Eve had taken off her coat and sweater to reveal a black halter underneath. As she spoke she peeled off her stockings. “Kerry dressed me like a nun this morning.”

Beside me Justin froze. His grip tightened on my arm. I glanced at him, then shifted to stand between them.

But Justin pulled away. And all of a sudden I could feel it, this wordless shadow that passed between them from Eve’s narrowed eyes to the blanching of Justin’s face. “It’s twenty degrees out,” he said.

“You worry too much.” Eve pulled on her coat and nodded at me. “He worries too much. You gotta teach him to have more fun.” With that she turned and sauntered out the door.

Justin watched after her, his eyes all hooded and unreadable. I looked down at the stockings she’d left on the floor, then reached again for him, kissed his cheek and then his neck, my lips working against the oil scent of him, working to pull him back.

He sighed and held me close, hands pressed at my back. His erection pressing against me felt like knuckles digging deep under my skin. But it was mine.

16

J
USTIN STOOD THERE NAKED,
pink and raw looking, like the skin under a scab. He was ogling me and pulling at his penis. It was getting longer and thinner, like Silly Putty, and he grinned and held it towards me and started twirling it like a jumprope. “It’s fun!” he said. I startled and sat up, sucking in my breath, then rubbed my hands against my eyes. Sometimes, I thought, it was better when the symbolism in dreams was more symbolic.

And then I noticed the light was on. I pulled my hands from my eyes and saw Eve huddled on the end of my bed. “Eve?”

She looked up at me, eyes black with smeared mascara. I crawled from my sheets to sit beside her. “God, Eve, what happened? You okay?”

“Sick fucking bastard.”

I flinched and she covered her face and spoke into her hands. “He said he loved me, you believe that? And I actually thought that meant something. But tonight?”

I brushed back her hair, smoothed it behind her ear.

“Tonight he says, you know what I always wondered about? He goes, ever since I first saw the two of you last summer rubbing oil on each other’s back, I’ve been thinking about it and thinking about it, can’t get it out of my head.”

I pulled away, beginning to realize what was coming. The Barbie Twins. Eve wiped her hands in black mascara streaks across her face. “He goes, you know how you guys share a room together and all, how you see each other…” She took a long, shuddering breath. “See each other naked? Well I always pictured the two of you together, he says, with maybe me in between to give you a little of what all girls want.”

“Oh God…”

“What all girls want! That’s what it was about, Kerry, from the beginning. Not about me. If you showed any interest, he would’ve been just as happy so he could watch you, and touch you, and make love to you and imagine I was there, too.”

I stared at her. “Make love to you?”

She eyed me, then slowly nodded and gave a slim smile. “Guess ‘make love’ is the wrong way to put it. I’d say we fucked.”

My heart plunged to my stomach. “Oh God, you didn’t.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, tears sheening on her cheeks. “I knew the whole time there was something sick about it, I really did. The words he used, oh lick me baby, so horny for me, can’t-hold-back-you-gotta-suck-me. But I thought, I thought—” She pulled off her spiked heel and threw it against the wall, where it left a spiked-heel dent. “God, so stupid!”

I wanted to be able to say the right thing, but I was still shaking and all I could remember was my eighth-grade Sex Ed and Daddy’s halting talk.
There will come a time when you meet a very special man…
“Were you careful?”

Eve snorted. “Careful? Brad didn’t like being careful. Could you imagine if I got pregnant? He’d say, Eve baby, I’m real sorry but pregnancy just doesn’t turn me on. But hey, though, your sister free?”

I stared down at the bed. She wasn’t a virgin, she wasn’t a virgin. She’d seduced a man into her bed. She knew how it felt to have him inside her. She was a woman and I’d been left behind, and she hadn’t even told me when it happened. I smoothed my hand helplessly over her leg. “It’ll be okay,” I said.
She’s seen sperm,
I thought.

“Yeah, after I bite off his prick.” She was silent a minute, then she grasped my hand and looked up at me with swollen eyes. “Could I lie here with you? Just for a little while?”

“Sure,” I said.

She laid her head on my pillow and I pulled the covers over us both. She’d left Brad, which was all I’d wanted. And I tried to believe this meant I could pull her back, that we could lie here in my bed like when we were little, and I could watch her fall asleep then close my eyes and try to enter her dreams. I needed to know that things could be the same again. But when I closed my eyes, all I could see was Eve’s naked body, legs wrapped around Officer Carrera in his blue-gray uniform.

The next day, Eve and I walked home from school together, something we hadn’t done for weeks. The air was cold, but carried a hint of lemon, like it was trying to make it known that spring still planned on coming. Eve pretty much seemed to have forgotten last night. Her stride was strong and she bent to scratch the head of one of Miss Cora’s swarming cats. The cat stared up at her, swishing her tail around and between Eve’s ankles as if recognizing some kind of shared sensuality.

“I was thinking,” I said, “want to hang out tonight? Just us?” I imagined us on one bed in our pajamas with flashlights. We’d talk about makeup and movie stars and who liked who, our conversation slow and fluid, as easy as thought.

“Sounds great,” Eve said. “I would, but I have plans.”

“Plans?” I stopped walking, feeling like I’d been slapped. She wasn’t supposed to have any more plans.

“Hey, want to come with me? I’m going out for a few drinks. You could meet the guys.”

“The guys?” I frowned. There weren’t supposed to be any more guys. “Could I bring Justin?”

Eve glanced at me, her smile crooked. “You know what they call Justin? White-collar wannabe. They say he washes the dirt out from his nails every night so he can pretend he’s somebody else.”

I felt a flush of anger. I couldn’t look at her, so I brushed by her and strode down the street. She grabbed my arm. “Hey, look, I wasn’t agreeing with them, I just thought it would be nice for a change to spend time without Justin around.”

Wasn’t that what I’d wanted, time together? And if I wasn’t sure yet how to pull her back to being herself, maybe understanding wherever she’d gone would help me to do that, like pulling a weed out by the roots.

We turned up Water Street, and as we started down the block I saw a flash of light. I swiveled my head and saw LoraLee sitting on the ground behind a dumpster. She had a large black box camera in her hands, and she seemed to be hiding. “LoraLee?” I said.

She stared at me wide-eyed, then rose, held up her hand in a quick wave and turned away from us into an alley. “LoraLee!” I said again.

Eve frowned. “Well, that was rude.”

“It was weird,” I said, watching her disappear around a corner. “Was she taking our picture?”

Eve shrugged. “She
is
a little weird. I could tell you other things I’ve seen her doing too.”

“Like what?”

“Nothing you need to worry about. You’ll find out eventually. So are you coming with me tonight or not?”

I squared my shoulders. “Okay,” I said. “Okay, sure.”

“I saw the hottest little outfit you could wear, black leather skirt and this red bodysuit. I almost bought it for myself.”

“Black leather? That’s not exactly my thing, Eve.”

“But maybe it should be.” She took my hand and squeezed. “C’mon, Ker, you can’t wear lace collars and muumuus all your life. Let’s see a little spirit.”

“What exactly is so spiritual about leather?” I said, but I followed her down to Water Street and stood outside Eisner’s, staring in at a faceless, hipless mannequin wearing a skirt that stopped mid-thigh. I tilted my head to see if it was wearing mannequin undies, then saw the price tag.

“A hundred fifty dollars?” I said, my chest bubbling with insane-feeling laughter. “That’s like fifty dollars a square inch.”

Eve stood in silence watching me, then raked her fingers through her hair. “Look, forget it, you don’t have to come. You wouldn’t like it at the bar anyway. The things they talk about have nothing to do with you, like how when they were kids they were sure they’d play pro football, like the girlfriend that got away. When I’m there with them, it’s like I can make them remember what they used to dream. But you, you just wouldn’t get it.”

“I have dreams,” I said, “just I’m a little more realistic.”

“That’s the point of dreams though, Kerry, you reach for things that’re just beyond you. And then once you get them, half the fun’s gone out of it and you have to reach for something even bigger.”

A foghorn pierced the air, the five o’clock ferry pulling from the harbor. I looked up at the skirt in the window and imagined how it would feel hugging my hips. “I can’t, Eve. We’re already late paying rent.”

Eve nodded slowly, then tapped her knuckles against the small of my back. “Let’s try it on.”

Mrs. Laurence sat on a high stool behind the cash register, reading a book with a black cover. Her short dark hair fell in strands like claws against her face; the neckline of her black blouse spiked low between her flat breasts. “Girls,” she said, barely lifting her head.

“Just browsing,” Eve said, lifting random blouses from the racks. She made her way to the window and selected a bodysuit and the skirt.

Mrs. Laurence used a finger to mark her place. “Can I help you girls find something?”

“These purses are totally beautiful,” Eve said, nodding at one with blue alligator skin and a huge brassy buckle. “We’ll just try these few things.”

In the dressing room Eve nodded at me. “Go on,” she said.

I pulled off my jeans and struggled into the bodysuit, then the skirt. I frowned at the mirror. With my bangs ruffled, hanging in my eyes, I looked like I was about six years old, like one of those baby pageant stars. “Yick.”

“Man, look at you,” Eve said. “You got attitude. Who woulda guessed.” I began to strip off the skirt, but she grabbed my hand to stop me. “Look, I got a better idea. Let’s skip the bar. Those guys, they’re Brad’s friends anyway, type of guys who have pissing contests.”

I made a face. Eve nodded at my reflection in the mirror. “But why don’t you wear this for Justin instead? We’ll take him out to a movie, think how he’d go for it. God, Kerry, look what it does for your boobs. Look at your butt, you’re like every guy’s wet dream.”

Heat rushed to my face as I studied my reflection, the shimmer of leather at my hips. My butt did look good. “He’d hate it.”

Eve rolled her eyes. “Look, Ker, he’s not gonna hold out forever. If I can teach you one thing, it’s that a man’s brains are centered in his pants, and unless you make that part of him happy, eventually he’ll look for somebody who can. This is just a little teaser, keep him interested.”

“I don’t need sex to be interesting.”

“So that’s all you want? To be interesting? You need sex to keep him passionate.”

I ran my hands over the skirt, then pulled my hair over one shoulder.

Eve nodded. “It’s perfect. Now try this on over top.” She pulled off her own cotton skirt and stockings.

I stared at the clothes a minute, then slowly stepped into her skirt. I’d known all along this was what she’d been planning. Of course I’d known. It was like a test.

Eve pulled on my jeans and sweater and I tucked in her blouse. “She’ll notice,” I whispered.

Eve shook her head. “Someone asks her an hour from now who was in her shop, she won’t even remember we were here.”

I tucked my hair behind my ears and tried to smile, but I suddenly felt like crying.

Eve gathered the extra clothes and pulled back the dressing curtain. From the corner Mrs. Laurence eyed us and Eve shook her head. “Nothing really fit, but we’ll put these back for you.”

Mrs. Laurence gave a tight smile, the kind where you just knew her teeth must be gritted behind it. But I helped Eve hang the clothes and then walked to the door, the leather slithering its slinky foreign hands around my hips.

Eve and I stood on line for popcorn, homemade and buttery in large lunch bags. We’d walked to the theater, and I was shivering from the cold air seeping through my thin top. My toes, in Eve’s high heels, were killing me.

The Empire Theater was too tiny for the gathered crowd. From the street the Empire had a kind of romantic charm about it, but inside you could tell the cleaning staff was not the greatest. There was dust on the faded maroon curtain, a sticky cracked tile floor, and a stench somewhere between the smell of pee and of the cheap beer they served in plastic cups.

Parents and children milled around, waiting for the inner curtain to open. In the off-season, Friday was the only movie night, and the one-screen theater was bound to be packed, even though most of us had seen the movie more than once. I saw little Sara Cooper in line behind us, staring wide-eyed, gripping the back of her mother’s knee. I wondered if she was seeing up my skirt.

I crossed my legs. “I feel pornographic.”

“You look pornographic. I can’t wait till Jussy sees this. Just think, he’s sitting next to you and you look like this. He can’t hardly keep his hands to himself, but he knows he can’t be jumping your bones at the movies. It’ll kill him.”

I rolled my eyes, feeling suddenly sexy, adult. “You’re so full of it.”

“Yeah, there’s gratitude for you.”

I grinned at her, then pecked a kiss on her cheek. “Thanks, Eve.”

She elbowed me and nodded towards the corner. “They’re checking you out.”

Two eighth-grade boys were eyeing us, their faces bright, looking just one step short of rolling out their tongues. It was gross. I wrapped my arms over my chest. “I can’t believe you made me do this.”

“You ever seen a guy pant? Lick your lips and see what happens.”

I burst into giggles. Eve waggled her hips. “The power of femininity.”

“The power of boobs!” I screeched through my giggles, so loud that several heads turned.

Including Justin’s.

He was standing at the entrance to the theater, his face slowly flushing pink. He walked towards us, frowning.

I twirled in a circle, and ended with my arms stretched at my sides. “Ta-da!” Inside, though, I was shaking.

“It’s the new Kerry Barnard,” Eve said. “Admit it. She’s hot.”

“Jesus, Eve.” He wasn’t even looking at me. “What the hell’re you doing?”

I stepped towards Eve. “Why does this have to have anything to do with Eve? I can’t dress how I want?”

He watched her for a minute, then squared his jaw. “This is about last week, isn’t it. Some kind of twisted revenge.”

The color drained from Eve’s face. She shook her head slightly.

“What do you mean last week?” I said. “What happened last week?”

His lips tightened.

“You think I even thought twice about it?” Eve said slowly. “You really think you’re hot shit, don’t you.”