Ty went to bed at nine, and at ten, Mom and Dad retired to their room to watch the news. By eleven, I was pretty tired, and I think Dinah was, too, but we weren’t the slightest bit ready to go to sleep. Punch-drunk, Mom would have called us. Everything I said made Dinah laugh, and everything Dinah said made me laugh. Sandra kept stomping into my room to tell us to be quiet, and each time she looked grumpier and grumpier. The last time she had a mud mask smeared over her face, and I said, “Better wipe that frown off, young lady, or it’ll stick like that.” Dinah about busted a gut.
After Sandra left, I said, “She puts that on to clean her pores. Isn’t that weird, to use mud to clean your face?”
“She’s so pretty,” Dinah said. She scratched my cat, Sweetie-Pie, behind the ears, and Sweetie-Pie head-butted her in pleasure. “Is it fun having a sister who’s so pretty?”
“Ehh,” I said. Sandra was pretty, but mainly she was just Sandra. “Want me to see if she’ll let us use some of her mask?”
“Yeah!” Dinah said.
“It’s really neat,” I said, getting to my feet. “It tightens on your face until you can’t smile, and it feels like you’re paralyzed. Hold on, I’ll be right back.”
I padded across the hall to Sandra’s room, but she was on the phone with Bo. I held up my finger to mean, “Just one little thing? Real quick?” She scowled and turned her back to me.
Well, I thought to myself. How rude. I walked in plain sight to her bathroom and grabbed the tub of mask, then darted in pouncy, tiptoe steps back across the hall.
“Mission accomplished!” I announced. I plopped down on the floor, and Dinah scooted closer.
“So what do we do?” she asked.
I picked up Sweetie-Pie and tossed her onto the bed, because mud and fur don’t mix. Then I unscrewed the lid of the container. “We smear it all over, and then we let it dry.” I wiped a fingerful across my cheek. It was cool and oozy. “Now that I’m twelve, I guess I better start thinking about these things. Pores and stuff.”
“How does it feel being twelve?” Dinah asked. “Does it feel different?”
I liked the way she was regarding me, as if I were the wise one because I was older.
“Hmm,” I said. “Mainly it feels the same . . . but yeah, I guess it is different.” I hesitated, then said, “My mom says it’s time for me to get a bra.”
“Really?”
I shrugged inside my oversized Braves nightshirt. “Not like tomorrow or anything. I mean, it’s not desperate.”
Dinah swiped on one last blob of mud, and a little got in her hair. “Whoops,” she said.
“In fact I’m kind of hoping she’ll forget about it,” I said. “Because once you start wearing a bra, you can’t turn back. It’s like shaving your legs.”
“It is?”
“Well, with legs, the hair comes back pricklier once you start shaving, so you really shouldn’t start unless you’re ready to commit forever and ever. Same with bras.”
“Your boobs come back pricklier?” Dinah said.
I giggled. “Uh-huh. Like cactuses.”
She giggled, too. “What are you talking about?”
“Imagine if a boy tried to touch them. ‘Ooo, baby, I’m feeling so romantic—ouch!’”
“Stop making me laugh!” she said. “You’re making my face crack!”
“You look like the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Want to see?” I scrambled up and grabbed my hand mirror from my bureau. I very sneakily grabbed something else, too: a little souvenir from Benihana’s that I’d plucked from my plate and wrapped in a paper napkin to bring home. I hadn’t known what I’d do with it until now.
“Close your eyes,” I said, “and don’t open them till I say ‘three.’ Okay? One, two . . . three!”
Dinah opened her eyes. She saw the shrimp dangling in front of her nose.
“Eeeee!” she screamed.
I wiggled it closer. “It’s coming to get you! It’s coming to get you!”
“Nooo!”
Sweetie-Pie meowed in alarm.
Sandra burst into the room. “God!” she complained. “For the fifty millionth time, do you have to be so—” She stopped, noticing our cakey faces. “Did you use my mud mask? Without asking?”
I widened my eyes. In my sweetest, nicest voice, I said, “Er . . . care for a shrimp?”
Sandra took in the limp pink shrimp swaying between my fingers. Disgust layered itself over her outrage. “You are so immature,” she said.
“Au contraire, mon frère,” I protested. “In case you’ve forgotten, I am twelve years old. I’m on the brink of womanhood. ”
“Could have fooled me,” she retorted. She snatched the container of mask, stormed out of the room, and slammed the door.
“Sandra, Sandra, Sandra,” I said, shaking my head. “Do you have to be so loud?”
Dinah collapsed in hysterics.
April
NOW THAT I’M TWELVE, can you take me to get my ears pierced?” I asked Mom.
"What?” she said. Ty whacked her with his plastic sword, and she attempted to fend him off. A piece of green pepper fell from the kitchen counter.
“Your arm is your sword,” he told her, “and your stomach is your shield. It’s time to face your fears!”
“When are you going to take me to get my license?” Sandra demanded, breaking in to get Mom’s attention. “You promised we’d go yesterday.”
I yanked on Mom’s sleeve. “You said when I was twelve, and I’ve been twelve for over three weeks!”
“And I’ve been sixteen for two entire days,” Sandra said. “Every single person in the world gets to get their driver’s license on their exact birthday. Everyone but me!”
“Your birthday was on a Sunday,” I pointed out.
“And today is Tuesday,” Sandra said. “As in two full days later.” She turned to Mom. “Can we please go get my license?”
“I asked first!” I said. “I’ve been waiting even longer!”
“Ka-pow!” Ty said, smacking Mom below the knee. “Your leg is gone! You have to fall down!”
“Enough!” Mom cried.
We fell silent. Ty hesitated, then poked Mom with the tip of the sword. Mom snatched it and plunked it on the counter.
“Good heavens,” Mom said. “You children are driving me crazy.”
Sandra huffed indignantly, and I shared her pain. We were hardly “children.”
Mom closed her eyes. She inhaled. She was doing her relaxation breath, which we were all familiar with. She exhaled calmly and slowly. She opened her eyes.
“Now,” she said. “Ty, no sword fighting in the house.” She turned to me. “And, Winnie, are you sure you want to get your ears pierced? Are you absolutely positive?”
“Mo-o-om,” I said. She couldn’t get it through her head that yes, I was sure, and that nothing she could say would change my mind. Not that she hadn’t given it her best shot. Over the weekend she’d modeled a fake ear out of Ty’s Silly Putty to give me a visual demonstration of what I was in for.
“This is your ear,” she’d said. And it did look remarkably like an ear—even the color was appropriately skin-toned. She used her fingernail to carve out a too-big hole in the lobe, then said, “And this is what will happen if you wear earrings. Your ear will stretch, like this.” She pulled on the lobe, and it stretched like taffy. It became a tribal woman’s ear in National Geographic. Then the Silly Putty reached its snapping point, and the whole lobe popped off, leaving a mutilated half ear with an unnaturally smooth scar.
“You see?” Mom had said.
Now I took Mom’s knife and placed it by the green peppers. I put my hands on her shoulders. “Repeat after me,” I said. “Ear piercing will not lead to disfigurement. Ear piercing is normal and good.”
“Hello?” Sandra said impatiently. “My driver’s license?”
Mom sighed. She got a Ziploc bag from the drawer and scraped the peppers into it. She sealed it and put it in the fridge. Then she faced th
e three of us and said, “Here’s what we’ll do. We’ll go to the mall and get Winnie’s ears pierced, and Sandra, you can drive. And afterward we’ll stop by the Department of Motor Vehicles. Everybody satisfied?”
“Can I bring my sword?” Ty asked.
“You can bring it in the car, but not into the mall,” Mom declared.
“Deal,” Ty said.
On the way to Lenox Square, I gave Sandra helpful hints about her driving.
“Green light means go,” I said when Sandra was slow to start up at a traffic light. I said it very pleasantly, but Sandra scowled nonetheless.
“Oops, don’t hit the pedestrian!” I exclaimed as we passed a man walking his dog.
“He’s fifteen feet away!” Sandra protested. “He’s on the sidewalk!”
“Crazy driver!” Ty said.
“Winnie and Ty, stop distracting your sister,” Mom scolded. “Driving is very serious business. One wrong turn and you could ruin a life forever.”
“We know, we know, we know,” I said. Earlobes popping off, innocent bystanders getting killed in the blink of an eye—in Mom Land there was disaster lurking around every corner.
“My cousin Laetitia was killed when she was two years old,” Mom said. “Her own father backed over her in his pickup truck.” She twisted around to eye me from the front seat. “Do you think a day goes by when he doesn’t wish he could go back in time?”
I’d heard many times about Laetitia, so I didn’t bother to respond. I felt extremely sad about Laetitia, and morbidly fascinated as well. Did she cry out? Was it quick? Did her father feel a horrible bump and know immediately that his world had changed?
“Imagine how horrible you would feel if you took a life,” Mom went on. “Or if you maimed someone. Imagine how horrible you would feel if you caused an accident and a ten-year-old boy fell into a coma and never came out. It happens every day!”
“What ten-year-old boy?” Ty asked.
“Okay, Mom, we get the point,” Sandra said. I noticed with interest that she was gripping the steering wheel more tightly than usual.
“What ten-year-old boy?” Ty asked again. “Tell that story!”
“Could everybody please stop talking?” Sandra said. “Or I’m going to have a wreck for real!”
“Sandra, if you think you’re going to have a wreck, then pull over,” Mom said. “You should never drive when you’re incapacitated. Just last week a man had a heart attack in his car and killed four teenagers.”
“Mom!” Sandra complained.
Mom settled into her seat with the air of someone who has spoken the truth, and too bad if it was painful. “You need to be careful, that’s all I’m saying.”
On the escalator that led to the second floor of the mall, Mom glanced at her watch and said, “You know, Winnie, while we’re here we could take care of some other shopping. It really is time we got you a—”
“La la la la la,” I said to drown her out. “Look! Isn’t that a cute bunny, Ty? Isn’t that a cute bunny?”
“Time she got a what?” Sandra asked.
Ty regarded me with disdain. “I’m not a baby,” he said, “so you don’t have to talk to me like that. And there isn’t any bunny.”
“In the toy store,” I said to Ty. And to Sandra, “Nothing.” I glared at Mom.
Mom widened her eyes, like I’m sorry, I didn’t know . But she should have. Nobody wants to go bra shopping with her scoffing older sister.
At Claire’s Boutique, the saleslady set me loose in the rows and rows of sparkling earrings. She said not to pick danglies, but that I should be sure to get fourteen-karat-gold posts for my very first pair. She recommended delicate gold balls.
“Too boring,” I said.
"Too WASPy,” Sandra said.
“Huh?” I said.
"WASPy,” Sandra said. “As in a White Anglo Saxon Protestant?”
I still didn’t get it.
“Hoity-toity rich-girl stuff, like going to the country club and having a tennis date with Muffy. ‘Oh, dahling, you look so adorable in your precious gold earrings.’ ”
“Sandra,” Mom said.
“I like these,” I said, selecting a pair of tiny gold flowers with pale blue stones in the middle. “Will they work?”
“They’ll do just fine,” the saleslady said. I wondered if she was WASPy, and decided she was. She had a big bust and sensible shoes. Her own earrings were prim gold bows.
She used a pen to dot both my ears, then gave me a mirror so that I could check the placement.
“Looks good,” I said. Jitters started up in my stomach.
She loaded the gun with earring number one, and pop! In it went, just like that. There was a pinching sensation, but it honestly didn’t hurt at all.
“Can I do the other one?” Ty asked.
“No!” the saleslady and I said at the same time. She repeated the procedure for earring number two, and then she handed me the mirror once again.
“There you go,” she said. “What do you think?”
I turned my head from side to side. Glints of light danced off the earrings.
“Great,” I said.
“What does she need to do about upkeep?” Mom asked. “That is part of our agreement, that she’ll be responsible for taking care of them. Should she swab them with hydrogen peroxide?”
The saleslady shook her head as she rang up our total. “That’s no longer recommended. She needs to twist them every night before bed for a week, but only use hydrogen peroxide if they get infected.”
“If they get infected, your earlobes will fall off,” Sandra said.
Mom nodded. “True,” she said.
The saleslady opened her mouth, then shut it.
“Ha ha,” I said. I looked completely and utterly fabulous, and I knew it. I felt on top of the world.
Our next stop was the DMV, but when we got there, Sandra chickened out.
“It’s too late,” she said, not getting out of the driver’s seat. “They’re going to close any minute.”
“It’s a quarter till four,” Mom said. “They don’t close until five.”
“There could be a long line,” Sandra said. She swallowed and wouldn’t look at any of us.
“Sandra, what’s going on?” Mom asked.
Sandra didn’t answer. Her spine was stiff, and I realized with surprise that she was scared. My sister, Sandra, was scared.
“It’s because of all that stuff you said,” I told Mom. “About how she could kill someone with one false move.”
“That’s not it,” Sandra said angrily.
“Oh, Sandra,” Mom said. “I didn’t mean to worry you, sweetie.”
Sandra made a noise of disbelief, which I happened to agree with. Mom loved to worry us. She had a horror story for every occasion.
“Anyway, I was scared about getting my ears pierced, but I did it just the same,” I said.
“Yeah,” Ty said. “And I was scared when you talked about wasps, but I was brave just like Winnie.”
I looked at him in confusion. What was he talking about? Then I got it: WASPs, as in White Anglo Saxon Protestants. I giggled.
“Not that kind of wasps, you doof,” Sandra said. “And anyway, you were not scared. You were just jealous of the saleslady’s gun.”
“Guns are a bad idea,” Ty said piously. “You should only use guns if you’re a bad guy.”
“Oh, good Lord,” Sandra said, putting her head in her hands.
“Sandra, if you’re going to take your driver’s test, you need to go in and do it now,” Mom said. “Otherwise we need to go home.”
“Fine, we’ll go home,” Sandra said. She turned the key in the ignition.
Mom was surprised. “Are you sure?”
Sandra put the car in reverse and pulled out of the parking spot. “I’ll do it soon,” she said. “Just not today.”
“Did you get your license?” I asked Sandra the next day when I got home from school.
Sandra gave me her “
you’re an idiot” look. “When would I have gotten it? I’ve been at school all day just like you.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well, are you going to?”
“I’m too tired. We had to run three miles in PE.”
“You’re too worn out to drive a car?”
“Leave me alone,” she said.
The next day she hung out with Bo and conveniently forgot to come home until 5:30, after the DMV had closed. And on Thursday, she had an earth-science assignment to complete concerning the Ring of Fire. The Ring of Fire, she informed me, was a big circle in the Pacific Ocean where there was a lot of volcanic activity. California was part of the Ring of Fire. That was why there were so many earthquakes there.
“Uh-huh,” I said. “And this has to do with your driver’s license because . . . ?”
“Eighty-one percent of the world’s earthquakes happen in the Ring of Fire!” she exclaimed. “We’re talking major world disasters! Do you really think this is an appropriate time to be discussing the DMV?”
While she slaved away on her project—or more likely IM’d with her friends and chowed down on Oreos—I went out into the beautiful spring day for a bike ride. It was crazy that Sandra was being such a wimp, I thought as I cruised down Woodward Way. Usually she was so tough. Usually she was the one who could do anything.
I turned right on Peachtree Battle and stood to pedal up the hill. My muscles burned in a way that made me feel strong. Down the steep slope to Sagamore Drive, the wind whipping my hair. I’d worn a helmet out the back door for Mom’s sake, but I’d stashed it in the bushes when I got to the bottom of the driveway. I couldn’t stand having a helmet on. I felt so much freer without.
As I biked around Memorial Park, I reached up to check the posts of my earrings, to make sure they were still there. Today during lunch, Gail Grayson’s hand had flown to her ear and she’d cried out in alarm. One of her earrings had fallen out and was nowhere to be found.
“My diamond,” she had wailed when everyone gathered around. She held out the other one, which she’d removed for safekeeping, but folded her fingers over it when Dinah got too close. “My dad gave them to me. They came from South Africa. They cost two thousand dollars!”
My homeroom teacher, Mr. Hutchinson, shared a glance with Ms. Russell.