Never Said (8 page)
I didn't listen. I just wanted to get in my room. Lie on the bed. Text Garret. Do anything to unwind. Every muscle in my body was taut.
My room. My room. That's what I thought running up the stairs. I slammed the door behind me and collapsed against it.
I fell on the bed, sweaty from nerves. Closed my eyes. Did the deep breathing that hadn't worked all day. Thirty minutes later, my heart had calmed down and my head no longer ached. I was changing my clothes when I heard, “What's your problem?”
Dad. Shouting. “Are you crazy? You must be. How can you do your runway walk like that?”
Uh oh.
The calm I had felt was shoved aside. I felt cold at Dad's words. Now what? A spasm of worry similar to what Mom might have been feeling earlier that day when Annie simply didn't show up for work coursed through me. Why hadn't I paid more attention to my mom? Tried to ease the way she felt?
I headed down the stairs unsure of where to put my feet, like I might step wrong and fall face-first into the foyer. Fights, yelling, anger. It all unnerved me.
Hesitating, I waited on the Persian rug in the foyer, listening to Dad. Taking in his anger. Hearing the heartbreak in his voice.
I was afraid to see why he sounded like this. His sorrow scared
me. This was serious. And Annie was silent. I almost didn't allow myself to peek.
Dad hollered. Said, “What? Why?”
In the background, I could hear Mom weeping.
I looked into the living room, white as heaven. My father and sister stood toe to toe, squaring off. Mom sat in the corner, perched on a chair, her face covered with her hands.
Annie's hair was nearly gone.
It was as if she'd cut it raggedy short with a butter knife. She'd colored it purple, red, black. What was left of her hair looked bruised.
Our father was right. This was not a beauty queen's haircut.
Annie stood there so stiff, so small looking, so defiant. She argued, “My life” and “My hair.” Then she said, “I wanted it this way.”
Dad went silent. Took in a breath. “You're fired,” he said. And that was that.
N
ot that much more before, a few months before the haircut, before Annie started gaining weight, Mom and Dad and I sat in an audience of more than three hundred people. Dad had invited his whole office. Paul and Emma Jean and David were there, with their families. Everyone wore an Annie: Queen of the Night T-shirt to support her. (She played that aria on the piano.)
My parents clapped like crazy when she won Miss Springfield and won a scholarship to boot. She dipped her head to accept a glittery crown. Her face was bright. She didn't cry like some winners do, but pumped her fist in the air. Laughed. Yelled into the microphone, “Mom! Dad! Sarah! I love you!”
Melanie was runner up. She laughed too. Grabbed Annie in a huge hug, and they almost danced. Then Annie waved to all those people like she meant it.
“Look at her,” Dad said. “That's my girl.”
“Our girl,” Mom said.
“You could be a winner too, Sarah,” Dad said. Then he was cheering for Annie again.
I was hot with emotion. Thrilled for Annie. But burning from the inside out. Had my dad really said that? We both knew I'd
never stand on a stage like that. Ever. No matter what Dad said, I couldn't do what Annie did.
I didn't want to.
No matter how much he wanted me to be like Annie, I was just Sarah.
H
ere's what I'm thinking,” Annie says. We're in the family room after dinner, a fire roaring in the fireplace. “Mom? Sarah?”
Dad keeps checking his phone. After the haircut, he quit looking at Annie when she spoke. When she pierced one of her ears in numerous places, he didn't talk to her for a week. When she pierced her nose, I thought he might collapse from anger. I think he doesn't look at her straight on anymore because he's afraid something new has happened.
Mom's watching
The Bachelor.
A long-ago season, and I'm not sure why she's turned it on now. She knows the outcome.
Mom pauses the show.
Annie's animated. Her eyes are bright. Liquid looking. Like what she plans to say means as much to her as that night on the stage last year. She glances at me.
Is she nervous? My sister the star. Is she afraid? Has she become like me because of her choices? Because of her weight?
“Mom, me and Sarah are starting a club,” Annie says.
What? Me? No, not me.
Mom looks from Annie to me and back to my sister. She wears a tentative expression. Like she can't believe this. I don't blame her. “A club?”
“At school. Sarah got permission, of course, and I've spoken to Ms. Cleland tooâyou've met her, Mom, remember? With the incident?âand she said a diversity club sounds good to her.”
My stomach drops at the allusion to Tommy Jones, but Mom nods. She wears a timid smile, like she's not quite sure what to do with her lips. Like when I'm in front of a class and I'm not sure where to put my hands. Am I my mother too? The thought surprises me.
“Is that so?” she asks.
Dad waves a hand, meaning shush. “This is about a meeting before the party,” he says, then stands and says, “Gotta take this call.”
“Tell me more, dear,” Mom says, and for a minute she sounds like someone in a Lifetime movie. She sounds . . . fake. Does Annie notice? The nerves tighten.
How have we gotten so far from each other? Mom passes me the bowl of caramel popcorn she holds. It smells buttery. Sugary. I take a handful but Annie shakes her head no.
“I don't care who shows,” Annie says. She sits close to Mom. Her voice is lowered. “Anyone can come. There's no judgment.”
Mom nods. Dad moves across the room, stands near the fireplace here in the TV room. He's speaking low. The flames lick the air. The firewood snaps.
“So if you feel different, if your hair isn't quite perfect” â she reaches for her own hair â “if your nose is too big . . .” Annie has raised her voice. Does she want Dad to hear?
I'm quiet. Listening. Eating popcorn.
Hoping.
For what? I don't even know.
Mom's listening too. I can tell. She moves closer. “Annie.”
“Sarah made a terrific flier.” Annie looks at me and I raise my
eyebrows. “And we'll hang them up everywhere.” Then Annie starts listing flaws again. Are you the wrong color? The wrong religion? The wrong shape? The wrong class? The wrong age? The wrong . . . It just keeps going on and on.
Mom's hand goes to her throat.
I recognize the move. Have seen it when I couldn't talk at an assembly. When I walked out on a violin solo. When I didn't stand up to a bully in sixth grade. Mom is always touching her throat like she has to hold her head on.
“Are you sure you should associate with those kinds of people?” Mom asks, and the whole room goes quiet. Even Dad looks over like he can't believe Mom has spoken those words. Can he hear us?
Then Mom is up, moving out of her comfy chair, grabbing the popcorn and taking it with her.
My lungs are full of fire ants.
Annie's hands are folded in her lap and she doesn't change position. She tilts her head The two of us wait, together. Mom works in the kitchen. There's the clatter of cabinet doors shutting.
“With the lower class,” Annie says after a long moment.
“She didn't mean that,” I say.
“Yes, she did.” Then Annie leaves the room.
I have to breathe through my mouth. Close my eyes. Under my hands I feel the texture of the sofa. It's a pale red, the leather, and soft.
Dad's voice seems loud now.
He's not paying attention. Maybe he never was. I stand. Walk into the kitchen. It seems so far.
Mom gazes out the window over the sink. The room is so bright there's no way she can see outside â the window shows
only her reflection, then mine. Mom gasps and says, “You surprised me, Sarah.”
Nothing from me.
“What?” she says. “Spit it out.”
I swallow. I'm shaking. “I can't believe you said that to Annie, Mom.”
She turns on the sink water. “What are you talking about?”
“We're not royalty.”
The water runs in the sink. Dad's voice is a murmur in the background.
“I know that.” Mom gives a ruffled laugh.
“It was mean. You were mean to her. She has a good idea that could help other people. Maybe help herself. And me.”
“I don't know what you're talking about.” The Lifetime movie is back. The front door opens. Slams shut.
“Great,” Mom says. “Now we have to go after her, Sarah.”
Like Annie is a bother.
Or the second-class citizen Mom's worried my sister will become.
These are the rules:
Be who you are
Say what you will
Live your life well
You are safe here.
Safe.
Here.
A
nnie's down the sidewalk, coatless, hands shoved into her pockets.
Mom speaks from the porch. Her words puncture the night air. “I don't want you hurt,” she says. “But . . . those kinds of people, that kind of influence . . . It's not good for you.”
“Stop talking, Mom,” I say. Part of me is surprised I've said anything more to her. That I've talked back. But she doesn't answer, so I follow Annie, leaving my coat behind too, but grabbing mittens and a scarf from the foyer table where I left them when I came in this afternoon. I pull the gloves on. Wrap the scarf around my neck.
“Annie!”
The blast of winter hits me full in the face, makes me gasp, and I'm reminded of Garret. Maybe because I can see the lights on over there, see his car parked in his driveway.
For two weeks, before we started dating, he took me to school.
Annie had decided she wouldn't finish out a term, but would home school.
And Mom needed me to catch a ride into classes. Garret happened to be available.
The cold bites at me, the wind pushes me back like a hand.
Mom's talking, talking, talking and then the door slams shut and I remember how Garret'd knocked on the door, walked me to the car, opened that door. Big Gulp cups. Everywhere. Front seat. Backseat too.
“What is all this?” I had said.
“My collection,” he had answered.
Now I can see my breath. There's Annie, jogging in the opposite direction of my used-to-be boyfriend's house. So much of our lives, I realize as I follow her, is used to be's.
I run, purposefully sliding on the ice I see, hitting as much snow as I can so I don't fall.
Here's how I felt about Garret, from the beginning: I'm pretty darn neat as a rule, but I settled myself in that car, kicking the cups out of the way, without a thought.
The memory makes me warm inside, even with tonight's low temps. I hurry through the cold. The sidewalk is slicker than I'd thought.
Oh, I liked him. That morning he'd popped his toothbrush in his mouth and brushed all the way to school. The car smelled minty fresh but looked like a dump.
“Good dental habits?” I'd said. It took all my courage. My face caught fire.
Garret smiled.
I surprised myself then too. Me, shy. But his teeth were white. Did he floss? I hoped so. But I'd hoped he wouldn't do that while we drove.
My mouth opened before my brain had a chance to stop it. “You have a great smile.” I spoke like a real person.
Garret glanced at me. “What was that?”
“Nothing,” I had said, almost stuttering.
It wasn't long
after that he asked me to the movies. Oh, that car! He was cute and I hadn't minded the Big Gulp cups at all.
I'm right behind Annie now. She must hear me because she turns, spinning. I put my hands up, like she might strike out. But she walks into my arms and we stand in the cold, shivering, freezing it seems, holding each other. I wrap the scarf half around her, half around me. I give her one glove and we hold bare hands.
“She doesn't mean it,” I say. I say this too much. Always protecting her. Them. Annie. When did this become my job? “I'm not sure what's wrong with her.” With them, I think. With us. “But she's trying in her weird way.”
I believe what I say, I realize, as the words tumble out and hit the sidewalk.
Annie's teeth chatter. “She means every word.” Annie blows out a cloud of air and it floats above her head like a word bubble. “I started this all. This family change. I realized that when she was talking. My deciding to gain weight, to drown in food, it's changed everything.”
The wind pushes at us. Her words push at me. A car drives past, snow crunching under tires. Annie stares into my eyes.
“They've always been like that,” I say. “Money matters. The way we look to others.” I clutch her ungloved hand in mine. My fingers have gone numb, though my palm is still warm. “But underneath the fake crap, they care. She cares. She's just . . .” I reach for words. “Shallow, and she can't crawl up from that.”
The wind whips my hair. Pushes me and Annie closer.
“We used to matter more,” Annie says. “Before this.” She doesn't gesture or anything, but I understand what she means. “Before, we mattered.”
I don't answer.
“
What?”
A dog barks. One long, low howl. A door opens and shuts somewhere.
“Not we,” I say.
“Tell me. Say it.”
“You've always mattered more.”
She's right. Yes.
I know it.
As we walk
hand in hand
I'm so embarrassed
at this truth.
The scarf around
neither neck fully.
One glove each.
Sarah is right.
Mom and Dad showed
They loved me
more than her.
And I'm sick
with this revelation
I had hoped
she didn't know.
