The Year My Sister Got Lucky

  But what about the moon?

  On a mission now, I sit up and wipe my tears with the heels of my hands. I’ve been such a crying machine lately. Is this what moving does to people? I’m so used to being a tough city girl that this weird, weaker version of myself — the Katie that shrieks and does the crazy dance at the sight of mosquitoes — feels unfamiliar.

  I lift Mom’s flashlight and flick it on. When my bare feet hit the icy wooden floor, I cringe. Stupidly, I’m wearing my city summer sleep outfit — boxers and my white tank. I have an image of myself in long johns, wearing a stocking cap on my head, and that seems like a really good idea. If this is August in Fir Lake, I don’t want to know November.

  With the halo of the flashlight guiding me, I make my way toward my window. Pushing aside the makeshift curtain that Mom hung for me — an old flowered bedsheet — I peer outside, trying to see past the driving rain. If there is a moon, I can’t make it out amid the heavy clouds and forks of lightning. There is, however, another small spot of light outside, and when I realize it’s coming from the blonde woman’s yellow house, I feel a shiver of intrigue. There’s a light on in her second-story window — her bedroom maybe? — and I can see a shadowy shape inside. A lone figure, sitting very still. What is this woman’s deal? I’m always suspicious of fellow insomniacs. Maybe she’s planning something sinister. Maybe she’s waiting for her long-lost love to return home. Maybe —

  “Katie?”

  I drop the flashlight with a clatter and spin around to see my door half open. I’m certain it’s the neighbor lady, somehow transported to our house, but in the next instant, I realize it’s my sister.

  “What are you doing?” Michaela asks, her voice soft as ever. She’s wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt and drawstring pajama bottoms (because she’s smart), and carrying a tray that bears two small candles — the flames flickering hopefully — and two white mugs. I’m so relieved to see her that I don’t stop to question why she’s holding these things. In fact, I’m wondering if I’ve imagined her, that’s how deeply I was craving her presence.

  “Me? I was — uh —” Spying on our neighbor sounds illegal, so I backtrack to my original goal. “Looking for the moon.”

  “Let me help,” Michaela says, as if I’ve spoken the most normal phrase in the world. She pushes the door shut with her foot and sets the tray on the floor next to my bed. It’s amazing how soothing and warm the candlelight is, as opposed to the wild shapes of the flashlight. I reach down and shut it off as Michaela pads over to me in her gray socks.

  “The clouds are too thick,” she murmurs as we both crane our necks. “No moon tonight.”

  I feel a tremor of disappointment. Back home, I’d sometimes catch the moon — bent like a croissant, or round like a bowling ball — traveling between apartment buildings. But usually I didn’t think about its presence in the sky. And forget stars — I never saw those, unless you count the scattering of celebrities Michaela and I often spot walking in our neighborhood. Our old neighborhood. That’s what I need to keep reminding myself. Former. Past tense. I glance at the yellow house again and see that the light in the blonde woman’s bedroom has gone out.

  “So you’ve been moon-hunting all night?” Michaela asks, letting the flowery bedsheet fall back into place.

  My sister has her watch on her wrist and I notice that it’s well after midnight.

  “Why are you awake?” I ask. “I mean, I know it’s storming out, but for a pro like you …”

  Michaela shakes her head. “It wasn’t the storm.” I can see her sheepish smile. “I guess I kind of … missed you.”

  “Oh, God, I missed you, too!” I immediately fling my arms around Michaela. During and after the long, grueling road trip today, I felt the slightest distance between us. But now, as Michaela and I hug tight, I’ve never felt closer to my sister.

  “It’ll be hard, getting used to this separate room thing,” Michaela sighs, pulling back and tweaking the end of my nose, like she used to when I was little.

  “Is that why you were wandering around the house — making …” I gesture to the mugs on her tray.

  “Hot chocolate,” Michaela fills in. She puts her arm through mine and we start back toward my bed. “The perfect drink for a rainy night.”

  Leave it to Michaela to practically cook on our first night in the new house. As we sink down on my bed and lift the steaming mugs to our lips, I ask, “How did you do it?”

  Michaela blows on her drink, then takes a careful sip. “The Swiss Miss mix was in one of the boxes in the kitchen. And …” She tosses me a glance that’s — naughty? mischevious? I can’t quite tell. Michaela’s glances are usually neither. “I found a bottle of Maker’s Mark in one of the boxes, so I added in a few drops of whiskey.”

  My lips, on their way to the rim of the mug, freeze. Did my sister — my good-girl straight-laced sister — just speak the word whiskey? The two of us have never had alcohol, except for a few sips of bubbly Veuve Clicquot at a fancy New Year’s party thrown by Dad’s agent. I can’t help it — a tiny thrill goes through me at the thought of doing something so forbidden. But the twist of worry in my gut is stronger; what if Mom and Dad found out? I gulp and stare at Michaela, wondering if she’s an imposter, a shape-shifter.

  “I’m kidding,” Michaela says after a minute, breaking into giggles. “You should see the look on your face! I was just trying to cheer you up.”

  “Yeah, I knew that,” I say coolly, taking a big sip of my drink to prove my point. I still feel a heartbeat of hesitation — and then a wave of relief — as I swallow and realize it is plain cocoa. Which is thick and sweet as it spreads through my limbs, softer than any blanket. I should have known Michaela would never do something as wild as spiking hot chocolate. “Cheer me up from what?” I ask when I’m feeling more myself.

  Michaela gives me a sly, knowing look, and sips from her mug again. “You were kind of losing it in here before, weren’t you?” she asks. “I bet you hated how dark it was, and every little noise was making you jump….”

  “So maybe I was having a mild panic attack,” I say, and Michaela laughs again. “I guess it’s sort of … lonely out here.” I didn’t think of that word before but it seems to fit exactly what I’ve been feeling. The knowledge that Michaela and I are in this huge house in separate rooms, surrounded by nothing but farms and mountains and horses — and a few suspect neighbors — makes me dizzy, off balance.

  “It’s just a matter of adjusting,” Michaela says in her practical, patient way. “Besides, think about all the friends you still have back home, Katie.” She motions to my tote bag, which is lying in a lump next to my desk. “Did you ever open that envelope Trini and the girls gave you?”

  The envelope — of course. After my last class at Anna Pavlova, Trini, Hanae, and Renée sidled up to me in the dressing room and handed me a lilac-colored sealed envelope. “Don’t open it until you’re out of the city,” Trini instructed. On the subway ride home, Michaela convinced me not to tear the envelope open, and that evening, I packed it away. Then, in all the mess of the move, the gift completely slipped my mind. I love that Michaela, not me, is the one to remember it.

  When I retrieve the envelope and return to the bed, I rub its edges, curious about its contents. I’m hoping for long, handwritten letters from each girl, telling me how much my friendship means to each of them and how they won’t be able to live without me. But the inside feels stiff and flat, like a photograph, and soon I find myself staring at a shiny print that Trini must have ordered off Snapfish. It’s from about five years ago — I’m nine, which is insane to think now — and it’s taken on the day of Anna Pavlova Academy’s big summer performance. While The Nutcracker is the important winter event, everyone in the school gets to dance in our summer show, which takes place in early June, and features a bunch of different dances all choreographed by Svetlana. It’s held in the auditorium of LaGuardia High School, and parents take about a million pictures.

  This one,
taken by Trini’s mom, shows me, Trini, Renée, and Hanae posing in slick yellow raincoats and tights — our class’s dance that year was set to “Singin’ in the Rain.” We’ve all got our hair done up in buns, and our cheeks rubbed red with rouge, and our arms are around one another’s waists as we smile, smile, smile. The funny thing about this photo, though, is that Michaela is in it, too — the camera must have caught her by accident in the background. She’s only twelve, but looks ethereal and perfect in her costume from that year: a pale aquamarine gown, since she was playing a water nymph. My throat swells (again!) as I realize that so many things I love are in this photo: the girls, ballet, Michaela. I flip the photo over and, on the back, Hanae has written, in her precise penman-ship, “We’ll miss you, Katie — stay strong and keep on dancing!” Beneath that, all three girls have signed their names, with little xes and os.

  Michaela leans close and traces her long fingers over the photo. “All Sofia and Jennifer gave me was extra lamb’s wool, because my toes always bleed so much.” She moves her hand away from the photo and smiles at me. “See? Don’t you feel better now?”

  I nod, gazing down at the message on the back. Stay strong. I remember my thoughts from before, about Katie the City Girl losing her toughness here in the country. No more. If I can survive seeing rats on the tracks and getting lost in a sketchy neighborhood in Queens — which happened last summer when I was out there visiting Hanae — what are a few stray cows?

  As Michaela and I finish our cocoa and tuck our feet up onto the bed — Michaela covering my bare feet with her socked ones — I want to think that it’s my New York City roots that make me strong … but really, it’s Michaela. Having her in the room now, smelling her familiar powdery scent, I can ignore the thunder and lightning. Only my sister has known me since the day I was born; she says she remembers how hard I kicked my soon-to-be-dancer’s legs while lying in the crib, and how she put her hand on my belly to calm me.

  Talking in whispers about dance friends and past performances — “Remember when I had to dress up like a doll, and Sofia had to wind up a key in my back?” Michaela giggles — my sister and I stretch across my bed. We manage to fit our heads onto one pillow and pull my blanket over us. Soon my eyelids are getting heavy, the rain sounds like music, and Michaela is breathing in and out beside me. And I pretend that we’re back in our room, that we’ve never left the city, that nothing at all has changed.

  “The morning is wiser than the evening” goes an old Russian saying that Mom taught us ages ago. When I was little, I didn’t understand that expression, but this morning — my first in Fir Lake — I get it.

  Because, as I pull back my makeshift curtain to see the daylight, I feel, if not smarter, than at least saner than I did last night. The sky is scrubbed clean, a blue so bright it blinds, and I can see mountains in the distance. They’re pretty, I think. The house next door, home of our mystery neighbor, seems plain and innocent, its shutters open to let in the cool air that hits my face when I open my own window.

  I turn around to look at my new room, and again I feel wiser. When I put up decorations and put down a rug, this square little space might be almost … pleasant. And the first things I’ll hang up, I decide, will be the ballet photograph from Trini, and my subway map from home.

  On my bed, I see the crease in the sheet from where Michaela slept. Earlier this morning, I heard her creeping out of the room, carrying the tray with our empty mugs. Knowing my sister, she’s been on the floor of her room ever since, stretching in her ballet gear with her hair in a severe bun. If we were still in the city, we would be on our way to Anna Pavlova now, and Michaela believes that it’s dangerous to go too long without practice.

  As I slip out of my room, even The Monstrosity seems friendlier. The oak walls are colored amber by the sun, and there’s no more suspicious groaning. When I pass the spiral staircase that leads up to the attic — a place I plan to explore later with Michaela — I strain my ears for Mom’s and Dad’s loud voices downstairs. They’ve got to be brewing coffee or wrestling with furniture. But all I can hear are faint birdcalls from outside. Maybe in a house this size, we don’t have to hear one another all the time.

  Which is sort of nice.

  And is also why I can’t tell that Michaela is listening to music at top volume until I open the door to her bedroom.

  My sister is not in tights and a leotard. She’s wearing her denim shorts from yesterday and a green halter top that I think is new, and her hair is loose and freshly washed. And though she is dancing, it’s not the kind of dancing that Svetlana would really approve of. Michaela’s iHome, set up on her desk, blasts old Pussycat Dolls — “Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?” — and she is writhing her hips and rocking her head from side to side, her damp hair slapping her back. I stand there openmouthed because I have never seen my sister dance like this before — and she’s really, really good at it.

  How?

  For a second, I wonder if Michaela’s been sneaking out to dance clubs at night — there are tons not far from our old apartment, along Delancey and Rivington streets. But I would have heard her leaving our room. And Michaela wouldn’t sneak out without telling me.

  “Uh, Michaela?” I say when I find my voice, and she spins around.

  “Oh, Katie!” she exclaims, her eyes widening. “How long were you — I was just — um — unpacking….” She bites her lower lip, then smiles. “And, you know, getting some exercise.” Blushing, she hurries over to her desk to shut off the music, and I watch her, feeling as if I’ve interrupted a moment I wasn’t meant to see. There’s something awkward about the silence in the room when the music stops, but that’s just stupid. Michaela and I are never embarrassed in front of each other.

  I glance around and notice that her room already looks lived in, with a (new) periwinkle rug on the floor and her dresses and jeans hanging neatly in her walk-in closet. I vaguely remember the trips Michaela and Mom took to Crate and Barrel a week before the move. They invited me to join them, but I opted for taking one of my long walks instead, and was only a little envious when they returned laden down with bags and boxes. Now, I see that Michaela even got new bookshelves — beautiful creamy-white ones that run floor to ceiling. She’s obviously in the middle of arranging them; a carton of books seems to have exploded on the floor.

  Michaela has tons of books. In the city, our bedroom shelves were heavy with mostly her novels, though I did fit a few of mine in there as well. When you grow up with a professor mom and a writer dad, it’s kind of hard not to accumulate a lot of books. But Michaela and I have very different tastes; Michaela likes serious stuff by James Joyce and Joyce Carol Oates and other writers possibly named Joyce. I prefer old-fashioned romances like Wuthering Heights, or ghost stories about tragically beautiful women.

  I wouldn’t mind being tragically beautiful someday. I think that might be fun.

  “Hey, I have something for you,” Michaela is saying, still looking somewhat pink in the face as she crosses the room toward her window. Her view is striking — our back garden is wild with bushes and flowers and plants I can’t identify. Everything looks a little unkempt, and I remember that greenery needs tending to; like the house, the garden is a fixer-upper. I just hope our parents don’t expect me and Michaela to take care of it. I’m so bad with plants that I killed a cactus Mom got me for my twelfth birthday. (Though, really, who gets their daughter a cactus? All I wanted was a satin envelope clutch, but that never came through.)

  While Michaela begins rifling through a stack of rolled-up posters, I wander over to the jumble of books and bend down. Most of the names on the spines I’m glad not to share a room with anymore — Kafka, Camus, Carver. In other words: Yawn, yawn, and yawn. Then I see a book that sticks out from the rest — a picture book. How did that get mixed up in there? I take hold of the tattered spine, reading the title on the faded jacket: City Mouse, Country Mouse: An Aesop Fable.

  Memory rushes at me, smelling of bed linens and
Mom’s Chanel perfume. Some nights when Michaela and I were growing up, while Dad wrote in the kitchen, we would snuggle into bed with our mom. The three of us would read the story of two mice who switch lives — the city dweller goes to the country, and vice versa. The moral was that, in the end, each mouse was happier with his old life. I remember studying the illustrations in the book and wondering why the city mouse would ever want to leave in the first place.

  I get a shiver down my spine.

  “I didn’t know you had this,” I say, turning to face Michaela with the book in hand, just as she’s turning to me, saying, “Here you go!”

  The poster she’s holding out to me is the one of Ethan Stiefel that used to hang over her bed. I get the usual heart-skip from seeing Ethan’s gorgeousness, but I’m also confused. “You’re giving it to me?” I ask. Ethan was always hers — the guy she was going to meet when she was accepted into the American Ballet Theater, marry, and have lots of ballet-dancing babies with. I would live in the apartment next door with my not-quite-as-famous-dancer husband.

  “Happy move-in day,” Michaela says, handing me the poster as she takes City Mouse, Country Mouse from me. “I’ve been selfish. I think it’s time you had Ethan all to yourself.”

  I roll up the poster and feel a prickle of delight, knowing I’ll now get to stare up at His Hotness every night. Then I notice that Michaela is eyeing City Mouse, Country Mouse with a frown.

  “Oh, I didn’t mean to pack this,” she says, turning the dusty pages. “It was in the throwaway pile back home.” She snaps the book shut, then looks up at me with a nostalgic smile. “Remember how much we loved this book? It’s so cute. Anyway, I’ll donate it the local library.”

  “Michaela!” It’s weird, but there’s this part of me that feels like the book in her hands is our entire childhood. Or maybe I’m being overdramatic again.

  Michaela reaches out to squeeze my arm, and her face is a mix of sympathy and amusement. “Katie, what’s the big deal? Neither of us is going to read this book now. This is what people do when they unpack. They figure out what they don’t need.” She lifts her bare shoulders and raises her brows at me.