The Starfish Sisters: A Novel(29)

Then Suze was between us and we were in the movie with popcorn and root beer and the movie was starting. It was so intense and made me cry hard, and when we stumbled out into the dark, rainy afternoon, I felt hollowed out. “That was rough.”

All three of us were quiet, walking side by side. We stopped in the candy store and got a bunch of penny candies, and then without even talking about it, we took the trail to our house on the hill. I let us in by the lower window, and we carried our stash upstairs to the kitchen, which looked out over the water. Joel sat beside me. “Did you ever live on a reservation?” I asked. “Like the kids in the movie?”

He shook his head, lips downturned. “We lived in Seattle and Portland before here,” he said.

“I live in Portland.”

He gives me a half grin. “I heard that.”

Blushing, I bowed my head, wanting to sink through the floor.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you blush,” he said, and I blushed even worse.

“I hate this!” I said, pressing my hands over my face to hide it.

Suze said, “Phoebe, it’s okay. You look cute when you blush.” She peeled a red licorice string out of the package and gave me one. “You can’t blush and eat at the same time.”

With her hair loose, so long it piled on the floor next to her, and the soft peasant blouse that was ever so faintly see-through, and her jeans, she didn’t look like my Suze. She was beautiful, almost too beautiful, like a model or something. It made me feel weird and I didn’t know if I liked it.

Which gave me a sense of shame. Did I want her to have to wear horrible clothes and keep her silly braids in all the time? No.

Except—maybe one of the things that united us was the way we were both misfits. If she wasn’t a misfit, would she even like me anymore?

We talked about the movie. “It was supposed to be about peace, but it was really violent,” Joel said, lighting a cigarette. He stood up to open a window and sat on the sill, letting the smoke get sucked out.

“You’re right,” Suze said. “But how can you be peaceful if everybody else is violent?”

I was haunted by a scene of the kids in the diner getting flour poured on their heads. It was so humiliating.

“Gandhi did it,” Joel said.

“But this is America,” I said, lured by argument. My dad loved to debate, and so did my mother, and they loved getting into these deep back-and-forthings. Not their fighting, but the way they talked about ideas. “America, my dad says, takes revolution and sells it back to you for a dollar ninety-nine.”

Joel cracked up. “That’s good.”

“He’s a professor,” I said, proud.

“Fancy,” Joel commented.

“Not really.”

“Phoebe likes to pretend she’s not rich,” Suze said, something pointed in her tone, “but she is.”

I looked at her with a frown. “That was a mean thing to say.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” she said nonchalantly. “It’s just a fact.”

It still stung. She was making us different. “We aren’t rich.”

“You have a swimming pool,” Suze said. “You’re wearing a cashmere sweater.”

Again my ears burned. She was right. “You should see what some of the girls in my school wear. Where they live.”

“It’s okay,” Joel said. “We don’t choose where we’re born.”

“I know.” I shot Suze a look. “You didn’t choose to be a preacher’s daughter.”

“That is true.” Her face changed, and she suddenly jumped up. “What time is it?”

I had a tiny watch my mother had given me. “Four forty-five. Are you in trouble?”

“Dang it! I gotta go. I have to be in church at five.” She hugged me. “Be good,” she said in a singsong, and rushed out.

Joel and I sat there. I couldn’t think of anything to say, and he was quiet, too. Why did I always have to be so awkward?

I was about to make an excuse and go home when he said, “It stopped raining. Want to walk on the beach?”

A swell rose in my heart. I hoped it didn’t show. “Sure.”

Suze

I ran down the hill, trying to avoid splashing mud on my legs, and managed to get into the kitchen through the back door five minutes before services started. Two of the church ladies were making coffee in a giant percolator, talking in quiet voices. On the counter were trays of simple treats, brownies and oranges, like we were all in kindergarten, but my father’s edict was that fellowship made a stronger church, and it seemed like he was right, because the congregation had been growing these past few months.

“Hello, Suzanne,” said Mrs. Henry, a plump older woman who often did this work. She nodded toward the ladies’ room. “You have time to clean up before they start.”

I washed the splatters of mud from my shins and calves and splashed water on my face. My hair was damp, but it looked nice the way little bits curled around my face, and my cheeks were red from exercise, which even I could see made my eyes look super, super bright. For a minute, I got stuck in looking at my face, at the end of my nose and the shape of my mouth, and wondered if I could be in the movies. Be Juliet, be Anne Frank, be anyone but me, honestly. It seemed like it would be so much fun. How did a person even do it?