The Year My Sister Got Lucky (18 page)

I spot several e-mails between Michaela and a Ms. Tennyson, who is Fir Lake High’s college counselor. She’s probably helping Michaela plot her glorious entrance into Juilliard. Then I click on the Chats link. Almost all of Michaela’s most recent IMs are with Anders, though there are a few with Heather, Lucy, and Faith, and one or two with Sofia, back in the
beginning of September. It’s like reviewing a journal of Michaela’s time in Fir Lake.

The doorknob rattles. I look up in a panic, then realize that it’s The Monstrosity doing its settling/groaning thing. Michaela is probably beginning her pliés now. My palms are so damp I can hardly feel them. Acting on instinct, I click on the Chat that took place between Michaela and Anders the day after Homecoming.

This is nauseating. I have to remind myself that the “me” refers to Michaela — not me, Katie. I always seem to develop a minor identity crisis when dealing with my sister.

I raise my eyebrows. Michaela mentions
me
when she’s talking to Anders? I’m not sure if I should feel flattered or suspicious. After checking the door to make sure Michaela isn’t about to barge in, I go back to reading.

My stomach tightens.
What
happened?

I bite my bottom lip. Am I reading what I think I’m reading?

I click out of the Chat, trying to breathe. Can it be? Maybe I’m misunderstanding. Maybe it’s my overactive imagination at work.

Trembling slightly, I start opening other e-mails, the ones from Heather, looking for more answers:
babe, i think u left ur copy of Sense and Sensibility @ my
house
, one reads.
Should i bring to school tomorrow XOXO, Heather.
Nothing too outrageous there. Then I click on the e-mail dated the day after Homecoming, the one with the subject line “congratulations!”

And the e-mail simply reads: …
on no longer being a virgin! XOXO, Heather

I slap the laptop shut. The room tilts around me.

Okay. So now I know.

But I wish I didn’t.

“Yoga breaths, yoga breaths,” I say out loud. Michaela could easily be walking down the hall right now. I have the presence of mind to reopen her laptop and minimize her e-mail screen, covering my tracks like any decent criminal. Then I spring off the bed and start pacing back and forth, my mind reeling.

Michaela had sex. Michaela had SEX!

So Anders has seen my sister naked. I look back at her bed. Did it happen in
here
? No. Probably not. It must have been at Anders’s house. Does he have a big bed? Were his parents home? Does one
need
to do it in bed, or can it happen anywhere?

Was she scared? Does she really love him?

How could she keep this from me?

I’m furious at my sister and, at the same time, I regret that I dug so deep. Sometimes one can be too good of a detective. Because there are some things you’re better off not discovering.

I stop in front of Michaela’s desk and look at the picture of us on her corkboard. It was taken in June.
We didn’t know anything then. We didn’t know we were moving. There’d been no talk of dating or sex or Homecoming Queens. No wonder our smiles were so easy and natural. No wonder my arm rested trustingly in Michaela’s lap, and our cheeks pressed close together.

That was before my sister betrayed me.

Which is how I feel now, standing alone in her room. Betrayed — like my fellow soldier has run off and left me in the trenches. Like my partner in a pas de deux has decided to bow off the stage. Like my best friend in the world has escaped to a universe that is hidden from me.

I reach out to take the photograph off the corkboard — I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it — when the bedroom door opens.

“You’re still here?”

I drop my hand and turn to regard my sister. She’s all glowy with perspiration, and she’s wearing her familiar ballet gear. This is how I often picture Michaela in my mind’s eye — the constant dancer. This is my sister in her truest form.

Yet I feel as if I’m looking at a stranger.

“I bought the tickets,” I say, my jaw stiff. I’m sure my face is ghost-pale. I’m worried that Michaela’s penetrating gaze is going to pierce through my shuddering heart. That, in her half magical Michaela way, she’s going to figure out what I did.

Michaela nods. “Thanks.” There’s a pause. “I need to change out of my toe shoes. They’re killing my feet,” she adds, bending down to unlace the thick pink ribbons around her ankles. I watch as she carefully slides one foot out. Her toes are bloodied, as always. But this time, the blood seems more significant — symbolic, somehow.
My sister had sex.

“I need to be alone,” I say. I’ve never spoken those words to my sister, so it makes sense that she looks up at me with concern.

“Is it — what I said before?” she asks, her voice tremulous. So
now
she feels bad.

I don’t answer, only back out of the room. I can’t be near her — this stranger — right now. I can’t even be in the same house as her.

In my room, I pull my coat on over my pajamas, cram my feet into my Uggs, and hurry downstairs. I slip past my parents, who are still in the kitchen, and walk outside into the cool, windy morning. It’s flurrying — the first snowfall of the season. Light, white, butterfly flakes land on my nose. Some winters in the city, it didn’t snow until the middle of January.

I guess here, everything happens sooner than you expect it to.

I hold out my hands, catching the snow, and I remember when I first saw Emmaline, standing on her porch touching the rain. Maybe she, too, was try
ing to forget something that had hurt her. I glance toward Emmaline’s house now; her lights are on and her car is in the driveway. We haven’t talked since I started taking yoga, but today I have no desire to go next door and pour my heart out. Nor can I stand the thought of calling Autumn to fill her in on Fir Lake High’s hottest couple. No. Michaela’s secret — my secret now — feels too unwieldy to be let out. I will try my best to keep it safe.

As long as it doesn’t eat me up first.

“
You
have a secret,” Autumn announces as we’re leaving the yoga studio on Thursday. My lime-green mat that I bought last week at The Climber’s Peak is tucked under my arm, and my hair is down.

“Why do you say that?” I ask, my smile fading. For one blissful hour and a half, yoga took my mind off my troubles, as it always does. I can feel myself improving every week, getting more comfortable with the poses
and
the notion that I’m loving something other than dance. My mom knows I’m taking yoga, but she has no idea how much I enjoy it. I’ve been paying for classes with saved-up birthday money (Emmaline gives me a discount anyway), and even though I still go to Mabel Thorpe every week, my heart isn’t in those classes at all. In a way, it feels like a mini-betrayal of my own.

Though nothing as serious as Michaela’s.

“It’s scribbled all over your face,” Autumn replies as we pass through the ground floor of the library, nodding to the librarians behind the circulation desk. “All week, you’ve looked like you’re holding something back,” she adds, glancing at me.

Having an observant friend is both a blessing and a curse.

Autumn doesn’t realize how close I’ve come to spilling everything to her. At lunch today, my friend looked at the Senior Popular Table and whispered, “Did Michaela and Anders have an operation that got them to be attached at the mouth?” I opened my own mouth, so ready to release my secret, but I stopped myself in time.

“It’s just family stuff,” I say, not wanting to lie but not wanting to get into the gruesome details, either. And though Autumn possesses a streak of small-town nosiness, she’s polite enough not to press me.

“Speaking of family secrets …” Autumn begins, and I perk up, wondering if she’s going to reveal something about Jasper. Not that I should care about Jasper.

Unfortunately, Coach Shreve chooses that moment to pop up behind us.

“Tough class, huh, girls?” he asks, looking as if he’s having trouble walking.

I have to say that it’s delightful vengeance to be
better
at a physical activity than Coach Shreve is. Today, he had trouble mastering the Happy Baby pose, which
is one of my favorites, and Emmaline asked me to demonstrate for him. I have a feeling that he’s going to start being kinder to me in gym class from now on.

As we walk through the library doors into the blustery evening — somehow, without warning, it’s really become winter — I turn to Coach Shreve and ask, as casually as I can, “So … what do you think of Emmaline?”

Coach Shreve looks startled. “Well … ah …” He tugs his wool hat onto his head. “She’s a very capable teacher.”

Capable teacher
doesn’t really translate to
I love her madly and want to have lots of Happy Babies with her
, so I don’t push the topic. Coach Shreve tells me and Autumn he needs to stop by The Climber’s Peak, and quickly limps off.

“It’s a lost cause,” I sigh, resting my head on Autumn’s shoulder. “Someone who’s never had a boyfriend should probably never be a matchmaker.”

“I’m sorry things didn’t work out with Sullivan,” Autumn says, leaning her head against mine.

“It’s weird … but I’m not,” I say, surprised at how well I’ve been handling the post-Homecoming awkwardness with Sullivan. At the thought of boyfriends, however, I remember Michaela and Anders, and my stomach tightens.
Don’t go there
. So I ask Autumn, “What’s up with your family secret?” We’re walking past Hemming’s Goods, and we wave to Mrs. Hemming, who blows us a kiss.

Autumn grins. “The first weekend in November, my dad, Jasper, and I hike up Mount Elephant.”

What kind of secret is that? By now, I’m more than used to Jasper’s and Autumn’s outdoorsy, cow-milking ways. I shrug at my friend. “Sounds …”
Torturous
, I think. “Fun,” I fib.

Autumn draws a breath and says, “It is. And I want you to come with us.”

Me? Hiking up the biggest mountain in Fir Lake? Did Autumn’s brains rattle during yoga?

“Um, isn’t it a little cold for hiking?” I ask, pulling my scarf up to my nose as we walk past the half frozen lake. “I mean, yeah, global warming and whatever, but, come on….”

“Once you live through a December here, November is warm by comparison,” Autumn tells me patiently. “All you need to wear is like, some thermals, maybe a quilted vest, and gloves. As long as it doesn’t snow …”

I flash to a terrifying image of Autumn, Jasper, Mr. Hawthorne, and myself buried under snowdrifts, crying out for help. I don’t even know what “thermal” is.

“We don’t have to sleep in a tent, do we?” I ask warily. “I have enough trouble sleeping in my bed.”

I realize, then, that now two more people know I’m an insomniac: Emmaline and Autumn. Maybe it’s not such a secret anymore.

Autumn assures me that the hike is just a day trip. “Katie, it would be really great to have you there,” she adds in a quieter tone, and I realize that this hike might mean a lot to her. Maybe she’s been waiting for a friend to share it with. In that moment, as I meet her eyes, I understand that Autumn thinks of me as her best friend. But is Autumn
my
best friend? I’m conflicted. In spite of everything, I still feel loyal to Michaela, to Trini and Sofia and all my ballet girls. Having a best friend in Fir Lake would be like closing the door on the city forever.

At the same time, ever since Michaela and I started drifting apart, Autumn has been my lifesaver. I owe her a friendly gesture in return. And now that I’m thinking about it, a jaunt with the Hawthornes
would
provide the perfect excuse for me to escape my crazy family for one day.

And maybe there’s a tiny, heart-pounding part of me that likes the idea of spending time with Jasper.

When I tell Autumn to sign me up, her freckled face brightens, and she begins listing instructions: “Wear your sturdiest shoes. Buy hiking boots, if possible, or sneakers will do. Pack lots of bottled water in your backpack, though we always have extra. Don’t forget to put sunscreen on your nose and ChapStick on your lips, because the wind can be intense up there….”

What have I gotten myself into?

I’m wondering the same thing on Saturday, as I trudge up a treacherous, sloping trail behind Jasper, Autumn, and Mr. Hawthorne, who are all wearing anoraks, fingerless gloves, and backpacks. The three of them are singing at the top of their lungs, even though we’ve been walking uphill for hours. It’s some song about hiking, though I’m much more focused on
not
tumbling off the side of the mountain than I am on listening to the lyrics. Every once in a while, Mr. Hawthorne will stop to point out the tracks of striped skunks, patches of poison ivy, and owl pellets, which only serves to strike more fear into my heart.

The wind slices through the fir trees, and I clutch at my white earmuffs, wishing I’d worn a hat (the earmuffs looked cuter). Following Autumn’s instructions, I’m wearing sneakers, but they’re thin-soled baby-blue Pumas, and I can feel every rock, stick, and leaf through them (the Hawthornes are all in lace-up hiking boots). My Capezio tote hangs from my shoulder, cumbersome and heavy (I packed three bottles of water, ginger Altoids, my cell phone, a tin of smoked almonds in case we get stranded, my compact mirror, and lip gloss — which I figured could double as ChapStick).

Obviously, I’ve made several mistakes.

“I’m so jealous!” Michaela cried this morning when she ran into me in the hallway and I had to explain why I was wearing sneakers. “I’ve been wanting
to climb Mount Elephant forever. Heather and I went for a hike on a trail near there last week, but it got too cold to go climbing.”

She was in her short robe, heading for the shower and, looking at her, all I could think about was Anders and the IMs. “I guess you can’t get everything you want,” I told her cryptically, and then drifted off to my room, feeling her gaze on the back of my head.

Why
my sister would want to scale this crazy mountain is beyond me.

Up ahead, Jasper stops singing, pauses in his tracks, and glances back at me with an amused smile. “Ready to throw in the towel?” he calls.

“No!”
I snap between pants. But the truth is, I kind of am. Nobody warned me that the trail was going to become as steep as a wall. A while ago, I decided not to bother keeping up with the corn-fed Hawthornes, and simply struggled along at my own pace, which is basically that of a snail on sleeping pills.

Autumn, too, stops singing and comes to stand beside her brother. “Katie, come
on
!” she hollers, and her tone isn’t teasing like Jasper’s was. In fact, it’s borderline annoyed. “You don’t have to be so scared. Just take bigger steps!”

“Easy for you to say!” I shout back. “You could do this blindfolded!”

I actually think I’m doing well — for me. Back in September, when I thought of Autumn as Flannel,
and she thought of me as a city snob, I wouldn’t have even made it past the trail sign.

“She has a point,” Jasper says, elbowing Autumn. She glares first at him, and then at me, and stomps up the incline to catch up with her father. But Jasper reaches out his gloved hand to help draw me up. “It’s just another hour or so to the top,” he promises. “And the way down is always easier than the way up.”

Usually, I get a kick out of me and Jasper volleying insults back and forth, but today it’s kind of nice to have him be, well, nice to me. As my hand touches his, I hate how there seems to be a direct line between the nerves in my fingers and the blood in my cheeks.

I’m surprised when Jasper doesn’t let go right away. He keeps a tight grip on me as we navigate the rough terrain. He’s obviously just being polite — Autumn’s dad is big on his kids having manners — but being this near to him is doing strange things to my heart. I study his profile — his auburn hair curling out from under his woolen hat, his glasses, fogged up from the cold, his short nose and smooth, thin lips.

What is going
on
with me?

“Thanks for taking my side back there,” I tell Jasper lightly, trying to pretend I’m speaking to someone utterly ordinary — like, say, Autumn’s older brother.

“Yeah, Autumn’s just cranky ’cause she’s hungry,” Jasper replies, adjusting one of the straps on his bookbag with his free hand. “Usually she thinks you’re
adorable, like some terrified domestic cat that’s been let loose in the wild.”

Do
you
think I’m adorable?
I want to ask, but that question feels even scarier than the ravine below us. “I’m glad I provide endless entertainment,” I grumble instead.

“But you know,” Jasper says, and I feel him looking at the side of my face. “Your princess act does get a little old after a while.”

Princess act?
I come to an abrupt stop and turn to glare at Jasper. Suddenly, I’m hyperaware of my fluffy white earmuffs, Pumas, peacoat, and tote bag. “It’s not an act!” I spit, jerking my hand out of Jasper’s. “This is how I
am.
I’m not a Fir Lake native. I don’t milk cows.” Now the heat in my cheeks is from anger. “I don’t go on hikes. I don’t wear flannel. I’m a city girl. Deal with it, Jasper.”

And with that, I flounce away from him — or I flounce as best I can, what with all the rocks in my way, before I find myself on a quiet plateau with Autumn and her father. Open sky and rugged mountaintops surround us. We haven’t reached the top yet, but the view still makes my head whirl. Fir Lake itself looks like nothing more than a puddle of bright blue water. The town — the roads I walk every day, stressing over school and boys and Michaela — is miniature, cardboard.

“Wow,” I whisper, forgetting Jasper’s princess jibe.

“No kidding,” Autumn says, sidling up to me.
“Doesn’t everything seem less important up here?” I sense that she feels bad about snapping at me before. And suddenly, I’m filled with the urge to tell Autumn about Michaela. Maybe it’s that my confrontation with Jasper has left me feeling restless and jumpy. Or maybe it’s that I finally see how well Autumn understands me. Either way, my secret is ready to come out.

“Who’s ready for lunch?” Mr. Hawthorne asks, unzipping his bookbag and taking out a thermos, baggies filled with sandwiches, and a folded-up blanket. I’m ravenous — an hour ago, the bark on the trees had started to look like milk chocolate to my eyes — but I can’t believe we’re about to picnic in the dead of November.

Jasper appears on the plateau, red-cheeked and wind-tousled, and he crosses his eyes at me. I ignore him.

“I have to pee,” Autumn announces and, unfortunately, I realize that I do, too.

“There’s got to be a Porta Potti around here somewhere, right?” I ask, glancing around.

Jasper bursts into uncontrollable laughter while Mr. Hawthorne says, “Now, Jasper Benjamin. Behave yourself.”

“What?” I ask Jasper, my face hot with indignation.

Autumn takes my arm. “Katie, there are no toilets on the mountain,” she tells me softly.

“So, you mean …” My stomach sinks.

Autumn nods grimly, even though I can tell she sort of wants to laugh, too. “The woods, Katie. Nature’s bathroom.”

Within seconds, I am reluctantly following Autumn down a narrow path that leads off the plateau and into a thicket of trees. “I can totally hold it,” I say, even though my bladder is telling me something very different. Also, the goal is to hike up to the top of the mountain after lunch, so who knows when I’ll even see a real bathroom again?

“You go first,” Autumn tells me, motioning me toward a shaded spot behind the trees. “I’ll stand guard.”

Jasper’s
princess
taunt is echoing in my head, so I try not to cringe too much as I unzip my jeans and crouch down. I also try my best not to think about what kind of strange plants and grasses — and bugs — might be on the earth below me. I finish as quickly as I can, then hurry over to Autumn, who — ever-prepared — passes me a bottle of hand sanitizer. Then I wait for my friend to take care of business and she strolls back to me casually, accepting the Purell.

“That was a Fir Lake rite of passage,” Autumn tells me with a smile, but I’m too traumatized to smile back. “Okay, let’s return to our men,” Autumn adds, but then I stop her.