Never Said Read online

  sarah

  Annie’s in her room. Door shut.

  I jiggle the handle. Knock.

  “I can talk to you about the flier now,” I say, keeping my voice low. I rest my cheek on the door. It’s cool. The paint smooth. “If you want to see it, Annie, I printed a copy downstairs.”

  My sister stays silent.

  annie

  Private time is not

  What it used to be.

  When I got the beginnings of breasts

  (long before Sarah)

  I stopped going shirtless

  even though my sister

  teased me.

  When I got my period (two years before Sarah)

  I was over

  sharing a bed with her and

  letting her walk in on me while I was bathing and

  even done letting her borrow my clothing.

  I closed up in this world of

  Changing body

  Admired myself

  Curled my hair

  Whitened my teeth

  All while Sarah stayed a little girl

  And I became a woman.

  Now

  Now I don’t want this privacy

  Though I lock my door

  hide my journal

  say to myself that it will be okay.

  I want my mother to ask

  what’s wrong?

  Not mention my dress size

  or say I’m bigger

  or unbecoming

  I want my sister to snuggle me close.

  Want my father to

  find the bad guys and stop them.

  I have kept my family away for so long that

  they cannot see my distress

  so I must defend me.

  sarah

  It looks good, that flier. And the assistant principal said this kind of club is a terrific idea.

  Consideration. Judgment Free. Everyone Welcome.

  Date.

  Time.

  Room number.

  A faded face behind it all. Words where eyes should be. Where the mouth and nose should be.

  I was scared to death to show it to Ms. Cleland. But Mrs. Staheli said I’d need to or Annie would, and after yesterday’s closed door, I wasn’t sure she would do it. Mrs. Staheli looked at me like I shouldn’t be worried to talk to anyone in the office.

  Out the door I went when the bell rang. Making my way, slow as I could without seeming like a weirdo.

  And then it happened. Me standing in the hall, trying to calm my nerves. People racing. Passing me like ants going around a rock. The office was ten steps away by then and I was giving myself a pep talk. Ms. Cleland appeared, like magic, in the doorway.

  “Walk forward,” I said. “Take a step.”

  I forced my body to move. Stepped in the path of a train. Someone running straight into me. The flier crunched in my hands. His books went flying.

  “Sorry. Sorry,” I said. “Sorry.”

  Ms. Cleland helped the boy gather his books. “That was some hit, Jackson,” she said, laughter in her voice. “And you, Sarah. Are you okay?” She offered to help me to my feet, but I ignored her. The floor was damp. Gritty. I stood. My ears rang. My shoulder ached. “I didn’t see him.” And ouch, I’d bitten my tongue.

  “I saw that.”

  Then I handed the paper to her. “I . . . I wanted to give this to you? For approval? To see what you think?”

  I’m glad that meeting Ms. Cleland (in the hall, not even planned, even though there was a huge wreck) is over. My heart pounded for more than half an hour after the fiasco. But the neck ache was worth it for Annie.

  sarah

  I’m not sure why my getting approval for Annie’s club makes me remember last summer and when she was madder than anything. Is it that she was a different kind of pain in the neck for me then? That she caused me real grief? The family too?

  No. It’s that I think summer is when I really saw a big change. The moment when things began to fall apart. And my wanting to help her now brings back the memory.

  At the time, I had no idea what was going on with Annie. Why she felt so angry. Why some days she was happy, giddy-in-love happy about some guy, and then all-of-the-sudden furious. The back and forth made me dizzy.

  This was a fury time.

  She bit everyone’s heads off for at least a week. Slammed doors. And when she didn’t show up for work, Mom had to run me in to take my sister’s place at Dad’s office.

  “That Annie,” Mom had said, and we hurried to the city proper. She wore lipstick and there were dark circles under her eyes. “What are we going to do with her?”

  And it wasn’t like on TV where the mom is pretending to be sad or worried but is really happy, really proud and just wondering for the sake of some script. No. This was the real deal. A real question. Real heartbreak.

  The whole way to work I’d said, “I don’t want to do it, Mom. Please. Not the front desk. I can’t.”

  And Mom repeated, “What am I going to do with her? What?”

  I sweat handprints onto my shorts. Smelled of BO. Could have cried our whole way to drop me off (I did cry, later in the bathroom. Several times.).

  Looking back at it now, I have to wonder what it was like for our parents to have one daughter who hardly spoke and another who ran her mouth all the time. They wore two expressions. There was the one with me, the can’t-you-grow-out-of-this pose. The new look for Annie was to cringe anytime she came into the room. Who would she be today? What might she say or do next?

  “I don’t want to work the front desk,” I said when we pulled into the real estate office parking lot.

  Mom stared at me. Frazzled? Maybe. I bet she hadn’t heard a word I’d spoken.

  Our lives were twisting then, going this way and that. Annie was growing bigger. Heavier. And what Mom and Dad had taught us was normal — beauty queen, terrific college material, scholarships — seemed out of reach for her. She wasn’t their normal anymore.

  Usually Annie worked for Dad in the front lobby. Dressed up, complete with high heels. I only helped when Dad needed an extra hand, filing important paperwork. I kept to the back of the building, out of sight.

  “I don’t like to be where people are,” I said, opening the car door. “Please.”

  The sun was too bright. The jean shorts I had on, and the nice top, were too hot. Too tight.

  “I don’t want to hear it,” Mom said. She looked away from me. “And it’d be nice if you’d get a learner’s permit.”

  I didn’t answer. There was no way I was driving. I closed the door, and when I got to the office, Dad was waiting.

  “Where have you been?” He didn’t yell. But his words were rocks.

  “I feel sick.” And I did. It was no lie. I wanted to throw up. “Daddy . . .”

  “Just answer the phone, Sarah, and take messages,” Dad said. ”I’m in a terrible bind.” He was all dressed up. “What’s so hard about that?” He looked at me, checked his watch, and shaking his head, took off down the hall. Another meeting and no competent daughter to secretary for him.

  That day I sat at the desk, trembling. Vomit edged up the back of my throat. Tears filled my eyes, and I had to keep wiping them on my shirt. I wanted to run home.

  Where was Annie? I should go where she’d gone.

  I stared at pictures of three guys I thought she was going out with at the time. She had taped the photos to the shelf, eye-level.

  The whole office wandered by. Bringing notes for me for when certain people called. Reminding me of their phone numbers. Asking where Annie was.

  David came by speaking baby talk on his cell to one of his kids. “Hey,” David said, covering the mouthpiece. “You’re looking pretty, Sarah.”

  I fake smiled.

  He put his elbows on the desk. Rested his chin on one hand. Took a Jolly Rancher from the jar between us.

  “Where’s your sister?” he asked. “I’m talking to Van, and he loves her.”

  I shrugged. Waited
for him to leave. Hoped the office phone wouldn’t ring.

  Emma Jean hurried up from the back. She wore a dark suit and her hair was pulled up in a way Mom always said was most unbecoming. “She’s had tons of cosmetic work done,” Mom said. “Her face. Her body.”

  Dad said Emma Jean helped seal the deal on more than her fair share of houses, so he didn’t care what she did cosmetically, and by the way, he thought she looked terrific. I handed Emma Jean a stack of manila folders, some several inches thick.

  “Covering for that sister of yours?” Emma Jean asked.

  What kind of question was that? One I didn’t need to answer. But Emma Jean stood there. Waited.

  “Yes,” I said.

  She nodded and left.

  No wonder people bought houses from her. They were afraid not to.

  Two of the boys in Annie’s pictures I recognized from school. Had she met the other one on the Internet? Here? At a party?

  The phone startled me when it rang. I told the person everyone was in a meeting, could I take a number? Sweat rolled down my back. I hung up.

  About eleven thirty, Paul wandered in. He’s older than Dad. They started this real estate company together, Paul using Dad’s ideas, Dad using Paul’s money.

  Paul saluted me. Something green was stuck between his front teeth. He looked at me so hard that I felt uncomfortable. And then he said, “Sarah.” His eyes were too blue—for an old man, I mean.

  “What?” I’d almost yelled at him.

  “Where’s that looker of a sister?”

  I flinched. Shrugged. Wasn’t that sexual harassment or something?

  The whole day was stressful and long. I stayed late with Dad because he said so, because Annie did sometimes, and then, at long last, the two of us drove home, Dad talking business the whole way.

  I didn’t listen. I just wanted to get in my room. Lie on the bed. Text Garret. Do anything to unwind. Every muscle in my body was taut.

  My room. My room. That’s what I thought running up the stairs. I slammed the door behind me and collapsed against it.

  I fell on the bed, sweaty from nerves. Closed my eyes. Did the deep breathing that hadn’t worked all day. Thirty minutes later, my heart had calmed down and my head no longer ached. I was changing my clothes when I heard, “What’s your problem?”

  Dad. Shouting. “Are you crazy? You must be. How can you do your runway walk like that?”

  Uh oh.

  The calm I had felt was shoved aside. I felt cold at Dad’s words. Now what? A spasm of worry similar to what Mom might have been feeling earlier that day when Annie simply didn’t show up for work coursed through me. Why hadn’t I paid more attention to my mom? Tried to ease the way she felt?

  I headed down the stairs unsure of where to put my feet, like I might step wrong and fall face-first into the foyer. Fights, yelling, anger. It all unnerved me.

  Hesitating, I waited on the Persian rug in the foyer, listening to Dad. Taking in his anger. Hearing the heartbreak in his voice.

  I was afraid to see why he sounded like this. His sorrow scared me. This was serious. And Annie was silent. I almost didn’t allow myself to peek.

  Dad hollered. Said, “What? Why?”

  In the background, I could hear Mom weeping.

  I looked into the living room, white as heaven. My father and sister stood toe to toe, squaring off. Mom sat in the corner, perched on a chair, her face covered with her hands.

  Annie’s hair was nearly gone.

  It was as if she’d cut it raggedy short with a butter knife. She’d colored it purple, red, black. What was left of her hair looked bruised.

  Our father was right. This was not a beauty queen’s haircut.

  Annie stood there so stiff, so small looking, so defiant. She argued, “My life” and “My hair.” Then she said, “I wanted it this way.”

  Dad went silent. Took in a breath. “You’re fired,” he said. And that was that.

  sarah

  Not that much more before, a few months before the haircut, before Annie started gaining weight, Mom and Dad and I sat in an audience of more than three hundred people. Dad had invited his whole office. Paul and Emma Jean and David were there, with their families. Everyone wore an Annie: Queen of the Night T-shirt to support her. (She played that aria on the piano.)

  My parents clapped like crazy when she won Miss Springfield and won a scholarship to boot. She dipped her head to accept a glittery crown. Her face was bright. She didn’t cry like some winners do, but pumped her fist in the air. Laughed. Yelled into the microphone, “Mom! Dad! Sarah! I love you!”

  Melanie was runner up. She laughed too. Grabbed Annie in a huge hug, and they almost danced. Then Annie waved to all those people like she meant it.

  “Look at her,” Dad said. “That’s my girl.”

  “Our girl,” Mom said.

  “You could be a winner too, Sarah,” Dad said. Then he was cheering for Annie again.

  I was hot with emotion. Thrilled for Annie. But burning from the inside out. Had my dad really said that? We both knew I’d never stand on a stage like that. Ever. No matter what Dad said, I couldn’t do what Annie did.

  I didn’t want to.

  No matter how much he wanted me to be like Annie, I was just Sarah.

  sarah

  Here’s what I’m thinking,” Annie says. We’re in the family room after dinner, a fire roaring in the fireplace. “Mom? Sarah?”

  Dad keeps checking his phone. After the haircut, he quit looking at Annie when she spoke. When she pierced one of her ears in numerous places, he didn’t talk to her for a week. When she pierced her nose, I thought he might collapse from anger. I think he doesn’t look at her straight on anymore because he’s afraid something new has happened.

  Mom’s watching The Bachelor. A long-ago season, and I’m not sure why she’s turned it on now. She knows the outcome.

  Mom pauses the show.

  Annie’s animated. Her eyes are bright. Liquid looking. Like what she plans to say means as much to her as that night on the stage last year. She glances at me.

  Is she nervous? My sister the star. Is she afraid? Has she become like me because of her choices? Because of her weight?

  “Mom, me and Sarah are starting a club,” Annie says.

  What? Me? No, not me.

  Mom looks from Annie to me and back to my sister. She wears a tentative expression. Like she can’t believe this. I don’t blame her. “A club?”

  “At school. Sarah got permission, of course, and I’ve spoken to Ms. Cleland too—you’ve met her, Mom, remember? With the incident?—and she said a diversity club sounds good to her.”

  My stomach drops at the allusion to Tommy Jones, but Mom nods. She wears a timid smile, like she’s not quite sure what to do with her lips. Like when I’m in front of a class and I’m not sure where to put my hands. Am I my mother too? The thought surprises me.

  “Is that so?” she asks.

  Dad waves a hand, meaning shush. “This is about a meeting before the party,” he says, then stands and says, “Gotta take this call.”

  “Tell me more, dear,” Mom says, and for a minute she sounds like someone in a Lifetime movie. She sounds . . . fake. Does Annie notice? The nerves tighten.

  How have we gotten so far from each other? Mom passes me the bowl of caramel popcorn she holds. It smells buttery. Sugary. I take a handful but Annie shakes her head no.

  “I don’t care who shows,” Annie says. She sits close to Mom. Her voice is lowered. “Anyone can come. There’s no judgment.”

  Mom nods. Dad moves across the room, stands near the fireplace here in the TV room. He’s speaking low. The flames lick the air. The firewood snaps.

  “So if you feel different, if your hair isn’t quite perfect” — she reaches for her own hair — “if your nose is too big . . .” Annie has raised her voice. Does she want Dad to hear?

  I’m quiet. Listening. Eating popcorn.

  Hoping.

  For what? I don’t
even know.

  Mom’s listening too. I can tell. She moves closer. “Annie.”

  “Sarah made a terrific flier.” Annie looks at me and I raise my eyebrows. “And we’ll hang them up everywhere.” Then Annie starts listing flaws again. Are you the wrong color? The wrong religion? The wrong shape? The wrong class? The wrong age? The wrong . . . It just keeps going on and on.

  Mom’s hand goes to her throat.

  I recognize the move. Have seen it when I couldn’t talk at an assembly. When I walked out on a violin solo. When I didn’t stand up to a bully in sixth grade. Mom is always touching her throat like she has to hold her head on.

  “Are you sure you should associate with those kinds of people?” Mom asks, and the whole room goes quiet. Even Dad looks over like he can’t believe Mom has spoken those words. Can he hear us?

  Then Mom is up, moving out of her comfy chair, grabbing the popcorn and taking it with her.

  My lungs are full of fire ants.

  Annie’s hands are folded in her lap and she doesn’t change position. She tilts her head The two of us wait, together. Mom works in the kitchen. There’s the clatter of cabinet doors shutting.

  “With the lower class,” Annie says after a long moment.

  “She didn’t mean that,” I say.

  “Yes, she did.” Then Annie leaves the room.

  I have to breathe through my mouth. Close my eyes. Under my hands I feel the texture of the sofa. It’s a pale red, the leather, and soft.

  Dad’s voice seems loud now.

  He’s not paying attention. Maybe he never was. I stand. Walk into the kitchen. It seems so far.

  Mom gazes out the window over the sink. The room is so bright there’s no way she can see outside — the window shows only her reflection, then mine. Mom gasps and says, “You surprised me, Sarah.”

  Nothing from me.

  “What?” she says. “Spit it out.”

  I swallow. I’m shaking. “I can’t believe you said that to Annie, Mom.”

  She turns on the sink water. “What are you talking about?”