The Year My Sister Got Lucky (19 page)

This is it. The two of us have this one moment alone, deep in the woods. This is my chance to divulge the truth about Michaela, to unburden myself of this heavy secret.

“Autumn, remember how you thought I was hiding something?” The words rush out before I have a chance to think them through. “Well, you’re right. I am. And it’s about Michaela.”

“Oh, my God. Is it bad?” Autumn whispers, studying my face.

“Pretty bad.” And just like that, standing in the shadow of the bare-branched trees, I let out everything, from Michaela’s mysterious sleepovers at “Heather’s” to the IM Chat with Anders to the huge e-mail revelation. When I’m finished, I let out a long sigh. It’s as if someone has removed a bookbag of rocks from my back. I look at Autumn, expecting her to huff over Michaela’s lies, or to curse out Anders (although Autumn never curses), or to smile and whisper to me whatever she might know about sex.

Instead, Autumn is silent and hard-faced.

“Are you okay?” I ask, worried that she’s caught poison oak or something.

“Katie, how could you do that?” Autumn replies in a low, controlled voice. “How could you disrespect Michaela’s privacy, go through her personal things?”

She is staring at me as if I’ve just told her I kick cats for fun.

“That’s not the
point
, Autumn!” I cry. “Michaela has been totally dishonest with me,
and
with our parents, and —”

“But you’re no better!” Autumn replies immediately, her eyes burning. “You snooping through her e-mails is
just
as dishonest as Michaela lying about where she’s sleeping over.”

Autumn’s logic does not sit well with me. “So you don’t even care that my sister is having sex?” I demand, lifting my chin.

“It’s none of my business,” Autumn replies coldly, throwing back her shoulders. She towers over me, but I refuse to let her intimidate me.

“If you were really my friend, you wouldn’t feel that way,” I lash out, and then wish I’d kept silent.

Autumn’s expression turns from outraged to thoughtful. “I don’t understand you, Katie. You’re a dancer, you’re amazing at yoga, and then you can be so clumsy in real life. Sometimes you notice the tiniest details, and then you’ll miss the big picture. And for the city girl you claim to be, you’re as small-town-nosy as they come.”

Did Autumn and Jasper band forces this morning and decide to say The Most Insulting Things to Katie? “What do
you
know, Flannel?” I snap, too angry to cry. “You’ve spent your whole life in Fir Lake.” I look Autumn in the eye. “You don’t know
anything
.”

I turn on my heel and storm back up to the plateau, where Mr. Hawthorne and Jasper are seated on the blanket, eating their tofu dogs. Autumn is right behind me, but I refuse to look at her, and I mutter
something to Mr. Hawthorne about not feeling well and needing to get off the mountain.

Mr. Hawthorne jumps up and tells me to wait, he’ll walk down with me and drive me home. Autumn and Jasper — my new enemies — look on silently. I know I’ll never make it down Mount Elephant by myself — with my luck, a bear would choose today to cross my path — so I stand off to the side, swallowing my tears as the family packs up their picnic. I’ve definitely messed up their hiking trip, which only makes me feel worse.

While we make our descent, I’m relieved to lag behind, and nobody stops to check on me this time. What was it Jasper said?
The way down is always easier than the way up.
And it’s true that this time my shins aren’t burning as much. But on the way up, my heart wasn’t breaking. I’ve lost my one friend in Fir Lake, as well as the boy who — okay, now I can admit it — I may have had my first real crush on. I’ve betrayed Michaela’s secret. And I was forced to pee in the woods.

Thanksgiving weekend can’t come soon enough.

Hemming’s Goods is having a sale on candied yams, and the farmstands are hawking jelly jars of cranberry sauce. Paper turkeys dangle from the school ceilings, and Mr. Rhodes pasted a rust-colored sign that says
GOBBLE GOBBLE
on our homeroom door. Normally, Autumn and I would have a field day with that one, but it’s kind of difficult to laugh with somebody when they’re not speaking to you.

The first few days after the hiking disaster, I waited graciously for Autumn’s apology, but when she remained silent, I realized there would be none. Now, she’s stopped coming to yoga class, and I’ve started skipping out on Mabel Thorpe (I told my mother that the class was put on hold for Mabel’s audition trip to Las Vegas, which seems like a realistic excuse). At lunch, Autumn sits with her Camping Club friends again, and rather than admit to Michaela that I’m
friendless and ask to sit at
her
table, I’ve taken to eating in the school library. I hide behind a romance novel as I scarf down my sandwich. The few times I’ve spotted Jasper in school, I glance away, my stomach jumping.

All I’m living for now is the trip to the city —
The Nutcracker
, Svetlana, my ballet girls. I’ve literally started
X
ing off the days on my Degas calendar, the one that hangs next to the photograph Trini and my friends gave me. My parents don’t know it, but I’m entertaining a fantasy that involves my moving in with Svetlana … permanently.

The only other person as psyched for the trip as I am is my mother — and she’s not even coming. She’s been a whirlwind of activity lately, driving to Montreal to buy a new pair of white toe shoes for Michaela, and skipping office hours to scrub the attic barre with Murphy Oil Soap, just so — as she put it — Michaela’s extra practice time will take place in a clean environment. I wonder if Mom knows and/or cares that Mabel Thorpe’s studio has dust bunnies the size of Mount Elephant.

One week before the trip, I’m slouched at my desk, highlighting pages in my social studies textbook as snow pours down outside my window. I’m wishing I could call Autumn to ask her a question about the rice crops in Southeast Asia when I hear Mom outside my room, swearing loudly in Russian. There are a couple of crashing noises followed by a
bang
. Dad, who just
finished his manuscript, is downstairs, shoveling the front walk (he was thrilled to have to buy a shovel), but I can’t imagine what Mom is up to.

I find her in the hallway, my and Michaela’s suitcases at her feet as she tries to cram the vacuum cleaner and countless boxes back into the giant hall closet. “Mom, you know we’re not leaving for another week,” I say, feeling a pang of impatience at these words. If Mom asked, I could tell her how much time was left down to the hour.

“Of course I know,” Mom says as she unbuckles Michaela’s dark pink suitcase. “I thought we could get a jump start on seeing how much you had to pack.” My mother is possibly the world’s most organized human being — I have no idea where she got me. “We should sort out the outfits you and your sister would like to take along,” she continues. “You’ll probably want to get your lavender silk dress dry-cleaned, and Michaela needs —”

“I need to go, because I’m late!” Michaela exclaims, emerging from her room. “Oh, hey, Katie,” she adds, smiling at me.

As the trip back home looms closer, my sister has been reaching out to me in small ways, like insisting I ride to school with her and Anders whenever it snows (I sit buckled in the backseat like an infant while she and Anders blast Rooney and giggle over private jokes). She doesn’t bring up stargazing anymore, but last night, after dinner, she asked if I wanted to have a
mani-pedi meeting in her room … and I declined. It’s the old Michaela I long for, anyway, the Michaela I used to share everything with. The new Michaela may as well be a moon-dweller.

Tonight, the new Michaela is wearing an oversize sky-blue sweater (I suspect it might be one of Anders’s), and an itty-bitty denim skirt over tights and these hideous maroon duck boots she bought at The Climber’s Peak. The bookbag slung over her shoulder looks stuffed to the brim, as if she’s planning on spending the night elsewhere.

“Michaela!” Mom puts her hands on her hips. “Where are you rushing off to?”

I know very well where Michaela is rushing off to. I can tell by the shimmer in her eyes and the high color in her cheeks.

“Heather’s house, for an emergency yearbook meeting,” Michaela replies, and I’m shocked by how swiftly and easily she can now lie. She’s probably still sleeping like a baby every night. “She’s waiting for me outside.”

Mom sighs. “Darling, we need to figure out which dress you’ll be wearing to the performance, and then which leotard you’ll take along for your private lesson with Svetlana —”

“Ugh,
Mom
.” Michaela rolls her eyes. I can’t recall if I’ve ever before heard my sister talk back to our mother. “Do we have to do that
now
?” She pushes
up the loose sleeve of her sweater and checks her watch.

Mom clucks her tongue. Is she
disappointed
in her Michaela? Hope soars in me. “What could be more important than this trip?” Mom asks my sister.

“Nothing,” I speak up, coming to stand beside my mother. I mean it, too. “
I’ll
go through my clothes with you, Mom,” I add. Maybe the two of us can huddle in my room, bonding and laughing, while Michaela is off hooking up with her boyfriend. Maybe Mom will finally see that while I’m not the most talented, I’m the daughter who’s more deserving of her affections.

“Well, to be honest, it’s Michaela I’m concerned with,” Mom tells me with a dismissive shake of her head. “
You
won’t be dancing for Svetlana, Katie, so all you really need to do is pick out your evening dress. And the lavender silk still fits, right?”

No, it doesn’t fit. I wore that dress to
The Nutcracker
last year, and since then my boobs have grown an entire cup size.

Standing with my mother and my sister among the chaos of suitcases, I feel like my head is going to explode.
She’ll always prefer Michaela, won’t she? No matter what.

“I’ll wear my burgundy leotard,” Michaela groans, stepping around a surprised-looking Mom to get to the stairs. I’m blocking her path so she attempts to maneuver past me. “Katie, move it,”
she says teasingly, and lightly hip-checks me. Then she waves her hand in front of my face. “Earth to Katie,” she singsongs. “Stop spacing out again.”

Something in me snaps. Where the
hell
does my sister get off thinking she can act like things are the same between the two of us?

“Why don’t you tell us where you’re really going?” My voice comes out strangled, almost not my own.

Michaela’s eyes go round. “What are you talking about?” she asks. She clears her throat.

I look past her at our mother, whose brow is furrowed. This is it. No going back now.

“Why don’t you admit that you’re going to sleep at Anders Swensen’s house?” I ask Michaela, all the while watching Mom.

“Who is this Anders Swensen?” Mom demands, glancing from me to my sister.

I take a deep breath.

“He’s Michaela’s boyfriend,” I reply.

I dare a peek at my sister. Her skin is chalk-white, her mouth is turned down at the corners, and she stares at me in disbelief.

It’s all over.

But I can’t stop. I’m reckless with power. Words begin pouring out of me in a torrent. “He’s the QB at high school — that’s quarterback — and
super
-handsome. He’s the one who comes to pick Michaela up in his car every morning, not Heather. He’s the one Michaela’s on the phone with every night. On
weekends, when you think she’s out with her girlfriends? Yeah. She’s with Anders.”

Michaela is frozen, silent. And my mother is listening to me, her mouth a small circle of surprise. It’s immensely satisfying to get this kind of a reaction. But at the same time I feel cruel and small and ugly, revealing everything my sister doesn’t want me to.

Still, I keep going. “She went to Homecoming with Anders,” I add, my arms quivering now. “See, Michaela’s too busy having a boyfriend to even think about ballet anymore —”

“Shut
up
, Katie!” Michaela cries, and lunges for me, grabbing my arm. She’s suddenly ugly herself, her delicate face twisted with rage and her teeth bared. “Just shut up! You have no right — where do you get off —” She’s shaking.

It’s terrifying to see Michaela this upset, and for a second, I back up a few paces. Never in all my fourteen years of knowing her has my sister lost her cool. It’s as if I’m seeing Michaela as human for the first time.

Which makes it all the easier for me to regain my courage.

“You can’t tell me what to do!” I shout, coming forward so that Michaela and I are face-to-face. Our mom watches us, her jaw dropping farther by the second. All the stored-away hurt of the past three months is rising to the surface, scalding my skin and flowing out of me like lava. “I’m not as blind as you seem to
think I am,” I say through gritted teeth. “And I’m
not
being overdramatic,” I add. “You feel like it’s cool to shove me aside for all your new friends, to stuff me in the backseat, but guess what, Michaela? It’s
not
cool! It makes you look like a really big bitch!”

“Katya!” Mom cries.

Michaela’s eyes, much to my horror, well up with tears. “It’s not
my
fault that you’ve refused to adjust to Fir Lake,” she hisses at me. “I tried to include you —”

“That’s bullshit and you know it!” I cut her off.

“Katya, we do
not
use that kind of language in this house,” Mom snaps, coming over to me.

I turn on her, my face burning. “My name is Katie,” I say, squaring my shoulders and lengthening my neck. Like a duck.

My mother’s eyes widen, and it’s as if she’s seeing me for the first time.

Then she looks at Michaela and swallows. “Is this true?” Mom asks Michaela quietly.

I glare at my sister, my arms crossed over my chest, silently daring her to try and weasel out of this situation.

“It’s true,” Michaela speaks up and now tears are streaming down her cheeks. I feel an overwhelming rush of sadness at the sight, and my first instinct is to reach for her — but I resist.

Mom’s hand goes to her throat. “Michaela …”

“Michaela, there’s someone here to see you!” Dad calls cheerily. “What’s going on up here?” he adds, tromping up the stairs with the huge shovel in his hand, and his jeans caked in snow up to the knees. His glasses are off, his cheeks are ruddy, and he’s smiling; it seems as if he’s finally gotten the hang of doing country-type chores. Then he sees us and his face falls.

“Well, the latest news is, our eldest daughter has gotten herself a boyfriend,” Mom says crisply, looking at Michaela.

My stomach aches. I don’t know if I wanted it to come to this.

“What — I —” Dad sputters, and then glances behind him at Heather, who is slowly advancing up the stairs.

It’s strange to see Heather in our house, especially since she’s not looking like her usual put-together self. She has on wire-rimmed glasses and no makeup, her hair hangs limp, and she’s wearing a ratty hoodie over denim overalls. Yes, overalls. The kind Autumn would wear.

“Michaela! I’ve been waiting downstairs forever!” Heather says, her voice tight with stress. “We have to get back to my house before the copy editor arrives, because senior ads are due out first thing in the morning —”

Heather comes to a standstill when she sees the whole Wilder family looking stricken.

“Oh,” she says, and glances at Michaela, who’s sniffling and wiping her nose with one hand. “My God, Michaela, are you
okay
?” Heather asks in a hushed, frightened tone.

Realization forms in the pit of my stomach. Heather isn’t part of some elaborate act. Michaela really
did
have to go to a yearbook meeting at her house.

Great.

“Can I go to Heather’s house, please?” Michaela asks our parents, her voice cracking. There’s a note of pissiness in her tone — understandably, I guess.

“Will there be
boys
there?” Mom asks Heather pointedly, and I want to bury my face in my hands out of embarrassment for Michaela.

Heather looks completely blindsided. “Um, boys?” She shakes her head, then nods. “Well, uh, there’s Lance, the Photography Editor, but he doesn’t really like girls….”

“Yes, go ahead, Michaela,” Dad says, which surprises me — he rarely speaks up when Mom is ordering us around. Mom gapes at him.

Michaela starts walking toward Heather, wiping her tears with the heel of her hand. As triumphant as I feel in many ways, it physically pains me to see my sister crying. It always has. When I was little, if I lost my favorite stuffed toy, or I didn’t get my food in time and started crying, Michaela’s own tears would automatically start up and then I’d cry even harder. A cycle
of sympathy sobs. Maybe that’s what being a sister is about.

I take Michaela by the arm, even though my own arm hurts from where she grabbed it, and say, “Mickey, wait —” My throat is thick with tears, too.

Michaela glances back at me, her eyes cold and hard. “I hate you, Katie,” she says, firmly and decisively. “And I am never speaking to you again.”

She turns and marches down the stairs, Heather scampering after her.

It was worth it
, I tell myself. There are no more secrets now, everything is exposed. Yet I can’t stop myself from bursting into tears. Dad steps forward and starts saying something reassuring, but I pull away and run to my bedroom. The one person I want to chase me, to comfort me, to say that she was wrong and that she loves me, is the one I have alienated forever.

A week later, I experience the longest freaking journey of my life.

On a Greyhound bus bound for New York City, Michaela and I sit side by side in absolute silence. Michaela is practically smushed up against the windowpane in order not to look at me. It’s growing dark outside, evening descending softly on the bare trees and snowy hills. Michaela’s iPod earbuds are crammed into her ears and she’s clutching her cell phone in her fist, even though we haven’t
been able to get service since we left the Fir Lake bus station.