Just as I turn around, I startle at a woman in workout clothes and AirPods in the aisle. I smile, and she even takes an earbud out to smile back as if to tip her hat. My sight line rises to notice the enormous shield of mirror rigged to the ceiling.
I casually look behind the register. My palms dampen. Behind the salad bar I’d studied so intently there are four flat-screen TVs of the security cameras’ views. My heart races and my breathing along with it. June will murder me if I get caught. I watch my hand unsteadily place the rice on the shelf in front of me. The mango’s returned to the cooler. I force myself to ditch my groceries quickly and calmly. I leave with my head ducked. I’m convinced I’ll be found out. That it’s a matter of seconds before someone dashes out from the back to block me from leaving. I hurl the door open, rushing into the cold night, and hurriedly walk back to June’s, stuffing the stupid banana pieces into my mouth and tasting nothing.
chapter 17
The next day, June’s sprawled out on the couch eating Pringles when I get out of class. It’s Halloween, and Halloween at design school is its own exhausting spectacle.
“Hey,” she says, when I hang my coat up. Rory’s well into Yale on Gilmore Girls. No matter the season it always seems like Christmas in Stars Hollow.
“Hey.”
She studies me. “Where were you?”
I stop myself from rolling my eyes.
“Class.”
The kitchen counter’s a mess again even though I wiped everything up this morning. A half-dozen condiments left out. Loose sesame seeds. A Diet Coke that’s been there since yesterday. I open the fridge. A few days ago, I broke down and removed the shelves to air them out in sunlight. The bottoms of the produce drawers looked like the contents of a shark’s stomach during an autopsy. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find an old toilet seat cover in there.
I tip the soda into the sink.
“Don’t clean,” she says. “I’ll call someone to come.”
“It’s okay,” I tell her, noisily crushing the bottle. I can’t believe that this time last year Ivy and I spent hours dressing up as prescription pill bottles with Euphoria makeup. We ate so much candy I googled whether you could give yourself diabetes. Sometimes my memories are so remote they may as well have happened to someone else.
I twist all the lids back onto the various seasonings and return them to their shelves.
The year before that, Megan and Hillary had a party at our house. It was nineties themed. They were actually kind of nice to me that day.
I sponge down June’s counters. I may as well. I looked up this building on StreetEasy and rent is, like, thirty-five hundred for a one-bedroom.
“Seriously,” she says, sitting up. “Don’t clean. It’s fucking annoying.”
I know this mood. June’s bored.
I check the time on the microwave. It’s 4:00 p.m. “Did you go outside today?” I already know she hasn’t. The air in the room is comprised of 100 percent mouth-breath.
She glares at me and bites into the stack of Pringles, which shatter across her sweatshirt. She brushes at them hard even though one of the crumbs is basically half an entire chip.
My sister is so jonesing for a fight.
“What?” she demands hotly. Every single baby hair on her head is sticking up in attack mode.
I can’t keep a straight face. A lactic-acid burn sears in my cheeks from keeping myself from smiling. I shake my head. “Nothing,” I say innocently. My chin wobbles.
I spray down the counters.
“I told you to fucking stop,” she says, doubling down. “So fucking stop.”
I can’t even look at her. She sits up. Covered in chips. Jutting her chin out.
I raise my hands and set down the Formula 409.
June and I have had fistfights and even drawn blood, but this isn’t that.
I’m trying to clear my throat. Reset. But chortles keep audibly escaping my nose. I bite my lips.
“What?” she counters again, but I hear her voice waver.
She gets up and marches toward me.
I back away from her with my blocking hand up. “I’m not fighting you, you psycho.”
At that, she reaches over and smacks my shoulder with her open palm.
I look down at my shoulder, then back at her.
Eyes hardened, hand aloft in a swat, she’s about as menacing as a Labradoodle in a tam-o’-shanter.
“What the fuck was that?”
June continues to glare.
“Look, I’m not hitting a bitch with vagina cancer,” I protest as she smacks me again, harder and harder, this time laughing.
“Uuuuuuuugh, I hate you,” she wails, dragging her ass back to the couch. “I’m so bored.”
“Go walk around the block.”
I slump on the couch next to her, undoing the top button of my pants. I’m just glad to be home.
“Let’s go to your apartment,” she says, kicking me for sport. “See if he’s gone.”
“What?”
She’s animated now, eyes gleaming. “Yeah, let’s see if that fucker’s out.”
“Now?”
“It’s been over a week.”
“Well, I can go check,” I tell her, getting to my feet. I wonder if this is her way of getting rid of me. “You don’t have to come.”
“I need an activity,” she whines. “It’s Halloween.”
She’s such a child. “Yeah, dick, also known as the worst subway night ever.”
“It’s early.”
I groan. “I don’t know, June. What if I need space too?” I echo her earlier sentiments. “What if this is personal and I need to process it?”
She appears to consider this.
“Bring me a glass of water.”
I fill a glass, remembering that I haven’t had water in several days, and take a long thirsty sip before refilling it to hand it to her. I already know she’s going to bitch about that.
“You should’ve served me first and then had your water. You act like I’m not older than you.”
God, she’s petty.
“I’m coming with you,” she says, dragging her hair into a sloppy ponytail. “It’s not the same thing.”
“What if I don’t want you there?”
She shrugs off her pajama top and pulls on a wadded-up hoodie over her T-shirt. “Really?” she demands. “That’s where you want to take it right now? You’ve been here for a week, all up in my shit, and you won’t invite me over? I just want to see. I know there isn’t a medicine cabinet or a drawer in this bitch that you haven’t snooped through, so suck it up. It’s my turn.”
“No!”
“Fuckface,” she says. “Either you invite me to your apartment and introduce me to your asshole boyfriend or… I’ll beat your ass.”
“God,” I rage, putting on my sweatshirt. “Fuck, you’re so inconsiderate. You have zero fucking noonchi.”
“I don’t need fucking noonchi when it comes to you,” she says, shoving her feet into mules. “You’re my family.”
“How is that even a thing?” I put lipstick on in the mirror by the door.
“Matter of fact,” she says gruffly, pulling on her coat. “Not only are you my family, but you’re my younger family. Fuck noonchi, asshole. You don’t count. I’m the heir; you’re the spare. You owe me your whole life. You wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for me.”