to go to see The Godfather after dinner, and quietly thanked God for that long gangster film Father wouldn’t walk out on. She pranced up the stairs (like one of the stallions in her white world or tomorrow at the fair) then quickly brushed her teeth and peed. As she scurried down the hall, she paused to pull Brooke’s door shut then rushed into her bedroom, closed the door, put on her pajamas, jumped in bed, and turned out the light. A few minutes later she saw the lights of the Buick turn into their drive and felt the vibrations as the garage door rose on its tracks. She pulled the covers up over her head and prayed for Brooke—to be spared her parents’ wrath. Oddly, she never worried about Brooke with Danny—rather the opposite, if one really wanted to know. And she didn’t fret for one second over what punishment she might receive.
By the time Momma cracked her door open ten minutes later, she was sound asleep, lost in Annabelle’s eyes, or were they Danny’s?
She woke with Brooke’s arms draped around her, and her sister’s head resting on her shoulder beneath the covers. She immediately attributed the wonderful soothing dream she’d had to Brooke’s presence, forgetting in her daze all that had happened the night before.
Then her door swung open halfway. Momma, her face visible in the morning light sneaking in around the curtains, mouthed clearly Where’s Brooke?
Leah giggled and pulled the covers back far enough for Momma to see her sleeping sister’s face stir at the sudden light and chill.
Momma’s frown turned to a smile at the sight. She always knew Leah would end up taking care of her older sister. She pulled the door shut, would let them sleep late as they wanted on this Saturday morning.
Leah rolled onto her back, wide awake by then but still a little hazy on all that had happened the night before. But there was one thing she suddenly knew with instinctive certainty—she could take care of herself. Then she looked at Brooke’s head resting on her chest. Along with her sister? She wasn’t near so sure about that.
Brooke’s eyes flashed open then, fully awake and directed squarely at hers. “I’m sorry, Lee. You must hate me.”
Leah’s eyes and smile spoke the exact opposite.
“I’ll never do that again.”
Leah thought Don’t make vows you can’t keep but simply nodded acceptance of the apology.
Brooke hugged her and buried her face in her neck, mouthing some words there in a passionate whisper.
In the sum total of that set of actions, Leah heard Brooke’s words as much as she’d ever hear anything, felt them all the way to her center. When her sister looked up, Leah said I love you too.
Brooke nodded, lay her head on Leah’s chest, and closed her eyes.
But before she could fall back asleep, Leah jostled her slightly then asked Was it worth it?
Brooke considered the question a minute then raised her finger to her lips—my secret. But her glowing eyes betrayed her answer.
Leah smiled and nodded, had guessed the answer but just wanted to get it from her sister.
Brooke had a question of her own. “How did you get home?”
Leah laughed then raised a finger to her lips.
Brooke shook her head and said, “I won’t even ask about the car” before laying her head back on her sister’s chest and drifting off into blissful sleep as Leah watched from above.
In this way the sisters began to keep secrets from each other, even though they didn’t.
Debutante Ball
Leah had seen it coming for months, but Brooke was either clueless or in denial.
On returning home that afternoon—dropped off by Mrs. Noonan, Friday being her pick-up day—Leah had seen the invitation on its fancy paper with the ornate typeface. It is with great pleasure that we extend to you this invitation to present your daughter, Brooke Renee, at the Ninety-sixth Annual Debutante Ball of the Central Carolinas. Leah lightly rubbed the textured paper, ran her finger across the embossed seal, and repeated the formal phrasing in her mind, though she did note that Brooke’s name was in a different typeface and slightly out of alignment with the rest of the line.
She needed to warn Brooke but never had the chance as her sister arrived home from tennis practice just as they were sitting down for dinner.
So when Momma decided to break the news late in the meal, Brooke dropped her fork loaded with peas she didn’t want to eat anyway and shouted, “No!”
Momma’s face assumed the expression of patient resolve that had become quite common of late, learned over years of practice. “Yes,” she said firmly but quietly.
“No!” Brooke screamed and threw her napkin down, sending more peas flying. She stood and ran out of the room, leaving her chair askew and the table in tense stillness.
Leah stared at her plate, clean of food but with her hands still holding her fork and knife paused just above. She glanced at Momma out of the corner of her eye. Momma’s lips pursed tightly as she looked across to Father. Leah snuck a glance at Father. The muscles in his neck were taut and his jaw rigidly set. Leah rarely saw Father look like that. She turned back to Momma, faced her directly this time.
Momma’s gaze held on Father for another instant; then she exhaled slowly, closed her eyes for a fraction of a second before looking to Leah. Though her lips never parted, she nodded her head ever so slightly.
Leah crossed her fork and knife on the plate, folded her napkin and set it to one side, rose from her seat, slid the chair back under the table, picked up her plate and glass and carried them into the kitchen, set those utensils in the sink, then ran upstairs fast as she could.
Leah tapped on Brooke’s door with her identifying sequence—one long beat, three short beats, one long beat meant to represent L-eah-F but to Brooke always and only meant here comes my sister, ready or not. Then she opened the door, stepped inside, and closed the door behind her.
Brooke was lying diagonally across her bed. Her face was buried in the pillow, her long brown hair fanned across the pillowcase. Her tanned legs and arms contrasted strongly the white of her tennis shorts and T-shirt. Leah was momentarily struck by an improbable association between the varied texture of the invitation—paper, type, seal, crease—with the texture of this protest it had caused—skin, clothing, hair, quilt. There was a chasm between those two vivid realities, and she was now not only witness but bridge.
Brooke rolled over. “I hate those snobby girls!”
Leah nodded and walked over to the bed. Brooke raised her legs high enough for Leah to slide under and sit then lowered her legs, her thighs crossing Leah’s.
“All they do is look down on me.”
Leah nodded.
“They told Danny I was a slut.”
Leah knew she should feign shock but figured they were well beyond such posturing. She fully grasped the resistance Brooke encountered, and caused, with her forthright manner, the unwritten rules she willfully broke, the feathers she ruffled. She’d been watching these reactions for years, perceived the tension more clearly than Brooke could, being in the ring—or the classroom, the cafeteria, the shopping mall—slugging away. One on one, she was a formidable opponent, as Susie Davenport well knew, and Mindy Tate and Victoria Pierce. But the Debutante Ball wasn’t one on one. It was the whole army assembled against little old Brooke--not only all the snobby girls together but their parents and their society and the world they represented, the world of unwritten rules and calculated thoughts and actions. What chance did Brooke have against that?
“I’m not a slut, Leah!”
Leah held her sister’s gaze a second, wanted to offer sober affirmation of her assertion, but suddenly burst out laughing. She couldn’t help herself.
Brooke jumped up. “I’m going to kill you!” She grabbed Leah, threw her down on the bed, and jumped on her stomach. “I’m not a slut! I’m not a slut! I’m not a slut!” She shook Leah’s shoulders and head with each claim.
Leah was laughing hysterically. She thought she’d pee in her pants. She finally managed to get her hands around Brooke’s wrists and freez
e them in midair.
Broke stared intently down on her sister. “Am I?”
Leah waited for the tears of laughter to clear so she could focus her eyes then shook her head.
The tension went out of Brooke’s arms and her head drooped.
Leah released Brooke’s wrists then caught her sister’s eyes and made the sign of a heart with both hands, then bent one hand down with the other—You are a slave to your heart.
“And that’s not a slut?”
Leah shook her head on the pillow.
Brooke nodded acceptance but suddenly tensed. “Then why didn’t you say so right away?” She started tickling Leah mercilessly. She hissed again, “Why didn’t you say so right away?”
But Leah didn’t catch the words, her vision blurred by fresh tears and convulsive laughter.
Later that night they were in the station wagon at their new favorite secret hangout, an abandoned hosiery mill north of town. The former main entrance to the mill was blocked by a fence and a gate with a padlocked chain, but the old deliveries entrance had only a cable across the overgrown drive, and the cable had fallen down. They were parked now in the lurking shadow of the former loading dock, the high divided-lite windows of the main building in the background reflecting back glints of moonlight interrupted by dark holes where the panes had been broken by rocks or bullets.
Brooke had first brought her sister here two months ago, on a cold night in the last weeks of winter, to