The Big Sister - Part One (8 page)

“I don’t know what I believe,” I confessed. “We’ve been through so much.”

“And now you’re here,” Jennet said, nodding to herself. “I’m not saying that everything that’s happened has led you to me, but here you are. You need help. You’ve said so, though not in those exact words. And it just so happens that I can give you help.”

“You’ve given us ice cream, and you’ve let me bend your ear,” I said. “Really, I think that’s what we needed. Just a chance to rest and recharge. You don’t have to do anything else.”

“Yes, but I want to.” Jennet’s cheerfulness was relentless, and bit by bit, she was using it to break me down. “What’s more than that, I can. I own my own apartment. It’s a three-bedroom joint not far from here. This isn’t the swankiest section of Miami, but you could do worse. I act as a landlady and take on roommates as tenants for extra cash. Being Corn Queen is pretty fabulous, but it doesn’t pay great. I had to evict a roommate a couple months back and never got around to replacing him, and my current roommate is getting ready to move out of town. See what’s happening here? The universe is aligning. It put me in your path.”

I laughed shortly. “It sounds too good to be true.”

Jennet smiled. “When things sound really good, I never try to question them,” she said. “Seriously. Let me help you. I like you. I like your brother. I’m sorry about everything you’ve been through. If you’ll excuse my French —” at this point, she covered the ear that Luke wasn’t pressing up against her costume “— it fucking sucks, but now let me give you a chance to make it all better.”

I swallowed hard and held out my hand. “I’m Faith.”

“Jennet,” she said, shaking my hand in a firm grip. She’d painted her fingernails each a different color of the rainbow, much like a little girl who had just discovered her mother’s stash of bright polish. Maybe that was why Luke had taken a shine to her so quickly. Jennet was friendly and seemed straightforward — much the way a very earnest child came across. Her guileless nature inspired total honesty in me at a time when I didn’t trust a single person.

“You’ve already met Luke, there,” I said, pointing at my brother.

“I sure have,” Jennet said, ruffling his hair fondly. “You’ve spent your last night in that crappy hotel. Tonight, you’re coming home with me.”

And it really had been as simple as that. Jennet’s apartment was furnished with the odds and ends that tenants brought upon moving in and left behind when moving out, not wanting to heave the hefty pieces back down all those flights of stairs. Luke and I shared a room until Jennet’s current roommate moved out. Then, we each had a space of our own, something neither of us was used to. More often than not, I’d wake up with Luke snoozing in my own bed, hogging the covers and pillows.

But time healed all — or sent all on its path to healing, anyway — and soon Luke was smiling, drawn a bit out of his taciturn shell, and I was learning the ropes at the club, coming home with shiny burns on my hands and legs from the pole.

***

“You know what? Let’s do something fun tomorrow.” I smiled and hugged myself with my arms. I still had to count the wad of money Marcus had given me, but I was pretty sure there was enough there to have a special celebration.

“What do you have in mind?” Jennet asked. “I think there might be some kind of program at the library. Might be too young for Luke, though.”

“No, I mean something really fun,” I said. “I want to splurge on all of us.”

“But what about tuition?” Jennet had been sweating Luke’s private school almost as much as I had. We knew how important it was to get him the individualized attention — and how acutely public school had failed him.

I couldn’t hide my grin. “Tuition is taken care of?”

“What?” Jennet scratched her head, making the rat’s nest of snarls there even worse in her puzzlement. “I thought we were still a ways off.”

“Not anymore, we’re not,” I said. “Tonight was …” Tonight was a lot of things. But for the first time, I nodded to myself and made my decision about the entire affair. “Tonight was amazing.”

“You don’t have to work or anything?” Jennet asked. “I know you’ve been putting in a lot of hours.”

“Well, it’s finally paid off,” I said, taking the fat wad of bills from my purse and watching Jennet’s mouth form into a perfect “o.”

“That’s a lot of cash,” she said. “Sorry for stating the obvious.”

“We don’t ask too many questions when really good things happen, remember?” I reminded her, waving the bills around. “And it’s not worth it if we don’t get to celebrate the good things every once in a while.”

“I think it’s supposed to cool down a little tomorrow,” Jennet said. “What if we did a picnic at the zoo?”

I brightened. The zoo was supposed to be incredible, but I hadn’t had a chance to take Luke yet. I hadn’t had the time — or the money. All that was about to change, thanks to Marcus. I wondered if there was some way I could send him a thank you note or something, through Parker. He’d really have no way of knowing just how far his generosity would go.

“I think it’s a date,” I said. “You know what? Luke loves Nick. Let’s invite him, too.”

Nick, our next-door neighbor, was shaping up to be something of almost a father figure for my little brother. Luke would never confirm it, of course, nor did I suspect he knew himself. But Nick was a good guy — never far from his guitar — and I’d often find the two of them together, our neighbor strumming and humming and jotting words down in a notebook and Luke just jamming right alongside him, sketching away. They made a good pairing, both of them lost in their respective creative spaces but still aware enough to enjoy the other’s company.

“You know, someday our plus ones for these fun days are going to be our boyfriends,” Jennet said dreamily.

“Hey, I’m pretty sure Nick’s single right now,” I said, holding my hands up. “You’d better get in on that before he meets the next future ex-girlfriend at one of his shows.”

“No, thanks,” she said, shaking her head and laughing. “Nick’s a great guy and all, but I’m just waiting for —”

“— Prince Charming,” I finished for her. “I know. I’ve heard it so many times.”

“Roomie, the Corn Queen requires fellow royalty to whisk her off her feet,” she said, arching her eyebrows loftily. “It will be pure romance. He’ll have a white horse, and a castle to match.”

“You know, I think I overheard Nick talking about his castle the other day with Luke,” I joked. “You should ask him about it.”

“Ha, ha,” Jennet said drily, bopping me with one of the pillows from the couch. “I’ll invite Nick, of course, but seriously. We need to start dating, girl. We’re not going to find love just sitting around here on our butts.”

“Love?” I repeated, laughing. “Who has time to fall in love?”

Jennet was right — or at least she’d been paying attention to the weather forecast. The humidity broke overnight, and we were able to haul ourselves, our lunches, and, in Nick’s case, his guitar, down to the zoo. Nick had a beat-up station wagon that he drove to gigs, mainly because of the storage space in the back. That same storage space came in extra handy on the rare occasions that all of us wanted to go somewhere together.

“You ready for the zoo, buddy?” Nick called over his shoulder at Luke, who was belted in beside me.

“Yeah,” my brother answered faintly, almost as if he wasn’t sure. Had he ever even been taken to a zoo before with his previous family? I’d never thought to ask him.

“The zoo’s great,” Jennet gushed from the front passenger seat. She’d gotten out the tangles that had plagued her hair last night and braided it neatly. Her appearance always drew attention, no matter if she was wearing her Corn Queen costume or not. Jennet was just that kind of person.

I wasn’t looking for attention, however, and was rocking a beat-up pair of jeans and ratty old T-shirt. My job required me to dress up on a regular basis, so it was nice to get the chance to dress down every so often.

“Think of all the new material you’ll have for your sketches,” I told Luke quietly, smiling. “I want at least one sketch for every animal we see.”

That earned me a rare grin from my brother. A drawing challenge. He sure liked that.

I wasn’t sure where he got bit by the artistic bug. But with very few exceptions, he preferred his pencils, pens, and paper over people. I understood, in a way. People were always pushy and invasive, wondering why a boy Luke’s age wasn’t more gregarious or into sports or other group activities. Sketches were something completely under Luke’s control.

“Is the zoo going to be open that late?” Nick joked, looking into the rearview mirror at us. “They have hundreds and hundreds of animals. Think you can sketch them all? Think of the fish in the aquarium, the reptiles, all the birds …”

“I can do it,” Luke said, setting his chin, and I smiled. His fingers were already practically twitching with anticipation of all of the sketches to come.

I wished we could’ve gotten an earlier start, but early just wasn’t part of my repertoire anymore. Dancing at the club usually kept me awake later than I wanted, but escorting was a whole different ballgame. That’s why I was so grateful for Jennet. Her job afforded her the chance to make sure Luke got to school all right, got to bed at a decent hour, and woke up early enough for breakfast and everything he needed to do to get ready for the day. I usually tried to wake myself up to tell him good morning and help with that process, but I wouldn’t trust myself behind the wheel to get him to school in one piece. Jennet always used my car for that task.

“Here we are,” Nick announced, wheeling into a massive parking lot stuffed with cars.

“It’s packed,” Jennet groaned. “Oh, look, grab that spot.”

We eased into a lucky slot — it seemed that other cars had been circling the area like vultures looking for a place to land — and we all got out.

Luke anxiously danced from one foot to the other as we started our trek across the parking lot to the main entrance, and Jennet took pity on him.

“Race you to the gate!” she squealed, and took off in a dead sprint, Luke hot on her heels.

“Watch out for cars!” I hollered uselessly from behind as they bolted, and laughed and shook my head, glancing at Nick. “Hey, I saw that!”

He looked at me, his bright blue eyes wide with innocence. “Saw what?”

“You were totally checking out Jennet’s butt just now,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest in mock admonition. “What is she going to say when I tell her later?”

“You might think that’s what you saw,” Nick scoffed. “Let me assure you that you are mistaken.”

“You know where I work, right?” I asked, laughing. “I’m practically trained to notice when guys pay special attention to certain girls so I can tell them to go and encourage the attention. You can’t hide anything from me.”

Nick rubbed his perpetually scruffy face and flipped his long curls out of his eyes. He really had the whole struggling artist thing going on — too busy to even manage a haircut or a shave.

“You know how Jennet is,” he said as we started across the parking lot at a much more leisurely pace, him with his guitar and me with the picnic basket.

“Crazy?” I offered, raising my eyebrows.

He shrugged. “Idealistic. Even if she did think that there was something there, she’d never go for it.”

“Waiting for her Prince Charming,” I said faintly, reflecting on our conversation last night.

“Exactly.”

I smiled to try to lift the pall of despair that had seemed to settle around Nick — I hadn’t realized just how deeply he felt about my roommate — and changed the subject to something I knew he’d enjoy more than exploring all the various reasons Jennet would never entertain the thought of dating him.

“Played any good shows lately?” I asked, and that was all it took for him to smile again.

Nick had already lived in the building — right across the hall, in fact — by the time Luke and I found our way there. I’d even thought he and Jennet were embroiled in a thing, what with how often he was over at her apartment or vice versa. Both front doors were usually thrown open, and Nick’s guitar strumming drifted over on the air to perfume our ears with melodies.

He would talk freely about his music, doing the occasional solo show while flitting around from band to band, trying to find a good fit. But when it came to his personal life, or his past, he was less forthcoming.

“Not really much to tell,” he’d say, concentrating on his fingers over the strings of the guitar. “Had to escape the monotony in order to embrace the music.”

I knew what dodging questions sounded like. At my job, it was a signal to change the topic or lose out on some tips. But in real life, Nick was a close enough friend to all of us that the idea of him having something to conceal rubbed me the wrong way.

“Oh, he’s just trying to build on his mysterious musician persona,” Jennet would scoff when I would ask her about it. “Let him have whatever secrets he thinks make him sexier. He’s probably just from the Midwest and doesn’t want anyone to know about it.”

I guess, in the end, I couldn’t exactly fault anyone for having secrets. I had plenty of my own to worry about.

Nick and I finally reached the gate of the zoo, where Jennet and Luke were waiting for us, panting comically.

“Hey, let me get this,” Nick said, reaching into his wallet.

“You’ll do no such thing,” I protested, groping in my pocket for my own stuffed wallet. “Seriously, dude. When things are good, I spread the love. I haven’t forgotten the time you dipped deep into your pockets to help us out with groceries.”

Nick was always so generous, even though I knew he could hardly afford it. He got gigs often enough to afford the rent, but I’d seen inside his apartment. Much of his furniture was battered, and he seemed to always dress in the same pair of jeans and the same leather jacket. He wasn’t dirty — far from it. But he definitely had a musician’s uniform, and I knew his gigs hadn’t been enough to pay for four tickets to the zoo.

“I really don’t want you to spend your money on this,” he said. “Really. Let me.”

“That’s enough out of you,” I said, grandly fanning the bills on the countertop at the ticket seller’s window. “My good fortune is all of your good fortune.”

If I couldn’t repay the things I owed to my friends every so often, I was pretty sure I’d go insane at the idea of all the debt I was incurring. It really did take a village to enable me to live, to raise my brother, to try my best to give him the life I thought he deserved.

But I was a part of that village, and if I could do something simple like this to make their lives a little better, I’d always do my best to give it a try.

The worker behind the thick glass panel slid out four tickets, and we walked into the zoo. On a regular Miami day, with the sweltering humidity, it would’ve been impossible to enjoy even the lush flowers dotting the beds around the sidewalks.

“This is really beautiful,” Jennet remarked, trailing her fingers through a vivid tangle of hibiscus blooms.

“Almost as beautiful as our present company,” Nick said gallantly.

Jennet laughed and shook her head at the hopeless paramour, just as I glanced over and saw Luke discreetly pantomiming barfing all over the concrete. I raised my eyebrows at him, and he shrugged. If I hadn’t seen his sketchbook last night, I would’ve been inwardly cheerful at another positive sign that he was a normal boy, responding like others his age would to certain social situations.

Instead, my worry persisted. What was eating at my brother?

“I think we have happened upon our first specimen,” Jennet said, using the lofty voice she employed for some of her jokes. “The unshaven musician, lurking through the bushes.”

“I heard that,” Nick said mildly, parting the vegetation with both of his hands and poking his head out. He snapped at Luke like a wild animal, and my brother flinched away and giggled. Why had he drawn that knife? Why had he scratched it out? Weren’t we past this? Couldn’t we be normal?

“All right, here we go,” I said, eager to distract my mind from worry over my brother’s state of mind. “The first actual animal. Let us feast our eyes upon the fearsome crocodile.”

“Who loves to feast on little boys, given the chance,” Jennet declared, making as if she were about to try to hoist Luke over the edge of the fence separating us from the clear pool.

Luke laughed, dodging away from our roommate while simultaneously craning his neck to get a better view. The crocodile floated just below the surface, its eyes and nostrils the only things above water. Its sheer size boggled my mind. If my brother did — God forbid — tumble into the exhibit, I wouldn’t be able to save him from the enormous reptile.

I didn’t even think I could save him from himself.

“Aren’t you supposed to be doing something?” I demanded, a little more harshly than I meant to. “If we’re going to be sketching every animal here at the zoo, you’d better get started.”

“Such a task master,” Jennet sniped, giving me a toothy smile. “Well, you heard the lady. Get every wrinkle in that skin, every sharp tooth.”

My brother eagerly fell to his sketchbook as Jennet wandered away toward Nick, who’d taken an interest in the nearby gorilla exhibit.

I let Luke sketch for a couple of uninterrupted minutes before I elbowed him.

“Ow,” he complained. “What’s your problem?”

“What’s my problem?” I repeated, my eyebrows raised. “What’s your problem? What’s going on? Didn’t I tell you that you needed to come to me with all your problems? Where’s that trust, Luke? Families trust each other.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, giving me a brief, piercing look before returning to his sketchbook.

“I’m talking about this,” I said, smoothly snagging the book from him and flipping backward until I found the page in question — the drawing of the knife that he’d taken so much care to scribble out. If he really hadn’t wanted anyone to find it, he should’ve torn the page from the book and flushed it. Or burned it. Or buried it.

“That’s nothing,” he said after a pause that was longer than I liked. In fact, I liked nothing about this situation. Nothing at all.

“Not what it looks like to me,” I said. “That looks like something you were trying to get off of your mind. That’s what sisters are for, Luke. I’m your family. You can talk to me.”

“Anytime we talk about this, this is how you get,” he said, staring at the crocodile below us. “You hate talking about this.”