Refund (22 page)

“What?” she asked, excited.

I wiped her on the carpet and inspected: nothing.

“What?” asked Betsy. She was three years from becoming pretty. She put her bad hand in my lap.

“Please,” she said to me.

I
T HAPPENED BY THE SNACK STAND
. B
ETSY WAS PLUCKING STRAWS
out of the container while I held our drinks. A row of boys leaned against a wall that said in loopy, black writing,
NO FAT CHICKS
.

Betsy was struggling with the straw container. One of the boys, with a cute cotton candy pouf of brown hair, walked right up to her. He slapped a hand on the metal container. A few straws rumbled down. He plucked them out, very gently; then he held them out to Betsy as though they were a bouquet.

Betsy looked at the straws and, slowly, at the boy. He was just standing there, being a boy, but that was too much for me. I stared down at the sand. Betsy took the straw from him. And then she ran to me.

“What!”

“He said his name was Barry and he hung out at Station 5,” she said.

“Oh my God,” I said.

We ran across the sand, the ice in our drinks jingling.

“What does that mean?”

“He likes you,” I said.

She shrieked. “Do you think he's cute?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Oh,” she said. She stabbed her straw into her drink top. The boy was still there, watching. It took too long for him to disappear.

B
ETSY AND
I
BOTH CRAWLED INTO MY BED AT NIGHT
. S
HE LIKED TO
run her bad hand along my arms. Starting at my wrist, she slid it up to my elbow; then she stopped and slid back down again. We wrapped our legs around each other, Betsy smoothing me over and over, and often fell asleep like that, my mouth wet against her hair.

Sometimes, when we held each other, she would try to figure things out. “Daddy chopped them off when I was born,” she whispered. “He came into the hospital and chopped them off with a knife.” Or, “Mommy shoved them back in when I was a baby. Probably when I was crying too hard.” Her imaginary good hand was destroyed by can openers or car washes; it was savaged by parents or music teachers; but it was never ruined by me. I waited for her to say it—“You, Sally, slammed it in a car door”—but, instead, she just looked at me, waiting for my answer.

“That is totally whacked,” was what I usually told her.

“Really?” she asked me. “You think so, Sally?”

A
FTER
B
ETSY HAD BEEN PICKED AT THE SNACK STAND
, I
DECIDED
there had to be a change in our boy-watching. “The one who could be Jake looks too much like Donny Osmond,” I said. “The one who could be Hugh has weird lips.” Now all I could see were the mistakes in the boys. Pat's tubby stomach. Brian's spindly legs.

Betsy seemed loosened from her body, able to fly out and away whenever the chance came. “The one who might be Fred is a total hunkola,” she said. “The one who could be Jeff has cool hair.”

I told her she was blind. Or just sick. I was the older sister. I knew these things. She shrugged. Since the day of the boy by the
snack stand, she was spending a lot of time looking in mirrors. I think she was wondering why she had been picked.

The day she went down, we were debating the one who could be Earl. “The most disgusting thing on the planet,” I said. “I mean, if I were born looking like that, I wouldn't ever leave the house . . .”

“Oh, come on. He's not
that
bad,” she said.

“Not
that
bad,” I said. “Are you crazy? Are you in love with him?”

Betsy stood up.

“Bye,” she said.

She turned and sailed down to the ditch. I leaned over the edge of the hill, as though I could reel her back, but she was already there, she was already walking. The boys saw her, and a few comments came, like the first zippy pieces of popcorn that explode inside a pan:

“Hey.”

“You have a name?”

“Nice day, sweetie?”

“Wanna come hold it for me?”

“Bitch,” I said, quietly, into the sand. She stopped. I hoped she'd run then, make a break for the parking lot, but she didn't; she was brave. She zeroed in on one boy who had finished and was standing away from the others. He was thin-armed, freckled, pressing a boogie board close to his chest. Betsy walked right over and stood beside him. She kept the tube top wrapped right around her bad hand. You couldn't see it, couldn't see that there was anything different about her. She was just a really pretty girl who was trying to make this boy like her. The boy kept his eyes on the sand, and she kept talking. Then she leaned forward and touched his arm with her bad hand.

I thought he'd know it in a second, feel the bump through her tube top and run. I thought that would teach her, and all those boys
would come running to me. But she had him. My sister made him like her. The boy toed the sand, smiling. And even though he wasn't a very cute boy, even though he was probably named something like Earl, I had never wanted so much to be her.

I flopped onto my back and closed my eyes so she wouldn't know that I had been watching. When I opened them, she was there.

“You know what?” she said.

“What.”

“I think he liked it.”

“What?”

And she held up her bad hand.

“
That?
”

Betsy smiled.

“I think he did,” she said.

T
HAT NIGHT, WHEN OUR FATHER FELL ASLEEP IN FRONT OF THE
TV, we slipped in low, flat, to sit beside him. Once we made it, once we were finally beside our father, I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. Betsy sat, staring into the bright white of the TV; then she unwrapped her tube top and took out her bad hand. It glowed in the light of the TV set. I thought it looked as though it entered the world more purely, simply, than a complete hand would. Betsy pulled my father's feet onto her lap; then she began to rub her bad hand back and forth along them. “Idiot,” I hissed. “What are you doing?” I thought this was it. She was going to be Queen of the Hill; now she would cure our father in some sick mutant way.

“Fine. Fine,” I hissed. “Wake him up. Just kill him, while you're at it.” But nothing happened. Betsy stopped.

“Bitch,” she whispered. “I'm not doing anything.” Neither of us moved from our father. We looked at him for a long time.

A
S SOON AS WE GOT TO THE HILL THE NEXT DAY, SHE ANNOUNCED
, “I'm going to kiss a boy for an hour, and I'm going to tell him my name is Sally.”

She ran down the hill; I followed. She put me against a truck. I started to go back to my towel but stopped: I had to see what she was going to do with my name. Betsy steered clear of the boy she had picked the last time and found one I thought was cute. Clutching the boy with her good hand, she led him over to the truck. She stopped about ten feet from me, turned him around so he couldn't see me. All I could see of the boy was his pinkish back. She stepped close to him, fiddling her good hand in his hair. I stood against the truck, pretending to look at the seagulls circling. Then Betsy, my sister, reached up and kissed him.

I could almost feel it inside me when she did that; I could almost taste that boy. But I wasn't kissing him. It wasn't me. I was just there, in the shadows, trapped against a truck.

I wanted to say things.
Tramp. Slut o' the Universe. Crazed Maniac of the World. Major Bitch
. Of course, I didn't. There was nothing to do but stand quietly and watch my sister pull love out of someone else.

I
LEFT THE BEACH EARLY AND HEADED FOR
S
AV
-O
N
. I
T WAS WHERE
our family went when we needed to fix things. I went down the Cosmetics aisle and thought of my mother. I thought hard about her, trying to make her stop yelling. I went down Toilet Seats and thought of Betsy. I tried to keep her from taking over the world. I went down Lawn Chairs, and I thought of my father. I tried to make him well.

I found it by Gardening. A small bottle filled with bright blue fluid. Fern Encourager. In small print:
Bring your thirsty ferns to life
.

I did something I had never done before: I put Fern Encourager in my pocket and went for the door. I walked out past the girls ringing
the cash machines, stepping right into the parking lot. I didn't stop walking for five blocks. In front of me the sidewalk rose up, shining.

I
SHOWED IT TO HER IN THE BATHROOM THAT NIGHT
.

She rolled up her bikini top, flashing her brown nipples, her tiny breasts. Then she ducked, knocking the bottle out of my hand.

“Are you insane?” she said to me.

I watched her move into the mirror as though she were in love with it.

“I can make you sprout fingers,” I said.

“Sally, you're such a geek,” she said.

I swallowed. I stood so hard on the floor I hoped it would begin to tilt and spill Betsy, my family, somewhere.

“I can,” I told her.

I
WENT OUTSIDE AND SAT WITH MY FATHER
.

“Do you have cancer?”

He shook his head. “No.”

I felt something, full as a balloon, shrink inside of me. “Do you have heart failure?”

“No,” he said.

“Well, then, what?” I said.

He held out his arms. I stood inside them. They did not surround me the way I wanted.

“I get tired after I read these books,” he said. “I get tired after I walk one block.” His voice swelled, as though he were in an argument. He rolled over. “Forget it, Sally. Go play with your sister.”

I didn't know what to think. My father had just stopped.

My father closed his eyes. He looked like he could just sink into the lawn chair and disappear. It wouldn't take long for me to follow. I wouldn't even have to try. I tried to tell one of the boys at the beach
to come get me. The one who could be Craig, pushing open the gate and walking right to me, leaning over, knowing how to kiss.

That was the first time in ages that I sat right beside my father.

T
HAT NIGHT
I
WOKE UP, BLINKING INTO THE DARK
. I
MOVED DOWN
the long hallway to the kitchen. I stood in the doorway and scanned the utensils. The can opener wasn't sharp enough. I didn't know how to put together the Cuisinart. So I took the biggest steak knife, silver and heavy. And I put it against my left hand.

That knife was stubborn. I held it hard, stood there breathing; I thought of all the love I would possibly get. But the knife wouldn't go down. It wouldn't move.

I lifted the knife off my skin. I put it in the very last trash can in the garage. I dumped garbage over it—old TV dinners, soda bottles, banana peels—until I was sure no one would know it was there. In bed, my hands went slowly all over my body. My body, still ridiculously complete.

T
HE NEXT DAY
, I
TOLD
B
ETSY
I
WASN'T GOING WITH HER TO THE
hill anymore.

“It's boring,” I said.

She was stepping into that day's swimsuit; she stopped.

“How?”

“It just is,” I said.

Betsy slapped her arms at her sides. “Fine,” she said. “Be that way.” She whirled around. “What color do I wear?”

“I don't care.”

“Pink,” she said. “I totally need pink.” She began to hurl shirts and towels. “Fonz Wannabe looks like a fish when he kisses,” she said. “It's really gross. You have to see.”

“No,” I said.

She zoomed out of the bedroom. I listened. She was running. She was also throwing: magazines, big pillows, chairs.

“Sally,” she yelled.

She was in the kitchen.

“You stole my pink one,” she said.

“I wouldn't want it,” I said.

“Bitch,” she said. “You know you do.”

She grabbed a spatula lying on a counter. “You know you do,” she yelled, and she went for me with the spatula. I leaped on Betsy. She whacked the spatula everywhere: into my chest, under my armpit, between my legs. I hit her all over; I didn't want to miss a spot.

She shoved me off and ran to the den. I couldn't believe it; she ran inside.

“Daddy!” Betsy yelled.

She began to jump all over the den. I did, too. We bounced up and off chairs, the card table. I pretended our father wasn't sleeping. He wasn't even there.

Our father opened his eyes. “Girls, out,” he said.

Betsy hoisted herself on top of the entertainment console. On the big square TV under her feet, a contestant touched a new Buick. Betsy was the tallest thing in the room.