Bewitching (13 page)

I looked. Ham and cheese on marble rye, mustard, not mayo, tomato, but no lettuce, cut in triangles exactly the way I’d have made it myself. Was she spying on me?

I wanted to refuse it, but I was hungry.

“Thanks.” I took it.

“Your mom wasn’t too happy at dinner. Did you have an argument?”

She paused, like she was waiting for me to contribute something, to tell her what we’d argued about, which wasn’t going to happen. I couldn’t rat out Mother. I took a bite of sandwich and chewed it a really long time. Lisette said nothing, watching me eat. It reminded me of staring contests Courtney and I used to have when we were kids, to see who’d blink first.

I blinked. “Why’d you tell Dad I was jealous of you?”

She looked stunned. “He wasn’t supposed to repeat that.”

“He’s a parent. That’s what they do.”

“I guess I’m not used to that.”

“Besides, whether he was supposed to repeat it or not, you said it. I never said you took my earrings.”

“It felt like you did.”

“I just said I had the same ones, not that you stole them. You just said that to make me look bad in front of Dad.”

The ceiling fan overhead repeated my words,
look bad, look bad, look bad
.

And that’s when Lisette burst into tears.

Oh, she was good
.

“I’m sorry.” The word came out as a huge gasp, and she buried her head in her hands. “I’m so sorry, Emma.”

I stared at her. Was I supposed to put my arms around her or something?

“I wanted you to like me,” she sobbed.

“And you thought lying about me would help?”

“I wasn’t… I just… I wanted us to be like best friends, like sisters. And when you said that, I just thought…” Her next words were lost in sobs that even made her toes shake.

“What?”

“My mother’s dead, Emma. For years, she didn’t go to the doctor, said we didn’t have the money for it, and by the time she went … it was too late. She’s dead. In a box in the ground. Do you know what that’s like, Emma? Do you?”

In that instant, I pictured my own mother, lying cold and still, unreachable. My grandmother had died when I was nine. Mother and Dad had debated and debated whether I should go to the funeral and finally took me because my cousins would be there. But when I saw Memaw, her hair poufed up in a way it never had been, her skin unnaturally pink, I’d started screaming. For weeks after, I had nightmares about Memaw’s ghostly face, jumping out at me like a horror movie. If I closed my eyes, I could still picture it, and the worst thing was, I couldn’t remember how she’d looked alive.

I grabbed Lisette’s hand. “God, Lisette, I’m so sorry.”

“She’s gone. I have nothing and no one except some father I’ve never seen before, a father who didn’t want me.”

I put my arms around her. “That’s not true. Of course he wanted you.”

But I knew she had it right. He’d ditched her, her and her mother. He hadn’t even mentioned them all those years, like they didn’t exist. If her mother hadn’t died, he’d probably never have seen her. Poor Lisette!

“He didn’t! He doesn’t. He wanted you and your mother. And you … don’t you see, Emma. You’re all I have.”

I held her as her body shook with sobs. “
I
am?”

“You’re my sister, but I was worried you didn’t want me here either.”

“I do want you. I want to be your sister. I never thought you’d taken my earrings.”

Instinctively, my hand wandered up to my ears, the earrings. I had them on. I pulled away to look at Lisette, hoping she had hers on too. It would prove, to both of us, that she hadn’t taken them, that she was telling the truth.

But she had no earrings at all, which proved nothing.

I said, “We’re sisters, Lisette. I… I love you.”

9

The next day, in chorus, Kendra was sitting, listening to music, sort of dancing. When I sat down, she said, “Listen to this.”

I took the earbuds, mostly to be polite. Immediately, a shrilling violin assaulted my ears, then a wild dance of horns and bells, bells and horns. I pulled the earpieces out. “What is that?” Usually, she was more into Sheryl Crow.

“
Symphonie Fantastique
by Berlioz.” She said this casually, as if it was a perfectly normal thing for an eighth grader to be listening to at school.

“Nice.” I glanced around, looking for Lisette. The violins danced like moshers in the space between the earbuds and my eardrum.

“It’s very romantic,” Kendra said.

“Sounds it.” I laughed.

“Really, it was. Hector Berlioz, the composer, fell in love with this actress named Harriet Smithson when he saw her in a play. He sent her love notes, but she thought he sounded like a wack job. She wouldn’t meet him. Also he didn’t speak English, and she didn’t speak French. But Hector became so obsessed with Harriet that he wrote this symphony for her.”

I smiled.
Hector
and
Harriet
, like she knew them. Only Kendra.

“Harriet came to the concert,” she continued, “and they finally met. Soon, they fell in love and were married.”

“And did they invite you to the wedding?” I joked.

“No.” Kendra shook her head, then said sadly, “No, I never got to meet him.”

Ooookay. Kendra often did that, talking about historical figures as if they were real people. Last week, in American history, she told a long story about General Lafayette that even our teacher had never heard. It occurred to me that it would be fun to hang out with Kendra. She was interesting, and I could be myself around her. But I knew I couldn’t be friends with her and Lisette’s group too.

“It is really romantic.” The violins hit a still-higher note, so high I pulled the earbuds away. “This music is sort of creepy, though.”

“Oh, that’s because this is the part where Hector dreamed he had murdered Harriet. Then he died, and a coven of witches was dancing on his grave.”

Before I could think of an appropriate response, Miss Hakes said, “We’re going to start auditions for the solo in
Laudate Dominum
.” She kept talking. I couldn’t really concentrate. I slipped Kendra’s iPod back to her.

“You’re trying out?” she whispered.

“I guess so.”

“You’ll definitely get it.”

We started warm-ups. I hadn’t eaten lunch, so as not to mess up my throat. I felt a little light-headed now, but I was going to get this. I’d been in choir since fourth grade and never had a solo. But now I was a big-deal eighth grader. Also, I’d been practicing constantly. Saturday, Lisette had walked into my room and commented how great I sounded. I checked out the competition. Two girls trying out were seventh graders, and Celia Ramirez, who went off-pitch on high notes. I had it.

When it was time for tryouts, Miss Hakes chose one of the seventh graders first. She had a nice voice. I could afford to be charitable because I knew Miss Hakes wouldn’t give such a big solo to a seventh grader. She believed in paying your dues.

When it was my turn, I stepped up and tried not to look at any individual faces. A few girls reached into their purses, texting. Good. If they weren’t paying attention, they weren’t waiting for me to mess up. I met Lisette’s eyes. She smiled and nodded like a good sister. The music started. I took three deep breaths, then began.

Laudate Dominum omnes gentes

Laudate eum omnes populi

I did everything right. I remembered to breathe. I remembered to over pronounce my consonants, like Miss Hakes had said, and when I hit the high note on
“manet”
(which Miss Hakes said meant “endures”), I noticed even some of the texters looked up and nodded. I remembered to crescendo and decrescendo at the conclusion.

And there was applause. Not just, I told myself, polite claps, but a little more, like they really did think I was good. I looked up at Lisette, but she stared at her hands. Kendra, however, gave me a thumbs-up, and when I sat, she said, “You go, girl.”

“Anyone else?” Miss Hakes said.

I knew there was no one. There had been four hands. We’d all gone, and I was the best. I got a giddy, smiley feeling all the way up from the pit of my stomach, like I got when I knew I aced a test. I had done it. I was going to get this.

“Oh, okay, one more,” Miss Hakes was saying.

I followed Miss Hakes’s eyes to the seat behind me, where Lisette was standing.

Lisette? She’d been here, like, a week. She couldn’t even
know
the solo!

Except from listening to it on
my
iPod, I realized, and hearing me practice.

Relax. She probably can’t sing
.

Who was I kidding? She was perfect at everything, even ornithology
.

Now, she stood in front of the room, calm and serene, as I hadn’t been. The music started. Then, her voice.

After I’d finished, I’d been sure I’d sung as well as any eighth-grade girl could.

Lisette sang as well as those people on TV who are supposed to be teenagers but are really twenty-five-year-old Broadway stars. The song was a prayer, and Lisette’s voice floated to the heavens. If she breathed, I couldn’t hear it. If she thought about what she was doing, it didn’t show. Her expression was angelic, and when she finished, no one applauded. They were too mesmerized.

Then the room erupted with clapping.

“That was…,” Miss Hakes stammered. “That was incredible.”

“I totally understand if you don’t want to give it to someone new,” Lisette was saying. “It’s only fair for people to pay their dues. I had solos at my old school, so I know how it is.”

But Lisette and I and everyone else knew she was going to get that solo. I knew it, and I hated her, hated her for having more talent, for being more beautiful, and mostly, for not staying in Lantana where she belonged. And I hated her for making me hate her too.

As Lisette returned to her seat, she grabbed my hand. “I hope you get it,” she whispered.

I squeezed her hand back, hard.

So, of course, the next day Miss Hakes announced that Lisette had the solo. I was the understudy.

Everyone clapped when Miss Hakes announced it, except Kendra, who said, “Man, that stinks. I thought you had it.”

I shrugged. “Lisette’s just better.” I knew it was true. I glanced back. Lisette wasn’t even smiling. In fact, her blue eyes glistened with tears. What was up with that?

After class, I tried to avoid her, but she ran after me. “Emma, wait!”

I stopped. Couldn’t she just let me go? “What?”

“Nothing just … we usually walk to class together.”

Was she so clueless she had no idea I was upset with her? “Sure.” I adjusted my backpack. “Congratulations on the solo.”

“Oh, thanks. I wish we could both have gotten it.”

“No big deal. The better singer won.”

“That’s sweet of you.” We were almost out the door of our class when she put her hand on my shoulder to stop me. “I had a solo in chorus at my old school, but my mom couldn’t come to the concert. She was doing chemo then, and she was always sick and throwing up, but she told me to go anyway.”

Her voice broke, and her eyes were tearing up again. This must have been what she was thinking of in class.

“Emma,” she said, “do you believe that people who are … gone can look down on us? Like, do you think my mom’s watching me now?”

I didn’t know what to say. Finally, I nodded. I felt terrible for wanting the solo now.

“I hope so.” She was crying harder. “The first thing I wanted to do, when I got the solo, was text my mom and tell her about it. I do that, sometimes, text her old number. Do you think they have cell phones in heaven?”

Oh, God. People were trying to shove past us all around, looking at us like we were nuts, but I put my arms around Lisette. “It’s okay. I’m sure she knows about it.”

Which only made her cry harder.

“And you’re not mad at me, are you, for getting the solo you wanted?”

“Of course not.” I patted her hair. “How could I be mad at you? We’re sisters.”

10

In school, Lisette was really fitting in. It amazed me that I’d been here for three years and yet I didn’t know as many people as Lisette had met in a week. I could say people gravitated to her because she was so pretty. It was more than that, though. Lisette really tried to get to know everyone. If someone was cynical (and I wasn’t, despite having been raised by my mother), they could say she went in like someone in an online role-playing game where the object is world domination. First, she went for the easy targets, the adoring sixth graders, elves in her army. Maybe I was one of them. They were always offering her gum or an extra pencil or just staring. Next were the boys, her unicorns and cyclopses. They were all in love with her, and when Lisette mentioned in language arts class Tuesday that she was planning on attending the Key Club meeting at lunch that day, the club had such an unexpected swell in membership that they’d had to move to the auditorium.