The Good Sister (15 page)

If only he knew how hard it was not to know for sure what happened to my sister, maybe he'd understand.

Or not.

From my bedroom window, I hear a car pull up outside, and I see a lowered, black Mercedes in the driveway, its rims shining against the porch light. It's AJ, Rachel's wishes-he-were-black, wannabe-rap-star boyfriend, whom she must have texted on the ride home to tell him to come get her.

A white guy who grew up in Marin, to distance himself from his whiteness he has moved to Oakland, traded in his white middle-class speech for street slang, and his scruffy liberal attire for what he thinks is hip-hop. What Rachel sees in him, I don't know. He's even got a couple of baby mamas, from what I hear, at the ripe old age of twenty.

Maybe it's wrong for me to assume he's a drug dealer, except I've seen him down at the park on two separate occasions leaning into car windows and taking money from people.

Maybe he's selling Girl Scout cookies for one of his two little girls back in Oakland, or collecting money for the homeless, but I doubt it. I watch out the window as Rachel gets in the car, and then they speed off.

I don't know how or when Rachel and AJ met. I started seeing her with him a couple of months ago, but I give them two more months max before they have a screaming argument in the front yard, he punches her in the face, and they are no longer an item.

Why do I think he'll punch her in the face? She will surely say something awful and stupid to him, probably about his kids, revealing her true nature, and she will kind of deserve it. Also, AJ forever has some kind of rap song about bitches and hos and clockin' the bitch and on and on with antifemale rhetoric blaring from his car windows. I'm not sure you can listen to that stuff day in and day out without its seeping into who you are and what you do.

Once they are gone, I feel so completely alone I think the weight of it might crush me. I get up off my bed and pace the room, anxious to be anywhere but this haunted house.

It finally occurs to me that I have to apologize to Sin. I know this, but I don't know if he'll accept it. I don't know if he'll stop being mad. I only know I have to try before I lose my nerve. So I go downstairs and slip out into the night.

I knock on his door sometime before midnight, but no one answers. I know someone in the house is awake because plenty of lights are on, and besides, they're all night owls. Sin never goes to sleep before twelve.

I knock again, then try the doorknob, which turns out to be unlocked. I nearly live here, so no one will care if I just walk in. I ease the door open and call out a “Hello” because I don't want to surprise Jess, who can be volatile.

Her Westfalia van isn't in the driveway, but this doesn't mean she's not home. She sometimes claims she's forgotten where she's parked it, but Sin and I have our own recreational-drug-related theories about why she occasionally returns home without the van and the next day seems confused about its absence.

“Hello?” I call out again now that I'm inside the foyer.

No answer. A light in the family room is on, but no one is there. The house is quiet, until I hear a movement from the darkened hallway and I look.

Tristan emerges from his room. “Hey. It's you.” He's turning off his iPod and removing the headphones from his ears, which explains why he didn't answer the door.

I'm instantly torn between wanting to get away from him before Sin walks in, and wanting to see what will happen next. We didn't exactly part on good terms Saturday night, but he doesn't seem to be holding a grudge.

“Where's Sin?” I ask, sticking to the safest topic I can think of.

“Mom needed his help setting up a show in Sausalito.”

Oh.

So we're alone.

“Do you know when they'll be back?”

An almost-smile plays on his lips, and I notice the slightest bruise under his right eye were Sin's fist must have made impact before it went on to bloody his nose. “Nope. It's just you and me.”

I glance at the door without meaning to.

“Don't worry, I'll only bite if you want me to.”

I have no witty comeback for that, but some little frozen part of me melts. I still can't quite believe Tristan Tyler is interested in
me
. At school, I am no one. I am known only for being the sister of a girl who had cancer, and now the sister of a girl who died in an awful accident.

Sarah's sister is how I've always been known, and I've been okay with it mostly because I love Sarah. But now …

Now that Tristan sees me, I want to know what it is he's seeing. I want to know what there is about me that might catch his attention. Is it merely my convenient presence, here so much more often now that I can't stand to be at home?

I don't have to respond because he motions for me to follow him to the kitchen, where he rummages in the cabinets until he's found a bag of miniature Snickers bars.

“Want some candy, little girl?”

I'm not sure if I should be offended at the “little girl” part. I shrug. “Sure.”

“I have to keep these hidden or everyone else will eat them.”

“I thought your mom only ate spinach smoothies.”

“That's just what she eats when other people are looking.”

I don't quite believe this. If my mom is a size two, then Jess must be a size zero. Or maybe she shops in the juniors' section.

He takes out a handful of candy bars, then slides the bag across the table to me. I grab two, then one more because I realize all of a sudden that I didn't eat any dinner.

“I want to show you something.” He nods toward the backyard.

“I've already seen the hot tub,” I say, surprised at my own nerve.

He laughs. “That's not what I want to show you.”

Oh. “Oh,” I say on an exhaled whoosh of air.

That we have been naked in a hot tub together and kissed—that we nearly did so much more than that on his ex-stepfather's bed—seems like a small miracle.

Or does he even remember?

I worry that it was all a crazy dream, or that he was so stoned he's forgotten it happened.

We go out onto the back deck, where Buddha is lying spread out in the moonlight—at a time when any normal cat would be stalking about in the shadows hunting things.

I unwrap one tiny candy bar and take a bite as he points up into the oak tree whose branches shelter the deck. From the branch above us hangs a mobile of glittering silver stars. It looks like a hundred of them, all different sizes, suspended as if by magic from clear string.

“I made it. Thought you might like it since it matches your tattoo.”

I don't know if I should attach any significance to this, but I really, really want to. I love the idea that he not only noticed the stars on my ankle, but actually liked them enough to make a matching mobile.

This seems unlikely though.

I decide I'd better not point out that one heavy wind is going to have the thing hopelessly tangled in the tree.

Still, with my head tilted back, staring up at the twinkling stars above me, I feel myself getting swept away by romantic feelings, like a heroine starring in my own love story. Will it end in tragedy, or happily ever after?

He did this for me. I can almost make myself believe it. “It's beautiful.”

“Just like you.”

I look at him, glad it's dark so he can't see me blushing. Yes, I am lame enough to blush at his compliment.

“I didn't know you made stuff,” I say before the full stupidity of the comment sinks in.

“I just do it to annoy my mom. She hates kitsch, says real art is the only thing worth the effort.”

“Oh.” I'm not sure what kitsch is, but I am chastened enough by my last dumb comment not to ask now.

He takes a step closer to me. “Did my brother ban you from staying here anymore?”

“I didn't think you'd notice I was gone.” This comes out sounding more pouty than I intended.

Another half step closer. “Of course I noticed.” He reaches out and takes my hand in his as if this were something we do all the time—this touching thing. When, in fact, it's only the third time our bodies have touched. And what do they say about the third time being charmed?

My hand is clammy, but it's too late to pull away and dry it on my jeans. Except, well, this is the point at which I should be pulling away if I'm considering Sin's utter fury at me. Sin, who could arrive home at any moment. Sin, who is, or was, the only best friend I have in the world.

Finally I remember the two Snickers bars in my other hand. “Better eat these before they melt,” I say as I tug my hand free and begin working on a wrapper.

He watches. I think
bemused
is the right word to describe his expression when I take another bite of candy bar and look back up at him.

“Are you afraid to be alone with me now?”

“I'm afraid of melted Snickers bars.”

“Melted candy bars are tragic.”

Tristan and I always have dumb conversations, and I'm not sure this is such a good sign.

I shove the rest of a Snickers in my mouth, thinking this will keep him from kissing me at least for a few minutes. But then I chew quickly because I want him to kiss me.

Don't I?

Isn't that what my every fantasy involves?

It is. Or it was.

Now, I'm just as likely to think about the trees outside my window. Fantasies require too much effort, and more hope than I can muster these days.

Then I recall lying next to Sin in his bed, and how he said
we
. I marvel at how something inside me felt as if it cracked open that night, and I haven't been able to put the pieces back together again.

But it makes no sense. It's not like any other feeling I've ever had. I have no name for it. I can only marvel at it when I'm alone, when I have nothing else to think about, feeling around for some clue about what it was, what mysterious fossil I've found.

It's much easier to understand what I feel for Tristan—pure, unabashed lust combined with storybook love—and go with that right now.

And whatever happened with Sin, it might be lost forever.

By the time I finish chewing, I've regained my nerve. “Why did you take me up to that bedroom at the party?”

“Because you looked like you needed to forget.”

“Oh.”

“Just like you do now.”

“Oh.”

“And also because you're beautiful.”

“You're just saying that.”

“I am. Because I mean it.”

“How do I know you're not just saying it so I'll let you take me to your bedroom now?”

I'm being coy, and it sounds stupid. It's much more natural for me to act like I don't give a damn, to flaunt the emotional calluses I built up waiting for my sister to die.

“Because I already know you'll kiss me whether I tell you you're beautiful or not?” Somehow he manages to say this without sounding cocky.

“Maybe I won't this time.”

Then there is a sound from inside the house.

“I think we have company now,” Tristan says as he gazes through the kitchen door, his expression vaguely disappointed.

I want to grab him and drag him away somewhere private, demand to know exactly what all this means, or does it mean nothing at all?

But the instant the impulse arises, it is stomped down by the equally urgent desire for Sin not to see us out here alone looking suspicious. So I muster all my strength and go back into the house.

I am a lousy traitor, the worst kind of friend.

Just as I reach the hallway, I see Sin putting down a box beside the door. He looks up and sees me.

“Hey, I was looking for you,” I say, wondering if I sound too defensive.

“Here I am.” He glances past me, at Tristan, and his expression changes.

“You set up the show already?”

“It was ten paintings. She didn't need my help.”

She, as in Jess, is walking through the door now. “Oh, hi, Asha. How are you
doing
?” She says it meaningfully, as if apologizing for my pathetic life with that one little question.

Before I can answer, she sweeps me up in an embrace that's a little too eager. She must just now have remembered that I'm still in mourning. Now that she's spent a couple of hours staring at and arranging her own art, she's probably in a good mood, ready to acknowledge that other people—and our pain—exists.

“I'm—” I say before the squeeze becomes too tight for me to speak. “Okay,” I finish when she lets up a bit.

I awkwardly put my arms around her thin, wiry body. It reminds me of when Sin had a pet python (until Jess found out and made him get rid of it), the way it would wind itself around me, surprisingly strong and a little unnerving.

She releases me abruptly, holds me at arm's length. “Sin told me you scattered the ashes. Sarah's gone back to Mother Earth, darling. It's the circle of life.”

Spiritual lessons from children's movies.

I say nothing at all. Just blink at her, because Jess is unaccustomed to comforting people, and I'm unaccustomed to being comforted. Especially with Tristan and Sin as my audience.

Jess gives me one last meaningful squeeze before letting go and disappearing upstairs to her bedroom.

Sin rolls his eyes. Tristan shuffles down the hallway, back to his lair.

“So why were you looking for me?”

“Do I need a reason?”

“I thought I made myself pretty clear.”

“Yeah.” I feel my courage faltering now. I hadn't imagined how hard this was going to be. “You did. I owe you an apology.”

He stares at me. Through me. Says nothing.

“I'm really sorry.”

“Okay, you apologized. Are you done, or do you want to go hang out with Tristan in his bedroom now?”

I kind of deserve that, but I still wish he'd make this easier.

“No,” I say, a lame, little protest that hangs in the air between us like a bad memory.