My So-Called Family (10 page)

Samantha flipped the page in her photo album. “And here I am with the boys,” she said. I sat forward and followed Samantha's finger to a picture in the center of the page. “That's Andrew and Henry. They're brothers, you know. Twins, actually. But they're fraternal twins so they look a little different. And Tate's the little one. We all met up a few months ago. Andrew was in this big football tournament, and his team was playing near Tate's house. They invited my mom and me to come watch too. I'm not really into football, but it was fun to see everyone. They even won the game.” In the picture Samantha had her arm around Tate's shoulder. She looked just as casual and comfortable as I look in the pictures of Charlie and me.

“What're they like?” I asked.

“Oh, they're fun,” Samantha said. “Andrew and Henry are really into sports. Henry's a little more serious than Andrew, and Tate's a total goofball. He's always e-mailing me jokes. Like, every couple of days I get another joke from him. I'm sure he'd e-mail them to you if you write him, or I could forward them to you, if you want.”

“Thanks,” I said. We heard a car drive up, and then Samantha's mother called from downstairs to let us know she was home with the pizza. Samantha closed the photo album and tossed it aside. I wanted to pick it up and put it back on the shelf, but I didn't know her well enough to clean her room for her. She would probably think that was rude.

“Come on,” Samantha said. “I can practically taste the pizza already.”

We went down to the kitchen. The pizza did smell good. I wasn't as nervous anymore so I was actually a little bit hungry. “I forgot to ask you what you liked on your pizza,” Ms. Holland said. “So I got half plain and half pepperoni—that's Samantha's favorite.”

“I'll take a slice of pepperoni, please,” I said. Samantha grinned at me. Ms. Holland brought me a slice and sat down next to me. Samantha was on the other side. I could feel them looking at me, but I didn't mind it. Actually, it sort of made me feel better because I felt like I was staring at them too.

“So, Leah,” Ms. Holland said. “Tell us about your family.” Samantha already knew about them, but I told Ms. Holland about Mom marrying Simon, and all about Charlie. “I'd love to meet them,” Ms. Holland said.

“They don't exactly know that Leah is here,” Samantha told her. Ms. Holland raised her eyebrows.

“I just don't know what they would think,” I told her.

“What do you mean?” Ms. Holland asked.

“Well, they might be mad at me. They think we have this perfect family. Simon adopted me, and I don't think they even remember that I have a donor. At least, they usually act like they don't remember it.”

“I think your parents would want to know where you are,” Ms. Holland said. I hoped Ms. Holland wouldn't want to call them herself to let them know where I was. If Mom and Simon knew I was with Samantha, they would jump into the car to come and get me. They would ground me for the rest of the year.

“They know I'm in Haverford,” I said. “They said it was okay for me to go with Avery. I just didn't tell them I was coming to your house.” I watched Ms. Holland to see if she was going to stand up and reach for the phone, but she just kept eating her pizza.

My cell phone rang after a little while. I was still thinking about Mom and Simon, and I practically jumped out of my seat. For a second I worried that it was one of them, calling to check up on me. But then I recognized the beat of one of the songs Avery had programmed into it. It had to be Avery calling. “We're leaving the campus now,” she told me. “We should be there soon.” I hung up and told Samantha and her mother that I was getting picked up in a few minutes.

“I wish you could stay for the rest of the weekend,” Samantha said.

“Me too,” I told her.

“Maybe next time,” Ms. Holland said. “You have an open invitation to visit us, so tell your parents and come back anytime.”

“Thanks,” I said, even though I knew I couldn't tell Mom or Simon.

A few minutes later the Monahans pulled up outside the house. Samantha walked me to the front door. She had slipped her arm through mine. I noticed that the hallway was painted yellow, and it looked extra bright when the sun streamed in through the front window with the
BEWARE OF DOG
sign. I thought about how I would always remember it, even if I never came back. Maybe we really could arrange to go to camp together. I would ask Samantha what camp she went to and then tell Mom I had heard about a new camp that I wanted to try. I could spend the whole summer with Samantha, and afterward I could visit her in Haverford and even invite her to stay with us in Riverdale. Mom and Simon would never have to know the truth.

We hugged good-bye. I tried not to make a big deal out of it because Avery and her family were watching. Samantha knew I had told them that we went to camp together, so when I got into the car, Samantha said, “See you this summer.”

“See you,” I said. I felt my eyes getting hot and I swallowed hard. I wiped my eyes quickly, hoping no one would notice.

“Are you okay?” Avery asked. I nodded. “I always get upset when I leave my camp friends,” she said. “I cry and cry, like they're the only friends I have in the world. It's like when I'm away at camp, I forget about everyone home in Riverdale. And then I go back to school and I stop missing my camp friends so much.”

“I'm okay,” I said.

“I know,” Avery told me. “After all, you have me.”

S
amantha started calling me “sister.” We were on the phone one night, and in the background I heard Ms. Holland calling her. Samantha held the phone away from her mouth, but she shouted so I could still hear her. “Hold on, Ma,” she said. “I'm on the phone with my sister.”

I had thought a lot about how we were sisters, but I never said it out loud like that, like a title—like the way I talked about Charlie and said, “I have to pick my brother up from school.” Samantha came back on and started talking about something she and Arielle had done the night before, but I let the words roll around in my head—
I'm on the phone with my sister, my sister, my sister.

The next time Samantha called, I answered the phone and she said, “Hey, Sis!”

“Hey, Sis,” I said back. I tried to sound breezy like Samantha had, like the words just rolled off my tongue. But it still sounded strange. Charlie wandered into my room and wanted to know who I was talking to. “Just a friend,” I told him.

“Is it Avery?” He climbed up onto the bed and bent toward the phone. “Hello, Avery!” he shouted. “I saw a giant!”

“Go away,” I told him. I don't usually say things like that to Charlie. But I was talking to Samantha and I didn't want him hanging around. If he overheard anything about the Lyon's Sibling Registry or my visiting Samantha, he might go ask Mom or Simon about it.

Charlie looked up at me and pouted. “I just wanted to say hello,” he said.

“It's not Avery,” I said. “It's my friend Samantha and you don't know her.”

“But I need your help with something,” Charlie said. “When will you be off the phone?”

“I don't know, Charlie,” I said. “Go ask Mom for help.” Charlie climbed off the bed, shoulders rounded. I told him to shut the door on his way out. “Sorry about that,” I said to Samantha.

“I wish you would tell him about me,” she said.

“What about you?” I asked, even though I knew what she meant: She wanted me to tell Charlie that she was my sister.

“You know,” Samantha said. “That we're related. That I'm your sister.”

“I can't,” I said. “Charlie wouldn't understand everything.”

“You don't have to explain
everything
to him,” Samantha said. “But you're always saying how smart he is, and he already knows that Simon isn't your real dad. Couldn't you tell him about me a little bit at least?”

“No, I really can't,” I said.

“You act like the world will blow up or something if you tell anyone in your family about me.”

“I don't think the world will blow up,” I said.

“Well, not literally blow up,” Samantha said. “But you're always talking about how mad your parents would be, and you really don't know that for sure. When I told my mom about the Lyon's Sibling Registry, she wasn't mad at all. She thought it was fine for me to find out about having siblings, and she liked meeting the boys and you.”

I could tell Samantha was hurt because I was keeping her a secret. “I'm sorry,” I said. “I can't tell my parents, and if I tell Charlie, he'll just tell my parents, and if they find out, they'll really flip. They're not like your mom. I really think they'd go crazy if they found out I used their credit card and went to a stranger's house in Haverford.”

“I'm not a stranger,” Samantha insisted.

“Not to me,” I said. “But you are to them. If I tell them, they might say I'm not allowed to talk to you anymore.”

Samantha was quiet for a moment, which doesn't usually happen. Finally she said, “God, that would suck.”

“I know,” I said.

I had actually started to feel like I needed to talk to Samantha. We spoke a couple of times a week, usually sometime after dinner when I was up in my room doing my homework. She would call or I would call her, and we would talk about the things that had happened in school, or something good on television that one of us had seen, or something annoying that one of our parents had done. I didn't have to pretend about anything when I was talking to her. Maybe that was what it was really like to have a sister—well, at least a half sister who lived in a different state. Having a brother was entirely different. Charlie was too young for me to really talk to him like that. Most of my conversations with Charlie were about Charlie, or things that Charlie liked. He wasn't old enough for me to explain the things I was thinking about. Besides, he wasn't a girl, so even if he were older, I didn't think I'd be able to talk to him the same way.

But maybe it wasn't just that Samantha and I were related. Callie and her sister, Megan, barely spoke to each other. Callie never even introduced me to her, but I knew who she was because Brenna told me. Brenna and I had been walking down the hall, and she'd waved at someone, who she told me was Callie's sister, Megan. Then she told me, once they were all having dinner at Callie's apartment, and when Megan wanted the salt she said, “Brenna, can you please ask Callie to pass the salt?” And so Brenna asked her, and then Callie said, “Of course, Brenna, and can you please ask Megan to pass the bread?” Brenna said they both spoke in really thick, syrupy voices so you knew they were just faking being nice. She said it was obvious they hated each other. But since I had never been to Callie's apartment, I hadn't ever actually seen them together. It was crazy, because Callie and Megan really did look so much alike. They looked like sisters who should have a lot in common and get along.

Samantha stopped being upset about my not telling Mom and Simon about her. She was telling me about something she and Arielle had seen at the mall. Charlie came back into my room. I hate when he comes in without knocking. Sometimes he does it in the morning when I'm getting dressed. I've started to feel weird about changing in front of Charlie. He notices things more, now that he's five. The other day he told me my boobs looked bigger. My face turned red. I crossed my arms in front of my chest and called to Mom so she would make him leave. But I think maybe I wouldn't mind changing in front of a sister.

At least this time I was fully dressed. Charlie shuffled over to the bed wearing his blue Thomas the Tank Engine pajamas. “You're still on the phone,” he said. I nodded. Samantha was talking about a sweater that Anna Holland said was too expensive. “Mom says it's bedtime soon, and I still need your help,” Charlie said.

I held up two fingers to signal to Charlie to give me a couple seconds. That's what Mom does when she's on the phone. Sometimes she also mouths the words “two seconds.” Charlie leaned against me. “Two seconds,” he said softly. Then he raised his voice: “One, two! Two seconds is over!” I covered his mouth with my hand. I could feel the air coming out of his nose as he breathed in and out. If it were anyone else, I would have thought it was gross, but I didn't mind Charlie's breath. I waited for Samantha to finish talking. She said the sweater was so soft it was probably cashmere.

“Maybe she'll surprise you with it,” I said.

Samantha snorted. “My mom may be cool about some things, but she's definitely not cool about clothing. She thinks the only purpose of clothing is to cover you up and keep you warm.”

“That's too bad,” I said. Charlie nudged me. “Anyway, I have to go. Charlie just came in here again.”

“Will you tell him I say hello?” Samantha asked.

“Okay,” I told her. We said good-bye. I hung up and looked down at Charlie. “Samantha said hello to you, by the way.”

“Who's Samantha?” Charlie asked.

“My friend that I was just talking to,” I told him.

“Oh, yeah,” Charlie said.

He leaned into me a little more and lifted a hand up to play with my hair. “Don't you think it would be funny if I had really long hair?” he said. “There's a boy in my class with long hair. It's almost as long as yours and he looks like a girl. But he's not a girl, even though he has a girl's name.”

“What's his name?”

“Casey,” Charlie said.

“Casey can be a boy or a girl,” I said.

“I know two girls named Casey and only one boy named Casey, so I think it's really a girl's name,” Charlie said.

“What did you need my help with?” I asked him.

I shifted my weight, and Charlie sat up. “Daddy bought me more poster board.”

“What are you talking about?”

“For my family tree,” Charlie said impatiently, and he looked at me the way Mom does sometimes when she thinks I'm being exasperating.

“I thought Family Month was over,” I said. “You already made a poster—with Mom, remember?”

“Yeah, but I have to make another one. Aaron in my class made one that's better than mine. Mrs. Trager's always saying ‘Look what Aaron drew,' or ‘Aaron did a very nice job on this project,' and it's not fair because you didn't even help me, so mine wasn't good enough.”

“So Aaron's the teacher's pet,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” I said. I thought about how Charlie is probably much smarter than any other kid in his class. I didn't say that out loud, though, because Mom and Simon don't want Charlie to feel self-conscious about his genius IQ.

“Aaron's poster has lots of different colors,” Charlie said. “The leaves are all different colors and not just green. It has red and orange and blue. Mrs. Trager said it looks like a tree in autumn.”

“I've never seen a tree with blue leaves,” I said. “Not even in autumn.”

“Come on, dude,” Charlie said. He stood up and pulled my hand. Sometimes when Mom is sitting down and Charlie wants her to do something, she holds out her hand and says, “Help me. I'm getting too old to stand up by myself.” So Charlie will pull her arm, and he thinks he's really helping. He forgets all the times she stands up by herself with no help at all.

“Dude? Do I look like a dude to you?”

“Aaron calls everyone dude,” Charlie explained.

“Well, girls aren't dudes,” I told him.

“All right,” Charlie said. “Then you can be a dudette.” He pulled my arm harder and led me down the hall. He was walking on his tiptoes, which he does sometimes because he wants to be taller. His preschool teacher made Mom take him to a foot doctor to make sure nothing was wrong with the arches of his feet. Charlie was upset because the doctor told him that he needed to walk with his feet flat on the ground. We're supposed to remind him when we see him walking on his tiptoes.

“Charlie,” I said, “watch your feet.”

“I was being a giant,” he said. “Daddy and I saw a real live giant at the poster store. Like Jack and the Beanstalk.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Daddy said he was probably about eight feet tall. He was much, much taller than Daddy is.” Simon is pretty tall himself, so it was hard to imagine someone who was much taller. “You know,” Charlie continued, “I sort of felt bad for the giant. Everyone was staring at him because he was so big. Daddy made me walk down another aisle because it's not nice to stare. But I looked back around when Daddy wasn't looking, and I saw that the giant had to duck when he was leaving the store because he was even taller than the door. I wonder if he has to go to special stores for giants to get clothes and shoes. He had really big feet, too. And really, really big hands. Do you think he needs a special car? I bet he wouldn't even fit in our car.”

“I don't know,” I said. “I've never seen anything special-made for giants.” If Mom or Simon were there, they would have made a big deal about how much harder it was for the giant to be so tall than it was for Charlie to be a little bit on the small side, and they'd make sure to tell him that he shouldn't feel so bad about being short. But I don't think everything needs to be turned into a lesson, and besides, I think Charlie already knew all of that. Of course he didn't have it as bad as the giant, but he still wanted to be a regular size kid.

“Can we start drawing the tree now?” Charlie asked.

“Yes,” I said.

The poster board was too big to fit on Charlie's desk, so we sat on the floor. “I have lots of different colors,” Charlie said, handing me his bucket of markers and crayons.

“I just need a pencil right now,” I said. “First I have to sketch it, and then we can color it in.”

Charlie got up to get a pencil from his desk. “But when we color it, we need lots of colors because Aaron had a lot of colors.”

“I know,” I said. “Don't worry.”

I started drawing Charlie in the center of the page, his arms outstretched above his head. Charlie sat on his knees and leaned forward so his shadow crossed my sketch. “That doesn't look right,” he said. “It's supposed to be a tree.”

“I know,” I said. “I'm going to make it so you are in the middle, like the trunk of a tree, and then your arms will be two branches, one for Mom and one for Dad.”

“But what about everybody else?”