“Garbage duty for me, “Michaela groans, collapsing against her shut door. “I can’t bear the indignity. Get it?”
We look at each other, then break into giggles. It’s like we’ve gone back in time — like Anders doesn’t exist and Homecoming never happened. I’m not about to question this change. I’m loving it too much.
Michaela pulls her laptop off her desk, sinks down onto her bed, and pats the space beside her. Déjà vu dizzies me for a second, and then I join her, tucking a pillow beneath my head. It feels cozy and warm, loafing together as the pale November sunlight pools on the blankets.
“Okay, Greyhound from Fir Lake to Port Authority in New York City,” Michaela says, her fingers moving over the keys. “So we’ll get there Thursday night, and come back Saturday?”
“Thursday?” I have yoga then, and would hate to skip it. “Maybe instead we could —” I pause, distracted by the small Gmail Chat box that has popped up in the corner of the screen.
Anders: Morning my beauty. U busy?
I glance at my sister. Wow. My beauty? I can’t tell if that’s romantic or gross, I’m leaning toward gross. Then again, after my smooth moves with Sullivan, I can’t call myself an expert on love.
Michaela’s face colors, quickly, she types back, A little. Call u later? In another second, Anders replies: Looking forward 2 it already.;)
Oh, please. Could he lay it on any thicker?
“Do you guys talk every day?” I ask as Michaela closes the IM box.
Michaela blinks at me. The two of us haven’t discussed Anders since the night of their first date. “Yes,” she replies, smiling softly. “Of course. He’s my boyfriend.”
I know this, obviously, but it’s like when I saw Michaela smoking at the football game — getting confirmation makes the back of my neck prickle.
“Are you guys serious?” I ask, although I’m not even sure what serious is supposed to mean. The first time I heard that term used, I pictured a guy and a girl sitting side by side, their mouths set in straight lines.
Michaela props herself up on one elbow, wriggling closer to me. “I think so,” she whispers. Is my sister about to confide in me? “I mean …” Michaela gazes at the space above my head. “What I feel for him is so much more intense than anything I’ve ever experienced. And Anders feels the same way.” It’s unsettling to hear Michaela — practical, focused, feet-on-the-ground Michaela — talk this way, her eyes all moony.
“How do you know?” I burst out. “How can you be sure he feels the same?” The dam has been broken, and my thoughts pour out. “He’s so popular and handsome and a big-time quarterback, so what if …”
“What if I’m not good enough for him?” Michaela demands, bolting upright. “Because I’m not a cheerleader or something? Is that what you’re implying, Katie?”
Good God. Why can’t the two of us get along for more than two minutes? “No …” I fumble for the right words. “What if he’s a player?”
“Katie.” Michaela’s face grows tight, and she lets out a sigh that’s less big-sister and more rampaging dragon. “You. Don’t. Understand.” She pauses, then adds in a low, meaningful tone, “Do you see why I can’t tell you anything?”
Her words sting — my sister’s becoming a pro at that — but I reach for her laptop and grumble, “Fine. Forget it. I’ll figure out the tickets.”
“Good.” Michaela stands up and reaches for the burgundy leotard on her chair. “I was going to go use the barre anyway.”
That’s a first, I think, but I focus on the Greyhound website, furiously clicking on different dates. Michaela pulls her nightgown off over her head. I haven’t seen my sister without clothes on in a long time. She doesn’t remotely have my curves, but the shape of her body is softer than it was back in the city. All that day-after-day dancing kept Michaela stick-thin and hard-edged. It’s undeniable that she looks better this way. Even her feet seem smoother, less bruised.
My sister finishes putting on her tights, leotard, and toe shoes. Then she fixes her hair into a bun, and stalks out of the room.
“Don’t rush on my account,” I say coolly, and flinch when she slams the door.
Fuming, I purchase our tickets — departing on Thursday, as Michaela suggested — and am about to close the laptop when curiosity overtakes me. Maybe it’s because I felt so close to Michaela before she rudely shut me out again. Maybe it was the sight of that little IM exchange. But suddenly I need to know. I need to know about Anders. I need to know about the things my sister claims I don’t understand. The things she won’t tell me.
I minimize the Greyhound screen, and Michaela’s Gmail page stares at me. I’m a criminal. I know I am. Or maybe I’m just a detective. I guess the line can be thin.
She’s right upstairs. She could be back at any second.
I tell myself that I’m not actually sneaking. Her Gmail account is already up there, for all the world to see. My heart racing, I let my eyes travel down the page. There are a bunch of e-mails from Heather, with subject headings like “got so wasted on saturday!” and “congrats!” These messages are definitely worth investigating, but it’s Anders’s communication with my sister that’s on my mind. However, Anders’s e-mails have benign subject headings such as “see you tomorrow, my beauty” and “pammy’s pizzeria at 6?”
I spot several e-mails between Michaela and a Ms. Tennyson, who is Fir Lake High’s college counselor. She’s probably helping Michaela plot her glorious entrance into Juilliard. Then I click on the Chats link. Almost all of Michaela’s most recent IMs are with Anders, though there are a few with Heather, Lucy, and Faith, and one or two with Sofia, back in the beginning of September. It’s like reviewing a journal of Michaela’s time in Fir Lake.
The doorknob rattles. I look up in a panic, then realize that it’s The Monstrosity doing its settling/groaning thing. Michaela is probably beginning her pliés now. My palms are so damp I can hardly feel them. Acting on instinct, I click on the Chat that took place between Michaela and Anders the day after Homecoming.
Anders: miss u already.
me: miss u 2, silly boy.
This is nauseating. I have to remind myself that the “me” refers to Michaela — not me, Katie. I always seem to develop a minor identity crisis when dealing with my sister.
Anders: am so tired.
me: u don’t even kno. cant survive on no sleep, unlike my little sis.
I raise my eyebrows. Michaela mentions me when she’s talking to Anders? I’m not sure if I should feel flattered or suspicious. After checking the door to make sure Michaela isn’t about to barge in, I go back to reading.
Anders: r u really ok w/what happened last nite?
me: yes. freaked out by how I’m not freaking out.
Anders: LOL. kno what u mean.
My stomach tightens. What happened?
me: we were ready. we knew the time was right.
me: and im glad we were safe & everything.
I bite my bottom lip. Am I reading what I think I’m reading?
Anders: same here. ur very smart, miss.
Anders: 1 of the many things i luv about u.
me: *blushing*
Anders: and i promise it’ll b better next time.
me: *blushing even more*
me: shut up it was perfect
Anders: ok now I’M blushing.
me:
Anders: i love you
me: i love you too.
I click out of the Chat, trying to breathe. Can it be? Maybe I’m misunderstanding. Maybe it’s my overactive imagination at work.
Trembling slightly, I start opening other e-mails, the ones from Heather, looking for more answers: babe, i think u left ur copy of Sense and Sensibility @ my house, one reads. Should i bring to school tomorrow XOXO, Heather. Nothing too outrageous there. Then I click on the e-mail dated the day after Homecoming, the one with the subject line “congratulations!”
And the e-mail simply reads: … on no longer being a virgin! XOXO, Heather
I slap the laptop shut. The room tilts around me.
Okay. So now I know.
But I wish I didn’t.
“Yoga breaths, yoga breaths,” I say out loud. Michaela could easily be walking down the hall right now. I have the presence of mind to reopen her laptop and minimize her e-mail screen, covering my tracks like any decent criminal. Then I spring off the bed and start pacing back and forth, my mind reeling.
Michaela had sex. Michaela had SEX!
So Anders has seen my sister naked. I look back at her bed. Did it happen in here? No. Probably not. It must have been at Anders’s house. Does he have a big bed? Were his parents home? Does one need to do it in bed, or can it happen anywhere?
Was she scared? Does she really love him?
How could she keep this from me?
I’m furious at my sister and, at the same time, I regret that I dug so deep. Sometimes one can be too good of a detective. Because there are some things you’re better off not discovering.
I stop in front of Michaela’s desk and look at the picture of us on her corkboard. It was taken in June. We didn’t know anything then. We didn’t know we were moving. There’d been no talk of dating or sex or Homecoming Queens. No wonder our smiles were so easy and natural. No wonder my arm rested trustingly in Michaela’s lap, and our cheeks pressed close together.
That was before my sister betrayed me.
Which is how I feel now, standing alone in her room. Betrayed — like my fellow soldier has run off and left me in the trenches. Like my partner in a pas de deux has decided to bow off the stage. Like my best friend in the world has escaped to a universe that is hidden from me.
I reach out to take the photograph off the corkboard — I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it — when the bedroom door opens.
“You’re still here?”
I drop my hand and turn to regard my sister. She’s all glowy with perspiration, and she’s wearing her familiar ballet gear. This is how I often picture Michaela in my mind’s eye — the constant dancer. This is my sister in her truest form.
Yet I feel as if I’m looking at a stranger.
“I bought the tickets,” I say, my jaw stiff. I’m sure my face is ghost-pale. I’m worried that Michaela’s penetrating gaze is going to pierce through my shuddering heart. That, in her half magical Michaela way, she’s going to figure out what I did.
Michaela nods. “Thanks.” There’s a pause. “I need to change out of my toe shoes. They’re killing my feet,” she adds, bending down to unlace the thick pink ribbons around her ankles. I watch as she carefully slides one foot out. Her toes are bloodied, as always. But this time, the blood seems more significant — symbolic, somehow. My sister had sex.
“I need to be alone,” I say. I’ve never spoken those words to my sister, so it makes sense that she looks up at me with concern.
“Is it — what I said before?” she asks, her voice tremulous. So now she feels bad.
I don’t answer, only back out of the room. I can’t be near her — this stranger — right now. I can’t even be in the same house as her.
In my room, I pull my coat on over my pajamas, cram my feet into my Uggs, and hurry downstairs. I slip past my parents, who are still in the kitchen, and walk outside into the cool, windy morning. It’s flurrying — the first snowfall of the season. Light, white, butterfly flakes land on my nose. Some winters in the city, it didn’t snow until the middle of January.
I guess here, everything happens sooner than you expect it to.
I hold out my hands, catching the snow, and I remember when I first saw Emmaline, standing on her porch touching the rain. Maybe she, too, was trying to forget something that had hurt her. I glance toward Emmaline’s house now; her lights are on and her car is in the driveway. We haven’t talked since I started taking yoga, but today I have no desire to go next door and pour my heart out. Nor can I stand the thought of calling Autumn to fill her in on Fir Lake High’s hottest couple. No. Michaela’s secret — my secret now — feels too unwieldy to be let out. I will try my best to keep it safe.
As long as it doesn’t eat me up first.
“You have a secret,” Autumn announces as we’re leaving the yoga studio on Thursday. My lime-green mat that I bought last week at The Climber’s Peak is tucked under my arm, and my hair is down.
“Why do you say that?” I ask, my smile fading. For one blissful hour and a half, yoga took my mind off my troubles, as it always does. I can feel myself improving every week, getting more comfortable with the poses and the notion that I’m loving something other than dance. My mom knows I’m taking yoga, but she has no idea how much I enjoy it. I’ve been paying for classes with saved-up birthday money (Emmaline gives me a discount anyway), and even though I still go to Mabel Thorpe every week, my heart isn’t in those classes at all. In a way, it feels like a mini-betrayal of my own.
Though nothing as serious as Michaela’s.
“It’s scribbled all over your face,” Autumn replies as we pass through the ground floor of the library, nodding to the librarians behind the circulation desk. “All week, you’ve looked like you’re holding something back,” she adds, glancing at me.
Having an observant friend is both a blessing and a curse.
Autumn doesn’t realize how close I’ve come to spilling everything to her. At lunch today, my friend looked at the Senior Popular Table and whispered, “Did Michaela and Anders have an operation that got them to be attached at the mouth?” I opened my own mouth, so ready to release my secret, but I stopped myself in time.
“It’s just family stuff,” I say, not wanting to lie but not wanting to get into the gruesome details, either. And though Autumn possesses a streak of small-town nosiness, she’s polite enough not to press me.
“Speaking of family secrets …” Autumn begins, and I perk up, wondering if she’s going to reveal something about Jasper. Not that I should care about Jasper.
Unfortunately, Coach Shreve chooses that moment to pop up behind us.
“Tough class, huh, girls?” he asks, looking as if he’s having trouble walking.
I have to say that it’s delightful vengeance to be better at a physical activity than Coach Shreve is. Today, he had trouble mastering the Happy Baby pose, which is one of my favorites, and Emmaline asked me to demonstrate for him. I have a feeling that he’s going to start being kinder to me in gym class from now on.
As we walk through the library doors into the blustery evening — somehow, without warning, it’s really become winter — I turn to Coach Shreve and ask, as casually as I can, “So … what do you think of Emmaline?”
Coach Shreve looks startled. “Well … ah …” He tugs his wool hat onto his head. “She’s a very capable teacher.”
Capable teacher doesn’t really translate to I love her madly and want to have lots of Happy Babies with her, so I don’t push the topic. Coach Shreve tells me and Autumn he needs to stop by The Climber’s Peak, and quickly limps off.
“It’s a lost cause,” I sigh, resting my head on Autumn’s shoulder. “Someone who’s never had a boyfriend should probably never be a matchmaker.”
“I’m sorry things didn’t work out with Sullivan,” Autumn says, leaning her head against mine.
“It’s weird … but I’m not,” I say, surprised at how well I’ve been handling the post-Homecoming awkwardness with Sullivan. At the thought of boyfriends, however, I remember Michaela and Anders, and my stomach tightens. Don’t go there. So I ask Autumn, “What’s up with your family secret?” We’re walking past Hemming’s Goods, and we wave to Mrs. Hemming, who blows us a kiss.
Autumn grins. “The first weekend in November, my dad, Jasper, and I hike up Mount Elephant.”
What kind of secret is that? By now, I’m more than used to Jasper’s and Autumn’s outdoorsy, cow-milking ways. I shrug at my friend. “Sounds …” Torturous, I think. “Fun,” I fib.
Autumn draws a breath and says, “It is. And I want you to come with us.”
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Me? Hiking up the biggest mountain in Fir Lake? Did Autumn’s brains rattle during yoga?
“Um, isn’t it a little cold for hiking?” I ask, pulling my scarf up to my nose as we walk past the half frozen lake. “I mean, yeah, global warming and whatever, but, come on….”
“Once you live through a December here, November is warm by comparison,” Autumn tells me patiently. “All you need to wear is like, some thermals, maybe a quilted vest, and gloves. As long as it doesn’t snow …”
I flash to a terrifying image of Autumn, Jasper, Mr. Hawthorne, and myself buried under snowdrifts, crying out for help. I don’t even know what “thermal” is.
“We don’t have to sleep in a tent, do we?” I ask warily. “I have enough trouble sleeping in my bed.”
I realize, then, that now two more people know I’m an insomniac: Emmaline and Autumn. Maybe it’s not such a secret anymore.
Autumn assures me that the hike is just a day trip. “Katie, it would be really great to have you there,” she adds in a quieter tone, and I realize that this hike might mean a lot to her. Maybe she’s been waiting for a friend to share it with. In that moment, as I meet her eyes, I understand that Autumn thinks of me as her best friend. But is Autumn my best friend? I’m conflicted. In spite of everything, I still feel loyal to Michaela, to Trini and Sofia and all my ballet girls. Having a best friend in Fir Lake would be like closing the door on the city forever.
At the same time, ever since Michaela and I started drifting apart, Autumn has been my lifesaver. I owe her a friendly gesture in return. And now that I’m thinking about it, a jaunt with the Hawthornes would provide the perfect excuse for me to escape my crazy family for one day.
And maybe there’s a tiny, heart-pounding part of me that likes the idea of spending time with Jasper.