The Year of the Beasts (3 page)

chapter

three

The first thing Tessa
noticed when she emerged from the curiosity sideshow tent was Lulu and Charlie’s fingers curled around each other’s. Their eyes were shiny and even if they didn’t know it for sure yet themselves, it was clear to her that Charlie and Lulu were now boyfriend and girlfriend.

A black hole emerged inside of Tessa, making everything good about the evening fall inward until it disappeared.

But Lulu had a warm smile. She gave Tessa and Celina a look, and the girls excused themselves from the group of boys to go to the bathroom so that they could talk. They grabbed each other, and held hands and skipped on the way there.

Tessa couldn’t help but squeeze Lulu a little too forcefully and laugh in an unnatural way that hurt even her own ears.

Lulu laughed back. But it was so pure that it drowned out any unsavoriness among them.

“Well?” Celina said, breathlessly.

“Well…” Lulu said, turning red.

“Well,” Tessa said, trying not to sound bitter; trying to hold her face in an expression that resembled happiness for her sister’s new status.

“He kissed me. Right by the jackalope. He kissed me!” Lulu said. She touched her heart as she said it. Her face flushed. Her voice cracked.

It was her first kiss. Lulu was a late bloomer compared with her sister. Tessa knew that much. Lulu was always much more interested in books. She had a romantic idea about what a first kiss, a first beau, a first anything should be. She was such a girl that way. Tessa had made out with her first boy back in sixth grade. It was nothing special, just a boy named Keith in the corner of a dark room. He kissed her with an open mouth, blowing his cheeks out like a puffer fish. She did not particularly enjoy it, but she had done it. She’d kissed other boys at make out parties, in closets, or when the bottle pointed at her. But she’d never kissed Charlie.

Lulu sighed. It was a real sigh. The kind that makes everyone around feel giddy about life. Even Tessa’s mood brightened for a moment.

How could she not love a sister who believed in that kind of magic? Deep down Tessa knew that it was a piece of magic that they shared. Tessa, too, felt that kisses could be more than a grope in the dark or too much wetness; and if she were honest, truly honest, she would wish for Lulu only kisses that curled toes. Only magical kisses with boys like Charlie—just as she was sure that Lulu would wish that for her.

But magic like that can grow twisted and dark if it doesn’t come to the light. Tessa had so many kisses that meant nothing, it made her think that maybe magic didn’t exist. Meanwhile, Lulu had one kiss that bubbled all the light up to the surface.

“Was it good?” Celina asked. “Did you like it?”

Lulu nodded emphatically. Yes. Yes. Yes. It was good. Celina grabbed Lulu’s hand and turned her back on Tessa.

“I made out with Tony,” Celina said. “But it was nothing. It was just something to do.”

Celina was like that. She liked to make out with boys by the dozen and it meant nothing. She didn’t believe that the quality of kisses mattered, just the number of them. She was leaning over the sink, dangerously close to a puddle of water, unsmudging her blue eyeliner.

Tessa felt that quality might be more meaningful than quantity, but quantity might get a girl a reputation. Tessa and Celina had long ago decided that it was unclear whether a reputation was a good or a bad thing to have. They thought that perhaps even a bad reputation might be a good thing to have.

A reputation got you noticed.

Charlie had a reputation for being a good boy.

Jasper had a reputation for being a weirdo.

And everyone knew who they were.

For a long time no one noticed Tessa and Celina. And they had wanted that to change.

Celina and Lulu each had a reputation now.

Tessa felt the change in the air. Saw it in all of their bodies. Tessa watched as Celina and Lulu stepped closer to each other, as though kissing in the curiosity sideshow tent with a boy had somehow united them.

“How about you, Tessa?” Celina asked. “Did you make out?”

“No,” Tessa said. “I was alone.”

“You didn’t go in with anyone?” Celina asked.

“No.” Tessa examined the pattern on the sink counter.

It was easier to lie, otherwise it was complicated.

If she said that she had been in the tent with Jasper, there would be questions. And she wasn’t sure that she could explain that Jasper had whispered witty things about each weird object they saw in the tent and that she had bitten the insides of her cheeks so he wouldn’t know that she had wanted to laugh. That she almost didn’t mind when he caught her by the elbow when she tripped on an extension cord. That being with him in that tent had a different feeling than what she felt when she hung out with her friends. If Tessa said those things out loud, they might not be understood.

Besides, there was a bigger truth. She wasn’t in there with Charlie, and he was the only person she had wanted to be with. So in truth, no one else counted. Her mood, almost changed, reverted back to bittersweet.

Tessa wondered what kind of sister she would be if she weren’t truly happy for Lulu. Would she be a mean sister, like those in fairy-tale books they both loved? When she spoke would only toads and bugs fly out of her mouth? Would she be condemned to be the true ugly one? Would her road always be dark and barren? Would her soul grow more and more twisted?

Lulu sighed again and then reached into her purse for some lip gloss. She made a big show of applying it, as though the kissing had made it necessary for her to be extra glossy.

Inside herself, Tessa reached for the light left behind by the sigh. But it slipped away into the growing, gnawing hole inside of her. But then a moment later, Lulu shifted, and the twosome became a threesome again. Tessa didn’t have to worry. They would never leave her out.

“Oh,” Lulu said. “You should have come with us.”

Lulu said it sincerely. As if she wouldn’t have minded trading in the kisses with Charlie for Tessa not having to be alone in the curiosity sideshow tent. She stuck her hand out and squeezed her sister’s hand sympathetically.

“But then you wouldn’t have been alone with Charlie,” Tessa said. “And then you wouldn’t have made out. And then you wouldn’t have a summer boyfriend.”

“Let’s not keep your boyfriend waiting!” Celina said.

“Right,” Lulu said. And then blushed again. And then sighed. And then gazed dreamily at the door. Until they all ran out the door and headed back to the boys.

Despite her resolve to be happy for her sister, Tessa couldn’t help but think that it was supposed to be her sharing Charlie’s Slurpee, her holding his hand, her wearing his varsity jacket when the night got chillier. Tessa watched Charlie and Lulu whispering to each other and stealing kisses while in line for all the rides.

After all, hadn’t Charlie talked to
her
at school? Hadn’t he stolen glances at
her
during lunch? Didn’t he sometimes say nice things to
her
, like, “I like your sweater,” or “Nice answer in Ms. Durbin’s class,” or “Hey, do you want potato chips?” And didn’t those things mean something? Tessa could string a thousand tiny moments together and weave a story in which Charlie liked
her
.

But she could not deny the way that Charlie leaned in toward Lulu. Shared his cotton candy with her. Held her purse for her. Pushed the long hair off of her face.

Celina spent the night bouncing from Dylan to Tony, and they were all happy about it. Tessa watched as each of them tried to one-up the other in order to win Celina’s undivided attention. Celina didn’t want lose any morsel of it and she strung them along, convincing each that they would be hers exclusively.

Lionel was too smart to get caught up in that game, so he had turned to Tessa. Lionel did all the nice things that a good boy would do, he bought her tickets to all the rides, he held her bag when she took her turn at playing the water pistol game, he won her a plush space monkey, but to no avail. Tessa ignored Lionel’s attempts at sweetness, and he eventually gave up and trailed along behind the group, occupying himself with something on his phone.