The Space Between Sisters (17 page)

“Maybe,” Poppy said, though she didn't like the idea of taking anything for free.

“Maybe?”
he teased her. “I think that sounds like a pretty good offer, don't you?”

“I'll have to ask my mom.”

“Your mom?” he said, and there was something slightly mocking in his tone. “Is she in charge, then?” he asked. Poppy shrugged, a tiny shrug, because the truth was that in her family, no one was in charge. Unless it was Win, practical Win, who, at fifteen, seemed to have more common sense than both of her parents put together.

“Well, is your mom home now?” Rich asked.

Poppy shook her head.

“Do you know how to reach her?”

She gave another shake of her head.

Rich looked at his watch. “Because I have exactly one hour to do this in.”

“
Now?
You're going to take my pictures now?”

“Why not?”

“I thought you meant . . . you know, you could do it later.”

“But I have time
now
. And I don't know when I'll have time again. My schedule's pretty full.”

Poppy wavered.

“Come on. I'll leave the front door open, if that'll make you feel better,” he said, with an amused roll of his eyes, as if they both knew she was being silly. And maybe she was, Poppy thought then. He was her
neighbor,
wasn't he? He lived on her
floor
. He wasn't going to
do
anything to her. Except take her pictures. For free. She was still nervous as she followed him into his apartment, though, and she made sure that he left the door open, just as he'd said he would.

Once inside, Poppy was surprised to see that his living room was almost empty, except for a narrow blue velvet couch—he called it a
settee—
and his photography equipment. This was his studio, he explained to Poppy. This was where he worked most of the time, unless he was on location, the way he'd been today. He showed her his camera, and his lights, and explained what the umbrella was for, and he even turned on a big fan and had her stand in front of it so that it blew her hair and her dress around. He was trying to make this fun, she saw, but she was too nervous to have fun. Finally, he said they should do some test shots, and he had her sit on the couch. He spent a long time then, fiddling with lenses, and lights, but when he finally started to take pictures of her, he seemed disappointed. He said she looked too tense, and that she needed to relax.

“Would you, uh, like something to drink?” he asked, setting his camera down. “I could offer you a glass of wine, or a cocktail. That might help you unwind a little.” But Poppy didn't drink, even at high school parties, and she knew this wasn't the place to start.

“I'm sixteen,” she said to him, by way of refusal.

“So?”

“So . . . I'm underage.”

“All that means is that you can't
buy
alcohol. But I've already
bought it
for
you. Come on. It'll be fun. I'll make you something. A mojito. Do you know what that is? It's made with rum and limes. All the girls are drinking them at the clubs now.”

“No, thank you,” Poppy said, stiffly.

He looked impatient. “You're kind of uptight for a sixteen-year-old, aren't you?”

She frowned.

“I mean, do you always follow the rules?” he amended, quickly, and this time, when he spoke to her, he smiled, as if he weren't really annoyed at her but only just kind of amused by her.

“Usually,” she said, looking down at her hands on her lap. “I think maybe I should leave now,” she said.

But he persuaded her to stay. He told her that he'd bring her a glass of ice water, and then he'd put on some music to help her get into the right mood. She waited, on the edge of the couch, while he went into the kitchen. It was only later that she realized he hadn't just gotten her a glass of water. He'd also closed the front door to his apartment.

When he came back, he put on music. The music wasn't the kind that Poppy liked, though, and it was turned up too loud. And Rich kept asking her to do things like lie down on the couch, or pull down the straps on her sundress so that her shoulders looked bare. But Poppy was too uncomfortable to do any of these things.

Finally, he got exasperated. “Look,” he said, coming over to her. “I've done everything I can to make this work, but you're not even trying.”

Poppy didn't disagree. She
wanted
to try, she just didn't know
how
to. This whole modeling thing, she decided, was harder than it looked. “I have to go now,” she said, suddenly anxious. “My sister's going to be home soon.”

“You're not wasting all the time I just put into this,” he said. He was furious, she saw, and it scared her. She stood up to leave then, but he blocked her way. Only then did she realize how much taller he was than her. “You're not going,” he said, pushing her back down onto the couch, and there was something in his expression now that scared her even more. She hadn't seen this thing in him before, whatever it was. He'd been trying to hide it, she understood now. It was angry, though, and mean. And it made him strong. Incredibly strong. She would never have believed such a skinny guy could be so strong.

She was only in his apartment for another five minutes. Maybe less. But it felt like an eternity. Before he let her leave, he warned her that if she told anyone, anyone at all, he'd make sure Mr. McKinley kicked her family out of the building.

L
ater that night, when Poppy came into her and Win's bedroom, wrapped in a bath towel and still dripping wet from the shower, Win looked up from the book she was reading on her bed. “Are you all right?” she asked, studying Poppy.

“I'm fine,” Poppy said. But her voice sounded strange, even to her. She tightened the towel around her and walked over to her dresser, but, once she got there, she felt at a loss. She opened a drawer, randomly, and started to go through it.

“Pops, you're being weird,” Win said, from her bed.

“No, I'm not,” Poppy said. She listened, again, to her own voice. It sounded completely detached from her. As if it were coming from the bottom of a well.

“Well, that's the third shower you've taken tonight,” Win pointed out. “I mean, how dirty can one person be?”

Poppy didn't answer. She was afraid if she did, the panic would flood into her body again. The same panic she'd felt when she'd
first gotten back to the apartment and gotten into the shower. Then, it was all she could do to hold her violently shaking body still beneath the too hot water.

She pulled a nightgown out of one of the drawers, and held it up. It was white cotton, with lace edging, and a pattern of pink roses on it. She stared at it, as if she'd never seen it before. And, in a way, she hadn't. Not in the way she was seeing it now. It looked like it belonged to a child, she decided, and staring at it, she felt a wave of something—of fatigue, or sadness, or maybe just plain
oldness—
come over her. The oldness part was strange, of course. She wasn't old. But she felt old now, too old to wear a nightgown that looked like this. She crumpled it up, violently, and stuffed it into a nearby wastebasket. That got Win to close her book, and to get up off her bed, too.

“Why are you throwing that away?” she objected. “Grandma gave it to you.” Grandma had given one to Win, too. It was from the Butternut Variety Store and it was identical to this one except that the roses on it were yellow instead of pink.

“I don't want it anymore,” Poppy said, indifferently. “It's for a little girl.”

“Pops,” Win said, coming over to her. “What's wrong? Tell me.”

“Nothing's wrong. I just don't feel well,” Poppy said, using all of her self-control to not break down and tell Win everything. She remembered Rich's threat. Her whole family could end up on the street. And worse, if she told Win, she would confront him or want to tell the police, and then he might hurt Win, too.

Poppy, moving mechanically, went back to her dresser and put on a pair of underwear and an oversized T-shirt. Win still looked worried. “Do you want me to brush your hair, Pops?” she asked. “It's all tangled up.”

Poppy looked at herself in the mirror above the dresser. Her
wet hair was impossibly knotted. But she looked away before she could see her face. For some reason, the thought of seeing it scared her. Maybe it was because she was afraid it would look as empty as she felt inside.

“Come on,” Win said, gently, leading her over to her bed. Poppy sat down on it and Win sat beside her and started brushing her hair, being careful not to pull too hard, and to work through the knots patiently.

After a few minutes of this, the brush began to move more easily, and Poppy started to relax a little. It felt nice, in a way, especially when Win had settled into a rhythm, running the brush over and over again through Poppy's now smooth hair.

“Win?” Poppy said, finally. “Do you know that man who lives down the hall? The photographer?”

“Uh-huh,” Win said, after a moment. Her voice sounded almost sleepy now. As if brushing her sister's hair was having the same sedating effect on her as it was having on Poppy.

“Have you ever talked to him?”

“What? No,” Win said.

Poppy took a steadying breath and tried to sound casual. “I mean, did he ever ask you if he could photograph you?”

“Uh-uh. And if he ever did, I'd say no.”

“Why?” Poppy asked, softly, trying to emulate Win's almost dreamy tone.

Win skimmed the brush through Poppy's hair, which hung down her back now like a straight, blond curtain.

“Well . . . I don't know him. He's a stranger.”

Practical Win,
Poppy thought, with a feeling that was part pride, part envy. She would never have gotten herself into the position Poppy had been in today. And there and then was born the
idea, long held and not easily let go of, that this had all somehow been Poppy's fault. That she had
let
it happen.

Win brushed her hair for a little while longer, before yawning, sleepily. “My arm's getting tired, Pops. Mind if I stop now?”

“No,” Poppy said, feeling it again, that strange sense of being removed. As if she'd somehow become detached from her body. “No, that's okay.”

Win went to put the brush on the dresser, and then turned off the lights and got into bed.

“Poppy, are you going to go to sleep?” she asked, after a little while. Poppy was still sitting on her bed where Win had left her.

“Uh-huh,” Poppy said, crawling under the covers. But she couldn't get comfortable. She was still scared. And she was cold, too, even though it was warm in their bedroom. She shivered, violently, and curled herself into a ball. In the bed next to her, Win stirred, sighed, and settled into sleep. Poppy listened to the steady rhythm of her breathing, and found that, for a little while, anyway, it soothed her. But then it got harder to stop her body from shaking. She curled it into a tighter ball, and screwed her eyes shut. She wouldn't think about what had happened in that apartment, she told herself. She wouldn't think about anything. She'd keep her mind a perfect blank.

And she was able to do this, but only for a little while. It was hard to shut out the knowledge of what had happened, harder still to shut out the feelings it provoked in her. She was terrified of those feelings, though. They were so overwhelming to her that she was afraid they would be like an enormous wave crashing over her, pushing her under and, ultimately, drowning her. She had to
try
to feel less.
She had to
. And it seemed to her the only way to do this was to forget, to forget as completely as possible,
what had happened to her. To bury it. And to never tell anyone, not even Win. That would make it easier to forget, she reasoned, easier to pretend it had never happened.

And now, sitting on the stepladder at Birch Tree Bait, Poppy thought about how the not remembering, the not feeling had seemed like a good strategy that night, curled up under the covers. And in some ways, it had served her well. After all, she had survived those years. Hadn't she? Of course, it had come at a price. Not telling anyone, forgetting—or trying to forget—feeling less, caring less, all of these things had required her, in a sense, to drop out of her own life. She'd perfected the art of not putting too much of herself into any one thing, of not staying in any one place for too long, of not getting too attached to any one person. “Keep moving” had been her mantra. Avoid commitment, don't get too close to anyone, don't get hurt, and, above all, don't take life too seriously. She'd quit marching band, lost interest in going to college, and then moved on to a string of failed relationships—if you could even call them that—lousy jobs, and vacated apartments.

But here was the thing: what had worked for her once wasn't going to work for her anymore. She understood, finally, that she couldn't undo what had happened by simply not thinking about it. In fact, by burying the rape—
Yes,
Poppy thought
, call it by its real name—
by keeping it a secret, she hadn't kept it at bay, she had let it take over her life. Maybe, just maybe, she thought now, the only way to take that life back, and to stop making the same mistakes over and over again, was to bring her secret out of the darkness, and into the light. Where she could see it, and perhaps even let those closest to her see it, too.

The crazy thing was, until the night Sam had kissed her, she'd been content, or she'd
thought
she'd been content, to continue
on as she had been. But being on Butternut Lake with Win this summer, and, well . . . being with Sam, had changed her. It had stirred something inside her, something she hadn't felt in a long time. In fact, she had to go back to that spring afternoon, walking home from school, to find it. It was a sense of excitement, of hope and of possibility. It was a feeling that good things were going to happen, and happen sooner rather than later.