“I barely got through high school.”
“You’re exaggerating,” I said. “Your grades just weren’t up to Dad’s impossible standards. You should just try to find something, even if it’s part-time.”
“Where?”
I rubbed my nose. “How about Nordstrom? You spend enough time there anyway.”
She blinked up at the ceiling. I thought I saw a hint of a smile. “At the mall the other day, this guy asked if I was a model. Maybe I could do that.”
“Like . . . as a career?”
“Um, have you heard of Claudia Schiffer?” she asked. “Or Linda Evangelista? She doesn’t wake up for less than ten thousand dollars a day.”
Tiffany was beautiful, there was no denying it. Truthfully, I couldn’t think of anyone I knew personally who was prettier than my older sister. But I wasn’t sure I could picture her walking the runways like the models in her coveted magazines. “I think you have to be, like, five-eight,” I said. “Or at least five-seven like Kate Moss.”
“I am five-seven.” She balked at me. “You and I are the same height.”
I wasn’t getting into that argument again. Mom had measured us both months ago, but despite the evidence, Tiffany insisted she wasn’t a half inch shorter than me. “Maybe you could model for Nordstrom, like in their catalogues,” I suggested.
“You think?” Her eyes lit up. “Then I’d get free stuff.”
“I don’t think you get free stuff,” I pointed out, although I wasn’t sure. “Do you?”
“You get an employee discount, so it’s practically free.”
“So you’ll try then? Maybe go down there and see how it works?”
She didn’t answer. I picked up the CD case next to her stereo. Gin Blossoms. The bands she listened to always had strange names. Like Pink Floyd. Was Floyd a person or a thing? If it was a thing, was it always pink, or did it come in different colors? I wanted to ask but she might’ve noticed Manning’s shirt, too, and then she’d want to know why I cared. But if it meant not embarrassing myself in front of him again, then I’d take that risk. “Do you know who Pink Floyd is?”
“Yep,” she said.
“Do you have their CD?” I asked.
“I might have a tape I took from this guy I used to see. He was into them.”
“Will you play it for me?”
“What am I, your servant?” she asked but smiled. “Maybe later. Where’d you hear about them?”
She must not’ve noticed Manning’s shirt after all. “At school.”
“Of course. I hate when good stuff goes mainstream, you know?”
I didn’t know. “Are they new?”
“No. Even Mom and Dad know Pink Floyd. But when high school kids start talking about it, then it’s really not cool.”
I guess Tiffany had forgotten she only graduated high school a year ago.
She sniffled, staring up at the ceiling.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Why?”
“Because of what Dad said.”
“Oh. Yeah. He can be such an asshole.”
I put the CD down and went to sit on the edge of her bed. “He just has a bad way of showing he cares.”
“Whatever,” Tiffany muttered. “Honestly, it could be worse. I could be you.”
“Me?” I asked. “What’s that mean?”
“At least he mostly leaves me alone.” That was true. Dad and Tiffany fought, but he’d stopped trying to get her to do most things. She no longer came home by curfew or pretended she didn’t drink or paid for her own gas—that had lasted less than a month. “But you,” she continued, “he’ll be on your case nonstop for at least six more years, all the way through college. It’s only going to get worse as you start applying to schools.”
I didn’t think of it like that. I was lucky to have someone who cared as much as I did, more even, about getting me in to the school of my dreams. “Maybe once I get in to USC, he’ll back off both of us,” I said.
“Have you thought about any other schools?”
Her hair looked soft, fanned out over the comforter. I ran my fingers through it. “Not really.”
“Maybe you should just to be sure. There are a lot more options than ’SC.”
I shook my head. “It’s always been my first choice.”
“I know.” She looked away. “As long as it’s what you want, and you’re not doing it just for Dad.”
She sounded concerned, and that didn’t happen a lot. But she’d grown up in the room next to mine; she knew I had a drawer full of USC merchandise and that Dad and I had toured the campus once a year since I was ten. “It is.”
She turned back to me. “By the way, Manning’s coming to the fair with us.”
My fingers stilled in her hair. “What?”