Holly Cupala - Tell Me a Secret

Its tough, living in the shadow of a dead girl. Its like living at the foot of a mountain blocking out the sun, and no one ever thinks to say, Damn, that mountain is big. Or, Wonder whats on the other side? Its just something we live with, so big we hardly notice its there. Not even when its crushing us under its terrible weight.

No one mentions my sister. If they do, its mentioning her by omission, relief that I am nothing like her . I am the good sister. Thank God.

To speak of my sistertheres nothing more sacrilegious. Alexandra, Andra, Alex. Xandawho was, and is, and is to come. To speak her name is my familys purest form of blasphemy.

To think of Xanda is to conjure up a person out of phase with the rest of us. Gym socks and Mary Janes. Lipstick always slightly outside the lines, as if she were just the victim of a mad, messy kiss. Laddered stockings with dresses that were decidedly un-churchy. Sloppy in a way that was somehow repulsive and delectable at the same time. Repulsive to my parents. Delectable to me.

At ten, I was practicing her pout in the mirror. By twelve, I was trying on her clothes (in secret, of course), thrilled with the way her shorts hugged my cheeks and made my underpants seem obsolete. Xanda was seventeen. She didnt wear underpants.

One day she caught me in her boots and safety-pin dress, the one she had painstakingly assembled like rock-star chain mail. I was so scared I poked a pin through the end of my pinky. I imagined her taking off one of her stilettos and plunging it into my heart.

But Xanda didnt skewer me. Instead, she threw back her head and laughed a dazzling, tonsil-baring laugh, then smothered me in a hug. She had that sour, sharp smell, and I knew she had been with AndreAndre, of the sultry voice and skin the shade of coffee with milk. Caf con leche , as he put it. Sweet and dangerous. A bit of a con, said Andre. A bit of a letch, said my sister.

After she bandaged my finger, Xanda insisted I try on the matching safety-pin leg warmers. They hung like chains around my ankles. Clump, clump, drag. With a heavy grasp, she steered us both toward the full-length mirror on the back of her bedroom door. The metal of the safety pins shimmered down my straight, twelve-year-old hips. Xanda stood behind me, the glow of the bedroom window lighting up the pale chaos of her hair in a halo. She shimmered, too, but in a different kind of way. Her sheer white dress fluttered around her, a ghost trapped behind my chain-link figure. When she smiled, she looked like an unholy angel.

She studied my face with one eye closed, like an artist sizing up a canvas. You know what? she said. I dont think you should be Mandy anymore.

Should I be Miranda now? I asked.

No, I was thinking more likeRand. Rand is so much cooler than Mandy. Kind of edgy. Dont you think?

I tested the name in my mouth. Rand. Rand would wear a safety-pin dress. Rand could probably go without underpants now and then. Rand sounded almost like Xanda. I liked it.

Do you want to know a secret? I whispered to the sister in the mirror.

Tell me, she whispered back. Tell me, and Ill tell you one.

I cupped my hands around her ear. You never knew when our mother would turn a corner, shattering the most perfect moment with a well-placed shard of disapproval. Andres scent lingered in Xandas hair, filling my head and fueling my passionate announcement: I want to be like you!

Xanda staggered backward, the smile on her face slipping first into a grimace and then into a beaming hiccup. She threw her arms around me and rocked back and forth. Her body heaved with silent giggles until I nearly suffocated in her clutch. I laughed, too, at my own ridiculousness. It wasnt until she pulled away that I realized she was crying.

You dont want to be like me. She swiped at the tears, smearing her left eye just enough to match her right. A bitter laugh gurgled up. Youd be better off being like Mom than me.

The front door slammedMom returning from the church drama committee, or praying for Xandas soul. The safety pins closed in on me like a thorny noose. My eyes met Xandas in the mirror: panic in mine, resolve in hers. She pushed past me and out the door, where Mom saw her see-through dress and immediately began the usual tirade. Dressed like a streetwalkerplaying with firedont you see what youre doing to your life?

I winced, knowing I could never stand up to the words my mother threw so easily at my sister. Thats just it, Mom, she countered. Its my life, not yours.

Then it dawned on me: Xanda was buying me time. After wrestling with the pins, I escaped with only a few scratches through the secret passageway Dad had built between our bedrooms, her words burning in my heart. Tell me, and Ill tell you one.

Xanda never did tell me her secret, though I thought I could guess. I could see it in her eyes the last time she left. I knew, from the suitcase bursting with her clothes found in Andres car when they tried to escape Seattle forever.

It was that boy, my mother told me the night she died. It was that Andres fault, for his drinking. And Dads, for bringing him into our lives.

In the five years after Xanda died, each of my parents disappeared behind a locked door, NO UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY Mom into drama and the prayer chain, Dad into his construction business. I was left to wonder, what role did Xanda fill that I could not? What secret did she keep? And what path could I take to find it?

Any choice could lead to something irrevocable, as my boyfriend, Kamran, would say. I had to tread carefully.

I first saw Kamran checking out my labyrinth drawings in the Elna Mead Junior Class Art Exhibition last February. A guy Id never seen before hovered right next to the display glass, drinking in the lines of my mazes as though he were trying to navigate them.

He wasnt much taller than me, with metal-rimmed glasses, combat boots, casually holding a motorcycle helmet. He stood there at some point nearly every day, absorbing the images and making notes in a small notebook. I would find it odd if he wasnt so hot.

Essence was my spy and confidante, back when we were still friends. Before Delaney Pratt changed everything.

Yup, hes still there, Essence said, plopping her books down next to me in chem class. Do you think hes a freak or something?

No, I said. I think hes cute. I havent seen him before. Do you think hes a transfer student? Ooh, maybe hes from Germany or Israel or something. He looks kind of Euro, you know? And a little bit of con leche , I hoped.

No idea. Maybe Eli knows.

Eli was Essences new squeezeactually, her first-ever squeeze. She had been spending an inordinate amount of time getting to know him and his tonsils, so I didnt see her much anymore outside of chem lab. They met in Drama, where Essence was honing her stage skills while I drifted deeper into preparing for art schooland checked out art-appreciating hotties.

Eli was not impressed with our sleuthing. Are you blind? Thats Kamran Ziyal. Hes been around since second grade. Eli was haughty in that Im infinitely smarter than you kind of way, which Essence thought was adorable. Too cool to come down and mingle with the rest of us, he declared. Hes busy trying to get into aeronautics and astronautics at MIT. Perfecta stones throw away from my choice, Baird School of Fine Arts, in Boston.

I was too shy to say anything to this mysterious Kamran until the day I caught him holding a pencil and sheet of paper up to the glasscopying my work.

Hey, I said, my outrage overcoming the tongue that had been tied up for weeks. You cant copy that! Its mine! I sounded like a twelve-year-old, but I didnt care. If Mr. MIT Astronaut Man was going to copy my art, I wasnt above making a twelve-year-old stink.