“There’s water and soda and stuff. Just have whatever you want. Don’t worry, I won’t desert you. I know it’s weird to be at a party where you don’t know anyone.”
She brought me into the huge living room, where most of the people were. It wasn’t like I’d always imagined this kind of party would be. The music wasn’t blasting loud, people weren’t shouting and dancing with their hands up. I guess all I knew about parties was from movies, which seemed to have it completely wrong. This was just a room full of people hanging out, talking and laughing.
A girl with long blond hair, wearing jeans and a pink sweater, spotted Kip and came straight over. “Where have you been all day? Mom is pissed.” I studied her face; she and Kip looked exactly alike, more than regular sisters do. They must have been twins.
“It’s not your problem,” Kip said. “This is Gem.”
“It is my problem when I’m the one who ends up making excuses for you, and by the way I don’t enjoy that at all.” She thrust her hand out. “Hi. I’m Jessa. There’s a keg in the backyard if you want a beer. Other stuff in the kitchen,” she said, pointing. To Kip she said, “Jeremy and Jonathan are here, too. Consider yourself warned.”
“Great.”
“Come find me before you leave.” Jessa smiled at me. “Nice to meet you. Don’t drink the punch unless you want to forget everything that happens tonight.”
She skipped off toward the keg.
“Jeremy and Jonathan?”
“Our brothers. Yes, they’re twins, too. Freshmen in college, so they’re pathetic for being here.” Embarrassed, Kip glanced at me. “My real first name is Julia.” She waited. Then: “Get it? Julia, Jessa, Jeremy, Jonathan? It’s horrible. Our parents are also both twins. My dad’s name is Mike and his twin is Matt. My mom and aunt: Allison and Amanda. It’s a generational disorder, the naming thing. My middle name is Kipling, my grandmother’s maiden name. So. Kip.”
“I like Kip,” I said.
“I’m never having kids. There’s like a hundred-and-twenty-percent chance I’d have twins, too. No way. Let’s get some food.”
I followed her to the kitchen. We loaded up paper plates with little mountains of chips and crackers and cheese. “Who brought celery sticks?” she asked a guy filling a glass with water at the sink. “Who brings celery sticks to a party?”
“Your brother,” he said after he’d turned around.
Kip rolled her eyes. “Jeremy. He’s on this paleo thing to make weight for wrestling.”
The guy drank his water and looked at me, and didn’t turn away. Did I seem weird? He didn’t have the expression on his face people get when they think I’m weird. His hair was dark; he was big. Big and tall. I said hi. Then he asked Kip, “Where were you today? You missed that huge test in geometry.”
“Yeeeaaah, I guess I kind of didn’t want to take that. Anyway,” she said, “these old friends of my parents are in town, so I had to show their daughters around.” She looked at me. “They’re practically like my cousins.”
“What’s your name?”
“Gem,” I said.
“Jen?”
“Gem,” Kip said. “Like a diamond.”
“Nice. I’m Sefa,” he said.
“She just got her first tattoo. Look.” She put her plate down and took my arm and slid my sweater sleeve up gently. The stars, through the plastic wrap, were deep black against my reddening skin.
Sefa came closer, loomed. I felt small next to him and not sure I wanted to show anyone my tattoo yet. “Did it hurt?” he asked.
“Not too much. It hurts more now.”
“Want some punch? You’ll feel better.”
Kip and I exchanged a glance; she smirked.
“No thanks.” I pulled my sleeve down. “I need to find my sister.”
“I’m gonna get you something for your arm,” Kip said. “I’ll look for you in a minute.”
I left my cheese and crackers behind and went back out into the hall, adjusting the backpack on my shoulder, wondering which door led to a bathroom. Then I felt someone tugging on the backpack. I whipped around to see Sefa close behind me.
“Whoa,” he said after my fast reaction. “Sorry. Just saying hi.”
“I need to find my sister,” I said again.
“That’s cool,” he said. “I’m not following you, just going in the same direction you are because that’s where I’m going, so don’t worry about it. I’ll stay three feet behind.”
“I know, I—”
“You look a little freaked out.”
“I’m not.”
I walked outside; Sefa went to the keg. Dixie was sitting in a corner of the yard, drinking out of a red plastic cup, with some guy. Sitting close like she’d sat close to Kip when they first met. While I watched, she handed him her cup to hold and shifted so she could lift the back of her shirt. Showing her tattoo.
I went over. “It matches mine,” I said. I pulled up my sleeve to show the guy.
“Cool.” His eyes flicked to mine. “You’re the sister.”
The sister. “What’s she telling you?” I asked.
He shrugged and smiled in a way I didn’t like. I looked into the cup Dixie had been drinking out of. “Is that the punch?” I asked.
“It’s beer,” Dixie said. “Did you want something?”
“I think we should leave soon.” I’d never seen Dixie drink and I didn’t know how she’d be. Thinking about how Mom and Dad were with it, I got anxious, and my instinct was to get her away.
Dixie took her beer back from him. “We literally just got here.”
“Stay. I’ll give you a ride home,” the guy said to Dixie.
“Yeah,” Dixie said to me. “I’ll go with Ryan.” She scooted closer to him and stared at me.
“Can I talk to you for a second?”
She shook her head. “No. You can’t.”
I moved toward her. As if I could take her arm and drag her away, as if she were six years old.
“You should show Ryan what’s in your backpack, Gem.” She leaned on him. I stopped moving. “There’s like thirty thousand dollars in there. Approximately.”
Ryan laughed like Dixie had made a joke. I laughed, too, a forced laugh. Dixie held my eyes intensely.
“Right,” I said. I patted the shoulder strap. “Me and my piles of money.”
“Half of it should actually be mine,” Dixie told Ryan. “Sort of like an inheritance.”
I tried to understand what she was doing. Her tears at the tattoo place. Messing with me now, knowing I wouldn’t find it funny. Why she was saying the things she was saying, in front of everyone. And how angry she seemed, how hurt. She’s mad at Mom and Dad, I reminded myself, for using her, trying to control her to get what they want.
I stared back at her, as hard as she stared at me, except what I wanted—what I’d always wanted—was to see myself through her eyes. This time, though, it wasn’t to know how good I was, how needed I was. It was to see truth, for once.
Maybe she wasn’t mad at the wrong people. Maybe she was actually mad at me, and maybe she was right to be. Maybe that was the truth. Or part of it.