The Year of the Beasts (8 page)

One night in their shared bathroom, Tessa caught Lulu rubbing cream on her chin.

“What’s wrong with your face?” Tessa said.

Lulu nearly burst into tears.

“Is it awful? Do I look awful?” Lulu cried.

“Yes,” Tessa said. And that made her feel a little bit better.

“It’s just that Charlie is like, a
man
!” Lulu said. “He has the beginnings of a mustache and beard and I can feel it sometimes when he’s forgotten to shave. It’s so stubbly!”

“That’s gross,” Tessa said. She looked at her own face in the mirror as she washed it with soap and put her hair band in to keep her curls and their oil off her forehead while she slept. She had no rawness despite having kissed Jasper for an hour that day. Jasper was made up of soft. Soft skin. Soft eyes. Soft lips. Soft mustache.

“It’s a prickly little thing, and it makes my mouth and chin raw when we kiss,” Lulu said.

Tessa noticed that her sister’s lips were shiny with too much Chapstick.

“Tell him to shave,” Tessa said.

Lulu threw her hands up in the air.

“I do! And he always promises that he will! But then he forgets, because he doesn’t really have that much hair. It’s just so pointy! Even after three days he looks clean shaven, but I know he’s not because then this happens!”

Tessa felt sorry for her sister and for a moment she softened. She turned to Lulu and listened. Lulu blabbered on. Confiding in Tessa; sharing. It was almost like old times. Except that Tessa didn’t say anything back that was helpful or comforting. She was as unyielding as a stone wall.

And it was strange, because they had always shared—always. It was only since the carnival that things had started to change. Sometimes Tessa even wanted to share. Who better to share secrets with than your sister?

It pinched Tessa deep down that she was hurting Lulu. But it couldn’t be helped.

*   *   *

One day, after almost enough kisses from Jasper in the woods, Tessa could tell that Lulu knew that something was up. She came around the house and found Lulu and Celina on the front porch sitting on the porch swing. They looked upset.

“Where were you?” Lulu asked.

“Nowhere,” Tessa responded. She handed them the melted ice cream.

Lulu put her hands on her hips and pursed her lips in an I-know-better way.

“What?” Tessa challenged.

Then Lulu stood up and plucked a pine needle caught in Tessa’s hair. Presented it as evidence.

“I went down to the river,” Tessa said. “I went walking in the woods on the way back. It’s none of your business.”

“We’ve been waiting for
forever
,” Celina said.

“I hardly thought you noticed,” Tessa said.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Celina asked.

Tessa slid a look over at Lulu, and without words, Celina softened. She knew, the way that a good friend clues in, sometimes late, but eventually, that she had been paying too much attention to Lulu.

“We’re late,” Lulu said. “Now the stores will be closed.”

Tessa didn’t care about the stores.

“We can go tomorrow, Lulu.” Celina said.

Lulu was still fingering the pine needle, looking at it with eyes that remembered the stories they used to tell each other about those woods.

Tessa knew that her sister would ask no more questions about it, even if Celina did. After all, didn’t Lulu like to walk by herself in those very woods? Didn’t she like to imagine that she was the only girl alive on the whole planet? Didn’t she, on occasion, sit with her back to a tree and read a book, or do some other thing, like dream, or think. It was quiet in the woods. And day-to-day life was always so noisy: their parents asking all kinds of questions, teachers making demands that facts and numbers be remembered, and friends and social obligations that required immediate attention through IMs, texts, emails, and phone calls. Sometimes, a walk in the woods was the only way to escape.

It was the quiet.

It took Lulu a couple of more days to muster up the courage to do it. But it was as though the fact that Tessa was keeping things from her had made her see things differently. One night, after a day of the silent treatment from Tessa, she took a deep breath and said it aloud.

“I’m sorry,” Lulu said. Putting her hand across the dinner table and squeezing her sister’s hand. “I’m so sorry for everything.”

Immediately Tessa felt lighter. Like the sorriness inside of her had changed its state from a heavy element to a light one. She was not experienced at accepting apologies and was afraid that she would do it clumsily.

“You should be,” Tessa said. As soon as the words came out of her mouth, she knew for sure that she had accepted it wrong.

Lulu left the room and slammed the door.

The apology hadn’t changed anything.

chapter

ten

chapter

eleven

Right after Lulu kissed
Charlie at the carnival, it was discovered that her feet had grown two sizes. Lulu’s mother took them shopping and Lulu got four new pairs of shoes—all of them beautiful. Tessa begged for a new pair, too. But their mother pointed out that now that Tessa had all of Lulu’s shoes as well as her own, she had many more shoes than her sister. Tessa would have to settle for the hand-me-downs. Lulu brought all her old shoes and dumped them into Tessa’s closet.

Even though they were a little over a year apart, Tessa and Lulu always had been almost the same size. Sometimes one of them had a little spurt and then the other caught up. And then it was the younger sister’s turn to grow. But one thing that had always remained the same size was their feet. In the past, they had always been able to share shoes.

“Here,” Lulu said. “I don’t need these anymore.”

This was the beginning of the end. Lulu’s feet were bigger than Tessa’s, and somehow, in Lulu’s size, the shoes were always cuter.

When Lulu grew another two inches, it became clear that Lulu had sprouted and Tessa had leveled off. Lulu gave her older sister all of her cast-off sweaters, skirts, and dresses. Tessa was a smoldering coal ready to light up at any moment. It was confusing to look up at her younger sister. It made her angry sometimes.

Their mother would tell them to go shopping.

“Girls, why don’t I drop you off at the mall today and get Lulu some new things?” she’d said. When they got there she’d give Lulu some cash and tell her to spend it wisely.

Tessa would put out her hand for her cash, and her mother would look at her as though she should know better.

“I need new things, too.”

“Tessa, we’re not made of money,” their mother said. “You’ll have to make do with what you have. Besides, you’ll have all of Lulu’s old clothes.”

At the mall, Lulu would skip from store to store, trying on everything aided by Celina, who acted as stylist, pulling things that made her look chic.

“You’re going to be the best dressed freshman this year,” Celina said. “Everyone is going to want to be your friend.”