Chapter Text
I had never been so angry at my brother in my life, but I couldn’t really pinpoint exactly why. I knew why I was mad at him when I was little and he would pull my pigtails; I knew why I was mad at him when he came home drunk and threw up in my shoes; I knew why I was mad at him when he would disappear without telling me. Heck, I was even sort of mad at him for going to Vietnam, I’ll admit to that. But this time, I just couldn’t figure it. I mean, by all accounts, I had been the jerk to him, and right after he had found out that Steve was going to be sent away to live in a whole different state for a while, too. And it wasn’t just the fact that Susannah and Nancy Wheeler thought he was white trash and then he had barged right into the meeting like that. There was more to it this time.
“I don’t understand it,” Mom said, shaking her head one morning. “I called him every day this week to come have dinner, and he says he’s busy. Busy with what?”
Busy with hating me, probably. Keith and I never stayed mad at each other for long in the past, but this time was different, it seemed. I had called him and his friends white trash, the same insult that had hurt me so much coming from Nancy. Of course he didn’t want to see me. “I don’t know,” I said, part of me wanting to tell her everything, but the smarter part telling me to shut up. “I guess he’s just…busy.”
Mom didn’t quite buy that, but Keith’s an adult now, with his own life, and she can’t go policing him anymore. Not like she really did when he was living here, anyways – Keith got away with murder. Well, he hasn’t killed anybody, but he’s got friends who have. Dead friends.
And there I go again!
“I’m gonna go over to Janie’s,” I said, slipping out of my chair at the table, pushing aside the leftover bits of pancake. “Me and Kim are gonna help her make campaign posters.”
“Campaign?” Mom repeated. “Campaign for what?”
“She’s running for class officers. She wants to help get girls athletics at Will Rogers.”
I would have suspected my old-fashioned, old-world mother to protest at this, but her eyebrows raised in happy surprise. “Oh?” I nodded. “Well, good for her. You tell Janie that if I could, I would vote for her.” Mom wrinkled her nose and smiled at her little joke and I rolled my eyes, but it was kinda cute. Sometimes I could understand why Keith’s friends and mine liked her – she was so easy-going. Most times, anyways, about most things. But there are certain things my mother just won’t budge on, and I suspect she never will.
I hopped on my bike and rode to Janie’s, trying to think of ways to make it up to my brother. Much as I didn’t want to admit it, I had definitely been the jerk, and now I needed to be the bigger person. Problem is, I didn’t know how. Sure, I was going to apologize, but something told me that alone wasn’t going to cut it; my brother’s friends mean everything to him, and I had…well, I had said what I said. My brother has their backs, even when it means I’m the person he’s defending them from. I know that. It kinda hurts to know, but at least I know it. If one of his friends had been a jerk to him, they would just bring around a six pack, let him slug them one, and call it even; I can’t do that. For one, I’m underage and can’t buy booze, and I don’t think I want my brother popping me. And, since we hardly ever fight, it’s not like I’ve been in this position lots of times. Almost all my friends have siblings, but they’re a lot closer in age. Janie’s in the middle of three, for example, but her older brother only just graduated. He’s not an adult that’s been to war, that’s seen and done all the things Keith has.
Who knows – maybe it’s just not possible for Keith and I to have any sort of normal brother-sister relationship. He’s almost ten years older than me, and boy does it show. My brother was in and out all the time, and for as much as he was there for me when he was around, it’s not like he was always, ya know, actually around. He was always out with a girl, or his friends, and even the guys that weren’t his friends. Keith was always getting in fights, coming home drunk, and often slept past noon because he got in so late. We could joke and talk, but there was always somewhere else he needed to be, someone else he needed to see. And that’s just how it was.
Maybe I should be grateful, then. Him staying away from the house was just a sign that he was getting back to his normal – back to the somewhere and someone else. If I upset him, he could just…go. That way, Keith and I could have what we always had, before all these bad things happened: just a guy and his pesky kid sister.
I wondered, sometimes, if he ever talked about me. If his friends outside his main group knew anything about me, if the girls he talked to thought it was sweet he had a little sister. What I had said about Keith and his friends was wrong, plain and simple; there was a part of me, though, that wondered if the distance between us was more than age, but something carefully curated. Keith could keep a foot in each world, and conveniently step fully into the other when he didn’t want to bother with me, and then humor me when he stepped into mine.
Blinking hard, I pulled into Janie’s driveway. I hadn’t meant to make myself so upset, but I had gone and done it anyways. What had started out as me trying to figure out how to apologize to my brother had just turned into me feeling sorry for myself. That was just so typical of me. Keith would probably say something about Catholic guilt and not needing to be so hard on myself – and then he would waltz off with a beer and hop into his car to go meet up with Sodapop and Steve.
“Finally!” Kim grinned when she saw me coming around back. She and Janie were sitting out on the Robinson’s back porch, surrounded by poster board and paints. Janie didn’t even notice me at first, hard at work on a sign that read ROBINSON FOR STUDENT OFFICER. We would need to work on coming up with something snappier. “C’mon, we’ve got lots more to do.”
I climbed onto the porch and sat down and grabbed a poster. Janie looked up and tapped her chin. “You’re good at painting, Sadie. Right? So I was thinkin’ maybe we could do some sorta rainbow effect on the letters. Like me and Kimmy trace the outlines and then you fill them in to look like a rainbow.”
“It would definitely get people’s attention,” I said, trying to think of how to make it work.
“That’s the idea,” Kim said brightly. “I’d bet you most everybody else is going to do plain black lettering. This is groovier.”
I shrugged. “Sure, I can try to do that.”
We fell into a steady rhythm of work: Janie and Kim outlining the letters as I filled them in with color. They didn’t look half-bad, and Janie and Kim seemed happy with them. It was my idea to add the flowers. At first we thought that might be too girly, but we eventually decided we just didn’t care – anything to get people’s attention, and rainbow letters and flowers were sure to catch the eyes of the voters.
The Robinson’s back porch was a familiar setting for us. They had a nice big porch swing that could be heard squeaking behind us, and we had spent many a summer day out here sitting on that porch swing, knees knocking into each other as we drank lemonade or sucked on popsicles. The Robinson’s house was a popular meeting spot for our little group, and it was a place I had visited often ever since I was a little girl. Janie had been over to my house as much as I had hers, but our other friends hadn’t; they had been to Janie’s far more times than they had been to my house. It’s sort of like this, I guess: my brother and his friends had staked their claim on the Curtis house, on my house, as the places they gathered. Little girls had no business being around rowdy boys such as them all the time, so Janie’s it was. But we didn’t live in the house Keith had with us anymore, so maybe that could change. Maybe my friends could come over and have sleepovers in my purple room without having to worry about a bunch of teenaged boys – now grown men – coming in and making noise and eating all the food and talking about things that made ears itch.
“So we can hang up the posters starting Monday, and then I have to get a speech ready for next Friday.”
“She has to give it to the entire freshman class,” Kim said, sounding as if something like that would be enough to melt her into a puddle. But Janie just shrugged.
“Eh, that ain’t so bad. Half our class is a bunch of idiots, anyways.”
“The boys, you mean?” I asked, and both of them snickered.
“Sure,” Janie drawled. “Anyways, I’m gonna get up there and talk about all the plans I have about changing the dress code so we can wear pants other days besides Fridays, and getting sports for girls other than cheerleading. I bet you the girls will be into that, and it’s better than just the usual crap, so that’s half the class right there voting for me.” Some days, I really envied Janie’s confidence.
“What’s the usual crap?” Kim asked.
“You know – better cafeteria food, longer passing periods, that sort of stuff.”
I twisted my lips, carefully filling in the last letter in ‘officer.’ “Do you have to show them your speech like you do your posters?”
“Probably,” Janie said, wrinkling her nose. “But it’s not like I’m gonna get up there and burn my bra. Nothin’ I’m suggesting is unreasonable. If they can talk about it in Congress, we can talk about it at Will Rogers.”
I suddenly remembered something I had overheard Darry Curtis say once, about how people with power seem to always be the stupidest ones. Not Janie, of course – but the teachers, Principal Vernon, and I guess Congress. Maybe the simple fact that we had to tell adults that girls should be able to wear pants every day of the week and play sports in school was simply proving his point. It must be a problem when all the same people are making all the decisions.
Looking back down at the poster, I furrowed by brow, deep in thought. “Who else is running against you?”
Janie blew out a long breath. “Lily Bittner, for one,”
“She is so stupid,” Kim said under her breath, shaking her head. “Last year, she asked me what side George Washington was on during the Civil War.”
Janie threw back her head and laughed. “Yeah, well, she may be dumb as a sack of rocks, but she’s had boobs since sixth grade. And the rest of them are boys, so. You know.”
We did know.
“Lily already has a date to the homecoming dance,” Kim went on.
“Who?” I asked.
“Peter Lewis.”
I deflated. “Really?” I shouldn’t have been surprised. Peter was one of the cutest boys in our grade, so of course he would ask someone like Lily to the homecoming dance. And, look – Lily’s nice and all, but she’s such a bimbo. If she were ten years older, my brother would probably be head-over-heels in love with her. Girls like Lily always get all the attention. It just doesn’t feel fair.
“Oh, lookit you,” Janie drawled. “Still hung up on Peter Lewis.”
“You can just shut up,” I grumbled, pretending to be more interested in painting posters than in Peter, ignoring both Janie and the blush creeping up my neck.
“I can’t believe you’ve liked him since the fourth grade,” Kim laughed. “Does he even know?”
I snapped my head up. “Of course not!” There was no way I was going to subject myself to that kind of humiliation. Peter and I hardly even spoke to each other. He’s probably completely forgotten I exist – just about everybody else has.
“Anybody ask you yet?” Janie asked Kim.
“No,” she pouted. “None of us have been asked. I’d still go, though. As a group.”
I tuned them out and instead focused on finishing filling in the letters on ‘Robinson.’ There was a good chance, I figured, that the rest of my friends would have a boy ask them to the dance, but I couldn’t imagine any of them ever asking me. I was awkward around boys, anyways; I always get all blushy and stutter. Well – around the cute ones. But I doubt any of the cute ones would ever be interested.
xXx
We had to go in early Monday morning to get all the posters hung up. Mom dropped me off on her way to work, and I met Janie and Kim and the stack of posters we had worked on over the weekend and made our way to the front office where Beth Martin was already stationed behind the front desk. She smiled when she saw me.
“Hey howdy hey, Miss Sadie. What’s up, kid?”
I shrugged and watched as Janie walked back to Vice Principal Landon’s office to get her posters approved. Kim leaned on her elbow next to me. “Not much. We’re getting Janie’s posters approved.”
“For the election?” I nodded. “Groovy. Can I see?”
Kim held up one of the duplicates Janie had left behind. They all said one of three things: “Robinson for Student Officer”, “Vote Robinson for Change”, and “Rally for Robinson!” Janie was pretty proud of that last one. Simple, but snappy. Beth gave each of them an appraising look and a slow nod.
“Cool letters. You guys did that yourselves?”
“Well, Janie and I came up with the slogans and outlined the letters, and Sadie was the one who filled them in with all the psychedelic colors.”
Beth raised her eyebrows at me. “Shoot, Sadie. You’re pretty good at that.”
I blushed. “Ah…I don’t know,” I said awkwardly. “Thanks, though.”
“I mean it! You takin’ any art classes?”
“She’s in the art club,” Kim answered for me. “We keep tellin’ her she’s good, but Sadie’s one of those people who can’t take a compliment.”
Beth stuck out her bottom lip. “I know a few people like that.”
I’d had just about enough of this conversation. I’ve never been a real big fan of people talking about me. Maybe Kim was right about me not being able to take a compliment. Time to change the subject, anyways. “So how’s things with you?” I blurted out, hoping it didn’t come out as awkward as it had felt. Beth and Kim didn’t even bat an eye.
“Not so bad. School’s kind of a drag, but I can’t complain. Evie’s been annoying as hell since Steve left – pissed at him one second, boohooing over him the next. She’s spent almost all her time at the house since his old man shipped him off. She ate all my ice cream.”
“Who’s Steve and Evie?” Kim asked.
“Evie’s her sister. Steve Randle is Evie’s boyfriend,” I answered her, Beth nodding in the affirmative.
“Oh – I heard about Steve Randle. He’s friends with your brother, right?” Kim asked.
“Yeah,” I mumbled, none too happy about being reminded of him right now. I still hadn’t seen or spoken to my brother since that day at that Tastee Freeze. He sure knew how to make himself scarce. I supposed I could pick up the phone, but I was too chicken.
Janie came out of Mr. Landon’s office with a huge smile on her face and the good news that her signs had been approved, and that Mr. Landon had even complimented our artwork. That was her day off to a good start, then. Just as I was heading out with Janie and Kim to start hanging her posters, Beth stopped me.
“I was just wonderin’ – is your brother seein’ somebody?”
I wrinkled my nose. “Huh?”
“Well, it’s just that I was talkin’ to Evie, and she said that your brother hasn’t been hanging around much. I know he does a bunch of odd jobs all over town and he’s got his own place and all that, but she thought maybe he was seein’ somebody cuz he hasn’t even been hanging with his buddies that much. I just wondered if maybe you knew if he was seeing a new girl or something.”
It had been nearly impossible to keep track of the girls my brother had seen over the years. He’d only ever had two or three girls he saw for any extended period of time. If he was seeing somebody new, it was news to me. “Uh…I don’t know. Not that I know of. Like a girlfriend?” Beth nodded. “Yeah, I don’t know.”
“No biggie. Just thought I’d ask. See ya later, Sadie.”
I left the front office in something of a trance, slowly catching up with Janie and Kim. Janie thrust a stack of posters into my arms, going on about which areas we needed to cover before she noticed the expression on my face. “What’s with you?” She asked.
I blinked. “Huh? Oh, nothing. Guess I’m just still sort of asleep. You said to go left, right? I’ll just go do that now,” I said hurriedly, and took my stack of posters and roll of tape off to the left side of the hall while Janie covered the main entrance and Kim went right.
My strategy was to hang posters on alternating sides of the hallway in the gaps between lockers and display cases. It was sort of nice being here early before everyone else got here and turned the first floor into a zoo. The janitor was even doing a final sweep. The whole building had a sleepy quality to it, even as the sun came up, and my body slowly woke up, and with it the rest of the school. I was just getting to the end of the hallway and my last poster for this floor when I saw her: Lily Bittner. She was alone, hanging up her own posters. They were pretty good, too – she had painted on these colorful flowers for her background and printed over them with bold, black letters asking the freshman class to give her their vote.
I may have spotted Lily first, but she was the one who spoke.
“Oh, hi, Sadie,” she said brightly. Lily was much too awake for this time of day. “Are you running for student officer, too?”
“Oh – no,” I laughed weakly, gesturing at the last sign on my arm. “My friend Janie Robinson is. I’m just helping her out. Your posters are really good, did you do them yourself?”
Lily nodded, a big smile on her face. “Yep! Took forever, but I think it was worth it. You guys did a nice job on your letters. Totally groovy.”
“Thanks. They outlined them and I did the whole rainbow letter thing.” It felt weird taking credit for it since it hadn’t even been my idea. I had just been the one to actually do it.
“Well, all the other posters I’ve seen so far have been pretty boring. That’s just how boys do it, I guess.”
I bit the inside of my cheek and thought real hard about whether or not I should ask my next question. “Guess so…speaking of, I heard you and Peter are going to homecoming?”
Lily nodded again, her hair bouncing all over the place. “Yeah, he asked me last week. I’m gonna wear yellow, so I told him to match his tie to mine. I thought it was a good idea to wear one of the school colors if I’m gonna run for student officer. What about you, who are you going with?”
Gosh, I really do get myself into the worst situations without even trying. “Uh…oh, well, nobody’s asked me yet.”
“Well, isn’t that a shame?”
I looked over in the direction of the new voice. Nancy was standing there, towering over the both of us. Even if I had no idea who she was, it would have been easy as pie to clock her as a senior. Nancy just looked like she knew she owned the whole school. “Hi, Nancy,” I said, my voice small.
“Hello, Sadie,” she greeted, her voice smooth. “Who’s your friend?”
“Uh…” I cut my eyes over to Lily, who looked eager as a puppy dog. Whether or not I would call Lily my friend was beside the point here, but for some reason, it was tripping me up. “Um…Nancy, this is Lily Bittner. Lily, this is Nancy Wheeler. She’s president of the art club.”
“There’s an art club at this school?” Lily asked, and I inwardly cringed. Maybe she wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but you could say one thing for Lily – she wasn’t concerned about embarrassing herself. The corner of Nancy’s mouth lifted just a tick before going right back into place.
“There is,” she said. “We meet on Thursdays. In fact, we’re starting work on homecoming decorations this week.”
Lily looked intrigued by this. “We really get to do the homecoming decorations?”
“Sure do. The theme this year is ‘To the Stars.’ It’s gonna be so groovy. So even if you don’t get a date, Sadie, at least you could say you painted the photo backdrop.” And then she gave me one of those real fake smiles.
Lily scoffed. “I’m sure we could find Sadie a date,” she said, nudging me in the side. Nancy didn’t look so sure. I, for my part, was mortified by this conversation.
“Well, maybe that’s something we can work on together,” Nancy said in all her fake kindness. “Anyways, I’ll see you two on Thursday,” she said, and then flounced off.
Lily turned to me with a big, bright smile on her face. “Isn’t that neat? Not only do we get to go to the dance, we get to design everything, too. And don’t worry – we’re gonna get you a date, Sadie Mathews. You already have a friend who’s a senior, it can’t be too hard to get a guy to ask you to the dance.”
I gave her a weak smile. “Yeah, sounds great, Lily.”
She squeezed my arm and went on her way, practically skipping as she went off to hang up more posters, clearly believing all was right with the world. Meanwhile, I had the feeling my problems with Nancy Wheeler were only just beginning.
xXx
Keith was standing in the parking lot at the end of the day.
He’d parked pretty much right outside the back entrance, leaning against his car with his hands in his pockets, the sun shining in his sunglasses. As everybody flooded out, I took my time when I spotted him, feeling something cold settle in my stomach. He didn’t look angry, but my big brother was pretty good at hiding his true feelings. I didn’t know anymore how often what he was showing me was what he was truly feeling, or if it was all just a front and always had been. Did somebody his age really want to be talking about his feelings with someone so much younger than him? I didn’t know.
I stopped a few feet in front of him, trying hard not to scuff my shoes into the concrete. We stared at each other for a few moments before I swallowed around the lump in my throat and gathered up my courage. I can’t say I was expecting what came out, though.
“Do you have a new girlfriend?”
I felt like an idiot for asking, but I guess I needed to know. He didn’t even seem fazed by the question. “No,” he said, quickly dismissing the idea. “Why you askin’?”
“Beth said Evie said to her she thought you might,” I said.
Keith rolled his lips, which I knew meant that he was hiding a grin. I knew better than to think that meant I was out of the woods yet, though. “Evie and Beth like their gossip,” was what he said. A non-answer if I’d ever heard one.
“So do you,” I shot back, but without any of my usual heat. That time, he smiled for real.
“Guess you’re right. Just not when I’m the subject of it.” I wasn’t sure if that was totally true – Keith kinda loved being the center of attention. But, maybe he wanted that attention on his own terms, didn’t want anybody going behind his back with it. I understood that.
“What are you doing here?”
“Mom called from the office. She’s workin’ late and needed me to pick you up. Guess she’s got a few more things to bang out on that typewriter of hers.”
“Oh,” I whispered. That made sense. I went around to the other side of the Impala and slid in, expecting Keith to immediately start the engine and tear out of there, but instead he climbed in and pushed his sunglasses up on his head, arm resting on the back of the bench seat, considering me. I didn’t move a muscle, just waited for him to chew me out or whatever it was he was going to do.
“Susie Wheeler and I went out a couple times the summer after my junior year – first take. Met her in math class. Not much to tell, really. We just weren’t each other’s first choice in the end. Didn’t think she’d go around callin’ me white trash, of course, but I guess I shouldn’t really be surprised.” He gave me a self-deprecating smile. “She wasn’t far off the mark, it seems.”
I took a deep breath and looked down at my lap. Used to be my brother wore that term like it was a badge of honor; he and his buddies were greasers. He knew it, they knew it, everybody knew it – they made sure everybody knew it. If he was ashamed, I couldn’t tell back then. Keith had never let on that he was anything but happy with who he was, who his friends were, and they were loud about it.
Sometimes, I wish I could scream at the world who I was as proudly as he did.
“I’m sorry about what I said. About you and your friends,” I mumbled.
“Ah, I embarrassed you,” Keith said easily. “I shouldn’t’ve made such a spectacle of myself.”
“Yeah, but…the other things I said - “
He waved a hand. “Don’t sweat it.”
I wasn’t understanding. After I had been so incredibly rude, had insulted him and his friends, he tells me to not sweat it? No. No, he was letting me off too easy for this. “No,” I said.
“No what?”
“No, that can’t be all you have to say,” I insisted. “Why aren’t you angry at me?”
“I mean – I was,” he said easily. “And now I’m not. It’s a waste of my time, girly-girl. I’ve got better things to do than be angry at you.”
But I got the feeling that he still was. I was starting to think that maybe what he was saying was that he wasn’t about to waste his time being mad at me because I was a waste of time.
“I can hear you thinkin’ over there, sug’. What’s goin’ on?”
I looked up at him and gave him a small smile. “Nothin’, Keith. Just ready to go home.”
He watched me for another beat before nodding and starting the car. “Alright, girly. Let’s get ya home.”
If he thinks he can get away with lying, then so can I.