Hand Me Down (25 page)

“Thanks,” I say. “I have my book.” I’m reading
The Last Vampire
again and wishing I were a five-thousand-year-old vampire with powers. If I had super strength or could manipulate people with my gaze, Mom and Dad and Terrance would lose their authority over me.

Jaime says, “Church will be okay tomorrow.”

“What if I don’t go?” I say, feeling like the pouty younger sister.

“Please just come,” she says.

I can see in her blue eyes that she means she likes it here better than anywhere else, that finally something good has happened, that she still believes in God and He brought her here and gave her a new family and a home where she feels safe, and I realize if I ruin all of that for her, I would be as selfish as my mother. “Okay.” I sigh and she hugs me.

“You’re the best sister ever,” she says. She takes her blanket off her bed. “You gonna be lonely without me?” she says as she heads out the door.

“Of course,” I say. I smile so she knows it’s okay to leave, but it’s impossible not to feel lonely when you’re the only person awake in a house before the sun has fully set and the only person afraid of the loaded guns in the six-foot safe upstairs; when you start to feel closer to your geeky eight-year-old cousin than to the sister you grew up protecting and you can’t forget the feeling of a man twice your size pressed against you in a dark bar; when you can’t listen to rock music or read interesting books or say what you actually think or witnessed or talk honestly to anyone and all I want to do is sleep but I bet that doesn’t happen tonight, either, and if God does exist then I fucking hate Him.

In the morning I’m sitting
at the breakfast table counting roosters in the kitchen—twenty so far—when Ashley comes in. “What’s wrong with your face?” she says to me after she’s poured herself some orange juice, licked the rim of the plastic jug, halfway twisted the cap back on, and left it on the counter.

“Ashley,” Deborah says, but I catch Ashley’s smirk behind her juice glass. The small line of red bumps on my cheek has turned into a full-blown rash. They are definitely not pimples.

“I think it’s from your dog,” I say. “He licked my face.”

“I’ll get you some cream,” Deborah says to me, pats my shoulder, and goes up the stairs. I appreciate the thought, but Deborah’s thing is saving people. Church clothes and rash creams are just the beginning of her Elizabeth outreach program.

Ashley says to me, “So why does your mom hate you so much she kicked you out again?” Matt’s eyes go wide but he doesn’t say
anything. Ashley takes a sip of her juice and puts one hand on her hip. “Loser.”

My hands grip the plate in front of me—“Everyone loads their own dishes here,” Deborah says in my head—but I think I might smash it into Ashley’s face so I leave it and start to walk away. Ashley says, “You need to clear your place.”

Matt says, “That was mean, Ash.”

She says, “Can it, nerd.”

I keep walking and I hear Deborah as I round the corner into Jaime’s room. “What happened to Elizabeth? I brought her something for that rash.”

Ashley says, “She didn’t load her plate.”

In the guest room we share, Jaime’s bed is empty, her blanket missing, her sheets tossed to the side of the mattress, a dent in the pillow where her head would be. It’s like crime-drama shots of missing children’s rooms, possibly what it could look like if Terrance made good on his threats and came after her. Like he told me, he likes to win, and Jaime, who may not fight back, would be an easy conquest.
What would I do if she actually disappeared?
Maybe it isn’t just her who needs me.

I imagine hibernating, going to sleep and waking up to a new layer of earth, a clean landscape and fresh air, inside and out having grown into new skins. I crawl under the comforter with the brown A line skirt that smells like Tammy’s house and build myself a cocoon.

“Don’t let them watch this
channel,” Winston says to me, coming up behind where Ashley and I sit on the
L
shaped gray couch in the family room. He adjusts his tie and yells, “Deborah!” his voice like a foghorn.

Her red hair appears behind Winston’s wide shoulders. She’s wearing a flowery dress, shapeless and flowing, and her Just Peachy perfume fills my nostrils. I have my own bottle of the orange-ish liquid Deborah gave me so I could “feel peachy every day.” It doesn’t work.

Deborah says, “The number of the restaurant is on the counter, Linda, and I left money so you can order a pizza. Make sure Matt gets to bed by ten. The girls can sleep in Ashley’s room but they need to keep it down so Matt can sleep.” Deborah waves to me, and leans over the back of the couch to kiss Ashley on the head. “Thanks!” she says, and I try to ignore the fact that she just called me my mom’s name.

Winston puts his hand on Deborah’s back, his computer-programmer belly hanging over his brown slacks stretches a little with the extension of his arm. “Kitten? Shall we?”

Deborah calls, “Be safe, kids,” as they round the corner into the
entryway. I hear Winston say, “Are you sure we shouldn’t get a real babysitter?” just as the door shuts and the security alarm beeps on.

Ashley changes the channel back to MTV, and I ignore Winston’s last command. He already doesn’t trust me, and if I irritate Ashley too much, she’ll make up something I did that’s much worse than allowing her to watch music videos and convince her parents it’s the truth.

“Just talked to Mom,” Jaime says to me as she comes out of the guest room. “She wanted to talk to you.” Jaime sits next to Ashley’s bare legs on the couch in her matching blue lace tank top and tiny cotton pajama shorts, like they’re Barbies dressed for bed. “You haven’t talked to her in weeks,” Jaime says. “She thinks you hate her.”

“She’s perceptive,” I say. “When did you stop?”

“You don’t really hate her,” Jaime says. “She’s your mom.”

“She let a pervert into our house,” I say. “Doesn’t that bother you?”

“Hey, it’s our song,” Ashley says. Jaime turns away from me, and she and Ashley sing and snap their fingers, bop their shoulders, and weave their necks Stevie Wonder–style along with the MTV video.

A few weeks ago I saw them make up a dance to this same Mariah Carey tune. I peeked through the small window in the guest bedroom and watched them gyrating in the driveway like the half-clothed women currently shaking their butts at the cameras. I thought about how Jaime and I used to make up dances to Prince and Janet Jackson songs, counted out steps in beats of eight, swirled and jumped and sang along to the radio when Mom wasn’t
home. Back when Mom was a common enemy and as sisters we held hands and faced the firing squad together.

“You’re not supposed to watch this,” I say, getting up.

“Whatever,” Ashley says.

Jaime says, “You watch this all the time.”

“I’m older,” I say. “What kind of pizza do you want?”

“Pepperoni and pineapple!” they say together and burst into giggles.

“Gross,” I say, but it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to eat any of it. “Will Matt eat that?”

“Who cares?” Ashley says. I figure he can pick it off.

When I get off the phone with Round Table, Ashley and Jaime are giggling. They try to hush as I get closer, but can’t, and I remember one year at the state fair on the Zipper adventure ride when Jaime and I screamed from the gut, throats open and heads thrown back, we laughed so loud that the conductor stopped the spinning metal cages and told us if we didn’t quiet down he’d make us get off. We tried to say we were sorry but he unbuckled our straps and we fell out of the sticky vinyl seats wiping tears from eyes still narrowed with laughter. We clung to each other as we stumbled down the rickety metal plank lined with aluminum folding fences, smiling, snorting, and trying to breathe.

“You want to call Darin?” Ashley asks Jaime.

“Who’s Darin?” I ask and they giggle again. “Seriously,” I say, thinking of Cody’s charm, Terrance’s confidence in his talent for blending in. “You shouldn’t be calling boys you know nothing about.”

“He’s nice,” Jaime says. “He’s from church.”

“Terrance goes to church, and think about what else he does,” I say, longing to tell her all of it: what it feels like to have his skin so close, have him look at you with lusty eyes that should only be for his wife. But like with Dad, if Jaime knows the truth, I haven’t done my job.

Ashley says, “It’s none of your business,” and they get up to go to Ashley’s room, snickering and whispering to each other. Matt is coming down the stairs and Ashley pushes him as he jumps off the last step. He whines, “Ash,” and runs into the family room.

“Why are you so mean to him?” I say.

“Why do you care?” She makes a
W
with her hands, her wannabe French-manicured nail tips like little horns at the tops of her index fingers. Sneering at me, she says, “Get it?” and walks up the carpeted staircase, wagging her ass like a hooker.

Matt sits in his legless chair in front of the screen. “Want to play Sonic?” he asks. I sit next to him on the floor and with his help, make it past the first few levels. He likes explaining things. Some days when I hibernate in my shell he sits next to my bed and I listen to him talk about planes or space or biology for hours, and it helps take my mind off the things that aren’t so easily spelled out. Thanks to him, I’ve learned that some cicadas spend seventeen years underground and then emerge with wings, that ants live in tunnels where they build rooms to store food and raise young. The colony cannot survive without the queen. She has to lick each egg before it hatches; the larvae eat her saliva as they emerge.

“You don’t have to do that,” Matt says. “She doesn’t bother me.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “Older sisters are supposed to look out for you, not push you around. They should help you with your
homework, and keep your secrets, and let you have a vote in pizza toppings.”

He says, “Pepperoni and pineapple?”

“Yeah,” I say, “but I got root beer for you.”

“Ashley hates that,” he says.

“I know.”

“You’re my favorite babysitter,” Matt says. We watch a hedgehog run and spin and absorb hovering golden hoops with a jingling coin sound until the doorbell rings.

The pizza guy is cute in a generic sort of way with plain sandy-blond hair and brown eyes. After I’ve paid him and set the alarm back to paranoid, I can feel Dean’s full red mouth on mine and imagine his white face and blue eyes as he leans in toward me…. I sigh and wonder if Dean imagines running his hands over my skin and kissing me as much as I think about him.

A week after arriving here, I pulled out my yearbook where Dean had written his address and blushed again at his request for a picture of a “beautiful woman wearing a bikini.” I wrote to him,
This part of California isn’t always that sunny, and while I have escaped the Mormon regime, my current household is still religious.
Phones here offer no privacy, so I hope you’ll write me back.
I signed my letter,
I wish you were here
, with a heart and my name.

He wrote me back quickly, answered all my questions, and asked me a few. The letter was pen pal–ish—in a good way—except the last line which read,
Any news about those beautiful young women posing for a photo—in the clothing of their choice?
He signed off,
I wish I was there, too. Or better, yet, that you were here. I hope
you come back.
I carry the letter in my pocket, and more and more I hope the same thing.

I wrote letters to Rachel and Tammy, too, when I first moved in. To Rachel I wrote,
My uncle keeps loaded guns in a safe the size of a closet.
My aunt Deborah only buys pink clothes and wants me to sing in the church worship team. Did you do it with Frank yet?

To Tammy I wrote,
Jaime is best friends with Ashley
.
We eat a lot of chicken pot pie. I’m not allowed to walk outside by myself after dusk and they make me go to church on Sundays. I miss the mountains.

I told Tammy I missed her fancy cheeses and sour plain yogurt, her whole-wheat bread and natural, sugar-free peanut butter, her waking me up early and forcing me to hike and even her nitpicking about my grades. I miss Tammy asking about my day and actually listening, her holding me and not trying to fix it. I called her the day she should have gotten back from Africa, but I just got the machine. I didn’t even get to hear Tammy, just Sam’s voice, “We’re not available at the moment. Please leave a brief message.” I left Deborah’s number but it’s been three days. When I try to focus on the positive of Tammy and her house, it just makes me miss everything more, and with Jaime slipping further and further away, I don’t know if there’s a reason for me to stay here.

I notice an envelope with my name on it on the small mail organizer near the door as I juggle the pizza and soda. I get excited until I realize it’s not Rachel or Tammy or Dean’s handwriting, even though the intense slant and girly loops are familiar. Lava bubbles in my stomach while I wait for the kids to eat their slices
and clear their plates and go up to their rooms, and then I open the letter before the gurgling fire can completely scald my guts.

Terrance wrote,
Dearest Liz, Your mom is upset you won’t talk to her, and that upsets me because I want my girls to get along. I thought I’d write to make sure there was nothing I had done to offend you, and that you weren’t taking something that happened between us out on your mom. You know how much I care about you, and I hate worrying that I somehow ruined our relationship. I enjoy our conversations very, very much, so if you ever want to talk, about anything, feel free to call me. And remember, if I don’t hear from you, I’ll have to call Jaime to make sure things are okay. I miss you. Love, Terrance.
Under the word “love,” he drew the same heart he’d used on his letters to Mom and I gag on the bile that shoots up my throat.

I lie spooned against the curve of the couch for the next hour, my eyes wide and watering and my heart hammering, unable to watch TV or focus on anything except Terrance’s thinly veiled threats. Once again I marvel at his aptitude for manipulation. Deborah or Mom would say that he is trying to be nice, but they don’t know how often he winks at me or makes inappropriate jokes, how often I’ve seen his butt crack and hip bones, and once his shorts hung so low I saw the tips of his black pubic hairs. It’s these images that batter my brain over and over, and the fact that if I share them with anyone, Jaime will be in the same sinking boat.