We Are the Goldens (9 page)

I didn’t embarrass myself out there, but I didn’t have one of those made-for-TV moments either. I didn’t score a goal or make a save or manage a theatrical header. I just did my best and got in a few decent passes and one throw-in to Alice Morrow that landed in the sweet spot.

Brick-Moreland played well, but we played better, and we made it into the finals.

We were hosting the post-game pizza party again at Dad’s. I’d had such a good time the year before, imagining myself as one of the players, and I could hardly believe that here I was now, an actual Lightning team member heading into the
actual
finals.

It isn’t all that often that moments serve as real reminders of the passing of time, but this was one of them. Last year I wasn’t on the team, I didn’t go to City Day, and there was still some nagging concern that maybe I wouldn’t even get into the school, let alone make varsity, but here I was twelve short months later, and everything that seemed so out of reach back then was now part of my everyday life.

Felix begged for an invitation.

“It’s strictly Lightning-only,” I said.

“What about avid fans? I haven’t missed a single game. And by the way, you were seriously awesome out there.”

“Thanks, Felix, but you can’t flatter your way into the party.”

The crowd was still milling around. Teams from other schools had shown up for the next game. Golden Gate Park was awash in purple and gold and green and red and blue
and white. A rainbow of jerseys cutting through the thick gray mist.

I lost you. I stood with Felix, Dad, Mom, and Sonia.

I searched the throngs of people, eying the stands, an anxiety welling in me like you were a toddler lost in an amusement park. I’d had enough bench time before Coach Jarvis threw me in to take an inventory of the crowd. Mr. Barr was there, though he wasn’t the only teacher. The closer we got to the finals, the more the whole community started to come out to support us, but still, I worried you were standing somewhere with him, in plain sight. The rumors had started to settle down, and I didn’t want any new fuel for the fire.

“Who’s a soccer star?” you shouted as you ran toward us and threw your arms around me, messing my hair like I was a dog.

“Me?” Felix asked. You humored him by pulling him into our embrace. I was so thoroughly happy in that moment that I felt my eyes sting with tears.

“How about some celebratory dumplings?” Dad and his dumplings. He’s such a one-trick pony.

Mom said she’d love to but she was running late for something or other. It’s great that Mom and Dad and Sonia can share the stands at a soccer game, but sitting around a table with a lazy Susan is something else entirely. We were all relieved.

“Sounds delish,” Felix said.

“Well, join us, then,” Dad said.

We turned and started walking toward the parking lot, but you didn’t budge.

“Listen, guys, dumplings sound great, really great, but I have plans to go hang out. I’ll meet you back at the house this afternoon. Before the party. Promise.”

“Layla,” I said.

“What?”

“Come with us.”

“No can do.”

“Layla.”

“What?”

I just stared at you. I gave you my best
don’t do this
look.

“Nell. I’m going to go hang out with some friends. Stop trying to control me.”

“Now, girls,” Dad said. “Let’s not bicker.” He sounded like a dad on a sitcom. We hardly ever fought, and I detected a sort of satisfaction coming off Dad, as if he were enjoying doing the job we’d robbed him of all these years.

“Fine,” I said, and started waking quickly toward the car. Felix jogged to catch up with me.

“What was that about?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“I don’t know. I’m just worried about her.”

“You’re worried about Layla? The awesomely perfect Layla?”

“Just all the gossip and stuff.”

“That? Who cares? Nobody really believes that. They just say it because they figure if anyone could have Layla it would have to be the hot art teacher. Some people—you, primarily—are unduly infatuated with her.”

“You are too, you know.”

“
Moi?
No offense, but she’s not all that.”

Something about this was nice to hear, that Felix didn’t worship you. He didn’t harbor a secret crush. But it wasn’t what I needed at this moment. What I needed to hear was that you were telling me the truth. That you actually were meeting friends your own age and I had no reason to worry or wonder. But of course Felix couldn’t tell me that.

“Did you see Sam?” he asked.

“What?”

“Sam Fitzpayne. Did you see him?”

“He wasn’t there.”

“Yes, he was. He showed up after halftime.”

I’d searched the stands top to bottom, but not in the second half. I felt my heart lift.

Felix knocked into me with his shoulder. “I assumed you’d paid Coach Jarvis to put you in just so he wouldn’t know you never play.”

“Nope. She arrived at that insane decision on her own.”

“Well, you nailed it out there,” Felix said. “You always do.”

I took his hand and gave it a squeeze. I can do that. I can hold on to Felix’s hand in public and it isn’t awkward or anything, it just makes me feel connected and important and essential to him.

The dumplings were good. The dumplings are always good. I’ll never understand how they manage to put the soup on the inside.

As you promised, you showed up at Dad’s in the afternoon. I’d had a nice lunch out with Dad and Sonia and Felix, and I’d played eight whole minutes, and we were headed to the finals, and I was still buzzing with the knowledge that Sam had showed up at the game, and I didn’t want to ruin anything by giving you some sort of third degree, so I just said, “Hey,” when you walked in.

Dad sent us to the store for paper plates and cups and napkins and stuff. We actually found ones with soccer balls on them, which just seemed too corny not to buy. We went home and painted signs and put up purple streamers. There we were, both high school students, the days of birthday parties and clowns and balloons far in our past, yet it kind of felt like being a kid again.

By the time the first guest arrived, I was giddy with excitement.

It’s astonishing how much pizza fifteen girls can put away. We left a graveyard of crusts. We made ice cream sundaes in the kitchen and I took the whipped-cream and sprayed it in Chiara Vittorio’s face. She asked politely if she might borrow the can. Then she returned the favor. It got a little out of hand as whipped-cream mustaches and nipples started springing up. We laughed like a bunch of drunken frat boys.

It goes without saying that we never would have gotten away with this sort of behavior at Mom’s house.

We settled in the living room for the obligatory viewing of
Bend It Like Beckham
. I stretched out on the floor with some pillows. It wasn’t until the scene of the pickup game in the park, where Jules spots Jess playing with the boys and kicking
their asses, that I noticed you were gone. It’s our favorite scene. I looked up to make eye contact with you, but your seat was empty.

I stood up.

“Grab me another soda, will you, N. Golden?” Chiara asked.

“Sure.”

I didn’t go into the kitchen. I went down the hallway to your closed door.

I thought about knocking. I did. But since you were shutting me out—I had no choice but to barge in.

Anyway, who disappears from her own party?

You were sitting at your desk, facing the wall, and I was able to catch a glimpse of your laptop. You snapped it shut, but I saw the screen.

“What the hell?” you shouted, and swiveled around in your chair, your face a mash-up of surprise and anger.

“I was wondering where you’d gone.”

“That doesn’t explain why you didn’t knock.”

I didn’t tell you that my failure to knock was calculated precisely so I might catch you doing something you didn’t want me to see.

Like video chatting.

With Mr. Barr.

While you glared at me, I felt something shifting. A fault line forming. I stood on one side, and you stood on the other.

I’ll probably always remember where I was and what I wore and all that; it was that kind of moment.

I could no longer pretend.

Something
was
happening.

Something that shouldn’t be.

I managed to say, “Come back and watch the movie.”

Your face softened and you smiled. Relief. You thought I hadn’t seen. That I was clueless. The little sister, N. Golden, Monkey Number Two.

“Go ahead,” you said. “I’ll catch up with you in a minute,
soccer star
.”

Earlier that day that moniker almost brought me to tears. Now I heard the condescension.

You were playing me for a fool.

“I’ll save your seat.” I backed out of the room.

You came out about five minutes later. This movie that I loved so much played out slowly and torturously. I didn’t even crack a smile at the end when they all sing and dance to that “Hot Hot Hot” song.

Chiara slept over and everyone else left. This wasn’t the plan, but you begged her, you offered her spare pajamas and a toothbrush from the collection of fresh ones Sonia keeps in the linen closet.

Chiara wasn’t one of your besties, and she’d certainly never spent the night, but I guess you were desperate to have someone act as a buffer between us. I couldn’t exactly barge in and ask why you were video chatting with Mr. B. while Chiara stretched out on your floor in your old Giants T-shirt and flannel bottoms.

I went to bed and I tossed and turned for hours, trying to ignore the Creed brothers.

Nell. You up?

Nell. You saw what you saw
.

Nell. Nell? There’s no arguing with what you saw
.

Nell. Hey, Nell
.

I squeezed my eyes shut tight. You had no problem leaving me alone. Why couldn’t they?

Sleep changed things a bit. I still knew what I knew and I knew it for sure, but the night had erased some of the urgency. I wanted to be thoughtful. Careful. I didn’t want to come off as the outraged and bewildered younger sister, I wanted to come to you like a friend with no stake in what was happening.

But you had no stake in any of it
—I know that’s what you’re thinking. Now I’d like to try and tell you why this isn’t so. Here goes:

Our lives are intertwined
.

I don’t know how to make this any clearer. From my surprise birth to my mistaken name,
Nellayla
, to all the nights we slept in the same room to all the days we’ve been each other’s only constant—it could be Mom’s day or Dad’s, but we were almost always together—to my arrival at City Day, where I joined your soccer team, I could go on and on.

Our lives are intertwined
.

This is another way of saying that I love you, Layla. I love you, and what you do matters to me, but more than that, it matters
for
me.

Think of the Creeds. I know they meant more to me than they meant to you, and I’m sure you think my fascination with them is strange or morbid, but one thing we know is that Duncan couldn’t live without Parker. If such
unspeakable tragedy can have a lesson, then that’s what their lives and deaths taught us. Duncan had a stake in Parker’s choices.

I’m obviously not talking about killing myself. I’m not trying to be overly dramatic. I’m just saying that we’re close like that. We are the Goldens. And who knows; maybe to someone else out there, we are the perfect, beautiful sisters who have it all. Wouldn’t that be nice? To be seen that way? But of course, another thing the Creeds have taught us is that things are more complicated when you take a closer look.

We are the Goldens, but we aren’t perfect. We’re going to have some hard times, and I wanted to calmly and wisely say some version of this to you:
I am your sister, I’m here to help, we’re close, our lives are intertwined, you can trust me
.

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

Chiara left around noon and you said you were going back to sleep because the two of you had stayed up all night talking.

Talking about what? Did you tell her? Did she know? How could you tell Chiara something you hid from me?

I followed you into your room.

“Nell, I need a nap. I’m seriously wiped.”

“I know. I just wanted to talk.”

“You always want to talk.” You did a little motion with your hand.
Blah, blah, blah
. “Can’t it wait a few hours?”

The calm I’d been cultivating all morning was seeping out of me.

“I saw you,” I said.

“You saw me what?”

“I saw you on your computer. Last night. When I came to find you during the movie. I saw what you were doing.”

“What was I doing, Nell? Enlighten me.”

“Video chatting with Mr. Barr.”

“And?”

“And that’s what I saw.”

“So?”

“So, he’s a teacher. You’re a student.”

You smiled at me. I’d rather you’d called me a name or told me to get the hell out of your room. There was something so aggravating about that smile.

“Like I said, I’m super tired.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Taking a nap? Let me spell this out for you. I am
t-i-r-e-d
.”

“No, Layla. Why are you acting like this? Why are you treating me this way? Why are you staying up all night talking to Chiara, but you won’t talk to me?”

“God. You’re such a baby.”

I know why you said this. You know it’s what stings the most. It’s one of the few things that ever sent me crying to Mom or Dad.

And guess what? I’m not a baby. In fact, standing in your doorway, I felt like I’d aged years. I could see the mistakes you were making like I was looking in a rearview mirror. Why couldn’t you see things the same way?

I took a deep breath.

“Layla. I love you.” I tried to stay cool, but my eyes filled with tears. My voice cracked.

All your hard edges disappeared. You grabbed my wrist, pulled me into your room, and closed the door.