Brooke, 15 about to turn 16, and Tara, 14 since May, disagreed on almost everything. But the evening before school opened, they agreed that people who compared them like breakfast cereals were so out of bounds. They didn’t see Brooke. They didn’t see Tara. They saw what they liked to imagine.
At dinner with their mother they agreed that practically all the adults in their historic artsy town in the Catskill Mountains fixated on Brooke being the colorful intense sister and Tara the calm one. They were eating tuna fish sandwiches on heavy rye bread, and instead of hurrying the meal to join separate friends or even to retreat to their separate rooms in the A-frame house, which was tucked behind the town hall, they told their mother that it seemed like all the adults in town were getting more obnoxious all the time.
People ritually described the girls’ personalities out loud and in their presence—if not directly to their faces. Their mother asked if this wasn’t better than people gossiping behind their backs.
But here, too, the sisters completely agreed. They would much prefer to be elsewhere when people described their personalities.
“I don’t know,” their mother said and finished the wine she drank with dinner. “There’s just something about you two. You’re so wonderful in such different ways.” She dabbed her mouth and laid the napkin beside her plate. “Quiet and sensitive. Vivid and surprising. You see? I do it, too. I’m sorry. You’re each so special.”
Brooke and Tara groaned but not dramatically. “It’s pressuring us to fit their picture,” Brooke said. “And it’s judgmental. Like, ‘Oh, that’s just Brooke being dramatic.’”
Tara nodded. “It’s putting us in boxes when everyone else gets to run around free.”
The sisters didn’t look especially alike. They were both the top student in their class. But that’s not what people focused on. The pronouncements made with undue intimacy ran like this: Brooke is driven and extravagant so she’ll have a career in the city; Tara is friendly and easygoing, so she might run the town’s famous summer festivals and work in the Trinity Gallery.
“They tell me how quiet I am,” Tara said, “like it’s a compliment.”
“We get hugged and patted and encouraged to confirm whatever they say. Like, act dramatic for us, Brooke. It’s cute. And if Tara and me are together, people act like they’re on TV just to assess how different we are. Like, here’s Brooke; here’s Tara. I’m Corn Chex and she’s Wheat Chex. Which one’s healthier? Which one’s heartier?”
“Stays crunchy longer,” Tara said.
“Fewer calories and just plain tastier.” Brooke smiled. They not only agreed, they felt the same way.
Their mother pushed her index finger into a left-over bread crust. “Well, tell people to stop it. But don’t cause a commotion.”
“A commotion? You mean, don’t say—‘fuck off.’” Brooke stacked the plates and carried them to the counter. “I never say that. But I might say, ‘Now that I’m the local Drama Queen, I’m gonna go for All-State.”
“That’s kind of extravagant, Brooke,” their mother said, “being sarcastic like that. Certain people will only tease you more.”
“Men,” Tara said. “Men tease Brooke. Women don’t dare.”
“What men?” Brooke asked before her mother could. “Dad doesn’t tease us.”
The mother jumped in her seat but blamed it on the time. She was late for a meeting. “Please clean up; you have no idea how depressing it is to face dirty dishes after midnight.”
Brooke leaned against the sink and Tara listened to her mother hurry upstairs. Ten minutes to change her clothes and then she’d be gone till one or two, maybe three.
“Why did you say that about men, Tara? So Mom will worry? It’s none of your business, true or untrue. Besides being a total lie.”
“Hey, I’m on your side. That movie star’s got no business playing with the babysitter.”
“Shut up.” Brooke stepped outside and closed the kitchen door without slamming it. She unlocked her bike and hopped on.
Matthew King was not a movie star. He was a great actor, whose beautiful restored farmhouse a mile and a half down Route 212 gave him and his family a break from the city whenever he was working in New York. Next summer when she would be almost 17, Matthew hoped she could take care of Dexter, 7, and Ivy, 4, in LA. Maybe even Switzerland, he had told her, if that collider film came through.
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