Pieces of My Sister's Life (30 page)

I hated her. Not just hated, despised with a strength that squeezed my lungs. I wanted to yank at her hair, dig my nails under her skin. Instead I reached into her drawer. The smell of perfume, pink and red satin and lace, and a clanking plastic bag.

I opened a bottle of Eve’s gin and swigged it. The liquid sizzled on my tongue. Also in the bag was a six-pack of beer and an assortment of miniature bottles. I lifted a small tan bottle of Kahlua and opened it, took a sip, sweet and hot. My hand was shaking as I swiped my finger through the Tupperware and plugged the acrid black sludge into the neck of the Kahlua bottle. I capped the bottle and shook it slowly, staring at the bottle, not sure what I expected to see. But it looked the same, so innocent, orange writing on the tan label.

I didn’t think what I was doing, couldn’t have even if I’d wanted to. And even though I wasn’t thinking, somehow the bottle found its way into the plastic bag, the bag into Eve’s drawer, me on my bed staring at the ceiling. A melody ran through my brain, a flute airy and hollow. I looked down at my hands, a murderer’s hands, and I listened.

32

I
WAITED
. That’s what the next two weeks were, not a passive waiting but a prickling, terrified and hungry wait.

Every once in a while I’d slip the Kahlua from Eve’s drawer and press it between my palms, filled with a gnawing horror of the bottle and of myself. And then my mind would yelp, and I’d shove it back in the drawer like it was a spider or a hot potato, feeling nothing except
please, please.
Please stop this. Please save us. Please let it be over soon.

I spent as much time as possible in the bedroom, maybe trying to keep Eve away, tensing when she approached her dresser. If I’d actually seen her reach for the bottle, I don’t know what I would have done. But for the most part she stayed away, coming home only late at night. I eyed her secretly, pretending to be asleep. In all that time we didn’t speak.

And then came the day, the last day, when I walked into the bedroom and saw Eve on the floor with my shoebox. I froze.

She was staring meditatively at the pictures. She hadn’t heard me enter the room. Under the pictures I could see it, the black-stained Tupperware I should have thrown away.

She lifted a picture, the two of us flipped upside down, panties showing in parallel cartwheels. She held it for a long while cradled between her palms, and watching this I ached for her, for those two girls in their summer dresses and matching day-of-the-week underwear.

Eve lifted another and then another, eyes fixed like she was memorizing. Then suddenly, without warning, her jaw tightened and she tore a picture in two.

I sucked in my breath and she turned to face me, her eyes red but her shoulders hunched with determination. She hesitated for only a second before reaching again into the box. Her eyes locked on mine as she slowly tore a picture, wearing a slim smile.

And then she tore another, and every cell in my body was crying out for her to stop, stop before it was too late. Because we’d lived through this before: Daddy on the couch with our photo albums, peeling the pages with tears in his eyes and clawing at our mother, tearing, tearing with shaking hands as Eve and I stood petrified, watching and somehow knowing what it meant. It was over. The past was gone, no more waiting for things to change. And we saw then that it was easier to be angry than to hold out hope.

And so instead of voicing the plea that echoed through me now in exactly the same way it had then, I grabbed the remaining pictures from the shoebox and threw the shoebox under the bed before she could see the Tupperware inside. I began to rip the photographs blindly, then tossed the scattered pieces to drift like confetti over our heads.

Eve didn’t move, just stared at me as if I were crazy. She looked down at the torn pictures, and her eyes hardened. “I’ve decided,” she said. “I’m keeping the baby.”

“You idiot! You’d ruin your life just to get back at me?”

“You think this has anything to do with you?” Her voice hitched. She shook her head quickly. “What do you expect me to do?”

The thickness in her voice shocked me. And part of me actually wanted to stop this, to just turn away, but another part of me, a much bigger part, knew this was not an option. I forced a smile. “Poor little Eve, pregnant and alone, it breaks my heart. Screwing every guy in screwing range like it could make them love you, but who loves you now?”

“It’s not me after him, Kerry, I told you already. Not—” Her voice broke. She looked up at me. Without makeup her face seemed unnaturally pale and bloated. “How it was, the truth is he started with me first that night. I was so scared and all I wanted was for him to just hold me. I was crying and he held me and then he kissed me, and
I
was the one who pulled away.”

I felt everything inside me stop, paralyzed. I wanted to slap her, stop her from talking, but when I looked into her face I knew she was telling the truth. “You fucking liar.”

“So I pulled away and he stared at me, and then he jumped up and ran. He ran into his office and I sat there feeling like I was this close to just making it be over, throwing myself into the water with both of them, Ryan and Daddy, that’s what I wanted to do. But in the end I saw the light in the office and I followed him.” She fisted a handful of torn pictures. “I don’t know why, Kerry, but that’s what I did. And things just happened.”

“God,” I said slowly. “I just realized. I know what’s going on. You went to Justin because you knew you were pregnant. You slept with him so you could tell him the baby was his.”

“Are you kidding? Who do you think I am? You really think I’d do that?”

“I know exactly who you are, and I
know
you’d do it. It all makes perfect sense. That’s why you were puking that night, from morning sickness.”

A sudden flash of panic scarred her face, but then it hardened into anger. “I wasn’t pregnant! I told you we always used condoms, and besides the timing isn’t right. Justin’s the father, Kerry, and what do you think, that I forced him? He wanted me too.”

“He used you because you happened to be there and you happened to be willing. Just exactly like Mr. Maclean and Brad Carrera used you, except it turned out you were both using each other.”

“He said he was in love with me.”

I bit my tongue hard until I knew I could speak without choking. “And so did Brad and so did Mr. Maclean. Are you really that gullible? It’s just a way into your pants, Eve, the easiest way to get the slut to fuck them.” We sat there for a moment, locking eyes, the girlhood game. Whoever looks away first.

“The money?” she said hoarsely. “The Caines’ money? Yes, I took it from the shop, a little each month because we needed it, and I was planning to pay it back as soon as I could. But then Justin saw me take it, Kerry. Back when I was still with Brad he walked in on me. And he’s wearing this little smile, he comes over and says he loves me and then he kissed me. On the lips. And I’ve got the money in one hand and him on my lips, so what am I supposed to do?”

I stared at her, and she lifted her chin. “So I kissed him back.” Her words were rough and hollow. I could see the pain in her face and worse than that, a sort of sympathy. She was telling the truth.

“Then he started giving me money, hundreds of dollars. Maybe it was just to help us out or maybe to get me not to tell, I don’t know, but what I think is it was always me. I think what it was, he wanted you because he could kiss you and imagine he was kissing me.”

“You bitch!” I swung my arm, but Eve caught my wrist, narrowing her eyes.

“You know how he feels, don’t you. Deep down part of you always knew it. Which I guess is why you’re trying to poison me. Guess I’m a little less competition if I’m dead.”

I froze, trepidation knuckling my stomach. “What?”

She dropped my wrist and sneered. “Come on, Kerry, I’m not stupid. I see the way you look at me every time I open my dresser drawer. Your face gets all white and you hold your breath, let go again when I close it. What did you do, poison the vodka? Alcohol kills, isn’t that what they say?”

I shook my head slowly, opened my mouth but couldn’t speak, my tongue searching for a word, a denial, but completely forgetting the syllables it might use to construct it.

“I knew there was something going on, and now look at this container in your shoebox. Two and two make a pretty easy four, Ker. So don’t pretend you don’t know Justin’s in love with me.”

I could feel each of my ribs pressing sharp and distinct against my lungs. “You’re crazy.”

“Am I?” Eve reached under my bed and pulled out the blackened Tupperware. She popped the lid and sniffed at it, made a face. “Would you really, seriously have let me drink it? What would you do if I’d started? Just watch?”

A strange redness swirled in front of my eyes.

“You wouldn’t really, I’m pretty sure of that, you’re not strong enough. You just felt better pretending you had the guts.”

I stared at her, then punched my fist against the wall. “You’re crazy! If I wanted Justin, all I’d have to do is tell him. All I’d have to do is tell him I forgive him.”

“You think? Then why’d he make love to me?”

“That was sex, Eve, not love. You never got the difference, did you?”

Eve nodded slowly. “Well, maybe I’ll give you a chance to prove it once and for all.” She slid the Tupperware across the floor so that it hit my heels. “Let’s try something.”

I kicked the container away.

“C’mon, Ker, don’t you want to know? See who he’d choose, all things being equal? We’ll give him a choice and see.” She watched me carefully. “Like another game. We can write letters, you can tell him how much you love him, how you forgive him and you want him back, whatever. And I’ll tell him how I feel. Whoever he chooses wins.”

I dug my nails hard into my thighs. “Wins what?”

“Wins Justin, obviously, isn’t that only fair? If he chooses you, I’ll leave. I’ll get rid of the baby and then leave. And if he chooses me…” She slid a scrap of photograph, two sandaled feet, up and down against her leg. “If he chooses me, you admit I was right, it wasn’t my fault. I keep the baby, and whatever happens with Justin happens.”

I twisted my face in disgust, fear tingling down my arms into my palms. I knew the fear made no sense. It was me he loved, I knew it deep in my bones. But he’d slept with Eve. If he really loved me, real magic, destined, soul-mate love, then how could he have shared this part of himself, this absolute most important part with somebody else?

Because I wouldn’t let him share it with me. The realization stung me. It was as simple and as trite as that. “Fine,” I said.

Eve squared her shoulders and nodded sharply. She stared at the wall as she spoke. “Okay. So we can write notes and leave them taped to his office door. Maybe I’ll tell him I’m waiting in Daddy’s room and you tell him you’re waiting here. Whoever he goes to first, whoever he chooses, that’s who wins.”

“You’ll tell him about the baby.”

She made a face. “That’d be cheating, Kerry. I’m not going to cheat. I’m as curious as you are what he’ll do, and if I cheat we’ll never know what he really wants.”

I pressed my lips between my teeth and nodded sharply. She walked to the desk, rooted through a drawer.

Two pieces of white paper, two blue Bic pens, everything was the same. I sat on my bed watching out of the corner of my eye. This wasn’t Eve I’d been talking to. Not the Eve who’d crawled into my bed on stormy nights, huddling like the force of our joined hands could protect us. Eve had died months ago and been replaced by the very thing we’d been afraid of on those nights, that slippery, shadowy thing that clawed at doors and under skin, took over your body and turned you into itself.

I watched her scribbling the words she hoped would send me away, and I suddenly imagined I could see a new fullness in her breasts and a roundness in her belly. The image cemented the facts. We were no longer identical, no longer sisters. We were nothing.

Dear Justin,

I’ve been dreaming about you every night, imagining us together. And I think the thing is, maybe that’s exactly what we need so we forget everything bad that happened, and get even closer than we’ve ever been before. I want to make love to you, tonight and every night from now on for the rest of our life. So I’ll be waiting for you in my bedroom, and you should come there first thing when you get home, and I promise I’ll make it a night to remember.

I love you with all my heart,
Kerry

I folded the note and printed Justin’s name on the front, then turned to Eve. She’d been watching me, but when I looked up she pretended to be reading over her letter. I stood. “You finished?”

Eve nodded. “Let’s go.”

So out we went to tape the notes on his door. When we were done Eve turned to me, her eyes darting to the sky like she wanted to say something. But when I looked at her, she just pressed her lips together and nodded.

We went back upstairs, me to our bedroom and Eve to Daddy’s, my legs feeling wobbly and boneless. The whole idea was totally ridiculous, I realized that. What would Justin think when he saw what we were doing? The most likely thing he’d do would be to run in the opposite direction. “Stupid kids,” he’d say.

But part of me was thinking, whatever happens, this’ll be the end. If he chose me, Eve would have an abortion, and then she’d go somewhere off-island like she’d always planned. And if he chose Eve…

He would choose me. Of course he would.

I went to her drawer and reached inside the plastic bag for the bottle of Kahlua. I squeezed it tight in my fist, feeling a wash of desperation. But it didn’t matter. Soon none of it would matter. I slipped the bottle under my pillow and went back to the drawer, sifting through Eve’s tangle of new underwear. A garter belt, how did that work? Panties so lacy they covered nothing at all; really, if you thought about it, defeating the purpose of wearing panties. A bustier to give you boobs so high you could use them like a shelf to balance books upright. I stripped and pulled them on, then eyed my body in the full-length mirror. A touch of Eve’s dark lipstick, thick mascara, rouge to define the hollows in my face and I looked like someone else. I looked older. I looked like Eve.

Justin had once told me that my dancing was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. So when he opened the door, I’d run to him with a move that was dancelike without looking like an obvious dance. I practiced a
pas de bourrée,
a light running step on my toes, followed by a
petit jeté,
landing at the door. But as soon as I landed the jump, a boob popped out of my bustier.

I grimaced and stuffed it back, then lay across my bed and pulled in my stomach, threw my gaze to the door. I arched my back, and my boob popped out again. I hunched my shoulders, tucked it back and whispered, “God, I need you,” then winced. Too stupid, way too melodramatic. I swung my feet to the floor and made my eyes sharp. “Come here,” I mouthed. I imagined his face, the shock and then the melting. I reached my arms towards him. “Come here.”

I heard Eve’s footsteps coming from Daddy’s room and I jumped up, ran to the closet for my robe. The door opened, and Eve began to speak. “Listen, Kerry.” She stopped short when she saw me, and let out a sharp, barking laugh. I pulled the robe to my chest and we eyed each other for a minute, and then Eve turned away and closed the door.