Chapter Thirty-Two - KATYA
I walk slowly up the stairs after I hang up with Mariel. My stomach is in knots and I feel sick. Like I want to throw up. I push the stairwell door open on my floor and come face to face with my sister.
“Shit, you scared me!” I say, my heart beating so fast it might explode out of my chest.
“Where did you just come from?” Lily asks, a very perturbed look on her face.
“Sorry,” I say. “I took the stairs.”
“Where were you last night? I’ve left seven messages this morning but obviously you never came home, did you?”
I narrow my eyes at her. “I don’t owe you an explanation, Lily. I’m a grown-up.”
“So am I,” she sneers.
I laugh at her teenage moment. “Is this what I’ve been missing the past four years? Your entitled attitude? And technically you’re not a legal grown-up until tomorrow.”
“I’ve been on my own since I was thirteen, just as much as you, Katya. So don’t tell me what I am.”
“You,” I say, my anger building, “were under twenty-four-seven care of one of the most elite boarding schools in the country. You were hardly on your own.”
“How would you know what went on while I was here in school? You never once came for a visit.”
“And you know the reason why,” I growl back. The nerve of her. I did everything for her. I made her life fucking luxurious compared to what I had. “And fuck you for saying that. Really. Just fuck you.”
I push past her and go for my door. I unlock it, step in, and I really am going to slam it on her face… but she puts her foot in the door jamb and it just bounces back.
“You have something else to say?” I ask her, my anger overflowing now. She is so ungrateful.
Calm down, Kat. Just breathe and calm down.
I left to give her a different life. I left so she didn’t have to know the life I had. I left so she’d never have to think about the past the way I do.
“I’m sorry,” Lily says. “Seriously, I am. OK? It’s just… I was calling and calling. I just wanted to have coffee like we always do. And then you didn’t answer. So I came over and there was no answer at the door. And the doorman said he hadn’t seen you. And just… I got all these ideas in my head. Like you were gone. They came and—”
“Stop,” I say. I can’t bear to hear this. “Just stop. I’m fine. I was out with a guy. I have a boyfriend, OK? Are you happy now?”
“Since when?” She looks crushed. Like I just told her something horrible. “Who? You’ve been in town for like two weeks. How could you already be spending the night with a fucking guy? You’re not even allowed to—”
“I’m allowed to do whatever I want.”
“Yeah, OK.” She laughs. “Fine. And then they will come in and kill you. Do you think I want to lose you, Katya? For Christ’s sake. You’re all I have right now. And you’re treating me like I’m some nosey stranger instead of your sister.”
We stare at each other. At an impasse.
“Well,” she says, blinking first.
“Well?” I say, answering but not backing down. I’m in control here. She thinks she’s so tough? Please. She has no idea what it means to be tough. She thinks she’s so wounded? I don’t see a scar on her neck.
“I meant it,” she says, her voice soft and conciliatory. “I didn’t mean to come off that way. Do you want to get coffee?”
“I really don’t,” I say. A little surprised at my honesty. I just want to close the door and be alone. Think about what’s happening a little more carefully. Maybe take some of my own pictures of Oliver’s words, and then spend the morning lost in my head as I make it into art.
But her face crumples. Like she was just barely holding things together over this fight and my snub was the last straw. Her eyes fill with tears.
I sigh and roll my eyes a little. “Fine. OK. I’ll have coffee with you. We can go to the Fort Collins—”
“No, no, no,” Lily says, stopping me mid-sentence. “That’s why I was so upset. I got invited over to the Antimony house.”
“House?” I ask. “They have a house?”
But Lily shrugs me off. “It’s a dorm, not a house. It’s just small. Just them.”
“So… a house?”
“Kat, don’t be a paranoid freak. They’re having a brunch in like thirty minutes. And I want you to come. Please?” She bats her eyelashes at me. “Please, please, please? Everyone is bringing a boyfriend and I don’t have one.”
She doesn’t say the rest, but I can read her thoughts. I don’t have one… because of you.
Because I am a paranoid freak and I’ve been telling her since she was little all the bad things that can happen if she gets mixed up with the wrong guy. I’m the poster child for poor man choices. Not that mine was a choice, but it’s still a good lesson. One that should scare the ever-loving shit out of her.
I hesitate anyway. I do not want to go spend time with college kids. Least of all these Antimony girls.
“Come on, please,” Lily begs. “We can walk over right now, get there just in time, and then we spend one hour there. That’s all the time I have anyway. I have class at noon.”
“One hour?”
“Mmmm-hmmm,” she says, trying not to smile because she knows she’s gonna get her way.
Well, maybe I can use this to my advantage. “OK,” I say. “Stop clapping like a three-year old.”
But she is clapping. That tiny little clap she’s been doing whenever she gets her way for as long as I can remember. The one where she keeps her palms pressed together and only claps her fingers.
“On one condition.”
She eyes me suspiciously. “What?”
“You have to take the day off classes tomorrow and spend it with me.”
I expect her to readily agree. We are sisters, right? She never gets to spend time with me and she’s always begging for more.
But she’s even more suspicious now. “Why? I think I have a test tomorrow. I can’t miss a test.”
“I don’t care,” I say, shaking my head to let her know I’m firm on this. “I want to spend your eighteenth birthday with you. All day. In fact, I think you should sleep over tonight.”
“Kat,” she says, dragging out my one-syllable nickname.
“I have a great surprise for you, OK? It will be worth it. I promise.”
“Well, I can’t promise. Not until I go to class and see what’s happening.”
“Then I can’t go to your brunch.”
She taps her foot on the floor, like she’s really thinking hard about her choices. Teenagers, is all I keep thinking. Finally, after almost a minute of this, she says, “Fine. It’s a deal. I might have to go to one class though. I can’t help it. And I can’t stay the night. I have a thing tonight.”
“What kind of thing? Not a boy.”
“No.” She sighs. “Not a boy. It’s just girl stuff, that’s all. But I’ll come by in the morning and we’ll spend the entire day together. My first day of my new adult life will belong to you. OK?”
She smiles that sweet, innocent smile I’ve missed so much over these past four years. And I melt. Just like I used to when we were small. It suddenly makes this whole day better.
“OK,” I say. “We have a deal. And personally, I think I got the better end of it. But I’m not going to gloat.”
“Are you going to wear that?” She eyes me with distaste.
“Oh, shit.” I laugh, looking down to my schoolgirl uniform from last night. “No. Give me five minutes.”
“Wear a dress, OK?”
And I suddenly see her too. She’s a little dressed up. A white dress, not short and skimpy, either. But kinda classy.
“Something like yours?” I ask.
“Yeah, but not white.” She has a dreamy look on her face. “We don’t want to match.”
“Got it.” I smile. “Be back in a sec.”
I walk into my bedroom and hit the closet. I don’t have a ton of clothes. I didn’t bring much with me. But I have one nice dress. It’s not white, either. It’s a pretty light green. Not short enough to be slutty. Not long enough to be a gown. Just… pretty. Kind of summery, but it’s the nicest thing I have, so it will have to do. I can just throw on my tan wool coat and my knee-high leather boots.
And when I’m ready, exactly seven minutes later—and after several ‘hurry ups’ yelled from the front room—I look at myself in the mirror.
“Hot,” Lily says, behind me. I smile at her in the mirror.
“We both look good,” I say.
“We look like sisters,” she says back. “We could be twins.”
“We don’t look that much alike. I’m three inches taller, for one.”
“And your hair is lighter. They do like the blondes.” She sighs.
“Who?” I ask, turning to grab my purse.
“Oh, the guys, you know. They all like the blondes.”
“Well, you’re blonde too.”
“Not like you, Katya. You’re the perfect blonde. Golden rays of sun to my dingy dishwater.”
“Well, thank you.” I don’t get a lot of compliments, so I take it gracefully. “But we practically have the same hair. I just spent more time in the sun this summer, I guess. Let’s go. I have an appointment at noon, so I really will be leaving your little tea party on time.”
“I’m the one who came ready.” It’s a little dig at me. But I brush it aside and twine my arm in hers as we leave the apartment. I feel guilty for not working on a project this morning. But I can afford it, I guess. I have her next semester’s tuition almost covered. I’m ahead. I can relax a little and enjoy the only family member I have left.