The Year My Sister Got Lucky (5 page)

Mom groans, clearly fed up with all of us. A red light — the first we’ve seen in ages — is swinging up ahead, so Mom comes to a quick stop that makes us lean forward in our seats. We’re alongside the car with the organic bumper sticker, so Mom honks her horn — too loudly, it seems, because the driver of the car frowns at her.

When he lowers the passenger side window, I see that a girl about my age is in the seat beside him. She has shiny, stick-straight auburn hair that I’m instantly jealous of, but she can keep the jumble of freckles all over her cheeks and nose. She’s wearing a loose-fitting, button-down plaid
shirt that looks like it’s straight out of Country Miss catalog. And she’s gaping at me and Michaela, as if we’re a science experiment — lab rats on display. I bristle. My subway-riding instincts kick in, and I want to roll down my window and ask Flannel what she’s staring at. Michaela elbows me in the side.

“Excuse me, can you tell us where thirteen Honeycomb Drive is?” Mom shouts to the driver, and I can tell that he’s taken aback by her accent and her loudness. I cringe.

Two minutes in Fir Lake, and the Wilders are already doing it all wrong.

“You’re new in town, right?” the man asks, showing the slight gap between his teeth when he smiles. His graying hair has red in it, and I understand that the girl must be his daughter. “The new Russian professor?”

My breath stops.
They know who we are.
I feel like we’re in a horror movie, and all the townsfolk are crowding around our car like zombies, moaning:
We’ve been waiting for you….

“Yes, Irina Wilder,” Mom replies crisply. “And this is my husband, Jeffrey.” She doesn’t seem the least bit disturbed, and even Dad waves at the man in the car.

Flannel continues to stare, unblinking, at me and Michaela, and I wonder if it’s just that she’s never
before seen two girls who
don’t
look as if they’re on their way to a barn raising.

“Bob Hawthorne.” The man gives a salute as the light changes. “Just make a left up there by that weeping willow. Welcome to the neighborhood!” And then he and Flannel are gone.

“So it’s true what they say,” Dad muses as Mom makes a left at what must be the weeping willow — a tree whose long green leaves sweep the ground. If I was planted in this town, I’d weep, too. “People
are
nicer outside the city.” Dad, like me and Michaela, was born and raised in Manhattan.

I open my mouth to say, no, they’re just nosier — but then I see it, coming up on the left. 13 Honeycomb Drive. Our new house.

And I’m speechless.

After dinner one night back in the city, Mom and Dad showed Michaela pictures of the house online, but I turned away from the computer, saying that I wanted it to be a surprise. That was a lie; I just couldn’t stomach thinking about any home other than our apartment on 5
^TH
Street. Now, I’m kind of wishing I’d had some preparation.

Because this puppy is
scary.

It’s dark gray and spindly, with a black roof that’s pointed like a witch’s hat and big windows that yawn like mouths. There’s a front porch, a red mailbox, and a small patch of grass in front. Ivy creeps up around the windows, like it’s eating the house alive.
Talk about omens — I knew there was a reason 13 is an unlucky number.

“We paid
money
for this?” I ask, and Mom gives me a look in the rearview mirror.

“We got a good deal,” Dad informs me cheerily. “It’s a bit of a fixer-upper.” I can tell, from the intense, juicy way he bites into that word, that he’s been waiting all his life to use it.

“It’s not
that
bad,” Michaela tells me as Mom brings the car to a jerky stop. But there’s a flash of worry in her eyes.

“All I know,” I reply. “Is that if
I
were a serial killer, this is where I’d camp out.”

Two moving trucks are parked in the driveway, and the muscle-bound guys from that morning are unloading what looks like our couch, all wrapped up and mummified. It’s then that I notice that our house (which in my mind, I’m already calling “The Monstrosity”) isn’t the only one on Honeycomb Drive. It’s in between two others, neither of which is as ugly or terrifying. The one to the right of The Monstrosity is actually sort of cute, painted yellow with blue shutters. Why couldn’t Mom and Dad have bought that one?

As our parents get out of the car and trot over to the movers, Michaela unbuckles her seat belt and eases herself gracefully outside. I have no choice but to follow. I put one gold platform sandal down on
the mushy grass, stick my head out of the car, and am instantly attacked by a swarm of mosquitos.

The tiny demons buzz and dip, forming a cloud around my head. I can’t help my scream as I start flapping my hands, trying to get them off me. The more I swat, the more of them seem to materialize, getting in my nose and mouth.

“Katie.” Michaela hurries over and tugs me away from the deadly swarm. “They’re just in the air because it’s evening — ignore them.”

“Easy for you to say,” I sputter, shaking out my hair and grateful to be alive. “They don’t want to consume
your
flesh and blood.” Suddenly, The Monstrosity is looking pretty welcoming.

The door to the house is open, with movers coming in and out, and the other movers stand in the driveway, talking to Mom and Dad. As Michaela and I approach the porch, I feel cold, prickly drops of rain on my bare arms. The sky is darker and more ominous than it was before, and I shiver, quickening my steps. Michaela starts to climb the rickety porch steps, stepping hesitantly in her flip-flops. Before I can do the same, I spot a movement outside the house next to ours — the yellow one.

I glance over and see that a young woman, who is maybe in her twenties, has stepped onto the porch and is standing with her palms up, as if to catch the rain. She is so beautiful she almost seems fake, like a
creature from a fairy tale; her soft white-blonde hair falls in loose curls down her back and her skin is a rosy pink. She’s wearing a green jungle-print sundress, and she’s barefoot. I’m so curious about our neighbor that I stop for a minute and stare.

She turns her head, studies the trucks, and then lands her gaze on me. Unlike Flannel, she doesn’t go all bug-eyed — she simply smiles in an inviting way.

Are we supposed to be friends with this blonde woman? I don’t know. In New York, people live on top of one another, crammed together in cramped buildings. But we barely knew our neighbors, not even the friendly-seeming couple next door who blasted hip-hop until midnight every night (Michaela said at least we didn’t hear them having sex, which was something that would have surely scarred me for life).

I decide I need to learn more about our new neighbor before I can return her smile. So I bolt up the creaky porch steps, and run into The Monstrosity. As soon as I’m in the foyer, a solid sheet of rain comes down behind me, making a steady sound like a mother shushing her baby. Michaela, sitting on one of the million boxes heaped in the foyer, grins at me.

“It’s kind of crazy, huh?” she asks.

The Monstrosity smells dank and musty — the way I imagine cobwebs would smell. The kitchen — a lone bulb burning in its ceiling — is as huge as the
farmlands we saw from the car. In the city, a kitchen large enough to fit a
table
in is an unheard-of luxury. Beyond the kitchen is the living room with an empty fireplace. Our peeling armchairs, comfy and homey back in the city, now seem dwarfed by the vast space. An oak staircase, with two angel heads as knobs on the banister, spirals up toward the second landing. I hear some movers clomping around upstairs.

“Crazy,” I echo.

This is our house.

Mom and Dad burst through the front door, startling me. They’re both drenched from the rain, but they’re laughing. “That’s some storm!” Dad says in the same way he said “fixer-upper.”

Mom claps her hands, efficient as always. “The movers are bringing the last of our stuff,” she tells me and Michaela. “Don’t you girls want to go upstairs and see your bedrooms?”

Bedroom
s
?

Plural?

I glance at Michaela, who is standing up from her box. “Oh, yeah,” she says, looking embarrassed. “I forgot to tell you, Katie. We’re each getting our own room.”

I’m so stunned by this news that I forget to be mad that Michaela forgot. A warmth that feels like delight shoots through me. My own room? It’s something I never thought I’d have, so I never imagined it. My own room, where, when I can’t sleep, I can switch
on all the lights and read until dawn? Where I can practice jetés and pirouettes alone, without Michaela correcting my every step? Where, after a shower, I can take off my towel and see what I look like naked in the mirror — just to see? Where I can lock the door and daydream for hours?

I never considered any of these possibilities.

“Two rooms, Katya,” Mom says, and for the very first time that day, I smile. Maybe The Monstrosity won’t be so awful after all.

Okay, so having your own room?

Sucks.

Especially when it’s late at night, there’s a thunderstorm rattling the windows of your frightening new house, and your life as you know it feels like it’s over.

Just for example.

I bunch into a ball as the thunder crackles outside. I’m in my old bed, on my old sheets, but the blanket over me is too thin for this room, which is freezing. The rain sounds like gunfire, and tree branches knock against the windowpane. From outside my door, there comes a loud groan followed by a creak.

Earlier, after the movers left and Mom and Dad unpacked some lamps and bedding and batteries, we ate dinner sitting on chairs in the living room. Since it was raining, Dad gave up his dream of fresh farmer’s cheese, and we had to make do with canned tuna
and salted crackers. While we were eating our glamorous meal, Mom told us some facts about houses, since she’d grown up in one in Russia. Apparently, at night, houses “settle,” which means they make strange moaning noises. Michaela said she’d read about that somewhere, but
I’ve
never heard of it and think it makes zero sense.

A pissed-off ghost is much more likely.

There’s a violent crack of thunder and I jump, then hug my arms around my middle, feeling like a two-year-old. I miss the lullaby of city traffic. And there, if I was ever antsy or spooked in the middle of the night, all I had to do was lift my head and see Michaela. I feel such a deep ache for our old room that tears spring to my eyes. Out of habit, I squint through the pitch-blackness, expecting to see another bed against the opposite wall. A flash of lightning shows me that I’m surrounded by a closet, my desk, and a few boxes. That’s all. The off-white walls are bare and have long, narrow cracks.

Reality check. Michaela is down the hall in a bedroom with a slanted ceiling that overlooks the back garden (my windows face out onto the yellow house with the blue shutters). I fight the urge to race down the hall, and slide into bed with my sister. Michaela was so exhausted after dinner that she could barely keep her eyes open, so she’d be furious if I woke her. She’s probably thrilled to have me out of her hair. No one to nag her awake at night, no babyish
ballet slippers to take closet space away from her toe shoes….

I sigh and turn over onto my back. Though I was looking forward to flipping on my light and reading in the middle of the night, I can’t. My old bedside lamp, when Dad pulled it out of its box, was split clean in two. There’s no ceiling fixture in my new room, so I had to use Mom’s weak flashlight to climb into bed. And the minute I shut the flashlight off, I learned something important.

There is no light in the country.

None.

Cars don’t drive by, and there are no streetlamps or tall buildings with other people awake inside. It’s like night falls and electricity ceases to exist.

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 bot
tle 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
x
es and
o
s.

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.