part0073

I f someone’d asked me a week ago what a typical Saturday night looked like for me, it wouldn’t’ve involved any of this. A Ferris wheel, pink cotton candy, and a pair of girls, one of which was only sixteen.

The wheel churned forward and stopped a few times. Tiffany tore off some cotton candy and put it in her mouth. I didn’t know what I should expect during twenty minutes alone with her, but already she’d become shyer without an audience.

“I don’t know what my sister told you, but I’m not stupid,” she said gently. “I can get a job, it’s just that nothing’s really interested me so far.”

“She didn’t say that.”

“She’s annoying. Sometimes she doesn’t even do anything and she still annoys me.”

It wasn’t a word I’d use to describe Lake, who was relatively quiet compared to Tiffany. “How come?”

“It’s like she thinks she’s better than me. Just the way she talks or the things she does.”

“Yeah but what?” I asked. “What does she do?”

“She just, like, gets straight A’s and it’s all my parents can talk about for a month. It’s lame. If I’d really wanted to be a nerd, I could’ve been, you know? I’d rather enjoy my life.”

I looked Tiffany over. That might’ve been true to some degree, but I didn’t buy all of it. “You don’t think your sister enjoys life?”

“Everything she does has a purpose. She only takes piano lessons to be ‘well-rounded.’ And so she doesn’t disappoint my dad like I have.”

Up until this moment, I’d only really seen Lake as smart, driven, and curious. Maybe because I’d only really seen Lake. I hadn’t stopped to wonder how many dinners Tiffany must’ve sat through hearing about Lake’s accomplishments. “I’m sure that’s not true.”

“It is.” She shuffled her feet on the floor of the car. “Whatever.”

The wheel jerked into motion, sending us higher. “I think Lake looks up to you,” I said.

“Why would she?”

“You’re her older sister.” If I’d been better at expressing myself, I would’ve told her how much it bothered me to see siblings not getting along. But that wasn’t something you thought about until you’d lost one, and then it was too late for that kind of lesson. “Cut her some slack. She probably just wants you to be nice to her.”

Tiffany scowled. “Nice?”

“Yeah. Like inviting her to come here. That was nice.”

“Oh.” Her expression eased as she twisted her lips. “Yeah. Okay. Maybe.”

A girl in the car above us laughed loudly at something the man with her said. She launched forward to kiss him. Tiffany noticed and smiled.

I preferred Tiffany this way, without all the drama. It made me uncomfortable when she was forward, the way she’d been in the car on the way over. I wasn’t sure how I felt about her. With long blonde hair and even longer legs, and blue eyes a shade icier than her sister’s, she was attractive as hell. I just wasn’t all that attracted to her. Her attitude’d put me off that first day.

I should’ve probably walked away. I would’ve by now if I hadn’t felt so confused the past few days, and since I’d really only existed since Maddy’s death, nothing more, feeling anything was a welcome change. Losing my little sister had brought on the kind of darkness you don’t ever really come back from. Even day to day, there wasn’t much to my life. I went to work. Construction was good for me, it kept my hands busy, but it was hard. The men I worked with had seen shit, too. Some of them were ex-convicts, and others probably should’ve been behind bars—I’d almost gotten into it with some of them on Friday when I’d warned them not to catcall the girls. Then, I either spent my nights at the community college with other overworked, tired classmates, at a bar drinking by myself, or at home. I preferred it that way, I guess. I wanted to focus on graduating so I could be in a position to help others the way they’d helped me when I’d needed it, even though I hadn’t deserved it.

Lake was the only person I’d come across since Maddy who still hadn’t seen anything bad out of life. She was good. You could sense it just being around her. Not yet jaded. She had dreams, and she believed they’d come true. She was easy to talk to, ambitious, thoughtful. None of that meant she was uncomplicated. That day we met, when she’d sat on a curb with The Grapes of Wrath , I could tell she was having a hard time concentrating. I remembered Maddy reading a lot, but I’d forgotten that expression she made when she was trying to figure out a new word or when something went over her head. Lake made it, too. There were layers to her you might miss if you weren’t paying attention.

My sister’s death had turned my world dark, but Lake was light. By her age, I’d done all sorts of shit—drugs, alcohol, sex. Lake seemed so far away from that. Pure, naïve, like Maddy would’ve been. I’d have seen to it. Maybe wanting that in my life, someone to look over, to shield from the bad stuff, was wrong considering she was sixteen. Then again, if I’d done a better job of that with Madison, she might still be around to do things like this, to take in the night sky from the top of a Ferris wheel. To taste dyed-pink sugar melting on her tongue. To ask her big brother for advice.

“What do you want to do after this?” Tiffany asked.

I looked over at her, wondering how long I’d been in my trance. We were moving now, going in circles, the breeze warm on my face. “Take you home,” I said.

“I don’t have a curfew.”

People became pins stuck in a 3D map as the buildings below us got smaller, more like a model of a fair than an actual one. The ocean stretched on one side of us. Carnival lights reflected orange, purple, green, and red on the water by the dock. But there wasn’t anything but black beyond that.

“We could just drop Lake off.” Tiffany put her hand on my thigh and left it there, as if deciding her next move. “Drive around for a while.”

If this’d been a date, I would’ve put my arm around her, pulled her close, kissed her. If I gave her what she wanted now, she’d give me what I wanted later. I wasn’t in the business of turning down sex from pretty girls. And Tiffany was pretty. A California beach girl, the kind men dreamed about. No doubt she was also experienced. I wouldn’t have to go slow with her. Not that I minded going slow sometimes. I might’ve liked being with a woman for more than sex if I’d ever found it. Had Tiffany had that before? Did she want it?

I put my hand over Tiffany’s to see how it’d feel. It didn’t answer anything, but it didn’t give me more questions, either. Maybe that was good. I was pretty sure if I tried to hold Lake’s hand, I’d feel something about it. We’d both be worse off for it.

With the reservations I had, hand-holding was as much as I was ready for tonight. “I’ll take you home after this,” I said. “Wouldn’t want your dad to worry.”

“He wouldn’t,” she said softly, looking up at the sky. “Not about me.”

I got the feeling this was the real Tiffany. That her bravado was a front for some insecurities that probably came from her dad. She needed someone in her corner. “You really think that?”

“We don’t get along so well,” she said. “In case you didn’t pick that up.”

I was beginning to. “That’s a shame.”

“Look how pretty the stars are,” she said.

Even though the shift in topic was sudden, it didn’t stop a lump from forming in my throat. I kept my eyes forward. The fucking stars. That was a place reserved for Maddy. I wasn’t willing to go there. “What’s pretty about them?”