Part 2 (1/2)
He looks thoughtful for a minute and I'm expecting him to say something pseudo-consoling. But instead he says, ”Maybe I would have if you had filled me in over the years.”
”What?” I say, scrunching my face into confused lines. But I know what he means. Apparently, Gabriel thinks I do too, because he echoes, ”You know what I mean. What was with never writing me back? What was with the radio silence from you?” His eyes narrow in on mine as if daring me to look away. And I do. When Aunt Lydia announced that she was leaving for California, Gabriel and I tried everything we could to convince her to leave him behind. Rational arguments, screaming fits, hunger strikes (I lasted all of five hours before I caved), and silent treatments. Nothing worked. On the day they left, I extracted a promise from a mute, white-faced Gabriel that we would write each other every week. Then they drove off, Gabriel's face turned away from the house and from all of us gathered on the lawn. Instead, he stared steadily at the back of his mother's head in the pa.s.senger seat as if hoping to bore a hole through her skull. Good thing for her that wasn't his Talent. Two months later, he sent me a cool hand-drawn map of his new town, full of skulls and crossbones on all theplaces where he swore there was buried treasure, since we were crazy for buried treasure stories. But by then my infamous eighth birthday had come and gone and I was in a state of prolonged shock. A few weeks after the map, he sent me a long letter all about his new school and how it was nothing like our old one. Then he sent me a note asking only, ”Why haven't you written back???” with the three question marks all in red. Then nothing after that. I still had all the letters. But now I shrug.
”Listen, Gabriel, we were just kids. Go. Mingle. Really” I step back, trying to ignore the look he is giving me, the old familiar what are you up to look that seems not to have changed at all. I melt into the crowd.
”Tamsin,” my mother says, materializing in front of me, ”have you congratulated your sister and James yet?”
”I just got here,” I remind her, even though I know she knows this perfectly well.
”How was the store? Busy?” Suddenly, Alistair's earnest face comes swimming back to me. I had forgotten all about him, what with running Gabriel over with my bike. I shake my head a little to get rid of the image. He'll get over it after a few weeks, I remind myself.
”Not really.
”She takes in a breath, puts her hand on my arm.
”Will you try to be nice to your sister tonight?”
”I always try to be nice to her.” My mother shakes her head. One silvered strand springs free from the knot she's imposed on her normally wild hair.
”Try harder,” she says, and that persistent groove between her eyebrows deepens.
”Yes, Mom” I sigh, aware that I sound like a textbook case of the angsty teenager. If only.
”Anything else? I was about to go change,” I add. My mother looks relieved.
”Oh, good,” she says hopefully, and I resist the urge to laugh. She smiles as I move away, but I can feel her watching me. A few feet away, Uncle Morris blinks in and out of sight for the amus.e.m.e.nt of a baby, who shrieks and laughs in her mother's arms. She keeps reaching out to pull at Uncle Morris's little gray tuft of a goatee, and he lets her get just so close before disappearing again. I can't help smiling. I remember him playing the same game with Rowena and me when we were little. I trudge past piles of other aunts, uncles, cousins, friends of the family. Everyone smiles and/or waves, and I smile and/or wave back but don't stop. I know the looks I must be getting behind my back-the lifted eyebrows, the overly expressive shrugs, the whispers of sympathy. Poor Camilla-her daughter, such a waste, so unbelievable. Hasn't happened in the family since who can remember. And she was supposed to be, supposed to be, supposed to be ...
”Move,” I say, booting a small boy out of the way as Ibegin to climb the ma.s.sive oak staircase. He scuffles closer to the wall but glares at me with narrowed hazel eyes. I can't remember his name, but I do remember that he's the son of one of my particularly annoying second or third cousins, Gwyneth, who can cause a rime of ice to grow on anything with one flick of her finger. A stuffed teddy bear is floating near the vicinity of my hip, its gla.s.sy eyes whirling back in its head as a small toddler reaches desperately for it. Her fingertips just brush one paw before the bear flips lazily out of reach. I glare at the boy with new loathing.
”Just like your mother, you little brat,” I snarl, s.n.a.t.c.hing the animal out of midair and whacking it over the boy's head.
”Ow,” he whines, reaching up to rub his forehead.
”That didn't hurt,” I answer witheringly.
”We were playing a game,” he mutters. This used to be one of Gwyneth's favorite defense lines whenever the adults found any of us coated in ice, our lips blue with frost.
”You were playing,” I snap.
”She wasn't” I present the bear to the tear-stained child, who regards me doubtfully with big brown eyes.
”You're just jealous,” he mutters.
”Because you can't do anything.” Before I can stop myself, I whip the toy back from the toddler's hesitant fingers and mash it over the boy's head a few more times.
”Ow!” he cries again.
”I was just playing,” I say pointedly before holding out the bear to the little girl again. This time she s.n.a.t.c.hes it away from me.
”You're welcome,” I say and stomp up the rest of the stairs. A vision of New York City in the summer-trash bags piled on the cracked sidewalks, glittering streams of traffic, and hordes of people trundling along with Century 21 shopping bags-slips through my head. A brief and lovely oasis. I've got to get back to school.
THREE.
IN THE TEMPORARY SANCTUARY of my room, I pause for a minute before the small gilt-edged mirror above my dresser to smile at a snapshot of Agatha in a pink frilly smock s.h.i.+rt. The words I MISS YOU. CHICAGO SUCKS! are written in black Sharpie across the bottom of the photo. I run my hands through my curly dark hair, make a brief search for my brush, give up, and jab a couple of glittery pins into the mess instead. I finger the hem of my My Little Pony T-s.h.i.+rt, frown, and search out my emergency pack of cigarettes that I wedged into the gap between my night table and the wall. Yanking up the window sash, I blow smoke rings through the holes in the tattered screen.
”Oh, gross, Tam,” my sister's cool voice comes from behind me. My last smoke ring comes out crooked, tearing itself into jagged wisps before I turn around.
”Don't you know how damaging that is to your health?” I widen my eyes.
”Really? I wish they printed warnings or something on the package. So irresponsible of them.” My sister shakes her head, somehow managing to keep every single strand of her gleaming blond hair anch.o.r.ed in its elegant chignon.
She's wearing a knee-length sleeveless black dress, black heels, a string of pearls, and no makeup beyond a slick of pink gloss on her lips. It amazes me how Rowena, amid all the debris of chipped plates, cracked tiles, peeling wallpaper, and uneven floorboards, manages to look so refres.h.i.+ng every day.
She's all polished surfaces and glimmering reflections, someone who doesn't need makeup and probably never will. In addition to all of her extraordinary Talents, she also happens to be heart-stoppingly beautiful. I feel grubby just looking at her. Now her large green eyes, fringed with thick lashes just a shade darker than her hair, narrow at me.
”Is that what you're wearing?” I look down, shrug.
”Yeah, I just changed. Like it?” I inhale and exhale, ignoring my sister's pointed little cough.
”Shouldn't you be downstairs receiving congratulations and everything?”
”I came up here to see if you were coming back down” There is just the faintest lift to her voice that I almost don't catch. But I've learned to follow every intonation of my sister's voice. Rowena is extremely Talented in the art of speech.
Her voice is like pure honey mixed with cinnamon and wine. She can mesmerize when speaking, her voice looping and twining through people's heads until they would walk off cliffs into the sea if she asked. As if that's notenough, she can also give the power of speech to inanimate objects. When we were younger she used to delight me for hours by making the statues in the garden speak, their voices full of stone and dust. Then, when I turned eight and everything didn't happen the way it was supposed to happen, the usual sisterly cracks between us grew to canyon-size chasms. Any time she tried to use her power on me after that, she would catch herself, give me such a searching look that I could hardly stand it, and hurry away.
”What do you think of Gabriel?” she asks. I know if I hesitate or blush or do anything else besides answer immediately, Rowena will latch onto it, so I say as normally as possible, ”He's okay, I guess. Seems like the same old Gabriel.”
”Really?” Rowena considers me as if I'm some kind of odd insect she's never seen before.
”I think he's totally changed. So handsome now. I mean”-she waves one hand through the air-”if you like that look.” I can't help myself.
”What look?” She smiles.
”You know. The scruffy musician look.”
”He's a musician?”
”Didn't you know? He's going to Juilliard this semester. So now you'll both be in the city” She adjusts her necklace, her fingers gliding over the polished pearls.
”You know,” she says thoughtfully, ”Uncle Chester and Aunt Rennie are going to be away for most of the fall. You could live at theirhouse instead of in your dorm room” The way she says dorm room makes it sound more like leper colony.
”I have to live in the dorms. It's a rule” The happiest moment of my life was when I got the acceptance letter from New Hyde Prep. The second happiest moment was when I read through one of the several slick and glossy school pamphlets and learned that all students have to live in the dorms.
”And I like the dorms.” A delicate shudder crosses my sister's face.
”Why?” she says, the word infused with scorn.