Like Mandarin by Kirsten Hubbard Page B

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    I couldn’t look at her as I pulled my hands from hers, closed my textbook, and stood.
    “It’s not like I’m asking you to run away with me,” Mandarin said. “I just wanted to talk. Even in your essay you said—”
    “I’ve got to go,” I said. “I’m so sorry.” And then I fled.

I listened to my sister sing while I did the dishes. Her voice was as warm and fluid as the sudsy water pouring over my hands. She was rehearsing Andrea Bocelli’s “Con Te Partirò” for the upcoming pageant.
    In Italian .
    It had all started the afternoon when Momma put an Italian opera album on repeat. After just two loops, Taffeta was singing along. She couldn’t understand Italian or read Italian words. But she could sing Italian perfectly.
    That was my sister’s secret weapon.
    It was a mighty good one. So good it seemed almost blasphemous for something that transcendent to be unveiled in a small-town pageant. I’d been in dozens of child beauty pageants and attended dozens more. I’d never heard a contestant sing in another language. As a matter of fact, outside of our crappy high school language classes, I’d never heard anybody in Washokey speak another language, other than the handful of Mexican migrants who picked sugar beets in the fall.
    I drizzled a trail of lime green soap over a pink plate and scrubbed. Although I never admitted it, I loved listening to Taffeta sing. As long as I stayed in the kitchen while she rehearsed, I could eavesdrop without Momma’s knowing. But that night, Taffeta seemed tired. It was past her bedtime. Momma’s off-key screeching kept interrupting the song. And worst, the memory of what had happened at Mandarin’s house kept pushing against the backs of my eyeballs, threatening to flood.
    Mandarin Ramey had invited me into her world. And I had refused her.
    But her world isn’t what I thought it would be , I thought, trying to console myself. Just like her crummy bedroom, or the inside of her house. The reality was entirely different from the fantasy. Like opening Pandora’s box when I’d only considered the engravings on the outside. I thought she’d be her confident, carefree self.
    I didn’t know she’d be so vulnerable .
    When I pulled my arm from the suds, I noticed Mandarin’s address— 34 Plains Street —still visible on my skin. I reached for the dish soap and squeezed a trail over the angular red letters. With the rough side of my sponge, I scrubbed until my skin felt raw.
    “Grace?” Momma called. My sister stopped singing. “Could you come here a minute?”
    In the living room, Taffeta stood on top of the coffee table, wearing her new blue pageant dress. Her cheeks glowed pink with exertion. My mother, kneeling in a pool of sewing debris, squinted at the needle she was attempting to thread.
    “You want me to do that?” I offered.
    “No, I wanted you to …” She paused. “Just a second. One second. Almost got it. Oh, it slipped. These things are awful. There! It went in. Lovely!”
    I glared at her. She was being Princess Adrina: teacup-toting British royalty out of a bad television miniseries. Her newest character to go with the phony accent. Even when we were her only audience, she felt it necessary to pretend. The real Adrina Carpenter emerged only when she yelled. Or on those mornings when she sat staring at the kitchen table, inexplicably depressed.
    “I need you to hold the dress tightly around Taffeta’s middle while I sew it together. This is real fine quality fabric, did I tell you?”
    With both hands, I pulled the dress taut around Taffeta’s middle. I leaned away from Momma as she leaned in to stitch. Even so, I was assaulted by the scent of the apple conditioner she used to glossify her brown hair, mulled with the smell of the spicy cinnamon gum she liked to chew. A pleasant fragrance to anyone else, but it made me gag. I breathed through my mouth.
    Mandarin’s mother is dead .
    The thought set my insides reeling. Everybody knew that